Out of the Ashes (Rise of the Empire Book 3) Read online

  After he regained his breath, Sahib let out a curse, and switched to a sitting position, “Damn, I thought I had you there for a moment.”

  Adrian lowered himself down and sat in a cross-legged position. He kept silent and looked at his friend.

  “I’m stronger, and I know that I’m faster. So why can’t I lay a hand on you? And don’t say technique again.” Sahib asked.

  Adrian sighed, this was not the first time they had this conversation. After thinking things through for a bit Adrian spoke, “You are correct, you are both stronger and faster than me. But my technique is better than yours…” Sahib’s expression darkened and he started to say something, but Adrian interrupted him with a raised hand. “My technique is better, but not by much, it is not the reason why you are always losing.” Adrian said.

  Sahib’s face took on an attentive look, “So why then?”

  “It is a side effect of my implant.” Adrian said.

  Sahib raised an eyebrow wanting Adrian to continue.

  “The implant in my head is unique. There are very few people that possess it, and none of the others had the side effect that I did. The implant is nano based with an Ai core inside it, and since it was put in my head before my brain fully developed, it grew with me. That was planned. What was not planned was that it formed connections with my brain that were not foreseen. The Ai – Iris was able to boost the implants processing capacity far beyond what it was designed for. The interaction between my brain and the implant as my brain grew created new pathways in my brain, and increased the speed between the existing ones. My brain has also learned to interact with my implant on much higher level than what is recorded with other people.” Adrian said.

  “That is interesting, but many people have implants. What does this have to do with you winning every sparing match against me?” Sahib asked.

  Adrian sighed, “Have you ever heard of tachypsychia or the Tachy Psyche effect?”

  Sahib frowned, “No… Wait, I think that I remember Master Hayashi speaking about that - something Psyche effect, but I don’t remember what it was.”

  Adrian smiled. “Yes, Master Hayashi spoke of it. It is the effect that alters an individual’s perception of time, making it appear as if events around you slowed down. Master Hayashi said that it occurs during stressful or life threatening situations, and that there were martial artists who experienced it during particularly tough fights. It is usually induced by the release of high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. But for me it is different, my brain’s interaction with the implant actually increased my brain’s processing speed, and the speed of my thoughts. And I can consciously increase it even further by focusing, although that tires me out quickly.”

  “So you think faster, but how can you counter every one of my attacks?”

  “Because I can basically see them coming. Each time you decide on an attack my mind sees all the small movements of your muscles, and my brain analyzes the information my eyes see and I just know what you are going to do. And the speed of my thoughts creates a similar effect to the Tachy Psyche effect, to me you are moving in slow motion.”

  “Well, first of all; That is cheating, and second where can I get one of those implants?” Sahib said, grinning.

  “They don’t make them anymore, not since the effect started showing themselves on me. They are now monitoring me for any further developments. I was the only one whose brain wasn’t fully developed when they injected the implant, so they assume that is the reason for the side effects. I doubt that it would do anything for you even if you got it.” Adrian said.

  Sahib got to his feet, the grin still on his face. “So then the only reason you have been winning is because you have a super computer in your head? Great, that means that I am better.”

  Adrian laughed, “I wouldn’t be so sure, after all my technique is superior.”

  Sahib slammed a fist into Adrian’s shoulder. Adrian didn’t bothered to evade.

  “Jerk.” Sahib said.

  “Yes, I am.” Adrian responded, grinning.

  “Tomorrow at the same time?” Sahib asked as they were walking towards the changing room.

  Surprised Adrian turned to his friend. “You still want to spar?”

  “Of course, training against someone that can see your every move is great practice. And besides, I’m not giving up that easily. I will take you down.” Sahib said, smirking.

  Adrian chuckled. “That I will believe only when I see it.” Laughing, the two reached the changing room.

  Chapter Four

  January 2171 – Sedna, Earth

  Anissa Novak walked down a dark hallway of the underwater city Sedna, close behind her followed Jacob Kelly. The city was built by Olympus long before the war, and then left when they left the Solar system. At the onset of the war, Concordis used the city as a base, but it was destroyed three years into the war. Or at least most of it was. The surface platform along with the elevator towers and the center of the city were destroyed, but Sedna was one of the biggest Olympus cities and it spread even beneath the ocean floor. A lot of the facilities survived the attack and remained dark and abandoned until the Ra’a’zani came. Then Anissa’s resistance moved in. A lot of rooms were flooded, but those that weren’t were now filled with people.

