“When are we leaving?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
“In a week. I tried to convince Anessa to wait until the rest of our fleets arrive, but she is stubborn. She doesn’t want to wait any longer; she is readying her Legions to retake their hub systems before the Erasi reinforcements can arrive,” Adrian answered.
“How will the Shara Daim react once they see my people? Or do you still plan on keeping most of us on our ships at all times?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
Adrian sighed. “You will be by my side most of the time. If anyone has a problem with that, they will deal with me.”
“And you believe that your presence is enough to stop any hostility?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
Adrian snorted out loud. “Nope, the Shara Daim are stubborn and their Dai Sha set in their ways. I spoke with Anessa and she agrees that they need to be brought down a bit; they need to realize that being Shara Daim doesn’t automatically make them superior to any other race,” Adrian sent, and turned to look at Lurker of the Depths. “If anyone tries to do something, just drop them to the floor.”
“If I have no choice,” Lurker of the Depths sent with a small undercurrent of amusement beneath his words.
Adrian smiled. He couldn’t wait to see a few of the Dai Sha try to intimidate his former teacher.
Chapter Seven
June; Year 58 of the Empire — Sanctuary
Tomas sat in his office and reviewed the latest report from Tarabat and Shara Radum, forwarded from Sol. Sentinel Aileen was having trouble with getting the Erasi to agree to anything, and given that they had a massive fleet assembled, they probably didn’t even want peace. Tomas grimaced as he remembered the Erasi reinforcements; he was doubtful that any aid from the Empire could actually help the Shara Daim against those numbers, but Adrian believed otherwise. And Tomas trusted Adrian’s judgment.
But the fact that the Erasi were capable of fielding such numbers made him anxious. With the last six fleets that he had sent to Adrian, the Empire was left with only four fleets to defend itself. Of course, there were the system guards, which consisted of drones and old class warships, but against a modern fleet they would have trouble, except for Warpath’s guard fleet, which was based on their Vanguard ships. And there was also the fact that his four fleets were spread apart across the Empire’s territory. One fleet was always at Sanctuary, but the other three patrolled the other five sectors of the Empire. And while the Empire’s shipyards were extremely advanced and could produce new fleets incredibly quickly, it was still not enough. An empire like the Erasi had far more resources and manpower.
Tomas had been trying to find another way for them to end the Erasi conflict other than with force; he had even offered to give them the Empire’s skim tech, and still they didn’t agree. They had played around the offer, showing interest but not really agreeing to anything. He knew now that they were stalling, but he had still believed that the skim technology was a good enough offer for them to give up from war. And yet they were still set on that path; all their public actions gave an impression that they were dealing in good faith, but he could see that they would not abort their plans.
Tomas rubbed his eyes and sighed, raising his head to look at the ceiling. He needed to give Adrian the tools to help the Shara Daim and end the conflict with the Erasi, but the Empire simply didn’t have an industry capable of matching their opponent. He knew that they could close the gap, given time. They had superior tech, and in a decade or maybe two, the Empire could match the Erasi. The problem was that they didn’t have time. His thoughts strayed to project Sovereign. He was certain that if those four ships were ready, they would have a much easier time against the Erasi, not simply because of their firepower, but also because they could travel between Nelus, Sol, and Shara Radum almost instantly. They could transport ships, personnel, defense platforms, or simply materials incredibly fast. But Isani had convinced him that that was impossible, that the project was too far away from completion.
For a moment, Tomas had even toyed with the idea of sending the Enduring, the ship left by Axull Darr. But he knew that that would be a bad idea; the consequences would be far larger. That ship could probably deal with the Erasi fleets, but it was still only one ship, that could be only in one place at a time, and Erasi had who knew how many more ships available. Not to mention what showing that ship would mean both for the Empire and all who learned of it. He’d decided against it, trusting that his people would find a way.
They needed this, to struggle, to fight. They couldn’t rely on tech that they didn’t understand, hadn’t mastered. To do that was to go down the path that would ultimately lead to them growing complacent and weak. And Tomas had vowed long ago that his people would never again be weak.
“If the enemy is so powerful, how are their machine armies keeping them contained?” Seo-yun asked the floating shape in the middle of the room. The hologram of Axull Darr floated and looked in her eyes with no expression on his face. Before his death, Axull Darr, the ultimate ancestor of humans, Nel, and Shara Daim, had made an image of his mind, a copy of his memories and everything else that made him a person, and put it in three spheres that contained all the knowledge of the People, the first intelligent race in the galaxy. Two of the spheres had been lost, and the third was on a pedestal in front of Seo-yun.
“Attrition,” the ‘shadow’ of Axull Darr responded.
“What do you mean by that? You said that they were more advanced than you. Your machine armies couldn’t be advanced enough to battle them,” Seo-yun pressed. She was inquisitive by nature, a scientist that had learned many fields and would learn many more now that she would never age. She just couldn’t let it be; she needed to know.
“Machines are built far faster and easier; it takes a while for the enemy to renew their numbers. Each of their soldiers and ships must be grown using life and biomass. They are better than the machines, but they also take a long time to make. The machine army and the AIs guiding it simply throw ships and machine soldiers at them as fast as they make them. And the People had extremely fast building capabilities,” Axull Darr responded.
“I still don’t understand how they are keeping them contained so much. That is an enormous area of space that they need to keep under their control in order to keep them contained. Ten thousand lightyears in every direction. If they are keeping them surrounded, that is hundreds of thousands of square lightyears.”
“The enemy doesn’t expand like how you think. They move into an area a couple hundred systems large and devour it, then they move to a new cluster, abandoning the first. Their territory is moving constantly. The area that they are protecting is smaller than what you are imagining, and it is a perfect sphere, with most of the fighting happening on the edges of that sphere. We do not know what is happening deeper in their territory, but the fact that the enemy has advanced means that the containment is a temporary measure,” Axull Darr said.