Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (3 page)

Chapter Two

Adrian Farkas Reiss, Clan Leader of the Clan Warpath walked out of the Council meeting. As soon as he exited the room his guard stepped in behind him. Two figures dressed in Warpath clan’s battle suits and two massive beasts Sora and Akash, the wolions, animal native to Sanctuary that Adrian adopted when they were just born. The two animals were 700 kg of muscle, claws, and teeth, they had heads that looked a little bit like those of a wolf, though fatter and wider like a cat, with the nostrils higher on the snout, their teeth were more like that of a cat than those of a wolf. Their bodies were thick and powerful. They were about the size of a very large lion from Earth, but about a third heavier thanks to their denser muscles and bones which they developed from Sanctuary’s slightly higher gravity.

“Where to now boss?”
Clara Bengtsdotter asked on their private network, Adrian heard her voice through his implant.

“The Emperor wants to speak with me privately.”
Adrian responded via his implant. Immediately he heard his other guard, Meifeng Zhao groan as she brought one of her hands up to her helmet making a shoot me through the head gesture with her fingers.

“Great, that means more door-guard duty.”
Meifeng said.

Adrian couldn’t help but be amused. His guards were two of the best warriors Warpath had to offer, and they were also complete opposites of each other. Meifeng was short and lean, while Clara was tall and heavily built. But each had risen to the top of Warpath’s warriors. Both of them were Sentinels, the elite of Clan Warpath.

Adrian’s Clan was a lot different than the others. When Adrian’s proposal got sent to the Emperor (without his knowledge) it was just an exercise that he was doing in his spare time. He tried to imagine and plan out a society that was very different than anything that they had previously. He still drew from a lot of older cultures and societies. But in the end he created something new.

The main difference from the other Clan’s was that Warpath didn’t have its own progeny centers. No one was born into Clan Warpath, one had to pass certain tests before he or she was accepted. There were still natural births in Warpath of course, but the children born of Warpath members weren’t really a part of the Clan until they reached maturity and passed the tests. If they failed, they would be sent to Sanctuary or some other Clan, and they had the option of not even taking the tests and simply leaving, with the option of taking the test later in life, if that was their wish. That was why Clan Warpath had a lot less people, their population was barely twenty five thousand, spread across three asteroid habitats.

Clan Warpath was a clan of warriors. Every member of the clan, from the technicians to scientists and fleet personnel was also a warrior. Proficient in at least one area of warfare, as well as martial arts. Adrian wanted to create a society of warrior philosophers, people who were smart and wise. And now when they didn’t have to worry about old age, it was possible to achieve that. He didn’t want soldiers or armies, but specialists and leaders. People who could adapt to any situation. Ultimately, he wanted to create a group of people who were so formidable that they could be considered armies in themselves.

There were of course some problems. Not everyone is capable of reaching such heights, that is why he made Warpath a clan that accepted new people only if they were worthy. Having someone born into the clan didn’t guarantee that they had what it takes to become what he envisioned. He gave them all an opportunity to be unique. The goal of Warpath was to push the boundaries of human capabilities, to push their physical limits to the edge, to perfect the art of war, and explore every warrior path.

They arrived at their destination, Clara and Meifeng stopped at the door, along with Akash. Adrian and Sora entered. The room was furnished with furniture that was brought from Earth when Olympus left, wooden chairs, bookshelves with paper books, fabric carpets. To anyone who wasn’t born on Earth this room would look extremely strange, antiquated. Emperor Tomas Klein sat behind his big desk at the far end of the room, and as Adrian and Sora entered he stood up and came around to meet them.

“Adrian.” Tomas said as he reached them and offered his hand. Adrian reached out to shake it. In the past thirty years Adrian and Tomas got to know each other well, as they worked closely in building Warpath, and had become friends. After shaking his hand, Tomas reached over and scratched Sora behind the ears, immediately she released a sound that would scare anyone who didn’t know her. But this wasn’t the first time Tomas was in the presence of a wolion, and he knew that the sound was wolions equivalent of purring.