  Olympus built things to last, and every section of Sedna was built to be self-sufficient, the air processing systems were still working perfectly, with very little to no maintenance needed. The greatest obstacle to those living here was food. Anissa’s resistance had use of two submarines, one of which was a relic from almost a hundred years ago. The two subs were their lifelines.

  Anissa reached a hatch at the end of the hallway and swiped a card on the panel, and the hatch opened revealing a room. Inside was only one long table. Three people sat at the table, leaving two spots empty, the one intended for her and the other for Jacob. Anissa walked around the table to the far side and took her seat, Jacob doing the same.

  “So, I see that everyone is here.” Anissa commented.

  “Yes, and will you finally tell us why gathered all of us? Not only did we risk our lives by coming, you are risking everything by having us all here at the same time.” Igor Akulov said irritably.

  “It was Jacob who asked me to call you all here. I’m in the dark as much as any one of you. I’m eager to hear what he has to say.” Anissa said. Everyone turned to look at Jacob. Jacob took a deep breath, then stood. He looked at each person at the table. Every one of them was now a leader of a part of the resistance, and were once sole leaders of their own resistance before they realized that alone they would never free Earth.

  “I asked Anissa to host this meeting because Sedna is our most secure base, and because I think that the time we have all been waiting for has finally arrived.” Jacob said. The others remained silent and looked at him skeptically.

  “I know you Jacob, you have always been the most restrained one among us. So tell me, what has changed, what made you risk your stealth ship?” Jennifer Williams asked.

  Jacob again looked around the table, and then after a moment of hesitation answered, “Last year my people made contact with Olympus.” Shocked looks meet his words and immediately a chorus of questions erupted, “How? When? Are you sure?...” Jacob raised his hands and the others calmed down. Not all of them were old enough to remember Olympus, only a few of them were born while they still had the life extension technology, but all knew about Olympus. The Resistance was good at keeping records of the past, all of their remaining knowledge and history was kept by them.

  “We found an Olympus ship, left hidden in the asteroid belt. Its purpose was to watch Earth and contact us should we ever unite as a species, since we obviously didn’t it remained silent. The sole occupant of the ship is an Ai - an artificial intelligence. The Ai led us to the ship, it only did so because the Resistance was finally united. If we had remained fractured it would have remained silent.” Jacob said.

  “That is great Jacob, but a single
ship left behind isn’t Olympus.” Oliver Eldritch said.

  “No, it is not, but the ship is equipped with faster than light communications, and we have made contact with Olympus leader Tomas Klein.” Jacob said.

  Surprise, then elation and hope shone on every face at the table. “Will they help us?” Anissa asked.

  Jacob nodded. “Yes. They are far away. More than six hundred light years. I sent them everything we had, all the information we gathered since they left. And I asked them for help. Their response came six months later, they have agreed to help us. They will send a fleet of ten ships, or rather they have already sent it. It will arrive in about a year. The fleet itself will contact us when they pass the halfway point, the communications would be shorter then and will allow us to plan better. They will deal with the Ra’a’zani ships in the system, and it’s up to us to fight on the ground.” Jacob said, he felt it was better to just lay down everything, rather than to feed them information slowly. He knew it was a lot to digest, but he also knew that they had to.

  “If they can handle the ships in the system, I’m confident that we can take them on the ground.” Akulov said seriously, “Our biggest obstacle are those ships. The Ra’a’zani are arrogant, and they had conquered us when we were at our weakest, they don’t know what we are capable of. Our biggest problem will be to convince people to rise up.” He said, looking around the table. “They are scared, they all remember what happened the last time we tried to fight. And the majority of them don’t know anything about the past, they can’t imagine that we can fight back and win.”

  Jacob nodded. “I agree. We need to convince the people, to make them believe that we will win.”

  “Weapons will be a problem. We have very little left.” Eldritch said.

  “That won’t be a problem.” Jacob added. “The Olympus ship had fabricators, and we have since then made a few more, I brought a couple here. With them, we will have weapons.”

  “The greatest Ra’a’zani weapon is their control. There are barely three thousands of them on Earth, and yet they rule. If even a fraction of our people rose up we would have beaten them by now.” Williams said.

  “Yes, but our people are afraid. In a single generation they managed to erase most of our past. Of course we did a lot of the work for them with our war, but our people know only what Ra’a’zani want them to know. They hear about the Resistance and immediately they remember the deaths of more than a billion people. Ra’a’zani made sure that everyone saw what happens when we try to fight. And don’t forget the thralls. Their number is at least six thousand.” Jacob said.

