Star Force: 93-96
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Science Fiction & Fantasy; Colonization; Dystopian; Galactic Empire; High Tech; Military; Space Fleet; 90 Minutes (44-64 Pages); Literature & Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Adventure; Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages); Action & Adventure; Space Opera; Genre Fiction; War; Health; Fitness & Dieting; Exercise & Fitness; Yoga; War & Military; Space Marine; Teen & Young Adult; Star Force
Description: Anthology containing: Star Force: 93-96
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

1

November 28, 3474

Tarric 1 System (H’kar outer region)

Middle Zone

The star system was an empty one, not a planet nor asteroid field in orbit around the single golden star at its center. That had been intentional when The Nexus had created the nearby Grid Point Annsa, for they wanted it located off an uncontested system to be used as a waypoint and not become a target or siege station in and of itself. Now that this system belonged to Star Force that was changing, with several seda situated around an Imperator-class station that was only partially constructed as they watched the traffic come and go from the star to the not so far off grid point, standing by to intercept any threats before they got to it, or if they were coming out from it.

A short comm signal was all that was needed to transmit from one to another, and it would travel faster than any of the ships due to the low gravity of the construct at the other end of the jumplane, so if someone ran from the forces at Annsa they could call ahead and the defense fleet in Tarric 1 could be standing by to attempt an intercept…or to warn Annsa if an invasion fleet arrived.

There were four seda here, two of which were 13 miles in diameter, one at 9 miles, and another at 3. The Imperator was going to dwarf them all, though it wasn’t spherical. Rather it was star shaped, a six pointed work of sheer terror that would stretch 74 miles from tip to tip when completed. There were seda back in the ADZ that were larger, but this thing was designed to be star forge-sized, yet it wasn’t going to be used for mining or habitation. It had but one purpose and one purpose only.

It was a pure battlestation…and on each of those six points was a Bra’hem beam cannon fueled by an independent Nash’ti reactor.

Then throw in all the other medium and short range weaponry powered by other reactors and the most advanced shield set Star Force had, and you ended up with a tiny piece of infrastructure that no one wanted to mess with. It couldn’t guard an entire star system, but it could provide a safe haven to run to if you were in it, and that was incredibly valuable given the realities of interstellar travel. Fights happened insystem, and the idea of calling reinforcements in before you got annihilated was idiotic. Lag time of signal plus travel time meant that anything short of a full blown invasion was going to be over with before you could get help, so all defenses had to be structured around what you had insystem.

It was the reason why so many planets had fallen to the lizards. Simply scout ahead, find out what was there, then bring in enough ships and troops to take it. Unless you hid away extra defenses the attacker was always going to have an advantage, and against single system civilizations…well, there were reasons to have more than one system, and the basic purpose of defense in that case was to design your infrastructure to buy you time so you could call for help and still be alive by the time it eventually arrived.

Help here would come from Annsa and it was right next door, but if you were being pursued by a faster ship insystem you wouldn’t even have time to get it. The best hope you’d have would be to evade long enough to get to a safe spot somewhere in orbit of the star…and the imperator was definitely that safe spot, with extra long range shield generators build into it so that it could reach out and protect incoming ships and freeze others with dampener versions. Get to the imperator and you’d probably be safe, and while Star Force didn’t have more than 20 built to date across their entire empire, their theoretical reputation was already spreading rapidly.

Theoretical because no one had been stupid enough to attack one, but Star Force had done some visible weapons tests and made those records public…just to discourage the stupid.

This Imperator was partially operational with one of the star points built and capable of inflicting massive damage at insane range, but the station itself, even when fully constructed, would be operated by less than 1000 crewers. It could hold more than that, but it’d been built to be all teeth and no spa, somewhere you wouldn’t really like to be stationed during peacetime, but the place everyone would want to be in the middle of a battle.

The surrounding sedas were a much better place to live and would allow the Imperator crew rotational options as well as adding their own impressive array of weaponry to any engagement as they sat within Bra’hem range but some 10,000 kilometers away, for if there was to be a fight the Imperator would need clear firing lines around it to inflict maximum damage.

So it was being built here from parts shipped in by regular convoys in order to become the doorstop to Annsa that would function as watchdog and oasis for passing ships in distress. Capable of more than defending itself and alerting the grid point should trouble be headed its way.

That meant it constantly monitored jump activity around the star, so when the first Nexus ships began to arrive it took note immediately.

Four Gfatt warships led the way, followed by a fleet of huge cargo jumpships that dropped into a lower stellar orbit and began to circle away from the jumppoint…that soon saw a planet arrive out of a slow braking maneuver.

Or rather it had the mass of a planet. In truth it was two giant discs connected by a thick stem and thousands of ‘small’ ships attached to it like ticks, all of which were themselves massive jumpships. Their combined propulsive power had slowly towed the construct across Nexus space and then the Rim Region, finally arriving here with the cargo jumpships immediately scrambling to attend to it.

They got in close and extended huge umbilicals over to the ‘ticks’ and began to refuel them. They’d been stripped down to essentially engines and shield generators, with then more engines being added. It was how The Nexus had imagined transporting one of the huge constructs and was far less elegant than what Star Force had in mind, but per the agreement they wouldn’t be moving the Meintre’s pair here. The Nexus had taken this beast off of Grid Point Polla, stranding a smaller member known as the Uque temporarily.

Or rather relegating them to traditional grav drive travel to and from their region, which was one of the less unstable ones within decent range of Star Force territory. That said, even with all the jumpships attached to the construct, it had so much mass that their collective engine power could only manage slow jump speeds. They’d been enroute for some 28 years thus far, with constant supply convoys running back and forth at much greater speeds in order to keep the constructs’ ticks fully fueled and constantly moving. Those convoys had been coming through Annsa for several years now to take the short cut to the construct, but they’d never stuck around long enough to draw attention.

The Gfatt warships were here to escort the convoys just in case they did, though not the construct, for it had so much firepower of its own that escort wasn’t necessary. But pluck the convoys away and the construct would quickly run out of fuel, becoming stranded in whatever system it was in at the time and easy to siege out, for the giant station didn’t have much in the way of food production internally. It relied on warehouses and the abundant trade occurring at the grid points to function, meaning that right now it was truly a fish out of water.

But that fish gradually moved over to a nonexistent jumpline, and once all the refueling had taken place it made the slowest jump the crew onboard the Imperator had ever seen, lazily creeping out of the system and taking more than a day to do it. Ships came in from Annsa and docked with it during its micro/microjump, transferring over Star Force-allied crew that would be replacing The Nexus handlers once they got it into position.

It wasn’t going to the other construct, but rather some 1.5 million kilometers away. As far as interstellar navigation was concerned that was basically the same spot, but it would give the two constructs plenty of breathing room and allow traffic from one not to influence the other, and both were far enough away from the star that its gravity didn’t tug them too much out of alignment. Hitting a target as ‘small’ as one of the giant 12,000 mile wide discs require a precise shot, then some additional steering as able to correct minor drift problems since you couldn’t actually see the target you were shooting for. You knew its supposed location then had to adjust when you got close enough to sense it, either via gravity silhouette or alignment beacon, for the magnetic field itself was too local to pick up before you hit it.

But getting the construct 1.7 lightyears away from the star was a huge pain in the ass, because the jumpships moving it had no gravity to brake against. They were going to have to sip off the star’s limited gravity signature at that range and ramp up their engines for an extremely long burn just to nudge down its speed. And knowing that was going to be necessary, a huge fleet of additional fuel ships arrived the following day from Annsa and began running back out to it in escort formation, setting up for continuous transfers that was going to require a lot of precision flying to match speeds.

It was either that or slowly take the construct over the 1.7 lightyears distance in the next 2 centuries, and even then you’d have to expend a good deal of fuel to stop it on station. So in fuel costs alone the deceleration on point was going to be more than 30% of the sum total that it took The Nexus to get it here, which was a staggering amount.

The Imperator watched The Nexus supply convoys keep coming into the system, thousands upon thousands of the giant ships that would return piecemeal and head back out empty, but before the construct made it to its final resting point another four ship Gfatt escort arrived at the star ahead of another fuel convoy, but they didn’t make a microjump out to catch up with the construct. Rather they headed around the star to get to an outgoing jumpline as a second planet-sized mass arrived.

It was the other end of the link, and behind it came more fuel ships and a diplomatic vessel. The latter headed over to Annsa to handle the official handover of the construct being dropped off here, but this one still had a 14 year journey left to get to the location in the occupation zone where The Nexus was already setting up shop, but they wouldn’t be able to send convoys in earnest until the grid point system was linked in.

Time wasn’t on their side, so they’d been sending many the slow way to get their gifted worlds prepped, but once this construct got there and the link between it and Annsa was established, traffic and commerce was going to explode at both ends, and not just because of the Meintre relocation plan. Star Force would be on the grid, for the ADZ wasn’t that far away, and virtually every member within The Nexus was going to have access to them through the grid point system.

They did now via the H’kar, but the H’kar weren’t fully integrated into Star Force yet. They were enough for a lot of players to begin making contacts and setting up arrangements for the tidal wave of trade to come, but it wasn’t even a drop in the bucket compared to what would result when the ADZ was keyed in and its markets were open…and militarily secure from the instability plaguing many regions within The Nexus.

But that was still at least 14 years into the future, for once the second construct was refueled and made its lazy way around the star it slowly jumped out on the next leg of its journey without wasting any time here, leaving the Imperator as the dominate force in the otherwise empty system, but had it been a living beast it would have been feeling emasculated by the passing of the two true giants through its turf…though it would have been interesting to see who would win out in a fight. Big as they were, they weren’t built as battlestations and they didn’t have any weapons that could match the range or firepower of the Bra’hem…though they did have a lot more of them.

It would take another 5 months before the first construct was finally ground to a stop in its predetermined position, then the ticks turned it around to align with the far off occupation zone before The Nexus work crews began cutting away their jumpships from the frame they’d been physically attached to via umbilicals. They weren’t becoming Star Force property and The Nexus wanted them back, but the process itself was going to take a few months to complete and until the other end of the link was established this construct wasn’t going to be of much use.

But that didn’t stop the commerce from flowing. The mass of stations around the existing construct at Annsa began moving into the gap between them, setting up for what the future would hold and positioning themselves to make the most of the two construct grid point…something that the rest of the Rim Region did not have aside from Mankla. One construct was a huge magnet for commerce, pun intended, but two at a grid point rocketed the location into higher status that would be attracting investors here even before Grid Point Stargate was established.

While Annsa was now Star Force property, they were still on the grid point network and that made them part of the larger civilization whether officially recognized or not, and a great many people that lived in The Nexus or within its domain didn’t care about such things. They went where opportunity was and now Annsa was the newest hot spot on the map. No alterations in the grid point system had been made in centuries, and even though this was a moved set rather than a newly constructed pair, it was progress…something badly needed in The Nexus given all the setbacks it was having and markets lost to the traders when planets fell.

It didn’t take long for news of the construct arriving to work its way out through the network and soon the number of magjump flights coming in quadrupled. Part of that was due to ships being repurposed from the now defunct Uque until the Meintre pair were moved there, but in truth those ships had already been repurposed elsewhere in the grid. The surge in flights here was due to the greater demand, and within the space of 3 years Annsa was the most traffic heavy grid point after Mankla…which also saw a boost because it was on the line that ran from The Nexus to Annsa.

And as usual Star Force didn’t allow a letdown with any of the transfers. The grid points continued to operate at peak efficiency and word of that spread too, along with some of the minor improvements being made in the local economies. After all, Star Force began as a corporation, not a nation, and its roots in business philosophy ran far deeper than those of The Nexus even if the mammoth civilization had been around a lot longer and had ample experience to draw from.

But there was just something about the way Star Force handled business that drew opportunists to them…not to mention that they kept all of their holdings extremely secure, and that was a vast improvement over The Nexus. Some people in the Rim Region complained about Star Force not sending enough of their existing fleet in to help secure the new members, but that way of thinking was exactly how The Nexus got into trouble. They’d overextended, and Star Force never did. When they took territory they held it, which was why a lot of the resources needed to secure the Rim Region were going to have to be built there, for Star Force had a huge occupation zone of captured and mostly emptied systems to guard against squatters, the still hostile lizards, the advanced races congregating at the Uriti preserve, and any others that felt like poking around.

That firm grip on security attracted investors like a moth to a flame, and Davis was not one to waste opportunity. He had a Duke assigned to every grid point that Star Force owned and they were following the playbook that he’d written out long before the tidal rush of commerce began, so as people from all across The Nexus began sniffing around they found an even more professional custodian of the grid points than usual.

And while there wasn’t a lot of traffic coming into H’kar territory itself, for most of it stayed in the grid point network as that was where the primary markets were, there was still a huge amount of cargo and other traffic interfacing with the H’kar as a result of Annsa’s increase in notoriety…and they all got the chance to fly by the Imperator station on their way through. A not so small reminder of the teeth that Star Force had in its own right, and that they were not just replacements coming in to take over possession of The Nexus’s toys.

They were a large civilization of their own, and though it wasn’t immediately apparent, people began to realize that technologically speaking they were on par with the major races in The Nexus, if not more so in some cases. Especially when it came to military hardware.

The only problem was, they wouldn’t sell any of it. But still, when times became turbulent and uncertain, you fled to those you felt were the most powerful, and that too would begin to draw people towards the Rim Region and down into the expanded ADZ once Grid Point Stargate became operational and Star Force’s reputation slowly spread by word of mouth.

2

May 3, 3476

Unknown System (Skarron territory)

Middle Zone

Captain Uzzedi sat in his command chair onboard his Ma’kri scout ship watching the fireworks in the system from a position of safety. They were well away from stellar orbit and the five inhabited planets that were currently engaged in the most massive brawl he’d ever seen…and he’d been at Krachnika when it ultimately fell. There were far more ships here, on both sides, and though it was hard to tell he thought the lizards were winning.

Almost all his data was time lagged, but he’d dropped sensor buoys off around the system as they’d lazily trolled around in enhanced shadow mode. Ever since acquiring the Trinx into Star Force the Ma’kri had been upgraded with a crude overlay to their impressive signal sucking technology, so now they had the ability to be immune to sensors and give off a faint false signal enough to mimic starlight. It was less effective when backdropped by a planet or star, but they would no longer appear as an obvious black silhouette and that gave the Captain a lot of leeway with regards to where he could go within the system and still remain unnoticed.

And unnoticed was the key, for they were fast enough to go where they pleased and neither the lizards nor the Skarrons could catch them. That said, they were so far away from Star Force territory that they didn’t want to risk a mishap. They were alone out here, for while there were other scout ships sniffing around the Skarron/lizard war zone they were all on different missions and not coordinating. Uzzedi was basing out of an outpost in Voku territory and he knew other ships were as well, but where they went to he didn’t know. He’d been given a section of territory to scout and orders to follow any large lizard or Skarron movements.

So when he’d stumbled upon the mother of all lizard fleets transitioning through a star system like a long line of ants he’d followed it…straight to a fortress world on the other side of the regional border within the Skarron Empire. That meant the reported internal discord between the Skarron factions should no longer be in play and the full might of their military would be coming down on the lizards in short, or perhaps long, order but right now it seemed the lizards either didn’t care or didn’t realize that, and the Human Axius captain didn’t buy the latter. The lizards typically operated off of good intelligence or probed into new areas with single ships. Launching a mindboggling assault such as this was not something they would recklessly do.

Which meant they were no longer concerned about Star Force crossing the border and doing battle with them, either because they calculated that they wouldn’t or because they’d rebuilt to such a level that they thought they could take on both empires simultaneously. Uzzedi figured it was the former, for if Star Force wanted to cross that line there was nothing aside from bodies to throw at them that would slow them down. Not with the tech advantage they now had.

But give credit to the lizards for knowing how to take advantage of a situation, for Star Force had made it pretty clear that they were going to hold The Line and focus their attention on the new Rim Region, so why not go after the Skarrons?

Conventional wisdom held that the Skarrons were too widespread to take down, and that if they wanted to they could pull so many reserves from far flung regions that they could annihilate just about anyone if sufficiently motivated enough to do so…and given the carnage occurring before him, Uzzedi was beginning to wonder if the lizards hadn’t just bitten off more than they could chew. Even if they took this system, it wasn’t the regional capitol and there were a lot of other fortress systems like this left in this subsection of the Skarron Empire. Even Star Force only had very basic maps of the entire thing, to which the Ma’kri scout fleet was trying to expand upon and confirm from other sources what it could.

The lizards had already taken one semi-rebellious region away from the Skarrons who had not sent reinforcements to defend it, and even that effort had cost them an insane number of ships and years. They hadn’t had time to thoroughly fortify it, but for whatever reason they were pushing again and in numbers that Uzzedi had never seen nor even heard reported used. He’d heard the rumors that the lizards had let their capitol fall to Star Force despite the huge defense fleet that he and the other ship captains had to fight through, but now he didn’t doubt the truth of it.

This was the true might of the lizards beginning to show, and this was only an assault against a single high value system. What they’d use overall, and what the Skarrons would send to counter them, was a brain teaser that Uzzedi could not fathom. At this point it seemed like both had no limit to available forces, so the only thing he could do was watch and take notes, for the strength level of both sides was unable to determine given how large their empires were and the limited number of cloaked scouts Star Force had to poke around with.

But with the surveillance buoys and his Ma’kri on station, he was going to get a lot of data here over the coming months to report back on, for this battle for the system wasn’t going to end anytime soon. He’d have to leave before it was over, but he speculated that it would take no less than a year to settle the naval conflict alone…and that was just with the ships insystem. If both sides got reinforcements though, it could peter out into a decade long fight.

So Uzzedi just sat and watched, trying to learn as much about both fleets as they could, though the lizards didn’t appear to be showing any new technologies now that Star Force had cut off their Trinx lifeline. The Skarrons, on the other hand…

Cal-com stood in the Hall of Majesty on Nergthen, his right hand on his chin as he studied the updating reports on the Skarron front. Since returning from the upper side of the galaxy he’d been given more duties by the Elders, some that pertained to their holdings in and on the other side of Star Force territory, but most were directed elsewhere…with one bold imperative to take another chunk out of Skarron territory and then to start establishing a firm defensive line at a string of system coordinates provided to him.

That made his mission more straightforward than usual, and the Voku had been fighting the Skarrons for millennia in some form or another, but the taking of additional territory in such a quick manner as prescribed meant he was going to have to pull in fleets of conglomerates from across this half of Voku territory…but coupled with the fortification order after the conquests were complete told the Dafchor something the Elder hadn’t said specifically. There was a moment of opportunity upon them, followed by what would be a storm of reprisals, and he thought he now knew the source of both of those things.

The lizard empire was on the move again, and no longer in subtle manners. They’d aggressively taken a Skarron region that the Consortium had arrogantly chosen not to reinforce. Even still the lizards had barely been able to take it after a long, grueling campaign…but Cal-com now suspected even that had been a ruse to hide their true strength, now supplemented by the resources they’d gained from their new territorial additions, for they were assaulting no less than 38 major Skarron systems with invasion fleets that dwarfed those used previously.

Even the Voku’s previous estimates of current lizard fleet strength hadn’t accounted for half the vessels appearing in systems that the Voku were monitoring, let alone how many others that they didn’t have eyes on. His analysts had not even speculated that they had this many ships in total spread across their entire empire, yet once again the lizards were appearing in droves and perplexing their supposedly superior enemies that it appeared they had no chance to defeat.

But the Elder obviously thought there was a threat here. Pushing further into Skarron territory made sense given the distraction of the lizard invasion, even if it wasn’t anywhere near their current border. Any reinforcements coming in would go there, not to the Voku front, but if he guessed as to the Elder’s predictions based on the orders given to him, this lizard push was going to wake up the Consortium to the threat they posed and elicit a major backlash…one that would also be coming the Voku’s way while they were in the neighborhood.

And something that large would have to be on the level of a Crusade. Three were known to have occurred, as far as Voku records went, over the long history of the Skarrons. Their individual kingdoms and other internal divisions had never kept them from aiding their neighbors, for they fought even harder against outsiders than they did against themselves. Bickering and nontraditional forms of warfare were common knowledge enough for the Voku to pick up on it in their intelligence gathering, but the Skarrons didn’t wage full war on one another. And when an outsider threatened one of them the bickering stopped immediately, meaning they were at their strongest when under attack and therefore unified.

Whatever the disagreement in the Consortium had been to bring them to stand by and do nothing as one of their Regions fell must have been massive, but now that another two Regions were under assault it only seemed natural to assume they’d be receiving support from bordering ones to push back the lizard incursion.

But that didn’t hold to what Cal-com was sensing. Both in terms of surprising lizard strength and the orders given to him. The Voku were stronger than both the lizards and the Skarrons across the board save for in one category…and that was numbers. The only real threat to them would be a massive push, the likes of which the Skarrons had never bothered to muster against the Voku. They managed their border economically, often losing systems that in the greater context of their communal empire were inconsequential, and the Voku had never pressed hard to take a great number of them back.

And then the Elder had ordered him to begin expanding into Skarron territory even as he fought in the Star Force war. He hadn’t understood that at the time other than to add more territory to the Voku in order to strengthen them, but now he thought it was part of a greater plan to bolster them long term against what was coming. Taking an even larger chunk of Skarron territory now was a no-brainer if you knew their full might was coming your way on a delay. No point in not sweeping up what you could now then putting down border fortifications and fighting a holding action that was going to happen one way or another.

This had to be the Fourth Crusade coming. It had to be. And if it was, the Voku were going to be…

Cal-com’s train of thought cut off as he stared at the starmaps. The idea was that when a Crusade happened the Skarrons didn’t just deal with one threat, they dealt with all threats in the greater region while they had their full might massed. That’s why they’d be coming after the Skarrons during or after they dealt with the lizards. But would Star Force also come under attack? They’d fought the Skarrons previously when they pushed into their borders, but would the Skarrons try to take them down as well?

He’d heard that during a Crusade the Skarron ego was at its highest, so they might just try. Star Force was weaker than the Voku size wise, but they’d managed to surpass them in terms of technology and their psionics. They could easily defeat a Skarron attack, even a large scale one, but a Crusade was another matter entirely. Every Region within their empire would send almost all the forces it had save for what it felt necessary to hold onto the key systems. It had been said they often lost lesser ones when the local defense forces were overwhelmed by opportunists, but that didn’t matter. Once the Crusade was over the forces would return and they could take back those systems or just shrug off the losses. A Crusade being called for meant there was something of unbelievable importance that trumped all else, and once launched they wouldn’t be bashful in carrying it out.

And that meant you’d be facing upwards of 90% of all Skarron ships, walkers, and troops from across their entire empire, all focused into a single war zone, and the Voku were close enough to the lizards in some areas that there was no doubt if a Crusade did occur they’d be in their targets as well.

But why now? It wouldn’t take a Crusade to push the lizards back. The backing of two or three other regions sending 20% of their fleets would be enough, especially with some of the recent tech upgrades they’d made. The lizards no longer had a range advantage on them, and that was what had cost the Skarrons dearly in the fall of Region 34. Now their opposition had the ability to poke at their invokers from afar and that was hurting the lizards badly, but apparently they’d upgraded their assault pillars to compensate.

How many of the new versions did they have? And could they rework the originals? And to the point, where were the lizards getting so many ships?

Did the Skarrons know? Did the Elders know? Cal-com had been ordered to take actions that hinted at the most massive war in Voku history being on the horizon, but was this really happening? Was the Fourth Crusade mounting even now?

It had to be, for it was the only thing that made sense…and if his instincts were correct, the lizards had not been so beaten by Star Force as they appeared to be. They must have relocated far more materiel than calculated, or come up with some new manufacturing method to speed up the development of infrastructure that had taken them thousands of years previously to develop. Without their shipyard rings they should not have been able to field this kind of fleet…so where did it come from?

Cal-com didn’t have an answer to that and probably wouldn’t for a long while. What he did have was a mission to carry out, and right now that meant mounting a massive campaign to attack the Skarron Empire and carve out what would be, in hindsight, the best defensible border possible while giving the Voku some prime territory to digest.

Yes, this was definitely the prelude to a massive war coming. It wouldn’t be here quickly, but it was heading their way eventually. And if it was a full Crusade there was only one reason to be mounting it.

The Skarrons had finally reasoned that the only way to defeat the lizards was to take them out completely. Not just the shipyards that were producing this fleet, wherever they were, but the rate which the lizards had built and expanded after Star Force had cut out the heart of their empire was a telltale sign of the true threat. If left unchecked they could do it again even if decimated in a massive backlash by the Skarrons.

The only way to insure they were dealt with permanently was to wipe out every single one that lived.

And that would require a Crusade.

During which the Skarrons would deal with other nearby threats, meaning they’d come after the Voku and perhaps even Star Force. And Paul’s people were busy fighting a massive war rimward, one in which they were deeply outnumbered. An attack by the Skarrons would hurt them badly, despite the numbers of reserve units that Cal-com knew Paul kept in the ADZ that would never be sent beyond it. He never left his own core worlds undefended, but the might of a crusade wasn’t something one could just shrug off. Not even Star Force.

He had to warn him, but he couldn’t do it in person. There was too much to organize here and an unspecified amount of time before the hammer fell, meaning he couldn’t waste a day of it else he betray his duty to the Elders. A message would have to suffice, but he’d send it via a personal courier he could trust to deliver it into Paul’s hand. Cal-com knew other Archons and their Monarch counterparts were wise, but Paul was the only one he personally trusted to make sure things got done, and as such he wasn’t going to send the message to him via their own comm system. This was too important, plus Paul was in a war zone and the message might not reach him in time.

He didn’t think the Crusade would be here soon, but preparing for such a thing isn’t someone one did on short notice…and Star Force was already overextended, so however Paul would alter their plans to compensate he needed to let him know as soon as possible.

“Clear the room,” he told his staff, who looked a bit surprised but obeyed without complaint.

When they were gone he sealed the small command center and began to record a message on a secure system. He needed Paul to know about the Elders’ orders, but that wasn’t something he could share with others, even his fellow Voku, unless so needed to carry them out. Paul was another matter and favored by the Elders anyway, plus they’d never reprimanded him for confiding in the Human, and the Elders had access to scan his mind at any time they wished, for one was often discretely on this world for him to talk to if needed, though he rarely sought them out if not summoned.

So Cal-com had decided long ago to continue confiding some things in Paul until he was told not to, but that meant this message had to go directly to his hand and no other Voku or Star Force. He had a few couriers he could trust not to read it, but he went to an additional length to encode it with a pass phrase only Paul would know based on the time they’d spent together.

Cal-com laid out every possible bit of information he thought Paul would need, wished him luck in all his upcoming war campaigns, then locked the message into a datachip and purged the recorder before calling for a courier and sending him off to find the Archon wherever he was in the next galactic arm.

3

June 29, 3477

DK System (Ninja Monkey territory)

Sliced Banana

Morgan’s jaw dropped as the message from Paul played out explaining the Voku’s warning about both the lizards unexpected strength and the Skarron crusade that may be forming to oppose them…and anyone else in the way.

“Fuckers,” she muttered as Paul’s hologram continued to talk.

“If this does head our way we can’t pull out of our responsibilities here and come back. There’s far too much at stake. We’re going to have to fortify the ADZ like the Voku are and play dead. There’s no point in picking a new fight with the Skarrons if they’re really coming after the lizards. Let them fight it out first and we’ll deal with the aftermath. Hopefully all the systems between the Voku and us won’t draw attention, and I don’t see how we can protect that region other than in a handful of spots anyway. Good news is this isn’t happening tomorrow and we’ve got time to prepare…and guess who got voted to do the preparing,” Paul said with a half sarcastic/half apologetic smile.

“Like hell you voted,” she said, though not displeased.

“Davis concurs. The border is yours and you’re to involve as many Clans and factions as you deem necessary, but get us a wall built that can withstand this storm before it comes down on our heads…and hope it washes away the lizards in the process.”

Paul’s image gave her a Vulcan ‘live long and prosper’ hand gesture then faded out.

Morgan couldn’t help but smile, and not just at Paul’s signoff. She’d helped plan the Rim Region expansion along with the others, but she hadn’t been one assigned/volunteered to go out there and fight all the new bad guys. She’d wanted to, but she had her own bad guys to deal with and her Clan needed her. Morgan had taught them well, but abandoning them didn’t feel right and she’d built up too much infrastructure to relocate out to the Rim Region, so she’d reluctantly had to pass on the big party.

But now it seemed an even bigger party was coming her way, and that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. For a lot of people it was puppies and kittens, but for Morgan distant danger that she had time to build and prepare for always did the trick…and it meant that the pesky Line restriction wasn’t going to be an issue anymore. Star Force wouldn’t have to destroy the lizards if the Skarrons truly were coming. That wasn’t certain, but the fact that they were fighting it out in earnest was important to know…as well as the fact that the lizards had been hiding their real strength from her.

She should have expected nothing more from the devious bastards, and the trailblazer wasn’t going to make that mistake again. They’d fed Star Force what it wanted to see and they’d bought it, playing up the ‘we’re weak’ angle when they didn’t immediately pursue them coreward. After all, if they thought the reason was their focus on the powerful core systems around and including Krachnika the last thing the lizards would want was to project an image of regained power and potentially draw Star Force to their new replacements.

Now that it was clear Star Force was holding to The Line, the lizards were going to use that power to go after the Skarrons…with Star Force not even knowing what was going on given the distances involved.

One thing was clear, though. The lizards didn’t think they could take Star Force, but they did think they could take the much larger Skarrons down. Smart of them, on the first part, but what about the second? Had they miscalculated? Was this Crusade tactic something they were unaware of from their history?

Or was it all part of the plan? Morgan didn’t think they could survive 90% of the Skarron fleet showing up here with extermination orders, but then again what was their play? They’d used the internal fiefdom conflict against the Skarrons and taken a chunk out of their empire that they would now be using to further invade…but did they really have that much strength in them? Had the Trinx upgrades really changed things that much?

And they were still pressing on with this now that their tech lifeline had been cut. They wouldn’t be getting any more easy upgrades, yet according to the Voku and their own scouts, they were aggressively pushing into more Skarron territory and essentially poking the tiger straight into both eyes.

Morgan envied their tenacity, as well as the 2s finding a way to incorporate their strengths into their Clans, but that wouldn’t work for the Ninja Monkeys. There wasn’t going to be lizards fighting lizards and Paul had been adamant about that. Morgan agreed. Fighting your mirror image was always a difficult thing to do, which meant as long as her Clan was on the lizard border they wouldn’t be incorporating any Paladin, even if all the other Clans did.

Best to keep the lizards as clear enemies rather than muddy the water with enemy and friendly versions. Besides, she didn’t need the Paladin. She had Kiritas and Bsidd, and both of them combined were more effective than lizards. Kiritas could work better and Bsidd could fight better. Her Clan was only recruiting individuals, not growing new civilizations from genetic samples…and she really liked that potential capability…but there was no lack of available volunteers for her to pull from. Most didn’t meet up to her entry standards, but there were so many people trying to become Ninja Monkeys that she wasn’t in need of additional population.

She was in need of additional experienced personnel, and that was something the Paladin were not. They were all green, but could function that way shortly after being grown. Morgan needed more than that and didn’t want to dilute the professional culture within her Clan by adding anything even remotely close to newbs in her ranks.

The 2s could spam their way to results and Morgan could be jealous of them for that, but she greatly preferred the traditional method of building up individuals over time and accumulating them. And given the length of Star Force’s history and their large population base, she now had the luxury of pulling recruits that had hundreds of years of experience already…which she would then take up to the next level via her own training methods.

And now the Ninja Monkeys were back to being on the front line. With the Rim Region expansion occurring the enemy lizards had become the JV team with regards for potential combat, but not anymore.

With Paul’s hologram gone, Morgan pulled up a starmap of her current territory on the left and one of the entire border on her right…which she was now responsible for. Ninja Monkey territory covered only a tiny patch of it, with her now owning 53 systems spread out in a flat net 280 lightyears wide and 120 tall. It was a thin defense line, but an effective one, and she had surveillance equipment and patrols throughout the adjacent systems giving her more asserted territory than she actually inhabited.

But she was going to have to do a lot better, and her Clan alone wasn’t going to be able to handle it all by themselves.

The Hradeiti were a joke that Davis was tolerating in the hopes that they could grow to the point of expanding out into lizard territory on their own, but assuming the Crusade was coming that plan was now moot and they weren’t strong enough to hold the piece of the border they now owned. They were 18 systems of weakness that Star Force was carrying, but Morgan couldn’t have them on the front lines…meaning she either had to evacuate them or move the lines forward, just like the Voku were doing.

Morgan smiled and interlaced her fingers, then inverted them and stretched her hands theatrically. She’d grown to hate the idea of The Line, imagining the lizards mocking her from just out of reach. She could go after any of them whenever she wanted, so it wasn’t the actual geography of it that bothered her, but rather the principle. Knowing that they were about to get stomped on, hopefully, alleviated most of that emotional burden while also making it apparent that the current Line wasn’t the best defensible position…and that while she had time, she might as well take the systems she wanted to defend against the Skarrons with.

Which meant a brief conquest of their own, and that was something her Ninja Monkeys had gotten very good at.

But scale was the issue. Looking at the map she needed to establish a wedge of systems around the Achkor Region, for that was the part of the line that poked into what had previously been Skarron territory. The Line that extended down to the Voku was pulled back around the Achkor bump, making it almost impossible for the Skarrons to take out the lizards and not come across Star Force.

But that bump wasn’t in the best of locations. Star Force had built what it needed where it had it, but it hadn’t carved out the region based on defense. Looking at the greater map now Morgan could see numerous must haves, including some bottlenecks in nebula dense areas. She could get her ships through some of them if they jacked up their shields enough, but she knew the Skarrons and lizards couldn’t. That would give her some flanking jumplines to use if needed, as well as other permanently blocked lines that were too dense with diffuse gasses for her ships to get through at multiple times lightspeed…and going any slower was a waste of time when you could get there by circuitous routes.

There were no black holes close by for her to seize and she didn’t want to press all the way out to the closest one, but it would probably end up being used to funnel ships into the region, meaning she needed her line far enough back from it that she could get scouting reports on what was coming rather than just having it show up on her front doorstep.

That and hundreds of other considerations worked through her mind rapidly with her tagging systems and morphing the map in a simulation mode for several hours until she got a good border. A better one would have been pressed out further, but she didn’t think they had enough time to take that many lizard worlds and get them built up to a level to defend against a massive Skarron armada. That said, she didn’t know how much time they had to work with anyway, so it was best to not get too greedy. If they had more time there were some very valuable systems further out that she’d really like to have, but she couldn’t risk it.

No, this new chunk of territory would be taxing enough to take and hold, but she’d make it work and turn it into a buffer zone. One built on battle colonies focused on producing resources and not population…and ones that could simultaneously be built expecting to become a battlefield.

Yes, yes…the more Morgan looked at and amended her map the more she liked the overall idea. The ADZ was a clogged mess of non-combat personnel that was well defended, but she needed more than that. She needed the civies in the back and out of the way so she could cleanly fight anyone that came her way. It was the same principle that she’d been building Ninja Monkey territory on, only this was the mammoth sized version…and one her Clan could never fill in time.

Or could it…

Watering down her Clan with a lot of new blood was a no go. She wasn’t going to wreck the mojo that had taken centuries to establish. That meant she could only incorporate recruits at a slow rate, giving them time to adapt and assimilate before eventually adding to their overall strength. Morgan didn’t have time for that with this. She needed a lot of people and resources now, and her Clan didn’t have them.

“Paladin would be real helpful now,” she muttered to herself, but nixed that idea straight off. The 2s didn’t have them fully worked out yet, and even if they were they’d still be facing off and potentially fighting against other lizards and that was just a road that she didn’t want to go down, in addition to the other obvious reasons. That made the Paladin as tempting as Halloween Candy, but it was candy filled with drugs that would eat away at her Clan and potentially kill it. So no, she had to keep the Ninja Monkeys what they were and build on…

Morgan snapped her fingers as an epiphany hit her.

“Damn it. You and Jason aren’t the only ones that can add a Clan. No, make that Clans,” she corrected as her eyes began to twinkle with sheer devious joy.