Tomas gestured at the two sofas to the side and they moved to sit there, Sora finding a spot on the ground close to Adrian’s feet.

“How are things, with Warpath I mean?” Tomas asked. Adrian raised an eyebrow at the question.

“Fine, things are progressing according to the plans.” Adrian answered.

“Good, good.” Tomas said distracted. “I see that you added another aspect to your mantle since we last saw each other.” Tomas commented, looking at the back of Adrian’s hand. Adrian put both his arms in front of himself, with the back of the hands turned upwards, looking at the intricate tattoos drawn there.

His left hand held three black circles, each with a different symbol inside. Stylish lines and arcs in different colors connected each circle to the other two. His right hand also held three circles with symbols. Each circle had small orbs tattooed close to them. Each of the symbols represented a learned aspect, an area in which the wearer of the tattoos was proficient in, and the small orbs represented the level of their proficiency.

Over the course of his life Adrian had learned six aspects, leadership, hand to hand, weapons, fleet command, ground command, and history. Adrian was most proficient in hand to hand and fleet command aspects, so those symbols had the most orbs tattooed around the circle, both had six orbs. While his weapons had five, leadership three, ground command two, and history one. His symbols were also black in color, signifying that his main focus was in the combat paths. Other people had different colored symbols, according to their main focus.

The idea of tattoos came from a few of Warpath citizens who first got them as a way to mark their progress, the practice then spread until it was officially adopted. The location and the appearance differed from person to person. Some chose to place the marks on their shoulders or chest, some even on their face. Each chose a different way to fill the space in between the symbols and orbs, Adrian saw one soldier whose mark was a tree, symbols hanged like fruits from the branches. In time the marks would grow as people learned more and more, especially now that most would live long lives.

It was a Warpath thing, something that showed that in just thirty years they had managed to create their own culture and customs.

“Yes, I finally had the time to spare and learn more.” Adrian said.

“That’s good, one should never stop learning.” Tomas said distracted. Adrian looked closely at Tomas, and then he noticed that Sora had raised her head from the floor where she had been napping, and that she was looking at Tomas. Adrian too studied Tomas. Sora had felt something which meant that he could too. The wolions were highly intelligent, and empathic. Adrian had realized it a long time ago, when he caught Akash and Sora using their ability on him. And over the past thirty years the two animals spent almost all of their time with him, over time the two wolions learned to project the feelings of others to Adrian, letting him feel them for himself. It was one thing that Adrian never told to anyone, except Iris. It was his secret weapon. And now Sora was projecting Tomas’ emotions to him.

Tomas was feeling trepidation, but there was also an undertone of fear, nervousness, and hesitation.

“Why did you really want to speak with me?” Adrian asked.

Tomas got up and walked to the window, looking out at the city. After a minute he turned to Adrian and spoke.

“The Sowir are on the move.” He said.

Immediately Adrian stood, “They broke the pact?”

Tomas shook his head sadly, “No. But they have a staging point in a system on their border, close to Nelus, and are gathering forces there. We believe they plan to finally finish them off.”

Adrian’s brow furrowed with concern, “But how do we know – Oh… We broke the pact didn’t we? We have assets inside their territory.”

“Yes. We had to make sure that they weren’t going to break their word. I know that it sounds hypocritical, but we had no choice. We only sent unmanned stealth drones to monitor their systems.”

“Did they find out?” Adrian asked.

“We have no reason to believe that they have, we had the drones moving through their territory for more than a decade. No, it’s likely that they just decided to take care of Nelus.”

Adrian narrowed his eyes. “There is more isn’t there?”

“The force that they gathered is big Adrian, a thousand warships with more arriving every day. Plus the support ships.” Tomas said slowly.

“A thousand?” Adrian said shocked, the Empire had nine hundred warships in its Fleets, not counting the support ships, with them the number was more like a thousand and two hundred. And also not counting the Clan guard’s, but even with them the number wasn’t much bigger. But a lot of that number would need to be set aside for defense, the Empire would never be able to attack with such large number.

