Solarias fist, p.1
Solaria's Fist, page 1
Solaria’s Fist
(The Iron Suns, Book Two)
by K. D. Karnik
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Books in this series:
PART ONE: | THE DANCING OF THE FLAMES | -0- | Akoria Node, Partial Null-Bubble, N-Quadrant, Thousand Suns
-1- | Khundav, Gubre System, Contested Sector, Thousand Suns | October 21, 2538 (200 since Autarchy)
-2-
-3-
-4- | Solar System, Solarian Center, Thousand Suns | September 19, 2538 (200 since Autarchy)
-5-
-6-
-7-
-8-
-9-
-10-
-11-
-12-
-13-
-14- | Nearing Violet Zone
-15- | Two-Past Violet Zone | Regular Realspace-Hyperspatial Zones
-16-
PART TWO: | THE SPREADING OF THE FLAMES | -17-
-18-
-19-
-20-
-21-
-22-
-23-
-24-
-25- | Lyon System, DU Border with P.S.O.B.N.E
-26-
-27-
-The End-
-AFTERWORD-
SAMPLE: THE IRON SUNS
PART ONE | THE FRONTIER SUNS | -1- | Blue (Superluminal) Space | February 27, 2539 (201 Years Post-Autarchy)
-2-
About the Author
If I dedicated this book to any of the thousand famous people that bubble to the surface of that part of my mind which likes to add a topping of grandiosity to what it considers a prime object to get egotistical over, it would not help my peace. Else, I would be thanking about every human and nonhuman being that has existed in the last thirteen billion years the universe has been plotting to bring each of its children to every moment that they experience, for it is them who permit the world to exist in a way to make current happenings possible. But my mind is unable to name some of those beings. Love for my parents, my cousins, my friends and family compels me to dedicate this work to them, on the off chance this is something worthy enough to repay a nanoparticle of what I owe them.
Books in this series:
The Void Calls (Book I)
Solaria’s Fist (Book II)
The Iron Suns (Book III; upcoming)
Gold Rust (Book IV; upcoming)
Join the Iron Suns Union mailing list for free copies of upcoming instalments, sneakpeeks, occasional free books and short stories and more.
Copyright © 2021 by the author.
Illustration © Barbara Groves
brokencandlebookdesigns.com
This book 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 publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the author of this work.
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whether God’s will created it, or whether He was mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows,
Only He knows, or perhaps He does not know.
—NASADIYA SUKTA, THE VEDA
The most remarkable thing about the 26th Century, by far, was that humans could stifle sneezes without risking a burst blood vessel. Needless to say, it caused many issues among regular Doublonics, but for the militaries it proved a golden tool.
—The Grand Chronicler Sardonica
PART ONE:
THE DANCING OF THE FLAMES
-0-
Akoria Node, Partial Null-Bubble, N-Quadrant, Thousand Suns
VASYATI OVIKANI stood in the central dais of the Message Hall, shaking off post-embodiment fatigue as more noise than she had ever expected during two centuries of mid-Transcendence assailed her fragile new form. Bells rang, cannons fired, decks shuddered, and the Spacers of Akoria mobilized. The din accompanied a series of momentary hallucinations, so strong that the first action her still-viscous organs did was produce a heart-wrenching scream.
I thought this body would be beautiful. The thought didn’t receive an outside reply, and she took it as a sign the embodiment procedures were complete. Ovikani opened her eyelids, marveling at the speed the material brain-matter had adjusted and streamlined itself to her forces. She decided to congratulate all units who’d contributed in crashbuilding these organs for her. If they survive the battle. I must focus now. No time to look at myself.
“How much did I miss?” The words echoed, for some reason. The command modules’ functionality must already be going down. Ovikani looked around her, at the immensity of the stark, desolate, glistening black Message Hall and the glowing blue dais she stood on. Her new rudimentary eye-functions managed to spot an identical dais at the far end of the hall, and the tall, flowing figure stepping down from it. Confirming it was General Serendip Yutuka, she shouted at him again.
