Adrian took a step back. He still had strength; the drug was still in his system. He heard footsteps. Gotu and Björn entered, breathing heavily. Adrian looked around; the bar was torn to pieces. He looked at Gotu and Björn and realized that barely a minute had passed since Aileen had arrived. She was much faster than them, and had left them behind.
Aileen got to her knees and Gotu reached her.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yes, it just hurts so much,” she ground out, retracting her helmet.
Adrian looked at the Shara Daim still suspended against the wall. He released his hold and caught her as she fell, then motioned to Sora to approach. He put her on the wolion’s back and turned to Gotu.
“We are leaving, now,” Adrian said.
Gotu looked at the form slumped over Sora. “Why are we taking her?” he asked.
“She attacked me once she learned that we know about Axull Darr. And I intend to find out why.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Arisak Do Sun heard the telepathic cry for help from his Dai Sha and abandoned everything that he was doing. He and the two Va Sun ran as fast as they could towards the source of the cry. He was in panic, wondering what could have made a Dai Sha send such a cry for help. When they arrived, they saw aliens standing in front of a building. What they found inside was a destroyed alien bar, but no sign of the Dai Sha. The aliens that had gathered moved out of his way, afraid. He approached the crowd.
“What happened here?” he demanded. But no one came forward. Losing his patience, Arisak reached for one of the aliens and raised it off the ground. Immediately, it started speaking, telling him that she had been taken in the direction of the landing pads. Signaling the two Va Sun, they ran there, only to find no sign of her.
Do Sun found one of the aliens in charge of the landing area and demanded to know if he had seen anything. After some intimidation, he admitted to seeing the Dai Sha taken on board one of the alien shuttles. He demanded to know which ship they were from. The alien checked the records, and after he got that information, they boarded their own shuttle on the way to the Bloodbringer. The aliens that had taken their Dai Sha would not get away.
Veritas
The moment their dropship landed, Adrian and the rest exited it. They were met with people from medical and Warpath warriors that took the Shara Daim. They would keep her sedated until Adrian could fabricate a device that would drain her energy at the same rate she recovered it. He had it used on himself when he’d been undergoing the operation that augmented his body; he would need a more powerful version for the Shara Daim, though.
Aileen, Sora, and Akash went with them. Aileen would need to have parts of her hand regrown, and the wolions were bruised badly. With Akash wobling on his feet. Aileen would spend at least a month with it in the healing tank. Adrian knew the feeling; he had shattered his own hand using psionics, long ago.
Adrian, Gotu, and Björn got on the lift going to the command deck.
“Iris, get us ready to go. Contact the Erasi and tell them that we are leaving,” Adrian said.
“Do you think that they will try to stop us?” Björn asked.
“I doubt it. They don’t care as long as we don’t break the trading agreements. But just in case, I want us ready to run. They should have already learned about what happened,” Adrian answered.
“The Erasi command gave us permission to break orbit,” Iris said as she appeared in front of him.
“Good,” he said, and grimaced at the pain in his side. He was not unscathed.
“You should go to medical,” Gotu said.
“Not until we are out of the system.”
They arrived at their destination and Adrian sat in the chair on the dais. The ship was already moving out of Tarabat high orbit and towards the hyperspace barrier.
Iris appeared at his side. “Adrian, three ships have just started moving towards us on a direct course.”
“Erasi flotilla?” Adrian asked.
“No, the Erasi net identifies them as Shara Daim,” Iris responded, and changed a part of the holo surrounding him to show him the ships. Two ships were smaller than Veritas, at around 1400 meters long and about 600 wide and tall, and they looked like pointed pillars with some bulges at the base, where the drives were. The third one was larger, 3500 meters long. Its back and front looked like rectangular towers, about 800 meters wide and tall, but its middle was wider, at least 2000 meters wide, 600 on each side of the central pillar, and about 1000 tall, 100 above and below the central pillar.
“Adrian, I know that she attacked you, but we are risking war over something we know nothing about,” Gotu tried to reason.
“She wanted me to go with her from the moment she saw me. She said that I know something that she needs. And once I mentioned Axull Darr, she used the Sha to force me. There is something going on with them, and it is better that we find out if they are a threat now than to wait until they come knocking,” Adrian said as he studied the three ships.
“You are provoking them,” Gotu said.
“I am making it clear that we do not tolerate attacks on our people. If they are prepared to intimidate and bully, they should also be prepared to face the consequences of those actions.”
“We are receiving a message from the leading ship,” the Communications Handler said.
“Translate and put it on,” Adrian said. They had already purchased and implemented the Erasi translators into their own systems. The Erasi translators had a language database of every race they had ever encountered; the Veritas crew only needed to add the language of the Empire.
A voice spoke out, “To the alien ship, stop immediately, return our Dai Sha, and I promise you a quick death. Refuse, and we will come and get her ourselves, and your deaths will be anything but quick.”
Adrian glanced at the people around him. From everything they had learned about the Shara Daim, they didn’t really like other races, choosing to leave them be as long as they didn’t get in their way. But if someone was foolish to do so, they would simply destroy them. Ever since he had learned that, Adrian had had a bad feeling about them.
“Tell them that their ‘Dai Sha’ attacked a Lord Sentinel of the Empire, and that we will return her once she answers questions as to why she did that,” Adrian said, and to her credit the Comms Handler hesitated for only a moment.
Adrian turned to Iris. “Anything from the Erasi?”
“There has been communication between them and the Shara Daim ships, but they haven’t moved. And there is also a lot of chatter between their flotilla and the Loksi Corporation,” she answered.
Adrian quirked an eyebrow. The Loksi Corporation was supposed to be independent, but it seemed like they were more than that. Adrian was not an idiot; he knew that he was risking war with these Shara Daim, who he knew were the last race that Axull Darr had created. That did not make them good guys, though. From everything he had heard from them, they were not really altruistic. They conquered everything around them, crushing the weaker races.
But there was also the fact of this Dai Sha finding him. There were hundreds of races living on Tarabat, and new ones arrived often. He and his people were not a novelty. And she had come straight at him; she’d known he was there. Someone had told her. Something was not right, and he needed answers, even if he risked war obtaining them. He doubted that that would happen. There might be an incident, but he fully intended on returning his prisoner once he found out more.
“The Shara Daim ships are powering up weapons,” the Sensor Handler said.
“Power up the shield matrix,” Adrian ordered.