There was, after all, a long list of people wanting to join Clan Ninja Monkey. They might not be ready for that yet, so why not bring them onboard in a hybrid fashion? A feeder system, so to speak, made up of new Clans. Clans that were part and parcel of Ninja Monkey yet separate. They could do a lot of the construction and secondary defense work while the Ninja Monkeys took on the primary combat duties.

“Who needs Paladin?” Morgan scoffed, pulling up a prompt and beginning to scratch out some notes as she began mentally building what would become a huge new Clan alliance. She’d need to recruit others, starting with Clan RaSeru. They were already on the border, but they’d need to get into a proper defensive line as well in order to prepare. The overall border was far too huge, but Morgan would take the hottest spot for invasion on her own shoulders while others would fill in around her.

Clan Star Fox was next on her list. Even though a chunk of them had moved Rimward they were still the largest Clan and could probably take up piece of the border. Not a big piece, but Randy’s Kiritas built so damn fast they could help out even with their resources split…and he had Paladin to draw on as well. She’d let him work on that angle and whether or not he wanted their assistance on the border. Probably not, given that most of them would be in the Rim Region, but it was his call.

Morgan selected several other Clans, all of which were not involved in the Rim Region, and made basic guesses as to what they could handle, plotting out a net around her now huge territory and nodded appreciably. It certainly didn’t cover most of the border, but the Skarrons would be hard pressed to attack them without coming through somewhere on this grid…and if they tried to flank them they’d have to go way the hell out of the way, in which case Star Force’s various factions could get involved. The Skarrons would not have a chance to build a string of support systems to flank them, for Morgan did not intend to just sit by and watch something like that happen. She’d strike first if they shot into the gap between Star Force and the Voku or the other surrounding regions, but she doubted they’d try that.

If a Crusade really was a juggernaut on steroids, then they’d just run into the first wall they found and try to smash it down…which was why Morgan was going to build a badass wall and sit behind it while they and the lizards fought it out, keeping quiet and buying as much time as possible before attracting attention. But if and when the hit came, it was going to come on this extended nub into lizard territory that she was going to make her own and fill it with her Ninja Monkeys and soon to be formed JV Clans.

Paul had said Davis approved and had left her in charge to organize the defense however she chose, so there was no point in asking for permission. Paul and Jason had added a Clan without permission and she was going to add hers…but first she needed to get her list of existing Clans onboard and set them in motion, for there was no time to waste. They had lizard worlds to take and hold, then a lot of building to do.

A lot of building…and without the resources of the ADZ, most of which were already spoken for in local projects or being exported to the Rim.

4

February 1, 3478

Solar System

Earth

“Come in,” Vortison said as he saw the Archon at his doorway.

“Are you sure about this?” Lara-379 asked.

“As sure as I can be. I can try it out on someone else first if you like, but I thought you deserved a bit of compensation after that previous debacle.”

“I don’t want to lose any more levels,” the newly reclaimed titan said as she walked into the genetics lab.

“You won’t,” the master tech said confidently.

“Alright then. I’ll risk it.”

Vortison waved her towards the nearby medical station and she walked in, pulling down the containment bar so the equipment fully surrounded her at the waist and the top of the chamber formed a cupola that would have shaded her had it not been indoors. As it was, there was a lot of subtle blue lighting on the device that marked it as Star Force made rather than V’kit’no’sat.

“I have to make adjustments as I go, so this will take longer than a typical ascension, but there should be no pain. I’m not numbing it out, so I want you to tell me if you feel anything.”

“Won’t the flash growth be painful?”

“Sorry. The spot numbing of the device will be intact, but ancillary blanket numbing will not. If there’s any spillover of damage or alterations occurring you will feel them.”

Lara nodded, simply standing in place as the machine scanned her and Vortison studied a series of holograms around and on top of his control station.

“You’re sure about this?” she reiterated.

“I wouldn’t have called you otherwise,” he said, continuing to work.

“Do you need me linked in?”

“Not just yet. There’s no need to be nervous.”

“No, none at all,” Lara mocked.

“Relax, Archon,” he said a bit more sternly. “These aren’t alien genetics I’m working with. I’ve been studying our code for over a millennia. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure the V’kit’no’sat geneticists said the same thing.”

“Well I’m better than them…as of now, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“I’m catching up with the database knowledge and I’ve had to work my way up the ladder rather than having it spoon fed to me. I’m guessing I understand the subject matter better than most of them did, and I know they didn’t try anything like this.”

“You’re not filling me with a lot of confidence here.”

Vortison pointed up at the contraption around Lara. “We didn’t copy that one. We built it from scratch to suit our purposes. It’s superior to what the V’kit’no’sat use, not so much in raw technology, but as far as tailoring it to match Star Force’s methodology. I wrote a lot of the basic programming myself rather than just straight copying theirs. Most of it is similar, but I can assure you I understand what I’m doing rather than just repeating their accomplishments like a stamp monkey.”

Lara giggled despite her misgivings. “Stamp monkey?”

“A very old technology had a rubble mold with a pattern in it, so one with no artistic ability could put ink on it then ‘stamp’ it down onto paper and create an emblem of some sort. And they could do it again and again, hence the term ‘stamp monkey.’”

“You’re saying the V’kit’no’sat medtechs just knew how to push the buttons?”

“I wouldn’t discredit them that far, but when you’ve had to build the equipment you use, you tend to understand it better than those that are merely informed of how to operate it.”

“Alright then,” Lara said, setting her hands on the sphere in front of her, “impress me.”

“Just a moment more. I’m syncing your code oddities with the model. That should alleviate the…glitches this time.”

“I thought those were from the extra tissues?”

“Only if there wasn’t enough room for them, but the V’kit’no’sat aren’t that stupid. They can count. It’s the implementation that’s the problem, and programming a base sequence into the genetic template doesn’t take into account individual variations…hence you get a raw transition that you have to heal from afterwards.”

“And that’s why a regenerator takes away the pain?”

“It fixes what your body couldn’t on its own…at least not very fast, and in some cases such as yours, not at all.”

“Alright, but if I splinter like a porcupine again I’m kicking your ass.”

“I’m not worried,” Vortison said, bringing the interlinks online and freezing Lara’s hands to the sphere as the tiny tendrils of machinery bored microscopic holes into her skin and then extended throughout her body, giving him far more data than remote scans ever could. “Beginning ascension process now.”

Suddenly Lara felt her head wash with disorientation. There was no buildup this time, no swirling hurricane that she had to control. Rather it was a tsunami of internal resets that left her so loopy she didn’t know how she stayed standing…then she remembered that the machine was holding her still, for she couldn’t move a muscle. Lara’s head got its orientation back, but she was locked inside a statue’s pose until Vortison released that restriction as he saw her body’s control systems reasserting themselves.

“Any problems?” he asked as she shuffled her feet, though her hands were still stuck to the sphere.

“Dizzy.”

“Pain?”

“No. Is it done? I can’t feel anything.”

“I’m blocking the trigger at the moment. Tissue growths appear to be perfectly aligned. Stress on surrounding tissues is minimal. I’m making adjustments for it,” he said as she felt a bit of numbness enter additional areas spread all around her body, but most of Lara was still under her control and the machine didn’t need to lock her in statue mode again.

“Yes. This is looking good. Stand by for release. Stay within the chamber as you test, but try not to make shield contact with the equipment.”

A couple seconds later her hands unfroze from the contact sphere and she flexed them unnecessarily. There was no lingering numbness and all the microdamage of the tendrils had been regrown as they retreated.

With a thought she created a foot-wide patch of bioshield in front of her face, then felt around her own head looking for the new trigger.

“I got nothing.”

“May I?” he asked, picking up a pistol from a nearby rack.

“Don’t shoot your machine,” she warned, giving him a ‘go ahead’ nod.

“I won’t,” Vortison said, firing the small plasma discharge into her nearly transparent bioshield patch. The clear coloration meant it was at low intensity, attesting to how strong Lara’s shielding could get when she wanted it, for it fully absorbed and dissipated the attack without more than a brief twinkling of disruption. Had a more powerful shield been needed it would have taken on coloration, usually a blue tint, but it was technically possible to generate different colors based on the composition of the shield, which was variable to great extents.

“Whoa,” Lara said, blinking twice.

“And?”

“Something just opened up. Shoot again.”

Vortison hefted the pistol a second time, making sure his instrumentation was still fully monitoring with a glance to his left, then he fired. The blue plasma blast made a different sound on impact this time, absent the small crackle/warble that was typical. This one sounded like a ‘pong’ and got Lara giggling.

“Oh that tickles.”

“Shield strength has increased by 24%,” Vortison noted as he set the pistol aside.

“No. Shoot me again. That felt good.”

“I’ve got enough data. Step aside and I’ll light you up.”

“You do know how to talk to a girl,” she said sarcastically as the armbar raised and she walked out, flexing her arms before throwing them to her sides and generating a fully invisible shield in front of her. “I’m ready. Empty the clip.”

Vortison nodded, but stopped short as a pair of Archons stumbled into the room through the main door, one dragging the other.

“Rio?” Lara asked, seeing the cringing trailblazer being supported by a very junior second gen.

“Help,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“Put him inside,” Vortison said, snapping his fingers.

Lara responded instantly, picking him up and floating him over to the medical chamber she’d just used.

“Another?” Vortison asked Rio.

“I’m…holding it together…this time.”

“Unnecessary,” the medtech said as he sent the little tendrils into Rio’s hands and suddenly the pain blossoming throughout his body disappeared in a very welcome cascade.

“Mebvat?” Lara asked in a flush of worry, but Vortison just shook his head. “No. This is a new tier 4. Dream activated like before?”

“No,” Rio said, his voice no longer stammering, though he sounded incredibly fatigued. “Daydreaming. I was eating in the cafeteria when it happened. My mind wandered and next thing I knew I was a pain puddle on the floor. I had no control over the ascension. No override.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, but I am picking up some residual data. Thank you for coming here immediately,” he said, throwing the departing second gen a nod of thanks.

Rio ended his private telepathic conversation with the other Archon before he got out the door, leaving only the three of them in the room together.

“Something is wrong with this one,” Rio said once he’d left, wanting to keep information regarding the tier 4s to a limited number of people. “I have nothing but the pain. No additional knowledge or trigger to pull. I think something went wrong.”

“Shock there,” Lara said angrily, though her ire wasn’t directed at Vortison, or any other Human for that matter, with Rio finally getting around to thinking about her presence.

“You ok?” he asked, drawing a pleased smile from her lips.

“You just exploded and you’re asking if I’m ok?”

“Why are you here? Just a checkup?”

“She’s here because I figured out how to unlock Beynat, and I figured she deserved the first upgrade.”

“Me next,” Rio half joked. “Have you tested it?”

Lara nodded. “I had him shoot me, but we didn’t get very far until you came stumbling in.”

“Hey, at least I was walking under my own power.”

“There is that,” she admitted. “You are a badass.”

“Thank you. Now that’s we’ve got that established, what are you seeing?” he asked Vortison.

“A lot of new tissue.”

“Purpose?”

“It’s unfamiliar to me. I’m running a database search now, but I don’t think we’ll find a match in the V’kit’no’sat records either. I’ve been through all of them at least once, and the coding on this is…beyond me,” he admitted, throwing an apologizing glance at Lara.

“Higher level stuff?” she asked, giving him an out.

“There’s no documentation on tier 4s, and we believe they come exclusively from Zak’de’ron technology that was never shared with the V’kit’no’sat. I’m seeing a lot of damage here, Rio. I’m repairing it, but you’re going to lose a few levels minimum. Not like her,” he said quickly, “but you’ve definitely been roughed up.”

The Archon snarled, but held back whatever comment he was thinking of making when he glanced at Lara, knowing she’d had it far worse.

“Not the club you wanted to join?” she offered.

“At least the company is good,” he deflected. “Vort, what did I get?”

“Sorry, Rio. This is going to take me a while. You have no connectivity whatsoever?”

“No, and the machine has cleared my head, unless you’re numbing something else.”

“Damaged tissue is healed. Step on out,” the medtech said, releasing the lock on him.

Rio walked out, taking a huge sigh of relief as there was no more pain, but he couldn’t feel any new ability.

“Nothing.”

“I’ll work it from my end. You let me know if you get so much as a twinge.”

“How weak are you?” Lara asked.

Rio rotated his left arm around a bit and hopped in place. “Not too bad. Won’t know for sure until I get into training, but right now I need a nap.”

“I don’t,” she said, frowning as she looked at Vortison. “Why?”

“Your body didn’t grow the new tissue, the machine did.”

“Spurred it, you mean.”

“It controlled it, thus the strain didn’t incur.”

“Can you give the rest of us Beynat then?” Rio asked.

“Yes. But not to you until I figure out what you’ve got.”

“Great, I get a useless psionic and get blocked from getting a very cool one…to which end,” Rio said, telekinetically picking up Vortison’s pistol and flying it over into his hand. “Want me to shoot you some more?”

“Please,” Lara said with a pleasant smile, putting up her bioshield that soaked up every blast that Rio fired at her, then he saw her shiver and a wave of goosebumps travel across her exposed forearms.

“You ok?”

“Better than ok. That is so refreshing.”

“Feedback?”

“I think so. The energy absorption feels like it goes directly into recharging the shields, but some of it went through me. It tingles.”

“Yet something more we need to study,” Vortison interjected. “You, go nap. You,” he said, pointing to Lara, “back inside and let’s track down that tingle.”

2 weeks later…

Rio was in the cafeteria stuffing his face, but still painfully hungry. His stomach was full but his cravings wouldn’t stop…and nothing he ate seemed to taste right, like he needed food but once he put it in his mouth it suddenly became something he didn’t need. He’d even put on a touch of body fat, he was eating so much, and that infuriated him. Not only had he lost 4 levels due to the messed up ascension, but his metabolism was screwed up as well.

He stared down at his half full third tray and pushed it away, resisting the urge to fling it into a wall. Hungry or not, he wasn’t eating any more. His stomach was full even if his brain was saying otherwise. Rio stood up, belched, then returned his tray and left in a very bad mood intending to get some easy running in to help clear out some of the extra fuel he’d been taking in.

On his way through Atlantis’s corridors he passed by an active construction area where an entire wall had been cut away as a remodeling project was beginning. When he passed by he got a whiff of air that stopped him cold. It smelled so good but he couldn’t make out what it was or where it was coming from…but it was food, and food that his senses told him that he was lacking. In fact, it was what he’d mistakenly been trying to get out of a lot of other foods, but now that he’d smelled it there was no mistaking the allure.

He’d been eating the wrong foods for the craving that had just fully manifested itself, though he still didn’t know what it was.

Whatever the work crews were snacking on he was going to find out, so he made a sharp detour and followed his nose around a half wall and into the face of a pile of open crates full of spare parts, drawing a frown from the trailblazer. He used his Pefbar to look around and inside them, but there was no food here that he could see. The smell was still here though, so he kept sniffing around until one of the techs came over.

“Do you need something?” she asked.

“Can you smell that?”

“What, exactly?”

“Something tasty. What were you guys eating in here?” he asked, still roaming around following his nose.

“Nothing that I know of. We don’t bring food along with us.”

“I can’t see anything, but my nose says…” he cut off as a particular box caught his attention. The smell was definitely coming from it, but there was nothing but metallic rods inside. He took a long whiff and had the biggest craving yet, making him want to pull one out and snack on it.

“What the hell?”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, with a few more techs wandering over to see what was going on.

“What do these smell like to you?” Rio asked, pointing her towards the box.

She leaned over and sniffed. “Equipment. I don’t smell any food.”

“I do, and it’s coming from this box. Smells better than cookies,” he said, pulling out one of the assembly rods and sniffing it. “Yeah, it’s coming from these. What are they coated in?”

“They’re not. They’re raw product as far as I know,” she said, exchanging a few glances with the other techs that confirmed her statement via nods.

Rio held the rod up in front of his nose to take a long sniff, swearing that the rod was made of candy. On impulse he licked it, getting a few groans of disgust from the techs, then he dropped the rod back into the box before he uncontrollably took a bite. It tasted so good he wanted to eat the whole box, though he’d break his teeth if he tried.

“What’s going on?” the tech asked with a weird look on her face.

“I’m either going insane,” he said, picking up the rod he’d licked and holding it well away from his face as he turned and began to walk out, “or there’s something in this I need. I’m taking this,” he added as he left, leaving the techs wondering what the hell that had been about.

5

“You licked it?” Vortison asked with a screwy expression on his face.

“I’m craving something in it, and it’s keyed into my sense of smell too.”

“Of course it is,” the geneticist said, taking the rod from him. “Smell allows you to analyze food without having to put it in your mouth.”

“No, I mean the craving is. There’s a very powerful allure in it.”

“A lacking component to your mystery tissue,” he guessed aloud, putting the item in a seldom used molecular analyzer. Most of the work he did nowadays was theoretical, but he had a plethora of equipment to cover any possible permutations that he might encounter, though this was one of the weirdest he’d ever come across.

“Hmmm,” he said, seeing the list of molecules contained within it. “We’ll get to the bottom of this pretty quick,” he added, sending a quick requisition off to the appropriate personnel in Atlantis that handled logistics.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’re going to do a taste test. I’m having pure samples of all the components brought in, then you’re going to tell me which you’re craving.”

“Well that’s too simple. Thought you’d be able to do it remotely,” Rio said deadpan.

Vortison raised an eyebrow. “Checking for an ego?”

“Guess not then, but I need this fixed in a hurry. I don’t know how much to eat anymore.”

The medtech pointed to the medical station and Rio walked himself inside, soon with his diagnostic holograms being displayed for Vortison to inspect.

“You’re getting fat,” he said bluntly.

“My cravings are screwing up my balance…and I’m not going to start counting calories. I have to reset, but I don’t think I can do it until I know what this anomaly is.”

“You’re eating everything trying to satisfy it?”

“Pretty much.”

“You are showing some imbalances, but I’d guess they’re symptoms of this rogue craving rather than the cause…” he trailed off as he found something else. “Your brain activity is showing a critical level depletion. No wonder you’re eating everything in sight.”

“So my brain thinks I’m starving?”

“Yes. Exactly. And it’s overpowering the rest of your biotelemetry indicating that you’re getting too much. There’s definitely a priority here related to the new tissue…unless this is another malfunction, which is a possibility.”

“I’d prefer part of the design.”

“So would I, but I don’t often get what I want. Unless you want to try sucking on that rod, just sit tight until the samples get here.”

“I’ll wait,” Rio said, sitting down on a nearby chair and crossing his arms as he stared at the rod with an odd fixation, for the scent of it was driving him all but mad.

Eventually a supply tech came in with a box full of small samples, each isolated from the others via an individual containment box, air tight as requested.

“Thank you,” Vortison said as he accepted the various materials and placed the large box on a nearby table as the tech left. He walked over and retrieved the enticing rod and placed it inside a sealed container and put it out of sight, then caused the air in the lab to cycle by adjusting a nearby control panel, slowly flushing the scents out of the room.

“Can you smell it now?”

“Just a trace.”

Vortison ran another cycle for a few minutes, then Rio gave him a thumbs up.

“Alright, sniff each and let me know,” he said, opening the first container and handing it to him. “Even if it’s a small recognition.”

Rio raised the small clear cube up to his face and sniffed, shaking his head immediately. He handed it back to Vortison and took another, also without a reaction. One after another they moved through the samples until they got to the last three. As soon as Vortison opened it Rio’s eyes widened.

“Oh my god I want that,” he said before even seeing it.

“Overpowering?”

“More than before. What’s in there?”

Vortison stuck his fingers inside and pulled up a tiny chunk of metal, or rather metalish, for it was non-conductive and a very distinctive green.

“Corovon,” the medtech said curiously. “I’d bet your new tissue is going to be a biological version of some technology.”

“How much can I ingest before it becomes toxic?”

“How to get it in you is the question. If you swallow even tiny chunks it’ll just pass through. It’s not dissolvable.”

“Apparently I’m supposed to eat it.”

Vortison tapped his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll need an extremely fine powder, and that’s not something I can produce here.”

“How much do you think?”

“Not much, but if it spreads throughout your body it might require a lot. I’m worried about it not traveling well through the blood stream, as heavy as it is.”

“Injection?”

“I’m leery of that as well. If you’re craving it, it’s best we pursue that avenue.”

“Can’t we let the machine build it into me?”

“Your genetic code isn’t fully deployed in the new tissue, which is why I can’t determine what it does. There’s a trigger mechanism, and I’m guessing that the corovon entering the tissue will start a metamorphosis that will unlock the full genetic code and develop the tissue to its functional state.”

“Alright then, put the powder into some cookies and let’s go.”

Vortison frowned.

“What?”

“I’m not sure what side effects the corovon would have on you.”

“What do the V’kit’no’sat files say?”

“Nothing. Nobody ever swallowed any before.”

“Never?”

“It’s too rare and the people using it in its pure form know better. There’s not even any theoretical projections on it. Like I said, it’d have to be a very fine powder, and when does corovon come in powder?”

“Point,” Rio conceded. “Whatever goes wrong the mega regenerator can fix, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I’ve been through some pretty bad ascension pain and survived. I’ll survive the worst this can do to me, but these cravings are not something I can function with. Put in the order and get me my nom noms.”

“I’d advise caution,” Vortison said as a couple of additional medtechs and even Arch Duke Vectir were standing by to watch, having heard of the unusual situation going down. “But I know it’d be wasted on you,” he added as he handed Rio his plate of six cookies with white icing.

“I’ve never been this hungry in my life,” he said, taking the first one and biting it carefully. His mouth almost disintegrated from the taste of it. It was so good he might as well had been drunk, but he focused on the simple task of chewing and got his mouth into workable order…then wolfed down the rest of the cookie in typical Archon fashion. The remaining five didn’t last long either, with Rio even licking the plate to get a few crumbs that were left behind.

“Is that all?” he asked, eyeing the box they’d come in.

“We don’t know how much you’ll need, so just wait and step back into the machine.”

Rio moaned, then reluctantly dragged himself away from the nearby box that appeared to be the holy grail from his altered senses’ point of view. When he got inside the analysis cage Vortison monitored the digestion process, and the somewhat long period of time was driving Rio mad up until he suddenly clutched the small of his back as he winced in pain.

“That’s something,” he said, starting to get bits of pain all over his body. Nothing major, but something was happening.

“More flash growth…this is amazing.”

“Ow,” Rio said as the little ‘pops’ continued to grow in volume.

“It’s not an ascension, but a readjusting of the tissue in response to the corovon. Lots of chemical reactions occurring, so expect some gaseousness. Oh my…”

“What?” Vectir asked as Rio slightly doubled over, riding out the discomfort.

“I can see what’s happening. It’s going to take a long time, so give him the rest of the box. We may even need more.”

“Yes…cookies…please,” Rio said, not bothering to wait until the nearest tech grabbed the box and brought it to him. He telekinetically opened and emptied the contents, sending a floating string of cookies across the room to him like a little tasty convoy that he devoured one by one at the end of their journey.

“What is it?” Vectir asked, walking up behind Vortison.

The geneticist pointed to a particular hologram on his left. “This is familiar…but not in biology. It’s technological, as I expected, and modified into the biological, but the basic components are still the same chemical equations, which require corovon.”

“I’m not a tech,” the Arch Duke reminded him. “What is it?”

“Anti-grav,” Vortison said, shaking his head in dismay as Rio finally broke his cookie trance and looked at him. “I think he’s going to be able to fly.”

Rio ran up the staircase, switching directions back and forth as he ascended the 42 meter height to the top of the platform where he subsequently walked off, falling back down to the ground of one of the trainees’ challenge courses. His flight ‘muscles’ strained under his weight, pushing back against gravity but failing. They slowed his descent but could not sustain him, dropping him to the grass somewhat gently.

His feet landed with a thud, then he was running around to the opposite side and hitting the stairs again, heading back to the top and giving the psionic tissue attached to his skeleton at 86 points across his body a brief respite before using it again and floating back down to the ground. The trailblazer continued to repeat the process for the better part of half an hour, after which he couldn’t sustain himself any longer and fell the last time, catching himself with a telekinetic crash bag as he dropped, then dumped himself onto the ground where he sat and breathed heavily.

The rest of his body was fine, but this new tissue was weak as hell and sucking most of the oxygen out of his system. He’d made a point of not drawing on his Hanme backups, but this was ridiculous…as was learning how to use it. All his other psionics came with some sort of genetic memory to allow him to function right off the bat, but this was more like adding a long missing part of his body that he had to develop the motor control for on his own.

That and he was a good 6 pounds heavier since the corovon had been added. Volume wise that wasn’t much, considering how dense the stuff was, but 6 pounds on his otherwise 157 pound frame was a chunk. It was going to slow him down in virtually every other physical category, but this was totally worth it…or would be once he learned how to fly.

Coordinating all the flight muscles was tricky, but having thought this through long ago watching cartoons he knew he’d be able to do a lot more than just move in a straight line. He should be able to dance in the air, and even fight with his feet a few inches off the ground…meaning double kick potential and a lot of other cool things, but he was so weak and clumsy right now it was almost laughable.

At least the corovon cravings had gone away. Vortison had said that should be permanent, for the function of the muscles didn’t have him losing the material, and aside from getting shot and having to regrow the tissue he wouldn’t have to be adding any more corovon. He was at saturation point and had had all the excess stripped out of his bloodstream, losing a couple more pounds in the process, and while his tissue might get denser with time it wouldn’t get much bigger.

In theory anyway. Without having any data on this Vortison conceded that he might at some point in the distant future require more corovon, maybe, but that the insane cravings were only because he had none in his body to begin with, and if he ever needed more it’d be a much lighter and manageable craving. Though the medtech was still betting on never given the structure of the flight muscles involved. The corovon helped to create the basic repulsory elements, not the power that fed to them, so the improvements should come in the latter category and be corovon free.

But if he went Knight size he’d need more, though that wasn’t in the cards. Bottom line was, he shouldn’t have to worry about the cravings anymore and he was glad of that. Immediately after getting his corovon fill he had felt so bloated as the rest of his body’s ‘too full’ warning signs reasserted themselves, plus all those extra cookies he’d eaten to get the corovon into his system.

He’d purged all that excess fuel with low level workouts and had gotten back into his fit trim, adding these new workouts once a day until he hit failure point. It was like when you ran so much your legs just called it quits and dumped you onto the ground when you stepped in a hole and stumbled. There might be some strength left in them, but they decide to crumple whether you like it or not.

And that meant he was done for today, but when he got his breathing under control and stood up the rest of his body was perfectly fine. He even took off running across the combat course for a bit of a victory tour, noting how he was fatigued in some parts of his body while full of energy in others. It was very odd, with only his breathing rate tied into both, but he figured he’d get used to it eventually.

That ‘eventually’ added up to 3 months and 18 days until he was strong enough to be able to jump into the air and hover in place, though balancing the ‘thrusts’ from all his various parts was insanely difficult. He wasn’t strong enough to just use a few, so he had to try and coordinate all of them. In hover trucks a computer evened out the different gravity drives to keep it level and that’s what he had to do now. Same sort of thing had happened to him when he was a baby learning how to walk. Numerous muscles had to coordinate themselves to move his frame and this was no different…except the rest of him wasn’t growing and learning at the same time, which made the contrast stand out and him extremely frustrated.

But also eager at the same time, for while this was very hard to control he had unlimited time to master it, and when he did he’d end up being Goku…or at least Yamcha. Right now though he was Goten, just learning how to fly, and he could really appreciate the struggles with that now that it was real rather than a bit of cartoon entertainment.

He wondered how fast he’d be able to get, both in straight line speed and acceleration/deceleration. Could he blink across the battlefield, redirecting faster than he could even when he ran? There were so many possibilities he was practically pounding his fists in frustration. He wanted to fly now, but there was a huge learning curve involved, not to mention the physical development required. If he’d just been born in a fully grown body, he’d have been too weak to stand, let alone walk or run, but that didn’t matter to him, because he really wanted this now and was continually frustrated with how long it was taking him.

And because of that he kept his training to himself. If he was going to stumble and crawl his way into this new ability he’d prefer to do it without anyone watching him. It was a great deal easier to pick yourself up after a fall and get back at it when you didn’t have to worry about someone else’s impressions or explaining your mistake to them. Training in groups or even pairs had advantages, but so did training solo and this was one of them that Rio intended to continue to make use of until he was ready to show off…no matter how much the other Archons wanted to see.

He did make an exception for the few trailblazers on Earth, and even got their help with some telekinetic stabilization that allowed him to focus more on propulsion than wobbling, but then again they never laughed when he fell or asked for an explanation. They knew what he was doing and how he’d have to adjust to it, and how he didn’t need help getting up after he fell or any polite words of reassurance. They just stood by and helped where they could, but he wasn’t going to waste their time with a lot of help because the amount of repetition it was taking to progress was insane.

He thought it was his imagination, but after conferring with Vortison and some tests they both determined that he was in fact learning slower with this new ability than he should be, and the reason was that he didn’t have a finished product, rather a prototype.

A lot of the neurons and other structures within the tissue hadn’t been fully formed. There was enough there to crudely function, but it seemed that there was still an ongoing growth process that spurred off his training. His tissue was adapting and finishing the design process on its own, with some incredibly complex genetic algorithms that even Vortison was scratching his head at. The only explanation he could give Rio was that the Zak’de’ron had never finished developing a Zen’zat flight muscle design because no one had earned it, thus they’d programmed the final adjustments to be made on the spot.

Which meant that if there were some Zak’de’ron Zen’zat out there that had this ability, albeit in the past, then their psionic tissue might have adapted differently than his. What that meant he wasn’t sure, because flight was flight, but the consequence of this was clear.

The training he was doing right now was extremely important…and he didn’t know what he was supposed to be tailoring it towards.

Once this adaptation process finalized he should be able to further develop and normally adapt with training as did the rest of his body’s muscles and tissues, meaning he had a very important timeframe here that he had no guidance on. He was just going to have to train as best he knew how for an ability he’d never seen before and hope his final design came out alright…though neither he nor Vortison knew what ‘all right’ would look like or what they were potentially missing.

If there was a malfunction that occurred then that would show up, but beyond that they were both operating in the dark with Vortison already working on the basic mechanics of this flight tissue. A few months of study had been worth more than a millennia of fiddling around on his own. The depth of knowledge the Zak’de’ron possessed was never more evident than it was now…all of which made him question again what had really happened to Lara. Had it been a Zak’de’ron programming mistake…or something else that had gone wrong?

He might never know, but he had to work with the Archons and their abilities regardless of how much information he had…and this new tissue of Rio’s was giving him a lot more to work with, as well as opening up a lot of new questions.

As for the trailblazer, he knew he just had to keep pressing on and see where this led. DBZ style combat might be centuries off, but the mere idea of that was enough to sustain him through the monotonous and simplistic training exercises.

And when it wasn’t, the holographic Vegeta ‘coach’ he’d had made for him showed up and began chewing him out over his unworthiness…and if you wanted someone to motivate you via insults, there was no one better. Especially when he offered you a ‘bitch mint.’

Unfortunately his little tool didn’t stay a secret for long, and soon the other trailblazers and second gen were demanding they get copies of their own and in other characters. Morgan was the only one that sent him a personal thank you note, saying her Piccolo was the perfect training assistant…after she incorporated it into the V’kit’no’sat training hologram technology.

At which point Rio then requested a copy of it from her…and a small training revolution started within the Archon ranks that would eventually spread out across Star Force all the way down to the civilian ranks and leave a permanent mark on their training philosophy going forward.

6

March 15, 3479

Alamo System (Uriti Preserve)

Warden Station

Peter-2576 was linked into the telemetry of several of the Uriti as the Knights of Quenar convoy arrived. He wanted to know if the Uriti knew what was coming, and even with it sedated they immediately reacted to the presence of the large ship as it jumped into the system. From his point of view he could only tell they were reacting to the presence with anticipation and glee, but he wasn’t sure if they could sense the new Uriti inside or just deduced it by the size of the ship and the escort that had brought it nearly a quarter of the way across the galaxy.

Whichever was the case, they were breaking from their previous positions and heading for the convoy. Matti-2548 was already there and waiting, so he wasn’t going to be giving the Uriti any orders today, but he did want to eavesdrop on them and pick up whatever insights he could. After 194 years in this assignment he still didn’t know as much about them as he’d liked, but he had nailed their reaction to this. To date there were some 11 collected, but none were as large as the one incoming.

The Knights of Quenar ships…the most Star Force had ever seen in one place…split off from the giant cargo carrier as it began to shred on its own accord, revealing a four-fingered starfish-shaped Uriti that glowed with a pale white light. It outmassed all the other Uriti easily, stretching some 120 miles long tip to tip, but right now its arm ends were curled around and compressed inside the container and remained that way even as the ship peeled back and broke into several smaller segments that quickly withdrew.

Peter watched from afar through their own senses as the other Uriti approached unafraid of their long lost brother. The historical records of the devastation this one had wrought were horrifying, and he wondered if even the V’kit’no’sat could have been able to stop it without suffering horrendous losses. It was truly massive, but as it slowly began to wake Peter was able to glimpse its telemetry as well. It had been dormant for such a long time it boggled the mind to think how it could have survived, but this one was strong. Far stronger than the others had been when they woke, making this Uriti the primadonna of the group even before it was fully back to consciousness.

Yet whatever its last memories were, they weren’t good ones. As it woke it struck out reflexively, unfurling its arms and sending a cascade of lightning off into the void around it. Peter frowned at that, for such energy arcs typically needed a source to jump to, but soon distant telemetry from observing ships showed faint vapor trails where the lightning had coursed through. Somehow the Uriti, whom the Chixzon had named Irraprei, had sent out a faint physical tentacle through which to strike the lightning…and it was moving even now. It registered as gaseous, but it was twisting and bending around like an additional limb.

That was definitely something the other Uriti didn’t have, but the Chixzon had been experimenting with each version and they’d gone with something wildly different for #12. That also meant this was probably one of the more unstable ones, but as the other Uriti came closer its gaseous tentacles suddenly dissipated and its agitated state started to slip away with exhilaration replacing it. Peter couldn’t get a read on its mind like a normal telepathic link, but the interface did let the ‘owner’ know what shape the Uriti was in, physically and mentally, and this one, like those before it, was showing signs of extreme surprise and happiness.

Three of the other Uriti came in close to it and began bathing it in another form of lightning, somehow helping it purge the remaining sedative and awaken long dormant attributes. After the ‘car wash’ was over with they all lingered close together with a large amount of conversation going on that Peter couldn’t eavesdrop on, unfortunately. But that didn’t stop Bahamut from contacting him and sending a simple ping of gratitude that sounded like an emotional bomb going off from the Archon’s end.

Thankfully there were inhibitors built into the equipment now to keep such things from overwhelming the wrangler, though the allowable limit was still really ‘loud.’

He responded with a much more subtle reply, but the two second exchange gave him a direct link into the Uriti’s powerful mind and each time that rarity occurred he tried to grasp more about how they were wired…but right now it was clear that it was elated and satisfied at the same time, which had become the standard response every time a new Uriti arrived. More were on the way, supposedly, but the handing over of the dangerous beasts was not something a lot of guardian races did lightly. The Knights of Quenar had secured this one through what Star Force thought might have been combat, but they hadn’t been specific and there was no point in pushing the matter.

If they had fought a war to get it, it was so far from here that Star Force couldn’t watch over their shoulder, and there really wasn’t an option to say no and not take the Uriti. They wanted them all here, needed them all here, so they had no leverage to work with and the Archons and Dukes that ran the preserve knew it.

They accepted that, but the Knights of Quenar were still a dangerous enigma that Peter never knew if or when they’d stab him in the back. Star Force had gone through a lot of precautions to make sure they couldn’t sneak into various places, but so long as the Uriti were kept safe here the KoQ didn’t interact much with them and the other races. The preserve was still a hot crossroads that many powerful races wanted representation in, but some of the novelty had worn off now that Star Force had proved that they could successfully contain the Uriti.

