Iris appeared in front of him, floating in her usual fiery form. “You got the hang of it.”
“Yes… finally,” Adrian responded.
“You should be proud of your achievement, creating a localized implosion with only your own power is impressive,” Iris said.
“But ultimately nothing compared to what she can do,” Adrian countered.
Iris’s expression turned to one of distaste. “You don’t need to compere yourself to her.”
“Of course I do,” Adrian said. A comm message interrupted their conversation. Adrian read it and then sighed and started walking towards the exit of the training room; the two wolions that had been sleeping near the door woke and followed him out.
“I am needed at the hub,” he said to Iris, who huffed and disappeared.
“The station has been moved,” Gotu said.
“Good,” Adrian responded. “Iris, is everything ready on your part?”
“Yes,” Iris said as her fiery hologram appeared in front of them. “I have conferred with Atlas; we will make sure that everything goes according to your plan.”
“Great,” Adrian said.
“I’m still not so sure about this…” Gotu commented.
Adrian turned to look at him. “Trust me, it will work. We need to do this.”
“Fine.” Gotu sighed. “I guess that I will have some time to finish the rest of the preparations as you take that trip to visit the Ra’a’zani.”
“I know that you want to do this some other way, but we need to make them see that they are wrong. I need to plant enough seeds for the things to move according to our plans,” Adrian said.
Gotu turned his palm sideways and back in a Nel gesture, agreeing with Adrian’s words.
“See that Veritas is ready; the fleets will be leaving for Ra’a’zani space in a matter of days,” Adrian said, and then turned and walked out of the Mars command hub, passing people working at their stations. Iris floated to his side, following him.
After they turned a corner, she floated up in front of him, flying backwards with her hands on her hips. “Are you still planning on releasing her?” she asked disapprovingly.
“Yes,” Adrian said simply.
“And you really think that is wise?” Iris asked.
“Yes,” Adrian said with a smile. “She has learned a lot about us, both from me directly and from what she probably observed or inferred by herself. But in the end, she knows only what I wanted her to know; she doesn’t know our strength. And the Shara Daim would attack whether she is here or not; they planned it from the moment they learned about us from the Ra’a’zani. My actions only accelerated their plans, and gave us forewarning. If the seeds I planted take root, we will have the upper hand.”
“She is not stupid, Adrian; she must’ve realized that you are trying to manipulate her. I doubt that anything you have told her has made her doubt her people’s ways,” Iris said.
“I still have other plans in motion. Convincing her to change ways would be a great victory, but in the end, I’m not placing all my hopes on it.”
With one last long look, Iris disappeared. Adrian knew that she didn’t really like their prisoner, Anessa of the Shara Daim. Mainly because she had tried to kidnap Adrian. There were reasons as to why he needed her, and why she could serve his purpose better back with her people. The Shara Daim would come for the Empire. They would attack because they wanted the sphere, the device left behind by Axull Darr, the originator of the human, Nel, and Shara Daim races.
The three races were very similar to one another; their genetic code—or rather their core code, the part that came from their ancestor—was very close. The Nel were generally taller than humans, averaging at around 210 centimeters tall, and were usually slimmer, while humans’ average height was around 190 cm and they were a bit bulkier and stronger than the Nel. The Shara Daim, on the other hand, were the tallest of the three, at least based on what they had learned. His prisoner towered over Adrian at 241 cm tall compared to his 186 cm.
Nel had pale gray skin, a result of evolving in caves and under the thick gray skies of Nelu, their homeworld, which prevented a large portion of their sun’s radiation from reaching the surface. They had tails, evolved to aid them in keeping balance as they moved through the large underground chasms and deep tunnels. The Shara Daim were the complete opposite; their homeworld was bathed in a high amount of radiation, resulting in the need for defense against it. Their skin was obsidian-colored and highly resistant to their sun’s radiation.
But not even the common ancestry between the three races would halt the Shara Daim’s hand. They wanted the sphere that contained all the knowledge of the People, their ancestors and the first intelligent race in the galaxy.
Each of the three races had received its own device, hidden on their homeworld until they’d evolved enough to hear its telepathic beacon. Humans hadn’t found theirs before Earth was lost, and the Nel had found theirs by accident before they were ready. Only the Shara Daim had found it in the way it was intended, and then they had lost their sphere. Now they were coming for the Empire’s sphere—the one found by the Nel—and Adrian was not going to let them have it.
The Shara Daim were an arrogant race, one that believed itself above all others. They took what they wanted by virtue of strength and power. Compromise was not something that they entertained. Adrian had hoped initially to get his prisoner to see value in peace between the Empire and the Shara Daim, but he had quickly come to see that that was impossible. They would not allow for rivals to exist, especially rivals that they perceived as weaker than them. Their race had never lost a war, never been beaten. They didn’t know how to work with others because, in their eyes, everyone was inferior.
The Empire could not win an all-out war against the Shara Daim, not without sustaining heavy losses. They had a far larger territory and vastly greater resources and population. Technologically, the two civilizations were closely matched, at least based on what Adrian’s people had managed to learn from the Erasi, another large alien force that the Empire had recently encountered, one that was equal to the Shara Daim. But unlike them, the Erasi welcomed other races; it was composed of many who traded freely inside Erasi territory.
The Erasi traded in everything, and Adrian had sent people back to one of their worlds in order to establish a closer relationship, one that had already borne fruit. The Erasi had provided the Empire with information on the Shara Daim. The numbers of their ships, population, size of territory, and perhaps most importantly, data on their technology.
The Shara Daim tech was close to that of the Empire; their ships used different kinds of materials for construction, but they were close to equal in strength. The path to discovering better technology wasn’t a straight line; there were infinite routes one could take in order to advance. But the path of the Shara Daim was not like that—theirs was predictable. One look at their technology and Adrian knew that they still kept to the path set before them by the knowledge inside the sphere of the People.
There were a few technologies that were unfamiliar to Adrian, and those had probably been acquired from other races. But most of them were directly derived from the data in the sphere. The Emperor and his advisers had decided to use the technologies from the sphere like guidelines, and not strict paths to follow. They still relied on their old weapons, only more developed and enhanced by the knowledge in the sphere, and other new things that they had developed that their ancestors hadn’t conceived of.