Ivan Kal - Warpath

“Have you had the chance to look at their technology?” Hishok Tansi asked.

“Yes. If even half of it is true, they are leagues ahead of us now.” Erani answered.

“And their history… Their home world is destroyed, and thirty years ago they were just one colony! Now they have spread so much and so fast… It is mind boggling.” Tansi said.

“Did you come across the information on the connection between us and humans?” Nimuse asked, her face twitching for a moment.

“No, there is so much to read I didn’t have the chance…” Tansi said.

“You should look it up, apparently there is much more to Jusan’s defection to the Empire than it was apparent to us.” Nimuse said.

“I’ll look it up as soon as I get the chance.” He promised, then hesitated before continuing to speak. “But, do we even know what we want from these talks?”

“Establishing good and neighborly relations are our priority.” Eran said, “It will take time for us to repair the damage done by the council. We can worry later about what we want from the relationship.”

Tansi and Nimuse both agreed. The three of them spent the next hour fleshing out the details of what their approach would be, and then retired to their respective rooms to rest. All of them knew that the negotiations would be long and difficult.

Ten days after the battle for Nelus – Sowir inner system Laraska

Fleet Commander Bethany Jones-Wright sat on the command center of her flagship leading the Second Fleet as they were taking control of the Laraska system. They had been fighting in the system for three days now. She got the report from the battle at Nelus, and she knew that Adrian managed to defeat a Sowir force almost six times larger than his own. But that he also suffered a lot of losses, she didn’t read too much of the report, focusing instead on her own battle.

She had already received word from the Third Fleet about their action in the Rasaka system. The information on the true Sowir and their apparent mind abilities was very interesting, but not really important to her efforts to take this system. Her army regiments were informed of it, and as she understood it, while the ability was amazing and they didn’t understand anything about it yet, it could be countered easily simply by one being forewarned. But it was the army that would deal with that when they start taking the shipyards and stations in the system, she needed to deal with the Sowir in space.

And while the system didn’t have many ships defending it, it was one of their major industrial systems. They had significant fixed defenses. She had managed to goad and then destroy sixty of one hundred and forty enemy ships in the system on the first day of fighting, then she focused on destroying their defense platforms from far out of their effective range by using her ships kinetic weapons.

That was one big advantage of mass movers, their range didn’t really have a limit. They would speed through space until they impact something. Which was great at destroying target that didn’t move, or at least moved on predictable fixed courses. By the end of the second day she had destroyed the last of the platforms, and now the rest of the Sowir ships were moving to engage hers in a pointless attack. She moved her one hundred Kraken class ships to intercept the remaining eighty Sowir ships.

Eighty Sowir ships moved in a tight concave lens formation, speeding towards the Empire dreadnoughts firing their missiles and lasers. The Empire’s ships moved slowly towards the Sowir and the incoming wave of missiles and laser fire. The Kraken class field defense was weaker than that of the Vanguard ships, but even so the Sowir laser fire was being dissipated completely before it could have a chance of touching the hull. As the missiles entered the range of the dreadnoughts point defenses they started to die. Within a minute all of the Sowir missiles were gone and the Empire ships changed to offense. They opened fire with their particle weapons blowing the smaller Sowir ships to bits.

Soon the last of the Sowir ships exploded, and were just minutes before stood eighty ships now only a slowly expanding field of debris was.

With the destruction of the last threat to her ships in the system, Bethany gave the go ahead to the army to begin the operations of taking control of the Sowir shipyards and stations. The ground would be more difficult, but after they take control of the space installations they will turn to it. For now she stood away from the planet, they didn’t know what numbers the Sowir – true Sowir had on the grounds, but they did have a significant number of their agents. The plan was to try and get the Sowir to surrender, but the offer wouldn’t be coming until the prisoners from the border system are transferred back to Sanctuary and interrogated. In the meantime Beth would have her hands full with securing the system.

Four days later – Sowir shipyard

Platoon Leader Sahib Adin cursed himself for the hundredth time as he charged an enemy with his mono-blade. He stabbed the seven limbed alien through the top of its body hoping to impale its secondary brain and kill it instantly. They had found out early on that if the secondary brain still functioned the agents would keep fighting. As he pulled his blade back and threw the alien of himself he again cursed his luck. As soon as the Exploration Fleet finished with the Furvor his platoon was recalled and sent to the Second Fleet as the most experienced unit that the Empire had.

Which was true in a way, his platoon had fought the Sowir thirty years ago on Nuva, and then they fought the Furvor on Trivax. And because of that he was now moving through the Sowir shipyard hacking and slashing at countless waves of the enemy. They couldn’t use high powered weapons both for fear of puncturing the hull, and because the Emperor wanted as many Sowir facilities intact.

The Empire had far better building technology with their fabricators, but most of the Sowir shipyards had once belonged to the Consortium, and while they were not as good as the Empire’s they would still be an enormous asset in their expansion. The plan was for the Empire to absorb the Sowir territory. Which in itself will be a colossal undertaking that will last years, as the Sowir territory was almost double the size of the Empire.

Sahib climbed back to his feet checking his HUD for any damage to his suit. When he saw none he turned around and looked at the situation. Loca was just now finishing the last of the Sowir agents, she hit it with her shield and then shot it with her low velocity hand gun several times killing it.

“You were supposed to be in front.” Sahib told her.

“They rushed me, and I might be strong but when a dozen of these bastards jump you, you pull back.” She said defensively.

Sahib shook his head and sighed. Fighting had been gruesome. The Sowir agents fought like mindless beasts, which in a way they were. Fighting them wasn’t really hard, once they start a fight they don’t back off. The intel they got from the Third Fleet and Sanctuary indicated that the true Sowir can issue general orders to their agents from afar, but that for more delicate and intelligent control they need to be close. And there had been a few instances where the Sowir followed their agents in battle. And those skirmishes were always much more dangerous than when they just let them loose.

Most of the people that the Empire lost, died when they were fighting Sowir in direct control of their agents. Another additional danger was their mind ability. They couldn’t take control of the human or Nel mind, not like they did with their agents. But they could distract, and in battle even a moment of distraction could prove fatal. And the more they fought the better the Sowir got at it, at least those that survived the engagements with the Empire soldiers.