Ivan Kal: Inheritance

For humans, violence was not hard, and in many cases not even distasteful. They had reached far and explored avenues that Axull Darr and his people had lacked in. They had never known war, not like humans did, fighting against someone of equal or greater strength than their own. For the People ,war had been a brief thing, as simple as bringing their advanced technology against their opponent.

The way that humans had advanced was exactly what Axull Darr had unknowingly hoped for. A people with the morals and values of the People, reinforced with sheer will, a violent and warlike personality, and tempered with skill and knowledge.

But for all that, they had also managed to interfere with Axull Darr’s vision. With their fledgling genetic knowledge, they had stopped the evolutionary path that he had lain deep inside their genetic code, for both themselves and the Nel that had joined their Empire. Their hereditary longevity had effectively stopped their natural evolution, and in doing so had halted his plans.

But even though they had gone against his plan, Axull Darr was probably the greatest mind that had ever been born to the People, and he had conceived of a scenario in which that could happen. That was why he had placed a failsafe within their genetic code, a failsafe that had been triggered rather spectacularly by Adrian.

All of the People had possessed the Sha, what humans called psionic abilities, both natural and engineered. Long ago, Sha was the general term used for any psionic ability that the People found and then added to their own, but over time it grew to encompass all of their powers. Axull Darr’s original plan had been to introduce those abilities slowly, over many generations. But their meddling had prevented that. Instead, Adrian who had managed to push his mind and body to its very limit and then beyond, was the first who had triggered the change. His mind and body had thus changed over the last three years to grant him all the abilities that his forefathers once possessed.

But no matter how brilliant Axull Darr’s solution was, there were limits. The failsafe was not able to do everything that his main plan required. His desire to allow his descendants to have a degree of evolutionary freedom had also made it impossible for the failsafe to do everything that he had intended. While the changes that Adrian had experienced were significant—an enhanced nervous system, a newly grown organ, and a slightly reinforced brain—the changes were nothing compared to what was really required for him to use those abilities to their fullest. The rest of his body was inadequate. His bones were fragile, his muscles weak, his flesh soft.

But there was time to work on that problem; perhaps the Empire’s scientists would manage to fix the problem on their own. Already Axull Darr had witnessed their ingenuity; they possessed things that the People had never thought off. Nothing that was more advanced, but they had technologies and uses for them that their forefathers would have never imagined. Even now, they were utilizing the knowledge of their ancestors in ways that he hadn’t foreseen, as they now had access to all the knowledge that the People had invented over the billions of years that they’d lived. Most of it they couldn’t comprehend, but the knowledge was there, and it had already pushed them far ahead of where they were before.

Now he had a different problem, one that he, or rather the original Axull Darr, had overlooked. Adrian now possessed the Sha, and neither he nor those around them could understand it. And he had no one to teach him. The original Axull Darr had been born in a time where every one of his people had had these abilities from birth; he’d grown up around people who used them, and he’d learned by watching and having others use their telepathy to aid in the learning. There had been no schools or teachers that taught someone the basic theory; they’d learned as they grew from experiences and having someone show them how it was done, much like a human child would learn to use its eyes or its voice.

And he, as a copy, had knowledge of those powers, but couldn’t actually use them. He had memory of what the results of using them should be, but he didn’t know how to do those things. And the original Axull Darr had left no data on the basics, probably because it didn’t even exist. He had plenty of data and instructions about the advanced use, but those were of no help. It was the same as if he told a person to climb the tallest mountain, when that person knew nothing about mountain climbing. Sure, he might get to the top, but the more likely result was that he would die trying.

Adrian had all the ingredients and tools, but no knowledge of how to use them. If he had been born with the power, some of it would have been instinctual; a degree of genetic memory was incorporated, but the failsafe had been degraded by the humanity’s own evolutionary path. The genetic memory was buried deep. But Adrian hadn’t been born with his abilities, which meant that he had to learn on his own, or somehow dig up the genetic memory. And so far he had only managed to figure out how to use four of the psionics, four aspects of the Sha that he received, and even that was through much pain and luck, and one of those he’d only gotten access to because he’d nearly died.

Axull Darr knew that it would take time for him to learn and master his abilities, and he hoped that the Empire had the time for its people to receive all of their ancestor’s gifts and improve on them. But his review of the Union ship historical data that had been recovered from Earth told him that time might be running out faster than the original Axull Darr had anticipated. The plan that Axull Darr’s kin had put in place to contain their mistake had not been as successful as they’d believed it would be; the war that the Union had been involved in proved that, as there was no mistaking the origin of the black ships that had attacked them. The original Axull Darr had known that it wouldn’t work; that was why he’d refused to have any part in that plan and had decided to craft his own, which, while preforming far ahead of what he’d imagined, was still nowhere close to reaching the end goal. The Empire needed to grow, and do so fast if there was any chance of stopping what would inevitably come their way.

A ringing noise woke Fleet Commander Bethany Jones from her slumber. Slowly her eyes opened, and as her consciousness returned, she shut off the message prompt with her implant. She swung her legs off her bed and stood slowly, then made her way to the bathroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the lights; she effortlessly walked through the dark in the commander’s quarters on her flagship, the EWS Audacious.

The Audacious was a Mk 2 dreadnought-class warship. At one time, these ships had been one of the most powerful in the Empire’s fleet. Now, with all the new technologies available to the Empire, they were outdated. And yet these ships were the backbone of the Empire’s fleets, and the first line in their war against the Sowir Dominion. For the last five years, Bethany’s Second Fleet had been tasked with taking and securing the systems they invaded.

The Empire was more advanced than the Sowir, but still, that didn’t mean that they were immune to losses. That was why they had been very careful in their war. The Empire had taken 7 major and 4 minor Sowir systems. The 7 that they’d taken had once belonged to the Consortium; more precisely, they belonged to the Nel, Mtural, and Pouute. Each of those systems were once major shipbuilding systems, which was why they had been targeted first. The Emperor wanted to take and make use of the infrastructure already there, which was the main reason why the war had dragged on. If they hadn’t needed to clear all hostile forces from the stations, shipyards, and planets, they would have been free to simply destroy them and move on to the next. But they also took the time to study Sowir computers and their ship designs. They also needed the time to develop technologies they recieved from the sphere, and to build weapons for their army, equipment they would need in order to take back Guxaxac.