Her ears hurt, her bones creaked, her voice felt distant, as if her brand-new assembled neck and mouth and body could fall back apart any moment. Most of her sensations were of the all-pervading vibration around her. The habitat must be moving. Accelerating.
General Yutuka shouted a long reply at her, but all she could make out was You missed a lot, madam. A humongous screen flickered into existence where Yutuka stood. Strategic and tactical displays, all peppered with pulsing red icons.
Ovikani shook her head, and her skull didn’t separate from her gray matter, neither did her chest explode. Counting that as a win, she tried to focus more. Was he even talking to her? Madam President could refer to her or someone he’d appointed by declaring her half-dead and comatose when she’d decided to change bodies so many hours ago. Did the damn general even know she was awake and at the back of the Message Hall?
The deck shuddered. Acceleration. Battle. Whatever the heck it was, it was not good. Yutuka was talking to three different people at once on the myriad screens in the Hall, all war leaders.
“The entire force-matching sequence. The warriors have separated from the mains, and the Cities are ready. You noticed the quietness?” He grunted, taking to gestures of embodiment with surprising effortlessness. “The two of us wasted precious time in pleasure-seeking, dear. We could have commanded the fleet without ...” He trailed off, as the swarm of red icons became so bright they illumined the entire chamber for a moment. “The Invaders travel much faster than we thought. They increased speed right now.”
He wasn’t speaking to her after all. Worse, he was speaking to another hard-faced woman with a humanoid body and of commander-rank. He was addressing the brutish-looking commander’s image on one of the Message Hall’s main screens, saying “Madam President”.
Anger coursed through Ovikani’s resassembled veins. She was aware of her blood, the pumping of her heart, her limited new form. She decided to attract the general’s attention. She sucked in a breath, opened her mouth wide, and screamed the first thing she could think of after gleaning all she could from Yutuka’s voice. To pretend she was still Madam President and had just walked into a war room to ask for reports and take command.
“The enemy increased speed, General?” She hoped her tone sounded commanding and curious enough, since the notion of increasing speed without being inside spacetime violated at least a half-dozen hyperspatial laws. “Do I hear right?” Ovikani’s foot felt glued to the dais, enduring the crude, automated fear-reactions alongside disgust and consternation in her body. “While superluminal? How—”
Yutuka turned with a grim smile, raising a calming hand at her. “Yes, Madam President. I don’t want to exacerbate your post-transplant trauma, and I suppose you’re okay with me handling your duties until—”
“What?” Who’s that woman? Why’s the habitat shooting and quivering?
“Your thinking’s altered, ma’am,” Yutuka said. He pointed at the vast array of displays showing the organized chaos of space around the Habitats of Akoria. Ships, drums, railguns, laser platforms preparing to fight an unseen enemy. “You can’t even comprehend that for a few hours. I suggest you rest. This might seem odd ...”
“It’s odd. Dammit, it’s odd. And—”
Klaxons interrupted her. The immense screen shifted to show visuals of space in the Habitat’s vicinity, up to several million kilometers distant. Indeed, right at the edge of range, the first blobs of green-blue-white popped into existence, turning into the unmistakable forms of the Invader warships—thousands of Orb-dreadnoughts, Disks, and polygonal shapes streaming out of Blue Space and drifting inert beyond the Bubble of Akoria.
The general ignored Ovikani’s demands for information, waving at her as if dismissing a kindergartner. She stood rooted, watched, and heard.
Yutuka made announcements, and the warriors made haste. The Defender Antariksha broke out of its moorings like an irked giant sailing into war, and Ovikani could not tear her eyes from the display of it. Antariksha was beyond any spaceship, the equal of any armada it had ever faced. A moon-sized monstrosity replete with particulate armor kilometers thick, rock siphoned off half an entire asteroid belt, the warriors had arrayed its parts so it seemed like a cylindrical str ucture from afar. On closer inspection ... Circles. It was a collection of circles, endless wheel-modules upon wheel-modules.
