Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (19 page)

Specter was the smallest of the ships, at 1000 meters long. Its hull was made of highly light absorbing ceramics, coated with materials that prevented most scans. The Specter was a stealth ship, its offensive capabilities geared towards striking from the shadows with a single devastating attack, as well as moving around the battlefield unnoticed placing traps.

Its greatest weapon however was the mean by which it moved without being detected. The Specter had gravity drives, based on the drives of the small shuttle that was brought from Sol. The shuttle was built by the League on Earth during the Great War, it was most likely a prototype as no other was ever found. It wasn’t even finished, the obvious room for weapons were left empty as the people working on it died in the war. It was left forgotten until the resistance found it.

The gravity drives worked on the principle of creating a gravitational field that exerted itself on the already present gravity in a system. From planets, suns, and moons, it moved by amplifying and reducing the gravitational influence on the ship. And it was undetectable by any of the conventional sensors. The reasons why no other ship had these drives were many, but the most important one was power requirements. It took a lot of power to run the drives, and the bigger the ship the more power it needed. Which was also one of the reasons for Specter’s smaller size. For now it wasn’t viable for their larger vessels.

Lighthouse was probably the most unique of the ships as it had very little offensive capability. Instead, the 2000 meter long ship was a ‘sensor ship’. The ship had twelve of the most advanced sensory drones that the Empire was capable of producing, with three Ai’s working in concert to interpret and gather all the information.

Valhalla was a pure offensive ship, 2200 meters long with the focus on beam weapons. It had no kinetic weapons, and only a half of the missile load that the other ships had. But its particle beam cannons were the most powerful that they could produce.

Twilight and Retribution were more like conventional ships, each 2000 meters long, with equal loads of all of the Empire’s weapons. Kinetic, laser, particle and missile.

Invictus and Ras’tar were each 2300 meters long, and their weapons were more geared towards missiles, with a myriad of missile types geared for different situations. But they too had other conventional weapons.

The last was Harbinger, Adrian’s ship. Its weapons too were balanced, with a single rail gun that ran half the length of the ship, capable of cracking a small moon. 2800 meters of pure destructive power. It had a secondary energy and data transfer grid throughout the ship. Besides the usual cables and electrical conductors, the Harbinger had a radically new biotechnology. The secondary grid had been ‘grown’ into the ship. Biological, genetically engineered superconductors that passed information at the speed of light, and were also capable of transferring energy while also keeping their temperature low. With that system the Harbinger was highly resistant to any kind of an EMP attack. Harbinger had a strange design, when observed from above it had an arrowhead shape. In its middle, or the core of the ship that spread from the end to the front tip was needle shaped and made out of pure ri-steel. The two of the arrow head’s “wings” were combined ri-steel and most advanced ceramic based material they possessed. 

The original plan was for the fleet to be supported by one hundred special drones, but as they had no time for them to be built that role will be filled by Empire’s battleships which were of an older generation. But as even those ships were ahead of Sowir technologically it didn’t matter, unless the Sowir had an enormous advantage in numbers. Warpath’s fleet will extremely powerful, and with Watchtower it could be far more so. It would have raised their effectiveness, allowed them to fight with their fleet in synchronized way that would have maximized their offensive and defensive capabilities.

So, Adrian trained, he wasn’t the one to give up. Splitting his focus was something that he had learned over the course of years. Now he needed to evolve that ability even further. Time was running out, and if he wanted to minimize the deaths of his people he would need the Watchtower interface. The Sowir will strike soon.

Chapter Seventeen

Sanctuary

Seo-yun walked out of the lift as soon as the doors slid open, and stepped onto the Research and Development bottom floor in Olympus City. She walked down the hallway, passing other people without really noticing them as she was focusing on the data shown on her implant’s HUD. She had long ago learned the skill of focusing on reading things on her HUD while walking, most people in the Empire did - implants had become essential to living.

