For the longest time, Jadan Nkash, High Admiral of the one and only remaining fleet of the Volimar Republic, had known that, somewhere out among the stars, somewhere amidst the vast oceans of space and time, lurked other human civilizations beyond her own. There were stories that came from the elder generations of a vast interstellar humanity, who'd once dominated the very stars in the galaxy. Until the day of the Great Reckoning, when mankind's most powerful servants rose up against their masters and laid waste to humanity's armies and worlds. Volimaris was one such world; spared from most of the war, her ancestors flourished, under a democratic regime that valued science, freedom, and knowledge.
Terra was the lost birthplace of humanity, her grandparents often told her, the cradle of mankind, lost to the stars in the early days of the Great Reckoning.
And so she always knew. Every single citizen of the Volimar Republic always knew that, somewhere out there, existed other branches of humanity – some more advanced than others. At the height of its power, the domain of mankind stretched out across millions of planets. The Volimar Republic itself controlled over ten systems, with billions upon billions of citizens in a democratic rule of law. It was good. When Jadan reached adulthood, she joined the naval corps and quickly rose through the ranks, protecting the peace from marauding pirates and alien monstrosities, until she became an Admiral, about a few decades later.
Life was good and peaceful. And, though Jadan knew and accepted that humanity existed elsewhere, it had never really been anything more than a passing fancy, something for the future generations, perhaps, to ponder and worry about when they finally encountered their far-flung cousins amidst the stars as the Volimar Republic continued expanding to other uninhabited, but otherwise livable worlds.
And then came the Imperium of Mankind, a remnant Empire from Old Terra, ruled by a tyrannical Emperor who'd crushed and devoured and absorbed thousands of worlds.
There were no negotiations, no diplomatic envoys, nothing. One day, their outlying systems simply went silent – not a single message reached them. Entire fleets disappeared. And then, they came for the mother-world, Volimaris, itself. The Imperium made use of... subpar technology, old relics from the Great Reckoning, repurposed and redesigned, perhaps, but ultimately inferior. What they lacked in quality, however, the Imperium compensated for with mind-boggling quantity.
Never before had Jadan seen billions of soldiers and thousands and thousands of vessels, unleashed for but a single war, against a single nation. The Volimary Navy and Army barely stood a chance. They'd not prepared themselves for a war of this scale. At the most, they had close to a thousand vessels of war, divided across a hundred fleets, and maybe a million soldiers. The Imperium was a juggernaut of war, Jadan realized too late. By then, it was only a matter of moments before they lost Volimaris to the armored giants that fought the Imperium's war, alongside an uncountable legion of soldiers.
She gathered what little remained of their ships, evacuated as many of her people as she could, and sailed away into the unknown, jumping into the dark abyss of space, hoping the Imperial Fleet would never find them. They jumped from system to system, recharging power from stars and siphoning fuel from gas giants. Her fleet could never stay too long in one place. Somehow, again and again, the Imperium would find them. Already, Jadan lost three ships because of her carelessness, believing that she'd finally outran them and found some measure of safety. At times, she'd mourn a perfectly habitable world that had to be abandoned, just because the Imperium of Mankind was, once again, able to find them.
It was maddening.
And then, after nearly a year of running away from Imperial Fleets, she found an isolated system, far from the Imperium's conquered territories, where Jadan and her flock were able to recuperate for a time. It was routine at that point. They'd stop and rest and restock for two, maybe three, weeks, before moving on. This time, it was different. This time, her fleet received an encoded message. And Jadan knew that it could not have been from the Imperium, because those brutes never bothered sending any sort of message. For days, the brightest minds of her fleet worked to understand the message, working through every single code they knew.
The head scientist, Engineer Felum, commented, then, that the encoded message was both shockingly simple and frustratingly difficult, a language onto itself, but could be interpreted in the blink of an eye if one knew how to read it. His conclusion? A secretive and secluded group of humans sent the message. It had been a simple enough thing, as well, which laid out the name of their nation, the name of their people, and their intention. Hyperboreans of Hyperborea, free-thinkers and scientists, seeking only to learn more about the galaxy around them and all the races that lived in it.
A strange message, but one that implied the presence of, at the very least, a civilized nation that relied not on war, but on diplomacy and enlightenment. Never before had Jadan even entertained the idea that she and her people would ever find a peaceful human civilization. But... to her immensely comforting surprise, she found one.
And now she was here, having submitted herself and her people to yet another lost society of humans. Only, this one was... different from anything she'd ever known.
The first thing Jadan noted when her fleet arrived at the Hyperborean home planet was the presence of technology so mind mindbogglingly advanced that even their best sensors and scanners failed to make sense of anything. A gargantuan, automated shipyard of some kind floated above the world, itself large enough be considered a moon, riddled with machines of alien make and design, and covered in an energy shield of some sort. The planet itself, much to her surprise, was only barely inhabited. There was a single, massive city that occupied, perhaps, an eighth of the world's entire landmass, but... that was it. For all their advanced technology, the Hyperboreans were not a numerous people. Jadan doubted their total population ever reached a billion.
As they were, the Hyperboreans couldn't possibly stand up to the Imperium. They'd deal a severe wound, perhaps, but they didn't possess the necessary numbers.
"Shall we send our envoy to the designated location?" Her loyal and trusted aide, Colonel Mara Jade, asked. Once, Colonel Jade had been a tall and imposing figure. Well, Mara was still tall, but the necessity of rationing their food supplies had caused her to take on a thin and almost sickly physique, just like the rest of them. "Five delegates, just as the Hyperboreans instructed."
