“How have the machines not defeated them? Built a force strong enough to overwhelm them?” Seo-yun asked.
“The enemy is not grabbing new territory with its full strength. They are moving slowly, at their own pace. Amassing a large force has been tried before, but each time Ullax tried to build more forces away from the front, the enemy would send more ships threatening to overwhelm the border, forcing them to pull back the resources to the front.”
“Ullax? That’s an anagram of your name,” Seo-yun said curious.
“Yes, our names are anagrams of each other. Ullax is my twin sister; she came up with the idea for the containment.”
“Oh. Is she still alive?” Seo-yun asked.
“Possibly, but I don’t know. Our—or rather, Axull’s and her parting was not on best terms. As far as my memories go, they did not speak after they parted.”
“What could have been so bad that they didn’t speak afterwards?”
Axull Darr was silent for a time before answering. “Axull had doubts about the motives for her decision.”
“Motives?”
“I will not speak more on this.”
Seo-yun was tempted to push, but she managed to control the urge. Instead, she steered the conversation back at the previous topic. “You said that the enemy is not fighting at full strength?”
“No, they only showed glimpses of it when Ullax and the others tried to pull resources from the containment to build up forces. It was as if they could feel that Ullax and the others wanted to try something, so they pushed harder, forcing them to recall the resources they tried to use.”
“But why keep themselves back if their purpose is to devour life?”
“We do not know what their purpose is,” Axull Darr said.
“What? Didn’t you say that they only want to devour life?”
“Yes, they need life to fuel themselves, to grow faster, and any life that happened in their path was destroyed. But we do not know what their real purpose is. Their actions suggest that there is something else, but they have always taken their time, so it has been assumed that they, like the People, are immortal, and that they have time and are in no rush. No incursion into the center of their territory has ever succeeded. We know very little of their actual motives, and the three always spoke cryptically.”
“You spoke with them?” Seo-yun asked, surprised.
“Of course, they were our people. We tried to talk to them, to get them to stop the abominations that they had created. But instead all we got were the offers of a gift of Enlightenment.”
“Enlightenment?”
“They call themselves the Enlightened now. They had taken new names, each a variation on the old language of the People and the word for Enlightened in different dialects—Anis—so they became Aranis, Loranis, and Doranis. The three had offered to make us like them, telling us that we would understand once we were changed,” Axull Darr said sadly. “We of course refused their offer. Whatever had happened to them had clearly driven them insane.”
Seo-yun didn’t respond. Perhaps it was too soon for them to deal with something that was clearly far above them. Each of Axull Darr’s answers only gave rise to new questions.
“I can see now why you didn’t want to tell us too much,” Seo-yun said. “There are so many unanswered questions, and there is nothing that we can do to find the answers.”
“No, there isn’t. In time, I hope that you will be able to answer them.”
Chapter Eight
Ten days later; July — Tarabat
“The Shara Daim have been very clear. Unless you are prepared to meet with their leadership and deal with them in person, and soon, they will retake their systems, and they will not stop at the previous border. They cannot allow you to keep their worlds and people any longer,” Aileen said.
“We understand, of course. But these kind of talks are delicate, and our leadership is in the core,” a Gatrey, Katunaru, said.
“Then you will have war again, and my people will be joining the side of the Shara Daim,” Aileen stated.
“There is no reason for you to involve yourselves in this conflict; there is no cause for it between us.” Katunaru said.
“You started the war with the Shara Daim with no provocation; that tells us a great deal about you. And you have attacked three of the Empire’s ships and destroyed one, killing thousands,” Aileen said coldly.
“An isolated incident, instigated by a rogue commander. Hanaru will be found and will answer for his actions,” Katunaru said dismissively, as the Erasi negotiators always did. The sad part was that Aileen knew that it wasn’t just a rehearsed line; he truly believed that the attack and the deaths of the Empire’s citizens were nothing more than a small incident. The aides sitting around Katunaru seemed to share his opinion. And she knew that they would never find Hanaru. Jurr had not been able to find any more information on the Gatrey; he had probably already disappeared to who knew where.
“And the Shara Daim have been threatening our borders for a long time,” Katunaru continued. “You only need to look at their history to understand why we chose to attack preemptively. They have always looked at other races with distaste. Until you came along, they have never dealt with another race fairly. Our government is not convinced that they are prepared to deal with us in good faith.”
“My Emperor guarantees it. You have this one chance to make peace with the Shara Daim; if you do not take it, you will be at war with both them and the Empire,” Aileen said, and stood up. “This is your last chance. Unless I get a favorable response by the end of the day, the Empire will close its embassy on Tarabat, and with it all diplomatic relations between us.” She nodded once to Katunaru and his aides and then left the room.
It took her and the adept guard less than half an hour to get to the compound, and Aileen headed straight for the communications room. The compound was almost empty. Most personnel had been moved to Aileen’s ship, Jewel, ever since she had received word from Adrian. The only ones remaining at the compound were Aileen, Adept Garani, Communications Adjunct Khan, and Compound Leader Björn. She knew that it was unlikely that the Erasi would agree to anything, and she wanted to be prepared to leave fast. Once inside the communications room, Adjunct Khan greeted Aileen.
“Get me a link with the relay. I need to send a message to Sol,” Aileen said. The Empire had already put a relay net between Sol and Tarabat, and another one between Sol and Shara Radum should be going online in a few days. So while she needed to send a message to Adrian, it would actually get there faster if it was relayed through Sol, as the Shara Daim and Erasi didn’t have any relays between them, and even if they had, Aileen wouldn’t have used their networks to send information.
“That’s strange…” Adjunct commented.
“What’s strange?”
“I can’t get a signal out. Give me a sec,” Adjunct Khan said, and started working on his station. Holowindows flew around, moved by both his hands and his imp. Aileen waited impatiently for him to elaborate, but the man knew how to do his job and didn’t need her interrupting.
“Ah, here it is. The Erasi put out an alert a few minutes ago; a hyperstorm appears to have formed over Tarabat’s hyperspace area. Communications using hyperspace will be impossible for some time,” Khan said.
“A hyperstorm? Is that a real thing?” Aileen asked suspiciously.
Khan turned to look at her. “Oh yes, we know about them, but they should be very rare, and the Empire still hasn’t encountered one. It’s unlikely for them to form over a system, so we still haven’t caught one that we can study more in-depth. Records we have are from much… simpler instruments.”