Then continued talking. “They accept our terms, no negotiating no nothing. Any sane being would have tried to learn more about this new opponent, tried to negotiate and make a deal that was more favorable for them. And they didn’t, everything we know indicates that they followed our agreement to the letter, they didn’t even try to infiltrate our territory, to learn how much of a threat we truly were. We had only one system then, two if we count Nuva, if they just tried to learn something they would have known that we weren’t a threat then.” Tomas shook his head. “It makes no sense. Why? Why, would they accept and then keep their word? The fleet they are amassing now to attack Nelus tells me that they were far more powerful than we initially thought. So tell me why didn’t they fight us on the treaty? Why did they agree so readily?”
“I don’t know Tomas.” Seo-yun said, “They are alien, we can’t possibly understand their motives.”
Tomas grimaced, “Nel are alien,” Seo-yun started to say something, but Tomas kept going, “Yes, we and Nel are related, I will give you that. But, what about Guxcacul and Mtural? Their survivors live in the Empire now, as citizens. We have much in common with them, and while they are alien, we understand each other. The four Consortium races lived in peace for hundreds of years. So why are Sowir so different?”
“You are right, but we have much more in common with Guxcacul and Mtural than with the Sowir. Both Guxcacul and Mtural communicate using sounds, they can both perceive light, both can see and hear. We have no idea how the Sowir perceive the world around them. For all we know their perception of the world is so different than ours, so alien, that we might never understand them. You need to realize that you might never get the answer to your question.”
“So what? We are destined to go to war with them? If we can’t make a lasting peace, something other than this non-aggression treaty, then it will come down to that.”
“Even if you could make peace, would you?” Seo-yun asked. Tomas looked at her confused.
“Of course I would!”
“Truly? You know that you can’t trust their word. They lived as part of the Consortium for a long time before they struck. They could do the same with us. This non-aggression pact we have with them will last only for as long as they want it to. You know that they will attack us. We might not be able to understand their decisions, but we can anticipate them from their past actions. They will attack us.”
“So even if we make peace it will last only until they gather enough strength to attack us.” Tomas said raising his eyes to look at the ceiling.
“Most likely.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas remained silent for a while, Seo-yun studied him. She saw a leader and Emperor, thinking, trying to find a path for his people. Finally, he turned and looked at her. “I made a vow Seo-yun.” He said, and the tone of his voice made Seo-yun shiver.
“I promised to myself and every being in the Empire that I will protect them. That I will never allow what happened to Earth to happen to us. I swore that we will never again be weak, that I will never allow our people to disappear from this Universe.” Seo-yun watched him as his expression turned hard. “I will not let Sowir be a threat to us.” The finality in his words made Seo-yun uneasy, but she believed in Tomas, the man she loved. She believed that he would do anything to protect his people, human or otherwise.
Chapter Four
Jun; Year 30 – Warpath system
The small ship arrived in Warpath system with a small burst of violet light as it exited the trans-lane from Waypoint system. Adrian sat on the bridge of his small transport ship, looking at the holo of the system he was the leader of. Warpath system was an enormous asteroid belt, or field, orbiting the system’s sun. The Empire’s best scientists were stumped to explain how the belt was formed, but all agreed that it once had planets, and that something catastrophic occurred that resulted in the planets destruction and the creation of the asteroid belt.
Whatever it was that caused it happened a long time ago. Now this system was the perfect place for his Clan, and what he wanted it to become. The holo showed the entirety of the Warpath system, even though the light from it still hadn’t reached the ship. The ship’s sensors gathered the information gathered by many passive sensor platforms scattered throughout the system. The small platforms constantly relayed their sensory data to every ship, station, or habitat in the system by FTL comms. A few seconds after Adrian’s ship exited the trans-space they received a challenge, which Adrian’s pilot answered, immediately after they were cleared to enter move towards the Warpath habitats. The challenge came from a massive asteroid battle station that guarded Warpath’s only incoming trans-station.
The Empire had two ways of traveling faster than light, hyperspace – which currently allowed their ships to move at around 30 times faster than the speed of light; and trans-travel. Traveling by using trans-space was much faster and very different than by using hyperspace. The only thing that ships need to do in order to enter hyperspace was to be far enough away from the star’s gravity influence, usually that was on the outskirts of a star system. To travel via trans-space, a ship first needed to find a trans-station. An area in space which was filled with what they called trans-particles, then project a sufficiently powerful trans-field onto the area in order to enter a trans-lane, the strength of the trans-field depended on the mass of the objects inside the trans-station. And the required field strength increased exponentially based on mass.
As far as they knew, trans-lanes were a natural occurrence, completely random, and could only be used to travel in a single direction. That is why relative to the system they were in they could be either incoming or outgoing. The trans-space that connected to points in space was called a trans-lane, and the two points trans-stations. Trans-lanes were similar to the theoretical wormholes. Warpath had two outgoing, and one incoming trans-station. It was also one of the more rare systems, in that it had connection both to and from another system. The system that it was connected to was Waypoint system, which was under control of clan Dai Ven, the trade center of the Empire. The Waypoint system was what they had come to call a hub. A system that had many trans-lanes, Waypoint had nine outgoing, and eleven incoming trans-stations.
This placed it in perfect position, as most movements through the empire had to go through Waypoint. It also had two way connection to two other systems, Warpath and Sanctuary. Travel time through a trans-lane also wasn’t bound by distance, meaning that sometimes the travel time for a shorter lane was longer than that through a longer lane. Travel time from Warpath to Sanctuary which was some sixty light years away was about thirty seven hours, counting the travel in normal space through Waypoint, from the Warpath’s trans-station to the Sanctuary’s.
A few minutes after Adrian’s ship entered the Warpath system, they arrived to their destination. Adrian watched on the holo, as his ship approached three big asteroids tethered to each other by massive cables, and held in orbits around each other by gravity generators. The three asteroids together made up Warpath’s only city, and they didn’t have names exactly, they were more like different districts of one city. Forge district, where most of Warpath’s production facilities were, Residential district where all of their living quarters, shops, and entertainment centers were, and the Warrior district where all of their training and learning centers were.