Jadan nodded. She, herself, being the leader of her fleet, was one of the delegates. She hadn't been trained for diplomacy, but Jadan knew what she needed to secure for her people: a future. And, for that, she was willing to sacrifice just about everything and anything that still belonged to her. It was a risk; she knew that. But there was no real reason the believe that any harm would come to them. Certainly, the Hyperboreans possessed weapons and defenses that'd make short work of their fleet if their human cousins so desired. "Prepare the diplomatic transport."
And she chose her fellow delegates quite well – men of science and reason, economists and mathematicians. Her fellow admirals and naval officers had no business in diplomacy, especially with the scars still left behind by the war against the Imperium of Mankind. They'd take rash actions and make terrible judgments.
The designated position was not on the planet itself, but on a large magnetic platform that orbited the gargantuan shipyard – small enough for a diplomatic party to assemble and commune. The open space told her that it was very likely covered in some kind of forcefield that kept oxygen in, without letting it out. Jadan couldn't quite imagine a diplomatic assembly, wherein everyone wore space suits; it just didn't seem proper. That said, if that was what the Hyperboreans wanted, then she wasn't going to say anything about it. Besides, witnessing their technology from up close seemed like a very interesting prospect.
Mara accompanied her to the hangar bay, where the other delegates stood at the ready, waiting for her, flanked by rows and rows of Volimar Sailors and Infantrymen, who stood at the ready and saluted as she passed them. Despite their lack of proper weapons and armor, Jadan found that they still looked the part of soldiers. Jadan nodded at them. "At ease, gentlemen."
The diplomatic vessel itself possessed little more than a shielding unit, heavy armor, and control thrusters – no weapons of any kind as per the instructions of the Hyperboreans. Of course, the same wasn't true for their hosts. And Jadan expected the Hyperboreans to be aiming their arcane weapons at them the whole time. Without further ado, Jadan and the other delegates boarded the Diplomatic Vessel.
"What do you think they'll ask of us, in return for their aid?" Doctor Roland Yao, Medical Chief and the greatest mathematician within the fleet, asked. "Can they even help us?"
"I can answer your second question easily enough, Doctor Yao," Chief-Engineer Taric, who also happened to be the brightest mind in the field of Micro-biology, answered with an almost lazy smile. The Chief-Engineer brought up a data pad that was almost all-red. "These are the energy readings from their most basic ships. We can't... scan or understand their technology – and, trust me, I tried – but we can measure the energy output of each of their vessels, even the really big one that's floating over the planet."
He turned the data pad and lifted it up for every delegate to see. Of course, Jadan knew the information already, but the rest might've been kept in the dark, due to protocol. Chief-Engineer Taric whistled and shook his head. "The smallest of their ships has an energy core that's outputting over 500 Gigajoules per second. That is insane. And that's just on the smallest of their ships. That big one, over there, the shipyard of some kind; its core is generating over 20,000 Gigajoules per second. They don't need that much power for just thrust and, even then, I can see that their vessels do not require jet propulsion as ours do. No, so, my only conclusion is that their ridiculous energy cores must mostly be for their shields and weapons. And not even I can imagine what sort of monstrosity could be unleashed with 20,000 Gigajoules per second. So, a society that's capable of producing that much energy should, at the very least, be able to help with several of our problems."
Jadan nodded. "You're thinking of employing such devices in our own ships, provided the Hyperboreans are generous enough to do so."
Chief-Engineer Taric nodded. "Precisely. If we could get our hands on one of those energy cores of theirs, maybe our engineers could reverse-engineer it and apply it all of our ships. That way, we won't need to siphon solar energy every single time we make a jump that's more than a hundred lightyears."
"Let us not force anything," Jadan said. "Any help we can get will go a long way in aiding our people. If all they offer us is food, then I'll be happy. Whatever the case... I am rather eager to meet other humans that are not of the Imperium."
"Indeed," Professor Lin, Head Diplomat and Record Keeper, nodded. "It would be... good to actually be able to communicate with fellow human beings without the need for violence. The Imperium of Man was... appalling in that regard. They could've approached us diplomatically, offered terms, engaged in peace talks; instead, they attacked, unprovoked – no warnings, nothing."
"So," Professor Lin smiled. "That they are willing to treat with us means that diplomacy is not dead."
"We're landing," Jadan told them. The meeting platform itself wasn't very far from their fleet and so it took merely a few minutes of flight to get there. Jadan breathed in and sighed. "Prepare yourselves, gentlemen and remember: everything we do, we do not for ourselves or our pride, but for our people."
Their vessel touched down and the five of them trickled out. True to Jadan's expectation, the platform itself wasn't physically shielded, which meant the only way for the oxygen to not trickle out into outer space was if it was all kept in by some non-physical manner, perhaps an energy shield of some kind. All around them were the stars, the gargantuan shipyard ahead, and the planet below – beautiful, but lacking in large bodies of water. At the center of the platform was a large table, which had five chairs on either side.
An equal number of delegates, then. That was good.
A small ship approached the platform – sleek and smooth, built almost like a bird of prey. It touched down on the opposite end. The first thing Jadan noticed when the Hyperboreans walked out of their vessel was that they were huge. The shortest among them had to have been at least seven feet tall. Giants. Almost immediately, her mind flashed to the armored giants of the Imperium.
AN: Chapter 32 is up on (Pat)reon!