The Icarian Legacy Collected Edition: Brave Souls - First Strike (Volume 3) (57 page)

Before any of the Romans could respond the general followed his men inside the ship. He was proud even now and Flavius noticed his men walking taller as they saw him. He remembered the stories about another great general from Carthage, about Hannibal. He knew that he was the same before the end. He felt a strange sadness in his heart as the ramp raised and the doors closed.

Kvesar looked at him from the distance.

“You have time till the morning to be at a distance of one league from this place. Your gold is loaded Roman. There is one more carriage that is just for you and your men. Use it well.”

After this Kvesar and his men disappeared inside the strange ship.  Flavius noticed his men waiting with the carriages loaded with gold and jewels. One carriage stood separated from the rest and he knew that that one was for him and his men. He smiled. He got on his horse and pointed forward as he did the small army started moving away from the strange ships. Several hours later they all heard the distant thunder and saw the strange looking ships rising magnificently in to the skies. And on different sides of the globe other ships like that raised too, all carrying people from destroyed cities and countries. Several more rose from a territory controlled by the Romans. Those came from the Balkans carrying with it Macedonians and Greeks that had the courage to stand up to the might of Rome. And while most of the humans never looked in to the night sky at the stars that were shining some did. Two of them did all their lives wondering all the time what happened to the eighty thousand people that they sold, what happened to the last living Carthaginian general, what happened to Kvesar.

Long time after that, centuries later when even their bones turned to dust, when the glory of what was once Rome back on Earth was nothing but a legend and a memory of the past, Kvesar’s vision came true. After centuries of trading and closing in on their borders, the Zerg Commonwealth and the Dacarian Empire went to war. The war was brutal and hard. Both races were merciless, and the centuries that passed were well used by the Zerg to prepare for what was coming. It lasted for almost a century and a half before finally the last outposts and colonies and the Zerg home world were destroyed. And before the final battles, when more by accident then intention the Dacarians learned the location of the world they were looking for, for so long, the Zerg did the ultimate sacrifice knowing the whole truth about the past that Kvesar once mentioned. In a last desperate gamble they destroyed everything connected with Earth and the humans destroying even the ships that tracked their ships to Sol protecting the world they pillaged for so long giving humanity the time they didn’t have in order to prepare. All they could do was just hope. The punishment for what they did was severe as most of their race was killed soon after the war and the rest slowly died in the centuries that came. But just as in the eyes of the long forgotten Hanno in their eyes you could still see their hope burning and waiting for the day when a long forgotten race will come back and exact its revenge on the Dacarian Empire.

And now centuries later that time was finally at hand.

                                    First Chapter

15 April 2020 9:30 pm

Arcadia Star System

4200 light years from Sol

Long ago humans and every other creature that would look to the stars, in to the darkness, there they would think of the stars, those small light dots that filled every space of the night sky, like something magical. And when you look at them they seem so close, so bright. But once you go up there in the immense space that separates them, all you can see is darkness, and everywhere you look you will see those same stars shining just the same, maybe a little brighter, but as you look at them you will know how far away they truly are. Humanity tried since the first time it looked at them to try and see them to try and see another star and the system it holds, and by the second decade of the twenty first century it finally did. Huge space telescopes peered in to the night and looked in to those same stars taking pictures and scanning the space looking for any sign of another habitable world, any sign that we are not alone. It was a noble mission, a mission that showed the faith in the goodness and the simple outlook that humanity had of the universe it lived in. It was believed that we were not alone, but it was never believed that if we ever manage to find another intelligent race they would look at us as an enemy.

It all changed one day when a fleet of human ships encountered creatures of another world and it had had to defend itself from their relentless attack. In that one moment the innocent view of the far away stars, the innocence of the search for the extraterrestrial life died. A small glimmer of hope still remained thanks to the bodies of two dead aliens, and the words of a young soldier that spoke to one of them. Humanity knew that there was goodness out there. All that was needed was for it to be given a chance. And they all hoped that a day will come when they can.

But that day now seemed far away as in the years that followed millions both humans and aliens lost their lives in what became the first battle in the Human –Dacarian war. The enemy made its first strike and failed and the humans that survived swore that they will never let them do that again…

The darkness of the space at a point four thousand and two hundred light years from Earth was suddenly interrupted as the normal space was torn apart and a single hyperspace window opened. A single ship came out of it. Even seen from a distance no one could mistake it for something else then a ship of war.

And the heavy cruiser, the USS Excelsior was exactly that.

Jennings looked at the dark space that opened in front of them. He knew that he couldn’t see it really considering that the cruiser had no windows, except for the two observation decks that were now sealed, but the screen showed the view that was recorded from the external cameras and telescopes mounted on the ship. And what the sensors showed was breathtaking.

“We are at the right coordinates sir, at a point 0. 7 light years from the Arcadian star system.”

Jennings looked at the young officer who gave the briefing.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Roberts.”

He then turned to his other side and noticed the avatar of the AI that controlled the ship standing and looking at the same view. While his eyes and the eyes of every human looking at it showed amazement, her eyes he could swear showed pain. And just as everyone else on board the Excelsior he knew the reason for that. While they looked at something never seen before Aria was looking at something that she once saw in another time now long lost…She was one of the fifty AI’s that were recovered from the small fleet that brought the survivors of a long forgotten war. Humans once before were here, humans she knew. While they were reaching towards the unknown she was returning home.

