She reached and entered her living quarter. Seeing a light coming from the library, she changed direction. Inside, she found Tomas sitting in his reading chair with an old book in his hands. He raised his head and smiled as he noticed her. She walked over and sat in his lap as he put the book aside, then gave him a peck on the lips.
“How was your day?” he asked as she made herself comfortable.
“Fine. How was yours? Did you have to yell at the whole room of people again?” she asked cheerfully.
Tomas rolled his eyes. “They are not children. They can behave… sometimes,” he said, referring to the Clan Leaders.
“That’s not what you said last time they were here,” she said, smiling. “If I remember correctly, you came home threatening to send them all to caregivers to learn manners.”
Tomas gave her a smile of his own. “Thankfully they were more cordial this time.”
“Good,” Seo-yun said, and then she sobered. “Did Laura give you an update on the fleets?”
“Yes,” Tomas said, his smile disappearing. “She is sending the First and Fourth fleets to Adrian. Johanna’s Second, Fifth, and Sixth fleets will stay under his command after they finish with the Ra’a’zani, and the Third will remain in Sanctuary. Sanctuary shipyards should have the Seventh Fleet finished in three weeks, but that one is to be stationed in Sector Two. And Warpath’s Forge should finish the Eighth Fleet in about a month.”
“How long does it take the Forge to complete a fleet?”
“Nine months for the Forge, but they are also building defensive platforms and weapons for stations. Sanctuary’s shipyards are focusing only on warships, so we can build one fleet in seven months, and the shipyards in Sector Two are building drones for system defense,” Tomas said. “The rest aren’t really equipped to build advanced warships.”
“If they get past Sol…”
“They won’t, I trust Adrian. Even if they did, they will break their forces against us, and there is little chance that they can take Sanctuary; it is a fortress. They would be forced to use trans-space to enter the system because of the nebula, and if they do, our defenses will rip them apart.”
“I trust him too, but he risks too much. We shouldn’t have sent the sphere to him. There are a thousand things that can go sideways,” she said.
“He knows what he is doing; he has trained and studied for these kinds of situations. That is what Sentinels are supposed to do you know.”
“I know…” Seo-yun said, and settled close to Tomas, closing her eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
One month later — August — Sol
The woman beneath Adrian writhed with passion. Both were breathing heavily. She bit his lip as they moved in a dance. He moved his palms over her soft, dark skin as she arched beneath him. He could feel himself reaching climax, and the white eyes looking at him told him that the same was true for her. Then, a sound intruded on his mind. He tried to ignore it, to stay with her, but the sound kept intruding…
Adrian woke with a start. His comms were going off. He blinked and brought forth his HUD, answering the call from Gotu.
“What?” he said crankily.
“We need you at the hub,” Gotu said.
Adrian closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ll be right there.”
He sat up in the bed slowly. He remembered the dream; his body was still hot from the memory. He remembered Anessa’s bright white eyes looking at him with such passion. He shook his head. It had been a long time since he’d had this kind of a dream. It seemed that Anessa had gotten under his skin a lot deeper than he had previously thought. And no wonder—she had spent a better part of nine months as his prisoner. More of a guest, really. They had talked about their people, about their beliefs; he had walked and talked with her almost daily. He had a sense of who she was, even though he didn’t know really anything about her private life. With a sigh, he stood up and went to the bathroom. He needed a cold shower before he went to the hub.
Less than an hour later, Adrian leaned on the railing and looked over the data on the holo. The Olympus Mons AI’s hologram stood to his left, an image of a human in Warpath uniform, and Iris floated above his shoulder.
“And they don’t realize that we’ve detected their hack?” Adrian asked.
“No,” Gotu said from his left, “Atlas caught their malware the moment they triggered it, and he isolated it and made a virtual net where the malware is trying to break through our ‘defense.’ We weren’t sure how you wanted to handle it.”
Adrian turned to look at the holo of Atlas. “There is no chance that this malware can escape?”
“No, Lord Sentinel. It is inferior to our defenses; it appears to be a part of an AI, but one severely limited and constrained,” Atlas responded.
“So, can you make it seem like it uncovered something? Feed them false information?” Adrian asked.
“Of course,” Atlas said.
Adrian grinned. “What are they looking for?”
“Information about Sol’s defenses and anything about our weapons technology, such as skimming technology, and how many warships we have.”
“Alright, let’s come up with something that is to our advantage and seems plausible.”
Adrian sat in his quarters, Akash and Sora sleeping on the floor by his chair. He levitated a perfect silver sphere above his hand, and in the middle of the room floated the hologram of Axull Darr with its legs crossed. The human-like being was wearing long robes that left his hands and head free.
“So, what do you think?” Adrian asked the copy of his ultimate ancestor as he rotated the sphere in front of him.
“There is much that can go wrong with your plan. And even if she comes back, she can die in the resulting battle,” Axull Darr answered.
“Our assets in Shara Daim territory have confirmed that their Legions have left the system—Sol is the only place they could be headed, and I doubt that she would’ve let her Legion go to war without her, doesn’t seem like her,” Adrian said.
“You can’t control what happens in the heat of battle. You more than anyone should know that,” Axull Darr cautioned.
“Yes, I know that unpredictable things happen. However, I have done everything I can to minimize that. And once she sees that there is no chance for victory, she will listen,” Adrian said unsurely.
“You told me that the Shara Daim are proud, arrogant, and dismissive of other races. To me, they do not seem like people that listen.”
“If it was anyone other than her, I would’ve agreed. But she knows that we don’t want war. She will talk with me,” Adrian said.
“And you think that you can convince her now when you failed before?” Axull Darr asked.
“My plan was never to change her mind before sending her back. Her belief that they are the strongest can’t be shattered by my words alone. I needed to plant the seed that she and I are not so different, that we are not weak, so that when I do shatter the Shara Daim illusion of strength, she will lose faith in what she has always known to be true. Then you and I will show her the truth about their ancestors.”
“And what do you think that will accomplish? You think that she can convince her Elders and the rest of her race to change?” Axull Darr asked.