Onslaught (Rise of the Empire Book 6) (4 page)

“But we do not go around eradicating other cultures towards that goal,” Johanna said.

“Don’t we?” Adrian asked. “We might not use destructive weapons, but the result is the same. Any race that joins our Empire leaves who they were behind in order to become something new. We have destroyed cultures of every race that had joined our Empire.”

“Perhaps, but how will you make peace with them?” Johanna asked.

Adrian’s expression turned hard. “I am going to do what the Empire had been doing since its founding: I am going to destroy their civilization. I am going to shatter their belief that they are special, that they are the ones destined to rule the galaxy. I am going to force them to change. And the only way to do that is from within.”

Chapter Four

One month later — April; Year 55 of the Empire—Tarabat—Erasi space

Aileen, Sentinel of the Empire, walked into the small establishment, struggling not to rip the uncomfortable breathing mask off her face. She was in one of Tarabat’s domed cities, built to accommodate races that couldn’t breathe the air of Tarabat. She had spent the last few months on the planet’s surface, expanding the Empire’s influence with the Erasi and other races in the region. But she had also been trying to learn more about the Erasi, their practices and goals.

As she stepped inside, she noticed that the ceiling of the establishment was low, and she had to hunch in order to not hit her head. Before she’d the chance to take more than a few steps in, she was met with a strange insect-like creature which was almost all spindly appendages coming out of two larger round sections. Its head was at the end of a short and somewhat thicker ‘neck’ and was circular with multifaceted eyes and three sets of mandibles above them. Her implant immediately provided her with the information about the alien race on her HUD; its race’s name in its native tongue was unpronounceable by Aileen, and most other races, which was why they simply called them Hav. The alien was wearing the Erasi translation device, as all did here on Tarabat.

“Welcome I-you,” the alien said. The translator might have been an amazing piece of technology, but there existed races whose speech patterns were just too strange to translate precisely. The Hav were one such race.

“Greetings,” Aileen said. “I was told that I might find what I am looking for here.”

“What, looking might you be?” the Hav said.

“Information about the Weavers,” Aileen said slowly.

The Hav froze for a moment, his multifaceted eyes looking at her intently. Aileen reached out gently with her mind, trying to get a feeling of the Hav’s emotions. The Hav did not possess telepathy, which meant that it would be much harder for her to feel anything. But soon enough she got a few snippets from his mind—the Hav was frightened.

“I was sent by Narateth,” Aileen said quickly, and the Hav immediately relaxed upon hearing the name of the Jugat who had become a great help to the Empire’s people on Tarabat.

“Good, should told-know that before,” the Hav said, then turned and started walking towards the back room. “Come.”

Aileen followed and was led into a room that was half filled with some kind of green fog. She stepped inside the larger room, the fog reaching to her hips. The Hav was almost completely submerged, hidden except for its head.

“Here, information is,” the Hav said, and turned and left confused Aileen inside the room. She looked around, seeing nothing but the fog. She reached out with her mind, fearing some kind of a trap. Then something brushed against her mind, just as the surface of the fog rippled. Aileen took a step back and readied herself for a fight when a voice boomed inside her head.

“Fear me not, child,”
the voice boomed.

Aileen shuddered at the intensity and the strength of the mind that spoke.
“Who are you? Show yourself,”
she sent.

The fog rippled again, and a head slowly rose, with a scale-covered, snake-like body following behind. The triangular head with large horns curved backwards rose to look down on Aileen, and the being opened its mouth, allowing her to see three rows of sharp, jagged teeth on both the upper and lower jaws. The being released a surprisingly soft and musical sound from its throat before its jaws closed and it lowered itself to be at eye level with Aileen.

“You may call me Jurr, although that is not my name. Others call my kind the Uraasat, though that is not the name of our kind,”
sent the being, Jurr.

“And what is your real name?”
Aileen asked curiously.

She felt the being’s amusement.
“You would not be able to comprehend it in your tongue; Jurr and Uraasat will suffice. And who might you be, little child?”

“My name is Aileen, from the Empire that has recently made contact with the Erasi,”
Aileen responded, embarrassed for not introducing herself immediately.

“Ah, I have heard of your Empire. You who dared kidnap a Shara Daim Dai Sha, whose ship shrugged off Shara Daim attacks and escaped so effortlessly,”
Jurr sent, again with the hint of amusement.