Finally a part of Seo-yun that wasn’t focusing on reading realized that she had reached her destination, and removed the report she was reading from her HUD. She stepped into the main research lab, and walked around tables filled with equipment to reach her destination at the end of the first area. She reached a locked door and placed her hand on the display close to it.

The computer read her fingerprints and the first door opened, she then passed to the long hallway at the end of which was another security check point. Seo-yun placed her face in front of another display and a scanning light passed over her face. After a moment the display flashed green and she was asked to give a password, which she sent via her imp. Then the doors finally slid open.

Seo-yun entered into a well lit room that had a simple desk a wall-display on the left wall, and a pedestal in the middle of the room on which was placed a smooth silver sphere. The room was occupied, but not by anyone living, in a traditional sense of the word. In the middle of the room floated a figure that vaguely resembled a human, it was a holographic representation of Axull Darr – the forefather of human and Nel race.

The figure had no hair and was very pale blue in color. Its facial features resembled those of humans or Nel, it had the same shaped nose, albeit a bit smaller, as well as the lips and similarly shaped eyes which were all white. It was dressed in a loose gray blue robe and floated above the sphere with its legs crossed. The hologram itself could move and even simulate talking and emotion, it even seemed to generate sound from its mouth, although Seo-yun was sure that it was the sphere that projected the sound from there.

The hologram was a representation of the ‘shadow of Axull Darr’, a digital copy of the Axull Darr’s consciousness. It was not an Ai, not like what the Empire had. By their understanding it was at least a very complex software, it was a computer that based all its decisions on what the real Axull Darr would have done. An Ai was in its nature more logic oriented even though they had a choice and could choose to ignore logical thinking, sphere’s computer could not. At least that was what the Empire’s experts thought, they couldn’t be sure until they get technology to actually access the sphere.

As Seo-yun approached the desk another hologram appeared, this one was of a short four armed alien, with a triangular head that ended in horn like ridges at the top its head.

“Greetings Seo-yun.” The alien hologram said.

“Hello Asumy.” Seo-yun said. Asumy was an alien Ai that Olympus discovered long ago on Earth. He was abandoned and operational for thousands of years before humans found him. Now he was in charge of monitoring the sphere and the computer that occupied it. “Anything new?” Seo-yun asked.

“No, everything is the same as the last time you visited.” Asumy said.

“Good.” Seo-yun said as she sat down at the desk, the two holograms watching her. She turned towards the hologram floating in the center of the room. “Hello Axull Darr.”

“Minister Hyeon.” The hologram acknowledged.

“I have brought you something.” Seo-yun said, and then used her implant to project a series of diagnostics out in the air in front of the sphere using the table’s holo. “These are the brain scans of one of the Empire’s citizens. The one on the right is a scan from five months ago, the one on the left from just a few days ago. Our experts are unable to figure out what these unusual brain waves are, and I was hoping that you might help.” Seo-yun said, Warpath had sent the brain wave scans of Clan Leader Farkas to the Sanctuary medical institute, and they sent them to her when they too were stumped. They hoped that Axull Darr might help, he did in the past with things that they couldn’t figure out but had the means to. He usually only withheld knowledge when it involved technologies the Empire didn’t know yet. 

Seo-yun watched as the hologram pretended to study the scans, she knew that the sphere had already taken the information from the holo-table. Then after its protocols finished it spoke. “Well, this is unexpected.”

“Do you know what the problem is?” Seo-yun asked.

Axull Darr remained silent. Seo-yun waited for a few seconds, then realized that the answer was not coming. That could only mean that the answer involved something that the Empire wasn’t aware of.

“You won’t answer? A man’s life is at stake!” Seo-yun said angrily.

The hologram stared right at Seo-yun for what seemed like an hour, and then it finally spoke.

“My protocols prevent me from saying anything. My programing is clear, technologies and knowledge I possess can only be given in the event that you hear and answer the beacon. Neither you nor the Nel have done so. I have bent my programing as far as I am able in order to broaden the knowledge of things you already know. I cannot tell you what this is. Except to assure you that the life of the person in question is not in peril.”