The haters had moved on, unable to stir up the ruckus they’d hoped for, but the preserve had also become a major tourist attraction drawing in ships from so far rimward that they didn’t even belong to The Nexus, and even some from coreward that knew of the V’kit’no’sat by reputation, though thankfully not by race, for they hadn’t identified the Humans as Zen’zat or Ter’nat.

And now that there was a new ‘attraction’ it was sure to garner more attention, though Peter didn’t think it’d be trouble so long as this new one didn’t cause trouble on its own accord.

Within a few hours of arrival Riley, who’d come back for the occasion, signaled what the new name of the Uriti would be.

Devastator.

Peter thought that was appropriate, and hoped the indoctrination of this one wasn’t going to be an issue, but as had happened before the other Uriti were one step ahead of the Archons and started taking Devastator through one of the nearby training courses before Matti even ordered them too. The Archon got the first run ‘sanctioned’ and they had a good two weeks of mingling and light training for the newcomer, then it was Peter’s turn when he took all the Uriti out of the system to the next leg on their circuit, practicing a combined jump with the new guy included.

He didn’t have trouble with it, and when they arrived in the Titran System they got access to the more intense training courses, for the Alamo System was the simplest of them all and more of a ‘rest’ stop for the Uriti than anything. It was also home base and where all additional incoming Uriti were introduced, which also provided a spectacle for the observers, for it was the only system they were allowed in unescorted.

Titran was a lot less outfitted with ‘hospitality’ facilities and had only three such stations. Everything else was training equipment, and when the Uriti were involved that meant some pretty big constructs. Rule number 1 was that it all had to be produced locally, so not to draw down resources from other needs, but they had a decent army of workers spread throughout the preserve mining and building what they needed, and most of the targets had been constructed so to absorb the Uriti attacks.

That didn’t always happen as planned, for they often exceeded instructions and attacked with an ability that wasn’t intended, but for the most part they were cooperating and trying to do as told. One thing Peter had learned though, was that they easily got carried away. An analogy to dogs wasn’t quite right, and was really a disservice to the Uriti, for they were far more…more. He didn’t have a word for it, for there was nothing else to compare with, but holding back wasn’t one of their strong suits.

When he introduced Devastator to one of their firing courses that involved a lot of weaving and moving around ‘no touch’ targets while firing on others, he took to it eagerly and moved his massive bulk through the course with decent skill, but he was far less impressive than the others…and that wasn’t because of his greater size. Peter was taking that into consideration, but like all the Uriti when they first arrived, they’d never done anything like this before. It was like having a person run who had only walked and crawled their entire life, and the duties the Chixzon had them do was little more than walk up to a planet and wreck it.

Devastator was getting frustrated by his lack of comparable skill, which was evident in his mental status. Peter didn’t know what he was thinking, but anger and frustration caused telltale spikes in various categories, all of which was punctuated when he came to the first target sphere that was the size of a small seda. He was supposed to fire his pinpoint beam weapon from one of his arms only, but instead he flew up to the sphere, wrapped his body around it, and crushed the thing like a toy ball with a massive force field.

“Oooouuccchhh,” Peter winced, not only at the loss of the target but the sheer destructive power that it had so easily wielded. And he was really glad that hadn’t been an actual seda…or ship.

“Ok, remember to never piss him off…check,” he said as he connected with Devastator and ordered him to continue on with the course and to not do that to the other targets, reiterating a single beam attack.

When he got to the next one a topaz beam skewered the target, impacting and absorbing into the shields for a full 12 seconds before it finally penetrated and began to burn through the construct that was also seda sized.

“Stop,” Peter said, trying to keep some of the target salvageable. When he was trying to figure out what to do next he felt Devastator’s mind contact his and got his first glimpse of what the Uriti truly was.

Which was remarkably calm.

It asked without using words if it had erred, citing its previous mistake but that it had not done the same thing again. Peter figured out how to construct a response in images detailing that it had been his mistake and that he had underestimated the Uriti’s firepower. In order to avoid destroying the other targets he told Devastator to navigate the course but not fire on them until they could get recalibrated.

Then the Uriti responded with an image of reduced beam intensity, which Peter then haggled with him over until he thought it would be adequate. He chanced another expensive target being destroyed, but when Devastator got to it he blasted away like he had the last time…save he only attacked it for 3 seconds. That wasn’t enough to penetrate the shields, preserving the target, but it wasn’t what they’d just agreed upon.

It was better, sort of, and it seemed like this Uriti didn’t have too much trouble rewriting orders as it saw fit. That could be a serious problem down the road, but it wasn’t something unexpected. He’d dealt with this to a lesser extent in the others, but given that this was one of the earlier Uriti he was going to have to work with it more in order to get a proper relationship established where both sides knew what the other expected. Fortunately he had the other Uriti here setting an example, and in subsequent runs they didn’t deviate from orders…which had him breathing a huge sigh of relief, for he didn’t want them picking up bad habits from the new guy.

As he learned later, that’s exactly what they viewed Devastator as…the new guy. He was larger and far more powerful, but he was the junior here in the pecking order and on some level he accepted that. Peter thought it was probably just reluctant acceptance given the fact that he’d never been around other Uriti before and was therefore not inclined to compete against them, rather to show off for them. And in this context that meant completing the course as instructed.

Maybe Bahamut was explaining it to him, for he seemed the most vocal of them all with the Archons and often would be the one with the most registered telepathic activity. Peter didn’t know how much help he was getting from him and the others, but whatever was occurring it was working. After only a few months on the circuit he felt that Devastator had integrated himself into the group and accepted the Archons above and beyond the built in obedience that he seemed capable of modifying.

Peter knew that building respect was the key to keep him from doing that, but as an Archon he knew that adaptation was important so he didn’t just want Devastator to just ‘shut up and do what he was told.’ That would be counterproductive, for all the others had gotten in the habit of offering suggestions about how to modify things in the preserve, and sometimes they had ideas that event the Archons hadn’t thought up.

One such obstacle course went down in and through a star, which the Uriti found challenging due to the density of the material that they liked trying to race through. It was never predictable, with cross currents and upwells, and it was by far one the most taxing of the drills that Peter had them do, but they still wanted more. More challenges, tougher challenges, and new skills to learn. They wanted to grow more powerful, and it always came back around to the distant threat that wanted to kill them.

For some reason they never challenged this assertion, though the Archons had no proof to give them of the V’kit’no’sat or what they’d done to fight the Hadarak. Peter wasn’t even allowed to tell them of the Hadarak, but the Uriti knew the threat to them was real. Perhaps that wasn’t too unexpected when their entire lives had seen people attacking them. They’d never had an ally, always being the single point of strength thrown into system after system of enemies. They’d had minions grown, but they were mere tools, not peers, and now that there were multiple Uriti together they seemed hell bent on getting as strong as they could in order to protect the others.

It was all about the others for them, and they feared them dying more than themselves. They’d never realized they had brothers and sister before, yet there was always an instinctual connection that had never been fulfilled up until now. And the preserve was where that happened, making it their home, their sanctuary, and their turf.

And they wanted Star Force to teach them how to best defend it.

7

June 30, 3480

Zordon System (Ninja Monkey territory)

Alpha

Morgan stood in the still smoking ruins of the largest city on the recently captured and claimed planet, renamed ‘Alpha’ along with the system after Power Rangers lore. The Ninja Monkeys had taken two planets and four fairly well developed moons in a little over 3 months. Two entire planets full of lizards were now nothing more than toast with a few roaming hunter teams looking for survivors to capture, or more likely kill, to make sure that their victory was a clean sweep.

The lizards didn’t stand a chance, not only for the now massive technology gap and the elite nature of Morgan’s Clan, but because she had devoted a significant portion of her forces to this assault behind enemy lines. Well behind, in fact. It was in the middle of the region she planned to conquer, bypassing dozens of others in typically arrogant Morgan fashion. The lizards couldn’t stop her, so there was no reason to go after the systems in order of which was closest. The Zordon System was going to be the center of her defensive wall against the Skarron Crusade if it manifested, so it made sense to take it first and get construction under way as soon as possible.

It wasn’t going to be on the front lines, but rather the focal point of her expansions. The largest and strongest point of defense that she was going to work everything else around…but right now it was just a system full of dead bodies and ruined lizard infrastructure that had to be cleaned up and recycled. But that wouldn’t last for long.

“Take a look around,” Morgan said to the five other Archons with her. San-1299, Bror-4398, Andria-7337, Cressie-10001, and Todd-11933 stood perched on various pieces of rubble around a loose semi-circle, each with several meters of gap between them. She’d called them down here after the final assaults, with no one else within miles, lizard or Star Force.

“This is it. This is where we break from the other Clans. We’re better, we all know that. Not necessarily in naval, or mechs, or commandos, or aerial, or aquatics…definitely not aquatics, but we are better. You can feel it. It’s in the very air we breathe, from Archons down to basic workers. We aren’t here to enjoy the view or live our lives in comfort. We’re here to push the limits, day in and day out. No other Clan does.”

“They would disagree with that, but they’re wrong, and for reasons that they probably don’t fully understand. Most of their pressing in training, and as far as training scores go a lot of them surpass us. I brought this Clan to the border so we didn’t have to fully train. We needed a real enemy to fight, for it is only when our lives are actually on the line do we gain an element of sharpness that training alone will never create, and it comes from the knowledge that we are the last line of defense. There is no one watching our back. It is on us to succeed or fail, and failure usually means death.”

“This has been lost on most people within Star Force, for the empire has become so large and strong that they don’t think in the same terms we do, and that is the reason why I have created such damn hard training simulations and standards. It is to drive that complacency out of us and keep it out. Do not misunderstand me…I am not anti-training, and you all know that.”

Cressie laughed, noting the understatement of the millennia, but neither she nor the others said anything, letting Morgan have her moment of monologue.

“But there is something critical missing in training alone. We take safety precautions so no one dies in training, and rightly so, but when you survive and prevail in a situation where there are no safeties you gain something. Something unspoken, but you know it’s there. You’ve stared into the abyss of death, sometimes passing within inches of it, and if you do it enough you come to not fear it. Rather you flip it off and mock it, and that is the essence of the Ninja Monkeys. We have that edge, that advantage, and that is why we are better. And now Star Force needs that strength.”

“We are still too small to tackle the threat of the Skarrons on our own. Had I increased our population by other means it would have meant watering down our standards, which would have killed our edge. We would have been powerful, but only like the other Clans. That is not something to sneer at, but it is not enough for me. We have to be the tip of the sword, to go where the other Clans will not or cannot. That comes naturally for me, as a trailblazer, and you five have come to know this as well given the responsibilities placed upon you over the years. Responsibilities that had you in full command and the fate of many others relying solely on your judgement.”

“We have to draw a line in the sand and hold it. If we don’t, the others will be vulnerable. The ADZ will be vulnerable, despite its current strength. I’ve been reviewing the force projections that Cal-com sent to Paul and the spamming capability of the lizards does not hold a candle to what they think is coming our way. This is the Skarrons’ ultimate weapon, and one of last resort. They empty virtually everything they have in order to beat the opponent they can’t beat, knowing that if they persist in limited warfare they will lose via attrition…so they stomp it out, coming in with so much firepower and numbers that an opponent cannot stand against them.”

“They leave the rest of their empire vulnerable, willing to suffer whatever losses occur in order to get the main threat out of the way. This is why there have only been 3 recorded Crusades in their history. It is not a reliable tactic. It is not wise. It is desperation, but it is also them going all-in and they believe it will give them victory in any and all circumstances. The arrogance of this is what the Voku think will have the Skarrons going after them and us after they finish the lizards, or perhaps simultaneously. When you’re bringing Thor’s hammer out of the armory, you might as well smash anything and everything you can with it before you have to put it back again.”

“It could very well be make or break. Depends on how stupid they are. If they pull back after one objective is accomplished and they can’t get the others…that would be wise, but if they are so arrogant to believe the need to smash everything in view they could end up destroying their own empire in the process. Fear of their vulnerability might also drive them to this, needing to take out the opposition before they see how weak they are after the Crusaders spread back out and the empire’s local strength is considerably diminished with what will be massive losses.”

“I can’t tell you how this is going to go down, or even if it is going to happen. The probability of it happening is strong. I don’t think the Voku would be preparing if it wasn’t. And they take orders from the Zak’de’ron,” she said, getting a startled reaction from the other Archons who’d never heard that before. “Yes, the dragons lead them secretly, since long, long ago. They warned them of something coming their way, and the Skarrons seem the likely cause.”

“But even if they don’t manifest, we are still taking this region and creating the wall. One day the V’kit’no’sat are going to come back, and I intend to fight and confound them right here. We are taking no civilians. Every world will be a battle world, designed to fight and bleed the enemy before it is taken. We have to be the distraction to keep our enemies away from the ADZ. If they go straight there we make their lives hell basing out of here and hit and run until they come to take us out. We become a nuisance if nothing else, but we have to have a home territory. A place where we have an advantage. I’d greatly prefer to have a Uriti or two with us, but that’s not going to be an option. So other than the preserve, I want this,” she said, gesturing around them to the rubble they stood in, “to become the biggest death trap our enemies will ever see.”

“To do that we’re going to design differently. Some of our infrastructure is going to be permanent, as is necessary, but the core of our cities are going to be mobile. Pick up and go mobile. The add-ons we may lose, but we can move and land elsewhere as needed preserving our core industrial base. It’s also how we’re going to build up this territory faster than ever seen before. One flying city will land and expand, then leave the expansions to continue on while it moves to another region, planet, or system. I’ve already got a design team working on it, and we’ll have our first prototypes out within the next 2 years.”

“But that’s not why I’ve brought you here. We have a fundamental problem, and that is size. We can build infrastructure, but we can’t build experienced personnel as fast as needed and we can’t water down the Clan with new blood. We have to maintain our standards and I will not compromise our edge. But in order to take control of this region without calling upon more Clans to assist, we’re going to have to create more Clans of our own.”

“Each of you, if you’re willing, will take on the task of building another Clan of Ninja Monkeys using personnel that do not currently qualify for our standards. Many want into our Clan, so there should be no shortage of recruits, and if and when they grow more experienced they will transition over to this Clan or opt to stay and strengthen the feeders. The point is that there is a lot of work that can be done by people that are not up to our standards. Work that we need done. Building, patrolling, lower level combat, and with that experience the recruits will develop faster here than they will elsewhere in Star Force.”

“Those in the Rim Region aren’t coming. The need there is too great, so all we have to work with is the defensive units in the ADZ and surrounding areas and the volunteers coming from those not involved in the now excessive combat taking place out there. I admit, I’m a bit envious of it. I thought I’d erred and committed us to a lesser fight, but when I got word of the potential Crusade I knew that we were going to be in the thickest of the fighting and that we had a chance to prepare for it in a way we’ve never had before. The Crusade won’t be on our doorstep tomorrow, and even if it launched now it has so many lizard systems to cut through first we’ll have a lot of time to prepare.”

“That is our fight. Others will deal with the defense of the ADZ and the annexation of the Rim Region. We are to be the shield that gives them the opportunity to continue doing what they need to do. If we fail, they have to come back and a whole lot of people die. We cannot allow that. We have to hold firm, and to do that we need more numbers and we need to dig in…but not in a way that makes us obvious targets.”

“There is another secret I will tell you, and this one must not go beyond us nor go into any sort of records being kept,” she said, eyeing each of them. “There are not 100 Clans, there are 101. Saber and Sangheili spawned another in secret known as Ghostblade. They hold no territory and are based off a moving starfleet. All their industry, population, warships…everything is in ships and therefore they have no base of operations to target. They move about like ghosts and have been feeding off the lizards for a very long time. They are the Clan that no one knows exists and our secret weapon, but we have to do better than that, and we will.”

“We can’t be that invisible, but their ships are what gave me the idea for the flying cities. We have to be less of a static defense and more of a mobile threat coupled with fixed emplacements that will draw enemies here so we can thin their numbers. We have to expect to lose those emplacements, but if we do our job we’ll take so many enemies with them it’ll be worth it.”

“I’ll be designing everything, so that’s not your concern. What I need from each of you is a new Clan, part of the Ninja Monkey pact, but definitely inferior. Yours will be learning Clans until their strength increases, but it will be learning through action and you will be building them on the fly.”

Morgan looked to San. “You will form Clan Tigerzord, with an emphasis on logistics. Bror, Clan Falconzord. Focus on movement. Patrols, asset transfer, escorts, mapping, ganks. Cressie, Clan Ultrazord. You’re getting the weakest recruits I’m allowing and you’re going to get them in bulk. I need a comprehensive Clan with no specialties. You’re not quite going to be the lizards as far as spamming go, but when I need 1,000 things done it’s going to come down to your Clan.”

The trailblazer pointed to Todd. “Clan Morphzord. You’re going to focus on creating our mobile tech, starting with the flying cities and then adding a lot of other designs we’re working on. You’re mass producing them and coming up with any good ideas on your own. You’re going to be tech heavy, but all the Clans are going to be fully fleshed out, even if some of you only have a very limited combat wing.”

“Andria, you’re the opposite. Yours in combat focus. When the Ninja Monkey’s need a lot of backup, it’ll be you. You come when called, and appropriately so, you’re Clan Dragonzord, though I can see you don’t get the reference,” Morgan said disapprovingly. “Look it up. Your Clan color is green, by the way, but all of you are going to have black as your secondary color, because you are part and parcel of the Ninja Monkeys, but you’re also separate. This is something new we’re doing, and I need the five of you to make it work.”

“Ninja Monkey troops will clear out all the necessary systems. Your focus now is to build and get these greenies into working shape. They’re not going to be up to our standards anytime soon, so you’re going to have to develop your own Clan standards, inferior as they are, while I keep my Clan in righteous trimness. You don’t get in the way or crimp our style, but you add to our strength by forming associated entities. Distance is kept, and when individuals merit Ninja Monkey status they come over to us unless you can convince them to stick around. You are feeder Clans, but you’re not benchwarmers. You have to be ready and able to fight if the fight comes to you, or if there are too many enemies for the Ninja Monkeys alone to handle.”

“You’re going to make our Clan bigger by training these newbs, and at the same time develop into Clans that will someday rival the others. That will take forever…but it’s on the to-do list. You are the supports, Ninja Monkey is the ADC. Any questions?”

“This system?” Andria asked.

“The home base of us all. As we expand, Ninja Monkey systems and worlds will be sprinkled around in defensive alignment and your Clans will fill in the gaps as needed. But note, you are expected to work with each other as you develop specialties. You are not standalones. We’re a team in this. Ninja Monkeys take the lead, but do not think that you’re outsiders or inferior. Well, you’re inferior, but you’re family, and that makes you superior via association.”

Morgan raised a warning finger. “But we do not accept slackers…ever. We’re taking in weaker individuals in order to train them up, but if they’re not motivated you give them the boot. That aspect of the Ninja Monkeys isn’t getting watered down. We’re just slowing the train a bit so a lot more wannabes can grab hold and go along for the ride, but it’s at our pace and if they can’t keep up they get sent back to the ADZ until they train themselves up and have another go at it. No slackers. No babysitting. It will take time for your Clans to develop our edge, but it will happen in time and I need you to make sure of that.”

“We are now 6, but we fight as one. We are officially the Power Pact…and no, that name is not renegotiable. This is where we draw the line,” she said, raising her hands to the air and taking in the whole of the world they stood upon, “and if anyone dare step over it, it has to be like they’re stepping on lava. We are the shield of the ADZ and our fellow Clans are going to mind our flanks, but expect the biggest hit to come squarely at us. If it doesn’t on its own, we’ll taunt it our way, so don’t underestimate what’s coming. If the Crusade lands here, in some ways it’ll be worse than what the Rim Region is facing, and we have to prepare accordingly. So, are you in?”

The Archons glanced at each other then walked into the center of their rubble field, putting a clenched fist in and touching the others, leaving a hole for Morgan’s.

She smiled, but didn’t say anything else as she walked forward and added her own pink armored hand to the other identical ViLords. A shimmering occurred over hers, then soon the others joined in creating a light bending vortex that they then released as one, blowing their hands back and sending out an invisible wave of Jumat energy that blasted back the smaller rubble around them but left the six armored supersoldiers standing exactly where they had been.

And with that, the Power Pact was born.

8

January 25, 3481

Sirius System (ADZ Core)

Orion

Palo Montoya came back into his quarters after yet another training session with his commando unit doing integrated drills and running through two more challenges today after a long morning session of individualized workouts where he’d put in a 10k run followed by sparring drills, weapons work, and agility training…the standard bread and butter of a commando’s sustenance when not engaged in combat duty.

He’d pulled three tours in the lizard war, which wasn’t much considering how long it had lasted. Most of his time had been spent in the Star Force core worlds, providing system defense and backup should other areas require support. A lot of Human troops got cycled through such duties needing the extra training, a ‘respite’ from combat, or time to just veg out while slowly increasing their levels. Aside from some occasional pirate activity, the ADZ core worlds were as quiet as you could get. That was to be expected, and the number of ships and troops they had defending them was part of the reason for that, but it was also the rings upon rings of other systems further out providing insulation for the heart of Star Force that kept it so secure.

And every time the empire expanded the core got safer and safer, but they would not send their defense forces away for more than temporary relief. Right now the Rim Region was where all the action was at, yet so many troops were just sitting in Sirius and the other core systems that some people speculated/complained about them not being used.

Palo had learned a long time ago that this is what it meant to be a commando and part of Star Force’s combat troops in general. Defensive duty was what let others have the freedom to go out to where the fighting was and keep it from working its way back here. Strip away most of the troops, most of the warships, and you left a weakness others could exploit. Keep an insanely strong force holding the home front and nobody was going to mess with it, meaning you could use it as a reliably stable base of operations from which to reach out and exert your will on the rest of the galaxy.

Not even all the Clans had gone out to the Rim Region, with more than half not having anything to do with it. Those that did were kicking ass, as far as the news reports indicated, but the wealth of new territory out there was so wild and in so much trouble some commentators were speculating that Star Force was hording its strength to the detriment of others and that worlds like Orion didn’t need the high level of defense that they had, especially in terms of ground troops. How could anyone get past the fleet and the shields to even get in a position to mount a ground assault?

But Palo had seen enough lizard combat to know never to take anything for granted. They were devious bastards and there were still a lot of them out beyond The Line that several Clans and others were holding. His unit was all Human troops, elite in their own right, but not on the level of the Clans. He’d been called out on several short term missions down into Gamma Region over the past century whenever that little extra touch of Human presence was needed to supplement other troops and his being stationed here allowed for that flexibility.

Take them all away out to the Rim Region and there wouldn’t be anyone to call on when unexpected situations occurred.

But he had to admit his lifestyle here was boring in a certain way. Training kept him busy nonstop, but if one didn’t have a liking for it they would burn out real quick. Those people never made commando, but even still there was something annoying about sitting and training while other people were out on the front fighting to save a lot of other people from dying. That’s why he’d volunteered for combat missions before, but never made it a permanent thing. Always cycling back to one of these defensive positions.

Some commandos didn’t want to fight nonstop, day in and day out. They wanted to be saved for the right situation, while other ‘grinders’ wanted combat and nothing else. Those often stayed on the front lines permanently, but rarely ascended through the ranks due to their lack of training time. Fighting slowed your progress because it wasn’t sculpted to give you the necessary stimulus that you needed, and often would wear you down to the point where you lost levels if you got injured or pushed yourself too far.

But Palo had also learned a lot from frontline fighting and was stronger for it, though a balance needed to be maintained if one wanted to slowly climb up the ranks. All commandos dreamed of such a thing, but many were not ready for the demands of the higher level positions and Palo had been one of them. Like others, he’d retreated back to the defensive assignments to catch his breath and train some more, then he’d test himself again when he felt ready with another combat assignment. It’d taken him some 350 years before he’d finally got himself kicked into higher gear and now he was eagerly wanting not only combat, but to join a Clan…which was why he was here in Sirius, training nonstop to improve his skills to the point where he would make the entry requirements for one of the small, elite factions.

He was getting close to the minimal requirements for 2 of them, but they never stayed the same, for every now and then there would be a change. A tweaking of the requirements here or there in some particular subdivision per what one Clan needed at that time, then they’d raise requirements again once they’d got their quota. None of them had lowered down to the level Palo was at, but he kept checking the notice boards constantly hoping to find one and register his request before the slots filled.

He was already in the filing system with a ‘Clan desired’ marker on his profile so that anyone searching the database would know that was where he wanted to go, but he hadn’t marked any specific Clan. Just Clan in general, meaning that any of the 100 Clans would do, but he still hadn’t quite gotten his skill set high enough to match any of the current base templates.

So when he set down at his quarter’s terminal after taking a shower, he was shocked when he had a notification message from one stating that he had been transferred into their ranks.

“What the hell?” he asked, seeing the name. “Clan Ultrazord?”

He did a double take and checked the system, seeing that the list of Clans no longer numbered 100, but now 105.

“When did that happen?” he asked, pulling up the information on the new Clans and seeing that they were all being founded by members of the Ninja Monkeys. In fact, these new Clans were part of something called the ‘Power Pact’ that linked them to the Ninja Monkeys.

Palo read on further, seeing that these were new creations linked to an expansion of Star Force territory beyond The Line. The Ninja Monkeys, the most experienced of all the Clans when it came to frontline combat, were expanding…but they weren’t watering down their own standards to do it. Palo had come nowhere close to making it into their ranks, but they were spawning new Clans that he’d made it into somehow…

He pulled up the standing requirements for Clan Ultrazord and what he saw surprised him. His comprehensive level was still too low, but there was a special category reserved for those with a sharpshooter rating of 16 or better. That was his second best itemization in his codex, but typically Clan requirements dictated groupings of skill levels rather than just picking out key ones. For whatever the reason this new Clan wanted him for his accuracy with firearms, and he wasn’t going to argue the point.

He felt like cheering, but the energy inside him couldn’t get out. He still couldn’t believe this was happening, so he continued to read up on all the press releases and commentary. A lot of people were also shocked at what was happening, but they had very little from trailblazer Morgan explaining it, so they speculated to no end and Palo listened to what they had to say until he finally decided that this was, in fact, happening and he wasn’t imagining it.

His transfer order was already logged, which meant he was an Ultrazord now. He could bow out if he wanted, but since he’d marked his file previously that was taken to mean he automatically accepted. And to that end he had orders to report to a newly added system to Star Force territory out beyond the old Line, which apparently was recently taken from the lizards and now renamed the Zordon System.

“Wow,” he finally said, then cautioned himself. If this was a Ninja Monkey expansion, then it was going to be damn difficult. If he wasn’t ready for this he’d get booted out quicker than water would evaporate in the desert. Was he ready this time?

Palo gave himself a thorough self-assessment and nodded with a sense of confidence. He was ready to go all in. The old him wasn’t. He might have been eager, but there was no way he could hold up to the day after day after day sledgehammer of intense training that the Clans were reputed for back then, though now as different. He was stronger and knew what was coming…even if he didn’t know what was coming. He was going to have to become a grinder, and he’d been experimenting with his own training here to see if he had what it took.

He had a chance. That was as far as he’d go. He knew he was going to have to adapt and grow in order to stay in this new Clan, but he was ready to face the challenge and see if he was good enough. There was no cheating the Clan requirements, and if they said he had the necessary skillset that meant he did…to begin. He’d have to earn his keep in order to stay in the Clan, but as of this moment he was Clan, and that was something he’d been working towards for a very long time.

Yet it was a brand new Clan with no history or stats to study…and he’d be one of the founding members it seemed. That was something that blew his mind, but if it was a branching off of the Ninja Monkeys he doubted there was going to be much of a learning curve involved. In fact, he expected them to know exactly what they wanted and how to get it when he arrived, meaning he was just going to have to dive in and go with the flow.

There was nothing else to do here, for his transfer had already been logged, so he jumped out of his seat and quickly packed up a duffle with his few personal belongings. Most of his equipment and clothing was provided on site, so there was only a few mementos and luxury items he’d purchased that he took with him from place to place in addition to his armor. On top of those he added some basic clothing as backup and secured the duffle, swinging the strap over his shoulder as he straightened up his now former quarters a bit. Someone would come in to clean and repurpose them after he left, opening up a slot for another commando of lesser rank in the defense forces on Orion…a position that he had worked hard to achieve long ago, and now that the cycle was seeing him move on he felt almost nostalgic about it.

Palo checked in with a few friends in his unit on the way out, saying some hasty goodbyes, then he walked over to the nearest spaceport and boarded a flight that took him out of the system and headed towards Beta Region.

Palo had to change ships many times with a few layovers in temporary quarters on planets along his path, but eventually he ended up on The Line and in Ninja Monkey territory, then he was loaded onto a military jumpship that was part of a convoy being escorted out to the new Zordon System through existing lizard-held territory.

That wasn’t too surprising, since the lizards didn’t really have any way to stop them, but it still felt exhilarating and typical Ninja Monkey. Their reputation was one for daring to go where no one else would, and when he arrived over the planet named Alpha he got that sense in a very unexpected way.

There wasn’t a colony here, but rather a war zone. The planet was shattered…or the lizard structures anyway. It felt like Palo was back on the front again, here to drop down and hunt survivors buried underground or hiding in the rubble. He hadn’t expected this mess when assigned here, for there should have been a cleanup crew working to recycle the…

Then he saw them as the jumpship’s orbit came around. There was a cleanup crew here eating away at the ruined cities bit by bit, and just beyond it he saw the first sign of Star Force infrastructure. Or rather 6 bits. There were 6 new colonies here, and using the battlemap data on the screen he was watching from he saw that each belonged to a different Clan. Ninja Monkey and the five new ones it had spawned. This was apparently the epicenter of their endeavors and, seeming so fitting, the Ninja Monkeys weren’t wasting any time waiting for the reclamation of the planet to finish. They were setting up shop while some of the ruins were still trailing bits of smoke into the upper atmosphere.

“Keep up or be kicked back to the ADZ,” he reminded himself, now getting the very real sense of danger here. Both from the proximity to the lizards and the invisible wall of failure chasing him. He didn’t know what he’d have to do here, but if he didn’t meet up to their expectations or their timetable for improvement that wall would catch up to him like a predator and strike him down. He had to keep moving, keep improving, keep learning in order to stay ahead of it.

That was what a lot of former Clansmen had described it as, both those that washed out and those that made it. Once he got strong enough and far enough ahead of that wall he could relax a bit, but he could never stop. If a commando stopped improving they’d be put on notice and flagged as needing assistance, for just maintain the status quo wasn’t permissible in the Clans. If you weren’t improving then something was wrong with you, and you’d either correct the problem or be booted out. Either way you’d be pulled off normal duty, so even if Palo made it into the established ranks of this new Clan he could never stop moving forward.

And that was part of the appeal of the Clans. There was no stagnation here. No rest. No reward. No civilians. Everyone here was on a mission and wired for high output.

Right now he just hoped that he could measure up, for he knew most of his skillset did not match the others that had been recruited. He had one ace in the hole…his sharpshooter rating…and he didn’t know why it was important to the Ultrazords, but it made him feel inadequate but given a chance none the less. Now he just had to figure out what it was he was supposed to do.

As the dropships began to release from the jumpships parked in orbit he finally got his own boarding orders. Leaving his quarters neat and tidy, he grabbed his duffle and found his way to his assigned hangar bay and ship, getting onboard with a lot of other commandos. None of them were in armor, and he had his tucked away in his duffle as he assumed they did. All of them boarded without chitchat, taking their seats and sitting their personal cargo either on their laps or on the floor beneath their feet.

The dropship just got partway out of the jumpship when a holographic image appeared in the air at the front of the passenger compartment.

“Recruits,” the image of their Clan founder Cressie-10001 said. “Your indoctrination into Clan Ultrazord will begin in a few moments. Leave your personal belongings where they are and proceed to the exits.”

Palo exchanged glances with those around him, but they looked as confused as he did as they all got to their feet leaving their duffles in or near their seats as they shuffled out into the walkways and lined up in front of a closed boarding ramp and side ramp, with Palo in the line for the former. They waited there without further word for many long minutes until the hologram reappeared.

“Your orders are simple. Jump…survive…and find your way to base. Good luck.”

The boarding ramp hatch opened and a gust of wind hit them, signaling that they were already in the planetary atmosphere. The start of the line moved out, disappearing from view and heading where Palo didn’t know. When he got near the head of the line he saw that they were jumping off and falling down below view, and he only got a brief glimpse before he too leapt off and fell down to the ground several meters below as the dropship coasted forward, leaving a line of its occupants on the dirty, wet soil below.

Then when all occupants were offloaded the dropship took off back into the sky, leaving them behind with no gear and no further instructions.

9

April 2, 3483

Zerus System (Alpha Region)

Char

Arch Duke Karthen paced around a large holographic map in his office on the Bsidd homeworld, the windows blacked out so he could focus entirely on the subject matter at hand and not get distracted with the busy cityscape around him. Like Davis’s office on Earth, Karthen’s was atop a Bsidd spire in the heart of their densest city, giving him a chance to look out on everything from a bird’s perch of a vantage point, but that wasn’t needed now.

What he was looking at was a map made up largely of the ADZ and surrounding regions with every Bsidd system highlighted in purple. Other Star Force systems were blue, allies green, and neutrals yellow with the mass of uninhabited systems appearing grey while the lizard border and a few other places glowed hostile red.

But it was the grey that dominated the occupation zone and was sprinkled throughout the ADZ. Even after all this time spent colonizing what otherwise would have been useless planets to allow for population expansion there, empty worlds still remained. Some were so hazardous to pose a challenge for colonization, others were simply too small or hadn’t been gotten around to, and yet still there were systems with no planets in them whatsoever.

Canderous occupied a great number of those systems for Star Force and secured trade routes where their presence was needed, for without a planet to base off of all you could do was place a fleet in holding orbit and continually run supplies out to them. Same thing with a space station that wasn’t self-sufficient, so Canderous went and dominated places like that, filling in the connecting puzzle pieces on the major trade routes and ensuring that every stop from one end to the other had Star Force assets guarding it to ward off pirates or other malcontents, not to mention providing search and rescue for damaged or stranded ships. As bad as it sounded, there were some that simply ran out of fuel because their crews had miscalculated, and if you ended up in an uninhabited system you’d starve to death if someone didn’t stumble across you.

But they weren’t Karthen’s interest today. Most of his Bsidd worlds were located in the outer half of Alpha Region and further rimward into the aptly named ‘Bsidd Region’ that was far less populated. He’d claimed the most valuable worlds there and was responsible for its security along with a great many other tasks. The Bsidd were the backbone of Star Force now, despite the contributions of the Kiritas, who just weren’t quite as good at everything as the Bsidd were.

The Kiritas had their special roles, but the Bsidd did everything and did it well. Having multiple variants to specialized was such an impressive attribute to their race it would be hard for them not to be good at everything, especially when Star Force had altered two variants into new forms for just that purpose. In addition to that the Bsidd were strong for their size and low weight, loyal and decently intelligent. They also worked together as a unit easier than Humans did, but not nearly so good as the Elarioni who had a slight telepathic edge to their coordination. All the Star Force races had some advantages over the others, and it was through the combination of them in very deliberate and delicate ways that Star Force gained its true might.

But the Bsidd had a reproductive advantage greater than even the Kiritas. Only the lizards could reproduce faster, and that was still a point of contention amongst some. Lizards grew from genetic samples that were pre-made and shipped out like frozen food to be cooked to readiness in short order, but Bsidd reproduced via Queens that could generate an alarming number of eggs in a short period of time.

Karthen had been utilizing that ability to grow the Bsidd as quickly as possible, and even now he was searching for more planets to colonize. Doing so was tricky, because you had to balance between putting too few resources into a world and too many. It was true that a Star Force colony could be started with very few population and grow over time, but it was the speed of growth that mattered as well and Karthen had learned long ago about how much of a logistical commitment was necessary given the conditions of various planets, but it wasn’t an exact science. He had to guess, and if he guessed poorly he’d be wasting time or resources, for running supply convoys was the biggest joke in the galaxy as far as he was concerned.

Interstellar convoys carried so few resources it was laughable when compared to what was needed to develop a world. Almost everything had to be harvested locally, then processed and produced into the supplies one needed because shipping from one star to another was so damn inefficient.