“We are planning on returning the Dai Sha to her people soon,”
Aileen added, chagrined. Something about this creature made her feel inadequate.

The Uraasat released a rasping sound at the same time as Aileen felt laughter from its mind.
“Tell me, what aid might I provide to a people such as yours? Few find my doors without needing knowledge of something special.”

“I wish to know about the Erasi, about their Weavers,”
Aileen sent.

“Ahhh...May I ask how you learned about them?”

“Erasi have good security measures, but we have been able to acquire a few snippets of information. We don’t know much, only that they are...instrumental in the Erasi,”
Aileen said.

Jurr tilted its head and studied her with its dark red eyes.
“The Erasi seem like a great and free society; many different races are allowed to live and trade freely among themselves within its borders, with the Erasi there to ensure that the contracts made are honored. And yet they are not at all what they appear to be.”

“How so?”
Aileen asked.

“Nothing is free in the Erasi, a payment first.”
Jurr sent, Aileen was already warned on how much this audience will cost, so she reached into her coat’s inner pocket and grabbed preloaded credit chip and extended her hand towards the creature. One moment later the chip floated off her palm and down into the mist.

“Who rules the Erasi?”
Jurr asked.

“Their founding races, the Gatray, the Uvaramo, and the Sorvani,”
Aileen answered.

“Yes, and they have ruled for a long time...How many would you say are close to their level?”

Based on what Aileen and her people had learned, she knew that there was no race that could match the three founding races. For all intents and purposes, they were the Erasi.

“You are saying that that is by design?”
Aileen asked.

“The Erasi has existed for a long time; it was built on the promise that all who join will grow equally. Yet the original three hold more territory, more warships, than all the other members combined. The others are used and exploited; the Erasi get a cut of any deal they enforce, and they control the distribution of technology. The races that join have no choice but to accept the Erasi terms, because without them they would be vulnerable, whether to their neighbors or stagnation,”
Jurr sent.

“There doesn’t seem to be any discontent with the other races, as far as I have seen,”
Aileen sent.

“And that is where the Weavers come in. They are the manipulators behind the curtains. They make sure that events transpire in the manner that benefits the three founding races. They make sure that the right people are in power, by bribing, intimidating, and assassinating when necessary. And their influence reaches far outside Erasi territory. They have toppled the governments of races that did not even know that the Erasi existed; they have instigated wars between peaceful neighbors, and made peace between mortal enemies, all so that they may grow more powerful,”
Jurr said with a hint of anger.
“My kind were once their victims. Unseen, they pushed another race to attack mine, and then they came and offered us aid which allowed us to destroy the attacking race completely. But the aid they provided was only enough to just barely ensure our victory, leaving us weak and broken and with no choice but to join the Erasi when they offered. Then, over the next couple of hundreds of years, they slowly drained us. Events happened that made us lose our interests, coincidences and accidents that forced us to downsize our holdings until we eventually lost all our territory. A disease that had no cure suddenly appeared among my people, leaving us infertile. And so over a relatively short period of time, they had ended my race.”
Jurr’s rage and sorrow slipped through the connection and into Aileen’s mind.

“Why did they do that?”
Aileen asked.

“A simple reason: because of fear,”
Jurr said as his head rose above her.
“My kind possessed power greater than theirs: telepathy, telekinesis, and other abilities. They did not wish to allow us to grow, fearing that one day we might become a threat. They will do the same to you, but unlike the Shara Daim, who will come after you openly, the Erasi will pretend to be your friends while manipulating events against you behind your backs.”

Aileen nodded, a gesture that was lost on the Uraasat. Adrian already had suspicions about the Erasi, ever since they had allowed the Veritas to leave Tarabat unopposed with a Shara Daim prisoner. It was why Aileen was here, to find more about them.
“We had suspected some of this,”
Aileen sent.
“I assume that you have more than just your words to back this claim?”

Jurr tilted its head again.
“You do not trust my words?”

“I did not know you yesterday, nor had I ever heard of your kind. And our short talk is not enough for trust to be built.”

Again, Jurr released a rasping sound that Aileen now knew was laughter, then it focused its eyes on her.
“Yes, I have more than just my words to back that up. The question is, what can you offer me in return for it?”

“Didn’t I already pay you for information?”

“What you desire is more than simple information, for something like this I require more than simple credits.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to see the Erasi burn, their civilization crumbled to ash,”
Jurr sent forcefully.

