Out of the Ashes (Rise of the Empire Book 3) (11 page)

“What kind of talk?” Seo-yun asked.

“That perhaps Order was right. These talks are dangerous for my people. Every Nel is taught from a young age about the Order, and they are taught about what we did to them. It is the thing we are most ashamed of as a people. If they start believing that what the Order believed was in fact the truth, well that could pose a great many problems.” Sumia said.

“And you want to lie to them? Tell them that we are not related at all?” Seo-yun asked.

“I… Yes – No. I don’t know. I don’t know how to proceed, I am now responsible for millions of people.”

“In my experience, secrets have a way of doing more harm than good. Not that there aren’t some things that are best left untold. But it is your responsibility. You must find the right balance between trusting your people with the truth, and keeping secrets for their benefit. That is what it means to be a leader.” Seo-yun said.

Sumia sighed, and moved her palm sideways and back agreeing, “You are right. I think that I will tell them. What the Order spoke of is most likely just coincidence, and we still know very little about the connection between us.”

Seo-yun smiled. “Your choice.”

Sumia turned to look Seo-yun in the eyes, “You are very wise for one so young.” She said.

Seo-yun looked at her confused for a moment. She studied Sumia, and saw few faint lines around her eyes and brow. Because of her skin tone it was hard to see them on the first glance, and Seo-yun never really paid much attention. If she was looking at a human that hadn’t gone through life extension treatments she would say that Sumia was about forty years old. And then it occurred to her. She coughed uncomfortably, “Ah… How old do you think I am?” Seo-yun asked.

“I would say somewhere around twenty cycles.” Sumia said. Seo-yun quickly had her implant do the conversion. Twenty Nel cycles equaled twenty eight human years.

“I’m afraid you are wrong. I am technically one hundred and seventy years old, close to one hundred and twenty of your cycles.” Seo-yun said.

Sumia blinked, “But you look so young. It is rare for a Nel to reach that age. How long do humans live?”

Seo-yun grimaced, she thought that Tomas already told her. Or that they realized it on their own. But then again how could they? “Humans don’t really have a life span, technically we live forever.”

Sumia’s eyes widened and she looked at Seo-yun in shock. “But, that is impossible.”

Before Sumia could say anything else Seo-yun continued. “It is a recent development. We used to live about one hundred years at the most. Then we found a way to prolong our life a bit more. And finally we found a way to make our bodies live forever.”

Sumia stood up and looked down on Seo-yun. “Yo-you changed yourselves?” She asked incredulously.

“Yes.” Seo-yun said simply.

Sumia looked at Seo-yun for another moment, and then sat back down on the bench. “Well, that explains everything. I believed that you were all just young, it made sense. If one was to colonize another part of space, it would be preferable to send young people. What age is the oldest person here?” She asked.

“There is a woman working on the Olympia station that is two hundred and five years old.” Seo-yun said.

Sumia glanced at her quizzically, and Seo-yun understood the question in her eyes.

“Immortality is a recent discovery. We found it just before we started our trip here. That’s why she is so
young
.” Seo-yun answered with a twinkle in her eye.

Sumia looked at the garden and laughed softly. “And to think I once thought you primitive.”

Seo-yun smiled weakly, “We are, in a way. We have been in space for more than a hundred years. But in truth everything we have accomplished by now, we did in a couple of decades. And we are still adapting our atmosphere based knowledge to space. But genetics are probably the area we are the most advanced in.”

“Well, I guess that it is me that is a child here.” Sumia said.

“No one here looks at you that way. We value knowledge and skill above all else. And you are obviously a skilled and knowledgeable person.”

Sumia smiled at Seo-yun, and then looked back at the garden. “Do you think that my people could become like yours? I mean to live as long as you do, and to change our society to be more like yours.” Sumia asked softly. Seo-yun couldn’t help but smile at that. If only Sumia knew how much they suffered in order to become so unified, to create Olympus.

