What War Had Wrought (Rise of the Empire Book 7) Read online

  Adrian glared at the holo. Seeing Anessa’s defenses falter, the Erasi flagship punched through and made a small opening in the defensive line. Erasi all across the defensive lines started pushing harder; more ships started moving towards the opening, forcing Anessa to weaken other sides to plug that hole. She would hold for a while, Adrian knew, but soon enough the sheer numbers that the Erasi had to throw at her would overwhelm the defenders.

  They had lost.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Damage report?” Garash asked.

  “Hull integrity is down to seventy-eight percent in sector G-12. The repair crews are on their way to fill the cracks, but that won’t hold for long if we get hit at that spot again. Shields over that sector have been restored at half strength; we should have full strength within the hour.”

  Garash acknowledged the report from his crew, and turned his eyes back to the holo. He felt a stab of pain in his missing arm, which made him angry; the Empire’s Lord Sentinel had damaged his ship just as he had managed to cut off his arm. An insignificant pest that had managed to harm him for the third time. He knew that there was little that the Shara Daim and the Empire had that could harm his ship; their best weapons to counter his ship were the Empire’s kinetic weapons. And even they were not powerful enough to pose a serious threat. The fact was that he had dismissed their threat on End of Hope; he had not truly believed that they would be able to take down his shields.

  The devastator warships were created as an answer to the Krashin threat on their rimward border, whose kinetic weapons were nearly unstoppable. The devastators had shields that were nearly impossible to take down, thanks to the extremely powerful zero-point energy generator that the ship used to power its systems. And if someone somehow managed to take them down, the compressed matter hull would prove a match to any weapon. But the ships were costly; the compressed matter and the ZPE generators were difficult to produce. And then there was the fact that, once damaged, these ships could only be fully repaired in a shipyard in the Erasi core. The Empire had cracked his hull’s integrity, and he wouldn’t be able to repair it until he went back to the core. And that only served to fuel his anger more.

  This Empire and the Shara Daim were not supposed to be this difficult. He had the numbers and the technology to wipe them out, yet they still struggled. He had lost too many ships, almost a third of the force he had brought to this system, and he would lose no more. He ordered the End of Hope forward, his ships following behind as they widened the hole in the Shara Daim defense.

  ***

  Anessa’s Legions were faltering; the Erasi had destroyed enough of her defenses that they had started overwhelming her ships. She knew that her Legions would die here while she escaped with the Bloodbringer and the First Legion, as they were the only Legion equipped with skim drives. Her people knew it, too; it had always been the plan, if they couldn’t defeat the Erasi. Her people had no problem dying for her, and she did not feel guilt for asking it of them. The worst thing possible for a Shara Daim warrior was to die a pointless death. And their deaths would not be pointless; every Erasi ship that they destroyed was one less to threaten their people.

  The Shara Daim needed stability, so Anessa couldn’t allow herself to be caught and killed. Her people knew and understood it; they had even shown her more respect for being here and fighting with them. And she would not dishonor them by running before the last possible moment. She would fight with them, and make the Erasi pay for every Shara Daim life they took. The people on the planet they were protecting were the same. All were ready to fight the Erasi once they decided to take the planet. There would be no surrender, no compromise; on Kaleras, they would only find death.

  Anessa continued to guide her Legions as the Erasi slowly pushed on all sides and destroyed her ships.

  ***

  “They are losing,” Iris’s voice said in Adrian’s head through his implant as she watched the holo through his eyes.

  “No, they already lost. The Erasi just had too many ships; we never had a chance,” Adrian responded.

  “She could still order a retreat; they would lose a lot of ships, but some would reach the hyperspace barrier and escape,” Iris said.

  “That’s not the Shara Daim way. They will fight until death. If Anessa weren’t the Kar Daim and if Shara Daim didn’t need her rule, she would stay with them.”

  “The Erasi will still have a lot of ships left,” Iris added.

