From the Ashes: Rise of the Empyrean Empire: Novel 04 Read online

  From the Ashes

  Rise of the Empyrean Empire: Book Four

  Author: D. L. Harrison

  Copyright 2018. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Afterword:

  About the Author

  Other books by D. L. Harrison:

  Book Description

  Prologue

  Anise looked up and suppressed a sigh. The carefree innocence she’s seen on her students faces just a few days ago was gone. She knew it was an important lesson to learn, but that didn’t mean she had to like the results. They’d experienced things from Michael Williams point of view, his very memories. They’d found the truth of what the government had done in the past, the fall of the UE, and the high cost of evolution for humanity.

  There was no need to review, she could see it on their faces, they’d never forget.

  Today’s lesson would be more positive, the rise of the Empyrean Empire, history that although filled with strife and challenges, was also filled with hope.

  “Are there any questions before we get started?”

  Lia asked, “How is it we’re even an empire. It doesn’t make sense, an empire of self-governed individuals? We don’t have an emperor, or empress. Anarchist Empire, isn’t that like an… oxymoron?”

  Anise laughed, “I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that. You grew up with it, so never questioned it, but our empire is hardly typical, and the answer to your question is in today’s lesson. Any more questions?”

  Sara Jean said, “We’re skipping a year, right?”

  Anise nodded, “Yes. Michael and Katy are married at the point we’re starting, for almost nine months. The reason is… well you’ll find out why it took a year instead of the few months they’d been expecting. If we’re all ready, go ahead and relax, close your eyes and merge, and I’ll start today’s lesson.”

  Chapter One

  It was a warm spring afternoon, the sun was high in the sky and warmed my skin, but the cool breeze over the lake made it feel good as opposed to overly hot. The ship swayed in the slight wake as I cast with my fishing rod into the lake.

  I looked over at my gorgeous wife, who seemed to just grow more beautiful to me every day. She was laying out as usual when I dragged her out onto the lake, her long luxurious auburn hair was up in a bun, her piercingly intelligent green eyes hidden beneath her eyelids as she sunbathed. Her body was in shape, but on the voluptuous side, she’d never had a problem turning my head. We’d grown ever closer over the last year. She was also in a small green bikini.

  She smiled knowingly, as if she was the lucky one for being so ardently admired by her husband, but I would argue I was the lucky one as my eyes feasted. It was giving me ideas. We’d been trying to start our family the last few months, and according to the doctors there was nothing to stop us from succeeding, but so far, our timing hadn’t worked out.

  “I can feel you staring.”

  I grinned, she usually did. Probably sensed the spike in my libido. We still hadn’t fully merged, but we’d selectively shared our emotions, and some of our memories. It was strangely freeing to know exactly how much my wife loved me.

  We hardly fished all the time, and had visited both our families, as well as Samantha and her son quite often over the last year. We’d also visited the admiral once or twice, the retired Vice Admiral Clemmons. But today was a perfect day, so we took the boat out. I’d still not managed to get her to fish, but honestly her sunbathing was far more eye catching for me, so I didn’t mind in the least.

  “I can’t help it wife.”

  She giggled, “I love the way you look at me. Will you stop when I get all old and wrinkly?”

  That was another advantage to the merge and sharing feelings and memories, my wife had no doubts about me either, that I loved her as a whole person, and not just for her amazing looks, no matter how often I tried to get some.

  “Not a chance.”

  My sister Anne was at Mars now, the new prototype ship was expected soon, and they’d start building them on Mars immediately. She was going through a modified officer’s training course so that she’d be ready when they got here. The people there were more than ready to get started. We’d expected them earlier, and I’d initially been worried, but Stacy, May, and Ally had gotten us word via messenger missile that their mission to infiltrate and recruit the base personnel had been successful. They wouldn’t share their progress, or any details about what it would look like or be capable of, but the reason it was taking so long is because they were getting a better understanding, making improvements, and blending the alien technologies with our own.

  She snorted in disbelief, “You mean it now, but we’ll see.”

  I grinned, that was another advantage, she knew when I was being honest, or trying to blow smoke with a white lie. I supposed it also had the potential to be a disadvantage, but so far not.

  I got a few nibbles, and tugged lightly on the line, but the fish got away. It couldn’t possibly be my fishing prowess, so I blamed it on my very distracting wife.

  The aliens had attempted to attack at Delta Pavonis a few more times, but were driven back each time by the population as we’d hoped. They couldn’t even get within an A.U. of the planet, much less the one light second range of their gravity weapons. The power of a billion merged minds was far more powerful than the two point five million at Eta Cassiopeiae A, and that was just a seventh of the population there. I supposed in the end, what we’d done had been worth it, because their last attack was with twenty-four ships, and I had no doubts that we would have lost.

  The old ships were still in service, and were used mainly to ferry people between stations, but no more scouts were between the stars, everyone was waiting for the new ships, and constantly speculated on what they might be capable of.