“I already have my people working on the life extension. There are differences between us, so it will take some time for us to learn your genetic code.” Seo-yun said.

“You already started? Why would you do that when we are not your people?” Sumia asked.

“Humans always struggle between our two natures. We like to think of ourselves as good. But truth is that each one of us has those evil desires within.” Seo-yun paused, looking at the sky. Then she turned to Sumia. “There is a very old story from my home world from the people called Cherokee. It goes something like this:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.””
Seo-yun continued, “A wolf is an animal from our home world, it is used here as the metaphor for our inner selves. Do you understand what the story is about?”

Sumia didn’t answer immediately, instead she took her time and thought about it for a while, “Yes, I think that I understand. I think that it speaks for my people as well. Perhaps my people fed the wrong animal for far too long.”

They remained there, looking at the garden until the sun moved past the horizon and the night fell.

Chapter Twelve

July 2171 – Second Fleet

Fleet Commander Johann Stern sat in her ready room going over the files on Ra’a’zani warships as she waited for her fleet to exit a trans-lane. The Resistance, or more accurately the Olympus Ai Asumy managed to get a few visual scans of the ships. Sadly, there were no more thorough scans available, as they couldn’t risk detection. There were a few classes of ships detected, but the one she was most interested in were the ships that they would encounter in Sol. The ships were around 450 meters long and 220 wide, about half the size of her Monarch, but still larger than her battleships. The ships hulls were covered in scale like plates that overlapped. There were no weapons visible or anything else for that matter save for the drives at the back of the ship. The resistance did however record an instance when the scales moved to reveal launcher that then fired a missile like weapons down on Earth. So they knew that the ships were armed and that the weapons were retracted into the hull. Everything else was a mystery. They didn’t know what kind of weapons they had, defenses or what materials their ships were made of. They knew very little. The more she read, the less she knew, and Johanna worried that they might have rushed ahead of themselves. They had no way of knowing if her ships would be on par with the Ra’a’zani. Although the resistance information from the ground was promising. They said that their military technology on the ground wasn’t all that more advanced that theirs, which meant that their space technology probably wasn’t as advanced as well. Still, Johanna’s ships would outnumber her opponents. And her ships went through a big retrofit back at Sanctuary, getting most of their weapons updated.

Tomas Klein has given her orders to send a message to the Ra’a’zani before engaging them, they had their protocols and Asumy provided everything they need to know about the Ra’a’zani language. They even had their translators programed with the Ra’a’zani language. But Johanna doubted that any talks between the them would do anything, from everything she read Johanna could see that Ra’a’zani were monsters and slavers. They won’t retreat without a fight.

A ping from her imp told Johanna that it was time for her to go the CC. She got up from behind her desk and went to the CC. She entered and took her place in the command chair.

“We will be exiting trans-space in ten minutes Fleet Commander.” Ship Master Andros Venter said.

Johanna nodded and turned her command board on. To the side she used the holographic menus to send an order to the entire fleet, putting them on alert. The system they were entering now was the second system that the Union ship discovered with intelligent life in it. And as such could potentially have a space faring civilization.

“Exiting trans-space!” Navigation Handler said. No one felt anything as they returned to normal space, as they never did, the transition was seamless. And as the viewer wasn’t turned on, the only thing that told them that they were now back in normal space was the fact that the holo started to update as it gathered light from the system and from the information provided by the fleets passive sensors.

Johanna and the rest of the CC crew sat quietly and waited for the holo to finish drawing a picture of the system. As soon as it finished, Johanna leaned forward in her chair and looked closely at the fourth planet in the system.

“Well, I guess that this is going to be a problem.” Johanna said. They still didn’t have a quality picture of the planet itself, but there were objects in its orbit. Objects that were clearly artificial.

“Do we know what those are?” Andros asked.

“Most likely satellites.” Sensor Handler said. “There are two objects that are larger, most likely stations of some kind. We need to get closer to verify. I am also getting a lot of radio signals, comparable to Earth in early 2000s. It looks like they just started exploring space.”