  “By the time the last Shara Daim ship is destroyed, the Erasi will have lost around half of the force they came into this system with. Their advance through the Shara Daim territory will be slowed because of it,” Adrian told her. “And if we manage to build enough skim missiles and pods, we will be able to slow them further with my remaining forces. Although those weapons will not be as effective as they were the first time. The Erasi now know about them, and will take precautions; their commander will make sure of it.”

  “Lord Sentinel,” someone called from his side, and Adrian turned to look at the Fleet Commander of the Seventh Fleet standing beside him.

  “Yes, Fleet Commander.”

  “We’ve received a comm request from an unknown source.”

  “Who is it from?”

  “It’s Clan Leader Isani, Lord Sentinel.”

  Adrian frowned. There was no way that Isani could be in Kaleras. “Erasi?” Adrian asked.

  Fleet Commander shook his head. “Definitely not, we checked. But the signal isn’t Empire or Shara Daim, either. It is coming from just outside of the system.”

  “Patch it through here,” Adrian said, and waited. A moment later, the holo of Clan Leader Isani appeared in front of him.

  “Adrian,” Isani said calmly, but his hands made a gesture of relief. “I’m not too late, then.”

  “Isani, where are you? How?” Adrian asked, perplexed.

  “There is no time. If you want to save what is left of the Shara Daim Legions, you need to come to these coordinates immediately. I’ve brought reinforcements,” Isani said, and a set of coordinates came through. Adrian checked and saw that the coordinates were the same as the source of the communication, just outside of the Kaleras system. When he looked back up, Isani continued speaking. “I don’t know if it will work; everything that we know suggests that it will. And we tried to prepare the interface for you from the records from when you used Watchtower—we just don’t know if it will be enough.”

  “What are you talking about? What is this?”

  “There is too little time to explain, you will find out soon enough. Suffice it to say we have a way of defeating the Erasi force, but we need you here.”

  Adrian debated for a moment. He glanced at the Fleet Commander, who had been speaking with several of his officers. “It’s him, Lord Sentinel, as far as we can tell.”

  “Alright, we’re coming,” Adrian said, and closed the channel. “Skim the Seventh Fleet to those coordinates. Leave the rest of our fleets here. Relay to Fleet Commander Riggs that he is free to engage if he sees an opportunity.”

  The crew executed his orders, and less than a minute later, they entered the skim.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Seventh Fleet dropped out of the skim at the coordinates provided by Isani. Immediately after, their sensors detected an object close to their fleet. The holo displayed the object, and the entire crew looked at it in amazement. It was strangely shaped; its front was pointed and was widening towards the back equally on all six sides, which weren’t straight but smooth and curving, until they reached the object’s maximum width, and then the back ended in a half sphere.

  “Those can’t be right,” the Fleet Commander said. Adrian glanced to see what he was looking at, and saw the estimated size himself. The object was 168 kilometers long and 76 wide, by the computer’s estimates.

  “They are right,” Adrian said. He recognized the ship from the databases in the sphere, or at least the type. That was a World-ship of the People.

  “We are
getting another comm request.”

  “Put it through,” Adrian said.

  Isani appeared again. “Adrian, you need to come aboard. Get a shuttle and come to this area of the ship.” Again, Gallant received coordinates. “I’ll meet you at the landing bay,” he said, and closed the channel.

  “Get a shuttle ready,” Adrian said as he hastily walked out of the command center.

  “We have a World-ship,” Adrian said.

  “It would appear so,” Iris added.

  “And they kept it a secret from me,” Adrian said. He wasn’t really mad. He knew that there were things that he wasn’t privy to. “If I had known…We could’ve studied it, had ships built like it. Hell, that ship is capable of building smaller ships on its own.”

  “There must be a reason as to why they kept it from you.”

  Adrian nodded to himself as he reached the shuttle, not even acknowledging the crew. “Yes, and I know exactly why they kept it a secret,” Adrian said as the shuttle lifted off.

