Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

“Follow me.” Adrian said, and started for the door. The two wolions followed close behind as he exited his quarters. It wasn’t the first time he took them out of his quarters, though the last time there was a lot less people on the ship. As they started walking down the corridors the little cubs would look around constantly, though they never lost step with him, always keeping up just behind him. From time to time Adrian turned only to find them gazing at some new thing they saw for the first time. They took one of the elevators and went to one of the lower decks where the main training room was. As soon as they exited the elevator they were met with dozen people moving around the hallway. For a moment Adrian was worried that he shouldn’t have brought them, but still they kept just behind him. The people around them on the other hand froze in place as soon as they saw them for the first time. The two cubs were small, and while they still had some of that cute baby look on them, there was no mistaking what they were, predators. Also, their exotic looks – four eyes and blue fur – most definitely drew looks. Soon whispers could be heard behind Adrian, as he passed by the crew. As he passed a crew member they would salute and then usually gasp as he passed them. Soon though, they arrived at the training room. As they entered, Adrian noticed a couple of soldiers training alongside some of Leviathan’s security personnel. As soon as they were noticed the soldiers stopped what they were doing. Adrian knew that there were rumors regarding the two cubs. Those that had seen them before had spread it around, and now everyone knew about his wolions. Though most didn’t really believe it, as far as they knew no one has ever captured a wolion, let alone have one as a pet.

Adrian knew that now there would be no more disbelief. Soon enough four soldiers approached Adrian, they were all dressed in their black uniforms with dark green outlines. They all had that tough look about them, with their close cropped hair, and intense looks in their eyes.

“Fleet Commander.” The lead one said, saluting, the others following close behind.

Adrian’s imp provided him with the man’s name and rank. “Squad Leader Meyers.” Adrian said, returning the salute, then nodding to the rest.

“We don’t mean to bother you sir. But we just wanted to ask… Are those wolions?” SL Meyers asked.

Adrian smiled and looked down at Akash and Sora, they were now sitting one on each side of Adrian, calmly looking at the Squad Leader. The only people they had interacted with were Adrian and his steward Goran.

“Yes, they are. This is Akash,” He said nodding to his left, “And this is Sora.” He nodded to his right.

Squad Leader Meyers got down his knees and looked at them.

“Introduce yourselves.” Adrian said to the cubs. They looked up at him, then at the Squad Leader and back again, then finally they stood up and walked up to the Squad Leader, then they stopped and looked at him intensely. Squad Leader tentatively reached a hand out and stopped a breath away from Akash. Then Sora and Akash moved closer to the hand, sniffed and then after a moment of deciding to shove their heads into the Squad Leader’s hand. He then proceeded to pet them, reaching out with his other hand.

“Amazing.” SL Meyers said, “I didn’t know that anyone managed to catch a wolion.”

“They didn’t.” Adrian said. “I found these two in the woods, their mother died after giving birth to them.”

“Really? Well, they look harmless enough.” As he said that both Sora and Akash let out a small growl. Squad Leader immediately pulled his hands back.

Adrian let out a laugh, “They might be tame and small, but I would hardly call them harmless. Also, they appear to be able to understand us, or at least what we intended to say if not the actual words.”

The Squad Leader nodded tightly, with his companions laughing with Adrian.

“Did you plan to exercise with them here?” Squad Leader asked.

“Yes, they need a bigger space to play than my quarters.” Adrian said, then looked at the cubs and pointed his hand at the small running track, “Go play.”

Immediately the two ran off and started chasing each other all over the room, running around the people training already, as if they didn’t want to disturb them. Although their presence alone did that.

“Well, it was a pleasure meeting you sir. And them.” Squad Leader said, saluting again.

“Likewise Squad Leader.” Adrian said, returning the salute.

As the soldiers left back to their corner of the room, Adrian approached one of the weight lifting machines. Since he was here already he might as well get some training done, he doubted he would have much time for it after they arrived.

Nuva

Retsar Isani sat in the ready room aboard his battleship Valor, he was reviewing the data provided by the humans. The more he spent in the company of humans, or reading data they provided, the more he realized just how different they really are. Of course we are different, we are not the same species, Isani thought to himself. But they looked similar enough to each other that he questioned everything he knew. Could have the Order been right all along? Isani thought, and immediately shook himself. No, there is no point in questioning the actions of his ancestors. That was the darkest moment in his peoples history, he shuddered to think what would happen if it turned out that the Order was right. It was better to remain ignorant. Some things are better left unknown.

Isani continued reading, the projected time for the arrival of the human fleet in the system was two days. The location was deep inside the system’s gravity well, which had baffled Isani. But he chose to trust the humans, they haven’t lied to them yet. They had concealed things, but they had just met them. After arriving it would take the human fleet another sixteen days to reach Nuva, just two days before the Nel arrive. There were no plans for a joint strategy, they didn’t know each other that well. They would do their best to protect Nuva. Isani didn’t know if they will be able to fight them off. The humans were sending 10 ships, with Isani’s 13 ships their force will outnumber the Sowir force of 20. But still it might not be enough, Sowir force had 6 battleships, all of newer make and more powerful than Valor. And Isani didn’t know whether the Humans had any battleships in their force, he knew nothing about Human warships. There was nothing for him to do but wait and hope that it would be enough to defend Nuva. They would meet the Sowir ship close to the planet. They simply didn’t have enough forces to split them, and meeting them out, away from Nuva would mean leaving the planet undefended. All it would take is for one ship to slip past them, the planet had no other defenses. The Sowir practice of taking over a world was to destroy any defenses, and then land troops to take care of the population. They usually killed everyone, but in a few instances they did leave a small part of the population alive, to serve as a work force. Each world they conquered was then populated by their people. Nuva would be no different. Isani believed that Sowir would try to land their troop ships on the ground, each ship held 1500 Sowir soldiers, their best. With two transport ships, that meant 3000 Sowir soldiers. Nuva had very few weapons for ground combat, and even less people capable of using them, in the last few months they did form a militia of sorts, but Isani knew that they wouldn’t stand a chance against the elite Sowir soldiers. So their only choice was to protect the planet, keep their ships close and make sure that the transports don’t get through. The population will in the next few days be going to the underground shelters, that they built over the course of the past two years. Only those in the militia will stay above to protect their homes.