Anessa looked at Adrian in surprise. “You always see these letters and symbols?”
“Most of the time. Not as much here, as they only work with those who have implants and objects that have our computers, and you don’t. I don’t know what you are seeing now, but my HUD is customized to show information important to me, and I can of course always turn it off and clear my vision,” Adrian responded.
Anessa was amazed that after several months of living together there was still a thing about Adrian and the Empire that she wasn’t aware of. She could immediately see the benefits of being able to overlay information over her vision.
Iris flew into her vision and spoke again. “Your HUD is just a standard one. The symbols to the side are a message queue—your suit can receive messages—and a time display. Since you don’t have an implant, you can’t modify your HUD with mental commands, but you can remove the computer chip and access it on any console and then modify it through there.”
“This version of the armor also has a lot more features more suited for combat,” Adrian said. “For example, last time we fought, you damaged my visual sensors, so I lost half of my vision and was forced to remove my helmet during the battle. This helm”—Adrian tapped his head—“is much sturdier, and there is another feature that can help with vision in case the outside nano-cameras are damaged.” Anessa saw several somethings move fast from his back and then fly over his head. Whatever those were, they were too small to be easily seen by eye, and as she tried to focus her eyes on one of the objects, a portion of her vision split and a small rectangle-shaped window appeared showing the object she was looking at, only much bigger, and Anessa took a step back.
“What is it?” Iris asked.
“I was trying to see what those things were and a portion of my vision changed,” Anessa said.
“Ah, yes, the suit is intuitive. It realized that you were trying to see something either far away or very small and it zoomed in on it,” Iris said.
Anessa was impressed, and slowly started to see why Adrian thought that his armor was better than her Shur At. “And what are those?” Anessa asked, pointing at the small objects flying over Adrian’s head.
“They are small drones. They have cameras and can be used as scouting tools or as an aid in the event that my visual sensors are damaged, as they can stream their feeds directly to my HUD,” Adrian answered.
“That is… useful,” Anessa said. Suddenly she felt very glad and honored that Adrian had had one of these suits made for her.
“And that isn’t all,” Adrian said, and Anessa could detect a smile in his voice.
A moment later, a short blade extended from his right forearm, silver in color with a dark blue edge and looking very sharp. “This is a monomolecular blade,” Adrian said. “Its edge is one molecule thick, which means that it can basically cut through anything. And in case of the edge getting damaged, all you need to do is apply a charge and the molecules will rearrange and fix the damage.”
Anessa looked at the blade in fascination, then glanced at her own forearm. A moment later, she found a trigger with the word ‘blade’ attributed to it and she pressed it. Her own blade extended from her forearm and she studied it carefully.
“Then there is this,” Adrian said as he retracted the blade and showed her his other forearm. A moment later, three slots opened and three round black balls floated out as Anessa felt Adrian use the Sha. “They are enforced ri-steel-carbon polymer. I had them made as an alternative weapon,” Adrian said, and she saw him move the balls in a circle around him with them speeding up, and then shoot them off to the wall of the training room and targets placed there. All three balls hit the same target in quick succession with a loud boom, denting the steel targets. “As you can see, they require the Sha to be used, but these armors were intended only for Sha users.”
“That is ingenious,” Anessa said. Her people had been using Sha for a long time, and yet they had never devised such a simple way of using their power.
“And one last thing,” Adrian said, and he turned around to face the targets. Suddenly a part of the armor on his back extended over his shoulder and what was clearly a weapon of some kind swiveled forward. A moment later a blue light shone from the muzzle and small bolts of blue white energy started exiting the weapon in rapid succession, hitting the target and blowing small pieces of it. After about ten seconds, the weapon stopped firing, and Anessa looked at the hole it made in the target.
She turned to look at Adrian, who was now turned towards her. “This is the best gift anyone can get.”
Chapter Five
April; Year 58 of the Empire — Unknown system — Erasi super battleship
Hanaru, Weaver of the Erasi, stood on the bridge of his newest warship and watched the holo that showed a large swath of stars. He had been given an important mission by one of the Ancients, O’fa Garash. He had been given a large force, ten Erasi fleets of the newest generations that had just arrived from the core, in addition to a significant taskforce of the newest and most advanced stealth ships. All ship classes looked the same as the previous generations from the outside, but inside they had significant upgrades, the best technologies that Erasi currently possessed. The super battleship that now served as Hanaru’s flagship had an increase in firepower of around twenty percent, and an almost thirty percent increase in the shield strength, not to mention many software and structural improvements.
He had a force of twenty-one thousand warships, and another couple hundred support and scout ships. And he needed those numbers if he was to fulfill his mission: to cripple the Empire’s ability to aid the Shara Daim. To do that, he needed to first find out more about them, which meant scouting their territory. Which to date had delivered limited success, as the Empire was somehow able to see the Erasi stealth ships. Thankfully, the Ancient had given him a taskforce of the newest generations of stealth ships, ones that used a different kind of tech which his experts believe would not be detectable.
He had already sent them out to scout possible targets, and as their intel from before was limited, they had a lot of work to do. But their task was easier, as the Ancient had also provided a partial map of trans-lanes in the Empire’s territory. Hanaru hadn’t dared to ask the Ancient where he had procured that map, as he was unaware that any of their spy attempt against the Empire succeeded, but once he got his eyes on the map, his curiosity only increased, because the map was dated to more than ten thousand years before they had even encountered the Empire. Hanaru assumed that it was from the database of the Ancient’s people, from a time when before the Erasi was formed.
The map also had a lot of interesting tidbits attached to it. It appeared that the Ancient’s people had been looking for a world that could sustain them but also had a good strategic placement. Which meant that they were looking for a hub system, and if he was reading the data correctly, Hanaru was sure that they had considered the homeworld of the Human race as a possibility. There was also a mention of an asset left on the planet to observe the intelligent life occupying it and report back, but the reports had stopped coming after several hundred years. Hanaru looked but hadn’t seen any indication that someone had ever gone back for the asset, and as he checked the timeline, he realized that it had stopped transmitting about the same time that the Erasi were formed, so he assumed that it had simply been forgotten.
But the fact that there was an asset on the world where Humans originated was incredibly interesting, and raised several intriguing questions. Questions that Hanaru would’ve loved to find the answers for. But he had another mission now, one of far greater importance.