Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (11 page)

“We need to decide what path we are going to take. Are we going to be a people that will forgive those that had wiped out three other sentient races, nearly wiped out the fourth and killed our own people with no provocation? Are we going to seek justice?” Adrian’s gaze hardened and his eyes locked with Tomas’. “The truth is that our word to Sowir means as much as theirs means to us. Nothing. The one you give your word to needs to be worthy of trust and respect. The Sowir are none of those things, they are not worthy. We need to end the threat that they represent, not just because they pose a danger to us, but for all other races that they might encounter in the future.”

Laura looked at her son, “How can we fight them to such an extreme when we don’t understand their motives?”

Adrian turned his eyes to her. “It is exactly because we don’t understand them that we must fight them. The Sowir had had time enough to make their thinking known. And make no mistake, they understand us. They were a part of the Consortium for a long time. They couldn’t have done that without knowing the motives of the Consortium races. And yet they never even tried to make themselves understood. They are schemers and backstabbers. And they do not suffer other races to be in their vicinity. Their reasons don’t matter, their actions do, and they need to be stopped.” Adrian then turned back to Tomas.

“If you want the Empire to become what you imagined, we will need to be ready to make this kind of decisions. I am not saying that we should respond to every threat with force, but we must not shy away from it. Negotiating, trying to understand one another, and compromising, are things we cannot abandon. There will be times in the future when we will need to use these things. Willingness to completely annihilate any threat that refuses to negotiate, refuses to understand us or teach us to understand them, and refuses to compromise, that, is the thing that will make us strong. It will be a burden on us yes, but in the end we will save more lives, and keep countless others from suffering.”

Then Adrian’s eyes softened a bit and he continued. “We humans like to think of ourselves as morally right, as good guys, as people that believe violence and war have no place in a civilized society. Those are ideals we strive towards and look up to. But the truth is not so simple. We are not a peaceful race. No matter how much we try to tell ourselves and others that we hate war, we relish and thrive in it, even with all the horrors it brings. Having an ideal of peace to strive towards is a good thing, it is what keeps our nature in check. And humanity is capable of acts of immense greatness and goodness. But deep down most of us are fighters, survivors, and warriors. A mother will kill to protect her child, most humans will take up arms and fight to protect something dear to them, violence is not something that is hard for us. We must not forget that, our warrior nature is what has brought us this far against so many obstacles, we cannot abandon that part of us for as long as there are things we wish to protect.”

Tomas looked at Adrian and thought back on the boy that was in command of a small warship in the orbit of Earth, speeding away to avenge the deaths of innocent people. With every word Adrian spoke, Tomas could feel something inside himself finally come together.

“You are right Adrian. We cannot afford to let the Sowir run free across the galaxy. Whether they will force us to deal with them permanently or not is their decision.” Tomas said. He then looked at Isani. “What do you think?”

Isani was thoughtful and didn’t respond immediately, then after a couple of moments he spoke. “Our history has made us abhor violence and war, we believed ourselves superior, as you said civilized. And we allowed Sowir to trick us, that mistake cost us most of our people as well as our closest allies. The Sowir cannot be left alone to spread across the universe killing all in their way. We must stop them.”

The rest of the table was silent for a few minutes until the silence was finally broken by Jack. “And are we truly able to do that? They have more territory than us, much greater population, and have been in space for longer than we have.”

It was Seo-yun who answered him. “Their technology is inferior to ours, in the last thirty years we have leaped ahead with the help of technology we brought from Earth that they developed during the Great War, and from the wreckage of the Ra’a’zani ship and samples of their technology. Not to mention the sphere that Clan Leader Jusan brought to us from Nelus. Dominion’s only strength is the size of their territory and numbers. And our trans-travel capability will make their size and numbers matter little if we can move faster than they can respond. And if they decide to attack our systems they will be met with defenses that will be able to hold out long enough for our fleets to arrive, if the system defenses themselves don’t prove sufficient enough.”

“Well, we did learn a few more things over the last six months of monitoring of their systems.” Laura interjected. Tomas nodded, that was actually the reason he called this meeting. He gestured for Laura to speak.