One wouldn’t think so to see the size of the Bsidd cargo fleet. The jumpships they fielded were enormous in and of themselves and able to carry enough foodstuffs to feed an entire planet out in the lesser inhabited regions of the galaxy on Star Force’s borders…but a fully developed Bsidd world could not sustain itself off of cargo runs, and that huge dropship of foodstuffs would make for a nice appetizer at best considering how much food the Bsidd consumed when they sported a population of over 50 billion.

That was the norm for his Bsidd worlds. 50 billion once fully constructed, though there technically was never ‘full’ construction. You could always tear down a 100 story building and put a 200 story one in its place, but the way Karthen worked wasn’t concerned about squeezing the maximum number of people into a square mile. Rather it was about ease of movement and efficiency of production.

That was another thing about the Bsidd. There was very little ‘civilian’ to them. They all wanted to work, so on Bsidd worlds most of the population was contributing to the industrial machine that was providing the parts, ships, foodstuffs, and supplies that were being shipped out to other portions of the empire that badly needed them.

And then there were the troops. The Bsidd made up the bulk of Star Force’s military, numbers wise. They weren’t as good as the Archons, but then again what race was? When a Human fleet went into a large scale battle it was often with 20 Bsidd fleets supporting them. That was common in most theatres, and Karthen had so many fleets deployed in the Rim Region and other places it was hard to keep track of them all.

But he wasn’t their military commander. He was the guy making sure the gigantic machine that was the Bsidd faction continued to function smoothly and had all the resources and backing it needed to accomplish the bazillion missions it handled on a regular basis. Other factions were contributing as well, and some like the Trinx were just too small to really do much yet, though Karthen knew it wouldn’t matter in scope, for as fast as those little guys were growing the Bsidd were expanding much, much faster.

And it was time again to add more worlds to his domain. He could do that within the Bsidd Region, but there were far more valuable locations within the occupation zone that he had his pick from…the question was where to expand and how many to claim. Resources devoted to adding more worlds meant resources taken away from the warfronts…and vice versa. There was no perfect formula to follow. He simply had to follow his gut instinct, and right now he was taking the whole of Bsidd holdings into view in order to try and feel out where to add a few more purple dots on the map.

He was but one of only a handful of Humans on Char, with most of the higher positions having been relegated to the Bsidd themselves once sufficiently experienced candidates became available. The Human administrators then moved on to other assignments within the empire, but Karthen’s job was one that none of the Bsidd could handle…for it was a challenge even for him, and he had a vast amount of experience that they did not. That said, without pulling on their skills and abilities he could never make this juggernaut function. He led, but they did the work, and there was a lot of administrative duties that they expertly carried out for him so he could keep an eye on the big picture and troubleshoot.

And that was what he was doing now. Focusing on the big picture. With the bad news of a potential Skarron Crusade coming their way he had some hard choices to make. He needed more supplies, but in order to get more he had to spend them on worlds that would slowly develop into exporters…but the Rim Region needed as much as they could get, and despite the inefficiencies and travel lag involved with getting them there, a single Bsidd cargo convoy could mean the life or death for a number of systems that were teetering on the edge.

But focusing only on the now and not planning for the future would damn far more people, so Karthen had to be cagey. Supplies would continue to flow out to the Rim Region, along with numerous points on The Line and a scattering of locations across the ADZ and even all the way down to the Voku border. Star Force had so many projects ongoing in so many locations that Karthen had convoys headed every which direction…all of which were fed by worlds like Char that produced far more than they consumed, but getting a world to this level took centuries at the minimum.

But did they have centuries to wait before the Skarrons came knocking?

He could start stockpiling reserves now, building up a huge treasure trove of resources and equipment to pull on later, or he could spend those resources to build up more worlds or send them to the front lines…and right now he knew he needed more worlds. The Rim Region was keeping threats at bay on that side of Star Force territory and The Line was doing the same on the other. The flanks had varying threats that his Bsidd and others were monitoring, but Char and the Bsidd Region were in about the safest spot you could get, meaning that he had to use the cover the rest of the empire was giving him and grow as fast as he could.

But that growth always had to be controlled, else the Bsidd would consume themselves with overpopulation. That had never truly been a threat so long as the original Queens knew what they were doing, but it had been the bane for the Kiritas once and that lesson had never been lost on Karthen. Insane numbers required insane skill to manage, or you’d die under the weight of incompetence along with a lot of other people caught up in the downfall. The V’kit’no’sat records had indicated that had happened to so many races over the history of the galaxy that they weren’t all worth recording.

You could fake it only so far, but as a civilization grew and seemed to be on autopilot there was a dangerous undercurrent growing. One that if misdirected would erode the power base until you had nothing more than toothpicks for supports…then when one of them snapped it would come crashing down in horrifying carnage.

But Star Force was too good for that and Karthen’s Bsidd faction was had a very strong foundation and a major reason for that was the experience depth. Other races had so much turnover outside of Star Force simply because they did not achieve, or even know of, self-sufficiency. It was beyond sad to see, but a lot of the problems those civilizations suffered from disappeared along with the population turnover as more experienced leaders and workers didn’t make the same mistakes novices did.

And the Bsidd were no longer novices. They were a late addition to Star Force, but they’d grown and developed to a point where they could hold their own against the Calavari, Kiritas, and Axius. The Human faction, key as it was to the continuing prosperity of the empire, was both superior and inferior compared to the Bsidd, and in that it was hard to size up. Sol was the center, and the Bsidd and everyone else knew that, but when it came to numbers the Human faction was tiny. Extremely valuable, but tiny, and the combination of the Bsidd, the Kiritas/Kiritak, and Axius gave Star Force the raw power in resources and population that Humanity alone never could achieve.

If half of the Bsidd dropped dead tomorrow it would be a horrifying loss, but so long as the infrastructure still stood he could replace their numbers rapidly. They’d be inexperienced younglings, but if you were just counting heads he could replace population very fast if needed. The Bsidd maturias only grew as many eggs as needed and could jack up those numbers if resources allowed, so replacing population there wasn’t an issue. You couldn’t cheat the experience losses, but where the Bsidd could replace so many using just a handful of Queens, Humanity did not fare so well.

As fast as some thought Humans reproduced, the truth on a galactic scale was that they were below average. All races with internal reproduction were on the slow side while egg layers saw such a huge advantage in rate and numbers. If Star Force had stayed Human only and turned a cold hand to the other races of the galaxy so long ago, it would not have grown into the behemoth it was now. Even if it had aided other races as allies and neighbors and helped them to survive it wouldn’t have been enough. Humanity wouldn’t be much larger than it was now, and probably smaller taking into account attrition.

No. Davis’s decision to annex other races and rebuild them had seemed to be a huge gamble back in the day, but it had proven to be a stroke of genius and was now the foundation upon which Star Force was built. Had he let the other races do as they please it would have been a disaster, just as if he’d let the nations of Earth persist. All those in Star Force were truly Star Force, and Karthen’s Bsidd were no exception. They were all united in both loyalty and culture. But had it not gone down Davis’s way when others argued against the idea of bringing in other races that would ‘muddy’ the waters, the lizards might very well have won the war and destroyed Humanity.

The power of Star Force now lay primarily in the Bsidd, and it was Karthen’s duty not to only maintain them, but to keep them growing. So after several hours of pacing around the glowing map he selected two new systems in the occupation zone. One was all the way down near The Line while the second was on the other side of the Uriti Preserve. Both had three habitable planets and a multitude of others and that’s what made them so valuable. Shipping between stars was damn expensive, but shipping from planet to planet within a system was far less so.

Point to point on a planet was even better, but when you had a system with only one planet in it and you had a system with 3, you could essentially get rid of all interstellar shipping between those three and replace them with ships just as large but with far smaller gravity drives and weaker shields that didn’t have to stand up against interstellar debris and radiation. Of all the ships that the Bsidd built and flew, insystem transports dominated the charts in terms of numbers and tonnage.

Which was why he had chosen those two systems from the occupation zone when he could have chosen ones within the Bsidd Region that had one or two habitable planets. It didn’t matter that they were farther away, for once he sent a large enough convoy there to get the ball rolling he wouldn’t have to worry about sending more supplies. There’d be personnel transfers to accommodate, and with them would come some more cargo, but the bulk transfer would happen up front and the Bsidd on site would use it to start producing what they needed locally while the stash they had brought sustained them through the developmental process.

But such a thing wasn’t for an administrator to oversee. It would require a Baron, and most of the Monarchs were still Human. Why that was only Davis knew, but Karthen guessed that the experience levels of the other races just weren’t high enough yet to get them that rank, though there were a handful already helming worlds of their own that the Director felt were worthy.

With Davis off in the Rim Region working his magic, orchestrating the home front was something that had been left to him and Vectir, which also meant assigning and reassigning lower level Monarchs. Davis was too far away to handle it, and to be frank too busy, though Karthen would always  keep him informed as to what was going on and Davis could amend those orders if he so chose.

To that end Karthen pulled two Barons from single planet Bsidd systems that had developed well over their tenure and assigned the administrators on site to continue on in their stead until their replacements arrived. Karthen had a few floating Barons that were currently unassigned that he could call on if needed, as well as a lot of administrators capable of stepping in and maintaining what had been built, but expanding upon it was something that really needed a Monarch’s touch, so he sent a message to Davis asking for suitable replacements.

Karthen pressed a button and the panoramic windows of his office returned to transparency and the midday sunlight of Char flowed in, dimming the holographic map as the Bsidd city structures came into view. They were built more or less the same as all other Star Force ones, but these carried a purple tint as did most things Bsidd…and everything here was built larger than normal, making Karthen feel like he was ruling a land of giants.

Last thing he did was log the acquisition of the two systems into Bsidd holdings and sent out the notification through the relay grid so no one else with the proper authority to snag planets would claim them before he got his colonization convoys assembled and on site.

10

September 5, 3489

Grid Point Stargate

Duke Torpe stood onboard the construct that she now was in command of along with a host of races from the Rim Region that had previous experience working on the gigantic stations. They were here to supplement the Star Force personnel that had been studying the constructs at Annsa and Mankla for just this task, but there were nowhere near enough personnel to get the job done yet, so a lot of ‘contract’ workers from newly acquired Star Force races were going to be used given the fact that the H’kar in Annsa had already been stretched out to the other grid points to replace Nexus personnel that had left.

Add with the addition of a new construct to Annsa 15 years ago the available qualified staff thinned even further, so more than half of the people under the Duke’s command now had not been maturia trained. That wasn’t something she liked, but it was the nature of the beast that she was about to tackle and something that would rectify itself in time. The construct was of Nexus design and not Star Force technology, thus getting people in here that were comfortable with the machinery was a lingering issue…but at least there were no auxiliary stations to inherit, for this grid point was brand new and would be designed to Star Force specs.

There was a slightly larger star in the starfield around the construct, that belonging to the Tarric 3 System that would be the local access jumppoint to get here. It was located in the occupation zone with three primary Nexus systems nearby…one for the Meintre and the others for the Albos and Gfatt that were also going to start building safe shipyards once the grid point system was linked in, but the Meintre were already here and building ahead of schedule so that once the link was made they could start sending ships en mass through and have somewhere they could start housing their growing refugee population.

Those systems belonged to The Nexus and were not Star Force property, but this construct and the grid point were, and it was Torpe’s responsibility to develop it. Already there had been some inquiries from races and corporations in The Nexus about the possibility of creating infrastructure here and she expected that request list to explode once the connection was made, but right now she was still waiting back for the first probe sent through the link to see if the connection had been calibrated correctly.

There had been 7 sent so far, hopefully received in Annsa with other probes being sent back to test this end of the link. If and when one was successfully received they would be bouncing probes back and forth regularly to check and secure the link so they would be notified if it ever went down. That was necessary, for no communication was possible between the two grid points save for couriers, and if one station suffered a malfunction you’d be sending a string of ships through to their deaths with no end in sight until someone happened to notice and traveled the long way around to tell you or a message was sent through the relay grid that was still not fully operational between the ADZ, the occupation zone, and H’kar territory…let alone out into the Rim Region.

Star Force was constantly working to expand it, but the equipment wasn’t cheap and there were a lot of dots on the map that needed connecting. As it was, the probes that Star Force had designed to be sent through the grid point link would also carry comm packets since they would actually beat the relay grid signals from one end to the other in many cases. The magnetically propelled ships weren’t faster than the transmissions…at least not between this pair of constructs…but this was a straight line shot whereas the relay grid weaved back and forth, adding extra distance for the signals to travel.

Linking comms into Mankla was just one of many duties Stargate was going to have, and a small one at that compared to what Davis had warned her was coming. There hadn’t been an addition to The Nexus’s grid point system in a very long time, and with the loss of at least one other there was going to be a shifting of assets and intense scrutiny of this new opportunity that was predicted to send entrepreneurs flooding through the link once it was opened.

Her job was to make use of it all, and connecting into the ADZ economy was already a stated goal of many within The Nexus. The trip there from Stargate wasn’t short, but it was manageable. To save time on that there was going to be a huge market exchange built here, but if she could get investors to pay for at least part of the infrastructure she was going to. Already there were nearby Kiritak colonies generating an impressive amount of resources to be sold to the nearby Nexus members if they wished, and she was told that the Meintre were already taking advantage of that service, which she was going to direct the investors to.

If they wanted to build stations here they’d be Star Force models sold to them, for she wasn’t going to let any more foreign technology come in here besides that of the construct itself. Aside from logistical and compatibility concerns, Davis had specified that this grid point needed to have a distinctive Star Force feel to it so that visitors would immediately know that this was not The Nexus. The other grid points that Star Force now controled were inherited, not built, and their conversion was a slow process. Word was already spreading though about how Star Force did business, and Stargate had to take that generated interest and channel it accordingly.

Which was why the Duke was holding off on bringing in any stations. Tarric 3 already had some infrastructure in place, including an Imperator, but Torpe wasn’t building anything here until the link was established…and right now was approximately the time the first probe should be returning. If there was a problem, then troubleshooting was going to take a long time sending couriers back and forth on gravity drives, so there was more than a bit of anxiety going through the construct’s crew and herself.

The two massive discs were powered up and aligned with the distant location of Annsa, but it was up to the probes themselves to find the guiding signal being sent out from them and make micro adjustments so that they hit square on. The big question was whether or not the direction of the magnetic fields was pinpoint precise enough to get them close…or whether they’d be too far askew to self-correct and end up missing the target entirely.

If they did they could hit ships nearby, obliterating each other in less time than it took to blink, or they could sail on past and be lost in the galaxy unable to stop, slowly starving or freezing to death once power ran out…which was why the test probes were unmanned.

The Duke was waiting in the command center onboard the construct, which Star Force had already gutted and reworked with their own tech. That at least gave the crews familiar interfaces to work with here, though the rest of the station was still outfitted with Nexus terminology and symbols. Those would be gradually replaced over time if needed, but Torpe didn’t want to deal with those headaches herself so she’d had the command center changed to her liking.

So it was on a standard Star Force holographic tactical display that she saw the first tiny blip of a an object decelerate against the ‘upper’ disc’s magnetic field and come to a stop on the edge…and not too far away from missing entirely.

“Calculate how far we’re off and adjust,” she said relieved, but spotting an irregular final tract that wasn’t entirely the fault of the construct on the other end. “I want the next one spot on.”

“It’ll take approximately 2 hours to readjust,” a H’kar told her.

“Next probe is due in four hours, correct?”

“If Annsa holds to schedule, yes.”

“Hold outgoing probes until the readjustment,” she decided, then retreated to her office on the perimeter of the large room.

They were on the grid now…sloppily…but there was a viable connection. Their own magnetic field had been slightly off, and by slightly it meant the column of acceleration/deceleration potential that reached out from each disc. There was more than enough there to stop the probe from ramming it, but when it’d been launched on the return trip it had not intersected that column as intended. It had come in from the side and bypassed the first part of that field. If a larger ship had done that then a collision might have been possible, but a tiny tweaking would fix it.

Fortunately the amount they were askew wasn’t enough to make their outgoing probes miss. As she pulled up the telemetry logs the probe brought back with it from the other side she saw that it had almost missed but had been able to yank itself back into alignment thanks to the beefy gravity drives the probes also contained. A magnetic carrier would not have been able to in time, but with each probe sent and received they’d get the alignment centered a bit more until they were satisfied on both ends, at which point the traffic would start pouring through.

And there was a lot of it waiting in Annsa. In addition to the telemetry logs, there was a wellspring of data carried by the probe, including some personal messages for her from Duke Lothel and others stationed there. Most notable of all was the battlemap captures of the waiting ships. Hardly any of them were Star Force and there were literally rows upon rows parked nearby the construct waiting for transit to Stargate…so many so that it would take months for them to get rides even once the link was open, for there weren’t that many carriers available despite the shifting resources sent their way.

“Geez,” she said under her breath as she looked at the itemized ship lists. “And I don’t even have a welcome center built.”

It would take more than 2 months to get the final alignments down to the two Dukes’ mutual satisfaction, at which point both declared the links were open for transit. Some of The Nexus ships from the Meintre were waiting here in preparation for passage back rather than hoofing it on gravity drives like they had been doing for several years, but she couldn’t dispatch them because there were no carriers here. They’d have to wait for the first one to come through then book passage going back, and right now those fees weren’t going to Star Force, but rather the owners of each carrier ship.

They then paid a fee to use the grid point system…a fee that the Duke had cut by some 50% from Nexus standard rates. Each grid point chose their own, with the fee paid on the outgoing jump. Since this was a one route grid point it didn’t really matter, for carriers would pay at both ends regardless, but the cheaper you made the fees the more profit there was for the carriers to relocate routes through you.

Annsa had chopped their fees by some 30%, but the rest of the grid points in the Rim Region had kept theirs moderately stable because the local economies were relying on those fees. Since Stargate was just getting started she could set them at whatever she wanted and build up around them, hence the lower price to encourage more travel…which would mean more commerce flowing through here and making the link to the ADZ more advantageous.

And there was a link already established for personnel and assorted cargos. Big ships would have to travel on their own, but in Tarric 3 there was already a starport linked into the Star Force transit grid that had a single line coming out from the ADZ to here. There were a few other wispy connections throughout the occupation zone, the most notable of which were to the Uriti Preserve and to the H’kar, but if a Dvapp wanted to buy a ticket at a Star Force starport in their territory, they could ride the grid all the way out to Tarric 3, and from there take the dedicated ferries that would move through the slow jump from star to construct and back again.

Right now though there was no place for them to land except the giant station, and it wasn’t built for visitors. Her crew could come and go that way, but as of now Tarric 3 was the endpoint for tourists traveling on the transit grid until she got some additional infrastructure set up here to accommodate them.

But if the traffic that was soon to come from Annsa wanted to, they could park in the nearby star system and ride the Star Force infrastructure wherever they wanted to go, or if their ship was small enough dock it inside a carrier jumpship and be whisked away to a whole plethora of new systems for them to visit or trade with.

Torpe had made sure to have that link established before the grid point went online and the people at Annsa knew it as well, so when the first carrier did come through and decelerated almost dead center on the giant mag disc, its ships immediately departed for Tarric 3 while the carrier itself contacted the station to arrange payment and scheduling for their return jump.

On the spur of the moment the Duke decided to give them a free ride, given that they were their first customer, but the second arrived less than 20 minutes later…and after that a rapid fire arrival schedule dumping ship after ship into the grid point, including a huge carrier that was larger than anything she’d been told about.

It carried within its grasp a single ship, with the designator labeling it as belonging to the Albos. The Duke didn’t need to read further to identify its purpose, for the various struts and cargo boxes made its function obvious. It was a mobile construction facility, undoubtedly headed to their new system to get to work building infrastructure…and with the size of this thing, they’d be setting up shop real fast assuming they could get the necessary materiel.

And promptly after it arrived more Albos ships came through, one of which made contact with the station and requested just that. Access to the promised market for raw materials.

And they weren’t the only ones immediately petitioning for this and that, all of which was routed to the Duke’s staff who’d been set up to handle just this sort of situation, though within days it became apparent to Torpe that there was going to be a lot more interest here than even Davis had imagined.

It took only 8 days before she got the first heart wrenching request for sanctuary coming from a beat up ship that looked like it had taken all it could handle just to get this far and probably didn’t have anywhere else to go. They identified themselves as Kleek, having come from a race on the far side of The Nexus that had been pushed off their homeworld by invaders that no one had bothered to stop. The Kleek fleet had moved from one grid point to another asking for sanctuary and being denied, with many ships scattering to find work or to sell what they had to get currency to put down roots somewhere.

This ship had come all the way out here hoping to find a place in Star Force territory because they’d heard that it was safe and that the Human-led empire took in refugees.

Torpe sniffed away some misty eyes as she sent a reply message detailing the coordinates in the nearby Tarric 3 System that they needed to proceed to, at which point they’d be provided with emergency supplies until their situation could be sorted out. She added a welcome to the message, knowing that even that small gesture could make a big difference to people who’d been on the run and brushed aside time and time again, though it was the supplies that were going to make the real difference.

She knew the Kleek were but the first of many refugees coming their way, and that the promise of safety was going to draw them here from all over The Nexus as various wars continued to break out and spread. Fortunately Davis had seen this coming and had a plan in place, so the Duke didn’t have to tell them there was no help here. She could tell them the exact opposite, and the coordinates in the nearby system led to a facility built specifically to handle and sort incoming refugees prior to sending them off into the ADZ or wherever else there was room to take them.

Star Force had a plan in place to weather this catastrophe and pick up the rest of the baggage that The Nexus’s failure would be landing on their doorstep. For good guys just didn’t react to bad things happening on the spur of the moment…they planned and prepped ahead of time so that they’d be able to help the Kleek or anyone else like them when the time came.

It didn’t matter how many warships and troops you had in a situation like this. It was all about logistical power and whether or not you had the foodstuffs to feed the number of people required, the fuel to power their ships and life support, and the medical supplies to save those just hanging on to life that managed to reach you.

Star Force territory was sanctuary, due in large part to its military, but more so due to its logistics. Those behind the scenes mundane, repetitive tasks that most people didn’t pay any attention to. The sort of thing administrators handled without anyone else ever knowing about…until there was a lack of supplies or a power outage, then everyone took notice.

The Archons were the visible leaders of Star Force’s war machine, but the empire knew well that war came in many different fashions, and in truth it was the Monarchs that were the most powerful, waging a war of supplies and infrastructure to combat the starvation, deprivation, and chaos that would now start flowing into Star Force territory en mass from The Nexus…and it was that war that would define Star Force in the coming years more than anything the Archons did.

For those in The Nexus were saying that saving these people was impossible. There were too many, not enough supplies, not enough room to take them in…and they weren’t lying, most of the time. They simply didn’t have the necessary resources to help, whether they wanted to or not.

But like the Archons, the Monarchs had an inclination to tackle challenges that were deemed ‘impossible’ and had already set up multiple planets mostly in the occupation zone to rescue, indoctrinate, and train refugees, then add the individuals into a wing of Axius and the larger groups into a new faction known as ‘Beacon.’

All those in need of help could flee to and be assimilated into Star Force, with the aptly named new faction serving as a redo of the old Alliance Worlds program that was created back during the lizard war…only many lessons had been learned since then, and all refugees being taken in would become part of Star Force rather than tenants who could potentially work against their caretakers as had been seen to happen in the ADZ before.

And at this point, incorporating both individuals and groups into Star Force was a well polished process, so when people badly in need of help came here…if they could make it here…there would be no shoving them off into some corner to wait in line or bide their time.

No. There was a plan in place and an infrastructure conduit through which to send them to the indoctrination facilities that would eventually land them either in Axius or Beacon, meaning that if they could get to Duke Torpe like this ship of Kleek had, then they were at the end of their harrowing journey and coming into the hands of people who were tasked specifically to help and guide them through the assimilation process…and whom would make damn sure no one fell through the cracks once they arrived, no matter how chaotic things became.

All of which made Torpe the Queen of the Watchtower, whose ‘beacon’ would be drawing many people here. If they could arrive they’d be bathed under Star Force’s healing and cleansing light, metaphorically speaking, and they’d be insulated from the chaos behind them.

That wasn’t what she’d written, but that was what the rumor mill eventually churned out and spread back through the grid point network and throughout The Nexus, and it was her name that was attached to the mythos.

Get to Duke Torpe and all would be well.

And that reputation and lore would drive more and more people to Stargate, both those in need and those trying to get out ahead of the looming disaster before they became refugees themselves.

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1

April 19, 3493

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Asteroid Belt 16

Myra-400118 stood onboard the single Star Force warship she commanded, looking out via the command nexus at the asteroids around her and the nearby planet that cut out the clear tunnel between overlapping belts 15 and 16. On it was over half a trillion Vittis, a race that no one cared about in times like these. They weren’t technologically advanced or skilled in much at all, but they did have some trade going with neighboring systems that had spread the word of the world’s dying.

This one wasn’t a Nexus member and didn’t even appear in The Nexus’s records, sketchy as they were where the ‘unimportant’ came into play. Unlike most of the other conflicts breaking out across the Rim Region this one was internal. They weren’t being invaded from space, but rather from below ground. A dangerous race of primitive insects had always lived on and within the planet and the Vittis had dealt with them as wild animals in most cases, but aside from an occasional outbreak there was no real concern because their numbers were so small…even while their bodies were large. Larger than the Vittis, anyway, which came up to about Myra’s knee and were mostly fur at that.

The ‘reavers’ were dog sized and ugly as hell, based on the few pictures they’d gotten back from a scouting mission. A ranger had been sent to follow up on the rumors and had sent a report indicating an extinction level event for the planet was in the making. The reavers were actually not small numbered, but rather lived deep underground where no one could find them. Legend said that every cycle, which amounted to some thousands of years, they would return to the surface and kill everything in sight…which is exactly what was happening.

None of their neighbors were interested in helping and the major powers within the sub region were too busy with keeping their own asses intact to even care, but this was now Clan Star Fox’s domain and they did, which was why Myra had been sent to do what she could to save them. An evacuation would have been the preferred option, but there were far too many Vittis to take away. As it was, all she’d been given for this assignment was one fully outfitted Warship-class jumpship and one Paladin cruiser.

That was it. Two ships to deal with a planet-wide catastrophe. That’s how stretched Star Force was right now, and there was a long list of people that they weren’t able to help at all. Myra’s being assigned here hadn’t been requested by the Vitti or anyone else, for Star Force had simply seen the need and thought there was a chance to save at least some of the Vittis without pulling thousands of ships off of other duties to either evacuate them or kill the reavers.

Unfortunately killing was the only viable option, for the scout had indicated that mental contact with them was useless. They had a hive mind, literally, for they were telepathic. And while you could take control of an individual reaver’s mind there was no way to reason with it, for as soon as you released your hold the hive mind would reassert itself.

The report indicated that there was suspected higher level reaver units that partially controlled the others, but speculated that they would be unable to be used to call the others off permanently. Instinctual drives were partially responsible for their bloodthirstiness, with the hive mind bonding them together and guiding them. It was almost as if these things had been created as a weapon and unleashed, but there was no one else on the planet intelligent enough to even speak aside from the Vittis.

What technology they did have was allowing them to survive for a while, but they were losing territory and people at a steady rate. Right now it was rumored that the planet was doomed and those rumors had drawn scavengers. Pirates and other scum that were even now sitting in orbit and sending down raiding parties to steal whatever they could from the Vittis while they were preoccupied fighting to save their lives.

And it was their ships in orbit that Myra was studying closely now. Because of the dense asteroids spread across this system…with far more mass than all the planets combined…one couldn’t make a direct jump to where you wanted to go. You either had to slowly work your way through each field or make a jump out above them, for they were thankfully situated in orbital rings that had about the same inclination.

If you jumped above them, you’d have to stop and redirect back down. Without a binary gravity drive you really didn’t want to be in this system, but that’s where the Vittis were and they didn’t have the technology to leave on their own. What ships they did use to mine the asteroids were all but gone, having been stolen by the pirates or scattered around in pieces where their defense fleet had been destroyed.

It looked like they’d put up a good fight but had been overwhelmed. By who Myra didn’t know or care, for her primary concern was the reavers on the surface. They didn’t have technology at all, and it was infuriating her that these lowlifes would be backstabbing the Vittis when they needed everything they had just to try and fortify themselves against the reaver swarms.

With a thought she began tagging ships and directing her Captain to begin launching the drone fleet. She hadn’t expected to need them for orbital action, given that this was going to be a ground campaign, but the presence of the pirates hadn’t been anticipated. Her analysts were pulling a fair amount of information about what they were doing down there from errant signals coming from the planet and their own ships’ sensors, and since they had to take their time navigating through the thinner band of asteroids that covered the ‘top’ of the world, they weren’t getting a full count until they got in close.

104 ships in total, four of which looked like full scale jumpships and a few others that might have been hybrids. It had to have taken them forever to get out here through the asteroids, even if they’d come the top route like the Star Foxes just had, for the belts themselves were so thick vertically speaking that you couldn’t get a direct jumpline through even with Star Force’s enhanced sensors.

What was it they wanted so bad to go to the effort? Or were even the pirates so desperate out here as to go after the smallest bread crumb rumored to be available?

She wanted to ask them herself, but taking prisoners wasn’t exactly something her two ship fleet was equipped for…then again, when you came into a situation like this you had to improvise.

“Captain, the naval combat is yours. Get me onboard one of their jumpships. The rest I don’t care about.”

“How intact do you want it?”

“Be as surgical as you can.”

“Dropship insertion?”

“Yes. I’ll be armored up and in the hangar before you can engage. If they run, let the others go, but make it clear that they’re not welcome here.”

“What’s your interest in the jumpship?”

“I don’t want to have to babysit any of their men we take on the surface…plus I want some intel recovered.”

“Tech team going with?”

“Save it for after. We don’t know what these guys are like. I’ll personally lock it down and signal you when it’s clear.”

“You, or you and a combat team?”

“Team. I need to roam and engage while at least someone watches the ship.”

“How many?”

“I’ll arrange it. Just take care of those ships.”

“Consider it done.”

Myra disconnected from the nexus and took off jogging through the short tunnel that led to the bridge. She passed by the man she’d just been talking to along with the rest of the command crew, then headed through the innards of the not so small ship, picking up her armor and her boarding team while she left naval concerns to the Captain. The titan ended up standing in her golden armor in the entrance to the dropship looking back out into the hangar as Tia-755393 and John-755399 approached, one in dark blue mage armor and the other in padawan brown.

Both had graduated basic in the same class, but John had leveled up much faster. He’d made mage before Tia made padawan, so when it came time for her to need a master it’d been a no brainer and the two had hooked up again with Myra being glad to have both of them with her. Assignments such as this were supposed to be 1 Archon only affairs, but given the high population levels of this planet she’d been assigned the extra pair while the rest of her combat troops were a mix of Knights and Commandos.

“I thought you’d brought us along to squish bugs,” Tia commented as the two Archons walked up the ramp.

“Mostly. Found a few other baddies in orbit we need to deal with. You don’t mind?”

“Never,” she said with such high energy that her smile all but transmitted through her opaque faceplate.

“Are we keeping these?” John asked as he came up and stood beside Myra as the Regulars started to arrive behind them.

“I think they’ll run, but I want one jumpship to use as a prison for the ones on the ground.”

“Why the mixed weaponry then?” Tia asked, referencing the only partial stun weapons loadout she’d told them to grab from the armory.

“These are opportunistic scum and we’re not going to be overly nice about kicking them out, but we do need some of them alive to fly the ship out of here if we want to go that route.”

“First call, kill or stun?” John asked for clarification.

“Judgement call if it shoots back, otherwise knock them out.”

Tia pulled out a pair of stun pistols from her back rack and twirled them around, limbering up her wrists. “I like bonus points.”

“These are completely unknown baddies, so be careful what and when you shoot,” Myra said aloud, for both the Archons and the assembling Regulars. “I’ll head in first and troubleshoot. You follow and bag the crew. One guard on the ship, one venator in support. Everyone else doing sweeps, engage as necessary. Stun preferred, but if they get too persistent take them down hard. Comm intercepts say they’re looting the planet and killing anyone that gets in their way. We’re going to be a little nicer than that, but not too much. I want the ship. The crew are,” she said, glancing in Tia’s direction, “bonus points.”

One last pair of Commandos ran in as she finished and the Knight next to her leading the group signaled their count was complete.

“All present, Archon.”

With a telepathic flip of a switch Myra started pulling up the boarding ramp.

“Pilot, we’re good to go. Confirm with the Captain for departure. We’re all yours.”

“Copy that,” the pilot replied over helmet comms as the assault team lingered in the hold of the Falcon-class dropship, one of the few pieces of Star Force tech design that actually outdated her within the empire, though both of them had undergone considerable upgrades over the years.

Myra watched the naval combat unfold via her helmet battlemap, then when they had their opening the dropship accelerated out of the hangar and took up position behind a waiting Corvette-class drone and followed their blocker closely until they were right up on top of the wounded pirate jumpship with a hole blown into their own version of a hangar door. An energy shield was covering it, but when the corvette swung around to now cover the rear approach the dropship rammed into the shield and punched through using an alternate shield setting of its own that would breach primitive shields without destroying them.

The silver ship slid through and into the internal atmosphere as if there had been nothing blocking its way at all, then landed on a mostly empty deck save for a few small ships and fighters that hadn’t been down on the planet doing naughty things.

Myra was first out the lowering ramp, but only a few steps into the hangar and she skidded to a halt.

“Shit.”

“What?” John asked from behind his rifle barrel at the top of the ramp behind her.

“No oxygen. It’s a methane-based atmosphere.”

“I thought the planet was oxygen-based,” Tia added.

“It is. These guys must be using…” she said, trailing off. “Stay here.”

Myra ran over to one of the nearby enemy ships, using her backup oxygen supply that would only last a matter of minutes. Using her psionics she pried open the first door she came to and went inside. It was empty and waiting for new cargo, apparently, so she left and went over to the next one, and the next, until she finally found what she was looking for. A small cargo ship full of pressurized canisters.

“These guys are going Grunt down there,” she said on her team comm.

“Contacts,” John noted.

Myra ran out of the ship and onto the hangar deck, getting there a few seconds late as an array of what looked like lachar blasts were harmlessly hitting the dropship’s superior shields as John and a Commando stepped out through the specialized barrier covering the entrance and opened fire. They took hits, but their own shields held up. Not ever having seen an Archon before the enemy apparently didn’t know what to make of them and stupidly pushed forward firing with their own forearm-mounted weapons as they took hit after hit with stun blasts, dropping their scarecrow-like bodies to the ground with single shots.

Myra came at them from the side, opening fire herself with a stun pistol and running directly into the group of upwards of 40 or so that were still pouring into the hangar. She summoned up a Fornax field and detonated it in their midst…but to her shock it didn’t affect them and she found herself punching and kicking them down. They were as weak as they looked, but she didn’t feel any bones breaking on impact. Instead they bent like rubber and flopped to the deck with single hits…though the last part of that wasn’t unexpected given her titan-level strength.

Once through the group she stomped her heels down and reversed direction, throwing a Jumat blast into those still coming into the hangar and knocking everyone still standing aside like grass clippings blowing in the wind. As they got up the rest of her team shot them down again until there were no more coming.

With a glance at her HUD she checked her oxygen gage, having a few minutes left before she needed to recharge in the ship. Wanting to know why her Fornax hadn’t worked, she mentally connected to one of them and searched its mind…only to find it wasn’t fully there.

Another shot flashed beside her as a Commando shot one of the scarecrows that had inexplicably started to get back up again.

“Stay down,” he said, but then others began getting up as well, eliciting more stun blasts to put them back on the deck.

A quick scan of Myra’s guy with Pefbar cleared up the mystery and she bit back a curse.

“Cyborgs. The stuns won’t keep them out and my Fornax completely missed. Disarm them and shove them in a corner for now.”

“Use one of their ships,” John suggested, and Myra nodded. The other Archon took charge of the collection effort while Myra worked on her guy, trying to see how much information she could pull from the biological parts of its mind, but there was little here at all. In fact, its mind was almost entirely made up of computerized components.