“That I cannot promise. We will protect our interests, but destroying the Erasi is another thing entirely,”
Aileen sent. Jurr rose to tower above her and she felt him starting to speak, but she interrupted him,
“But, there is something else that I can offer you that you will find worth equal or even more than what you ask.”

“And what might that be?”

“You said that your people have been infected with a disease. If it is in fact a disease artificially manufactured by the Erasi, or even if it is not, we might be able to help you. My people have a great knowledge of genetics and biological manipulation; we have eradicated all the diseases that once plagued us. We might be able to find a cure for your people,”
Aileen sent.

Jurr lowered its snake-like body until its head was again on the eye level with Aileen.
“To see my people restored, to see a youngling of my people again, that would be a gift greater than anything else,”
he sent. Then a small box rose out of the fog slowly and stopped in front of Aileen, held there telekinetically by the Uraasat.

Aileen reached out and took it in her hands. She opened the box and found six small Erasi datachips. She closed the box and turned her eyes back at Jurr.

“That is all that my people and our associates know about the Erasi Weavers and the three founding races. Hopefully it will prove useful to you,”
Jurr sent, then more intently continued,
“I will be sending some of my people to you under the guise of traders, so that you may make tests on the disease that plagues us.”

“I can only promise that we will try,”
Aileen said.

“That is more than any other in the Erasi have done,”
Jurr said, and slowly disappeared into the fog. Aileen followed his signature remotely. She felt him move further and further away, meaning that there must be passages below the fog. Aileen was aware that there were many lower levels of the Dome. Homes to creatures that liked different kind of environments.

Aileen waited until she could no longer feel the Uraasat, and then she turned and left the room, going back to her people.

Chapter Five

Several days later — April; Year 55 of the Empire—Veritas; trans-space

Anessa was twenty-three years old, and she had been studying to become a Dai Sha for seven years now, ever since she had finished her basic schooling. Dai Sha training was long and hard; more than ninety percent of all who were admitted into the program failed. However, Anessa knew that she would not fail; this was who she was meant to be.

She remembered clearly that day when her Sha had awakened, when she had almost killed a classmate. She remembered the adults speaking when they thought that she couldn’t hear, saying how what she had done was impossible, that her power equaled that of a grown person. She was called a prodigy, a Sha user unlike any who had been born in recent memory, perhaps ever.

She recalled her father’s words on his last day. He had been old when she was born, well into the last chapter of his life. He had called her to his room when she was twelve, and Anessa had gone, sitting on his bed and holding his fragile hand as he spoke to her. He’d told her how proud he was of her; he’d told her that there was no greater honor in life than to serve the Elders directly as a Dai Sha. And he knew about that; he had been a soldier, one that had reached to the height of the elite. He had been a Do Sun, serving under a great Dai Sha. He’d told her that she would be a weapon for her people, a Dai Sha unlike any before her. One that would protect her people. And she had believed him. From that day forward, her only desire had been to serve the Elders and her people. She had followed that desire.

She had been invited to study and become a Dai Sha by the Elders themselves, via holo-message, an honor never before heard of. She flew through the training easily; nothing was beyond her reach. The things other struggled with, she did with no effort at all; nothing forced her to use her full power or abilities. And she was among other people like her. Her fellow students were all unique, all talented with the Sha like she was. Few were close to her level of power, but all had the talent.

One of her fellows approached her as she walked towards the practice hall for her next lesson. When he was close enough, Narrasak grabbed her and pulled her to him, lowering his mouth to her neck, biting her flesh softly. Anessa allowed him his displays of affection in public. She had only recently discovered the pleasures that a man and a woman could give to one another, and she was enjoying herself. And Narrasak was a worthy partner; he was one of the strongest students in the program alongside Anessa.

“Narrasak, we will be late,” Anessa said, as she slowly disengaged herself.

“You’re right,” Narrasak said, his eyes gleaming with passion. “We will continue tonight.”

Anessa hit him in the shoulder as she passed, not bothering to respond. She could hardly wait. They reached the practice hall, and entered just a moment or two before their instructors.

After the practice, one of their Sha instructors asked her to stay behind so that he could speak with her alone.

“You are holding back,” he said once everyone had left.

“I’m not holding back, I just have no need to use everything I am capable of,” Anessa responded calmly.

