Hand of the Empire (Rise of the Empire Book 8) Read online

  She had been planning this for over five centuries. She never intended it to take this long—the original plan had been for the Erasi to strike back within three decades. They would’ve done it sooner, if not for the threat that their advanced ship posed—if one could call that thing a ship. But quickly it had become apparent that it was the only thing of such advanced technology that the Empire possessed, and countermeasures for it were quickly devised. It was after all just one ship, and it couldn’t be everywhere at the same time no matter how fast it was.

  The Empire and the Shara Daim combined had thousands of star-systems under their control, and the Erasi could attack hundreds across their entire territory. The alliance wouldn’t be able to keep up with their might. The Council of Erasi had given her time. Their scientists had developed technologies that the Empire had demonstrated, mainly their FTL drives or, as they called them, skim drives. They had reignited the fabricator yards and build up their forces. It had cost them a lot, the people weren’t happy with added taxes, but they obeyed. And within ten years they already had fleets capable of accomplishing Valanaru’s plan.

  Then the Krashin had attacked, the beasts spilling across the border in numbers never before seen. Whether they had sensed when Garash had weakened the border or they had planned another invasion on their own—it ultimately didn’t matter. The fleets that were meant for the alliance had been sent to the rimward border in an attempt to halt the hordes of Krashin animals. At first the technology that the Erasi had replicated from the Empire had given them an edge, but such things never worked for long against the Krashin. Their initial push had been halted at an unimaginable cost, but then the next generations of Krashin fleets had arrived, stronger and faster, and they had pushed into the Erasi territory again.

  And so the dance had continued on for one hundred years. The Erasi slowly lost ground, then gained it—until finally the Krashin fleets attained FTL drives of their own. The Krashin then pushed further and faster into Erasi territory than ever before, taking territory from the Erasi for the first time in thousands of years.

  Until, finally, they just stopped. Their line stopped moving, and they started reinforcing the territory they had taken. It was always this way with the Krashin—no one had ever figured out their reasons, but the pattern always remained the same. Whether they were winning or losing, once some strange Krashin goal was fulfilled, they stopped.

  To Valanaru it always seemed like they gave themselves a limit, a set amount of forces that they were ready to lose and just kept going until they reached that number. They had stopped attacking before on the cusp of victory, giving the Erasi time to recover, and always for reasons that none of them could understand. If there was one thing that frightened her, it was the Krashin. They had the numbers to overwhelm the Erasi if they so wanted, and yet they didn’t. It was almost as if they were toying with them. That was, if there ever were one, the one great mistake of the Erasi, the moment when they had first meddled with the Krashin.

  But it no longer mattered. The new border had been reinforced and Krashin always allow for a long period of no hostilities after their invasions. New fleets for the invasion had been built, and now they had the time to deal with the alliance. There was no choice; their threat level was quickly reaching that of the Krashin, and that could not be allowed. The Empire had access to incredibly advanced technology. It was clear now that it wasn’t their own, but rather something that they had found—or, if her suspicions were right, inherited. The Erasi had advanced just by being merely exposed to this technology, and during the war with the Krashin they had developed new technologies of their own.

  It was now or never—and Valanaru would finally have her revenge.

  Interlude I

  A long time ago

  Waiss Gast entered the small laboratory reluctantly. He was not in the mood for another failure, yet Nariax had insisted that both his and Eroill’s presence was required. He hadn’t had the will to refuse her. But in truth he was very close to the point of giving up on trying to find a cure. If they couldn’t have found it before, how could they do so now when there was only a handful of them left? He found Nariax inside the laboratory with Eroill already there, both hunched over a specimen in containment.

  Nariax raised her head and looked at him as he entered, and yet again Waiss was struck by just how bad she looked. Once she had been very beautiful, but the disease had taken its toll. It had done so on all of them, both outside and inside. Waiss knew that he didn’t look any better. The three of them had left the others because the disease had progressed much further with them. They didn’t want to let the others watch them die. All of them had seen too many of the People die already, and Waiss did not want Ullax to suffer through a slow and inevitable death—she had seen enough of her loved ones die.

  “Waiss, come and see!” Nariax said, beckoning him closer.

  He walked over unsteadily, already his joints ached from just this short walk. He glanced at Eroill, and actually looked at the other man. For the first time in so long that it might as well be forever he saw an emotion in his eyes that he had thought he would never see again—hope.

  “What is it?” Waiss asked hesitantly, not allowing himself to hope.

  “Well… I made an alteration to the specimen,” Nariax said.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “What kind of an alteration?”

  She glanced at Eroill, then back to Waiss, before she nervously answered. “I gave it a connection to the Sha.”

  Waiss’s eyes widened. “Are you insane?” he yelled out. “You gave an artificial life form the spark that creates intelligence?”

  “Please, Waiss, let me explain,” she said.

  After a moment, Waiss reined his anger back. Still seething, he nodded at her to speak.