“It is beautiful isn’t it Aria?”

She turned towards him.

“Yes Admiral it is. It always was.”

“I want you to schedule a meeting in one hour. Continue scanning the system with passive sensors only and shut down everything else. We will approach on silent running. Let’s not give them a chance to know we are here…and tell Major Rivers to be there as well. And… inform the crew that we are here.”

The AI just nodded with her head and turned. At the same time her voice could be heard through the ships speaker announcing the safe arrival. He could see the tense faces of his crew relaxing a bit but not letting the tension totally slip away. There was no fear in their eyes. Eight months ago when they left, they were young, most of them with little experience, but they all grew up since then. He knew that he had a ready crew under his command. Eight months ago they started as the spear head of Operation First Strike and now that operation would enter its opening phase. He had sixty soldiers on board of his ship, soldiers from several different countries on Earth, but soldiers that had one thing in common. They were the best at this type of thing, at infiltration and gathering information. His job was to get them there. He was the carrier and they would be the first point of the spear, a spear that in ten more months would descend on the Dacarians with all the fury of humanity.

“I will be in my cabin. Commander Thomson you have the bridge”

His second in command rose from his seat and looked at him.

“Yes sir.”

Jennings nodded and went directly to his cabin. The captain’s quarters on the Excelsior were built the same way as they were on the Alteran ships and were directly connected with the bridge.

When he entered the cabin he sat on his desk and looked at the reports on it. The paper work was never ending. As he sat he noticed the admiral insignia and uniform on the opposite side. He was wearing the rank of a captain again. He knew that once this mission was over and he returned to Earth he would have the rank of an admiral once again, but he took the demotion because he wanted this mission. It was probably the most important one in all the history of humanity considering what lay ahead. Humanity had just four, eight years at best to manage to hide itself again and give itself the needed time for the final confrontation with the Dacarians. They won the first battle but they were not ready for a war of that scale. Not yet.

And this mission was the start of the operation that would give humanity that time.

The reports on his desk were reports gathered in the past seven and half months as the Excelsior traversed the distance between Earth and Arcadia. Four thousand and two hundred light years, a distance that just several years ago was something unimaginable. Even with the upgraded engines that the Excelsior had, they would still be at a distance that the ship would need almost six additional years to cross. If not for the hidden warp points that Aria showed them, warp points not used, four of them at least in the past twelve thousand years. Those points shed almost three and a half thousand light years of their journey. The four that helped his ship to travel to points that were hundreds of light years apart were not used for a simple reason; they were not placed in star systems. They were in the black void between the stars. Twelve thousand years ago the ships that brought the last Alteran survivors to Earth traversed them. And later the few surviving military ships did the same. As he went through the reports he noticed the report about one of the systems they passed through on their way here. He shuddered as he went through it. It was a report that in one hand would bring smile on the face of every astronomer back on Earth. The Kepler 62 system did indeed have habitable worlds. It had seven in fact and at least several more that were in the process of being terraformed. Three of the planets were habitable and so were four of the hundreds of moons of the ten planets in the system. Humanity knew of five planets that were discovered thanks to the Kepler telescope and it was always suspected that several more were also there. But the other part of the report would put a lot of fear in to everyone. When the Excelsior entered the system drawn there by a constant signal that showed the presence of an advance race, an alien SOS all they found were debris. An enormous debris field was present in Kepler 62. An advanced race once inhabited the system and it was capable of interstellar flight as well considering the large number of destroyed ships in the system. But they were gone now. The scans of the planets showed huge scars and destroyed cities from orbital bombardment. Whoever the civilization that once inhabited that system was he didn’t know and neither did Aria. Apparently the Alterans never exited there so long ago. But the civilization was gone now, destroyed in some disastrous war with another unknown species. They didn’t stay long enough to find any bodies but he was sure that they would be there. The scans showed that the cataclysmic event happened in the last several decades and the amount of devastation showed that there were other dangerous races there as well. And who ever that enemy was it was a lot closer than the Dacarians were. The galaxy was a dangerous place. Humanity was lucky according to Aria to live in a relatively empty area. According to all scans the closest neighborhood around Earth and Sol had no sentient races at least none developed. Considering the recent events in the past few years and the sight of Kepler 62 that was a proven fact. He just hoped that they would have time to take advantage of that luck.

As he raised his head he noticed the pictures that were arranged on the edge of his desk. They showed him embracing a beautiful blond woman. On two she was alone looking straight ahead and right now it seemed that those green eyes are looking at him. A smile appeared on his face but it stayed for just a moment. But in that short moment his face lost all the tension, all the seriousness it had. He missed his wife. She, like him was an astronaut, a former officer in the air force of the United States. They met in training for the first mission of the Daedalus and in the years that followed fell in love. Right now she was also a captain commanding one of the newly built cruisers back on Earth and although he missed her he also knew that at the moment she was safe. That gave him a small measure of peace and the wish to see her again gave him even bigger will and strength to finish this mission. He rose from his seat and picked up the picture. The smile on his face appeared again. He gently touched it with his hand.