Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (2 page)

Jinn had a small crew of fifteen. The patrol class ships were small, they have been made for the long term patrols with most of the cargo space inside them delegated to fuel and supplies. Which allowed them to operate for long periods of time without the need to return to base. They were around a hundred meters long, and shaped like a one-sided knife blade.

Michael looked over the sensory data that the Jinn received from many sensor drones in system and from the surrounding systems through their FTL comms, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. He was just about to get up and grab something to eat when an alert flashed on his screen.

Michael leaned closer and saw that something had triggered the emergency protocols in one of their sensor drones, in a system about fourteen light years away. Swiping with his hand Michael brought up the scans. After a mere few seconds of looking at them he swallowed hard and commed his Ship Master.

“Ship Master, you need to get up to the command, there is something you need to see right away.”

Chapter One

May; Year 30 of the Empire – Sanctuary

Elias Bakas sat and watched the meeting between the Clan Leaders of the Empire and the Emperor, although to them he was just a faceless figure. One of many such figures throughout the Empire. Elias was now the leader of the Hand of the Empire, an organization that was tasked with protecting the people of the Empire and enforcing the letter and the spirit of the Empire’s laws. In order to do that, no agent of the Hand ever showed his or her face.

Their uniform was a black armor suit and a dark blue coat over it, the coat had the symbol of the Hand of the Empire on the back, a metal hand with an eye on its back. Their helmets completely covered their heads, and the face plate was smooth save for a thin horizontal silver line across the eyes. The only place where an agent could walk freely and interact with other people was on Sanctuary, in their sanctum. And that was the sacrifice that every member of the Hand made, so that they could be as bias as possible, and to eliminate things like corruption and bribery. No person in the Empire could ever be sure that they had talked to the same agent more than once, their voices were modulated and all sounded the same. And Elias made sure that all agent’s rotate around the Empire.

But their isolation also posed a problem, people could come to distrust them, even hate them as they went around the Empire punishing those that betrayed the Codes of the Empire. In order to counter that, Elias made sure that the Hand of the Empire wasn’t seen just as enforcers of the law, but also as someone the people can rely on and trust. The Hand helped new colonies in their infant stages by providing help to the workforce, even though back then there weren’t that many of them, it was their presence that mattered. The Hand helped with relief efforts on colonies struck by disasters, and they made themselves available to the people, anyone could ask for the Hand to investigate if they felt their rights were being harmed.

The Hand of the Empire had the trust of the people, and that was extremely important, considering the scope of their power, influence, and purpose. The Hand of the Empire had great power in the Empire, they were the Emperor’s failsafe. The Emperor wielded absolute power over all clans. The Clan Leaders had many liberties, they set the policies of their worlds and they could even make new laws, as long as those laws didn’t violate the codes. But the Emperor had the last word on everything, the fact that he rarely exercised that right didn’t take away from the fact that he could very easily become a tyrannical dictator. And Emperor Klein was fully aware of that. The Hand of the Empire was created as a check on his power, and on power of every Clan Leader.

When the Empire was founded humanity was in a very fragile place. With most of the human population dead on Earth, strict reproduction laws were enforced, there were only about ten million humans left at a time. The new laws made sure that every able woman donated her eggs twice a year, just like men were required to donate their seed. The eggs were then artificially inseminated, and placed into artificial wombs. The laws worked, and in thirty years the human population had reached two hundred million. The Nel population of Nuva that had joined the Empire was exempt from the law during the first five years after the Empire’s founding, until the geneticists managed to create the immortality treatment for them.

The Nel population in the Empire now almost equaled that of the human population. The Empire’s population was now close to four hundred million, not even close to the numbers humanity or Nel once had, but still much more than what they had thirty years ago. Although most of that number were children, the last decade saw a significant increase in every area of the Empire, as the children born in the first ten years of the Empire grew up and finished their education. The Empire had worked hard to keep up with the growth, at times barely managing to follow.