  “Nothing that we have been trying has worked, Waiss,” she said quietly. “This was the only thing remaining that has a chance. None of the specimens were adapting in the directions we needed them to. They were evolving in random directions; they were chaotic. The environments we provided were nothing compared to the real things. I thought that if it had at least a small amount of intelligence, it could guide its own evolution. And it worked!”

  “It worked…how?” Waiss asked, curious in spite of himself.

  Eroill stepped closer, bringing up the holo of the data. “Here,” he said. “The life form already halted the deterioration. If we give it a bit longer…it might even develop the cure.”

  “You remember what happened last time we meddled and gave the Sha to a life form, don’t you?”

  “This is not the same, Waiss,” Nariax said.

  Waiss opened his mouth to argue, but instead just sighed. He did not have the strength to argue, to care, anymore. He had lost his will when he and Ullax had watched their children and grandchildren die from the disease. So, instead, he turned to leave.

  “Do as you will,” he threw back at them as he left the room.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sol

  Adrian watched the activity in the Sol system as his transport rose through Mars’s atmosphere. Sol had changed a lot from the time Adrian had been a child; it was now the industrial and trading hub of the Empire, the envy of many star nations. The trading stations of Mercury, the resin yards of Venus and the Jupiter Yards all stood as proof of the Empire’s might. And there, in the high orbit over Olympus Mons, was the World-ship Enduring, a reminder to all outside of the Empire of what it was truly capable of—and a reminder to all those in the Empire of what they had achieved. The Empire had matched the technology of the People in many aspects, and surpassed it in others.

  The Sovereign-class warships were the most visible symbols of that. Based in large part on the Enduring, they were the pinnacle of power personified. Fleet-killers, as the Empire’s enemies had come to call them in the last five hundred years. They had been used only three times against three different races, those that had in their foolishness attacked the Empire, thinking them nothing more
than upstarts on the galactic stage, a young race encroaching on what was rightfully theirs.

  The Sovereign class had changed that opinion. Now the great star nations treaded carefully when dealing with the Empire, but all had learned that the Empire dealt fairly with those that dealt fairly with it. All now respected the power that Empire had. Tomas had learned long ago the price of keeping to standards that had no place in the hostile galaxy.

  The Empire had sixteen Sovereign-class ships, built in generations of four ships each. The first four had been built shortly after the end of the war with the Erasi, at the time when the Empire had just cracked compressed-matter hulls. It had cost Warpath almost all of its budget to create enough hull to cover the massive ships, and Sanctuary had to help with the weaponry. Even at the time they had been beasts, but they had been upgraded over the years as new technologies were developed. Each next generation was built around a hundred years after the last, once enough technologies were developed to warrant it.

  It had been decided that there would always be four in each generation. The cost prevented them from building more, and now each Clan was involved in the construction, sharing the cost. The newest Sovereign warships were just six years old, and compared to the first generation they were in a league of their own. Their hull was much tougher than that of the oldest ones. The upgrades of the old ones included a layer of newer and better hull placed over the old, as it cost almost half the price of a new Sovereign to strip the old hull and put in a new one. It wasn’t deemed cost effective; augmentation was more efficient.

  Now Adrian would pit any of the Sovereign class against the Enduring with the knowledge that they could win. The Sovereign class were all built to be around 50 kilometers long—some generations longer, some shorter—but all were at about a third of the Enduring itself, which stood at 168 kilometers. The Enduring was built to be a mobile city. It was called a World-ship for a reason, Adrian noted drily. It was never intended for war. Its only weapons were tools, its power having been delegated to systems that kept the city operational and kept the inhabitants safe. Sovereign-class ships, on the other hand, were built for war and violence. No space inside of them was wasted, and weapon systems designed for destroying their enemies as fast and as efficiently as possible bristled throughout their hulls.

  Of course, it wasn’t as if the Empire relied solely on the Sovereign class—there was the Fleet and the Clan Defense Forces, or CDF. The fleets themselves had gone through a massive change and overhaul. Ships that were a part of the fleet couldn’t be older than fifty years, the construction of new ones started every forty years, and the old ones were sold to either the CDF or their hulls scrapped and used as materials. Sometimes the Fleet would even sell the older ships’ hulls, stripped of their military-class weapons, to private buyers, organizations or private security.

  A small light flashed inside the passenger area, shaking Adrian from his thoughts and informing him that the transport was about to enter the skim. A few minutes later, they exited, and arrived at their destination. Three massive rings surrounded the gas giant in front of him. Each was a shipyard filled with fabricators—thousands upon thousands of ships moved all over the area, from the facilities on the Jupiter’s moons to the yards and back. Harvesting stations spotted the orbit of the planet, their long harvesting tubes reaching far below. It was the one of the largest fabricating shipyards in the Empire, matched only by Warpath’s Forge, and Sanctuary’s Hades Yards. Along with the Venus Resin Pools, it made Sol the greatest shipbuilding system in the Empire. Because of that, Sol leased the use of its yards to the Clans, some Corporations, and the Fleet.

  The transport headed toward a station in the orbit of Europa. Less than ten minutes later, he exited the transport and was met by Gotu.