  “Not to mention the ships in the orbit. Even if we did defeat them on the ground, their ships would just bomb us into oblivion. They have more than enough of our people in the asteroid belt to suit their needs. Are you sure Olympus can handle them?” Akulov asked.

  “Olympus will take care of them, we won’t need to worry about them.” Jacob said.

  “Ra’a’zani technology is advanced, how much could have Olympus advanced in sixty years?” Williams asked.

  Jacob turned to look at her, “They traveled more than six hundred light-years in sixty years. Even before they left they had fabricating technology and faster than light communications. And their ships will arrive here in a fraction of time it took them to reach their destination. That is a lot faster than what Ra’a’zani are capable of. We must hope that Olympus ships will be able to stand up to the Ra’a’zani.”

  “Alright then, I agree. We will plan for a simultaneous attack on all Ra’a’zani positions on the planet.” Anissa said and the others nodded their consent.

  ***

  Jacob Kelly sat at a table in his quarters looking at the holo of Earth. The rest of the meeting was spent crafting a rough outline of the plan. They had a year to put people in places where they could do most damage. Looking at Earth, he wondered how many people really still lived on the planet. They had rough numbers for the asteroid belt, around ten thousand people, spread out on various mining stations that Ra’a’zani brought with them. But getting the numbers for Earth was much harder. Ra’a’zani controlled the planet from orbit and had only a few key bases on the ground. The Resistance had the numbers from the end of the Great War. But Jacob knew that those were incorrect. They had no way to verify them, the war had isolated people. They had communication only with 20 cities that managed to survive more or less intact, the rest had either been destroyed in the war, or lost power as they became cut off. During the war and after its end those cities quickly became overcrowded as people arrived seeking shelter, food, and power. Some chose to remain outside the cities, forming primitive communities, living off the land. They had no choice, as they had no way of restoring power. The cities weren’t really cities, like they existed before the war, they were more like megazones. Enormous areas that were densely populated.

  The last count put the population of the 20 cities at 1 billion, but that number could have been higher, and those living outside of the cities at 3.5 billion, but that was only speculation. The official records put the world population at 4.5 billion at the end of the war, but Jacob knew that those numbers were only very generous estimates. They had records only for official death records from the war, those that died in the fighting and estimates of civilian deaths. They didn’t take into account deaths from starvation or disease. Or crime that ran rampant at the time. The numbers were much smaller. And then it was cut even more by the arrival of the Ra’a’zani. They destroyed 10 of the 20 remaining cities from orbit - those that still had armies - and bombed the others before taking them over with minimal resistance. In the confusion they tracked down and destroyed every piece of military technology and industry they could find. They left those living outside of the cities alone, only killing them if they were in the way. Those communities were not a threat, without technology they reverted to gathering, hunting, and farming. To Ra’a’zani they were nothing.

  Those army personnel that survived the initial attack immediately formed the resistance and tried to fight back, but Ra’a’zani swiftly responded by destroying three more cities from orbit, killing - as they claimed - a third of our total remaining population. The resistance backed off, realizing that they had no way of countering Ra’a’zani ships in orbit. People from the remaining 7 cities were divided up, some sent to the asteroid belt, some to various mines across the planet, others forced to work the fields and provide food for the rest. A number was rounded up and moved to the camps Ra’a’zani built, the breeding camps. At best Jacob put the remaining human population between 1 and 2 billion. Most scattered across the globe living without the help of modern technology. The resistance had tried to recruit those living in those communities, but there was rarely anyone who wanted to fight, they were content with their life and didn’t feel the oppression of the Ra’a’zani, they were being left alone and didn’t want to provoke them.

  Others, those under the rule of the Ra’a’zani were left mostly on their own with little supervision. People worked the land to provide the food for Ra’a’zani and the other humans. They were allowed only minimal equipment, and had to produce certain quotas every set period. Failure to meet the quota would be punished with a death of a family member or someone close. Those in the cities were tightly monitored, and performed various tasks that Ra’a’zani wanted done, from construction to acting as servants. Technology was controlled by them, any sign that we were building or hiding human technology was met with harsh punishment. People that were born after the war already had limited education, and Ra’a’zani made sure that no one learned anything of the past, anyone discovered teaching was immediately executed. Otherwise they were left to govern themselves. Some had more freedom, while others had none.