The Martial Unity

In the busy command room of the Blood Arc, thousands of naval officers and other crew members staffing the vast terminal grew engrossed in their duties, manning important elements of the gargantuan fleet carrier that allowed the ship to function at all.

“Local swarm clearance confirmed.”

“Vector aligned with Oort Exclusion Force.”

“Ready for topological shift.”

“Negatron matter pumps at 100%. Nominal negative energy density.”

“Heat sinks are saturating. Requesting authorization to dump plasma before fold.”

“Thermal plasma dumping authorized,” a powerful, masculine voice boomed from an elevated station that allowed the fleet commander to oversee the entire command room from where he stood. “Astrogation, initiate Alcubierre sequence on my mark. Execute.”

RUMBLE

The ship began accelerating through the very fabric of space once it crossed the boundary of the star system, as the warp drive began accelerating the entire ship at speeds much greater than the speed of light.

The boundless stars of the universe, directly visible from the frontal glass window of the command room, ceased being bright points and instead shifted into becoming streaks.

“Warp drive systems are stable.”

“Nominal warp speed achieved.”

“Metric tensor is stable.”

The commander, a hemosapien man in his late twenties, heaved a sigh of relief. The Blood Arc safely entered FTL warp speed. Although it was a nominal function of the ship to do so, it didn’t change that it was a hectic episode each time for the crew to manage thousands, if not tens of thousands, of parameters relating to the acceleration of a ship as large as the Blood Arc moving into FTL travel.

“Everything is on time, and we should be poised to reach our destination in twelve hours, Madam President,” the commander turned towards Arastia, standing beside him with a deferent gaze.

She conducted herself completely differently compared to when she was having a sleepover with Ria and Runark. Her eyes were sharp and serious, and her body language projected power and authority. Her blood-red exosuit was intimidating, while the power that radiated from her would send chills across the skin of any pathwalker.

She nodded simply. “Good. Keep an eye on defense and security. Although it is unlikely that anything can attack us while we’re in FTL, better safe than not.”

Her tone of voice reflected the concerns that she harbored as the leader of the Blood Humanist Society. Her enemies were powerful and extremely ruthless. If they could kill off high-value targets in the Society by slamming a dummy FTL ship into them mid-travel, they would. Of course, accomplishing such a thing was beyond astronomically difficult. It verged on the absolutely impossible, which gave her some relief, but not too much.

“Madam President, you have been invited to a joint call with numerous allies,” her assistant informed her. “The relevant fleets of the Kandrian Empire, the West Moridian Alliance, the Panamic Consortium, the Elven Tribes of Sarantel, the Pasupati Clans of Kreole, and the dwarves of the Bournvyrne Empire and others wish to speak with you about a new development.”

Arastia’s blood-red eyes narrowed. “Put me through.”

“Yes, Madam President.”

In the blink of an eye, her neural inlay received a flood of information, quickly processing it before sending a stream of visual information to her neural cortex. In her mind, the environment around her changed as she found herself sitting at a virtual table with numerous other familiar figures at the table.

“President Arastia, it has been a while.”

Arastia shifted her gaze towards the leader of the Kandrian fleet, an all but familiar man. He projected calm and composure, wearing an exo-Martial suit with the crest of the Kandrian Empire embroidered on the uniform. His beard and matted long hair were groomed impeccably, something that was unusual for Martial Artists and their unrefined nature. “Sage Zentra,” Arastia smiled at him amicably. “It has been a long time since we spoke directly.” “Indeed, it has, Your Excellency,” Sage Zentra offered a small smile towards Arastia, addressing her in the protocol that a Kandrian ought to for the royal family. “I look forward to partaking in this mission along with you. On behalf of the Kandrian Empire, we will always support the Blood Humanist Society and its noble goal.”

The relationship between the Blood Humanist Society and the Kandrian Empire was tight, but it was also not entirely clear. Even if she was no longer a princess, she was still a member of the Kandrian Royal Family, and that made it very difficult to disassociate them sometimes. However, the Blood Humanist Charter declared its independence and its sovereignty, and the Kandrian Empire was among many other polities that recognized it, it didn’t appear as if the Blood Humanist Society was merely an extension of the Kandrian Empire. Certainly, Arastia had never thought of it that way, even if she had received a lot of financial support from the Kandrian Empire early on when she was setting up her new organization. “I appreciate the commitment of the Kandrian Empire towards the Blood Humanist Society. As always, the Blood Humanist Society is committed to its allies, chief among which is the Kandrian Empire. Now then,” she turned towards the others in the room. “It’s a pleasure to speak with all of you, but I believe that this meeting is important, so let us set aside the pleasantries.”

None of the other members looked irked by those words. If anything, they were on the same page. Nobody cared for pleasantries when they were heading to a mission.

“We have received intelligence that the Evolutionary Army is already on the move as well.” An evosapien spoke with a serious tone. “They have taken great pains to hide their movements this time, so we’re not entirely certain of the size of their fleet or the degree of their commitment to the mission. But…”

The evosapien’s translucent eyes sharpened. “We are confident that they will intervene significantly sooner than we had previously projected.”

Arastia’s expression grew more grim.

Initially, their intelligence assessments projected token interventions, as there usually were with every suspected infected world, but if the Evolutionary Army was going to bring in a more serious force, then they were under-prepared.