“Damn,” she whispered. This guy wasn’t really a guy anymore, maybe had never been. She wasn’t sure if she was looking at a highly modified person or a biologically augmented robot. Was this the crew or a defense for the real crew? She needed answers, but didn’t have the time to go wandering around the big ship looking for them on backup oxygen.

“Myra, these guys…”

“I know. Keep them contained for now. I’m going to have to do some exploring to figure this out.”

“Second dropship?”

“Have to. I can’t hold my breath that long.”

“We can start making mapping runs on backups.”

“I want to know if this is the crew or not.”

“Drones?” John asked.

“I honestly can’t tell. What do you make of them?”

“Weird.”

“Gee, that helps loads.”

“If we can’t keep them stunned we’re going to have to babysit.”

“I know,” she groaned. “Just standby.”

“Mind if I go sploring?” Tia asked.

“Go ahead, but don’t rely on your Hanme.”

“Can’t. He hasn’t given it to me yet,” she said, but added before Myra could nix her scouting, “I’ll keep a 1 minute cushion, promise.”

“John?”

“I’ll keep her on a leash.”

“Ok, see what you can find,” Myra said, switching comms. “Captain, we’ve got a situation here. Methane atmosphere and stun resistant cyborgs. I need oxygen packs sent over immediately…and probably should throw in some physical binders while you’re at it. A lot of them. These guys are flexible as hell.”

“Do you need backup?”

“No, they’re cupcakes too. The oxygen is the only thing holding us up.”

“On its way. The pirates aren’t responding to comms and are running for the asteroids hoping to lose us. How long do you want me to pursue?”

“Just get them out of planetary orbit. If they’re dumb enough to stick around we’ll deal with them later, but I don’t want them getting even the slightest chance of reinforcing the planet, so keep them at extreme range.”

“We have two crippled ships, not counting the one you’re in.”

“How bad?”

“Big holes in both. Loss of atmosphere.”

“Set up a dropship with the atmospheric content I’m sending you then get a search party over there. I doubt you’ll find anything, but try anyway. Send some techs too and tell them to grab anything of interest, hardware or software.”

“Cyborg means your telepathy won’t work?” the Captain asked.

“It should partially, but these guys don’t have much brain left. If you find some corpses, bring them back for study too.”

“None where you’re at?”

“We started off playing nice, so no, none yet.”

“Understood. I’ll take care of it. Oxygen should be there within 25 minutes.”

“Copy that,” Myra said, cutting the comm and examining her scarecrow again as it woke. She held it in place telekinetically and looked into its creepy red eyes, trying to glean some information about it using her range of psionics. Though if she didn’t know better, it might have been designed to prevent that very thing.

2

When the second dropship arrived Myra and the others got the additional oxygen tanks loaded onto their armor underneath their weapons racks and began clearing out the ship. Stun weapons were used since these guys were such pushovers, but they had to be tied up at the hands, ankles, and shoulders around the arms to keep them from working their way out. Their bodies were so pliable that they could squeeze out of traditional restraints, so multiple ones were used with a few babysitters to go around and reapply them whenever one got its hands or feet free.

None of them spoke, which was beyond odd. They literally felt like zombies, especially when viewing them with psionics. It wasn’t until Myra got halfway through the jumpship that she finally sensed a whole mind…actually, a cluster of whole minds confined to one area of the ship. She detached herself from the methodical sweeping teams and fought her way there, having to do little more than run past the scarecrows and telekinetically yank the weapons out of their hands…at which point one of them smashed its hand together to form a knife-like blade that bounced off her armor’s shields when she let it hit.

She put a hand in its face and shoved it back into a wall, then kept moving on following the mental signatures she was detecting. There were so many scarecrows onboard it felt like too much, especially considering that there was supposed to be pirates down on the surface having come from the ship, and the closer she got to the full minds the more the odd aliens got in her way to try and block her path.

Myra disarmed them easily, though the sheer number of weapons they were bringing to bear could have whittled her shields away with time. They weren’t not dangerous, but Star Force tech had come so far it almost made it seem so when going up against lachars and similar tech. Had she not been so equipped though, these guys would have been incredibly terrifying.

She bowled over the last cluster with a Jumat blast then forced open the doors they were protecting. Once inside there were no more scarecrows, only empty corridors, but she could sense people moving around and staying away from her. A quick check of their minds at this closer range confirmed that they were scared and hiding. Too bad for them that they couldn’t do that with an Archon onboard.

Myra went to the closest ones and found a group of 3 holed up in a small room behind a locked door. Her Pefbar told here they were waiting there with their own weapons drawn, probably because of the sounds of the scarecrows still shooting at her. She knocked down a few more and stunned them to keep them quiet for a little bit, then punched through the flimsy door in front of her. Her armored hand took a few shots as it curled down then pulled, crumpling and yanking the entire door off its hinges.

She tossed it into more scarecrows coming at her as she used a Fornax blast to disable the three rhino-like bipeds before her. Two of them dropped their weapons in the process and she yanked the third clear. Doing a quick mental search for a familiar language, she held them in place telekinetically until one of them finally spoke in words she couldn’t understand…then the other two started jabbering, with what she translated to be a variety of insults and swearing based on their mental states.

With a thought she knocked all three unconscious, then turned around and shot a few more scarecrows.

“I’ve found a second set of crew. These are not cyborgs and are napping nicely. I need a retrieval team over here and techs as soon as possible to pull language files. Hopefully these guys know something we’re familiar with.”

“Are they just as ugly?” Tia asked over the comm.

“Not that bad, but they’re mean sons of bitches. We need to get them wrapped up and get down to the planet.”

“And the scarecrows?”

“When the techs get here have them rebuild a room as a pen and just shove them in.”

“They’ve got knife hands too.”

“So I saw. Unless they can cut through walls I don’t think we need to do more than that.”

“We’ll get it done. How many other guys are there?”

“Still bagging. I’ll let you know,” Myra said, knocking a few more scarecrows down as she left the three sleepers where they lay and headed for the next closest group.

Myra didn’t wait long for the techs to get to work. As soon as the ship was secure she left with most of the assault team and headed straight down to the planet along with another two dropships worth of combat personnel. Each was headed for a different location the pirates had landed in, knowing that the longer they delayed the more damage these guys were going to do. Orders were given to shoot to kill anyone caught misbehaving and to capture all others, but when her dropship came over a pirate landing site she saw that the situation wasn’t going to be one for stunners.

There was a long trail of dead Vittis and signs of scarecrows roaming the streets in packs while Myra caught sight of one of the rhinos leading another. More were carrying bounty back to their grounded ships, though one had seen them incoming and was taking off in a hurry.

“Fly close to that one,” she ordered the pilot from the cockpit as she watched the vid screens along with him. “We’re taking it down.”

“With what?” he asked. “Or do you want me to ram it?”

“I’ll disable the pilot, just get me close.”

“If you say so,” he said, altering their descent to chase after it, which wasn’t hard considering the superior engine power the Star Force dropship had. When they got within half a mile the enemy ship suddenly stopped accelerating and took a nose dive towards the buildings below…then leveled off and began to circle around.

“Got him,” Myra confirmed. “Flank them back to the drop zone and get me a little closer. This is hard enough with new minds, let alone the range.”

“Impressive, Archon. Very impressive.”

She didn’t respond, focusing on her tenuous link to the pilot and keeping his compatriots from interfering with him. When the ship eventually returned to its original landing zone she ordered the Commandos with her over to it while she walked behind them maintaining her suppressive link until they broke in and secured the ship. When they reached the cockpit she rendered the crew there unconscious then ordered them to be taken prisoner while she turned away from the ship and headed off into the city in search of bad guys to kill.

There was gore everywhere, and this location on the planet hadn’t seen reaver activity yet, meaning the pirates had done all this. Bodies were strewn about along with trashed equipment and buildings. It looked like these guys weren’t just here to pillage the natives…they were having fun with it too, and the death screams of several more people registered to Myra’s senses when she extended them out as far as possible. That told her where to go and the Archon took off running at insane speed without bothering to get backup.

The first scarecrow she crossed got blasted in its chest, burning a hole clear through, but it didn’t drop to the ground. Rather it turned around and tried to lift its weapon towards her, but its arm didn’t have enough strength and it could only get it halfway up. A second shot to its head killed it as Myra ran into the group it was with and tore them to bits with a series of pointblank shots and physical blows. Flexible as they were, they did not have much structural integrity and she found out quickly that their heads were the weak spots. A good punch there would crush their mechanical brains and knock them out quickly, whereas hits elsewhere would damage or stretch them, but otherwise keep them alive and fighting.

Myra didn’t linger with this group, dispatching them as quickly as possible so they couldn’t kill anyone else, then she headed straight for where the death screams had been coming from. She fought through two more roaming groups of scarecrows before she got to them, then came head on into a plaza with over a hundred of the things and several rhinos that had taken a bunch of Vittis prisoner…and were ripping off limbs one by one in some sort of sick game.

With her ire flaring, Myra sprinted towards them and shot the one that had a Vitti in its grasp directly in the head. The armless Vitti dropped to the ground bleeding heavily as the scarecrows all turned on her and fired, but they weren’t going to stop her. She went straight for the other rhinos and killed each of them quickly and efficiently…even the pair that dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. After what they’d done, she wasn’t going to accept one.

Once the leaders were killed she dealt with the scarecrows, having to work fairly hard to headshot them, otherwise it’d take 10 or more plasma blasts to kill one and she didn’t intend to leave any of them to suffer like the Vitti were.

Tossing her weapon aside, she knelt next to the armless Vitti as it was still screaming and numbed out its pain with a quick mental link, then she detached her right glove so that her hand was shown bare to the air. Reaching down she touched the Vitti and used her Haemra to try and save the little guy, difficult as that was on unfamiliar races. The other Vittis that had been captured and were waiting to be torn apart had scattered when she took out the scarecrows, but some were tentatively creeping back in towards her. They didn’t want to leave the wounded one behind and some of them were trying to pick up the huge scarecrow weapons and aim them at her.

“I am not your enemy,” she said, using the translation program developed from the scout’s reconnaissance intel. “I am trying to save this one.”

The little fuzz balls twitched with their blue noses sniffing like a rabbit, but they didn’t drop their weapons. Myra ignored them, focusing her full efforts on stopping the bleeding and saving this one’s life, even though it had had one of its four legs pulled completely off and that had dislodged other bones inside its now mangled body. She was trying to push it back together using her Pefbar/Lachka then heal it enough to hold together on its own with her Haemra, all the while keeping the little guy numbed up so he wouldn’t feel what she was doing to him…and what had been done to him.

On top of that he was in shock and she had a city with more pirates to kill, but she wasn’t going to abandon this guy. That might mean others died when she could have saved them by getting there faster, and she hated that, but leaving this one to die when she was already here was just wrong, so she was going to do what she could.

“Captain, get a dropship with medical personnel down here now. We’ve got a mess of Vittis that need assistance.”

“To your present location?”

“Might as well start here.”

“Dispatching now.”

Myra continued to work on the little guy, ignoring the body parts lying around her from those that were already dead. She wasn’t going to let this guy join them, but she knew if she let go of him he’d slip away. The Archon was having to take control of so much of his bodily functions that he couldn’t sustain himself. Not yet, anyway. And the lack of blood in his body was hampering efforts considerably.

“Ah hell,” she said, telekinetically removing her other glove and dipping her fingertips into a pool of blood on the ground. She used a gross application of Haemra she’d learned a while back and pulled the blood cells up onto her hand and held them there, forming a sphere that she then moved over and held against the Vitti. With the physical contact made she was able to force them into his body, hoping that it was his blood and not someone else’s, but right now she had to take the chance for he had too little left in him and not enough time for her to advance his natural production rate.

“Archon,” a voice from behind her said sometime later and she blinked with surprise as a medtech suddenly blossomed into mental view. She’d been so consumed with saving the Vitti that she hadn’t even noticed him arrive.

“This one is barely hanging on,” she said, not letting go. “Limb ripped off and additional structural damage. I’ve patched what I could. Massive blood loss.”

“I still don’t know how you do that,” he said, kneeling beside the Vitti with a briefcase-like box of equipment, “but keep it up another minute.”

“No problem,” she said as he scanned the new race, but thanks to the basic notes they already had he was able to adjust the equipment accordingly and attached four wire-like extensions in through the excessive fur to the skin. When he pressed a button Myra could see tiny tendrils enter the body and begin to take hold, pulling bones back together and starting to make other repairs.

“You can release now. This one is messed up, but this should stabilize him until we can get a full regenerator down here.”

Myra let go her contact, but didn’t move off. “Are you sure?”

The medtech checked his reading thoroughly, then nodded. “Yes. He’s stabilizing.”

The Archon stood up, looking around at the gore and the living Vittis that were watching, then altered her armor speaker to their language translation again.

“We are Star Force and we have come to help you fight the reavers. We will also deal with these pirates. You have nothing to fear from us, and this one,” she said, pointing at the Vitti, “will live. Stay away from the pirates and tell us where they are if you can, but leave their deaths to me.”

On that word she took off running again, pulling her plasma rifle into her grip telekinetically as she moved off and began a rampage across the city, hunting down every pirate she could find and killing them all. The ones already prisoner she’d spare, but these down here were getting no mercy. They weren’t going to be tortured like they’d done to the Vittis, but they were going to die. Quick and clean, but dead and gone. She likewise sent out orders to the other two teams and the rest of her Commandos here.

They had to die, even if they tried to surrender, for there was no way she was going to let them get away with this one day then throw down their weapons and pretend to be helpless the next. They came here as raiders and barbarians and that was the role they were stuck with. There was no changing with the wind, and for all the Vittis that had been tortured and killed in previous days there would be quick vengeance enacted and no survivors from the raiding teams.

The same would hold true in the following days as the other pirates were tracked down across the planet. Those trying to flee back into orbit were shot down by naval drones and the few pilots that had been taken captive before Myra’s rampage began were shuttled back up to the jumpship and dumped inside with the rest of the captives, who were subsequently free of their restraints, rhinos and scarecrows alike, and given a simple order when enough of their language had been translated to handle a few words, with Myra adding a telepathic emphasis to make sure there was no misunderstanding.

Leave now. Never return. Or die.

She added an image of the planet rotating beneath them, and that they had until one completion to get out of her gun sights. If they were still in planetary orbit after that they’d be hunted down and destroyed. If they were in the asteroids they’d be given a head start to get to the star, but Myra made it clear that they were now enemies and if they came across them again they’d be killed on the spot.

The pirates were left onboard their ship for a few hours, then it finally got moving. Myra was already down on the planet again by then, leaving those bastards for her Captain to deal with as she met with the Vittis and had a long talk, explaining why they were here, what had just happened, and that it would never happen again because Star Force was making this planet a ward, meaning they were now responsible for its security and the Vittis had just become part of their empire.

That took some explaining, for it sounded like they were being conquered, but Myra was able to convince them that it was in fact a rescue and not an occupation or exploitation. Besides which, without their help the Vittis were going to all die to the reavers anyway, so there wasn’t much opposition to her arrival…especially when she went directly to one of the reaver combat zones and displayed just what it meant to have an Archon on your side.

After that point the Vitties threw their full support behind their new help even as the reavers continued to gain more territory across the planet, for the Archon could only be in one place at one time, but as she and the other combat teams began to spread out and help slow the bleeding of territory a bit the other ship she’d brought with her into the system slowly descended down through the atmosphere and landed in one of the remaining safe zones on the planet…at least until the reavers eventually fought their way in that far.

It landed in a small valley as the local Vitties pulled back from the few homes in that area to give the cruiser the space it needed in the crowded landscape that was becoming even more so as evacuees from other areas were being compressed into a smaller and smaller landmass. Meanwhile the reaver swarms were growing to such a large size that their own population was becoming totally unsustainable, but it wouldn’t matter to the Vittis because they’d be long dead by the time the planet’s food supply ran out.

Long dead unless they got help, and as soon as the cruiser set down a long stream of blue lizards came out and immediately started setting up equipment and digging down into the soil and bedrock below, establishing the first bits of Paladin infrastructure that, if given a chance, would fight swarm with swarm for control of the planet.

3

November 8, 3493

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

Paladin Skirmisher ARV-119 woke to the world violently, tasting the air for the first time and lashing back at it until his genetic memories awoke and he saw where he was…standing in a Paladin facility with other blue skinned lizards surrounding him. He calmed quickly, hacking out some biogel from his nostrils and fully coming awake. He knew he’d just been grown, but he wasn’t an invalid. He knew a great many things by default and when his fellow Paladin led him off into a nearby chamber he knew that it was for calibration purposes.

He underwent many tests and trials, confirming that he’d been grown correctly and that he was worthy to be put into immediate duty. 119 didn’t know the details of his current situation until he was released from the process known as ‘verification,’ but shortly thereafter he was given an automated briefing via hologram where he was informed of the planet Plataro and the threat to the local population of Vittis by the reavers. Clan Star Fox was annexing this world in an attempt to save the Vittis but had very few resources to devote to the effort.

119 had been grown as part of a Paladin mission and his skills were needed immediately, as was appropriate given that he’d been genetically designed for such tasks. He knew he wasn’t on par with most in Star Force, but whereas they took years to develop in a maturia he could be operational within a few days. This was what he existed for, and the Archons that had summoned his existence were truly in need of Paladin support on this world. There were only three of them and a single Warship-class jumpship in addition to the Paladin cruiser that had grounded on the planet and begun the seeding process, turning it into a fort to protect the structures being built that would spur the upcoming population snowball for the Paladin.

But 119 was the 119th grown for this mission and done so before a proper hatchery could be built, hence he’d originated from the cruiser itself and the few growth pods it contained. His equipment likewise came from the stores on the ship and he was informed that he would be needed for guard duty while the workers continued setting up shop.

When cleared through verification his handlers disappeared and he was given full run of the ship and surrounding areas without oversight. He reported to the armory and claimed a suit of skirmisher armor from the racks of those premade before landing. All were exactly the same size so it didn’t matter which he chose, for all of the skirmishers were identical as well. When he slid the boots onto his clawed feet they fit perfectly, as did the other pieces he assembled into the formidable protection that would make him almost invulnerable to the reavers’ claws and teeth.

The foe they were facing was primitive, but strong and feral. Against Star Force technology they had zero chance, but there was a planet full of Vittis that were not well equipped to fight them. They were small biped/quadruped hybrids that had some combat technology, but no armor or shields for their personnel. When fighting against the reavers they had a range advantage with their weapons, but that was it. If the reavers closed to melee range they were as good as dead.

Reports indicated that there were none in this region of the planet yet and that the Paladin had been designated this landing zone for specifically that reason. The Archon in charge, a titan no less, wanted maximum snowball effect and that meant not landing in a war zone and fighting their way to dominance. 119 regretted that, but he was loyal to the mission and looking forward to doing even the smallest of duties for his Clan…given the fact that he had technically never done anything before, despite the fact he had the memories of how to carry out many tasks.

With his armor on he kept the helmet retracted behind his scaly head and grabbed his weaponry…all of it lethal. There would be no capture of the reavers, only slaughter. That was atypical of Star Force protocol, but after getting the full briefing on what the reavers actually were he understood the reasoning. This race was not a thinking race and the hive mind element would actively interfere with efforts to turn an individual away from the others. Star Force had done such things before, even with his own ancestors in the Li’vorkrachnika, but there was only so much you could do with the unintelligent, and since the reavers were actively killing and eating every Vitti in sight they didn’t have the luxury of taking a few captive and trying to teach them to play nice.

Even now more Vittis were dying on the front lines, but 119 had been assigned patrol duty and that was where he would go, eventually leaving the ship with two plasma weapons and a collapsible sammy sniper rifle tucked into the back of his armor. When he left the ship for the first time he got a taste of the warm atmosphere and the scent of the Vittis that surrounded the area.

There were many buildings in view, but they were small and a good ways back from the cruiser and the surrounding construction sites. 119 made his way around those and out beyond them to the area where the Vittis were, many of whom were watching the Paladin. He tried to disappear into what trees there were, but numerous eyes followed him as he began walking a path on his battlemap that ringed the ship and expansions. It was a thick line that he was to stay within and monitor, with him being given a slice of it to prowl within and stay on guard. If the reavers did slip through somehow, he had to warn the others and be the first to fire upon them.

Taking that into consideration, he didn’t actually think he’d see any reavers on his first day. This was a Vitti stronghold, or at least as much of that word that could apply to the pathetic creatures, and many had sought refuge here. They were overcrowded and had limited foodstuffs, which the Paladin were also going to address. The patrol zone would be gradually expanded and the Vittis pushed back when needed, with 119 being one of the buffers between the two.

As he patrolled his area he spotted others like him nearby, some overlapping his zone while a few more were actively roaming through the construction sites. Nothing was being taken for granted here and he knew how important getting the first structures up and running was. Right now some of those were going underground and a huge mound of rock and dirt was being formed on the surface as tunnels were being established that would link directly to the cruiser, and he could see another skirmisher on top of that pile from time to time using it as a lookout post.

The workers they were guarding were almost identical to 119, save for they were built less for speed than they were for strength. Both variants had been developed from the Li’vorkrachnika ‘standard’ variants, but 119 had been specialized for light combat and scouting tasks. He was small, quick, agile, and smart while the workers were small, strong, and diligent, able to repeat mundane tasks over and over again while also being savvy enough to handle delicate machinery and troubleshoot technical problems.

They looked the same, but their claws were shaped differently and their tattoos emblazoned on their heads indicated their class within the Paladin. 119 had a dot with a circle around it, symbolizing both a target and a zone in which to patrol, while the workers had a series of squares clustered together representing cargo that varied a bit based on their specialties. Those that had attended to him when he woke were of similar form but had a circle with two bars crossing over each other inside, representing the overlap of their class with the others, for they were medics, and that trio made up their third of the Paladin Triad.

Combat, general work, and medical duties are what they were designed for and had the genetic memories to match, but 119 knew that if he survived this mission he’d be able to choose another path for himself if he wished, though he couldn’t imagine why he would want that. He had a role here and tasks that needed to be done, and he couldn’t ever imagine leaving the Paladin. He was Paladin, and to abandon them at any point would be the equivalent of treason.

Such things were permissible though and the Archons made sure to give them the option, but no real Paladin would ever make that choice. 119 and the others thought it was just a way to weed out any defective ones, and so much the better, but it was a path that he would never consider taking.

Day after day he would patrol the corridor around the construction zone and keep the Vittis back. He never shot at them, but usually his mere presence served as a deterrent. The few times he actually had to confront one, with his armor handling the translation, the Vittis didn’t give him any trouble. They were curious and that was fine, so long as they kept their distance. The Paladin were here to save them, after all, but they could only do that if they were allowed to build at maximum efficiency, and that meant uninterrupted work.

So even though the reavers weren’t here yet, 119 still had important work to do to make sure the workers were not interfered with in the slightest. And as the days passed and more and more Paladin were grown and added to the ranks, exterior missions began to occur with an Arbiter claiming him for one.

119 was eager to take on higher tasks, so when he reported to a small hangar that had been built outside the ship he and 9 other skirmishers joined a veteran of their class who had come to this planet via the cruiser and not been grown here. That established him as an ‘Arbiter’ and senior in command, for he had experience that they did not, but if they survived here and were reassigned elsewhere then they would become Arbiters one day, with that brand being one of great respect. If a Paladin failed they would most likely end up dead, so anyone living to become an Arbiter meant they had been victorious in some fashion, even if it was surviving a defeat and living to fight another day.

119 would die if necessary to achieve his assigned mission, but his genetic memories hammered into him the priority not to die uselessly. His value came from his life, not his death, and all things being equal it was better to run from a hopeless fight in order to regroup and defeat the enemy later than it was to stubbornly hold your ground and die accomplishing little. Survival was imperative, especially in a mission like this where the Paladin would be heavily outnumbered. He had to stay alive in order to kill more reavers, and both he and every other newly grown skirmisher understood that.

In the hangar there were three Droplet-class transports, the Paladin version of Star Force dropships but constructed in their own unique way. Two looked to be operational while the third was finishing construction with a group of workers busily clawing their way across it as they clung to walls and walked across the hull with bare feet and hands that had been modified to grip even flat surfaces. It was a variation that 119 did not possess and was unique to the workers, though inside his armor it would have been of no use anyway.

He and the other 10 skirmishers boarded the droplet where a pilot was waiting. He was of the 2nd branch in the Triad and represented a class that was not grown initially. Skirmishers, workers, and medics were the standard allotment when any new colony was constructed and all could operate basic machinery, including flying cargo craft that the workers had some extra memories to help them with, but the pilot variants were specialists in flying all types of craft and were the ones that would be entrusted with combat missions whether it be taking droplets in convoy through hazardous areas, flying the Paladin’s Shuriken-class aerial fighters, or piloting naval warships.

The pilots were much smaller in body than the 1st Triad form, being physically weak but with superior dexterity and information processing capability, bearing a simple tri-pronged genetic tattoo representing a fast ship. They were modified from the Li’vorkrachnika’s librarian variant along with the rest of the 2nd Triad, and this one’s presence here meant this Paladin mission was progressing far faster than normal for them to have grown one already.

With the single pilot in the cockpit and 119 and the other skirmishers seated on wall benches in the back, the droplet’s hatch sealed and the took off, flying across miles of Vitti territory with hundreds of thousands of the little furballs packed into the landscape beneath them.

“Our mission,” the Arbiter said once they’d gotten underway, “is to support a Vitti withdrawal. We search and destroy reavers attempting to isolate and kill them. We do not fully engage the reavers. Be warned, their strength comes in their mass. They can jump onto you and use their momentum to drain your shields. If you have your shields locked to form to preserve power they will knock you over and pile on top, and eventually their claws will get through your armor. These reavers are designed to be weapons. I don’t know they developed like that naturally, but think of them in that way. The claws are not natural. They are armor piercing and will grind yours down if you give them time and opportunity.”

“Have you already engaged them?” another skirmisher asked.

“I have twice now. We can dominate them if we are smart. If we get sloppy or overconfident they will kill us, which is why we cannot go deep into their lines on this mission. We have no support. We are the Vittis’ support. We only engage to give them cover. The number of reavers killed is a bonus, not the mission objective.”

After that brief explanation there were no further talking, as was typical for Paladin. 119 knew that even though he’d only been around a handful of them. They were loyal to the mission and anything other than that didn’t draw their interest. Some would swap stories, he knew, but all those here aside from the Arbiter didn’t have enough experience to share, thus they waited silently as the droplet carried them a long distance across the planet to their target.

119’s anticipation grew as they decelerated and came into a hover near the ground. When the hatch opened and the sounds of weaponsfire and explosions made it to his ears he clenched in fingers.

This was it. This was real combat, what he was designed and grown for. And whether he lived through the day or died here two minutes from now, this is where he belonged…on the front lines fighting to protect those who could not protect themselves and destroying those that deserved it.

He leapt off the droplet and fell half a meter to the ground, catching himself in a partial crouch and staying on his feet as he and the others followed the Arbiter forward at a run headed through the screaming Vittis that were being loaded onto evacuation transports and towards their military branch that was buying them the time to do it with their lives.

119 and the other Paladin would buy them a little bit more, but he had no intention of dying here this day. Armed with Star Force armor, weapons, and genetic memory, he was more than a match for the reavers that he was about to come face to face with for the very first time.

4

May 1, 3494

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

ARV-1388 rushed out of the barracks in which he’d been sleeping for the past 6 hours. It was night and he was on his off shift, but an emergency alarm had ended that. Neither he nor the other Paladin wore clothing unless needed, much like the Vittis on this planet, but when he got to the prep room he pulled on a thin, flexible suit of armor and grabbed his helmet, carrying it with him as he ran through the recently constructed pilot’s complex to the open air hanger in the center of it.

There he found several shurikens that were not in use and claimed one for himself, crawling up the imbedded ladder in the side of the stubby body of the aerial craft and into the topside cockpit. He dropped down inside and pressed a few buttons, powering it up and sealing the hatch over his head, leaving him with no visibility whatsoever.

That changed a moment later when the navigational holograms sprung to life and the cockpit walls disappeared. He knew this was a Type-2 Paladin shuriken, second class to the standard Type-1s built on worlds where resources were abundant. They had a full neural integration system that let you fly the craft with your mind, but the Type-2s were like the rest of the equipment being made here in recent months. All of it was designed to function adequately, but to be made out of only a handful of easy to obtain materials. No solari, no intricate alloys, not even any corovon. The anti-grav engines were inferior, but they functioned well enough compared to lesser empires’ tech and could be built on planets where there was no corovon to harvest.

Everything Type-2 was a secondary design patterned off the regular Type-1s, but done so in a way as to be produced quickly and rapidly in the field. They were inferior in comparison but not in function, and 1388 had already flown four missions in one after his recent growth, so he knew from experience as well as his genetic memory that the fighters were sound.

He gripped the standard control in front of him and flipped a switch on the bottom of the right joystick that made them and his hands disappear, allowing him to see through them and the floor, making it look like he was in an invisible ship save for the wireframe borders that told him where the four stubby wings were. Two in front, two in back, and angled away from the hull so they gave it a crooked star shape when seen from above or below…but from the sides it was very narrow, almost blade-like, making it hard for an opponent to target you if you were focused on him. Even the shields were stronger along the edge, making the safest place to be in a fight was on the attack with your edge towards your enemies.

1388 lifted off with his battlemap telemetry coming through his helmet’s HUD. There was a setting that allowed him to pull it from the shuriken itself, but he preferred the ‘invisible’ flight mode because it let him see everything beside and in front of him…and even over his shoulder if he bothered to turn around, but from the outside the craft was just solid armor plating with the cockpit hatch blending in seamlessly with the hull.

He saw a few other shurikens launching as well, but his orders coming through told him to get moving immediately and not wait on anyone. To that end he spun his forward blades around onto the guide line on his HUD and accelerated as hard as the gravity drives could, slicing through the wind and dodging a passing Vitti transport as he headed for the site of an unexpected reaver incursion. He read through the reports as he flew, seeing that they’d come up through an unknown subterranean tunnel and were pouring out behind defense lines...well behind defensive lines, in the range of some 241 miles.

Updated telemetry was incoming as a naval drone was diving into the atmosphere like a glowing rock and adding its powerful sensors to the task of identifying where that tunnel had come from. It was going to be on site before 1388 was, but it looked like even it wasn’t going to be enough to stem the tide of what was coming up and out of that tunnel that amazingly seemed to disappear beneath the depth range of the sensors.

How could the primitive reavers dig that deep? He might have just been born recently, but how did they get so far behind the defense lines without the Archons knowing it was coming? And how could the ship not see far enough underground to trace the tunnel back to its source?

Something was definitely wrong here, but his mission was clear.

Get on site and shoot as many of the reavers as he could.

As expected, the drone got there first and began throwing down a horrendous amount of firepower onto the tunnel exit, obliterating it and everything nearby, but there were so many reavers already on the surface and spreading out that it couldn’t stop them. In order to try and contain the damage, 1388 swung to the left and went after those furthest out from the epicenter, dropping down low to the ground as he raced forward, then bringing the shuriken into a drifting hover as he opened up with his heavy lachars.

A Type-1 would have had maulers, but the heavy lachars did more than adequate damage here, allowing him to vaporize chunks of the reavers’ bodies on contact, maiming or killing them with single hits. They weren’t big to begin with, but they moved very fast and in erratic patterns, juking side to side even when there was no one targeting them, but by setting his weapons to shotgun mode he was able to deliver a cone of damage rather than a narrow beam.

That cone sent out numerous smaller beams, and 1388 could usually land a hit with each trigger pull. He’d found that it was quicker to wound a group with the shotgun mode, then switch over to standard to finish them off when their agility was diminished, but there were so many here now it almost didn’t matter. The few he was plucking off the perimeter were inconsequential to how many more were loose and fanning out in all directions, killing whatever Vittis they came across.

1388 saw several of the equally fast white furballs running from three reavers and angled towards them, stitching the ground between them with lachar strikes and causing the reavers to flinch, then the Paladin brought his fighter to a halt midair and flipped his two blade-like nose wings down and pummeled the reavers from pointblank range with as wide a shotgun mode as he could, firing over and over again until the Vitti group was clear and their immediate pursuit was torn up into little gooey chunks.

Then as more reavers ran underneath and around his ship, trying to get after the escaping Vittis, he started to take impacts on his shields. 1388 didn’t know what to make of it at first, for it was doing no damage, but he did see different reavers beneath him. They were about the same size as the normal ones, but these had different body parts and seemed to be spitting something into the air at his ship.

Knowing that the shuriken was recording everything that happened, he didn’t worry about it and knew there were analysts that would later. Right now though his mission was to kill, not study, so he kept his nose pointing down and got a little more altitude, backing up into the sky and launching a tiny missile down into the group that was collecting and firing up on him together. The warhead detonated and killed several hundred while knocking down others along the perimeter that quickly got back to their feet and scurried on looking for more targets or just a way to escape the aerial destruction that was imperviously coming down and out of their clawing range.

Back in the grounded cruiser at the center of the growing Paladin base an Oracle sat in a pod-like station monitoring the feeds coming from the ships in the field. His body looked exactly the same as that of the pilots, save for the bar within circle tattoo that marked him as an analyst and controller. When the new variant of reaver showed up on the fighters’ sensors the Oracle immediately began collecting data on them, noting that they had a ranged weapon of unknown make that was reaching the shuriken in the air but not damaging them.

Or at least not damaging the shields. The sensor packages on the Type-2s weren’t great, but he should still be able to pull some information from the shield impacts. Digging into the mass of data being transmitter through the battlemap, he got live feeds from the fighters and a partial analysis of the gel-like substance hitting the shields. More than telling him what it was, the Oracle was able to rule out certain possibilities, and coupled with the sight of the gel dropping onto the ground and its interaction there, literally dissolving whatever it touched, he speculated that the weapon was some type of acid.

He knew that would be devastating to a lot of the Vitti defense lines that had been built to repel melee combat, so he marked his analysis as ‘speculative’ and shot it off through the network to all those who needed to know, then began pulling up additional images of the new reavers and started cataloging their proportions, perceived weaknesses and strengths, and basically writing the book on the new enemy…all within minutes of making first contact with them.

In the nearby hatchery, situated mostly underground and growing fast with new construction, an Arbiter worker received a message from their commander onboard the cruiser, citing the need to start producing the more advanced Dragoons. They were part of the 3rd Triad and usually reserved until later, spamming skirmishers at first to get their numbers up, but an addendum to the message added that a new version of reaver had shown up and that a counter must be produced.

That wasn’t good news, but the Arbiter wouldn’t be fighting them himself unless things went horribly wrong and the reavers made it all the way here. His job was to produce the necessary reinforcements given the materials supplied to him and the biogel needed to grow them wasn’t easy to make, but the collection teams were feeding him enough raw materials to allow him to be birthing a decent amount of new Paladin on a regular basis. He’d have to delay scheduled allotments to work the larger dragoons in, and he wouldn’t be able to grow as many because they were patterned off the old school masterminds and had significantly more muscle mass…which was necessary to carry around their specialized weaponry.

The Arbiter put in an order for 3rd Triad growth pods to be assembled and stocked as soon as possible, which he expected would come online within 2 days. At that point the closely guarded genetic material would be inserted and the new Paladin would begin their rapid growth, reaching maturity in 42 days for the dragoons. 1st Triad took 26 days and 2nd took only 18, which was another reason why 3rd Triad wasn’t usually rushed in the beginning of a seeding mission like this, but you had to adapt to the current situation and the bigger guys were now needed. The Arbiter just hoped there was enough time to get them grown and the necessary weapons produced for them…and that whoever needed them now could hang on long enough for them to get to them.

AVN-2712 was rushed to the equipment room as soon as he passed verification. He geared up with four others, putting on their armor and exoskeletal racks as easily as if they’d been doing it for 100 years, though none of them had ever touched one before. In fact none of them had ever done anything before, having gone straight from their growth pods to verification and were now here only hours later. They were as green as green could get, but had the knowledge of veterans and knew exactly what it was they needed to do.

