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

  A massive object had just appeared in between her and the Erasi formations. Anessa looked at it in a confusion. For a moment, she thought that it was an Erasi ship, but then the Erasi started firing at it.

  “Kar Daim, we have an incoming communication from that object. It’s a video message,” Garaam told her.

  “Put it on.”

  The holo changed and Adrian stood before her. “Anessa, the Empire has sent reinforcements,” he said, a small smile curling on his lip. “Pull your Legions back. I promise you, the Erasi will not leave this system alive.”

  Anessa looked at the frozen image of Adrian for a moment before it cleared and showed the battle again. She was about to order her crew to open a channel with the object when Erasi ships started disappearing from her holo.

  ***

  Garash looked in satisfaction at the destruction of the Shara Daim ships. He relished in the carnage. He had lost more than half of his total force, but he still had enough to destroy the Shara Daim, and then turn to the Empire. The only thing he couldn’t give them was time; he needed to do it faster than they could rebuild their forces. Which would be a bit more challenging with the number of ships he had, but he would do it. He had fought wars like this one for a long time.

  A new contact appeared on his holo, a massive thing that dwarfed every other ship in his fleet, even his devastator. Immediately, he realized that it could only be something from the Empire; they were the only ones that had the technology to travel in FTL through normal space. He gave the order to every single one of his warships to open fire on the object, hoping to prevent whatever the Empire had planned. Missiles were redirected, and energy beams fired, and all disappeared against the object’s shields. A large portion of his force was putting all of their firepower into it, and it was doing nothing. The amount of fire was enough that even the End of Hope’s shields would’ve succumbed by now.

  And then the object fired. Beams of light and energy cut through his fleet, destroying thousands of ships with each swipe. The beam would fire for several seconds, swiping across the field of ships, before going silent, only to fire again barely ten seconds later. His ships were being destroyed, engulfed by the wide beams, and nothing that they sent against it was doing any damage.

  Garash ordered his ship forward, getting in range, and fired a beam that would bypass their shields—only it didn’t. It, like everything else they were firing at the monster, was ineffective. Garash’s mind went blank; there was nothing that he could think of to change the situation. His fleets kept disappearing of his holo-table, and there was nothing that he could do to stop it.

  ***

  The Enduring’s beams kept firing, disintegrating the Erasi fleets. Their flagship closed the range and fired its shield-piercing beam, but did not matter, there was nothing that they possessed that could penetrate the Enduring’s shields. The Enduring’s scanners penetrated into every part of the Erasi flagship, and Adrian learned exactly what it was made of, and how powerful it was. It was actually impressive, as according to the Enduring’s databases, their compressed armor was fairly advanced. Only not nearly as advanced as that of the World-ship.

  Adrian left the flagship alone. He could’ve destroyed it easily enough, but he knew that the O’fa, as the commander of the Erasi ships, had to be on board that ship. And there were the levy ships that were technically part of the Erasi, although their numbers had been cut down by Anessa’s defenses. The Erasi had sent them into battles where they needed more numbers and not necessarily more firepower, and because only a small percentage of them were actually technologically on par with the Erasi ships of the line, they had taken heavy losses. He debated destroying their ships as well, but then decided that it would be better for them to get away and spread word of what happened.

  Every Erasi ship was now retreating and trying to escape. Adrian noticed a few back elements of the Erasi, several thousand ships, had actually gotten pretty far while he had been destroying those that had stayed. He pointed the Enduring above their formations and skimmed there in an instant. In less than a minute, he had destroyed all of them. He turned the ship back, and skimmed to another group that had also gotten pretty far, and after dealing with them, he turned back to the Erasi flagship. There were no more Erasi ships of the line in the system; he had wiped them all out. The levy ships were running away, but he would be able to catch them. For now, he needed them to carry a message for him.

  The Erasi flagship, on the other hand, would not leave this system. Again he skimmed, putting the Enduring above the Erasi flagship, which just stood there without attempting to fire. It struck him how big it had seemed from Gallant, and how small it looked from the Enduring. He opened a channel to the Erasi ship, the Enduring generating a hologram of Adrian under his guidance.

  A moment later, Adrian could see the Erasi O’fa in his mind, and the O’fa could see him.

  “You,” the O’fa said with contempt.

  “Me,” Adrian said calmly. “I just wanted to know why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why so much death and destruction? We could have prospered together, in friendship, in peace. And you threw everything just because you were worried that we could become a threat in the future?”

  The O’fa snorted in amusement. “Thriving in peace is not possible. Eventually, one side will always turn on the other. It is inevitable; the only way to survive is by conquering and making sure that your ‘friends’ never grow enough to be a threat to you.”

  “You really believe that?” Adrian asked.

  “Yes, there is no other way. My people believed differently once, long ago, but we know now that strength is the only thing that can keep you safe.”

