Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

Looking through the reports, he saw that his ships were all as ready as they would ever be. The ships under his command were mostly older models, with the exception of his light cruisers, but even they couldn’t stand up to a Sowir battleship alone. Only his Valor could, and it was an old ship, she was there in the opening of battles of the war. And she had served Isani well, but he knew that at most she could take out two Sowir battleships, if he was lucky. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t find a way to take out all of the Sowir battleships, he just didn’t have enough firepower. The only hope Nuva had were the humans, and he still didn’t know what kind of ships they were brining, nor what their capabilities were. Isani sighed, in two days the human ships would arrive, and then he would know whether there is any chance for Nuva.

Sanctuary – Olympus city

Tomas Klein sat in the palace meeting room alongside the other leaders of Olympus. The last few days they had spent planning for the future. Now, they were trying to figure out how to allocate their resources.

“We need more ships.” Laura said firmly.

“I understand what you are saying Laura, but we can’t build more, not as fast as you want.” Nadia retorted tiredly.

“And how did we build the First and Second Fleets?” Laura asked, her voice rising slightly.

“For the one hundredth time Laura, we built them by drawing on our extra supplies and by halting progress of everything else.” Nadia said, her voice rising also.

“So do it again! We need those ships!” Laura said, almost yelling.

“We can’t! We spent all our reserves to build those ships, it will take months for our mining operation to replenish them. The fabricators we used for the shipbuilding were those designated for the mining operations, if we use them for building ships it will cut into our mining operations, which will in turn cut into our resources, which means no ships later!” Nadia yelled back.

Seeing another screaming match coming, Tomas slammed his hand on the table. “Enough!” He said. “This is not helping anything.” He turned to Laura, “I agree with you that we need more ships.” Laura started to say something, but Tomas cut her off, “But I also agree with Nadia. If building another ten ships now, will cut into our ability to expand and build much more ships later, then it is not worth it.” Then he turned to Nadia. “How about expanding our mining operations? How long will it take for us to reach a point where we can bring all our shipbuilding operations online permanently?” Tomas asked.

Nadia looked ahead for a moment with a blank look on her face meaning she was using her implant. “If we focus all our resources on expanding our mining operations, it will take us three months to reach a point where we will produce enough to satisfy both the needs of the fleet and our other projects. Then we will need an additional two months to build more fabricators for the fleet, we can’t have them keep using the ones that are needed for other projects.” Nadia said.

“Five months!” Laura said incredulously. She rose to her feet, “You can’t possibly think that we can wait that long!”

“Sit down Laura.” Tomas said firmly.

“But…”

Tomas gave her a stern look, “Now.” He said calmly. “Both of you need to cool off, and think about everything clearly.” He looked at them both until they calmed down.

“First,” Tomas started looking at Laura. “It will take at least nine months for the Nel refugees to arrive with the Traveler, and it is highly unlikely that anyone will find us here in that period of time. So there is no rush, we will follow Nadia’s plan. We will expand our mining capabilities and push other projects ahead, training more people at the Academy, although building facilities on Thanatos will need to be halted until our mining operations grow large enough to provide for all we need. Second, although we can’t divert resources to shipbuilding right now, you can still use the facilities that were built for that purpose. You will retrofit the eight ships we brought with us from Sol.”

Laura looked as if she wanted to argue, but then she nodded, “Alright.” She said.

“Good.” Tomas said and then he turned to Nadia. “I want all available resources focused on expanding our mining operations. Halt all city expansions, and make sure that you meet your five months projection. I am expecting our shipyards back to full operational status six months from now.”

Seo-yun entered Tomas’s private rooms, looking for Tomas. She found him in the library, sitting in his reading chair. Around him on the shelves where books, made from real paper, they were part of his collection brought with them from Earth. Most of people of Olympus had never even seen a paper book, even before the founding of Olympus, electronic medium had taken over. She walked over one of the shelves looking at the titles.

“You know, I never read most of these.” She said.

Tomas raised his head and sighed, “Most now alive didn’t.” He said sadly.

“Why do you think that is?” Seo-yun asked.

“Times have changed I guess.” He said.

“Hmm…”

“What?” Tomas asked.

“Nothing. What are you thinking about?”

He stood up and walked over to stand close to her. “Things will change again.”

Seo-yun angled her head, looking at him.

“The refugees, their presence here will upset everything. We knew that we are not alone in this universe, and now we will need to deal with the realities of other races. A lot will change.” Tomas said.

“It is the way of life, everything changes.” Seo-yun said.

Tomas smiled, “Yes.” And then after a minute, “How are things between Laura and Nadia?”

“Tense. But they will work it out.”

“Good. And the people? What is the mood like?”

“Excited. And anxious.”

“If we bring people from Nuva here, there will be more of them than us… And they don’t know yet that this is the only planet we have. We need to be very careful about this.” Tomas said.

“You think that they would try to take over?” Seo-yun asked, surprised.

“We don’t know them.”

“Why are we helping them then?”

“Because it is right. And because we look so much alike. There is a reason for that, I’m sure.”

“You really think that we are related?”

Tomas nodded, “We look too much alike not to be.”

“Well, I guess that we will see once they get here.” Seo-yun said.

“We will need to speak with them. I am willing to give them sanctuary, perhaps even integrate them into Olympus if they are willing. But I want it made clear to them, we are not interested in making anything like their Consortium. If they choose to join us it will be on our terms.”

Seo-yun raised an eyebrow. “Subjugating other races now are we, oh great Khan.”

He gave her an annoyed look. “No, they will have as much freedom as any citizen of Olympus. But as I said before, we don’t know them. And I have no desire to see corruption and greed infect Sanctuary as it did Earth.”

“I don’t know how they will react to that…” Seo-yun said.

“They won’t have a choice, if they want to survive. Don’t get me wrong, I will give them everything they need, but if they want to live amongst us, they will need to play by our rules. It’s as simple as that.”

“And if they refuse?”

Tomas didn’t answer immediately, keeping silent for a couple of minutes.

“If they refuse, we will send them away.” Tomas said.

Send them where? Seo-yun wondered, but didn’t ask out loud. Tomas didn’t become the most powerful man on Earth by being soft. For a while there, after they came to Sanctuary he was lost, unsure. But ever since the talk they had in the cave, more and more she saw the man she met on Earth. The man that had conquered a world, all for a dream of the star filled night sky.