  Truthfully, I thought the inner systems ferrying was just an excuse, when they could be folding space with a little assistance. I had a feeling it was more about not abandoning the A.I.s, and keeping them company until they had new ships to be transferred to. Drake and Karl were still hooked up in my house, and they seemed content with us keeping them company. It was hard to tell sometimes about their emotions, but I knew they had something analogous to ours, if not the same.

  I’d even heard the two arguing a few times, like an old married couple.

  Amy and Trudy, which was my and Katy’s personal A.I.s, had even started betting each other on their predictive estimates. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had one going right now, about how long it will take before I go over there and hit on my wife. She looked really good in a bikini.

  Amy said, “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re both pretty sure it’s her that’s going to seduce you this time.”

  I choked on a laugh. I supposed it
should bother me that Amy could read my mind, but it really didn’t. She zealously guarded my privacy, and was more family to me than anything else.

  I felt three mental knocks or invitations, smiled widely, and accepted them into my merge. The only other person in it was Katy.

  “You’re late!” I declared with mock severity.

  Stacy replied with tart humor, “Yes sir, sorry sir. Nice ship you’ve got there sir, but you might want to look up.”

  I looked up and shielded my eyes from the sun, and didn’t see a damned thing. Then I saw it, a dot that grew larger and larger, until I was looking at the bottom of a sleek ship at an angle from about a hundred feet away. The hull was made of some kind of shiny blue metal alloy that was reminiscent of the alien’s hull but clearly different as well. Katy was looking up at it too. It was maybe sixty yards long. Twelve yards wide and ten yards tall at the front. At about forty yards back from the front it widened out to twenty yards wide and rose in height as well. It looked a little like the alien ship, if it was shrunk down to a tiny size, and the stern of the ship was cut off.

  “Isn’t that kind of small.”

  May replied, “For good reason Michael, bring your ship in, and we’ll give you a tour. I think you’ll be impressed.”

  Ally added, “We need to drop FTL transceivers at all the colonies, but after that we can go take a look around.”

  Katy said, “Welcome back.”

  Huh, FTL transceivers?

  Katy sighed, “Put down the fishing rod Michael, and get us headed home.”

  Home, right. I tore my eyes off the ship and looked at my wife.

  I nodded, and looked at my gorgeous wife a little sadly, I guess I was going to miss out on that seduction after all, there was always later though. I moved to the boat’s motor controls, while Katy went down into the cabin to change…

  Katy and I were showered, clean, and in ship suits. We were also excited, we’d been waiting for this for a long time. We went back outside with Drake’s computer cabinet trailing along behind us as we carried it out of the house with our minds. We looked up at the ship, and I sent a general question into the merge, which had three others in it at that point, that I didn’t recognize.

  “Alright, so how do we get up there, and please tell me there’s room for Drake and Karl.”

  There was silence for a moment, then May said, “Our A.I., Adams, named after a famous female explorer, said she’s already in contact with them, and they’re expected. In fact, she already reset the registry to the Drake-Adams. Oh, just walk under the ship, we’ll lift you into the main storage deck. The ship does have a few shuttles if we’re in orbit, or could land herself if there was a large enough space here, but there isn’t. Still, from right above you it’s just easiest to use the gravity lift.”

  I took Katy’s hand, and dubiously walked over and under the ship, and felt gravity release me and we started to float up. If I hadn’t been able to do this myself with my mind, I’d have been a little nervous. As it was, it was kind of neat. The ship was stunning, although I still wasn’t sold on the tiny part. Sure, one hundred and eighty feet wasn’t exactly short, but it was for a spaceship. That was almost half the diameter of the scout ships, and the width being so small made it even less.

  But May, Stacy, and Ally were intelligent, and I was sure it would make sense when they explained the reasons why.

  We rose into the ship, and the cargo door closed. Yup, that was us, cargo. The ladies looked unchanged in just under a year, except the look in their eyes that said they had changed. The biggest change was in the confident and friendly smile on Stacy’s face, there was no sign at all of that old tightness around her eyes, or stress.

  Ally was the youngest at twenty-two now, auburn hair a little lighter than my wife’s, and she had brown eyes which echoed the smile on her face. We’d sat a lot of bridge shifts together. Next to her was a man about the same age, his smile was more tentative as we hadn’t met yet. He was about six feet one, with light brown hair and hazel eyes.

  May was twenty-four, and had raven black hair and soft brown eyes, she was just five foot one, petite, and could totally kick my ass. Standing next to her was a man with black hair and gray eyes, and the way he had his arm around May made me look back at Ally, and I saw the man next to her was standing rather close as well. It seemed they’d done more than design a ship this last year, and I felt happy for them.

  Stacey too had someone at her side, she would be twenty-eight now, and was still a solid ten in beauty, and almost as attractive as my wife. She had long strawberry blonde hair that hung in ringlets, and vivid blue eyes. The man next to her had blond hair and green eyes.