  “The Erasi will need to change that stance, if they want to survive,” Adrian said. “If I let you go, would you convince the rest of the Erasi to abide by my terms and have peace?”

  “No,” the O’fa said, showing his teeth. “That ship of yours tells me exactly how big of a threat you are to us. The others will see it as well; they might agree to whatever you demand, but they will always be searching for a way to surpass you.”

  “You could’ve lied to save yourself,” Adrian commented.

  “There is no point now, you were never going to let me go,” the O’fa said.

  “No, I was not,” Adrian said. He closed the channel, and then fired a beam that engulfed and destroyed the Erasi warship.

  Adrian recorded another message and sent it to every levy ship that was running; they were going to deliver his message. Then he started skimming across the system, destroying every Erasi defense platform at the trans-points before he finally let go of the Enduring’s control systems and returned to his body.

  Interlude V

  A long time ago

  “I can’t believe that the council wants to try again,” Waiss said to Axull Darr as the two of them and Ullax walked through the corridors of the council building on Aus Alar, the homeworld of the People.

  “We made mistakes last time. This time, we will not involve ourselves so closely,” Axull said.

  “The races that we uplifted turned against us, Axull,” Ullax said.

  “They were children, they weren’t mature enough to handle what we had given them. This time, it will be different,” Axull responded.

  “I’m more worried about the other part of their plan,” Waiss said.

  “I agree that it might be too intrusive, but it has a large chance for success because of it,” Axull said.

  “They want us to put life on the same path as us; we would be overwriting anything that their natural evolution would come up with,” Ullax added.

  “I agree that it seems too intrusive, but we won’t be copying our genetic code, we would just put parameters into the code of emerging primitive life that evolution will follow. We know that our forms are adaptable and suitable for everything that an advanced lifeform needs,” Axull said.

  “No matter how much room we allow them for mutations and n
atural evolution, they will have features similar to ours,” Ullax argued.

  “I think,” Waiss interjected, “that is the point. They think that life similar to us might also be more accepting of us.”

  “And yet they still want us to continue with alterations of more advanced lifeforms,” Axull said.

  “So when we are finished, half of the galaxy will look like us, and the other half will be unique,” Waiss said. “I wonder what they will think when they figure out how unlikely it is for two races to evolve in similar ways, let alone more than that,” Waiss laughed.

  “It will also take far longer for those lifeforms that we alter in stage one to reach intelligence than it will take life that was already stage two when we alter them,” Ullax said.

  “It will be a good opportunity to study different evolutions,” Axull said. “We will be able to see how their environments shape their technology.”

  “And if this experiment turns out like our last one?” Waiss asked.

  “We will not be guiding them directly this time, we won’t share our technology with them. They won’t be able to harm us this time,” Axull said.

  No one spoke after Axull. All three were thinking back on the three races that they had uplifted. They had given them technology, taught them how to use it, guided them to the stars. And for that, their wards had turned against them. Their punishment had been severe; all of their technology had been destroyed, and all of their people taken back to their homeworlds and left there.

  Axull knew that the years after their punishment had been hard for the three races; the People had been monitoring their progress. One of the races had tried to appeal to the People, for generations, until so much time had passed that they had even forgotten most everything about the People and the time they had spent in space. The only thing that remained were legends about a time when they had been great, but had committed a horrible crime and were cast down. Their society had turned to worship what they perceived as a force of power in the universe, the People. Their progress had been almost nonexistent. Another had turned to anger, had warred against each other. They had splintered into many factions, each blaming the others for going with the plan to turn against the People. They had been fighting for so long that they had even forgotten the reason for their fighting, but they had started technological progress. The last race, the Alphas, the first to be uplifted, had turned to a different path. They had accepted their guilt, and were pushing themselves to reach space again in order to make amends. Already they had been sending primitive communications into space, asking for forgiveness and a chance to make things right. The People had ignored them and gave no sign that they had received their communications.

  Axull wondered if their new project would end in the same way as their last one. He knew that this time they wouldn’t allow the uplifted races access to their advanced technology. Everything they achieved would be on their own. Perhaps that would make the difference.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  January; Year 59 of the Empire — World-ship Enduring

  “This is spectacular,” Anessa said as she and Adrian walked through the empty city on what Adrian had told her was called a World-ship, a ship that had once been the home to their ancestors, the People.

  “It is,” Adrian told her, as a bulbous shape with many tentacle-like appendages flew past them. “It just shows you how much they truly were ahead of us.”

  Anessa agreed. Everything that she had seen from this ship was amazing; it was unlike anything she had ever seen or even imagined. Adrian had taken the Enduring to every system in Shara Daim territory that was under Erasi occupation and they had destroyed the invaders. Now only a few systems were still under their control, and they were on the way to the next one. This ship had much faster hyperspace drives than the Shara Daim or the Empire, and with their skim drives, they could cover a lot more ground than they would’ve been able to do in a ship of the Legion.

