“You felt its beacon,” Anessa said, giving in to Garaam’s change of topic, with every intention of speaking about her suspicions later.
“I did,” Garaam said. “He said that you are a copy of our ancestor’s consciousness,” Garaam said to Axull Darr.
“That is correct, I have all his memories and knowledge. I am him, in a way, a digital version of his mind,” Axull Darr responded.
“So if we are not descendent from a colony, why did you create us?” Garaam asked. And Anessa turned her complete attention on him, interested; the Elders had given her only snippets that she wasn’t even sure were true.
“We, the People, were the first intelligent race in the galaxy. We lived for a long time, but eventually we started dying off, until finally there was only a handful of us left. We tried to find a way to save ourselves, and inadvertently we created something that shouldn’t exist, a horror that we were too weak to stop. Some of us fashioned a plan to contain it, but I disagreed with their methods. I split off from them and came to this area of space; I found three different worlds and merged my DNA with the emerging lifeforms of those planets: Nel, Human, and yours—Shara Daim. This was in the hope that someday you would grow powerful enough to stop what we created,” Axull Darr said.
“Our history, our beliefs, are that we are destined to rule this galaxy through strength and power, just like our ancestors did before us,” Garaam said unsurely. It must’ve been a shock for her to learn that the Shara Daim had been created.
“My people never ruled the galaxy through strength. We were the first intelligent race in the galaxy; there was no one to oppose us. Over time, we spread across the stars, and then grew lonely, so we encouraged other life, uplifting them and guiding them to join us to the stars. We never had wars, never conquered anyone; we were simply too far ahead of anyone for them to be a threat to us. We helped younger races through turmoil, mediated between them, showed them how to master technology. But we never thought ourselves better than them; we were older, wiser, not superior.”
Garaam was looking at him, her feelings reflected on her face, and Anessa could see that her friend felt the same way that she did. His words went against everything that she knew to be true and that she had been taught. It was hard, so hard of Anessa to accept that as truth. She had been fighting doubt since that moment when the Elders had told her a part of the truth, and then even more as Adrian had tried to convince her. And now she could feel her belief disappearing; the core of who she’d thought herself to be was tumbling down.
“May I ask you a question?” Axull Darr said, jolting both Anessa and Garaam from their thoughts.
“Yes,” Anessa answered quickly.
“Why are you aging?” Axull Darr asked.
Anessa and Garaam looked at each other in confusion.
“What do you mean?” Anessa said.
“The sphere’s sensors have just finished their analysis of your code. The genetic markers required for preventing the aging process have been disabled. I was wondering if you know why your people decided to do that,” Axull Darr said.
“You are saying that we shouldn’t age?” Garaam asked, a hint of anger entering her voice.
“Once you gained the Sha, your race would stop aging; the two evolutions are tied together. Unless you did something like what the humans did. They stopped their own aging long before they gained the Sha; in a way, they stopped themselves from gaining it in the manner that I intended. But there are no signs that something like that has happened to you. Your DNA followed the path laid down by me exactly; the genes were disabled after they were active, and that could’ve only happened on purpose.”
“They must’ve done that, too,” Garaam said, agitated.
“Garaam?” Anessa said.
“We need to go, Anessa. If this Human will let us leave, we must go now. We knew that they had been doing things to keep their power, but now it makes sense,” Garaam said.
“The Elders?”
“Yes. We must talk, on one of our ships,” Garaam said, now impatient.
“May we leave now?” Anessa asked.
“Of course, I’ll let Adrian know,” Axull Darr responded.
As they were escorted back to their shuttle, Anessa paused and turned to look at Adrian. He stood behind her, watching her intently. Garaam noticed her pausing and used just a bit of Sha.
“Anessa?” Garaam asked.
“Go on, I’ll be right there,” Anessa said.
She stepped forward and stopped in front of Adrian. He was looking up at her, and again Anessa was struck at just how different they were. She was larger than him; he almost looked like a child compared to her. And yet anyone looking at him could see the presence that he had; his eyes held depths that spoke of a long life. She had hated him once, looked down on him as an insignificant pebble standing in her way. However, gradually, as she’d spent more and more time with him, that had changed. She no longer hated him, not even now when he had killed so many of her people. She respected him. She knew that he had done only what her people had forced him to do.
Something drew her to him. There was a sense of power around him, unlike anyone she had ever met. But it wasn’t just that she felt herself attracted to him in a physical way, it was more. His mind, his skills, all of those appealed to her. He was someone that was always driven to become stronger, someone who demanded respect by his very presence. Who, like her, possessed great power. In his heart, he was a warrior that only cared about a worthy challenge, just like her. If he were a Shara Daim, she would have involved herself with him by now. But he was not, and their people were at war.
Adrian quirked his eyebrow at her, a gesture that made her smile again. She put her hand on his face affectionately, not being able to help herself. “Goodbye, Adrian,” she said, and turned around, leaving him behind, feeling his eyes on her back as she stepped onto the shuttle.
Chapter Twenty
Three months later — December — Veritas
Adrian sat in his quarters on board the Veritas as he waited for his ship to enter the trans-lane on its way to Sanctuary. Sora and Akash were lying at his feet sleeping, and Axull Darr was floating in the center of the room above a table. It had been three months since the Shara Daim forces had left the system in a hurry; something about the fact that the Shara Daim were aging had upset the other Dai Sha. Adrian didn’t know why, but at least according to what Axull Darr had overheard, not all Shara Daim believed blindly in their Elders, which was a good thing for the Empire. Unrest and division among the Shara Daim could only give the Empire more time to build fleets. No matter what he had led Anessa to believe, the power he had brought to Sol was almost the entirety of what the Empire had. All Shara Daim had to do was to split their large force and attack multiple systems at the same time and the Empire couldn’t win.
Those last words from Anessa still kept him awake, which was an achievement, as he generally didn’t sleep for more than two or three hours a day. There had been something in her eyes when she’d looked at him, an echo of how he himself felt. But her words at the end had told him that she understood the same thing that he did. Their people were at war, and the next time they saw each other, they might be forced to fight against each other again. And this time he wouldn’t be able to hold back.
His gamble had paid off; he knew that destroying an entire Legion had shown them that the Empire could fight them on equal ground. It broke the illusion that they couldn’t be beaten. Adrian was only sorry that he’d had to do it by killing so many. He knew that the relations between the Shara Daim and the Empire would suffer for it, but what he had gained was time, which was more important. Already the Fleet’s shipyards across the Empire were working tirelessly to build ships, and Warpath’s Forge was close to doubling its construction rate.