Ivan Kal - Inheritance

Adrian stood and the holo changed, now showing Sowir territory with three points glowing red—the three systems they were planning on attacking.

“The rest of the offensive, following the opening, can go in many different directions depending on the Sowir reaction, so I will not bother you with plans that might not even be used. Our primary goal will always be the same: Isolate the Sowir in their home system. All our actions will be for that goal. The Sowir don’t follow any kind of doctrine that we can imagine. Their ships are operated by only a few of their people, with them using their telepathy to control their tools like additional limbs. But with their small numbers, that means that they never allow themselves to be without those tools, which makes capture extremely hard. We were lucky to have gotten any prisoners; we caught them off guard. That will not happen again. They will keep thousands of their tools between themselves and us. So don’t even try to take prisoners. No boarding disabled ships; destroy them and move on. We will not be taking these systems from the Sowir, we are wiping them clean,” Adrian said, looking both Nair and Beth in the eyes. She remembered this Adrian, the emotionless commander. It was one of the things that had infuriated her back at the Academy.

“We will destroy their presence in every system surrounding their home system. The projections indicate that they will figure out what we are planning and abandon their other systems after we pass through six of their remaining eleven systems. I agree with these projections. The Sowir prisoners have made it very clear that the Sowir ships will fight to the death; they will not ask for mercy, nor will they surrender. They are now aware that we know that they don’t keep their word to those they don’t consider true beings, and that we will not keep our word to them. They would rather all fight to the end, hoping to hurt us in the process. And we will deny them that.”

“Is there really no way to get them to surrender?” Nair asked, voicing Bethany’s thoughts as well.

Adrian shook his head sadly. “Perhaps there is a way, but it would require putting our people at great risk. The reason why they are not going to accept any kind of agreement now is simple. They know that we have Nel as part of our Empire. They understand that we will never allow them to live peacefully at our borders, so they see no point in talking. It is very logical to their minds.”

Nair nodded his thanks for the answer.

Adrian looked around. “Any other questions?” he asked. When no one said anything, he cleared the holo. “Alright, Fleet Commanders Jones and Hakeem, you are free to inspect your ships. If you want any changes or additions, you have until the end of the week to request them.” He nodded a dismissal.

People got up and started leaving. Only Bethany and Adrian stayed by some unspoken agreement. When the last person exited and left them alone, the silence somehow deepened and grew heavier. Adrian stood up and leaned on a chair.

“So, how have you been?” he asked. His cold, commanding demeanor was gone now. He looked uncomfortable, unsure.

“Good. You? I heard that you had a tough few years…” Beth said, equally awkward.

“I’m good, and yes, it has been an interesting couple of years,” Adrian said. After another uncomfortable silence, he spoke again. “How’s Harry?” he asked.

Beth shifted uncomfortably. “He is good… We are divorced,” she added quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

Adrian’s eyes widened a bit at that. “Really? I hadn’t heard.”

“Well, well the fact that it happened a few days ago is probably why. Not many people know,” she said with a crooked smile. That managed to make Adrian’s lip curl into a small smile. Then, before she chickened out, she stood. “Adrian, I know that we haven’t really spoken in a long time. That even though we’ve put the past behind, we still haven’t made any steps to actually talk again.”

“I know, Beth,” Adrian said sadly. “It wasn’t that I didn’t forgive you, or that I didn’t want to. It’s just that there were other more important things in my life. I would love to be your friend again, Beth, but you need to know that it won’t ever be more than that. You hurt me, but it isn’t really about that. I have changed. I am not the same person I was then. If you want to be friends again, I can do that. But if you want something more… Then it is better if we pretend we are only colleagues.” For a moment, she thought that she saw something in his face, but it was hidden too quickly for her to recognize it.

Beth dropped her head to hide the emotions on her face. She had hoped that they might move forward from where they’d left off years ago. But she knew that it was unlikely. She stood up and stepped around the table to stand in front of him. She extended her hand to him. “Friends?”

Adrian smiled and took her hand in a handshake. “Friends.”

December; Vanguard Fleet – Trans-lane to Sowir system

Adrian sat in the command center of the Harbinger, three lead balls floating around him, and watched as the big timer in the middle holo ticked down, indicating the remaining time until they entered the Sowir system. It had taken a great deal of planning to coordinate the attack so that all three fleets attacked around the same time. The fleets would arrive within a half hour of each other. And Adrian’s fleet would reach its target first.

His fleet included ten Vanguard ships, one hundred Kraken-class warships, one hundred and fifty Furious missile ships, and ninety-three battleships that had survived the battle for Nelus. But in addition to those, he had thirty auxiliary ships, and also forty drones constructed by Warpath, designed to be the support for the Vanguard Fleet. And with the knowledge from the People, they had managed to upgrade their original designs significantly.

The drone ships were remotely controlled by the flagship’s AI, in this case Iris. But she only controlled their propulsion systems outside of combat. In combat, the ships themselves would be controlled by the Watchtower interface remotely. The new version of Watchtower was much better than the one Adrian had used at Nelus. With the tech from the sphere, they’d managed to lower the load and increase effectiveness by 580%, making it safe to use for anyone.

The drones were a radically different than anything they had built previously. Each drone was five hundred meters long and was a purely offensive ship. The drones had no indoor room delegated to crews, so that they could have more ammunition and weapons. They weighed almost as much as an 1100-meter-long Kraken-class warship.

Adrian checked the timer once again, seeing that there was only around two minutes until they would arrive. He got up from his command chair, pocketed the balls, and turned to his ship’s second-in-command, Paul Isaacs.

“You have the ship, Paul. Try not to break her,” Adrian said jokingly.

“I won’t. Unless you order us to ram something, then I can’t guarantee anything,” Paul answered, deadpan, as he took Adrian’s chair. Adrian shook his head as he exited the CC.

While Adrian used the Watchtower, Paul was in command of the Harbinger, as Adrian couldn’t really command a ship while he was in charge of the entire fleet and the drones. Adrian did realize that in the future they would need special command ships for their Fleet Commanders. And he suspected that soon the Empire Fleet would undergo another drastic change in structure—with all of the tech coming out of the sphere, it was a given.

Adrian walked towards the Watchtower room, followed by Akash and Sora. Once inside the room, he sat in the chair and felt the connection with the access point on his neck as the two wolions got into sitting positions in front of him. He closed his eyes, and a moment later he was floating in empty space. They were yet to exit the trans-lane, so there was little for the interface to show.