Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) (8 page)

The First Exploration Fleet consisted of all old class warships that the Empire’s war fleets no longer used, four old class dreadnoughts, seven light cruisers, five heavy cruisers, and four battleships along with ten exploration frigates, two repair ships, five supply ships, two mining ships, and three factory ships. The fleet was fully self-sufficient, capable of operating independently for long periods of time, years. They produced their own food, processed materials they mined, and filtered water they gathered from asteroids, comets, or planets.

The frigates were new ships built ten years ago, they were small about a hundred and twenty meters long. Their purpose was to go on solo missions and look for systems of interest for the fleet, usually that included scouting the unmapped trans-lanes. There had been many cases where a frigate would go through the unmapped trans-lane to a system that had no outgoing trans-lanes, in those cases they would need to come back to the fleet using hyperspace. Which depending on the length of the lane they went through could mean months or even more than a year of travel time in order for them to rejoin the fleet.

The two mining ships were also of a new generation, with their own cargo shuttles and crew proficient at mining in space. Their usual targets were asteroids or small moons, but every now and then they would find a rich planet. When that happened, they would send miners down on the planet to collect samples. The mining ships purpose was to replenish the supplies of the fleet, but also to look out for rich systems and rare ores. All finds were cataloged and results sent back to the Empire. The Empire then sends people and builds facilities for a large scale mining operations.

The Empire was in a constant state of expansion and needed every bit of resources in order to feed its growth. The Empire claimed almost all systems that had a large amount of ore, which had increased its territory tremendously. There were sixteen colonized systems in the Empire, systems where people of the Empire lived, and those sixteen systems were all contained within a sphere of some 60 light years. The Empire had presence in a lot more systems beside those sixteen, they had mining operations in suitable systems within 100 light years, and monitoring stations in others close to the Sowir border as well as in the systems marked for future colonization.

In truth the Empire’s territory was an oblate spheroid some 100 light years wide and about and 80 high in reference to the galactic center. The Empire’s territory was below the galactic plane - the Empire used the galactic center as one of the points of reference for its maps, but the galaxy wasn’t a slim disk, it had depth, so they also used the galactic plane. A referential tool that split the galaxy in half.

The three factory ships kept the fleet supplied with anything it needed, the large nine hundred meters long ships, each held large fabricating factories capable of producing everything the fleet needs, but also fabricating satellites, com drones, monitoring stations and even facilities for starting colonies. They were the reason why the fleet didn’t need to return to the Empire often. The supply ships carried all of their food processing and water refinement factories. The ships had few agroponics bays, but most of their food came from processing bio matter in the bio-fabricators.

As for the warships, they were ships that had been built before the Empire was founded or just after. They were good ships, powerful, but the Empire’s technology had leaped forward in the last few decades, enhanced with the new technologies they discovered, acquired from the Nel, or those that Johanna brought back from Earth. The newer ships were bigger and far more powerful, the dreadnought Mk 2 class warships were the foundation of the Empire’s fleets, mush as the older class was.

Johanna’s fleet of forty two ships was tasked with exploring the territory around the trans-route from Sanctuary to Earth, as the Empire’s main expansion was in that direction. The plan was for them to eventually bring their home system under the Empire’s control. Even with Earth ravaged and uninhabitable it was still humanity’s home. For now they had only a few small unmanned scanning stations that monitored the system looking for any signs of the Ra’a’zani return. The Empire was fueled by its rage towards the alien race, by the need to avenge the billions they enslaved and then slaughtered. Eventually they will encounter them again, and the Empire will enact its justice. Every resource that the Empire gained, every technological advancement was for that purpose.

But spreading their territory to Earth wasn’t going to be easy. First there was more than 600 light years between Sanctuary and Earth, and while they had already spread their influence they still had a lot more to go. There were obstacles other than the distance in their path. The direct path to Earth was right through two systems that were inhabited by fledgling civilizations. One was a civilization still on the level of primitive tribal communities, but the other one was a civilization that was much more advanced. When Johanna first encountered them they had already reached space, and had sent a mission to the planet closest to their home world. The mission was endangered, the ship they sent was damaged and Johanna had helped. In doing so she had revealed the existence of alien life to the ship’s single passenger and revealed her fleet to Trivaxians.

She felt responsible for changing everything about their understanding of the universe, so she left them with a parting gift. A package filled with information. She didn’t outright give them knowledge of new technologies, she made sure that they wouldn’t be given everything on a silver platter, what she did was give them means to learn human language and the information about many different kinds of technologies. She gave them concepts and ideas, letting them discover how they were supposed to work on their own.

And in the last 30 years they have advanced considerably. They built a colony on the planet closest to their home world and had started to explore their solar system. The Empire had a stealth drone inside their system monitoring their activities, and while the Trivaxians hadn’t cracked FTL travel yet, she was sure that it was only a matter of time. Humanity was lucky in a way, they gained a lot of knowledge from the database of the Union ship that Olympus found at the bottom of the ocean. Trivaxians will need to discover things on their own, with just the knowledge that it was possible.

The problem that the Empire faced now was, what to do with Trivaxians after they cracked hyperspace or trans-travel. There had been a lot of debate, because this case will set precedent for all future encounters between the Empire and fledgling civilizations. It had been decided that the Empire will not force its way into a civilizations home system, it belonged to the intelligent race that was born in it, and Johanna’s fleet had already mapped an alternate trans-route to Earth that added some twenty light years to their trip, but only a week in travel time. But the problem now was how much territory is a race entitled to? Were they entitled to the closest inhabitable system, or systems?

