Ivan Kal - Onslaught

Anessa read a report from Garaam. Her forces had engaged the Erasi in Var Harsi and had managed to destroy half of the attacking forces, and they had successfully defended the system. The first battle between the Legions and the Erasi and it was a Shara Daim victory. Anessa knew that things would be much harder now; the Erasi wouldn’t allow themselves to be ambushed again. But the system guards’ ships would soon reach the Har Aras sector, along with another nineteen Legions, which would give Garaam more room to maneuver. She would need to spread the Legions in order to defend as many of the systems as possible. The Shara Daim were on the defensive now; Garaam’s job would be to stop the Erasi advancement until the shipyards could bolster their numbers enough for a counterattack.

In the meantime, Anessa was moving system guards and defense platforms from the rest of the Shara Daim sectors to help the defense of the three invaded sectors. She wasn’t stripping all of the defenses, but she was still weakening the other sectors. The Erasi had twelve Shara Daim systems under their control, two of which were hubs—systems with an unusual number of trans-space points both to and from the system. Taking those back needed to be a priority, but they simply didn’t have the forces to take them back yet. The Erasi had moved their defensive platforms and fortified the systems too much for them to be taken quickly.

Anessa didn’t want to enter into prolonged sieges when she couldn’t spare the ships; every Legion engaged in a siege would be one fewer to defend other systems, and the Erasi would take advantage of that. Taking back their systems was going to be hard. The Legions would stop the Erasi expansion, and then it would be a slow war, with both the Erasi and the Shara Daim bringing in reinforcements as they were ready.

The Erasi had struck a big blow, and they now had an advantage; their lower members defended their systems while the fleets of their core members were free to keep the pressure on her territory. And as Anessa had realized since she had taken the ‘throne,’ Shara Daim manufacturing was probably not going to be able to keep up with the Erasi.

The Elders had made Shara Daim success dependent on fear and power of the Legions, on the technology they had been exploiting for thousands of years. There had never been a need to replace an entire Legion, and now she needed more of them, and fast.

But what she really needed was to finish the conflict with the Erasi quickly, push them out of her territory and make sure that they didn’t think on attacking again. And she knew that there was little chance of her doing that anytime soon, not alone. Ever since she had killed the Elders, she had been struggling with her rule in privacy. For so long she had been an instrument of the Elders, and then during and after her time with the Empire, she had learned a lot of things that had made her waver in her beliefs. Then when she had learned of the Elders’ lies, she had snapped, and had seized the power for herself because she was the only person that she could trust with it.

Adrian would be arriving to Shara Radum soon, and she hoped to get him to make an alliance between his Empire and the Shara Daim. She knew that in order to change her people, she needed to make them see other races differently, something that even she struggled with. But the Empire had Humans and Nel in their number, two races that were like the Shara Daim; it would be much easier to get her people to agree to deal with the Empire than with anyone else. But first, she needed to convince Adrian.

One month later — June — Shara Daim territory

Hanaru watched as a small taskforce entered an almost empty system in Shara Daim territory. The system itself was mostly barren, only a few planets orbiting a very old star. But what made it perfect for an ambush was the fact that the trans-space point that led out of the system rested close to one of the system’s moons. And that was the trans-point that the Empire’s ships that had just entered the system would try to use.

Hanaru had studied the data they had on the Empire’s ships’ FTL drives extensively, and had realized that they had never used them close to stations, or large stellar bodies. They always dropped out of FTL a certain distance away from anything. And he could use that.

If they followed the same practice, they wouldn’t drop from their FTL right on top of the trans-space point; it was too close to the moon. They would drop out a short distance away, giving Hanaru the opportunity to close the point and ambush their ships. As the Empire ships exited hyperspace, he made sure that his ships were ready. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Prepare the jamming system,” Hanaru said, and waited.

Veritas

Adrian entered the command center of Veritas just as the three ships dropped from their skim near to the system’s moon. Va Dan Reisi walked with Adrian, as he made a point of being present for every trans-space entry. Just as he set foot inside the room, his Sensors Handler spoke out.

“I’m detecting something inside the trans-station, Lord Sentinel.”

Adrian frowned. “What?”

“The sensors can’t identify it. We could go active with the sensors,” he suggested. Then his station chirped and his expression changed. “Trans field detected!” the Sensors Handler said just as the holo showed a flash of violet light that signified a trans-station activation.

Adrian knew immediately that someone had just closed the trans-lane, just as his ships were approaching. He moved quickly to his command chair and keyed the comms to his escorts.

“Go to full battle stations immediately,” Adrian said over the comms just as his holo detected a hyperspace communications jamming field slide into space.

“We lost our FTL comms, Lord Sentinel.”

Adrian nodded. The last time that the Empire had encountered jamming technology had been in their war with the Sowir, and to this day they hadn’t found a way to counter it other than leaving the range of the field or destroying its source.

“Go active on all sensors,” Adrian said, and a tachyon burst left all three ships.

Adrian turned to Va Dan Reisi, who was looking at him nervously. Adrian doubted that this was an ambush by the Shara Daim; the Va Dan wouldn’t have accepted for his ship to be carried inside the Veritas if that were the case. “Do you have any idea on who this might be?” Adrian asked.

“No, Lord Sentinel. But I am certain that it is not any Shara Daim,” Reisi said.

Adrian turned back at the holo, waiting for the ambushers to show themselves. A few moments later, sensors picked up ships coming out of the shadow of the moon, and instantly the computers recognized their signatures.

Twenty Erasi warships moved to intercept Adrian’s force, ten destroyers, eight heavy cruisers, and two battleships.

“Erasi,” Reisi cursed.

“Hail those ships,” Adrian said.

“They accepted, Lord Sentinel.”

Adrian straightened. “Erasi vessels, I am Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas of the Empire. State your intent, or I will consider your actions hostile and respond in kind.”

A few seconds later a hologram of a Gatray appeared in front of Adrian. “I’m afraid that you will not like our intent, Lord Sentinel.”

Adrian’s eyes narrowed at him as he recognized the voice. “Hanaru,” Adrian said, and the Gatray dipped his head.

“The Erasi cannot allow any kind of agreements between the Empire and the Shara Daim.”

“This attack will mean war between the Erasi and the Empire,” Adrian said calmly.

“No one will learn of how your ships got destroyed, and sometime later, information indicating the Shara Daim will come to light.”