She cleared her throat and started. First she placed a small black box on the glass table and a hologram of several Sowir ships and an old class Olympus dreadnought sprang to life in front of them. “Well, first let’s start with this. These are a new class of Sowir warships that we haven’t seen before. Obviously they are inspired after our old dreadnought class as you can all see from their size. They are a bit bigger, about nine hundred meters long, and as you can see they have reinforced armor in certain parts. We believe that they used their standard hull materials for most of the ship, and then reinforced the rest with metals. They must have seen the effectiveness of our ships and tried to adapt some of our technology.”

“Do we know how many they have?” Adrian asked.

“There are one hundred and ten in their staging system. We believe that these are all they have and that this will be their first engagement. The ships have clearly never been in battle.” Laura answered, and Adrian turned his palm sideways in a Nel gesture of agreement.

“Another more interesting thing we discovered is this.” Laura said and the holo changed to show a grouping of differently shaped Sowir ships. “These are their battleships and cruisers, the same class as they fielded thirty years ago. We haven’t seen any new classes of ships other than the Sowir dreadnoughts in the staging system. But what is interesting here is this.” She said, and the holo zoomed in on one of the ships.

The people in the room studied the holo and then Adrian’s second in command Isani spoke. “Those are clear indications of repairs.”

Laura nodded. “Yes. More than half of the ships we managed to get a look at, are ships that have been repaired in some quantity. And there are too many ships that were damaged, for them to be ships from the war with the Consortium. If your people’s data is correct they fought that war with about six hundred ships and most of those were destroyed.”

“Yes, the data is correct. But then who had these ships been fighting?” Isani said.

“Could have any other races of the Consortium still be alive?” Adrian asked.

“They would have tried to get a word out to Nelus that they survived.”

“And what about another race, were there any neighbors close to the Consortium.” Adrian asked.

Isani shook his head. “No. And the Consortium never did explore on the other side of the Sowir space. There wasn’t a real reason for us to go there, the Sowir were a part of our Consortium and it wasn’t like we were expansionists.” Isani said.

“If these ships are now here, something must have happened to free them up. Either they neutralized the threat or they came to an agreement.” Laura said.

Tomas was looking thoughtfully at the holo when a thought struck him. “That might be why they accepted the treaty so fast, and why they left Nelus alone for so long. Perhaps they had another war on the other side of their territory.” He said.

“That could be right, the prospect of fighting a war on two fronts might have scared them, but whatever it was is no longer relevant. They are no longer tied up somewhere else.” Jack added.

“That may be so, but there is one more thing we realized by observing their systems.” Laura said and the holo changed to show two different vids. “These are two of the Sowir border systems. As you can see on the left, there was an incident on one of their stations, an explosion in one of their docking points. On the right here you can see one of the Sowir transport ships, less than twenty minutes after the explosion in the first system, it docked with the station in its system and then proceeded towards the hyperspace barrier. A month later it arrived in the system of the incident, it went straight to the station, and upon its arrival the repairs of the station began in earnest. It was obvious that they had waited on the materials from the second system.” Laura stopped and looked around the room.

“They didn’t send a comm drone… FTL comms? You are telling us that Sowir have FTL comms?” Jack asked.

Laura nodded grimly. “Yes. It is the only thing that makes sense. They are still using comm drones, which suggests that this is a new find. But this still complicates things for us.”

“No kidding. If their fleet has FTL comms it shortens the time we have to attack their territory before they recall the fleet from Nelus. It shortens it by half.” Jack said.

“True, but it will still take them months to get back. And with our trans-drives we will be able to strike at systems faster than they can respond. We will only need to work faster and make their fleet split up so that we can take it apart when it is weaker.” Laura said.

“And what about Nelus?” Seo-yun asked. “It will take us a few more months at the least to get ready for our invasion, by that time the Sowir will have surely attacked Nelus. If we commit most of our forces to attacking the Dominion will we have enough to defend Nelus? I doubt that Sowir will recall all of their forces and leave Nelus alone after they have already started an invasion.”