  “It’s good to see you all again, who…” I trailed off with a smile and waved at the men.

  Stacy grinned, “It’s good to see you both too, Michael, Katy, this is Doctor Trent Tiller, one of the scientists. He’s a genius, and mine,” she reached out and took his hand, “He did a lot with the scanning technology and insights into subspace with the new data.”

  Trent waved, “Hi. I never thought I’d get on one of these things, but I wasn’t letting this one get away.”

  I nodded, that wasn’t hard to understand, I imagine the other two scientists felt the same way about May and Ally. In fact, it was kind of obvious now that I was aware of it.

  She pointed at May and the other one, “That’s Doctor Andrew Ronchetto. He’s an expert in power systems, and I don’t think we’d have ever figured out the singularity reactor without him.”

  Andrew cleared his throat, “Nice to meet you.”

  He was a bit shy, but I knew he had to have depth to him too if he managed to snag May, so I wouldn’t underestimate the man.

  Ally cleared her throat, cutting off Stacy’s intention to introduce the last scientist, “This is Doctor Todd Burke, and he’s a weapons genius.”

  I smiled, must be true love. The man who knows how to blow things up and the woman that loves to blow things up. With the introductions out of the way…

  “So… small?”

  Stacy said, “The crew shifts can be done in threes, and the A.I.s being freed are much more powerful, they can sit a shift alone as long as there are no surprises or action, and even then they can summon the crew. The ship can also completely self-repair. So, the ship is meant for a six-person crew, and only has six cabins. We also don’t have to worry about a lot of storage. It can hold enough food, water, and fuel for about four months, which is more than enough without year long trips in the void. It also has enough space to store raw materials to replace most of the parts if anything breaks.

  “We made it smaller so there will be a lot of explorers out there, the space force has shrunk by a lot, so the less it takes to crew a ship, the more we’ll have out there looking around. The whole front of the ship, the thin part I mean, are the crew quarters on top, and the storage on the bottom.”

  “Three-person bridge crew?”

  Stacy grinned, “A.I.s are smart. Also, countermeasures are a thing of the past, and point defense is handled by A.I., so that cut one right there. The other four stations including command was consolidated into three.”

  I looked around, “So six cabins?”

  Ally blushed, but Stacy shrugged, “With you two here, we still have two empty cabins. But yeah, normally the crew will be six, not eight, but we’re eight with three A.I.s instead of one, already breaking the mold and this is the prototype, we have extra seating on the bridge as well, to accommodate us all.”

  May waved, “Let’s show you two around the ship.”

  The front of the ship was like Stacy indicated, and the cabins were rather large and luxurious looking. The ship might have been smaller, but with only six rooms it didn’t need to be any bigger to have plenty of space. The bed was queen sized, and there was a decent sized dresser, and that’s when it really hit me. We would have a constant one G of gravity, some things were bolted down, but there were a lot of things that weren’t.

  The
bath was spacious as well, and there was easily enough room for two.

  The ladies, and their men, showed us the back twenty yards of the ship, which was twenty yards wide as well. The entire bottom level was engineering, and was about three hundred and sixty square feet, which was a decently sized room. Ally led us over to a device.

  She said, “This is a lot like one of our three dimensional printers, except it works on the molecular level. That’s why we can just store raw materials which are common in most components, instead of tons of spare components for everything. If one breaks, this will print out a new one to the exact specifications. Just in case this breaks down, there is a spare printer in storage.”

  They didn’t have to tell me which one was the singularity reactor, it was obvious, and smack in the middle of engineering from floor to ceiling. It was a lot smaller than the alien one though, still quite big, but smaller.

  “This ship has the energy shields? Like the aliens I mean.”

  Ally smirked, “Yes. But this ship has stronger ones.”

  I looked at the smaller reactor, and turned back, “Stronger?”

  Todd cleared his throat, “The field is made by the alloy when it’s energized. The alien alloy was perfectly balanced across the energy spectrum, meaning it blocked plasma with the same strength it blocked x-rays from stars, radiation, and other harmful energies out in the cosmos. In effect, their ships shield was really just their version of a general deflector field. We tuned it with some experimentation, to better block lasers and plasma, and high energy emissions. It still keeps out the background radiation just fine, but it does a much better job at blocking plasma. Plus, the ship is smaller, which makes a stronger field with less energy output. I’d estimate it would take about twenty bomb pumped lasers to make it through our shields, fired within milliseconds of each other. Well, or one of ours.”

  “Wait, what?”

  He shrugged, “Our three beam arrays are powered by the energy emissions of a singularity, which puts hydrogen fusion to shame. When the hydrogen is annihilated in the reactor, it creates a lot of side reactions and exotic energy particles which are all utilized by the power systems. One of our arrays could cut through the shields of our new ships after a few seconds, and quite easily through the alien’s shields, as if they weren’t there.”