  “So, what do you think?” Adrian asked her.

  “About?”

  “My plan.”

  “Ah…It is a good plan. I don’t think that it will work as you think it will, but a good plan.”

  “What part of it do you think won’t go as I think it will go?” Adrian asked.

  “The one where the other races just accept the change,” she answered.

  “They will have a choice in the matter. It’s not like I will force them to stay,” Adrian said defensively.

  “What kind of a choice is it? The Erasi will not care for them, probably won’t even allow them to come with them, and those that do stay will just be spying on us for them. They have nowhere else to go.”

  “We will deal with it once we come to it. I am confident that we can do this.”

  “I’m not arguing with you, Adrian,” Anessa said with a smile.

  “Fine. What about your people’s part in it?”

  “We are willing, we want to change. I will make sure that we abide by the accord, although I doubt that many will actually believe us.”

  “They’ll learn in time. It will take an effort for you to change their perception of you.”

  Anessa huffed in agreement and they continued walking. They walked for what seemed another hour in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. Ever since the battle, Adrian had seemed more…approachable. He spent more time with her. She had realized that he had been worried about her, that she would die. It made her feel nice to be wanted, to know that if she was to die, someone would miss her.

  She hadn’t begun her relationship with Adrian because of affection, but she had come to care for him, even love him.

  “Here we are,” Adrian announced, snapping her out of her musings.

  “Here where? I was not aware that we were going somewhere,” Anessa said.

  “Come,” he said, and led her up a series of steps to a large balcony with a structure built on it. He approached and entered the building, pulling Anessa inside with him. She was surprised to see that the interior was furnished, and in what seemed like a mix of Empire and Shara Daim styles.

  “I thought that buildings weren’t furnished, that the maintenance units had everything recycled?” Anessa asked.

  “They did, but when I am in the chair, I can adjust their orders. I had them furnish this housing unit. I had to upload the records of appliances and furniture from my implant so that the ship could fabricate them,” Adrian said, looking around. “We will be spending a lot of time on this ship, I think, and the temporary quarters that Isani had built are not really all that comfortable. And I know that you can’t really get a good night’s sleep there; you’re not used to human-sized beds,” he said with a smile.

  “So this is for us?” Anessa asked.

  “Yes,” Adrian said, turning to face her. “And most importantly, the bed is Shara Daim sized,” he said mischievously as he grabbed her hand. “Come and see.”

  Smiling, Anessa followed him upstairs.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  January; Year 59 of the Empire — Tarabat

  Valanaru sat in the sanctum of her devastator, Sojourn to the Stars. She had been trying to figure out a course of action ever since she’d learned of the events in the Kaleras system. Even now, after all the records she had seen from the ships that had escaped—or rather, were allowed to escape—there were moments when she just couldn’t really believe it. Garash was dead, one of the oldest Erasi, one of the founders. And the Empire was not at all what it had appeared to be. The technology that that ship possessed was something no one in the Erasi had ever seen before, something that they couldn’t fight.

  And the message that the Empire’s Lord Sentinel had sent to be delivered to her had told her exactly what that ship would do if she didn’t agree with his ‘request.’ Her meditation didn’t seem to provide an answer, and she had been unable to go into a deep meditation since her encounter with the two mindbenders. Her mind was filled with emotions that she didn’t know how to deal with, and the only thing s
he could do was to seal them away in a corner of her mind, but still sometimes her control slipped and the emotion and memories came back. It was a horrible thing, and an attack unlike anything she had ever seen before.

  But she had more important things to worry about—chiefly, the Lord Sentinel’s demand. On the surface, it seemed insane, and everything that made her an O’fa screamed that it must be refused. But the part of her that had battled against the Lord Sentinel, and had seen what had happened to Garash, told her that to refuse was to sign the death sentence for the Erasi.

  The demand required the Erasi to pull out of this galactic arm, all of their territory forfeited to the Shara Daim and the Empire. All of the Erasi members would have to move back to their territory towards the core; any lower member that wished to remain would be allowed to do so, and would then fall under the rule of either the Shara Daim or the Empire. But all of the main members’ assets were to be relocated.

  It was unthinkable to think that a small empire could demand such a thing of the Erasi, but they did have the power to back up their demands. But no matter what decision she made, she would have to answer to the council of O’fas, both for her and for Garash’s failure. The loss of his fleets would be felt on the Krashin border, and they would need to reinforce it somehow.

  A mental presence poked at her mind, and Valanaru turned towards it. “What is it?”

  “It is here.”

  Valanaru sighed and stood, walking out of her sanctum and towards the command center of her devastator. A few minutes later, she stepped onto the command center and approached the holo-table, and then she waited for them to contact her. Several minutes later, they got the request for a channel, and Valanaru accepted.