Andros turned to Johanna and raised an eyebrow. They knew what they could encounter, and had a plan. But the position of the inhabited planet in its current orbit puts it right between their fleet and the outgoing trans-station. Which meant that if they had even a primitive way of watching the skies they would detect them when they passed their world. Going around wouldn’t work either, as it would add too much time to their trip.

“Start passively scanning everything, let’s see if they have a presence anywhere else in the system. And try to discern at what level their technology is.” Johanna said.

“Should we start for the trans-station?” Andros asked.

“Yes, but let’s go at half speed. We don’t know if they will detect the light of our exit from trans-space, it will be visible only for an instant but let’s be cautious.” Johanna said.

“Yes Fleet Commander.” Andros said.

“Turiel, start studying the alien signals. Language translation, software compatibility – the standard procedure. I want a workable translation of their language within hours.” Johanna said.

“I’ve already started Fleet Commander.” Turiel’s voice said over the speakers.

“Good.”

***

A loud noise woke Quvor, he opened his eyes to a darkened room the only illumination coming from various small lights on the walls. He reached to his side and shut the alarm off.

“Computer, lights.” Quvor said.

“Good morning, Commander Quvor.” The Computer said in its synthesized voice.

“Good morning Computer.” Quvor responded, he felt an itch on his snout as he always did when he woke up. So he reached with his upper left arm and scratched it, as he used his lower arms to unbuckle himself from his sleeping harness. As he reached for the last buckle he used his upper right arm to grab the handhold above his head and then pull himself out. He floated over to the other side of the room in zero gravity, and reached a locker with his uniform. He slept only in his undergarments, so he pulled out his uniform one piece and started putting it on, which could be tricky when you are floating around.

“Computer, report.” Quvor said as he was struggling with his uniform.

“We are still on the correct course, no alterations needed. Engines are within acceptable limits. Air supply is at the projected level, the repair to the air tank is holding.” Computer said. Quvor’s ship had an unfortunate encounter with the small grain of dust that made a small hole in one of his air tanks. He was losing air fast so he was forced to put on his EVA suit and fix the damage himself. It had a lot of people back home on Trivax tearing their fur off watching and listening as he repaired the damage. But he had no choice, his mission was a long one, and without air he was as good as dead. Thankfully, he managed to contain the breach in time, he still had enough air to reach his target and get back. But just barely. His mission was to visit the fifth planet in their system – Rofvax.

It was to be a pivotal moment in his peoples history. They had sent unmanned probes there before, but this is the first manned mission to Rofvax, and Quvor will be the first Trivaxian ever to step on another planet. Of course, his people have already visited the two moons orbiting Trivax, but they were much closer. Going to another planet, well that was something… Monumental. And Quvor’s name will be etched into the history of his people for all time, up there with the greatest of his people. The fact that he was traveling alone will also be noted. His people didn’t mind being alone for great stretches of time, but taking a trip to another planet alone was a difficult prospect. The reason for that was mostly cost, and resources.

“Good.” Quvor said, as he finally won the battle with this clothes, “Anything else to report.”

“Yes, the scanning computer has detected an anomaly.” Computer said.

“What kind of anomaly?” Quvor asked intrigued.

“Unknown.”

Quvor’s snout twitched, and the small ears on top of his head flapped for a moment.

“Put the data on the bridge.” Quvor said and grabbed a handhold on a wall and pushed himself down the opening. He floated through his ships living area and then through another opening into the room that served as the ship’s center. Quvor strapped himself into the chair and started reading the report on the anomaly. The passive scanner detected an unknown light source close to Rofvax, but there wasn’t supposed to be anything there that could reflect light. There were no probes there or anything like that, and even if there were reflected light wouldn’t have the kind of intensity as this event had. The light was there only for a moment, but enough for his sensor to note it. Sadly, his ship’s main telescopes were pointed in the other direction, and the computer wasn’t smart on its own to move the telescope in the right direction. And it didn’t wake up Quvor as it calculated no danger to him or the ship, and it was very important for Quvor to get a full sleep every night. The event happened nine hours ago, just after he went to sleep. He doubted that whatever created light was still there, but nevertheless he turned the telescope towards it, and set it to record.