2712 wore heavy armor colored dark blue, which wasn’t as dense as what he normally wore because it was also a Type-2 along with probably everything else the Paladin had on planet so far that they hadn’t brought in with them. That said, the armor was still incredibly strong and had built in energy shielding that could recharge whereas armor couldn’t. Given his 8 foot tall size he could carry a lot of it, but that wouldn’t be necessary with the powered enhancement. He’d wear it, but the armor would carry most of its own weight for him and on top of it wasn’t just a weapons rack, but a full exoskeleton of attachment points that ran down his back, arms, and legs.

It was a full body rack, and onto it he added the weapons that dragoons were known for. His orders were to fill out as a rocket baby and as he glanced around he saw the others were as well. He grabbed three launchers and attached them to various spots, then added boxy ammunition canisters that were extra well protected with both armor and shields of their own. Having one of those detonate on his back would be a very bad thing, even with the armor he wore, and should a dragoon go out like that they were probably going to die, for their rockets were far more powerful than their small size suggested.

The smaller Paladin used them at times, but they couldn’t carry very much. Dragoons were built to be the tanks of the infantry and lived up to that reputation, with 2712’s unit marching out together to board a droplet in an intimidating line. A few dozen new skirmishers joined them and took their seats in the hold, but the dragoons simply stood. With their exoskeletons loaded up they couldn’t sit in the seats anyway.

When the droplet reached their destination point the ramp opened up onto a massive battlefield just behind friendly lines that were under assault. The Vittis had established several fort-like bunkers that they were holding just ahead of a low wall so that when the reavers came they’d surround the bunkers that would diminish their numbers and break up their ranks before they got to the weaker wall…behind which 2712 saw was a huge Vitti settlement. The buildings weren’t tall by Star Force standards, but with the Vitti being so small they could pack a lot of them into a remarkably small space, making their interior levels much shorter than normal and meaning there was an awful lot of people depending upon this line to be held.

The dragoons led the way out and headed straight for the waypoint on the wall, but the skirmishers quickly passed them by and got there first, moving the odd little Vittis aside that were standing on their rear legs and holding small rifles in their front ones. Suddenly targets appeared on their battlemap, but they weren’t the ones already engaged ahead. They were further out in the approaching masses of reavers and out of sight…but that didn’t matter to the rockets.

“Clear the area,” 2712 ordered, with several skirmishers assisting with shooing the Vittis away from the five heavily armed Paladin.

Using battlemap telemetry, 2712 raised his right arm and aimed the tube-like barrel on the necessary trajectory as indicated by his HUD, getting it within tolerance before pulling the trigger that released a flash of glowing red that shot up in a high arc up and over both the wall and the bunkers, sailing far out beyond the swarms of reavers and illuminating them slightly in the nighttime conditions.

There were large torch-like lights set up all around the wall and bunkers, but it was dark further beyond making it hard to see any reavers save those within firing range. Star Force sensors didn’t have that limitation, so the rocket that was the size of a Calavari finger guided itself using the tiny engine inside to track towards a clump of reavers that were not the melee version. Rather they were the acid spitters raining down their little attacks on the front wall of the bunkers and slowly chewing through it, after which the claws of their brethren would be within range of the Vittis when they jumped through the holes created, but if they got much closer they’d be able to arc their acid shots up and over the small defense wall and hit the exposed troops there.

But not the group that this glowing rocket landed on. It knocked one acid spitter to the ground when it hit, then detonated a split second later creating a briefly lived expanding ball of burning red light that ate away at everything within range far faster than the reaver acid would. Even the ground vaporized in places, and that sudden expansion of solid into gas created a hurricane-like pressure wave that shot out from the impact, knocking down all the reavers nearby like dominoes with a few even bouncing off the bunkers.

But the dragoons didn’t just fire one rocket, they launched multiple ones and the sea of reavers suddenly turned into a torrent of air and red flashes, after which the battlemap indicated that the acid spitter groups had been destroyed, for the most part, but there was no guarantee that more reinforcements weren’t coming from the subterranean tunnels that they dug unnaturally fast to avoid air patrols.

There were none here, for this was a lower priority region and more valuable cities were in need of them, both the Paladin shurikens and the Vitti craft. This was to be an infantry war here, and as long as the dragoons had ammunition they were going to keep the reavers to melee combat, to which end the five of them spread out across the wide northern defense line and made like turrets at key points while an army of skirmishers aided the Vittis and mowed down reavers as fast as they could.

5

May 23, 3501

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

AVN-127335 sat on a stool with his large blue tail hanging off the back as he read through reports at a furious rate, flipping from one to another and absorbing the first real knowledge of his life. He’d just come out of verification and was now catching up on the mission for which he’d been created that was already 8 years in. The planet was Plataro and the native race was called the Vitti, whom Star Force had declared a ward and sent three Archons and a small group veteran Star Force personnel in to lead a Paladin seed that was now large enough to begin producing hatchery batches in decent numbers.

Resources were still an issue and they were consuming everything they collected with a ravenous appetite, but he’d finally been grown now that the skills of a master strategist were starting to become needed with the increased number of Paladin involved and a planet full of natives that needed guidance as well. According to his reports, the Archons were spending most of their time on the front lines as combat personnel rather than organizers, so it was no surprise that they’d called for his birth long before typically…

The door to his small transitional chamber opened and a golden clad suit of Archon armor walked in showing considerable battle damage.

“Viceroy,” Myra said, pulling her helmet off as the lizard noted that damage was preventing it from retracting normally.

“Archon,” he responded.

“Your verification came through cleanly, and now I need you to get to work immediately.”

“I am already reviewing battle records,” the 3rd Triad lizard said. His variant was based off the original masterminds but with some considerable alterations that upped their mental power. It was a far cry from Sav, but the Viceroys could think faster and interface with certain computer systems to let them monitor and send orders at a lightning fast rate, as well as do a number of other things that were small upgrades to the previous masterminds, though that term and its Li’vorkrachnika equivalent had been scrapped for the Paladin ranks.

“Good. You know the enemy we face?”

“I am beginning to.”

“There is something wrong with them,” Myra said, leaning against a nearby wall as she talked. “They have a telepathic hive mind, but they are behaving too smart. They are easy to destroy in small numbers and difficult in large groups, but our biggest weakness is not being able to be in the same place at the same time. A mindless hoard wouldn’t know where and when to hit us, but the reavers do. I believe they have a controller somewhere on the planet handling strategy, for there’s just no way these fortuitous hits are random. I need you to look for this influence while you manage the Paladin. I have to devote my time to combat or we’ll lose additional Vittis.”

“What are our causalities?” he asked, not having gotten to those numbers yet.

“4% and falling as we increase our numbers. The reavers are dangerous when they can isolate a target, but we can’t clump together without leaving other areas undefended. I’m responding to incursions constantly, and even then we can’t stop them all. There is a continuous retreat going on and we need to save as many Vittis as we can prior to us forcing the reavers back. We will win this, but our objective is to claim not just the planet but the Vittis as well, so there are no acceptable losses, but there are some that we simply cannot stop from occurring.”

“They do not fight well.”

“They are ill suited for it, though they are trying.”

“Have you noted any offworld influence?”

Myra shook her head. “After we removed the pirates there hasn’t been any visitors or indication of a link between the reavers beyond this planet. They appear to be local but usually stay in select areas, mostly underground, and in much smaller numbers. There are rumors of past surges like this, but I don’t believe they’re accurate. The Vitti were much less numerous and technologically viable in the past and at least some of them survived. Either the previous instances were far less intense or this is something new.”

“What has happened to your armor?” the Viceroy asked, referencing the widespread damage.

“Attrition over the past years. I already used up my other suits.”

“We are not building replacements?”

“Not of this grade, and it is tactically more viable to use this damaged one now than to make use of a replacement.”

“The resources on this planet are not rich enough,” he said, agreeing with her based off the mining reports he’d been rifling through.

“Not enough for full armor, no, and we can’t spend the resources we need to build synthesis facilities yet.”

“How long do you want me to wait?”

“Until the defense lines stabilize. Until then every resource we spend on future production means more Vittis get overrun. We need maximum growth rate for immediate engagement. There is no time to prepare.”

“Which is why you are assigning yourself continuous combat duty.”

“And will continue to do so. You will oversee coordination efforts from here on out. If there’s somewhere you think I or the other Archons need to be, don’t hesitate to make a recommendation.”

“I will maximize your effectiveness,” the Viceroy promised. “Are we getting any incoming convoys?”

“No. This is a totally isolated assignment. Local resources only, no personnel transfers.”

“A worthy challenge in its own right, but we could grow more rapidly even with a small amount of assistance. Why is none available?”

“Looks like you’ve got some more reading to do. We’re stretched thin across the Rim Region and normally this planet is one that we couldn’t help, but with the Paladin’s growth potential it was decided to send a small team and try to save some of them.”

“Are we in danger from exterior involvement?”

“Unlikely, but we can never rule it out. Do not build against that contingency though. Put everything we’ve got against the reavers and towards securing the Vittis. If there is exterior contact we’ll have to improvise and we have one warship here to cover us.”

“How are the reavers surviving against our orbital bombardment?”

“Exclusively through the use of fast carved tunnels.”

“Can’t our weapons reach them?”

“Some go very deep. Too deep to get at quickly. These reavers do not act as native lifeforms. They act like weapons. I want to know why.”

“Curious,” he said, suddenly silent as he thought with Myra taking a peek into his thoughts.

“There are parallels,” she agreed. “But do not let them trap us into fighting on their terms.”

“We are Star Force,” the Viceroy said with a mix of confidence and pride. “We do not fight like the Li’vorkrachnika.”

“We’ve already lost far too many people, and most of those were not due to mistakes. They were overrun holding positions protecting others. I can’t be everywhere at once, so make sure our troops aren’t overwhelmed again.”

“Have we found their origin point yet?”

“Nothing that we can hit to stem the tide. All obvious targets have already been bombarded, but the flow still continues. The rock of this planet limits sensor range enough that their burrow depth exceeds it in places.”

“Places to hide. Very well, we will fight them here for now. If you have further instructions make them. Otherwise do not let me waste your valuable time.”

Myra held up her right arm and balled her fist. “KSA.”

The Viceroy repeated the gesture and touched his larger, scaly blue fist against her armored one.

“KSA,” he repeated, then the Archon put her helmet back on and left, leaving the Viceroy in full command and knowing that he’d take care of everything in her absence…and then some.

6 years later…

Paladin Hastati charged into the tunnel entrance they’d just fought their way up to, backtracking a reaver web tube that had been seen to be suppling far too many reinforcements to be just a simple offshoot. Rather than bomb it out of existence from a drone flyover the Paladin had mounted an attack and pushed their way up to it, with their primary hand to hand troops diving into the seemingly empty tunnels head first.

They crawled down the steep slope on all fours, as their armor was built to accommodate, making and sending a battlemap of the route back to the rest of the forces above ground, expanding upon the orbital scans as they charged down a straight shaft that led to several intersections with branching tunnels. They ignored all but one, following what the scans had told them would lead down below sensor range.

They weren’t alone but they did ignore all reavers that didn’t come attacking them, and there were plenty of those. Not in full attack surge mode, but in the small tunnels you couldn’t fight more than 3 or 4 at once so it didn’t matter aside from ammo reserves and their pace of descent. When the hastati did come face to face with the reavers they used forearm gauntlets on all four limbs to stab and shoot at point blank range.

The blades themselves were energized so that they inflicted cauterized cuts, but they could function without power as well, meaning that the hastati would never be completely unarmed. The weapons worked well enough on the reavers, and with just as many or more hastati coming down the tunnels and piling up on top of each other they quickly killed any opposition that crossed their path.

They continued lower and lower, eventually coming to tunnels that zigzagged back and forth to get more depth, passing below sensor scans and into uncharted territory. They added onto their map with every meter they crossed and kept a signal line all the way back up to the surface with Paladin stationed at intervals to act as transmitters through the rock and dirt.

The Viceroy watched them live from his command center, for this wasn’t an assault mission. Rather it was reconnaissance intended on giving him the information he needed as to what was down there and potentially where the reavers were spawning so many reinforcements. The riddle of their food supply alone had to involve some subterranean supplements, for there simply wasn’t enough on the surface to sustain the numbers they were producing despite the fact that they ate both the Vittis and their own dead.

What was down there? An enclosed ecosystem full of plants or their own version of livestock? Nothing seemed to make sense and it was time to get some answers, risky as this was. Without knowing where the reinforcements were coming from he could be unwittingly sending his hastati into a trap, but knowing their affinity for tunnel fighting he was fairly confident they could fight their way out of it if needed so long as they weren’t flanked, thus he was keeping pockets of troops all the way down the line to act as reserve flankers of this own should any of the comm relay posts report a counterattack against their position.

So far there was nothing but small incidents, but he kept pouring troops down and extending the scouts out a bit around the main tunnel to give their lifeline a bit more width as the lead group continued to push farther and farther underground…so far in fact that heat levels began to rise to uncomfortable levels for those unarmored. The reavers were apparently immune, or at least resistant, to it, for the tunnel walls were not insulated and little more than carved rock with many cracks and vents hissing steam and various liquids out into the confined atmosphere, though it was still breathable despite there being no sign of life support systems to recycle it.

More and more waves of reavers kept arriving in their path and getting mowed down, but no huge surge appeared and the hastati eventually came down to a new tunnel branch after a very long time in one descending tunnel. They split up, sending scouts both ways while the bulk of their forces stayed put and waited for what seemed like a very long time for the Viceroy to give the order.

He was watching all the expansions from the point of view of the hastati’s armor camera when one suddenly exited the tunnel shaft into open air…for that’s what it looked like. He could see a few hundred meters before mist cut out the view and there was nothing solid in sight save for a descending cliff face that was scalable at about a sharp 30 degree angle with lots of little handholds carved into the rock.

A switching of the hastati’s HUD revealed what was inside that fog and the Viceroy’s eyes widened. This was no chamber. This was a pocket geodome miles wide and containing thick vegetation…

No, this couldn’t be right. The vegetation wasn’t random when viewed from the big picture vantage point. There were clusters of various types of plants set into geometric patterns meaning that this was all designed, not naturally occurring.

He gave the order for his troops to move there, securing the entrance and the line back up, then pushing out in force to search the area without getting front heavy.

That last caveat was what saved his hastati when pores on the geodome’s floor opened up and thousands of reavers came crawling out at lightning fast pace. The Paladin fought through an organized retreat despite the fact that it looked like they could win, but the Viceroy knew that there was no way to ascertain their true numbers. They obviously didn’t want them here and that meant there could be a lot more on the way. The hastati had got him some valuable intel, but pushing on now could be unwise. He hated giving up the foothold that he had, but launching a full invasion right now was a gamble that his competitive drive wanted to take, but his Star Force memories told him that letting go one possible win was often the path to setting up many more future ones.

Heeding that advice he ordered them to pull back up the narrow tunnels as fast as possible while sending now more hastati at the same time to thicken the numbers in the side branches in order to push them out to keep the main shaft clear. Not soon after he did that there was no less than three heavy flanking attacks that the hastati stopped cold, though the fighting at those locations was so intense the hastati had to rotate out with fresh troops coming in as their armor and strength was shredded under the power of so many claws and thrashing limbs hitting you minute after minute with no pause or end.

The flanking units held the shaft long enough for the main body to make it back up to them, then they all merged together with the Viceroy watching the local commanders coordinate the withdrawal, ensuring that no tendril of their formation got caught out and ready to intervene if necessary. The few casualties that they had were already being passed back up the line and carried to the surface and the medics waiting there. If their wounds weren’t too severe they would probably survive and be back into fighting shape within a month even if new limbs had to be regrown, but he was getting fatality counts already in some sparse numbers.

The Viceroy growled. Each one lost was a defeat, but it could have been far worse if they’d acted with a bit less caution. Not satisfied with that counterpoint, he pulled up the logs from the medics that were treating the first ones up to identify how his hastati were being killed.

Neck and head wounds…with missing helmets.

The Viceroy frowned momentarily, then his ire spiked as he suspected the cause. He compared additional reports and found an alarming trend. It was rare compared to how many troops were involved, but those dying seemed to have been losing their helmets not due to damage, but to them being removed intact.

There was an external release latch that the hastati could use if the internal retraction mechanisms didn’t function.  If they did they’d pull the helmet back into a lump behind the neck, but if the manual was used it came off entirely.

He had his analysts do some quick checks of camera data stored from all the hastati involved in the attack and they eventually came back with visuals of the reavers intentionally reaching for the latches when they got a hastati on the ground. Not all of them would. Mostly they clawed at their armor doing a little damage with each strike and wearing them down for the others to come, but some were going for the latches. When they were almost randomly successful they would then try and pry the loose helmets off and get to the hastati’s exposed necks.

“Hive mind,” he said with distaste. Someone, probably at random, had hit a latch and they saw that the helmet popped off. Then they or the theoretical controllers saw it and passed that knowledge through the group…and they were hiding the fact by not having all of them go for the same tactic.

That worried the Viceroy more than anything, for it meant the reavers were far more cunning than their sheer brutality suggested. A ravenous horde didn’t do anything more than claw their way forward, but one that utilized tactics in proportional numbers was a foe to respect no matter what their combat ratings were.

As the medical reports started to shift to ‘they will live’ markers a lot of casualties began to fade from the list. Those that were still in danger or not yet untreated glowed active…along with those that had already died, though in Star Force’s case that didn’t mean they were permanently dead. The Paladin had technology that could revive you shortly after damage incurred, and despite their lack of adequate resources some of that regenerator tech was available to them.

The Viceroy saw a few hastati that were marked ‘dead’ switch to ‘active,’ which was a small relief, but not all of them did. Some were too badly damage with the head wounds, though those with only neck damage were recoverable if they could get to them fast enough, and passing the casualties back up the link as soon as they were damaged meant some were saved while others didn’t last to the end of that journey.

Final count after a full retreat was executed came to 78 casualties, meaning dead and injured, with the final deceased count falling to 12. Their loss wasn’t worth the information, for none of his Paladin were expendable, but at least they hadn’t died for nothing. Now the Viceroy had a location and a lot of information for his analysts to digest, but for the moment he linked in with the Clan warship in orbit and arranged for two drones to fly into position over that tunnel site.

At which point they began to unload their beam weaponry on it and did not relent, gradually coring further and further underground through the rock for hours until they finally penetrated through to the geodome…at which point other weaponry was fired down through the very narrow corridor that had been carved out and went to work killing everything that it could touch with splash damage.

Another drone came in that was carrying missiles, which it sent down into the open area beneath at a slow enough velocity that they could arc away from the crater at the bottom of the shaft and turn to target and hit everything around it.

And with the naval rain dripping down the pipe, everything in that geodome was eventually destroyed.

6

February 12, 3518

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

Ten shurikens flew in formation up and over a mountain ridge, coming into view of a huge throng of reavers hundreds of thousands strong. They were appearing out of numerous subterranean exits and flowing like a river across the ground towards a nearby Vitti stronghold at the precise moment when all naval drones were occupied with anti-surface activities elsewhere. The tunnels carved up to the surface were freshly cut minutes ago and the army was skittering across the ground as fast as it could to get to the emplacements before any naval assets could be repositioned.

But the shurikens had gotten here in time and lobbed tiny bloons down onto the reavers, each of which mushroomed out and killed hundreds of them…but there were so many in play it didn’t seem to matter. The Paladin squadron strafed them multiple times until their ammunition was depleted, then they just hovered over them, noses pointed down, and targeted individual reavers with their heavy lachars.

When the fighters stopped moving a mass of acid attacks shot up at them, blanketing their shields in goo that should have done little to affect them, but this time was different. The pilots saw their shield levels drop slowly, but it stacked with additional acid hits on them until the drain was so furious that the squadron had to break off. They flew towards the southern mountain ridge but not all of them made it. The acid penetrated their shields then fell onto the hull, burning into and scarring it on most of them, but a few suffered more damage.

Two of the fighters had actually gotten more than 8 inches of acid built up on the shields, and when that fell onto the shuriken it slowly began to eat through the resistant armor. A few patches from previous battle damage where an explosion had torn gashes into the hull dissolved faster than the regular armor and exposed the innards to it. The pilots were fine inside their internal armored cocoons but the rest of the shuriken was not.

One of the pilots tried to roll and throw the clinging goo off via centrifugal force but the tactic came too late and he still lost power. Both shurikens rammed into the northern-facing mountainside while the others managed to survive thanks to their armor consuming all of the acid and still retaining a bit of protection.

The fighters immediately circled around and confirmed that the pilots were alive, but the reavers had seen them go down and a large tendril of them were diverting and heading their way. It’d take half an hour or more for them to get there, but if they didn’t get the pilots out they’d be sitting ducks. Given enough time the reavers’ sharp claws could chew through the armor, though it looked like the acid splitters were staying with the main group to provide aerial cover.

Two of the fighters went to ground while the other 6 hugged low to the terrain and accelerated towards the reavers again, intent on staying out of range of the acid spitters but shooting some of the approaching melee versions and extending the window of rescue, for the downed pilots were still reporting acid on their craft that had yet to be neutralized.

AVN-449218 landed some 140 meters away from one of the downed shurikens and popped the hatch carefully. He stood up on his pommel seat and looked at his own craft, seeing the acid damage and assuming that little bits of it were still dangerous even if the bulk had completed its chemical reactions and created the ghostly white residue that looked like tiny soap suds or bloated sand. He knew better than to touch it even in his pilot’s armor, but he realized if he jumped out and onto the ground he would have no way of climbing back onboard.

He looked all around the topside of the craft, seeing no areas free of the white residue. The reavers had literally coated the whole thing and he wondered how they didn’t get killed by their own attacks, for every shot that missed had to have fallen on their own troops.

Each acid shot was small, but he’d been hit with so many it was mindboggling. He knew the reavers’ numbers were insane, but this was the first blanketing he’d ever gotten from acid…let alone acid that could weaken shields. He didn’t know if this was a new upgrade or just an accumulation of hits, but the white residue was new. They’d never managed to hit Paladin armor before, but where they hit Vittis’ tech it fizzled into clear goop most of the time.

The pilot sat back down but kept the cockpit open, then he altered the life support controls and turned up the gravity as much as he could stand. His feet, legs, and tail were squashed against the pommel as he fought to stand up, poking his head out above the shuriken. Then from there he reached down and leaned on the controls, pulling his fighter up a bit before rotating it over.

Suddenly he was upside down but only his head felt it. The rest of him was being sucked firmly to the ship as the two different gravities literally pulled him apart, stretching his neck between the two as he coasted over to the downed shuriken that was partially imbedded into the soil. He got right up next to it, grabbed a set of tools from beneath the pommel, and jumped as hard as he could, getting his torso out of the high grav bubble but it wasn’t enough. His heavy legs pulled him back inside, then he dialed it back enough that his second jump broke him free and he fell headfirst to the ground a meter below.

He landed on all fours and crawled away from the sprinkling of white goo coming down with a few drops hitting his shields and rolling off. When he got clear he ran up onto the part of the crashed shuriken that was visible and hopped from piece to piece that wasn’t showing residue, for it looked like most of it had been thrown off during the sudden impact. The area around the half buried hull was sizzling with leftover acid, but he was able to step through it and around the still smoking patches of the hull as he was talking on his comm with the pilot inside.

He started cutting or bending various components out of the way and making sure to avoid any acid remaining inside the breached hull plates. It took a very long time to expose the inner protective cocoon with him periodically watching the battlemap as the reavers got closer and closer despite the fighter cover thinning them down. With the main hatch buried, he eventually got an emergency route cut through to the bottom as the Paladin inside did the same thing and released emergency locks that allowed the cocoon to be opened from any direction if needed, though the process wasn’t a quick one.

“Be cautious,” AVN-449218 said as he offered his fellow pilot a thin hand. “Acid residue is everywhere.”

“How is your shuriken?”

“No full breaches,” he said as he pulled the other Paladin clear of the cocoon and they both carefully tiptoed their way back over the acid spots on the surrounding ground.

They got underneath his fighter as he jumped up, with the higher gravity field catching him and pulling him inside the upside down floating shuriken. He pressed a few buttons but they failed to work.

“Extension is disabled,” he said, offering his hand and yanking the other pilot up to him as he let the gravity pull him to the ride side of the already cramped cockpit. “We’re going to have to ride open air.”

“Thank you for coming for me,” he said as the approaching carpet of reavers was trailing behind a rain of blue lachar blasts that were getting very loud and near.

“What Paladin wouldn’t?” he asked as he awkwardly reached his arms into the controls and the other pilot just as awkwardly tried to scrunch his body out of the way without touching the acid residue on the outer hull.

They made it work and soon the shuriken was flipping over again and the two pilots were staring at the sight of the other fighter and the rescue attempt there. Rather than leaving they moved in front of that crashed ship and began to fire on the approaching reavers like a turret, seeing no acid spitters within the group. They held position until the ground suddenly opened up nearby and a new tunnel entrance was formed.

They had a few seconds to react before the material was cleared and the pilot spun his shuriken around and shot the mound of dirt pushing up, killing the burrowing unit and momentarily plugging the hole, but the reavers behind it just pushed it out of the way and began spilling out as the other 6 fighters suddenly realized what was happening and turned around to assist, flying the short distance up to the location and pouring all their lachars onto the single exit and vaporizing anything that came up.

As they redirected their sensors down into the ground they saw two more tendrils rising up nearby, then one of the other pilots made a rash decision. He warned off the rescuing one before opening fire on the downed shuriken, blasting through the damaged craft and exposing the cocoon. Had this been a Type-1 shuriken the tiny tractor beam would have come in handy, but given the lack of necessary components the Type-2s weren’t built to hold them, meaning the Paladin were going to have to improvise.

The pilot continued to blast away until the now melty cocoon was free of the rest of the craft, then he flew one of the shuriken’s four wing-like blades underneath the cocoon and expertly popped it free. The sphere rolled a bit then came to rest against a bit of debris with the hatch popping almost immediately as it stopped. The surviving pilot climbed out and ran to the other on the ground as the lachar fire continued to fall nearby and the second tunnel pushed a dirt mushroom up above the surface.

The two pilots climbed back onboard and got some elevation immediately as a few acid spitters came out and were missed by the lachars that now had to target two locations. A few random shots flew out before they were eventually destroyed, but the flow of reavers was getting to be too much to handle and the main wave was less than a minute away. The fighters without open cockpits flew in to give shield cover as the two doubled-occupied ones gained altitude and flew up over the mountains, narrowly escaping yet another diversionary tactic. That main body had been meant to pull the fighter cover off while the tunnelers did their thing and got right up on them.

But even as the fighters fled the reavers could be seen swarming the remains of the two downed shurikens…and pulling bits and pieces of it apart and carrying them back down the tunnels.

Upon return to base the damaged fighters were sent back out immediately save for one, and that one ended up in the hands of the Alchemists. There were very few produced on the planet to date, but the 2nd Triad Paladin were the ones responsible for studying the reaver corpses. Their interest here was the acid residue and hopefully any droplets of the pure form they could recover as the battle with the acid spitters who had done the damage still continued on and those corpses weren’t yet available for study.

The thin lizards were identical to the pilots, but had a distinctive trio of bars tattooed on their heads that wasn’t visible through the protective suits they wore while dissecting the fighter. The alchemists would take and analyze whatever samples they found, but unlike their kin they were more focused on developing a countermeasure than simply identifying and cataloging what it was.

Fortunately Star Force knowledge was so advanced that the fix was relatively simple. A shield matrix alteration was needed, but it was something that could be altered without having to build new equipment. The new specs for that were completed within 2 days of the alchemists getting their hands on the samples, and by the end of the third day all shurikens, tanks, and mechs had been suitably reset, though doing the same with each suit of armor was going to take a lot more time.

The pilots though could now return to aerial bombardment with impunity, and coupled with constant subterranean sensor scans beneath major fortifications and cities, Star Force had now almost completely stopped the reaver advance with only a few exceptions across the planet. They hadn’t won this fight, not by far, but the Vittis that were behind the defense lines were more or less safe now, though the reavers disagreed. They continued to launch constant assaults and force the defenders to bleed them dry…all the while weakening them via attrition.

And that attrition was primarily suffered by the Vitti forces. There were enough Paladin now to support them on all fronts, but not enough to replace them. Until that happened there were going to be more Vitti losses in combat troops, but at least the wholesale slaughter of their civilian population had been stopped and those incursions that were still succeeding were seeing quick evacuation efforts.

It had been a quarter of a century in the making, but the Archons and Paladin had been able to save an estimated 42% of the Vitti population. The losses that number implied were disgustingly huge, but had Star Force not come it would have reached 100% by now, and everyone on the planet knew it.

But the fight was still ongoing and the number of reavers wasn’t diminishing. It was still increasing and making this fight harder and harder, but the Paladin had so many tech advantages and now a return to total air superiority that the reavers didn’t really stand a chance in the long run. The Paladin would continue to grow in numbers as well, and when a tipping point was reached they’d go on the offensive and start hunting down and clearing out the reavers on the surface that the drones hadn’t smoked yet, then they’d start the much harder battle underground where air power would do them no good.

The Viceroy knew that was going to be the real war to come, but saving as many of the Vitti as possible had been their primary goal and that was nearly wrapped up. Taking full possession of this planet and exacting vengeance on behalf of the locals was the second part of this mission, but the lingering fact that the reavers had actively collected and spirited away samples of Star Force tech was disturbing. What could they possibly use it for? Or were they a lot more advanced than they appeared to be.

7

January 31, 3531

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

The Viceroy watched numerous holograms around his command center simultaneously as Paladin armies were invading the subterranean geodomes that the reavers lived in beneath sensor range. It’d taken a long time to finally construct a sophisticated enough sensor array to be able to penetrate that far down, and had involved decommissioning and tearing apart three naval drones to get the necessary solari to do it, but now he had a single aerial platform with which he had been meticulously scanning the planet and identifying where these geodomes were.

And they were everywhere. Literally, they were spread across the entire planet like a network of roadways with connecting tunnels between them, but it was the heavy clusters that truly surprised the Viceroy. For not having access to any technology, these reavers had managed to carve out some 62,000 geodomes in the piece of the northern hemisphere that had been scanned to date, and there was more than twice that amount of territory left to investigate.

Winning the surface war had been easy in comparison, but now he had to send the Paladin down inside the planet to these geodomes that may or may not be all that stable. Rather than use the reaver’s own tunnels the Paladin were drilling and building their own access shafts directly into the top of the geodomes where the melee minions couldn’t reach, then they were bombing the hell out of those stupid enough to congregate below before sending in the ground troops to start cleaning up and pushing out through the surrounding tunnels.

Fortunately the Viceroy had enough personnel to leave behind in each geodome so it couldn’t be reoccupied, and one in particular had been taken intact. Archon Myra had led that assault personally and now the Viceroy’s alchemists were swarming the place and feeding him a lot of interesting information, first of which was how they were feeding so many reavers when the surface wasn’t supplying them any more victims or vegetation to scavenge.

They had farms down here with high volume vegetation that could be both eaten and used to bear dense and high calorie fruit. He assumed eating the vegetation was a backup plan, but the growth rate was apparently enough to allow for it since some geodomes they were assaulting had patches that were clear cut. He suspected those were where massive birthing swarms were held before being sent up to the surface to fight and die as expendable ammunition, but in order for them to grow to maturity they needed a lot of foodstuffs and it looked like these fields were meant to both sustain a stable population as well as to be consumed by a surge of population when needed.

And they’d come across some of those surges in the making. They were being grown in adjacent chambers carved into hot rock and consisted of gelatinous sacks that had larvae inside that ate the gel until partially mature, then they’d be released to feast on the fields in a geodome until they were full grown…at which point the swarm would be released, for they couldn’t sustain that amount of population down here for long.

So the massive reaver population was a ‘fire and forget’ weapon being led by a telepathic hive mind hinged on several elusive points that the Archons had managed to identify using their own telepathy, but those points never allowed them to get close. They were always moved out well before Paladin arrived and would have been kept safety anonymous if not for the Archons’ abilities and the strategic fingerprint they left behind.

But the Viceroy still hadn’t been able to pin them down and the number of Paladin needed to secure just the geodomes that had been detected thus far was still years away. The operation here was already in snowball mode, but he wasn’t going to produce more population than he had food and equipment for and both of those were lagging behind hatchery potential…which was deliberate. He always wanted the ability to produce more population than needed rather than facing the reverse, but his legions of factories, bioharvest facilities, and mining sites across the planet were still insufficient to give him the numbers needed to quickly eradicate the reavers.

It was coming though, and in the meantime his current Paladin were getting part of the job done while gaining a lot of badly needed experience. When they left this world they would all be classified as Arbiters, himself included, and with victory seemingly all but ensured the Viceroy was worried. Something wasn’t adding up here. There were too many instances of actions that did not fit the reaver profile. Stealing bits of Star Force technology, for one. So far none of it had been recovered in raids and where it had gone to was unable to be determined.

The Archons had told him that trying to get information out of the hive mind itself was useless. They could interrogate individual reavers but they didn’t have access through them to the others in any useful way. Whoever these mystery overlords were they were playing a very good, clandestine game and the Viceroy didn’t think it was over yet. He kept waiting for an ambush to occur, but so far nothing had gone down.

There were a scattering of casualties continuing to dribble in, but rarely any deaths now that the Paladin had learned how to handle the reavers. Keep them from getting into too large a group and they were easy to kill, and within the tunnels they were always confined to few dozen reavers against a handful of Paladin at the front of whatever columns of troops either side had…and that basic engagement was not a fair fight for the reavers so long as the Paladin continued playing tag team and didn’t let themselves get worn down.

Tunnel breaches were a greater concern and had happened on 9 occasions to date, 6 of which had seen magma flows come surging in. The shields and armor on his troops would only protect them from so much heat, and if they got caught in one of those molten rivers they wouldn’t last long. Fortunately no one had suffered that fate yet, but it was always a constant on his mind. Why the reavers burrowed down so far he wasn’t sure, for how could they even begin to guess at what sensor range was?

And Star Force sensor range was far superior to other races’, meaning that if they were doing it intentionally they were going extra deep. While the reavers were impervious to most of the heat they didn’t actually need it. The alchemists said they could survive in a cold weather environment just as easily, so why burrow down so far you put yourselves at risk of magma leakage or compression cave-ins when you didn’t have the ability to construct retainment walls?

Furthermore was the planetary history. According to Vitti records and lore the reavers had attacked multiple times in the past but never on a scale this large. Why was now different? He was certain the limited military the Vittis had would have been enough to easily defeat one of the earlier swarms in their history, and if they were following some cyclical event why was this one so much bigger?

Something wasn’t right here and it was bugging the Viceroy thoroughly. They appeared to be on the path to inevitable victory against an opponent that made no sense and was fighting above their means, and down in the confines of the planet’s crust where naval power couldn’t reach without a lot of shoveling first…

Well, if he was going to ambush himself, he’d do it down there. He just hoped these reavers weren’t that capable.

It took a lot of guesswork and preplanning, but eventually John and Tia were able to find one of the reaver overlords. They’d had to determine the approximate range of their telepathy, then find and study the lines of reavers they used as relays to stay in communication, guestimate their preferred transmission range and margins of safety, then ring the probable location with assaults on distant geodomes slowly isolating a pocket of them in the center and cutting off their lines of retreat save for a few…

The two Archons had hidden themselves in the tunnels, passing through reaver-held areas using their psionics to avoid detection. They spent days down there alone, studying the movement patterns and bouncing from tunnel to tunnel as a surge of evacuees began to be funneled through their area. They weren’t a massive army, for those were staying to fight the incursions, but rather these were workers carrying plants and other forms of cargo. When troops finally showed themselves it was a telltale sign of an escort, and before long a powerful mind came within the Archons’ Ikrid range.

They were in the wrong tunnel, however, so they just observed from a distance where the mind was and what direction it was moving while trying to pull what bits of information from it that they could. It was too large to take full control of, and neither of them wanted to try for fear of giving away their advantage. This far down their comms wouldn’t work, meaning they were literally on their own against the entire reaver army. They could fight through it, but the idea of the reavers blowing out certain tunnels to isolate and trap them wasn’t appealing so they were going to stay as stealthy as possible and that meant not running out into view of the moving convoys.