The Empire had far greater economy, industry, and population growth. In all likelihood they will surround the Trivaxian system in less than a decade. And what then? What would they do when Trivaxians emerge from their system, trying to spread and colonize the space around them, only to find out that it was already claimed? The Empire had no definitive answer, there were talks about asking the Trivaxians to join the Empire in some manner, but no one had brought forward a complete proposal. They couldn’t decide when an offer should be made, how much would the Trivaxians be required to change.

For now that problem was put aside. The Trivaxians showed no signs of being close to developing a hyper or trans-drive. And so, the exploration fleet’s job was to map out the systems around the route to Earth, but also to look for other alien races. If they are still bound to their home system, they would be ignored, if they had started to colonize other systems, Johanna would establish diplomatic relations.

Thankfully, they didn’t expect a lot of those kind of encounters, not in this part of the galaxy at least. According to the Union ship data, the area of space that Earth and Sanctuary were in, was sparsely populated. Back in the Union space it was likely that dozens of races would evolve within a 30-50 light year radius. The galaxy was filled with life bearing planets, so the worlds where humans could survive weren’t rare. Out of sixteen colonies of the Empire only four were unsuitable for humans, but they had the technology to build artificial habitats so there wasn’t really a planet that they couldn’t colonize.

Johanna knew that soon the Empire will expand its borders along the trans-route to Earth. For three decades they had built their industry up, set up the clans, and stockpiled resources. According to the plan that the Emperor set up at the founding of the Empire, the time of rapid colonization will begin soon. The Empire’s population had grown sufficiently that from this point onward its growth will increase exponentially. Thanks to the progeny centers in another two decades the Nel and Human population will reach nearly two billion. They will spread themselves thin, but it was necessary, they needed to constantly fuel their expansion. The Empire’s industry and resource gathering had already far surpassed their needs, it was time for the excess to be put to use.

Finishing her shower, Johanna dressed and made her way towards the Command Center.

***

Two days later Johanna sat in the command center of her fleet’s flagship, the dreadnought Monarch. It was the last of the old class dreadnoughts to be built, and it was named after her old ship, the one that she commanded in battle in the Solar system. The ship was scuttled when she returned to the Empire, even though she was still operational. But the damage she sustained guaranteed that she would never again see combat.

“We are detecting a vortex opening at the trans-station Fleet Commander.” Her ships Sensor Handler said.

Johanna nodded, they had been expecting it.

“Contact, a ship has emerged.” Sensor Handler reported, “It’s the Gracious.”

Johanna allowed herself to relax, hoping that her subordinates hadn’t noticed. “Tell the fleet to go to green stations.” Johanna said turning to her Comm Handler. Even though they knew that the Gracious would arrive now, she had ordered yellow stations throughout the fleet. A part of her, a small part that was still in the Solar system didn’t allow her to let her guard down. “And contact Ship Master Resaani, I want him to report to me in person as soon as he is able.” The news that the Ship Master of the Gracious reported back was significant, and she would need to talk to him in person.

“Right away, Fleet Commander.” The Comm Handler said.

With that, Johanna stood up from her command chair and made way to her ready room, which was connected to the Command Center. Inside, she went behind her desk and sat down, with a flick of a hand and a mental command her see-through glass desk came to life. A myriad of holo windows appeared above it and a similar number showed on the desk’s surface. There were countless reports and fleet requests, the fact that she knew that these were only the reports and requests that concerned the whole fleet made Johanna’s head spin. But she resigned herself to another day of reading and answering requests. She synced her imp to her desk computer to speed up her responses and started with the oldest reports and requests, she quickly scanned the topics and started reading. Three hours later she was still looking at the endless wall of reports when a chime announced that she had a visitor. With a mental command she opened the doors.

Resaani, Ship Master of the Gracious walked in. He was pale as all Nel were, and was dressed in the blue skintight suit - the fleet variant of the suit that everyone in the Empire wore now, but his rank was shown on a small vest that he wore over it.

“Fleet Commander.” Resaani said and then saluted fist to chest as he walked up to stand in front of her desk. Johanna returned the salute, then with a flick of her wrist she shut off her table and stood. She walked around her table and gestured with her hands for Resaani to take a seat at one of the couches in the room. Resaani nodded and took a seat on one of the new couches designed with a hollow to accommodate Nel tails, Johanna took a seat across from him.

“Report.” Johanna said once they settled. She had already read the Ship Master’s report, but she had learned early on that subordinates don’t always put everything they think into writing.

Resaani took a deep breath and then started. “As you know, we arrived in an unexplored system four days ago and started conducting the usual survey of the system. Inspecting the planets, scanning for life and anomalies. A day into our survey of the system we detected an outgoing trans-lane, as per the regulations, I dispatched a probe through the lane.

The probe’s travel time through the trans-lane was nine hours, and after it arrived in the next system it relayed its position – which was a system about fifteen light years from the Gracious’ position, it then started taking passive scans of the system. The scans didn’t reveal anything unusual at first, but then as its scans progressed deeper into the system it detected something strange. We studied the scans, and I decided to let the probe get closer and allowed it to take active scans of the anomaly.” Resaani then grew quiet, but Johanna didn’t say anything. She knew the Ship Master well enough to know that he was simply organizing his thoughts. “The scans revealed that the anomaly was in fact a debris field, and according to the scans it was a result of a battle. By our estimates the battle happened sometime in the last month.” Resaani said, and Johanna nodded.

“Thank you Ship Master Resaani.” Johanna said dismissing him, she will need to take the fleet to take a closer look at the debris field. The Empire had learned its lesson from what happened to the Voyager when they first encountered the Sowir, and they knew that the galaxy was a dangerous place.

Chapter Seven

July; Year 30 – Sanctuary