Beth moved in her sleep, getting closer to him and making herself comfortable. And Adrian finally allowed himself to drift away, and fall asleep.
Harbinger – three days later
Adrian sat in the command chair in Harbinger’s command center juggling eight lead balls in the air around him and watching on the holo as the three fleets formed into one formation. With the reinforcements from the Empire, he now commanded eighteen hundred ships, the bulk of which were the Furious-class missile ships and the Kraken-class dreadnoughts. And after a bit of shuffling, Adrian had leveled the size of the three fleets, getting all three of them to six hundred ships. Along with the reinforcements had arrived a special ship, carrying Sowir prisoners from Sanctuary, for the part of the plan that would come after they took the system.
All ships slowly formed into the formation that Adrian had chosen, and soon ready signals started arriving at his c-board. When all of the ships were green, Adrian sent the countdown for their entrance into hyperspace.
They wouldn’t be using the trans-lane to enter the Sowir system, as every probe or drone they’d sent through had gotten destroyed before it managed to send anything back to them. There could be many reasons for that. But the most likely one was that the trans-station in the Sowir system was blocked; perhaps it now resided inside a planet. It was strange, as it had worked when the Union ship had passed through. That system was one of those that they had sent their smaller scout ships to explore. But that had been a long time ago; orbits of planets could change, or something else could have been moved inside the trans-station.
That was why they would arrive at the Sowir system through hyperspace. The travel time was around 35 days, and Adrian planned on dropping out of hyperspace further away from the system’s barrier and then coming in slowly after they had a picture of the entire system.
The countdown reached zero, and Adrian felt his ship engage its hyperdrives along with every other ship in his joint fleet. A moment later, they were on their way towards the Sowir home system.
Chapter Twelve
Sanctuary – Ten days later
Emperor Tomas Klein walked through a cave, surrounded by glowing crystal trees. At his side was Seo-yun, the woman he loved, his partner. He liked walking through this specific cave, as it was the place that soothed him, and allowed him clarity at times when he needed it the most.
“The Trivaxians are not happy,” Tomas said as they stopped in front of an unusually tall and bright crystal formation.
Seo-yun snorted. “Of course they aren’t happy. They have been trying to get our advanced technology for the past three years.”
“I gave them the conditions for their inclusion in the Empire. The longer they try to circumvent them, the longer it will take until they attain our level of technology.”
“It is not that simple, Tomas. You want them to do all of it on their own. And it’s not easy, inventing hyperspace generators and then building a hyperspace-capable ship without our help. Let alone then founding a viable colony in another star system,” she said seriously. “And I am not even considering the other conditions you have set for them. It is too much, Tomas.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But the things we know and possess are dangerous. I will not give them technology they are not ready for.”
“We received our knowledge from the Union ship, and are now learning from what Axull Darr left us,” Seo-yun pointed out.
Tomas nodded. “Yes. We were given a lot, but we were more mature than them. In our time bound to our homeworld, we have experienced many things, seen many horrors and misuses of power. That is why we have a responsibility. Both because of the trust our ancestor put in us, and because we know what the price for careless and incompetent use of such power is.”
Seo-yun started walking without responding, but Tomas knew that deep down she agreed with him; that was why she argued with him about it constantly. It had taken both of them a long time to come to terms with the fact that they had power and influence, and that they were the ones making the choices that could affect and dictate the lives of many.
Tomas hastened to catch up to her, and then matched her pace as she walked deeper into the cave. Behind him, their escorts kept out of hearing distance. Tomas looked around as they walked, seeing all the different crystal colors and the countless different shapes and forms they grew in. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke again.
“The Furvor are doing very good. They have implemented every change we asked of them,” Tomas said.
“They had also attacked and killed many Trivaxians,” Seo-yun added.
“And they will suffer penalties for that. But eventually they too will be a part of the Empire.”
“It will be a nightmare trying to convince and explain that to the Trivaxians.”
“By the time they complete their own conditions, years will have passed. And if I allow them in, it will be after they have completely adopted our ways. And if they are truly a part of the Empire, they will understand,” Tomas explained.
Seo-yun was about to respond when one of their escorts approached.
“Apologies, but you are needed back at the palace. Doctor Singh has urgent news.”
Tomas cast one more glance to the glowing forest stretching in front of him, then turned to the man.
“Let’s go.”
“I don’t know how long I will be able to keep this under wraps, but it will get out sooner or later. That’s why I need to see how you want to handle this as soon as possible,” Doctor Singh said as she paced in front of Tomas’s desk.
“And what exactly is ‘it’?” Seo-yun asked from the couch where she was sitting.
Singh paused and looked at Seo-yun before responding. “We are going to have the first interspecies child,” she said excitingly.
“The first what?” Tomas asked.
“A couple came to the Olympus City hospital this morning, because the woman was feeling ill. After a couple of tests, it was confirmed that she was in fact two and a half months pregnant. She is human, but the father is Nel,” Singh said.
“That’s possible?” Tomas asked, surprised. It had never really crossed his mind before.
“Before today, we had believed that it was not, in fact, possible,” Singh said. “Our DNA is too different, even with our common ancestry. Both ours and Nel experts had agreed that it wasn’t possible. Until today. After it was confirmed, I called our best geneticists and doctors to try and figure out how it happened and what we can do to help the process along,” she said energetically. “What the geneticists determined was that apparently there are markers and triggers inside both Nel and human bodies—or more precisely, our reproductive organs—that facilitate interspecies breeding.”
“Axull Darr…” Seo-yun said, grabbing the attention of both Tomas and Singh. “He knew that eventually the races he fathered would meet. He must have made sure that no matter how much of a different path we evolved on, we would always be able to reproduce with each other.”
“We think so as well,” Singh said. “The fetus is undergoing changes that are not normal in either Nel or human pregnancies. It is molding and changing the genetic information from both of its parents to create a stable being. We believe that the pregnancy will last a bit longer, maybe around a full year, to accommodate this phase in the development.”
“That is amazing, and interesting. And while I am surprised that this hasn’t happened sooner—with how close our peoples became—I don’t see how it will really change anything,” Tomas said.