Out of the Ashes (Rise of the Empire Book 3) by Ivan Kal Read Free Book Online Page A

ships would just bomb us into oblivion. They have more than enough of our people in the asteroid belt to suit their needs. Are you sure Olympus can handle them?” Akulov asked.
    “Olympus will take care of them, we won’t need to worry about them.” Jacob said.
    “Ra’a’zani technology is advanced, how much could have Olympus advanced in sixty years?” Williams asked.
    Jacob turned to look at her, “They traveled more than six hundred light-years in sixty years. Even before they left they had fabricating technology and faster than light communications. And their ships will arrive here in a fraction of time it took them to reach their destination. That is a lot faster than what Ra’a’zani are capable of. We must hope that Olympus ships will be able to stand up to the Ra’a’zani.”
    “Alright then, I agree. We will plan for a simultaneous attack on all Ra’a’zani positions on the planet.” Anissa said and the others nodded their consent.
    ***
     
    Jacob Kelly sat at a table in his quarters looking at the holo of Earth. The rest of the meeting was spent crafting a rough outline of the plan. They had a year to put people in places where they could do most damage. Looking at Earth, he wondered how many people really still lived on the planet. They had rough numbers for the asteroid belt, around ten thousand people, spread out on various mining stations that Ra’a’zani brought with them. But getting the numbers for Earth was much harder. Ra’a’zani controlled the planet from orbit and had only a few key bases on the ground. The Resistance had the numbers from the end of the Great War. But Jacob knew that those were incorrect. They had no way to verify them, the war had isolated people. They had communication only with 20 cities that managed to survive more or less intact, the rest had either been destroyed in the war, or lost power as they became cut off. During the war and after its end those cities quickly became overcrowded as people arrived seeking shelter, food, and power. Some chose to remain outside the cities, forming primitive communities, living off the land. They had no choice, as they had no way of restoring power. The cities weren’t really cities, like they existed before the war, they were more like megazones. Enormous areas that were densely populated.
    The last count put the population of the 20 cities at 1 billion, but that number could have been higher, and those living outside of the cities at 3.5 billion, but that was only speculation. The official records put the world population at 4.5 billion at the end of the war, but Jacob knew that those numbers were only very generous estimates. They had records only for official death records from the war, those that died in the fighting and estimates of civilian deaths. They didn’t take into account deaths from starvation or disease. Or crime that ran rampant at the time. The numbers were much smaller. And then it was cut even more by the arrival of the Ra’a’zani. They destroyed 10 of the 20 remaining cities from orbit - those that still had armies - and bombed the others before taking them over with minimal resistance. In the confusion they tracked down and destroyed every piece of military technology and industry they could find. They left those living outside of the cities alone, only killing them if they were in the way. Those communities were not a threat, without technology they reverted to gathering, hunting, and farming. To Ra’a’zani they were nothing.
    Those army personnel that survived the initial attack immediately formed the resistance and tried to fight back, but Ra’a’zani swiftly responded by destroying three more cities from orbit, killing - as they claimed - a third of our total remaining population. The resistance backed off, realizing that they had no way of countering Ra’a’zani ships in orbit. People from the remaining 7 cities were divided up, some sent to the asteroid belt, some to various mines across