Now the Empire had sixteen colonized systems, including Sanctuary, and it consisted out of six clans. The six Clan Leaders met on Sanctuary in person twice a year, at the end and the middle of the year, to discuss various matters concerning the Empire with the Emperor. The last thirty years had been peaceful, which fuelled their expansion efforts greatly.

An exchange at the table made Elias focus on what was being said.

“Terran Clan needs more resources! The tidal season on the New Earth is coming soon, and we need to adequately prepare!” Clan Leader of the Terran Clan Barbara Brown demanded.

“The yearly allotted resource quota for your Clan was more than enough to cover your projected needs.” Clan Leader Annbjörg Johansson of Clan Gudólfr said as she turned and looked pointedly at Clan Leader Brown.

“The projected quota is obviously not enough, if this council had taken into account the harsh realities of New Earth’s climate we would have been allotted enough resources!” Clan Leader Brown said bitterly.

“You know full well that those words aren’t true. We had discussed this in cooperation with your people and reached the conclusion about your quota. Your Clan is one at fault, this is the second year in a row that your Clan is requesting resources above your allotted quota. If you need more resources, then you should use next year’s quota to increase your own material gathering and processing.” Clan Leader Johansson said.

Clan Leader Brown’s face tightened. “We had to use our own resources to finish facilities for the new generation scheduled to be born in two months.”

“Don’t play with us now Barbara, I have reviewed the data you submitted to the council and your own records, you increased the progeny in the centers by forty percent. It is your own fault, you should have followed the plan you submitted. And that it is without taking into account three defense platforms you built. You wasted precious resources on those platforms and now you are short.” Johansson said.

“My people need to feel safe! Those platforms are necessary! And as for the progeny programs, we had to make adjustments, my peoples population is too small!” Brown said.

“You know full well that the Second Fleet is just a day away by trans-lane. Any threat to your people would be met long before they could reach you, if any such threat even existed, and it doesn’t. Scout ships have explored the entire fifty light year range around the Empire’s borders. You need to grow your Clan’s infrastructure before you spend resources on things you don’t need!” Johansson retorted.

“The Second Fleet? We don’t want to rely on anyone! Protection of our people should be ours alone!” Brown said, standing up and raising her voice. Clan Leader Johansson stood up to respond.

“Enough!” The voice of the Emperor, Tomas Klein rang out. Immediately the two Clan Leaders sat back down and quieted. The Emperor turned to Clan Leader Barbara Brown, “There is no ‘your’ or ‘my’ people. There is only
our
people. We are all part of the Empire. You and the rest of the survivors from Earth made the choice to join the Empire, you could have taken my other offer and went your way with enough supplies to start on your own. You didn’t, you chose to join us and benefit from the Empire’s resources, which means that you need to follow the same rules as the other Clans.” He paused, all the while looking Clan Leader Brown directly in the eyes, not letting her turn away.

Then after a bit he continued. “Sanctuary will send additional resources from our own supplies. But, if this happens again… Well, that would mean that you are not capable of guiding your Clan, and by Empire’s law a Clan Leader needs to provide for his or her people foremost, and I am sure that the Hand of the Empire will have no choice but to interfere.” Emperor said calmly.

Clan Leader Brown glanced at Elias who was sitting on the other side of the rectangular table, across from Tomas who was sitting at its head. Elias didn’t respond, just kept his head turned in the Clan Leader Brown’s general direction. He saw a glimmer of fear in her eyes, she knew what had happened to her predecessor. Clan Leader John Reiner was the first leader of the Terran Clan, which consisted mainly out of those that the Second Fleet managed to rescue from Earth.

Their introduction to the Empire had a lot of problems, the people that were rescued had been slaves to an alien race. In most cases they lacked education and even basic knowledge of who they really were. They spent ten years just learning about humanity. There were a few among them that were old enough to remember a time before Earth was conquered, few of those were even people that were alive when Olympus was still on Earth, as they went through life extension treatments before they lost the knowledge of how to do it in the Great War.