Clickety-clack went Antariksha. The wheels were churning, swirling indeed. Each module was one of the Habitats of Akoria, moving with full independence but complete coordination. They headed out of the great dilatory Bubble they had sat in for centuries, and Ovikani felt her loneliness increasing at an alarming rate. It evaded Doublon himself, it evaded the Search Armadas, it killed many, it did a lot.
“General, we’re all to ourselves again,” she said.
“Because I have to keep power consumption low,” Yutuka snapped back. “To act as guides for the warriors. Don’t let yourself get identified with that ... physical mind you just got, dear. The battle ... possibilities aren’t too bad. Antariksha can handle nine thousand Invader warships, and we have less than seven thousand hovering toward the Bubble.”
“They intend to pop it?” Ovikani still couldn’t move. She understood to an extent, her awareness fading in and out.
“Combat systems say so.” Yutuka manipulated controls. “They know, dear. I’ve seen their Fleetmaster. He comes from their Fringe Worlds, from beyond all Bubbles. From beyond anywhere Solaria’s fist can reach. We will crush that fist with the back of our hand, but the Invaders are a true unknown.”
“Your tranquility deceives me, General,” Ovikani mumbled. She watched the Invaders advance, braced herself for the inevitable, and winced when one loud bleep signified the Bubble being popped. “Our fate depends on their commitment.”
“You won’t die, dear,” Yutuka whispered, his voice spreading through the Message Hall like an epitome of serenity in the clamor of war. “Whether they’re committed to killing us or not, you will live.”
Ovikani shook her head. “I saw the Mother, General. Divinity. When I was in the intermediate state between embodiment and Transcendence, I saw the formlessness. Die and be one with her. The galaxies are her arms, my dear, and Divinity is all of what we know.”
Yutuka grunted, tapping embodied commands and reaching out with mental tendrils to the restless warriors. “All hands of Akoria, brace for engagement, pray to the Transcendents on my mark.” The Invaders locked on to one of the Habitat’s outermost arms, and the first beams of the Orb-dreadnoughts speared at Akoria, slamming into the secondary Bubble-sheath. “Faster than expected. Their elasticity is changing every moment, the glowie-blobs are wavering.” Yutuka paused, damage reports flowing in. “Bubble collapse imminent.”
The screen flashed, and a new voice blared from the speakers. “Antariksha is engaging. The sheath has collapsed. The outsiders begin their assault.”
-1-
Khundav, Gubre System, Contested Sector, Thousand Suns
October 21, 2538 (200 since Autarchy)
Captain Smiti Williams averted her gaze from the viewport and the receding silhouette of AFS Freedom. The shuttle quivered and started to accelerate, as someone pumped a lavender fragrance into the crowded cabin. It helped in forgetting the crackle of burnt electronics that had filled the passageways of her ship, for she didn’t want her last vision of Freedom to be one in which she saw it falling apart. The battle became a distant memory, and a cold ball in her midsection became the present.
“Leaving the fleet formation, beginning orbital insertion in twenty seconds,” Lieutenant Arcadia reported from the cockpit, her voice betraying little of the otherwise palpable confusion and shock pervading the cramped shuttle. “The escorts and the Marine craft are now departing from Antietam’s shuttle docks, four gunships taking up the rear. We will enter Khundav’s Low Orbit in sixteen minutes ...” She trailed off, a thousand questions implied.
“Well, ma’am?” Commander Handam spoke in a near-whisper. He was Freedom’s second-in-command, a stocky man who seemed an efficient one as long as it was peacetime. Now, he kept wiping sweat from his brow every few seconds since the firing had stopped. “You brought us here, obeyed the admiral, what’s the suicide plan now?”