  And he did know why they’d kept it a secret. Tomas and Adrian had spoken at great lengths about the future, about how they would prepare for when they met the enemy of the People. Both had agreed that the Empire had to struggle, to invent new technologies that didn’t rely on those of the People. So for Tomas to reveal this ship now meant that something had happened to change his mind, because as soon as he used it, everything would change. The races of the galaxy would learn that the Empire had a weapon in its arsenal that was far more advanced than anything that they had.

  The shuttle approached the World-ship and its hull parted in an iris, revealing pale blue light inside. They entered what looked like a strange landing bay, with several different levels, and they made their way to one where people were waiting for them. Once they landed, Adrian stood and exited the shuttle and walked over to Isani, who was waiting for him.

  “What happened, Isani?” Adrian asked, forgoing any kind of greeting.

  Isani moved his arms in a gesture of great sorrow. “The Erasi attacked Sanctuary, that’s what happened. Come,” Isani said, and guided him towards a wall with symbols on it. Before Adrian could ask anything, Isani continued, “They sent ten fleets and a new type of stealth ships that we are having difficulty detecting. They killed millions of civilians, Adrian. They targeted the habitats.”

  Adrian looked at Isani in shock. “Is my mother alright?”

  “Yes, she is fine,” Isani said. He pressed something on a panel and the wall opened, allowing them to enter. “They were planning on attacking more than Sanctuary,” he said as the wall closed behind them and the small cylinder-shaped chamber they were in moved upwards. “We believe that they wanted to inflict as much damage as they could, then move to other systems. Most likely to force us to keep our forces in our territory so that we couldn’t send aid to the Shara Daim.”

  “What happened? Did we fight them off?”

  “There was only one fleet in Sanctuary; it wasn’t nearly enough to defeat them. But fortunately, Star-Guard One station was operational, only it came in range after the Erasi executed their attack. We made them pay for it, though some escaped. We are trying to find them, but their numbers are too few for them to be able to continue with their plans, so we suspect that they are retreating back to either a staging point or back to Erasi space.”

  “Why did Tomas decide to reveal this ship?” Adrian asked.

  “He is angry, Adrian. They hit Sanctuary, where we thought we were the strongest,” Isani said.

  “Why didn’t you just join the battle? Why have me come here?”

  “We can’t fight this ship; we are hoping that you can.”

  “Why me?”

  “The ship uses something akin to the Watchtower interface, only much more powerful. Our people have been able to use it for minutes only, and even then, they can’t really do much with the ship.”

  “How did you get it here, then?”

  “We have been able to access some commands by attaching consoles to the main computer, but it is all too advanced. We can just move the ship, and even that is a nightmare to calculate and send the instructions to the computer.”

  “So you think that I can use it?” Adrian asked.

  “You are a special case. Your mind is capable of bearing much larger load than the mind of an ordinary human or Nel. We are hoping that it is enough, though we won’t know until we try.”

  The cylinder was suddenly flying through the air, and before him was a massive, sprawling city.

  “And there is this, too.” Isani drew his attention back from the marvelous city. “Tomas wanted me to show you this before you took command of the Enduring.”

  “The Enduring? This is Axull Darr’s ship?”

  “Yes,” Isani said as he pressed a button on a palm-sized disk. Tomas’s hologram appeared in front of him, projected from the small device.

  “Adrian,” Tomas said, “I am sorry for keeping this ship from you. I thought that we needed to struggle, that conflict was a part of that; I didn’t want us to become dependent on this technology. But I am, as it seems, not cut out to be so ruthless. The Erasi have attacked, killed my people, even after all that we have done to prevent a war. They believe that their strength gives them the right to do as they please, and I have come to realize that perhaps they are right. Might is the only thing that matters in this universe. If you want to be safe, you need to make sure that all understand what will happen if they decide to move against you.” Tomas’s image closed its eyes. “I need you to do this. I want you to make sure that the Erasi understand exactly what they have done. The Enduring is yours. Make sure that the Erasi, and any who would follow their example, never again do something like this.” The hologram disappeared, and Isani put the device back in his pocket.