Quickly those older individuals started influencing the others, essentially placing themselves in the roles of the leaders of the survivors. John Reiner decided to join the Empire even with the many different philosophies and principles between the survivors and the Empire. The Emperor had the survivors vote for their leader, and unsurprisingly John Reiner was selected.

The Emperor then allowed them to colonize a planet. The first six months went by quietly, and then the season of increased tidal activity came. Clan Leader John Reiner had ignored the surveys and started the colony on the spot unsuitable for it. The storms and earthquakes hit them hard, and five hundred people died, with many more injured. Reiner tried to hide the fact that it was his fault by altering reports and falsifying survey data.

The Hand was dispatched to aid in the relief and rescue, and to investigate what exactly happened. Quickly they uncovered what Reiner had done, which turned out to be much worse that simply choosing a poor place for the colony. He had used most of the resources allotted for building safe and comfortable homes for the colonists to build a luxurious ‘presidential’ building for himself and his closest supporters.

Seeing the evidence, the highest ranking Hand agent on the planet had no choice, their duty was to protect the people. The agent in charge broadcasted the evidence to every citizen of the Empire, and then executed John Reiner on the spot. It was the first time that the Hand of the Empire truly showed the full extent of their authority in the Empire. Up until then they had been seen as something a bit more than police, they aided in starting new colonies, and they settled disputes between regular people when law keepers of a Clan were insufficient. And in that one moment, everyone realized what the Hand of the Empire truly was. They served no one, and everyone. They protected the people from those who abused their power.

The people understood then. The Hand was the symbol of what the Empire was. They watched and protected the Empire from those who would break its most important code. Every citizen of the Empire had its protection. Clan Leader John Reiner had knowingly endangered his people, he failed them. And the Hand punished him for it.

Finally, Barbara turned her eyes back to the Emperor. “I apologize. People of my clan are afraid. We do not want to see history repeat itself, which is why we were a bit overzealous in our efforts. Having those platforms in space gives us peace of mind.”

Emperor nodded in understanding. “I will see about having some ships placed in your system until you are able to build your own. But, the Terran Clan needs to understand that we are not like the Earth, what you did here is exactly what politicians back there would have done. You spent your resources on one thing, neglecting things that you needed for the safety of the people, knowing that we would have granted you more than your allotted share if it meant the safety of the people. You played politics when you didn’t have to. And I will not allow the Empire to become that. If you wanted to accelerate your Clan growth, all you had to do was say so at the last council meeting.”

Clan Leader Brown lowered her eyes. “I… I know, it won’t happen again.” She said.

“Good. Let’s move on to the next agenda.” Emperor Tomas Klein said.

They spent another three hours dealing with various other matters. Clan Gudólfr had achieved self-sufficiency, meaning it no longer needed help from Sanctuary and other self-sufficient systems to grow. That left only two Clans that were still reliant on outside help, Clan Kazalir and the Terran Clan. The other three self-sufficient Clans were the Nuvan Clan, Clan Dai Ven, and Clan Warpath. And out of those three only Clan Dai Ven and the Nuvan Clan were actively involved in expanding their territory to other systems. The Nuvan Clan held four star systems, while Clan Dai Ven held five, and Sanctuary as the capitol system of the Empire held three more systems. Clan Warpath was more focused on their one system, and their Clan was the most unique. Their system was basically one enormous asteroid field that orbited the star. That gave them the greatest well of resources, seeing as the asteroid field was extremely rich in ore.

Finally the meeting came to an end, and the Emperor dismissed everyone. The Clan Leaders stood up and slowly made their way out of the room. Elias stood up as well and started towards the doors, but before leaving he glanced back at the Emperor, only to see him studying him in return. Elias hadn’t spoken with his friend since he accepted to lead the Hand of the Empire thirty years ago, not as Elias anyway. He wondered if Tomas knew that it was he who sat through the meeting with him today. Elias turned and left the room, he had a lot of work to do.