Fortunately they’d mapped out this area beforehand and they had a few routes around the overlord’s procession to take, but they were a long detour and the rate at which these guys were moving meant they might lose them entirely, and if they tried to push through a crowded tunnel they’d be spotted and the hive mind would send out an alarm so fast that everything within miles would be instantly warned.

With the escort this overlord had there was no way to get to it unless it came directly to them…and it wasn’t. It was missing them by several tunnels and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it, so the master/apprentice pair decided to shadow the group as well as they could, following the flow after it had passed and staying with the rearmost units even when the overlord’s mind got out of range to follow itself.

Then they observed a changing of the guard when they got to a particular geodome. The convoy stopped briefly, taking several hours rest presumably, for the military escort and even the workers seemed to change out with the tired ones taking up duties in this geodome while replacements formed a new convoy and headed out after the respite…which they assumed was for the overlord, else there would have been no need to delay.

When they started moving again John studied the tunnels ahead and made the decision to try and get ahead of them before they got outside the assault ring that was pinning them into this area. To do that they’d have to lose contact with them entirely, but there wasn’t a lot of places for them to go. They’d risk losing them, but aside from trying to fight their way through all these reavers that he was sure would just buy time while the overlord escaped, the best chance they had was to guess where they were going and try to wait on them again.

It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the best they had and the remaining time before this convoy got out beyond the assault ring and had a lot more tunnel options to choose from meant the Archons had to act now.

To that end they broke away from their pursuit and headed off through far less packed tunnels, still having to be careful not to be seen by any reavers that they didn’t have an active mental block on, for even a single glimpse would betray them to the hive mind as they raced to get ahead of the overlord and hopefully find a spot where it would come to them.

They’d guessed wrong again, but this time by only half a mile. Unfortunately it wasn’t a straight shot to get there, and the tunnels around it, including the one they were perched in a side nook on, were full of escorts flowing through and literally blocking any path to the overlord with their bodies as the river of reavers moved onward.

Well, what do you think? he asked Tia telepathically as she clung to the ceiling of their little cutout as the reavers passed by underneath them a few meters away.

I’m sick of missing workouts. Let’s bust some heads and get out of here, with or without the overlord.

Agreed, but we need speed more than anything. Save the head busting until we get closer.

Following your lead.

“Let’s go,” he said aloud as he released his hold on the rocky walls and dropped down on top of the reavers, hitting them with a Fornax field that made Tia a bit wobbly too, but she was still able to function as both of them stepped on and jumped over the disabled enemies and headed up the tunnel with the Archons switching off to maintain the Fornax field so they wouldn’t have to fight and be slowed down. They couldn’t do that forever, and only a few minutes later they were both too tired to risk continuing with Fornax so they switched to using other psionics to trick or disable the reavers enough to jump over or squeeze past them.

They moved parallel to the overlord, who suddenly started moving even faster than before, until they got to a cross tunnel and got over to the route it was taking…but they were now well behind it and there was an army of reavers turning around and blocking the tunnel with their bodies. They formed a wall, linking arms and claws as they stood on each other’s backs so that if they fell they wouldn’t open up any gaps as the reavers behind the Archons caught up and tried to attack them.

“Get behind me!” John yelled as he send her a battlemeld prompt, summoning up his half of a Jini and charging the mental energy as Tia shot multiple reavers coming from behind them.

“Switch,” he called out unnecessarily, holding his energy intact as she took a knee and began to charge hers in a tradeoff they’d practiced many times before. John shot several more reavers but there were too many coming to stop, so his attacks only slowed the wave in the tunnel as the leaders went down and the others had to climb over their bodies, but it gained them a few more seconds.

When Tia was ready he sensed it through their battlemeld and they both pooled their energy together and went through the final linked charging process as the reavers swarmed on top of them…

A moment later all of them dropped to the ground unconscious with the Ikrid bomb effect traveling down the tunnel in both directions as if it was electricity chaining from one to another. The Archons didn’t know how many they’d rendered unconscious, but the wall ahead of them should have been taken down.

Both of them pushed the sleeping reavers off them and climbed to the top of the pile only to see the short section of open tunnel ahead and the still standing reaver wall on the other side.

“Son of a bitch,” Tia complained.

“It’s soft. Punch through,” John ordered as he sprinted forward and dove headfirst into the reavers as he telekinetically sent a wedge of energy ahead to spilt them. When he hit he squeezed through the first row and into the second, but after that he had to wiggle and shove his way forward while Tia followed inches behind him in the gap he made through the sleeping, living wall that seemed to go on forever.

More than 20 layers later they came out the other side into a carpet of sleeping reavers with visible active ones further up ahead that began to group together to form another wall as soon as the Archons were spotted.

“Oh no you don’t,” Tia said as she hopped over a sleeping reaver and shoved a telekinetic wall forward that knocked one of them trying to interlink arms with the others out of position. The much larger telekinetic shove that followed from John knocked several more askew as the Archons ran up and dove through the hole, then punched and kicked a few more aside before John released several directed Fornax blasts, saving energy as opposed to a full field, and took down individual reavers momentarily.

They weren’t asleep, but their twitching bodies fell to the ground as the pair dove over them and continued running forward and fighting their way through the seemingly endless escorts until the overlord’s mind glowed brightly just ahead, though they couldn’t see it through the reaver walls they kept trying to make to block their progress as the ones preceding the overlord cycled back to intercede.

The Archons noticed this as well, meaning they had to punch through now or face truly endless opposition with limited psionic energy to combat them with. To that end they fought to a standstill and huddled up beneath bioshields as the reavers piled onto them, hacking away with their razor-sharp claws as the pair charged another Jini. When they released it they dug themselves back out of the pile and raced ahead as fast as they could to try and catch up with the overlord.

This time they saw it, but there were still reavers awake between them and it with more spilling back from ahead to increase the number of blockers. Through their battlemeld John sensed what Tia wanted him to do, so he made a telekinetic wall and shoved it ahead of them a few meters, making a brief clear area into which Tia jumped, then John shoved her forward with all his available Lachka power while also forming a Bataf conduit between them that both of them put full power into as Tia tucked her knees to her chest midair.

The result was the padawan being thrown down the tunnel like a cannon ball and knocking aside everything between her and the overload. Her body ping ponged around the tunnel with the impacts, eventually bumping into the tank-sized overload and bouncing back a couple meters. The dizzy Archon unfurled and released the largest Fornax field she could manage in her weakened state and the dozens of skittering legs underneath the huge grub-like reaver stopped moving and it fell to the ground along with the escorts around it.

Tia turned around and planted her feet, connecting another Bataf back to John and causing it to pull rather than push, bringing him up to her where they both started playing King of the Hill and assembling a wall of dead reaver bodies on either side of their captive, not wanting to kill it just yet but keeping that as a backup plan in case they couldn’t hold this position.

8

July 18, 3534

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

“We’ve been discovered.”

The head Ionvan turned and looked at his subordinate. “Explain.”

“One of the superwarriors is progressing through the tunnel network and appears to be on a direct line here. This entire project has been a waste.”

“How many are with him?”

“He is coming alone.”

“Then collapse the tunnels, you fool. And do not lecture me again.”

The walrus-like alien huffed in disgust but said nothing more, turning around on its two thick legs and waddling off to carry out the order.

The project leader watched him go then turned and walked himself over to a control panel where he put on an interface collar that allowed him to see into and through the bioweapon’s hive mind. There was so much of it that it was difficult to navigate, but starting at their own concealed position and moving outward he was able to identify the nearest area of combat.

The thoughts, sounds, smells, and vision of the bioweapon there all came through to him, leaving him to sort out what he wanted to see and disregard. He flinched when the sight of the golden clad superwarrior came into view and shot him in the face, but another perspective replaced it, and another and another as the interloper pushed through their defenses.

His subordinate had been correct. Somehow they had discovered the Ionvan presence. He did not know what could have given them away, but this attack was coming directly for them while the other combat areas were thousands of miles away.

When this operation had begun there wasn’t any outside interference expected. The arrival of some looters was of no consequence, but this fast growing army of superiorly armored and armed soldiers was the very pinnacle of what the Ionvan had sent them here to develop the native race into. Upgrading them into a proper bioweapon and using them to destroy every inhabitant on this planet as a test run had been the goal, but what this ally of the natives possessed was far greater. As impressive as the bioweapon had performed against them, it was nothing compared to these troops. They had landed a single ship on the surface and out of it they had spawned a massive army that only continued to expand in count.

And it wasn’t just numbers. They were building formidable technology and adding to it as time went on. The planet’s surface had been lost to the interlopers, due in no small part to their naval bombardment. That was a necessary weakness, for the bioweapon had never been intended to fight in such a way. What little aerial power the natives had was supposed to be a challenge to overcome using the ground-only forces and the Ionvan had succeeded in that, but there was no stopping low flying warships from blasting everything visible into oblivion.

But their ability to core down deep into the planetary crust with those weapons and reach the cradles was something that had not been anticipated, nor was this fast growing race’s ability to fight so well in the tunnels where the bioweapon should have an advantage. This entire mission was in jeopardy, but on the flip side it was also far more successful than could be imagined as far as the data collected, not just on the bioweapon’s effectiveness but on this new enemy. They had what the Ionvan sought, and even simple observations of their methods, tactics, and equipment were important.

But the greatest prize was the genetic sample they’d been able to claim from a single corpse…or actually not even that. These interlopers recovered their dead quickly, and only a single severed arm had been recovered along with bits and pieces of their unfathomable technology. The genetic coding for this enemy was now in their grasp and the insights already gained from the study of it had advanced their research by decades.

But there was no way to get it off the planet with their ships in orbit. The Ionvan ship that had brought them here was still intact and hidden on the surface, but to avoid leading the interlopers to it they had concealed themselves far from it, repositioning their command and control center deep below sensor level, yet somehow they’d still been discovered.

If it was due to the loss of a control unit then their ability to backtrack the telepathic signals was in question. Already it had been noted that the superwarriors had some sort of powers that could interfere with the bioweapon, though not on a permanent basis. They always recovered, if they were left alive, and right now the local units were all being shifted to counter this superwarrior’s approach and at least delay him getting here.

To that end he saw the bioweapon digging around the tunnels that were endangered and weakening their structure. The individual units didn’t care about their own safety, only obeying the will of the hive mind, and they either died or were trapped when the rock began to shift. Many were crushed, but the five entrances to the section of tunnels where the superwarrior was were sealed off, hopefully trapping it there as well.

He could still see through the eyes of those bioweapons inside the area, though their connective signals were weaker. He immediately dispatched others to the area to strengthen the connection and watched as they were quickly destroyed by the superwarrior. When the last one died he still didn’t know what it would try to do, for there had been no sign of its reaction to the cave-ins. In preparation for the worst, he had bioweapon hordes assembled at all five entry points and other digging teams coring in parallel to those tunnels in order to try and cause a collapse on top of the superwarrior. That would take time, but he didn’t want to leave it alive in there given its unknown depth of abilities.

For the moment they were secure and if they truly had neutralized this superwarrior it would be a great achievement, for there were only a handful known to be on the planet and this one was the most deadly of them all. The fact that it had come after them alone concerned him, and the fact that it had known where they were meant others might as well. He needed eyes on the surface, for if there was a warship incoming to blast down to this depth he needed as much advance warning as possible.

But how were they going to get this information back to the others? This entire mission would be wasted if they didn’t.

Running wasn’t possible, for the naval forces of the interlopers were superior. There would only be a tiny chance of evasion if they could arrange distractions. Multiple surface attacks to draw orbital bombardment to certain areas? Yes, that cold work, but the math involved to get to orbit and then to the star was not favorable. There was a chance of success, but it was far too much a gamble, especially when they didn’t know the full engine power of the interlopers. They might catch them before they even made it away from the planet.

Bury themselves away somewhere while they let the bioweapon fight to its death then leave when it was over? That assumed that these interlopers were actually going to leave, and from the signs of construction on the surface it looked like they had not only come here to help the natives but to upgrade them as well. Did he dare risk waiting that long in the hopes of getting a window for escape?

Was there any other choice? They couldn’t fight their way out and the bioweapon was almost useless against this enemy. Underground was their only chance and they were still losing territory. There was a lot of delaying actions that could be undertaken, but there was no way to conquer this planet or even fight effectively on the surface.

But one thing that was certain above all else was the need to make sure this information did not fall into the interlopers’ hands, and more importantly, they had to get what they’d learned of their superior army back to the other Ionvan. Even if it took a century to accomplish, they must make it out.

No. The information had to make it out, not them. Could he seal it away in a capsule to be recovered later while they allowed themselves to be killed as a distraction? But how would the Ionvan know to come get it? There was no way to communicate with them, so if he buried the data away somewhere it’d stay lost and useless…but at least it’d still exist.

No, no…one of them had to get it back, so they either chanced a doomed orbital run or played dead and waited these interlopers out, for he only had one ship to use.

This information had to survive, which meant there was only one reasonable course of action.

They had to disappear and wait until this storm blew over, then hope the interlopers would leave when there was no one left to fight.

To that end he began giving orders to create a new command center far away on the planet and accessible via surface caves so the subterranean ones wouldn’t lead the interlopers to them. Actually, they needed to build inside the taken territory where the enemy wouldn’t look, for if they could track their tunnels now they could track the new ones as well.

Or should they try and hide on the surface in plain sight?

No. If their guesses were right, the interlopers couldn’t detect their smallest tunnels, for they had missed many of them. If they only expanded via those they could hopefully escape and bury themselves away somewhere deep. Very deep. And hope to ride this out.

But building tunnels barely the width of two bioweapons over the course of thousands of miles was extremely difficult. They’d have to pass the ore back slowly…

“The superwarrior is not dead,” his subordinate said upon returning in a flush of indignation. “He is digging out!”

“How?”

“Who cares how? He is coming here and the bioweapon will not be able to stop him.”

“Then delay him by collapsing more tunnels.”

“We are doomed and you know it.”

“So be it,” the leader said, pulling out a small sidearm and shooting his subordinate three times in his thick head.

He looked around at the other Ionvans who had frozen stiff with fear that they’d be next.

“Do your duty and this will not happen to you. We are not defeat yet, but we must delay the superwarrior’s approach. Collapse all tunnels between him and us and get all the necessary data replicated into redundant storage devices. We’re leaving to protect the data and destroying this facility. The superwarrior hasn’t seen us yet. Make sure that he doesn’t.”

When the leader stopped talking the other subordinates took that as the cue to get to work. Orders were sent out through the hive mind overriding those coming from the control units, one of which was nearby. With any luck the superwarrior would be heading towards it, so he ordered it to move off a different direction as bait while they packed up shop.

More and more of the bioweapon signals went out as they worked, and more tunnels came crushing down to the point where the current location of the superwarrior was lost. More and more were taken down and the remaining bioweapons in the area were clustered between the Ionvan and the caved-in tunnels as the masters finished their packing and set the detonators that would destroy their own equipment and keep it from being discovered. Better to give the interlopers no confirmation of their existence and leave whatever deduction they’d made to rumors and imagination, thus an incineration weapon was being used that would destroy any bodies caught in it completely.

Suddenly an alarm sounded and a few seconds later another Ionvan came flying back into the now nearly empty command center through the air and landed on a clean table. The leader heard his back snap as he hit the edge. A few pistol shots sounded outside, but they quickly disappeared.

Grabbing the primary data cell, the leader turned and ran for the opposite exit but never made it all the way there. An invisible force plucked him off his feet and held him midair, spinning him around so he could see the golden superwarrior standing before him with cracked armor and streaks of what looked to be blood, though they were a sickly red unlike anything he’d seen before.

Another Ionvan came in behind the superwarrior and tried to quietly shoot it in the back, but a raised fist sent out some type of shockwave that knocked it across the room where it hit something hard and slumped to the ground out of vision. No shots came, so the leader didn’t think it was still alive, or perhaps not awake, but it didn’t matter. If this superwarrior could survive the cave-ins then what would a pistol shot do?

And what was it doing now? Just holding him in the air with its terrifying powers? It didn’t say anything at all. Didn’t do anything at all. It just stood there looking up at him as he remember the trigger in his pocket. The strain of constriction was around his chest, not his arms, so he darted his flipper-like hand inside and grabbed for it…but the trigger device flew out of his grasp and into the air between the two of them and the superwarrior raised a hand and single finger, then waved it back and forth.

“You die with us,” another Ionvan’s voice said from out of view, then the leader heard the blissful sound of the planned countdown as he was suddenly dropped. He hit a table feet first and rolled off it, slamming his head into the ground and knocking him dizzy for a moment. The other Ionvan lay nearby, his legs inoperable, but he’d managed to climb up onto a console and trigger the self-destruct that only had seconds left on the aborted countdown.

“Good,” he told him as the last few numbers ticked off, then everything disappeared in a painful flash.

The heat was what woke Myra, for it was burning into her arm enough to clear her dazed head. She woke pinned inside her armor with a flurry of warnings flashing on her HUD that quickly told her that there was magma seeping in through the rocks.

A spike of fear flashed through her as she realized her armor was melting on her right elbow, which was the lowest portion of her body, but she couldn’t move it away. Flashing her Pefbar and getting an even bigger headache for it, she saw the rocks pinning her in place as well as the gaps between them. Using her telekinesis she managed to move one aside enough to free her left leg, then hooked her foot around a crack and pulled…but it was no good.

She felt the heat start to actually sear her skin, meaning there couldn’t be much left to her armor, and did the only thing she could do. She put up a Rensiek barrier and tried to block the heat, knowing it was but a stopgap…

“Shit,” she said, mentally causing the armor on her other arm to disengage and peel apart. The heat in the air was unbearable, but she flashed up Rensiek shields across her body as her clothing caught on fire. She only had a few seconds left and nothing else to do, so she channeled as much of the heat that she was catching on her shields to her bare hand…then pushed it into the rock on top of her chest.

Her fingers soaked into it, melting through but at a slow rate. As more of the heat hit her she kept it flowing across her body, burning the inside of her armor but there was no other way. She tried to leverage the rocks off her as the main one melted, but her telekinesis wasn’t strong enough. Summoning one last effort before her heat shields failed and she was cooked, she released a Jumat blast out from the chest of her body and pushed against both her armor and the rock above.

Myra didn’t know what happened, because her Pefbar was gone and her head was swirling, but suddenly she was able to slide an inch as she continued to melt away the rock with her hand. It fell even lower, pinching her armor, but she had enough leverage to push her body out the other side, prying her armor off telekinetically where it wouldn’t release. Myra had to break the neck of her helmet apart to get her head out, but she was able to slide her entire body out of her armor and up between two rocks.

The air was so hot she couldn’t breathe, but putting all her energy into her Rensiek she pressed now bare feet against the scolding rocks and climbed up through the gaps as bright light flared where her armor had magma soaked up through and consuming it.

Forcing her Pefbar back again she found crack after crack and continued to move up, having to rely mostly on her Hamne for oxygen until she got far enough up through the rubble to be able to filter the heat out of the air, choking in the searing breaths and burning her lungs, but it was better than suffocating.

Her clothes were burnt tatters now, but most of her skin remained intact, protected by the Rensiek that she didn’t know how much longer would last, so she kept climbing and avoiding dead ends by scouting ahead with her Pefbar and being so grateful that there was a way up.

Eventually she came to a large chamber, being where the rock from above had come down on the control center. It was now a hollow with thin air, but it was far less hot and a single beacon of hope held out near the top…the sign of a small tunnel as the room suddenly caught a bit of light in the otherwise pitch black environment.

The magma was still rising and a bit of it was showing through cracks deep below her.

With her body shaking from the effort and the adrenaline coursing through her, she leapt from one rough rock to another, landing on bare feet that cut on the jagged edges but not caring so long as she could keep up her heat shields. When she eventually got underneath the tunnel entrance she gathered herself and jumped…coming up a couple feet short and falling back down.

Her foot hit something very sharp and it sliced into her small toe, but she caught her fall and looked around. There was nothing higher to climb on and she’d jumped as hard as she could…but there were loose rocks, so she telekinetically grabbed the biggest one she could and hauled it over, then another and another as the golden light rose along with the heat, meaning the magma wasn’t far behind.

When she picked up another rock and found she didn’t have the strength to move it, Myra decided it was now or never. Perching on top of her pile and on a tiny flat spot she’d arranged, she knelt down on her cut up feet in a crouch then surged her Yetu, letting her Rensiek drop just a little in the process in order to juggle all the psionics. Her feet burnt before they left the rock, but that didn’t matter. She shot straight up like a Jedi jump and came even head level with the top of the tunnel.

Myra shot her arms inside and clawed for leverage, burning her hands and forearms yet still falling backward. A last second Lachka wall put beneath her legs and centered off her head tossed her lower half higher in the air while forcing her torso down, burning her now exposed nipples on the stone but giving her enough weight on the rocky tunnel to keep her legs from dragging her back out.

Myra surged her heat shields again as she crawled forward a few meters, then stood up into a hunched position touching only with her feet. Ignoring the screaming pain she stood there for a moment, focusing most of her Rensiek on her feet while the rest of her was not touching anything other than the hot air. She couldn’t stand up all the way in the tunnel for it wasn’t that big, but the direct heat lines coming from below were now blocked and each step that she took forward saw less and less.

With multiple spots on her body billowing with the pain, she focused solely on moving forward until the air cooled enough to actually make her feel chilled, at which point she stopped and sat down on her butt…one of the few places on her body that wasn’t burned. The rock beneath was rough and warm but otherwise not damaging. Looking at her right arm and the skin and muscle missing from her elbow her mind started to unnumb a bit and the pain began to consume her.

She knew her passive Uzti healing rate would keep her alive if she could just hang on, but the damage was so bad that she tried to use her Haemra and do some minor repairs by forcing tissue to regrow faster than normal. Myra did that on her arm and all the other burned spots on her body, including her left breast that no longer had much of a nipple left.

She didn’t try to regenerate any of it save for the skin, covering up the seeping wounds and conserving her remaining blood as she cried…and cried long and hard throughout the process.

Myra was a basket case and for good reason, but so long as she was even with it a little bit she’d pull herself out of the downward spiral and push on…though for now all she could do was focus on one thing at a time while the rest of her screamed in frantic, painful protest at nearly being burnt alive.

9

July 20, 3534

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

A group of Paladin Constructors were digging into and removing rock from one of the collapsed tunnels while hastati and skirmishers were clearing the open ones when a single word entered their minds.

Help.

The exoskeleton-wearing builders/demolishers hesitated briefly, but most didn’t recognize the word for what it was with all the surrounding noise. The rock wasn’t just laying here easy to pick up…they were having to essentially carve out a new tunnel through it and that meant a lot of grinding and repurposing of the bits and pieces into supports to build a proper tunnel that wouldn’t collapse again, though they were pretty sure the reavers had collapsed this one intentionally.

One of the constructors, a variant of the generic ‘worker’ class, stopped his arm-mounted cutting tool and tried to listen, but the other sounds were too loud to make anything out.

Help.

The word repeated again, but it wasn’t coming from outside his helmet. It was coming from inside his head.

“Stop,” he told the others, some of which had already shut down their machines. The rest followed suit at his command, looking at him through clear faceplates at the center of the exoskeletons that surrounded their working armor. “Be silent and listen.”

The noise in the tunnel fell off, with those workers up the line complying as news spread. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before the word repeated a second time and they all heard it.

“It’s telepathic,” someone else said. “It must be the Archon.”

“But where is she?”

“Their range isn’t unlimited. She must be close.”

Help.

“What do we do?” another asked. There were no Humans nearby to get orders from, and none of the Paladin were telepathic. “She’s not showing up on the battlemap.”

“If she’s using telepathy maybe her comms are damaged or she’s too deep to get a signal through, but she has to be close.”

Up.

The word changed, and with it came a pulsating beacon. Not on their suit’s HUDS, but in their minds, and they all craned their necks up in the same general direction.

“Priority redirect,” the most senior constructor on site ordered. “We tunnel up and fast. No braces. Clear removal.”

With that order the standing Paladin started to move in a frenzy and word was spread to the others via comm. The constructors that had been hauling material out and back up the open tunnel started moving quickly with many more of them coming from another branch some 300 meters back. Everyone in the project started to come here, passing by one another in the small tunnel in organized fashion with a row coming in and a row coming out.

Both sported bins for carrying the rock shards that the drillers were now cutting off fast and not caring how much more dropped as they did. Two in the front had extra heavy exoskeletons that could survive cave-ins and they started cutting into the ceiling as fast as possible, dropping chunks of rock down in as controlled a manner as they could that the others then cut up and pulled away for the excavation train to carry to a transit station further back where a mechanical line would take the debris the rest of the way to the surface.

Help.

The word kept repeating along with the telepathic impulse every so often, but the voice in their heads didn’t say anything else. That was odd, as was the fact that the call was for ‘help’ and not an order being given. It’d been more than two days since the Archon had snuck her way ahead of the combat lines to infiltrate the reaver base and they’d lost contact with her. When the tunnels had been collapsed it was speculated that she might be stuck on the other side or maybe buried alive.

Given how powerful Archons are you never knew what they could or couldn’t survive, but regardless she had gone out of comm and tracking range and they hadn’t heard back from her so they’d continued with their standing orders. They were to clear the tunnels and secure any and all reaver territory. That meant digging through the collapsed tunnels while fighting around the blocks into adjacent areas. The constructors had been summoned from the surface to take care of the former with hastati waiting nearby in case they broke through into areas with live reavers.

The constructors themselves could fight, as all Paladin had the memories for, but they weren’t armed in the typical fashion with their digging exoskeletons on. They weren’t exactly vulnerable to the claws of the reavers unless they had time to gradually scrape through once they piled on top of you, hence there needed to be armed hastati nearby to push back that pile if and when they made contact.

But the troops could do nothing to help the diggers, so they stayed back in the nearest chamber wide enough to hold them so to not block tunnel access for the workers who, bit by bit, dug upwards clearing far more than a tunnel width as more chunks of rock fell down. Rather than try to brace them with new construction they just broke them down into smaller bits and removed them up the ant-like line, excavating a large chamber that had a ramp for a floor.

It looked like a small mountainside by the time they broke through into an airspace at the top, which they quickly recognized as the remains of a detonation tunnel the reavers must have carved over the main ones in order to drop the rock down and seal them.

The constructors sent word back for the hastati, but they didn’t wait for the troops and crawled up into the long wide cave, seeing huge chunks of rock poking up at jagged angles and a very dirty and armorless Human lying on an angled slab and barely moving. She had no clothing at all on, but there were visible scabs on various parts of her body and her hair was missing in several places, though there was no mistaking the image of that pale Human skin no matter how much dust was covering it.

The Paladin scurried over to her on all fours, careful not to dislodge more rocks as they came up to her, not sure what her condition was, especially when she didn’t speak and her face didn’t look quite right.

Water.

“Dehydration,” one of them said, cracking open his exoskeleton and walking out of it before taking his helmet off and feeling a wash of hot air on his face. “I don’t have much left, give her yours too.”

The other Paladin began taking off their helmets while the first constructor pulled out a short tube from the neck of his armor as he carefully crawled up next to her.

The Archon’s hand came up in a cupped position and he triggered the water release with a pinch of the mouth nub he normally bit to bring up the liquid from a small pouch in his armor that they used to extend their working hours without having to cycle back for supply or relief, and all the Paladin knew better than to gorge themselves on it, else they’d have to break off their work duties to empty their bladders.

That meant between all of the Paladin there they had a decent amount of water left, but when the first of them squeezed a bit of water into her hand she didn’t put it in her mouth. Rather she just held there like a statue, her eyes glazed over and barely moving, until one of them noticed that the water in her hand was disappearing.

“Is that evaporating?”

“I don’t think so. I think she’s absorbing it.”

Water, she repeated when it was gone.

“Give her as much as she’ll take. I think this Archon is damaged. Get the closest medic here immediately.”

The little tube only stretched a foot and a half at max out from the neck of their armor, but it was enough to get another few drops into her hand that likewise soaked in far faster than they should have, but the Paladin kept supplying her with water until his ran out, then another took his place and kept filling her up as the first of the hastati arrived.

“Your orders, Archon?” one of them asked as the others crawled further down the rough cave in order to establish a perimeter once seeing that she was without armor and vulnerable.

Water, was the only word she’d speak, and not physically. It was always telepathic.

“She is near death from dehydration,” one of the hastati said, looking at her closely. “Her tongue is probably swollen and blocking her throat. I don’t know how she’s taking the water through her hand, but keep giving it to her until a medic arrives. Do not try and move her.”

“She’s been burnt in multiple places.”

“Not from here. It’s hot, but these rocks aren’t scorching. Any chance that’s acid damage?”

“I can smell burnt flesh,” the constructor with his helmet off and slowly feeding her water said.

“Magma burns,” another guessed. “Archons can survive intense heat. I think her armor and clothes didn’t.”

“What else can we do?”

“Stand beside her and make sure no rocks fall,” one of the hastati said. “We’ll make sure no reavers can get here, but we do need an assessment of the chamber and any connecting tunnels. This entire area looks unstable.”

The constructors quickly split up their responsibilities with several creeping around her on all fours with their bulky exoskeletons, ready to form an arc over her if necessary if any shifts in the rock occurred. How she’d gotten here or where she’d come from they didn’t know, but without her telepathic call for help they would have tunneled right under her and missed this makeshift shaft entirely.

It took a long time for a medic to get to her, for there were none within miles given the length of the tunnels, and when a group of them did come, carrying all sorts of portable gear, they found her in the same statuesque pose…lying naked on an angled slap with her right hand perched in the air and her elbow resting on the edge of the rock, with the constructors still dripping water into her hand.

“We are here, Archon,” the new Paladin said as he crawled up to and replaced one of the constructors in the inner ring around her. He attached a small circular device to the side of her head and suddenly got a plethora of readings on his helmet’s HUD indicating how and where she was damaged.

“Massive nutrient depletion,” he said, with another medic digging into a pack of supplies. “I think she cannibalized parts of her body to partially repair these wounds. Her tongue is swollen, so she can’t eat. We’re going to have to inject.”

“She’s been taking water through the hand,” a constructor said.

“The hand?” he said, seeing a newly placed puddle disappearing. “I…don’t know how that’s possible.”

A canister was passed up to him and he put his confusion aside as he placed the pointed end of it against her neck as gently as he could and emptied its contents directly into her blood stream, with her stats jumping almost immediately as the nutrients were spread throughout her body.

“She’s low on blood,” he said, with another canister already being passed to him, for the other medics were seeing the same stats on their helmets as he was. He went to inject the synthetic blood supplement but the Archon moved, shocking everyone. Her hand fell to the ground and her body curled up in obvious pain.

“Shock release. We need to knock you out, Archon. With your permission?”

Myra didn’t say anything. Not even a telepathic peep for nearly thirty seconds before the medic made the decision. The next injection caused her to pass out, and it didn’t even take the whole vial to do it.

“She needs to be carried back by someone out of armor. Her body has taken enough damage as it is.”

“I will,” one of the constructors who had already donated his water said, pulling apart his own armor and walking out into the hot, dry air and feeling the rough rocks on his feet. “Strap her on.”

The medic looked at him oddly, then understood.

“Good idea,” he said, getting all sorts of things handed to him that he used to attach a medical cloak to the Paladin’s back like a saddle, putting as much stuff under it as they could to make a mostly flat platform onto which they picked up and laid her body. Another cloak was spread over top of her like a blanket that would shield her from the excessive heat, then that cloak was strapped down with her body in between the two layers and her head resting on a pad placed on the back of the Paladin’s neck.

“She’s secure. Follow us.”

The medics moved back to the ramp-like incline that the other constructors had been working to smooth out in preparation for her move with her carrier crawling in quadruped mode with her body strapped to his back and only her head being visible. He moved carefully down the incline, trying to keep her from sliding out of position on his back, but when he got to the bottom of the rock pile and onto the smooth floors of the recently reconstructed tunnel he picked up the pace, finding a way to run with the awkward pack as the medics led the way with hastati preceding them to make sure the path was clear.

Then the impromptu honor guard started making their way back through the long tunnels and up towards the surface, some 28 miles distance just to get to the nearest Paladin subsurface outpost that held a full medical station.

10

July 24, 3534

Tekin System (Rim Region)

Plataro

Myra was posed in a shaky handstand when John and Tia found her onboard the warship’s sanctum, her burns gone and her muscles rebuilt, but clearly her composure was off after her near death experience. None the less, she’d called for them and they’d delayed their underground campaign until they could get back, not wanting the Paladin to go up against the toughest resistance without their assistance, though lesser assaults were still ongoing.

“Myra,” Tia finally said when she didn’t notice their arrival outside the meditation chamber.

The word knocked the titan off balance and it took a sharp leg kick to pull her back in alignment, which she held a few more seconds before rolling her legs down in a controlled manner and standing up. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly as her fellow Archons waited for whatever it was she wanted them for.

“The reavers were acting under orders.”

John frowned. “Meaning?”

“Not the hive mind,” Myra clarified. “I found the people manipulating them and they blew up themselves and their facility with me still inside it.”

“Who?” Tia asked.

“They’re called the Ionvan and they’re very powerful. Not on our level, but this entire attempted extinction of the Vitti was an experiment. A weapons test. They found the reavers and upgraded them, using the hive mind to add additional commands lost in the mess of signals that hid their presence. A lot of the reavers’ tactical skill was coming from them, and now that they’re gone we shouldn’t face as much resistance but we’re still going to have to take them out. I got the feeling they wound them up so tight there’s no coexisting with them, and whatever means they were using to influence them were destroyed.”

“That explains the block in the overlord,” John said, finally connecting the dots. When he and Tia had captured and then killed their 7 overlords to date, they’d never been able to take full control of their minds in order to likewise control the other reavers through them, and it was due to an impulse in the overlords that fought the Archon’s orders. They’d tell it to do something but it would deny them, for there was a greater influence inside them, and it having been designed rather than naturally occurring made a hell of a lot of sense. The overlords had two ropes pulling on them and cancelling each other out, and if that other rope still existed, bred into them, then they weren’t going to be able to change anything with further attempts.

“Who are they?” Tia asked again.

Myra shook her head. “I didn’t get much, but they’re a very widespread race that keeps to the shadows. There wasn’t a colony here, only a research team. They have a ship hidden elsewhere on the planet and I need you to find and capture it if possible. I think it’ll be empty.”

“How are you doing?”

“Shaky.”

“We could see that.”

“I can fight if needed, but I’m weak.”

“We’re winning,” Tia commented. “How fast we win is up to us. Take your time. Did you learn anything else about these guys?”

“They’re basically Spectre.”

“What’s that?”

“Bond movies,” Myra said, seeing that John caught the reference. “They don’t have visible territory to go after, not much anyway, but they’re working behind the scenes to exert their power. I don’t know how much, but they’re definitely a region-wide power with tendrils going out to a lot of different places and conflicts. They’re not someone we can take lightly.”

“How big a threat?” John asked.

“We’ll know more when we find their ship, but their biotech is significant and their lair was well built. I don’t think we have to worry about them here anymore, but elsewhere they’re going to be a problem and not in a direct way. I think they’ll work around us rather than punch us in the nose, and that’s going to make Randy’s efforts that much harder.”

“What do they look like?”

Myra sent visuals into their minds with Tia cringing.

“Ugly mothers. Don’t look too tough.”

“They had a self-destruct that did all the damage.”

“We should try to get another overlord,” John suggested, “and confirm whether or not their influence over them has been weakened.”

“If you want to try, go ahead. But get their ship first.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Hidden on the surface. I’ve got an orbital sensor scan going, but so far nothing obvious is showing up.”

“We’ll find it,” John promised. “Now, tell us what happened down there?”

Myra shrugged. “I moved out ahead of the Paladin, snuck into their lair, then found their leader and had him Vader-choked in the air asking him a few questions when he tried to use a self-destruct trigger in his pocket. I got it away from him, but another one of them used a control panel that started a short countdown. I ran, but didn’t get far enough away and the whole place came down. I was trapped in the rubble with magma seeping in and barely wiggled out, losing my armor in the process. Luckily I found a maintenance tunnel, or whatever it was, and worked my way back towards the Paladin. When I got within Ikrid range I called to them and they dug me out.”