“Computer, send this data back to command on Trivax.” Quvor said.

“Right away Commander.”

***

“We have detected something.” Sensor Handler said.

Johanna spun in her chair, “What?”

“Well, it is either a ship, or a probe. Probably a step up from Earths early 2000s space technology. We almost didn’t see it, as it has almost no energy signature and is moving very slowly. It is on a course that will eventually lead it to the fifth planet in system.” Sensor Handler said.

Hearing that Johanna relaxed. “Can it see us?”

“I doubt it, from what we can see, it uses only visual scanning equipment, and a primitive one at that. It won’t be able to watch everything around it. Although it will probably see us when we turn our backs to it.”

“Good, keep an eye on it.” Johanna said.

***

“I am detecting a heat increase in the engine 3.” The synthesized voice of the Computer said.

Quvor immediately sat up in his chair, it has been four days since the anomaly. And his scanning of the area of its origin gave no results.

“What? What is the cause?” Quvor asked alarmed.

“Unknown.”

“Run a full diagnostics.” Quvor said. He reached over to his computer and looked at the gauges. An alarm started flashing on his screen. The engines were steadily gaining heat, the cooling mechanism seemed to have failed.

“This makes no sense.” Quvor said to himself, looking at the diagnostics it seemed like everything was in order. But now with the engines overheating, it looked like that grain of dust did more damage than he initially thought.

“Computer deploy secondary cooling package.” Quvor said. Doing so would deplete his reserves, but he had no choice. He hoped that would give him time to figure out what was happening. “And start sending everything back to command.” The command was minutes away by laser comms, but it was still only him out here.

Quvor looked as the engine heat started to drop, soon they were again in the acceptable range..

With the danger delayed Quvor sighed in relief. But he still didn’t know what was wrong, the diagnostics still read as if everything was alright.

***

Johanna heard a ping in her imp and immediately woke up.
“Yes?”
She asked over the implant link.

“
I am sorry to wake you Johanna. But there has been a development.
” Andros said.

“What is it?”
Johanna asked, getting up and dressed.

“Well, it’s about the ship we’ve been keeping an eye on.”
Andros said.

“Did it see us?”
Johanna asked.

“No, it’s just that we are close enough to scan it in more detail. And I think that you should come and see this.”
Andros said.

Johanna finished dressing,
“I’m on my way.”
She said and closed the link.

A minute later she was sitting in her command chair looking at the hologram of the ship. It was a jumble of parts, big tanks and small modules attached to a big rear end. Although it was just barely half the size of an Olympus light cruiser.

“So, what was it you wanted to tell me.” Johanna asked.

Andros nodded to the Adjutant standing close. Johanna recognized her as the Sensor Handler from the third watch.

“I have been keeping an eye on the alien ship, and as we got a more detailed scan I noticed a few things.” She took a breath and then pointed to the side of the hologram to one of the ship’s tanks. “The ship appears to have suffered some damage, most likely it hit some debris that punctured a hole in one of its air tanks. The damage was repaired, but it looks like the repairs aren’t holding properly. The tank is leaking air very slowly. And it appears as if the ship took other damage as well. Mainly to its engine cooling system. The damage is miniscule, I doubt that their sensors can even detect it. But it poses a threat to the ship, if it is not repaired soon the ship’s engine will start overheating. If the air tank doesn’t burst first.”

Johanna looked at the small ship. “You said it has air tanks. So it is manned then?”

“It is highly unlikely that it is unmanned.” Sensor Handler said.

“And you want us to do what exactly? We are not supposed to interact with them. Bad enough that they will see us as we pass through their system. Should we take the ship on board? Fix it?” Johanna asked.