“That is true, but it is not the whole truth. There is something that makes you pull back, and someday that might cost you your life,” the instructor told her. Anessa dismissed his words. What did he know? Already she could squash him like an insignificant pest. She knew that none of her instructors were truly her equals in terms of power.

Anessa woke from another dream of her past. It had been more than a century since she had last thought about the beginnings of her training to become a Dai Sha, or Narrasak. Once, she had thought that he would be her Dal A’sha, a life partner, but that dream had ended terribly. She shook her head and stood up from the bed, going to the cleaning room. She had barely had the chance to finish when she felt a familiar mind in front of her doors. She sighed and moved to clothe herself.

A few minutes later, Anessa stood across from Adrian, staring at him, still processing his words.

“You were serious?” she asked incredulously. She hadn’t really believed him when he came to her quarters and asked her to come with him so that they can spar. The two of them were the only people in the large room on his ship, obviously designed for training, with various machines and training courses lining the walls. “You captured me. Does that not tell you all you need to know?”

Adrian smiled at her, “I will not use the Sha. I want to spar with you, only using our physical abilities,” he said.

“You are a better fighter than me,” Anessa said slowly, still not understanding the point.

“I am not an idiot, Anessa, I felt your power when we fought. You weren’t fighting with your full capabilities; you were trying to capture me unharmed. We surprised you and outnumbered you, and we got lucky. I’m under no illusion that I could win a battle to the death if you had access to the Sha.”

Anessa looked at him calmly, knowing that his words were true. If she had fought with everything she had, Adrian and his people wouldn’t have left alive. But then, she had needed him alive. She couldn’t have risked harming him before she had had the chance to interrogate him, and she had underestimated him. A mistake that she will not repeat again. “Then what is the point?” she asked.

“Even without the Sha, you are stronger and faster; it is a good challenge for me. I can train fighting a stronger opponent. And you can learn more about my people’s way of fighting,” Adrian said. “Is that not the Shara Daim way? To always seek more strength, to reinforce your place at the top?”

Immediately, Anessa realized that this was a great opportunity for her to learn. “Our way is that of blood and death. To become stronger through spilling our enemies’ blood,” she said.

The two had touched upon their people’s philosophies only a bit, and Anessa had learned enough to know that the Empire’s way was far weaker. They valued the lives of lower creatures, and they even went as far as to uplift them, give them power that they did not deserve, and that made them weak as well.

“You are not worried that I will kill you?” she asked.

“You gave your word not to, but even if you did, what would it accomplish?” he asked, and then when she didn’t respond, he continued. “So, shall we?” Adrian said, and took a strange stance.

Anessa had never seen the kind of fighting style that Adrian utilized, for Shara Daim all styles relied on strength and were designed to fight non-Shara Daim opponents. Battles between Shara Daim were always decided by their talent with the Sha.

A chance to learn even a bit of Adrian’s style was a great boon which would make her stronger. Both of them wore the ‘skin-suits’ of the Empire, only they didn’t have the added over-garment that everyone Anessa had seen wore. She took a stance of her own, slightly spread feet and hands raised in front of her head.

With a last confident smile at Anessa, Adrian launched himself at her.

He was fast, but she was faster. She stepped forward, raising her right arm above her head and bringing it down in a powerful strike aimed at his shoulder. Adrian simply twisted his upper body, grabbed her arm as it was passing him, turned, and put his back at her front. She tried to grab hold of him with her other arm, to put it around his front, but before she was able, she found herself flying over his head and hitting the floor with her back, hard, her right arm still held by his. He twisted and put his knee at her elbow, somehow locking her entire body. Every time she tried to move, he would exert just a bit of force on her elbow and she was forced to stop or risk him breaking her arm. He looked at her from above for a moment or two before letting her go and stepping back.

Anessa slowly got to her feet while she kept her eyes locked on him. She had never felt more helpless in a fight. She didn’t have her Sha. She was stronger, faster, and bigger, yet she hadn’t been able to do anything to stop him as he threw her to the floor.

She charged him, lowering herself to catch him in his midriff, but he simply dropped to the floor and rolled, tripping her legs with his body. Anessa placed her hands on the floor and threw herself over her head, landing on her feet. She turned immediately, ready to defend herself, but Adrian was standing out of her range, watching her.

