Ivan Kal - What War Had Wrought

“It’s Clan Leader Isani, Lord Sentinel.”

Adrian frowned. There was no way that Isani could be in Kaleras. “Erasi?” Adrian asked.

Fleet Commander shook his head. “Definitely not, we checked. But the signal isn’t Empire or Shara Daim, either. It is coming from just outside of the system.”

“Patch it through here,” Adrian said, and waited. A moment later, the holo of Clan Leader Isani appeared in front of him.

“Adrian,” Isani said calmly, but his hands made a gesture of relief. “I’m not too late, then.”

“Isani, where are you? How?” Adrian asked, perplexed.

“There is no time. If you want to save what is left of the Shara Daim Legions, you need to come to these coordinates immediately. I’ve brought reinforcements,” Isani said, and a set of coordinates came through. Adrian checked and saw that the coordinates were the same as the source of the communication, just outside of the Kaleras system. When he looked back up, Isani continued speaking. “I don’t know if it will work; everything that we know suggests that it will. And we tried to prepare the interface for you from the records from when you used Watchtower—we just don’t know if it will be enough.”

“What are you talking about? What is this?”

“There is too little time to explain, you will find out soon enough. Suffice it to say we have a way of defeating the Erasi force, but we need you here.”

Adrian debated for a moment. He glanced at the Fleet Commander, who had been speaking with several of his officers. “It’s him, Lord Sentinel, as far as we can tell.”

“Alright, we’re coming,” Adrian said, and closed the channel. “Skim the Seventh Fleet to those coordinates. Leave the rest of our fleets here. Relay to Fleet Commander Riggs that he is free to engage if he sees an opportunity.”

The crew executed his orders, and less than a minute later, they entered the skim.

The Seventh Fleet dropped out of the skim at the coordinates provided by Isani. Immediately after, their sensors detected an object close to their fleet. The holo displayed the object, and the entire crew looked at it in amazement. It was strangely shaped; its front was pointed and was widening towards the back equally on all six sides, which weren’t straight but smooth and curving, until they reached the object’s maximum width, and then the back ended in a half sphere.

“Those can’t be right,” the Fleet Commander said. Adrian glanced to see what he was looking at, and saw the estimated size himself. The object was 168 kilometers long and 76 wide, by the computer’s estimates.

“They are right,” Adrian said. He recognized the ship from the databases in the sphere, or at least the type. That was a World-ship of the People.

“We are getting another comm request.”

“Put it through,” Adrian said.

Isani appeared again. “Adrian, you need to come aboard. Get a shuttle and come to this area of the ship.” Again, Gallant received coordinates. “I’ll meet you at the landing bay,” he said, and closed the channel.

“Get a shuttle ready,” Adrian said as he hastily walked out of the command center.

“We have a World-ship,” Adrian said.

“It would appear so,” Iris added.

“And they kept it a secret from me,” Adrian said. He wasn’t really mad. He knew that there were things that he wasn’t privy to. “If I had known… We could’ve studied it, had ships built like it. Hell, that ship is capable of building smaller ships on its own.”

“There must be a reason as to why they kept it from you.”

Adrian nodded to himself as he reached the shuttle, not even acknowledging the crew. “Yes, and I know exactly why they kept it a secret,” Adrian said as the shuttle lifted off.

And he did know why they’d kept it a secret. Tomas and Adrian had spoken at great lengths about the future, about how they would prepare for when they met the enemy of the People. Both had agreed that the Empire had to struggle, to invent new technologies that didn’t rely on those of the People. So for Tomas to reveal this ship now meant that something had happened to change his mind, because as soon as he used it, everything would change. The races of the galaxy would learn that the Empire had a weapon in its arsenal that was far more advanced than anything that they had.

The shuttle approached the World-ship and its hull parted in an iris, revealing pale blue light inside. They entered what looked like a strange landing bay, with several different levels, and they made their way to one where people were waiting for them. Once they landed, Adrian stood and exited the shuttle and walked over to Isani, who was waiting for him.

“What happened, Isani?” Adrian asked, forgoing any kind of greeting.

Isani moved his arms in a gesture of great sorrow. “The Erasi attacked Sanctuary, that’s what happened. Come,” Isani said, and guided him towards a wall with symbols on it. Before Adrian could ask anything, Isani continued, “They sent ten fleets and a new type of stealth ships that we are having difficulty detecting. They killed millions of civilians, Adrian. They targeted the habitats.”

Adrian looked at Isani in shock. “Is my mother alright?”

“Yes, she is fine,” Isani said. He pressed something on a panel and the wall opened, allowing them to enter. “They were planning on attacking more than Sanctuary,” he said as the wall closed behind them and the small cylinder-shaped chamber they were in moved upwards. “We believe that they wanted to inflict as much damage as they could, then move to other systems. Most likely to force us to keep our forces in our territory so that we couldn’t send aid to the Shara Daim.”

“What happened? Did we fight them off?”

“There was only one fleet in Sanctuary; it wasn’t nearly enough to defeat them. But fortunately, Star-Guard One station was operational, only it came in range after the Erasi executed their attack. We made them pay for it, though some escaped. We are trying to find them, but their numbers are too few for them to be able to continue with their plans, so we suspect that they are retreating back to either a staging point or back to Erasi space.”

“Why did Tomas decide to reveal this ship?” Adrian asked.

“He is angry, Adrian. They hit Sanctuary, where we thought we were the strongest,” Isani said.

“Why didn’t you just join the battle? Why have me come here?”

“We can’t fight this ship; we are hoping that you can.”

“Why me?”

“The ship uses something akin to the Watchtower interface, only much more powerful. Our people have been able to use it for minutes only, and even then, they can’t really do much with the ship.”

“How did you get it here, then?”

“We have been able to access some commands by attaching consoles to the main computer, but it is all too advanced. We can just move the ship, and even that is a nightmare to calculate and send the instructions to the computer.”

“So you think that I can use it?” Adrian asked.

“You are a special case. Your mind is capable of bearing much larger load than the mind of an ordinary human or Nel. We are hoping that it is enough, though we won’t know until we try.”

The cylinder was suddenly flying through the air, and before him was a massive, sprawling city.

“And there is this, too.” Isani drew his attention back from the marvelous city. “Tomas wanted me to show you this before you took command of the Enduring.”

“The Enduring? This is Axull Darr’s ship?”

“Yes,” Isani said as he pressed a button on a palm-sized disk. Tomas’s hologram appeared in front of him, projected from the small device.