“And we know they have more. These ships are coming from the heart of their territory, the ships they have guarding our border are still there.” Tomas said, “We believe that this force was gathered specifically to finish off Nelus.”

“And Nelus? How many ships do they have to defend themselves with?”

“Eight hundred and fifty warships, but four hundred of those are retrofitted merchant ships or their new cruiser class. Which according to everything we managed to learn about it is far inferior to their other ships. Its poorly made, the council cut corners everywhere it could.”

“I assume that this information comes from Clan Dai Ven and Clan Leader Jusan?” Adrian asked.

“Yes, there are a few people on Nelus that he kept in contact with, covertly of course.”

“Do they know about Sowir?”

“Jusan relayed a message to his contacts, whether they will believe it or not is another thing. But there is nothing we can do about them, we need to decide what to do about the Sowir.” Tomas said.

“Why didn’t you bring this up during the council meeting?”

“Because there wasn’t the need yet, it will take Sowir months if not years to conquer Nelus system, not counting the months it will take them to get there. And the Clans have very little to offer, the Clan guard was never intended to protect the Empire, that’s what the fleet is there for.”

“What does Laura think?” Adrian asked. His adoptive mother Laura Reiss was in charge of the Empire’s space fleet.

“Both Laura and the Hand suggest preemptive strike.” Tomas said.

“Really? Our ships are better, but do we even know how many ships Sowir have?”

“An estimate only. The preliminary plans are not for us attacking them head on, we would use our advantage over them, the trans-lanes, to attack their less defended systems cutting their numbers, and shipbuilding capability down.”

“Sounds like you already have a plan. If you didn’t tell the other Clan Leaders, why are you telling me?” Adrian asked.

Tomas looked Adrian in the eye. “I need to know the status of your fleet.”

“You know that already, we are sending the Warpath guard reports monthly to Sanctuary Fleet Headquarters.” Adrian said.

“What I meant to ask is: What is the status of your other fleet.” Tomas said, looking at Adrian gravely.

“So you know about that?”

“There is little that the Hand of the Empire keeps from me.” Tomas simply said.

“Well, I didn’t really think they wouldn’t tell you in any case.” Adrian smiled. “So why do you ask?”

“There is another version of the plan, one that involves Nelus. But we are not sure that we can do it with our numbers. If your fleet is everything I heard it is, perhaps we could do it.”

Adrian sighed and shook his head. “The ships aren’t ready yet… Probably won’t be for years. We are still developing technologies for them.”

“I was under the impression that they were operational?” Tomas asked.

Adrian grimaced. “They are technically… most of them can move, but there is still a lot of work to be done. These ships are still being built, and we are using methods vastly different than the Fleet. They are modular, with the capability to be upgraded as we wish easily. And we laid ground work in them for technologies that we simply don’t have or haven’t perfected yet. And even what we put in them now is just so that we can run tests. Hell, two of the ships don’t even have their hulls completed.”

“How long would it take to make the fleet battle worthy?” Tomas asked.

Adrian didn’t respond immediately, the fleet had been his baby almost since the founding of Warpath. He has been working on it for the past twenty years, more even if he counted the designs and planning. “Two years, one at the minimum.” Adrian said, “But before I even consider committing the fleet I need to know your plan. My fleet isn’t like the others Tomas, it is… Specialized.”

“Of course, let me tell you what we have come up with, and you can then tell me what you think...” Tomas said. They spent the next hour talking, and then Adrian went to his home on Sanctuary, he would need to rest for tomorrow.

Chapter Three

Hyeon Seo-yun, Sanctuary’s Minister of Science walked through the Emperor’s palace after another hard day’s work. She was exhausted, she spent half of the day on the southern continent because they had a problem in one of their field research stations, and she needed to be there in person. And the other half of the day she spent in her lab in Olympus City, working on the same project she did for the past thirty years. The alien sphere, or as it turned out, not so alien. The sphere that the Nel Councilmember Jusan - now Clan Leader of the Clan Dai Ven - brought with him when he ‘defected’ to the Empire was in fact a highly sophisticated data container left on the Nel home planet by both the Nel and human ancestor, Axull Darr.