Anessa grinned at him smugly, and Adrian quirked an eyebrow before running straight at her. He jumped and twisted in the air, swiping his left leg at her torso. Anessa blocked and went in for a grab with her free hand. Adrian caught her hand, then placed his leg on her chest and pushed himself into a backflip, landing on his feet just as Anessa reached him again and tried to grab him. Her hands caught only air as Adrian danced away, hitting her in the side as he moved behind her. The punch barely stung her, and as she turned, he made a gesture with his hand that she didn’t recognize but whose meaning was apparent: ‘Come.’

She narrowed her eyes as she was thinking of likely strategies. He wasn’t slower than her by much, but it was enough that she should’ve caught him already, yet he somehow managed to avoid all her attacks. It was as if he knew what she was going to do before even she did. No, it wasn’t that, she realized; it was as if he read her moves just as she started them. In theory, that was what every warrior trained for, but to actually do it in combat at those speeds was another thing entirely. But if he was reading her so fast, then there were things she could do to mitigate his advantage.

***

What felt like hours later, Anessa and Adrian were still locked in a never-ending struggle. She was still trying to catch him and he still evaded her. She knew that she could’ve landed a few blows, but by some unspoken agreement, they had established that was not the purpose of this training exercise. And that was exactly what this was; Anessa had realized that Adrian was indirectly teaching her his way of fighting, and she was soaking everything as fast as she could.

His style was unlike anything she had seen, fluid, ever-changing to the situation. It didn’t rely on strength and speed, but on controlling his opponent’s movements, by using her strength against her. It was amazing. And as more and more time passed, she tried to stop relying on her strength and instead tried tricking him into a position favorable to her. She never did manage it, of course; he was always just a breath away. What she in the beginning had believed was him barely evading her, she now realized was intentional; he never made a move that was more than what was required, evading only enough to be out of her reach, taunting her, forcing her to be better.

Both of them were covered in sweat, their breaths coming quicker, but both of them had wide grins on their faces as they enjoyed the challenge, and Anessa couldn’t help but compare this to her own training in the Shara Daim.

Her training had been nothing like this; it had been a painful ordeal, and it had never been restricted only the physical aspect of combat. Their trainings always included the Sha, as there was never a time when they were without it, not until now. Anessa now knew that Shara Daim hand-to-hand prowess was lacking. They had never had the need to train it; why would they, when they could just throw their opponents with the Sha or keep them frozen long enough to land a hit?

She had been trained since she was a small child, since her talent with the Sha was discovered, always taught that Shara Daim were superior. She knew that one day she would be the first among the Shara Daim, a Dai Sha. She had been trained in the use of the Sha, pushed to her physical limits countless times, and always she’d returned stronger from that edge. But now, she could feel herself getting better, without the physical pain, all the while doing something that she enjoyed—fighting a worthy and strong opponent. She did not remember the last time that she had felt such simple joy.

Anessa’s goal was to restrain her opponent, and by now she had gotten a feeling for his movements. She prepared to make her final move. While she now had a basic understanding of her opponent’s style, she was nowhere near proficient enough to mimic it. But she had other advantages. Over the course of their ‘fight,’ she had slowed her movements to match his speed, used less strength, giving him a false sense of security. She allowed him to dictate the tempo of their movements.

And then she suddenly changed it; she moved faster, changing the target of her attack mid-way through. Her palm slammed on his wrist and she grabbed with all her strength. For a moment, she was surprised that she managed it. The moment was enough that she lost her balance. She reached over and took his other hand in hers, and Adrian took advantage of it. He pulled his hands back, her own hands following; she tried to regain her balance by leaning her weight on her opponent, but in the end both of them fell to the floor with Anessa on top of Adrian.

Her weight pinned him to the floor, her hands still holding his. Both of them were breathing hard, and she could feel his muscles tremble, just as hers were, from the effort of their exercise. She looked into his eyes. They were not like the eyes of Shara Daim; he had a brown ring surrounding the black pupil, and the ring was surrounded by white tissue, unlike her eyes, which were a white ring surrounded by black tissue. Humans did not appear to have secondary eyelids, although the few Nel she had seen seemed to have them.

For a moment she gazed down at him. He was looking back at her with a grin on his face. It surprised her how similar they were, despite the differences. She’d caught him, and that single act made her feel extremely proud, especially since she knew that her opponent was much better than her in terms of fighting. She returned his grin with one of her own. They stayed like that, time lost to them as their breaths mingled, and then Anessa remembered where she was. Her grin disappeared and she stood quickly, taking a few steps away from her enemy.