“You are right, they will most likely leave a force to either finish Nelus or to blockade it. Our response is fluid at the moment, if we commit our forces to defending Nelus we will be met with force that outnumbers ours, and even with our technological advantage we will be forced to follow the tempo that the Sowir set. We will take much more casualties than we would if we manage to split their forces and take them on when we have the advantage. Nelus’ defense is another factor, we know that their ships are inferior, but they have a good enough fortified system, and we did warn them. They might be able to cut down Sowir numbers a bit more as well.” Laura said. “That is why our plan at the moment is for Adrian’s fleet to provide aid for Nelus, while our main fleet invades the Dominion.”

“My fleet will be ready by the end of the year. But my original plan was to have the fleet supported by a fleet of drones, at least one hundred. And Warpath sadly doesn’t have the capability yet to build the drones and finish the fleet in time.” Adrian said then shook his head. “I think that we need to change our plans a bit. If Sowir have FTL comms our advantage will be countered, we might be able to outmaneuver them, but we won’t have the element of surprise anymore, after our first attack every Sowir system will know about us.”

“What do you suggest?” Tomas asked.

“I suggest that we take on the Sowir fleet at Nelus.” Adrian answered.

“If we send our fleet there, it will just give the Sowir a warning about us and time to do something about it. Not to mention that if we engage in a fight where they have an advantage in numbers, we will take more casualties.” Laura said.

Again Adrian shook his head and smiled softly. “I think that you are greatly underestimating how much more advanced our ships are. The Sowir ships are the same as they were thirty years ago, their new class is bigger, but it is nothing new. We on the other hand have built an entirely new fleet that is upgraded by the combined knowledge of the Consortium, Earth, and us. The Earth had more than sixty years to develop its technologies after we left, and they did. Our ships are superior, and they aren’t even equipped with the latest technological advancements we have. My ships on the other hand are. I am not suggesting that we send the Empire’s fleet to Nelus. My ships will go as planned, what I want is that you give me all of your battleships to come with me.”

“Our battleships?” Laura asked.

“Yes. My ships are powerful, but you are right, the numerical advantage of the Sowir is something I am not yet prepared to pit them against. That is why I want the battleships to serve as support. As soon as the Sowir fleet arrives at Nelus, my fleet can come in and catch them between the defenders and us. While your fleet invades their territory. If we eliminate the Sowir fleet before they can recall it, our invading fleets will have an easier job.” Adrian said.

“If we give you the battleships our invading fleet will be only dreadnoughts and support ships.” Laura stated.

Adrian nodded, “The Kraken class will fill the role of battleships, and it will have more of the advanced tech.”

Laura thought about it for a minute then nodded. “It could work. If you are sure that you can take care of the Sowir fleet.”

“Yes, with the help of Nelus fleet.” Adrian said.

“Well then, I guess that we need to start developing a new plan.” Tomas said.

Chapter Ten

February; Year 31 – Trivax

A flash of blue light announced a ship dropping out of hyperspace. A moment later, several more flashes appeared and even more ships arrived, the rate of new arrivals increased until dozens started arriving every few seconds. But soon enough the flashes of light stopped and eighty six ships stood silently at the hyperspace barrier of Trivax system. Then a few minutes later all of the ships started moving together towards Rofvax, the fifth planet in the Trivax system.

***

Quvor raced through the halls of the Space Exploration Center on Trivax, the headquarters for the entirety of Trivaxian’s space affairs. He was woken not twenty minutes ago by news that their satellites detected visitors to their system. Quvor had immediately dressed and left his temporary quarters, he was visiting the headquarters for his annual brief and assessment, which was mandatory for all who served in the Space Exploration Fleet (SEF). Quvor was the Commander of all SEF ships, after his encounter with the first alien life, his career path changed, he became the most famous Trivaxian, and with the gift that the aliens gave him his people changed. It wasn’t easy, there was a lot of strife, but eventually they united and created the Space Exploration Institute to study and develop the technologies that the aliens gifted them with.