  “Adrian,” he said respectfully. “I’m glad that you took the time to come here.”

  “Of course, Gotu.”

  Gotu led them through the station until they finally reached a large room, where they were met with several research team members and an assortment of things Gotu wanted to show him.

  “Let’s see… Where should we start?”

  ***

  Two hours later, Gotu’s team finished the presentation of the last item on their list. He had been shown amazing devices, all of them based on nanotechnology. Adrian could see the hope in Gotu’s eyes as he showed them to him, and Adrian could understand—to a point. Gotu was invested in this project, perhaps a bit too much. He wanted to redesign all of the Empire’s military, and that was something that would never happen. Not because his nanotechnology wasn’t good, or even because of the cost, but because what they already had was in many ways better. The nanotech had some advantages—the military had seen it, nanotech was used in almost everything, from fabricators to medicine—but there was a reason why it wasn’t used more than it was. A ship made out of nanites might have advantages, but a solid meter of compressed hull was simply tougher.

  Granted, the nanotechnology that Gotu’s team had developed was more advanced than what they had before, but it still wasn’t superior enough to warrant such a drastic change. Building a fleet or two of nanoships was something that Adrian could sell to his mother, but it was not what Gotu was hoping for.

  “This is very impressive,” Adrian addressed the team. “Congratulations.”

  A choir of, “Thank you, Lord Sentinel,” answered him, and Adrian inclined his head before walking away, following Gotu to small private briefing room.

  Once inside, they sat down across from each other and Gotu looked at him expectantly.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “As I said, it is all very impressive.”

  “The biggest benefit is that we can always have nanites replicate themselves, of course assuming that we have materials. It is what would make fleets of these ships so powerful—they would only need to find an asteroid field and they could repair themselves, no need for yards,” Gotu said in a single breath. “And as you just saw, we have a lot of devices and weapons useful for our ground forces.”

  “True,” Adrian said.

  “So, you will speak with the Fleet Master?”

  Adrian sighed. He did have plans for Gotu’s nanotechnology; he just wasn’t ready to share them yet. He had hoped to bring Gotu in on it in a year or two—that would give them enough time to start recruiting other people. But perhaps he could accelerate his plans a bit.

  “She already gave you her answer, and I agree with her.”

  Immediately he could see Gotu’s face drop. Such a response was extreme—it was highly unusual for a Nel to allow emotion to be seen on their face.

  “But,” Adrian started, “there is something else. Something that, I think, fits this better.”

  Gotu grimaced. “This deserves better than to be delegated to some special task force.”

  “On that point we agree.” Adrian reached into his pocket and pulled out a small datachip. Placing it on the table, a hologram sprung in the air in front of them. “Here. This is what I had in mind.”

  Reluctantly, Gotu turned his attention to the hologram, and Adrian watched as his expression went from somber to interested.

  “This…is.. a massive undertaking,” Gotu said after a while.

  “It is,” Adrian acknowledged.

  “There’s no way that we can do it. Not soon, anyway. The yards are leased for another decade at least, all of the ones that can handle this undertaking.”

  Adrian allowed a corner of his mouth to turn upward into a half-smile. “They are, but I have purchased slots for all of the yards in five years.”

  Gotu looked at him with his mouth open—another unusual display of emotion—and then his eyes got a faraway look, one that indicated that he was looking for something on his implant.

  “That lease is listed as…the Nomad project? That’s you?”

  “Yes,” Adrian said crisply. “I will need a lot of recruits, and I was hoping to bring you in on it in a year or two to help me with that.
So—how about it? Do you want to help me build that?”

  Gotu glanced at the hologram again, then looked at Adrian, his eyes deadly serious. “Yes, Lord Sentinel.”

  ***

  Several hours later, Adrian was sitting in his office with Hayashi, making sure that his one-time mentor and now second in command had everything ready to take over the leadership of the Sentinels while Adrian was away.

  “You don’t need to worry, I’m not going to break your toy while you are gone,” Hayashi said with a boyish grin.

  “I’m not worried,” Adrian said, “I just want to make sure you have everything you need. This is our dry run. Soon enough you will take my place permanently.”

  “Bah, it will be fine. I’ve been your second in command for a long time, I know how to do this.”

  Adrian nodded. “I know. That is why I am stepping down now.”

  “So what is it, then?”

  “I created all of this,” he said simply, gesturing around himself. “I’ll be sad to leave it behind.”

  “It’s not like you’ll never come here again.”

  “True.”

  “Adrian, it’s here,” Iris’s voice interrupted.

  “My ship has arrived,” Adrian said out loud.

  “Well, then, I suppose I will see you later,” Hayashi said as they stood up.

  “Do try not to burn my system down while I’m gone.”

  ***

  “Well, I didn’t think that she would send you that,” Iris commented as they looked at their ship on the shuttle’s view-screen.

  “Neither did I,” Adrian said. “That’s the Herald of War.”

  “Fitting, I guess. Your mother does have a great sense of humor.”