“There’s no suicide plan, Commander,” Smiti hissed, gritting her teeth, shooting a harsh glance at her executive officer. Must I do it now? She could feel the eyes on her, knew even the two Marines sitting behind her didn’t believe it.
“Then what?” Handam hissed back. His seat was adjacent to hers, and when he leaned forward with angry and fearful eyes, she couldn’t help wince. “Your flight partner happens to be your XO. Me, of all people. I don’t suppose any of us have death wishes, besides Lieutenant Arcadia.”
“Let me add,” Arcadia said, sounding amused, tapping her controls. The shuttle started to thrum as its main thrusters activated for orbital insertion. “And why’re members of the command crew sitting in the flimsiest sort of shuttlecraft we had in Freedom’s hangar? I should be navigating the ship, not a boat.”
“Ideal circumstances to me,” Marine Lieutenant Gustav rumbled through his exoskeleton speakers from one of the back seats. “I’ll stare at the captain’s head until my guns come to use.”
Smiti cleared her throat, unable to stall any longer. Well, at least the viewports here are so small I can’t see the grandiosity of a planet. She keyed the comm controls on her armrest. “All units, this is Captain Williams. We came here allied with New Arabia, expecting high glories, but Divinity did not will it so. Our allies have betrayed us, and it appears they find it hard to appreciate the size of the Asiatic Navy’s stick on our backs. In this crisis of national trust and life, we should appreciate the last chance we have been given to serve the Fleet, however bizarre it may seem.” She could feel the falsity of those words even as they left her, but it appeased an infinitesimal portion of the cold abyss yawning within her. We lost the battle, and they know it.
“Admiral Stalwart, honorable commander of our task force, has recognized the bravery and commitment of our Division. The terrorists and the New Arabian forces have agreed to negotiations, provided our fleet shows them respect—and no less than four command-rank officers of our most decorated divisions are there in person. ‘There’ is down on the surface of Khundav IV, to coordinates that they will give us. My command shuttle will take point, gunships stay in the rear, as per enemy demands. Fly in formation, nevertheless, all craft stay at the edge of our escorts’ defensive envelope.”
As she waited for her officers and troops to process it, she decided to add one more flowery, fake line to what might be her last fleetwide communication ever. If I stay true to myself in my last words, Divinity might decide these are my last words. If I lie more, Divinity will know I need to live long enough to speak my actual last words. Smiling softly at her rationality, she continued, “Even the Autarch Doublon, from beyond death, must watch the New Arabians with disdain. It is only since we have faith that justice and humanity will prevail at the end, we head with defiance into the traitors’ maw. The enemy may have surrounded our fleet, making sure we do not have a choice but to comply with their demands at the moment, their demands are toned down enough to indicate they fear our wrath. Captain Williams, out.”
The silence that followed was far too eerie, especially since the Marines in the back of the shuttle had stopped talking, their exoskeleton battlesuits deactivated. She cracked her knuckles and examined the other occupants, trying not to chuckle in sarcasm. Four command level officers. Two of them on one shuttle, unarmored, all belonging to one stricken ship that needs no less than its entire crew working to get it into fighting shape. The coldness returned. With its captain out too, heading ...
“Who put that fragrance in the air?” Commander Handam interrupted her musing, waving his hands aimlessly. “There are enemy agents everywhere, but we’re inserting whatnot into our shuttle’s air cyclers—”
“I did, sir,” Arcadia called back from the cockpit. “Wonder why you noticed it now, I tuned up the ‘fragrance’ settings right after we left the hangar. Trust me, it’s not poison. What is poison, though, is the air of the world below. My detectors say there’s twice maximum safe radiation levels where we’ve been directed to land, Captain.”
“How long can we survive there?” Smiti now dared to glance at the viewport, and felt an odd pang as she saw nothing but space. Stars glittered in the distance, some of them appearing odd-shaped. That would be the fleet’s exhaust plumes.