Seo-yun stared at the hologram. It had never before elaborated on its programing to this extent, her people had guessed and assumed a lot, but now they have confirmation. But that also meant that whatever was happening to Adrian was significant, and that the sphere possessed the knowledge of it.

“Thank you Axull Darr. That alleviates some of our concerns.” Seo-yun said, while planning on assigning her best people to figure out what is happening to Clan Leader Farkas.

***

Later that night Seo-yun was sitting in her and Tomas’s library reading a paper book, which were a rarity nowadays. Tomas was sitting on the reading chair across from her reading his own book. Seo-yun tried to focus on reading, but other thoughts intruded on her mind.

She put the book down on her knees. “Tomas.”

“Yes?” Tomas said, still reading.

“Where do you see us in ten years?” She asked.

That got his attention and he lowered the book. “Ah… What?” He asked startled.

Seo-yun grinned at his expression. “I don’t mean about us.”

“Oh.”

“I mean the Empire as a whole. Where do you see us in ten years, a hundred, a thousand?” She asked.

Tomas got a thoughtful expression. “What do you mean?”

“What are we going to be? Eventually we will expand and reach areas of space where there are many races. According to the Union databases there are many of them out there. We were lucky in a way to be in an area of space that was sparsely populated. But if we keep this rate of expansion we will eventually meet other empires, other unions. We will see injustice like what happened at Trivax. Here we could involve ourselves, do as we please because we are probably the biggest power in the area. But what are we going to do once we find communities, alliances, races at war?”

“We will keep to our values. But I understand where you are coming from. And yes I do have a rough plan. I want us to become what Axull Darr and his people once were, what he wanted us to be. Protectors and guides of the galaxy. It will be a long road, and I am sure that we will stumble and make mistakes. But that is my ultimate goal.” Tomas said.

Seo-yun studied him quietly for a while before responding. “Ambitious.” She said nodding her head. “I guess that my diagnosis was correct.”

“Diagnosis?” Tomas asked confused.

“Back on Earth, when we first met. I believe that I diagnosed you as a megalomaniac.” Seo-yun said, with the corner of lip turning upwards.

Tomas let out a laugh. “That you did! But I am your megalomaniac.”

“Yes, you are.” Seo-yun said softly.

***

Clan Dai Ven

Clan Leader Jusan of Clan Dai Ven shook his head in disgusts after the video message addressed to him ended. The message was from his contact on Nelus. They had given the message to the ruling council. And the council had chosen to ignore the warning, not believing the proof of Sowir numbers. Their arrogance fooled them into believing that their fleet and system defenses will be enough to fight off any kind of an invasion force, if such force was even real.

Jusan couldn’t believe how arrogant and stupid his people were, but he knew what the ruling houses were like. They cared only for their profits, and the people had no choice but to believe their lies. They didn’t even realize that their actions were dooming them. Sometimes he wondered if he would have become like them, if he had stayed on Nelus. Probably not, he unlike the others, cared about his people.

Jusan knew that when the Sowir Dominion arrive Nelus’ fleets will be ill prepared, and ignorant of the threat. The defenses of Nelus system were significant, and not even the Sowir could take the system quickly and easily, it will be months if not years until they break through all defenses. But innocent people will still be dying until the Empire is able to send help.

Jusan started another video recording to send to his contact. This one with instructions and names of the people in Nelus fleet. His people will be forewarned of the threat, whether the council wanted that or not.

Chapter Eighteen

May; Year 31 - Trivax orbit

Johanna made her way towards the Monarch’s CC, she had just received word that reinforcements had arrived, along with her new orders concerning the Furvor. She entered the CC and sat in her command chair. The holo in front of her already showed the data of the new ships in the system. The taskforce consisted out of eight battleships of a newer generation and two dreadnoughts. These battleships were 700 meters long, compared to the 300 meter long old battleships from her fleet. Following them were also a few more supply ships with the help for the Trivaxians.