Ivan Kal - What War Had Wrought

“You shouldn’t be sorry. The Empire should apologize; you have honored your part of the deal, even when doing so went against your beliefs. You have shown that you are truly willing to change. Now, it is time for the Empire to honor its part of the deal,” Adrian said.

“The Erasi fleet will move,” Anessa said, “and they will certainly move against a hub system. And the closest one is here, Kaleras. We need to prepare for the defense of the system.”

“They outnumber us more than two to one. Any attempt to defend this system will finish with our loss.”

“I will not retreat. I will not let them take one more system,” Anessa said with a determined expression. “Our ships are better than theirs, my commanders are skilled. We have fortified the system with defense platforms; we can win.”

Adrian closed his eyes and sighed. “That was true until now. The three ships that ambushed the Bloodbringer were from this new fleet. They look the same as the ships your Legion fought until now, but they are better. The scans and records that the Bloodbringer took indicate that their energy weapons are twenty percent more powerful than what their previous ships used. Their shields are more powerful as well, although because of the storm, we are not sure how much of an increase they have, but it is at least fifteen percent. That new class of warship, which is far larger than anything you have seen from the Erasi, fired a weapon that went clear through the Bloodbringer’s shields, completely ignoring them. And that is only the things that we know about.”

Anessa’s expression turned sour. “So you want me to pull back, abandon systems and my people to the Erasi? There are two hundred million people living in Kaleras. We don’t have enough ships to even attempt to evacuate them all.”

“That would be a smart, ruthless way that would give you a greater chance of eventual victory. If you buy time for all of your Legions to be retrofitted with skim drives, you would have a better chance,” Adrian said. He saw her half rise from the bed in anger, but he pushed her back with one hand and continued speaking before she could say anything. “But no. I understand you and the Shara Daim well enough to know that doing that would be unimaginable for you. So I will do everything I can to help you win.” He smiled down at her. “My fleets are ready; in two hours, we will be leaving.”

“Leaving to where?” she asked suspiciously.

“As I said, it is time for the Empire to honor its part of the deal. I am going to attack their fleet,” Adrian said.

“You just told me that you don’t believe we can defeat them when they come, and you think that your twelve fleets can?” Anessa asked incredulously.

“Of course not,” Adrian said, “but I can hurt them. Reduce their numbers, before they come here.”

“With twelve fleets?” Anessa was on the verge of laughing. “The only thing you will accomplish is get your people killed.”

Adrian looked at her for a moment. She, of course, didn’t believe that he could accomplish anything. Even though the Empire and Shara Daim had an alliance and had shared many technologies, the Empire hadn’t shared any of their weapon systems other than the defense platforms, which used almost the same weapon systems as the Shara Daim. And what Anessa had witnessed in Sol was not everything in their arsenal. There, Adrian had used weapons suited for that situation, but in truth, not even one of the Empire’s true warships had engaged in combat, only drones. “It always seemed so strange to us,” Adrian told her, “that the war technology of all the races we have encountered since we left our homeworld seemed so… limited. Even now, when we have encountered you and the Erasi. Your technology is advanced, but the way you implement it is uninspired, you don’t try to find new and better ways to overcome your enemies. You rely on power.”

Anessa’s expression darkened, but Adrian didn’t let her speak, raising his hand to forestall her response.

“I do not say this to insult you, to diminish your achievements. But almost nothing we have seen from the more advanced races had actually been new to us, a weapon that we have never encountered or imagined. The only ones that had something that was new to us were the Ra’a’zani. You yourself have seen this; you had difficulties defeating them, not as fast as you should have, at least. They were inferior to you, yet they had prevailed, because they had weapons systems that you had never encountered before. And they used them in ways that you hadn’t seen before; they knew how to fight wars.”

Anessa remained silent, and Adrian could see in her eyes that she knew that he had spoken the truth, so he continued. “Both your and the Erasi weapons technology is based on the same things. Your ships use particle beams as your main weapons, lasers for point defense, and missiles as secondary weapons. The differences are minimal, and in nuances. We have always wondered why that is, and we have a theory. The Shara Daim have never been divided; you never fought against yourselves. When you left your homeworld, you had the sphere and the data contained there, and while you did lose it, you still retained much of that technology. That made you superior to other races in your neighborhood, so while you fought many wars, you were never really challenged, never fought against an equal or superior opponent. The Erasi are the same; they were always superior, and always struck before their opponents could become a threat.”

“And what? You are different?” Anessa asked.

“Yes,” Adrian said, unashamed. “Humans fought against one another for thousands of years, before we even knew how to write. We killed and subjugated, we did horrible things to ourselves, and in the process, we perfected how to fight wars. We have invented such terrible weapons that we ourselves banned them from use. We adapted our technology for war; many of our achievements have been invented for war and nothing else. And I know that you don’t understand, you can’t understand; you don’t have anything in your history that comes close to the things we have done. We remember all the horrible things that we have done, because they should never be forgotten. But those horrors, those wars and struggles are what made us strong. Our weapons are not more advanced than yours are, but we have more variation. Different weapons systems for different situations.”

“If you have weapons that can help us defeat the Erasi, you should’ve shared them,” Anessa said.

“We don’t.” Adrian shook his head. “In a straight battle, our ships against theirs, we have nothing that would miraculously change the outcome of a battle. However, depending on the situation, we have different weapons that would suit them better. My twelve fleets can’t stand up to the Erasi numbers, not in a straight fight. However, neither you nor they truly understand the advantage that the skim drives give my fleets. I don’t plan on pitting my ships against theirs in a slug match. Humanity learned long ago that fighting a war is not about numbers and power—it is about how you use the assets available to you. It is about manipulating your opponent to remove his advantage and force him to fight when and where you want. My attack will serve more than one purpose; if we are to win against them at Kaleras, we need to be able to guide the flow of battle, and an angry opponent is one that is easily manipulated.”

“You are planning to do to them the same thing you did to my Legions in Sol,” Anessa said.

“Something similar.”

“And you really think that what you are planning can work.”

“I always think that my plans will work. The outcome is never exactly as I planned.”