  “Well…” Adrian said. Isani didn’t respond. A minute later, they reached their destination. They stepped out and onto what looked like a makeshift control room. Stations and consoles familiar to him were placed against the walls, with cables stretching from them to the center of the room. Several people were in the process of disconnecting those cables from an ornate blue-and-black chair that was made of thousands of thin, smooth branches that spiraled and melded together.

  Isani walked forward. “Are you finished?”

  One of the workers pulled a cable and turned to look at Isani. “Yes, this was the last one.”

  “Good,” Isani said, and he turned to Adrian. “Sit there.”

  Adrian walked a few steps to the chair and sat down.

  “Once you put your arms here”—Isani pointed to the two armrests and two small globes that were perfectly positioned for him to rest his palms on—“you will activate the chair. What everyone who used this before you told us is that you need to focus at what you want. They only ever managed to gain the controls for propulsion, and even that was hard.”

  “How does it feel?” Adrian asked.

  “One of our testers said that it feels like you are sinking into the ship.”

  “Here I go,” Adrian said, and put his palms on the two globes. In an instant, the world exploded inside his mind.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They had been wrong. It did not feel like sinking into the ship, it felt as if his body had been turned to liquid and was seeping into every recess of the World-ship. It kept going, stretching his body to fit everything, every part of the ship. For a moment, it threatened to overwhelm him, and then it was over—he was everywhere. Then the sensations came. He could feel everything inside the ship. He was the ship. Millions of things tugged at his attention, but he focused, calmed his mind. There was only one thing that interested him. He needed to take this ship to battle.

  Almost as if the ship heard him, knowledge appeared in his mind, everything about the ship that he would need to know in order to take it into battle. The world around the ship blossomed and he saw it all, the ship’s sensors letting him see the battle in real time from so far away using sensors that neither the Empire or t
he Erasi had ever even conceived of. The Shara Daim ships were losing badly, and he needed to help them.

  He pulled back, enough that he could open his body’s eyes and turn to look at Isani, who was studying him in consternation.

  “I’m in control, and I’m taking us to battle,” Adrian said, then went back into the ship without waiting for a response.

  A skim field formed around the Enduring, far more efficient than the primitive copy of the technology that the Empire used. In the blink of an eye, the massive ship entered a skim, moving so fast that the trip that took an Empire ship several minutes was over in six seconds.

  The Enduring dropped out of the skim between the Erasi and the Shara Daim forces. There was no energy discharge to cripple the systems of the ships around the Enduring; the People had long ago found a way to eliminate that effect.

  Adrian located Anessa’s ship immediately, and opened a channel to send her a short message. The Enduring’s computer generated a hologram of him that she would have no way of knowing wasn’t actually him. As soon as the message was off, he turned his attention to the Erasi warships. Their missiles and energy weapons were targeting his ship, and were vanishing harmlessly against his shields.

  Enduring’s eight and only weapon turrets materialized around its hull. Within moments, Adrian fired. A beam of harsh light left each of the turrets, swiping across the Erasi formations, disintegrating every ship it came in contact with. It was using a far more advanced version of the weapon that the Star-Guard stations fired, a weapon that those stations needed the power of the sun to generate, and which the Enduring powered from its six singularity cores.

  The Erasi ships had no chance.

  ***

  Anessa watched her Legions die. She had lost almost seventy percent of her forces, and the rate at which her Legions were destroyed only increased as the difference in numbers grew. She had hurt the Erasi badly, but not nearly enough to stop their advancement into Shara Daim territory. She looked over the holo, wondering if it was time to skim her Legion out of the fight, when a new contact appeared on her holo.