Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

He looked at Laura, noticing her grim expression. “That’s not all.” He said.

Laura shook her head. “Not even close. The five races combined controlled 18 worlds. All much more developed than the one Traveler encountered. Nuva is a relatively young colony some thirty years old. But the worst news are that the Consortium is at war.” Laura said, and before anyone could comment she added. “Was at war.”

“What do you mean?” Elias asked.

“I meant that they have already lost, or will soon, it makes no difference.”

“Did we learn anything about the people they are at war with?” Seo-yun asked.

“Yes. They gave us all the information on them. They wanted to warn us. The race that attacked them is called Sowir, they were part of their Consortium, the last race to be added, after a some kind of misunderstanding at the beginning. I didn’t yet have a chance to study the information closely. But what I did learn was that the Sowir joined the Consortium, expanded rapidly and when they felt they were strong enough attacked the other members. Killing or enslaving the populations of the worlds they attacked and settling their own. From what the Nel said, only a handful of worlds still stands. And they have no hope, the Sowir are too strong. Nuva is on its own, the Nel home world has abandoned them.” Laura looked around the table. “The data also helped us identify the ships that attacked Voyager. It was the Sowir.” Everyone remained silent digesting the information that Laura dropped on them.

“Voyager encountered them some eleven light years from here, eight from Nuva.” Elias said. Laura nodded. “They are close, and are expanding to the systems not previously held by Consortium.” She said.

Tomas closed his eyes. He brought his people here to be safe and now it looked like he just brought them into even greater danger.

“They will find us eventually.” Tomas said certainly. No one tried to deny his words, they all knew they were the truth.

“We could have years, the nebula protects us.” Seo-yun said.

“Even with our fabricators we can’t hope to outpace the production rates of dozen worlds, our mining operations can’t keep up. Not in a while at least.” Nadia said.

“We could go back.” Tomas said slowly. The room looked shocked that he would suggest something like that, and for a moment, no one said anything until Seo-yun turned sternly towards him.

“No! We are not going back to Earth, this is our home now, and we are not going to run away again.” Seo-yun said. Tomas looked at her.

“If we stay, people will die. That was the reason we came here, so that no one else dies for the stupidity of others.” Tomas said.

“And you succeeded. We are independent, but that doesn’t mean that we will give our home to anyone. We will fight for this world, even if it means some of us must die. Your people know that you want to keep us safe. But you need to understand that we are still free to make our own choices. And I can tell you right now that we will not run away again.” Seo-yun said and the others nodded firmly.

Tomas’s hand raised to his chest unconsciously, trying to touch something that was no longer there. After a panicked second he remembered that he left it behind, and that he had made a promise to Seo-yun, to himself and to his people to lead. He sighed, rubbed his hands over his face and then looked around the room. He looked to the ceiling for a moment steeling his resolve, and then he nodded firmly. He looked to Laura. “Did the message say anything else?”

“The Nel have asked for our help, what they need they didn’t say. But they know that they don’t have much time, they might want to trade for any tech we have, hoping that perhaps we have something that can aid them. Other than that, there isn’t much we can do. We don’t know when the Sowir will attack them, and even if we learn immediately there is nothing we can do. At our top hyperspace speeds we can get there in nine months tops if we push it. I assume of course that the attack comes after our ships are ready, and that the attack is something that we can handle. But even that won’t be enough, the Sowir have more ships than us, they will just send more. If their ships are on the level of those that attacked Voyager, our new ones will be superior. But we can still get outnumbered.”

“Nine months… In that time they can kill everything on the planet.” Elias said slowly in his calm manner.

“Perhaps…” Seo-yun said wondering.

“Seo-yun?” Tomas asked. She came out of her thoughts and focused on Tomas, then looked around the room. “I might have a way for us to get there a lot faster, the tests have been successful, a few more days perhaps. But in the end it still won’t matter, they could send hundreds of ships.”

“I don’t think that they will, from the data it looks like the Sowir are extremely utilitarian. They will send just enough to succeed. If they fail, then the next time they will send more, and so forth. They have won almost every engagement with the Consortium, but they also had a lot of losses. The Consortium has made them pay in blood every time their forces met” Laura said.

Tomas sighed. “We will need to discuss this a lot more. But for now I believe that we need to expand our military even more, both the Army and Fleet. And fast.” The others nodded grimly.

“As for Nel, for now tell them that we are willing to offer aid, and start the process, see what they want and need. Captain Kisaragi already revealed our FTL comms, so there is no way around that.” Tomas said.

“Are we sure we want to do this? Help them I mean, we could build up our defenses. And who knows, perhaps we might even remain hidden.” Nadia said.

No one answered her for a few minutes, everyone struggling with their own thoughts. It was Elias, who finally answered.

“There is no way for us to survive long enough to match a race that holds dozen worlds. If we had the population of Earth perhaps. But we are millions, and they probably billions, perhaps trillions. The only way we can keep ourselves safe is to keep them busy away from here, until a time when we can match them. Aiding these aliens will allow us that which we need the most, time.” He looked around the table. “And I would hope that our first decision regarding a friendly alien race isn’t leaving them to die, when we have the means to help.”

“You are right old friend. We left Earth because we didn’t want to be like them, I guess that fate wants to put our resolve to the test.” Tomas said. “Alright, inform your people, start making plans for expansion of our ship and weapon building facilities. I need to have a press conference and let the people know. We’ll meet at midday again. But I’m not committing to anything right now, I need to think some more.” Everyone got up from their seats and left the room in a hurry. Tomas sat for a few more minutes, thinking about how to ask his people to fight for an alien race they didn’t even know existed a few months ago.

Hades shipbuilding facility – Sanctuary system

Adrian walked down the corridors of his new ship, it was not yet named, that was Adrian’s job. He still couldn’t figure out a good name for the ship, he hoped that by seeing it, walking through it, he would get an idea, but for now there was nothing. Iris on the other hand had plenty suggestions, although her ideas were… Well not good. Adrian made her stop when she tried to convince him that “Great hammer shaped beast” was a perfectly good name. Adrian arrived on the ship two weeks ago, and has made a point of walking around the ship every day. Meeting with the crew, those that had already arrived. New crew members are arriving daily. When Adrian arrived the ship had only 150 crew members, 40 were security, with 40 more scheduled to arrive any day now. There were also around 80 techs, still working on the finishing touches on the ship’s systems, but they have all left a day ago. Now the crew count had risen up to 500, with more coming every day. Originally the crew was to arrive spread out over a period of one month, to allow them all to settle leisurely. But ever since the announcement from Tomas Klein, about the hostile alien race in our neighborhood and the request for help from the Nel, everyone’s leave was canceled. The rest of the new ships were already crewed and out in the system doing various maneuvers, all save for the two dreadnoughts. And they were scheduled to join the rest in one week. Each crew member that arrived was put through accelerated course on the ship. Adrian just hoped that they had enough time to get familiar with the ship. Adrian was privy to information that wasn’t yet released to the others. Laura told him that they had a new way of space travel that could send them to the Nel system in 2 days. But they wouldn’t go unless the system was attacked, and not even that was certain, they were still debating whether they will help or not.