“And?” John pressed.

“And I was hurt pretty bad, but I nearly died of dehydration. That’s not a pleasant way to go.”

“How close?”

“Too close. I’ll admit, I’m still rattled from it. I keep thinking through what I did wrong, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that the Ionvan were planning to blow the place before I got there to cover their tracks. They didn’t set that up for me. I got in cleanly and then…” she said, trailing off with her vexation showing on her features. “Never let anyone tell you that Rensiek is overrated. It let me survive when my armor didn’t.”

“Noted,” John said, not wanting to have to find that out for himself someday.

“So you think the reavers will just keep attacking even without someone prodding them on?” Tia asked.

“I do. I got the impression they were designed to fight autonomously. Release and kill without any oversight needed, but with a backdoor control mechanism to protect the owners and to allow for modifications if things didn’t go according to plan, such as our arrival here.”

“A quiet little backwater world with a high population to practice on,” John said with a hint of anger.

“Why’d they come looking here anyway?” Tia asked. “If the stories of the reavers are true, then the Ionvan didn’t bring them here. How’d they find them?”

“I don’t know,” Myra admitted. “My interrogation of them didn’t last very long.”

2 years later…

Randy sat on a swampy plain, his armored butt resting on a half rotted log as he ran through status reports in the field as his Clan Star Fox troops were finishing rounding up wounded Jadshiga and taking them prisoner. The fighting hadn’t been intense, but there had been a lot of it and he hadn’t been able to sleep in the past 32 hours and wouldn’t be able to for several more, needing to stay on station in case more of their burrow worms were still nearby. The biological tanks had a habit of pushing up through the muck right beneath your feet and took a lot of firepower to take down.

Right now Randy’s psionics were the best early warning against them they had, so while he kept his Ikrid peeled he rested on the log and reviewed updates coming down through the battlemap and into his armor’s HUD, including reports from a variety of worlds that were still off the growing Clan comm grid. Patrols would go around to them, checking in periodically and exchanging information packets that he was now reviewing, including one from Tekin that was disturbing.

What had been a natural disaster in the making with the reaver uprising had since been determined to be a weapons test by a previously unknown race not native to the planet. Their research team had killed themselves with a self-destruct along with the Archon that he’d sent to lead the planetary rescue effort, though somehow she’d been able to pull herself back from the brink of death. An addendum indicated that she’d been off combat duty for 8 months afterwards but had returned to the fight for the final 3 month push that had eradicated the reavers entirely from the planet.

Well that was good news…the latter part anyway. As he read through the mass of data he saw that they’d found the ship the Ionvan had left behind. It hadn’t been destroyed in their base’s self-destruct because it was on the surface, not buried deep within the crushing rock of the planet where orbital sensors couldn’t find these guys. The camouflage technology of the hangar was disturbing, but nothing that Star Force hadn’t encountered before. An adjustment to the standard Star Force sensor package was included with the data along with the recommendation that it be implemented fleet-wide in order to detect hidden Ionvan assets.

Why that would be necessary Randy wasn’t sure until he got through the full report, having to remind himself to keep on the lookout for burrow worms as he found his split concentration fading. From the brief telepathic interrogation Myra had managed before she got her ass blown up she’d identified the Ionvan and their modus operandi…they worked with and manipulated other races across a large region without having defined territory of their own. They were a shadow player, and the Spectre metaphor included seemed to fit aptly.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, pulling up a tiny starmap on his HUD and starting to highlight systems where he’d already encountered unusual resistance and problems. He didn’t know for sure if this was due to the Ionvan, but in his spare time he’d been studying reports from the other 2s and had started to think he’d gotten a tougher region to handle than most of them…yet he didn’t have any obvious cause for the bulk of the instability arising. Opportunists were there, certainly, but it seemed like worlds that should be stable enough were getting enflamed and going after each other without cause.

If there was a silent player involved it explained a lot, and the fact that they were using the Vitti race as cannon fodder to test their reaver bioweapon suggested they intended to use it elsewhere if it proved successful, and that was one headache Randy was glad his team had prevented, for there were enough worlds dying as it was that he couldn’t save for lack of resources. Some were being exterminated, others conquered or enslaved, while a great many others were simply unknown to him. He had scouts everywhere, but there was simply too much territory to keep watch over with the limited number of ships that he had and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

He was winning the battles that his Clan was engaged in and creating small ‘safe’ pockets within his assigned region in addition to holding onto all of Teowan and Neenan territory. Those two had been headaches initially, but since he’d got them locked down and able to hold their own defenses for the most part, his Clan was somewhat free to troubleshoot in other areas while most of his Paladin were gathering resources to feed all concerned.

If there was a shadow player involved, and a major one according to his report, then he didn’t have vision on all the enemies capable of doing his two major races damage. These Ionvan could even be operating inside Teowan or Neenan borders, and that worried him. He had things hanging together by a thread right now, knowing that the longer they did the more stable they’d become, and the more noise he could cause with his Clan the better, for it would distract or intimidate others from attacking the other races, but if there were…

Something clicked in his mind and he suddenly stood up, dismissing the reports from his HUD and getting on the comm to his ships in orbit. As soon as he was finished fighting burrow worms here and the prisoners were secured, he was bugging out and heading for his Clan command center in Neenan territory.

“I have never seen tis before,” the hulking Neenan General told Randy when the Archon showed him an approximation of what they looked like, “but tis ship is familiar. Several were captured from black market dealers who claimed to have salvaged them from an orbital battlefield.”

“Yes,” Randy agreed. “That was what caught my attention. Those ships were not part of either side of the battle and were found destroyed, but empty in the aftermath. What does that suggest?”

“They were stripped by salvagers.”

“And no bodies?”

“Not all salvagers desire technology,” the General said gravely.

“A fair point,” Randy conceded. “But given the camouflage technology that we recovered in their intact ship, they could get within close sensor range and not show up on either of those two races’ screens.”

“You are suggesting they got caught in the crossfire?”

“I think so, then their surviving buddies cleaned out the ships of everything they could without being able to tow them away.”

“And the significance of tis?”

“If they were in that close proximity to the battle it had to be for a reason.”

“They were attempting to manipulate the outcome…”

“How many missing ships do you have?” Randy asked the Thing-like General whose skin looked more like green rock than flesh and stood twice the Archon’s height. “How many unexplained losses of power, vanished supplies, dead personnel? How many instances of things going wrong in supposed ‘safe’ areas that remain unexplained?”

The massive triped ground his three fists down into his three hips. “You are saying we are already under attack by a foe that refused to show their face?”

“It’s a significant possibility, and if these Ionvan aren’t responsible directly they may be aiding others who are. There is definitely a shadow war going on, and I am worried that it may be designed to weaken the Neenan from the interior enough to allow for a major overt attack from the outside to be successful.”

“Sabotage?”

“There are many different forms, but yes, and looking at the map there are three big possibilities.”

Randy adjusted the Star Force hologram that the General and six other Neenan were standing around looking like trolls with the tiny Humans and Kiritas clustered and moving around their feet.

“The Traae, Miplekwe, and Sbiv are not strong enough to take you…not on their own and definitely not with Star Fox assistance, but if several of these border worlds are weakened they could penetrate quite far individually. Two of them could do significant damage if they attacked without worry of their own future. If all three coordinated…”

“We could hold the line,” the Neenan said firmly, “but not if we’re compromised from within, and without knowing who our enemy truly is we can’t calculate where to reinforce and in what quantities. We either overcommit and bring your Star Force troops back out of fear or we risk spreading ourselves too thin, sufficient to guard against the visible threats, but perhaps leaving us vulnerable to the hidden ones.”

“Well said, General. That is exactly my concern.”

“How do we counter tis threat?”

“To start with, we’re going to quietly upgrade your sensors to be able to detect these Ionvan ships. If we have time to work with, and I really hope these guys are patient enough to give it to us, then we watch and see where they are going. We do not intercept them and tip our hand. We watch and learn as much as possible.”

“To see the strength of the hidden.”

“And where they are probing. If we learn that, then we can quietly start moving against them while making preparations for a major invasion…or whatever else might be coming our way.”

“How do we fight those who hide in the shadows and refuse a traditional fight?”

“With Archons,” Randy said simply. “A lot of Archons.”

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STAR FORCE Wiki

1

October 18, 3542

Paquat System (Trinx Region)

Vikod

“I am impressed,” the Chamra envoy told Oni-081 as the pair walked along an elevated bridge that spanned a giant artificial canyon within an enclosed Trinx city with hundreds of the red-skinned, twin headtailed aliens walking about in Star Force civilian garb, “with the fact that you’ve been able to completely integrate them. Are there really no dissidents?”

“None,” the trailblazer confirmed to the cyborg.

“How is that possible without some form of control?”

“Most of the Trinx you see were born after the annexation. Those that were not had to earn their way here.”

“And those that didn’t?”

“They are all dead by now.”

“How so?”

“Gradual degradation.”

“Old age?” he asked, with his cybernetic processors handling the English neural translation as well as if he spoke it naturally. “Trinx typically lived more than 400 years. Some should still be around.”

“We shut down the facility 52 years ago when the last of them died. They were told what they needed to do in order to achieve self-sufficiency, but they had no will to try. All those who did made it out are living amongst the general population, but there has been no dissent from them. I think they’re just glad to be here.”

“How many killed themselves?”

Oni frowned. “We don’t make it easy for prisoners to do so, but we’ll only go so far to keep them alive if they’re trying to die. Many did kill themselves in the beginning, and a few down the road when they lost the will to live. Between rotting to death and self-strangulation, I’m not sure which is worse. But there was always an out for them if they chose to take it, and we made sure they all knew it.”

“You cannot force people to choose, else it no longer becomes a choice,” the Chamra said as they continued to walk along the very lengthy bridge, underneath which were multiple levels with shops and restaurants, though the pair had chosen to walk up top. Below the bridge was the Trinx cityscape, Star Force in design but with a unique flair to it that had a green motif that clashed/complemented their skin color depending upon who you asked.

“I sense disapproval.”

“I disapprove of us ever having to turn against one other. The war should never have happened.”

“Their leaders at the time felt otherwise.”

“I know isolation is an effective technique that you use, but the thought of dying without ever seeing another of their kind feels cruel. Not on your part,” he clarified, “but as fate would have it, they would have been better off dying in battle.”

“Except that some who were staunchly opposed to the annexation changed their minds over time,” Oni countered. “You never know for sure if someone is going to learn or not until you give them the chance.”

“Have there been any that have turned back once they earned their way in?”

“None that have come to my attention. If they have dissentious feelings they keep them to themselves, though I can guarantee you that they did not have them when allowed in. A mental scan is performed on each individual just in case they are faking, and it has happened, but those individuals had to learn our way in order to fake their way in and in the process actually ended up at least partially converting, though that wasn’t their original intention. There are many pathways the original Trinx have tread to get here. Giving them the opportunity was our responsibility. Their ultimate fate was their own.”

“You take far better care of your prisoners that many civilizations do their own citizens.”

“Is that a rebuke?”

“I question the thought process, not the results. You have done better here than we anticipated possible without some form of mental alteration.”

“Training is mental alteration.”

“Compulsory,” the cyborg amended.

“Is it compulsory for you?”

“The augmentations? We’re born with them.”

“No live births I take it?”

“We’ve modified our reproduction to occur externally in chambers that mimic Chamra bodies, as well as have modified our genetic code to accept and expect mechanical components. The birthing chambers supply the most basic of these during development. Further augmentation occurs on an individual basis over the course of one’s lifetime.”

“By choice?”

“This hybridized state is something we are born into, Archon. It is natural for us. Why would we not want to upgrade ourselves over time?”

“Self-sufficiency.”

“We accomplish more our way…or at least I believed so before encountering your kind.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“No. While you appear to be immortal, your maintenance is high and most of your population does not share that state. You have people dying from old age continuously, true?”

“We don’t force people to train past the maturia state, so yes, not everyone obtains self-sufficiency.”

“And those that do, lose it if they don’t continue to train?”

“Eventually, yes, though it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Most things are. Chamra have unlimited lifespans because our components can be replaced, both hardware and biology, with one supporting the other during the swap out. And our entire population is equal. We do not have deaths aside from accidents and combat fatalities.”

“How often do you have to ‘swap out’ body parts?”

“When something grows weak or fails entirely new cells are forced to grow to replace the old. We have medical facilities to handle this, but I have not needed one in the past 50 years. It varies between individuals according to wear and tear and your compatibility rating.”

“Your biology fights the technology to some extent?”

“Minimally. But as you’ve mentioned before, half of us is product rather than person.”

“How far can you go?”

“We’ve lost people in the past that tried to remove too much tissue. They shut down all but autonomic functions and become a shell.”

“I’d be interested in any files on that that you’d be willing to share.”

“Are you considering augmentations yourself?”

“No and we never will. Such things are banned within Star Force.”

“You penalize cyborgs?” he asked with obvious disdain.

Oni shook her head. “Not for having cybernetic augmentations. We penalize those that sell them.”

“And if someone would provide them for free?”

“We won’t provide them with equipment or parts to do so. If they manage to fashion their own we won’t punish them, but we will confiscate the materials if we find them.”

“So if I were to emigrate to your Axius faction, I would not be able to repair my damaged components?”

“We’d assist you with what you needed, but we wouldn’t let you expand upon them or reproduce in your stated way.”

“What is it you fear?”

“There’s no instruction manual for biology, and when you mess with it you usually end up screwing something up.”

“My people have gained considerable knowledge in the practice, and the fact that we have unlimited lifespans without utilizing your self-sufficiency should be proof that we know what we’re doing.”

“You focus on the gains, but what about the losses?”

“Of personnel? Accidents do happen, but we prefer to learn from the mistakes rather than to stop experimenting.”

“We don’t allow such experimentations, but that wasn’t what I was referring to. Do you ever wonder how much your biology is hindered by the augmentations?”

“No. It serves its well-known function.”

“And what if there are secrets that lie buried that have to be unlocked over time and training?”

“Would not such things be visible in the genetic code?”

“A person is more than just a genetic code, which is why you can’t produce people in a factory the way you do replacement parts.”

“Isn’t that what your Li’vorkrachnika do?”

“No. They’ve factorized the reproduction process. Totally different.”

“How, exactly?”

“The genetic samples that they are grown from have to originate from another lifeform. They can’t be synthesized. Replicated yes, but not synthesized.”

“The Lethboryi conundrum. We are familiar with it.”

“Then you explain.”

“A person is more than the sum of their parts, with some unseen aspect to them that is not present when parts alone are created. This is why a fully mechanical Chamra is impossible. We do not understand why, but we are aware of the fact.”

“And with that uncertainty comes the question of what else might be hidden from view,” Oni pointed out. “Perhaps things that your augmentation blocks.”

“One cannot know if you’re missing something that is unseeable.”

“My homeworld once thought people had a limited lifespan. That we were destined to grow old and die and that there was nothing we could do to stop it. Some even speculated that we could extend that lifespan by creating mechanical replacements for certain organs, but doing so would interfere with self-sufficiency because of the inherent inefficiency of the combination. They didn’t understand this at the time, but their efforts to work outside the natural design caused a limitation. Perhaps there are more limitations occurring that you are not seeing.”

“You suggest we revert back to a fully organic state?”

“I suggest that Star Force isn’t going to pursue the same course in order to keep open whatever hidden possibilities there might be.”

“And you intend to probe them with further training?”

Oni smiled. “Exactly. Work from the user’s perspective rather than trying to pretend you’re on the level of a designer.”

“And no one knows the origin of life, or the universe itself.”

“Which is why it’s best not to meddle. Exploration is wiser.”

“Well argued.”

“Yet disappointed?”

“I had hoped to open up an exchange with the Trinx. Some of them used to welcome limited enhancements.”

“I know. We had to deal with those in the prisoners.”

“You removed them?”

“We had to alter our training standards around them, but we did remove them from those that wished it and regrew their natural tissues.”

“I’ve heard you had such technology. Is it as efficient a process as you make it sound?”

“Our medical technology is far superior to what the Trinx originally had.”

“So are most other aspects of your civilization, though you don’t make a habit of showing them off as much as others would.”

“Meaning what?”

“You conceal your power in most cases, and don’t reveal it until a need arises.”

“And what do ‘normal’ civilizations do?”

“They boast and often claim more than they can produce.”

“Star Force is inherently tuned to the truth. Bragging is one thing, but making unwarranted claims is a good way to destroy a reputation for honesty that has given us considerable negotiating power.”

“Indeed it has. Many races trust you where they would not even approach others. Which brings up a request I was instructed to pass along.”

“You want a system,” Oni said matter of fact.

The Chamra rotated its head and single artificial eye towards her as they continued to walk next to the railing, over which they could see down several hundreds of meters to the cityscape below.

“A guess?”

“I can read part of your mind, then guess from the context.”

“I did not think that was possible. Either your powers are more considerable than other telepaths or I have a vulnerability that I was unaware of. I’ve shunted most surface thoughts into my mechanical components to avoid such invasion.”

“Your emotions are not. And connected to those I can backtrack into certain memories. I registered a prerequisite level of importance and compared it to other accessible memories. From there, unable to find a match, I guessed.”

“Thank you for being candid.”

“We don’t fear strength. If we’re lacking we improve rather than try to hobble our opponents.”

“Some would call that arrogance.”

“Arrogance is stating that you are more than you are.”

“Recklessness then.”

“Better to get in the habit of facing opponents directly than to rely on guile to see you through every situation.”

“But you reserve the option?”

“Of course, though most of the time you won’t even realize we’re using it.”

“I think we have much to learn from each other, Archon.”

“And what do you have to teach, Chamra?”

“We wish to establish a deeper relationship with Star Force, specifically the Trinx. Your territory has become a communal point for more races than anywhere else within our mapping range, and you manage it all with a steadiness that is worthy of being mechanical. Your ability to control the Uriti is impressive enough, but the way you’ve handled the political firestorm that surrounds it says a great deal more about you. Though we are already allies of a sort, we wish to further relations, and we have a long history with the Trinx that we’d like to expand upon.”

“To what end?”

“We have no immediate goal. We simply believe that you are worthy of our attention and investment.”

“Investment?”

“We are not asking for a system, we are offering to pay for one within the boundaries you define as the Trinx Region. And though we had hoped to extend a market for cybernetic enhancements, even without that there is much unseen potential that we believe we should explore with you.”

“You have no contacts with these Trinx, so where is the connection?”

“They have been brothers in common cause for a very long time. Though they have changed, we still hold to that brotherhood.”

“Right now I am the Trinx.”

“Which is why I am speaking with you.”

“We are a long way from your territory. Establishing trade routes there will be difficult.”

“Which is why we wish to establish a colony from which we can interact.”

“Others of The Nine have already done so. Why now and why come to me?”

“They seek economic strength and political position. Those are not our primary concerns.”

“Even purchased systems under our territorial umbrella must follow Star Force general protocol.”

“Of this we are well aware.”

“I don’t want to have to fight a war with you if you change your mind later.”

“The example you have set with others has been long lasting. We would not enter into such an agreement if not willing to abide for it in perpetuity.”

“What is it that you’re not telling me?”

“A great many things.”

“There’s something important,” Oni insisted. “Something I can only partially sense.”

“Things that cannot reach the ears of the general population,” the Chamra said, eyeing the Trinx around them on the bridge.

“Give me your hand.”

The cyborg did as instructed, though he did not understand the reason why. Oni grabbed the metallic limb and slid her hand up until she touched the patch of flesh exposed on his forearm and gripped it firmly.

Can you hear me?

“Yes I can.”

Speak only in your mind.

Are you able to hear my thoughts?

It seems I have been able to establish a bridge.

My internal diagnostics indicate subtle alterations are being made in my tissues. How are you accomplishing this?

A latent power that we discovered via training, and it is something we do not advertise to the public along with a lot of other powers. You may speak freely here and those around will not hear.

An organic comm relay via physical contact. No telepathic signals in use?

No. You can register such things?

I have the ability. It helps to identify who is attempting manipulation in diplomatic environments.

Useful. What is your concern?

The Nexus is destabilizing.

We know.

It is more than events involving your acquisition of a segment of their territory. The Sety have spoken for a vast expanse of the galaxy and are unable to unilaterally command it. They grew their power via forming an alliance that shared technology and was bound together by one undeniable purpose.

To protect one another.

That bond has been broken, and the sacrifices being made to sustain what they have are fracturing the allegiances within. The removal of the constructs given to you have been seen as a betrayal despite the temporary nature of the withdrawal. Even when the replacements arrive it will not satisfy the Uque, who had no say in the decision. The Sety are growing desperate and pushing their allies’ wishes aside in an attempt to save the mass of their domain…but at the same time they are threatening the bonds that hold it together and we fear it may fracture completely given sufficient impetus.

We speculated that not all was well between the member states, but we had not heard rumors of anything that significant.

We know the Sety as a peer. They know them as a ruling faction that offered peerdom via allegiance, but now that they must make drastic changes they are doing so unilaterally and unwittingly weakening the whole. We have advised them of this mistake, but they see no other way. Their expansion into your territory is but one small part of a larger plan they have to defend The Nexus, and we have advised them where we could to strengthen it, but we calculate the odds are less than 30% that they will succeed. Probability is that they will be forced to forfeit regions and member states in a far less civilized manner than they have done with you. If and when that comes to pass, it may incite a resource grab to prevent the Sety from claiming priority ownership.

Troublesome, but how does it involve you?

The Nexus falling will destabilize a power structure that spans a quarter of the outer rim. What will happen if it falls is unknown, but we would prefer to shore up our existing alliances prior to that potentially happening.

You fear a storm is coming.

We are working with the Sety to avoid it, but we fear they have overreached in the past and are now paying the price for their arrogance. The Chamra control all Chamra territory. The Sety control a small fraction of theirs. You have incorporated other races into your civilization, but done so without weakening yourself. You are stronger for it, and if anything can be learned from you we wish to know it.

You want to study us further?

We want to interact with you for a number of reasons, and that is one. We also want to know what is occurring here and relying on secondhand information is not preferable. Better to have a piece of our own on the playing board that can report back…and one that can potentially come to your aid if you require it. Our basic premise is that you are worthy of greater interaction and that the loss of your civilization would be a negative influence on what stability is left. Our mere presence with a system in your territory will send a message that certain other civilizations will take notice of.

You fear your enemies are growing bolder with the weakening of The Nexus?

We do not fear it, we know it. The Chamra will maintain our territory, but we do not have the strength to step in and replace The Nexus. If chaos is to ensue, we would prefer to have stable regions firmly establish to work out from, and establishing a link into yours would be a small step in that direction. Our relationship with the Trinx is an ancillary factor, but a preferable one.

“I understand,” Oni said, releasing his arm as they neared the far side of the bridge and the long promenade that ran the length of the cityscape canyon with multiple others above and below on different tiers. “We can discuss price later, but your request is granted. Did you have a specific system in mind?”

“No, but the larger the better. We will have to develop it from local resources but we want to grow it into a significant foothold, not a hollow presence.”

“Atmosphere?”

“None required. Size and resources are the pertinent factors.”

“Let’s find a starmap and have a look,” Oni said, but the Chamra stopped walking and faced the railing. The trailblazer stopped as well, only to see him generate a holographic starmap out over the dropoff several meters wide.

“That works,” she said, seeing the whole of the Trinx Region displayed before her. She pointed her finger at a specific subregion. “Zoom in here.”

2

May 1, 3543

Ottark System (Occupation Zone)

Kiik (Meintre relocation hub)

The Star Force cargo jumpship came out of its interstellar jump against the larger of two stars in the binary Ottark System, decelerating at the head of a small convoy of six nearly identical ships, but it didn’t wait for the others. Though this system was owned by a foreign power there was no danger here and the nearby fishhook-shaped warships were standing guard to make sure that it stayed safe.

The jumpships weren’t the only traffic currently transitioning through stellar orbit, for there was a nearly continuous flow of vessels coming from the nearby Grid Point Stargate, and most of those were Meintre transports carrying equipment and people out of The Nexus to Kiik where they were all being sorted and assigned work/living slots in the new colonies. At present they had four systems with considerable inhabitation and two more with bare bones facilities supporting work crews readying them to accept additional workers.

Moving an entire civilization, even one reduced by warfare, was a monumental task. The entirety of the Meintre race was coming here eventually, and it wasn’t because they wanted to. Their sector within The Nexus was being slowly overrun, so rather than stand their ground and die or try to evacuate to somewhere closer that didn’t have the resources to take them in, they’d struck a deal with Star Force to relocate here beneath their protective halo of warships arguably more advanced than those now guarding this system, not to mention the sheer intimidation factor coming from an empire that had tamed the Uriti. That alone would keep some enemies away, for fear of seeing one of the massive beasts arriving in their home system to destroy it…despite promises by Star Force to never use them in such a way.

But they had the capability to if they changed their minds, and the very public and well documented history of their wars since the inception of their empire made it clear to everyone with half a brain that Star Force didn’t make threats it couldn’t back up…and they’d vouched for the protection of the Meintre and everyone else living within their empire’s domain. This system was owned by The Nexus, but it was surrounded by Star Force systems and that put it within their domain on a very widespread and often chaotic starmap, for one couldn’t draw lines across ground where there was no ground, but every system that had been tagged as under Star Force protection was publically known so there would be no misunderstandings.

Anyone that came here looking for trouble would have to deal with the thousands of Meintre warships guarding it, then one call through the Star Force comm relay grid that was connected here via an orbital facility on the very outskirts of the system would bring nearby warships to their delayed aid. No one could fight the Meintre with Star Force so close nearby unless they came in with overwhelming force and the Meintre collapsed quickly, but they were not a weak nor a young race and knew well how to defend themselves, despite the mismatch they were encountering back within The Nexus.

This system was bottled up tight enough that Star Force would have no problem pouring combat fleets in here before too much damage was done if the call was made, and that double layer of protection was why this cargo convoy hadn’t been assigned escorts. They only had 8 jumps to make to get here, and given such a short distance and the jumpships’ superior speed, the gigantic armored behemoths could move about freely and leave the warships free to go where they were more needed.

And they were free to move around this system as well, for they were bringing in badly needed exterior resources to help spur the growth of the system, all of which was originating from a series of Kiritak colonies within the Occupation Zone. The Meintre were paying for the cargo and Star Force was supplying them with as much as they wanted, but most of the building here was the result of local productivity. The Meintre needed specialized items and raw materials from Star Force, the kind of which didn’t occur in this system or were hard to get at…such as corovon and solari, the latter of which the Meintre had no current means to procure on their own.

That would have limited their building to inferior facilities and a few higher caliber ones constructed with whatever solari they could import from The Nexus, so the nearby availability of the Star Force markets was a great asset, especially when Star Force had extended a dedicated branch out into this region of the Occupation Zone specifically to supply them with resources.

The Sety had set up and brokered the deal for the Meintre, but since their arrival they’d been dealing with Star Force directly and had begun to grow their own independent relationship with them…and they hadn’t been disappointed. Rather they’d been overwhelmed with the professionality and efficiency of their empire, not to mention the reasonable prices of the resources being offered. Others would have jacked up the costs to make an obscene profit, but Star Force was merely asking for compensation for the work they were doing in their place and the Meintre were grateful for that along with the Star Force defensive umbrella backing them up as they brought their vulnerable civilian population in one ship at a time.

When the arriving cargo ship transitioned into orbit of Kiik it didn’t find a waiting Star Force starport to offload into, nor a Meintre equivalent. Rather it dispersed its own fleet of dropships and larger transports when needed directly down to the surface of the planet and began unloading with four of the others while the fifth headed for an orbital shipyard to deliver materials there.

Most of the crew of the cargo ships were Kiritak with a scattering of other races mixed in, meaning that it was the short, diminutive race that was piloting the ships down through the atmosphere and into the waiting aerial escorts of the Meintre, who screened for them against the curious and the dangerous, though most foreign ships never made it past the blockade around the stars, scared off by the present of the fleet even if they did have navigational options to get here.

When the Kiritak landed and opened their holds they began hauling the various sized crates out onto conveyor belts that pulled them inside loading docks for nearby trains. A few of the Meintre came out to oversee the offloading and take inventory, though the Kiritak tried to stay at least a few meters away from them at all times…for they were huge and walked awkwardly. They stood several meters tall and had thick bodies that sported six heavy legs. Their heads were more massive than an individual Kiritak and they had four tentacle trunks drooping down that they could breathe through as well as lift objects with.

They were reminiscent of elephants, but heavier. They looked hard to kill, but not capable of traditional combat. That said, the Kiritak didn’t want to get anywhere near them when they were mad, for a single footfall could crush one of them…and the same went for an accidental step in the wrong direction.

The Meintre further back and barely visible inside the train loading facility wore mechanical harnesses that had robotic arms that latched onto the crates and lifted them where needed, and the Kiritak could see them hauling more than one crate at a time as they walked across the open-topped platform where the trains would park. There were multiple rail lines stacked on top of one another with platforms off each and an elevator system connected to the conveyor belt that fed into what was suspected to be a sorting facility, but wherever they momentarily disappeared to the Kiritak didn’t know because it wasn’t visible.

As they had done numerous times already and would continue to do round the clock for the coming days, the Kiritak offloaders would bring the crates out via anti-grav sleds and sometimes a small mech when necessary, load them onto the conveyors, and swap manifest lists with the Meintre watching. Accounts would be balanced and electronic currency released for each accepted shipment, then the dropship would leave empty and head back up to orbit to reload and make the trip all over again.

Before this jumpship was empty another convoy would arrive, and then another and another, giving the Meintre a constant stream of supplies that traveled out on the trains to various locations based on what the cargo was. Raw materials were sent on a line to the north that joined with others coming from multiple offloading spaceports and linked to a massive industrial area that would mold and create the various products that the Meintre needed to build with, combined with the natural resources being collected and processed on the planet.

More trains would leave that area and travel to construction sites while others carried various types of plants being bought from Star Force to accelerate the growth of the Meintre’s food production facilities. Those were located towards the west and southwest and were the fastest growing construction sites on the planet, as was necessary to feed the gigantic aliens as they poured in from convoys that were depositing their living cargo in other locations.

Those evacuees traveled by train as well to immigration centers where their identities were logged into a system designed based on a Star Force model. It was all of Meintre construction, but given Star Force’s experience with moving entire populations and their continuing influx of refugees from across this corner of the galaxy, they’d sought out any advice that would make their own relocation run more smoothly but had created their own technology for the task.

Individuals with useful skills were sent to work camps immediately while those too sick, young, or otherwise damaged were sent to the south where the bulk of the ‘useless’ population was stowed away. No one was going to be left behind willingly and the Meintre were evacuating those planets most at risk first, which meant their available workforce here was largely randomized and a hurdle to overcome, which was why they had programs already underway to help heal, train, and develop individuals in the ‘useless’ population to the point where they could do at least one task of value, at which point they’d be moved to ‘regular’ colonies in the east.

That same geographical structure was used for the 18 import locations on the planet with each filling out more and more as the years passed. Export locations were mining colonies supplying the Meintre with the raw materials they needed and were often temporary constructs, many of which were located in a nearby asteroid belt and sending their own stream of dropships down to export spaceports.

Altogether it was a crisscrossing mash of people building, growing, or just living interconnected almost exclusively using trains. There were so many rail lines covering the inhabited portions of the planet that it looked like someone had taken a page out of George Jetson’s universe, but it all functioned extremely well, with the Meintre making good use out of the resources they collected and paid for to grow their infrastructure enough to keep up with the evacuation quotas. Only so many ships were available to carry people out, and that was the amount of immigration the Meintre here had to maintain in addition to new local births.

The Meintre were long living, but their birthrate was even lower than Humans. That meant from a civilization standpoint that the loss of population in the warzone was far more of a crippling blow than for other races, and to counter that vulnerability the Meintre had adopted a defensive persona, both in attitude and technology, with them boasting some of the strongest planetary shield generators within The Nexus…against which their enemies were nibbling away, but at least that protection gave them more time to evacuate their people before they were overrun.

And had it not been for the newly activated Grid Point Stargate, the evacuation convoys would not have been sufficient in number. Now the out and back timeframe was reasonable so long as they could acquire enough carrier berths in the network, for which the Sety had already made arrangements, due in no small part to the fact that the Meintre were not just being evacuated to get them out of danger, but in order for them to reset themselves and then to start growing a warfleet that could return to The Nexus and aid the others in their fight to stabilize their crumbling alliance.

The Meintre had promised to do so and no one doubted their word on that. Give them enough time and resources and they’d build a fleet that was very hard to destroy, but one that was less suited to offensive missions. That, ironically, was exactly what The Nexus needed now, for there was no real discussion about retaking lost worlds. The goal was to hold onto as much of what they had as possible…then if they could do that, and truly stabilize, they could think about going after their enemies and taking back the worlds that were stolen or had devolved into anarchy in the chaos.

The Meintre were badly needed, but not so much that the Sety and others would come to their aid in force to help them hold onto their current worlds. The Meintre were not happy about that at all, but they had no choice in the matter. This was the only viable alternative proposed to them and they had to take it, but now that some of them were here and getting used to the situation, they were finding it preferable. Not in the loss of their worlds, but in the fact that they had a real guardian to watch over them rather than the failed promise of The Nexus.

Some speculated that Star Force’s promises might end up being hollow as well, but their efforts to take the nearest regions of The Nexus under their own protection and try to stabilize them, with the Sety’s blessing no doubt, was a signal that Star Force’s home territory wasn’t in jeopardy…and that’s exactly where the Meintre were setting up shop, as were the Gfatt and Albos. Even the Sety had a few worlds already established in another portion of Star Force, and it was widely held common knowledge that this was the only real source of stability available to The Nexus.

Moving their entire population here and forfeiting their current worlds was an insanely bad idea, but given the alternatives it might prove to be a good thing in the long run. Should they have stayed and fought with assistance from other Nexus members that never materialized they could have been fighting a no-win scenario. Here they were free to build without having to deal with attrition, meaning that time was on their side so long as they could get all their people out in time.

But the sight of their most developed system out of the four they currently inhabited was incredibly demoralizing to the Meintre as they arrived. This was literally nothing more than a large refugee camp, not a home, and that wouldn’t change for a very long time.

Building up an entire world, let alone a star system, was something that took many generations and an incalculable amount of hard work, dedication, and perseverance. Everything that they’d accomplished in the past was being forfeited by the evacuation, and that gnawing distaste was eating away at the Meintre in a mix of futility and anger. Anger at their enemies, certainly, but also anger at the Sety for not having organized The Nexus better. For there not to be enough ‘safe’ regions to pull assistance from to help the besieged ones was…well, it was borderline treason.

The Meintre hadn’t failed in their task outright. They’d held on to their territory up until the word of weakness had leaked out and the Verrma had chosen them as their target. The Nexus had never eliminated the enemy within their domain because of their strength and a policy of containment was enacted while other threats were being dealt with.

Now that policy had backfired royally, for there were no reinforcements available to come to the Meintre’s aid…or at least that was what they’d been told. Some Meintre doubted the total truth of that, but there were reports of invasions and rebellions across The Nexus, so at the worst it couldn’t be a total lie. Never the less the promise had been broken, and the responsibility for that lay with the Sety. They were not the entire Nexus, but they were the heart and driving force behind it.

The Meintre would do their duty and come to the aid of their fellow members when able, for that was the way they operated. Their word was their bond, and even if they hadn’t been supported when needed they weren’t going to return the lack of support. If the day came when they were able, they’d send forth a fleet and do what they could to confront the instability seeping through The Nexus like a disease…but there was no longer any good will with the Sety or the other major members. The trust had been broken, and the Meintre felt they were on their own in fact if not in name.

And if Star Force didn’t hold to its promise of protection, the excessive vulnerability the Meintre now suffered from during this transition would be the death of their race…which was why they were so pleased to see that promises were being upheld, at least during this initial phase, and the Meintre were getting the chance to put down new roots that would see them growing stronger year by year going forward.

If it lasted. And with the Great Promise already broken, the Meintre had no illusions of anything being as stalwart. They’d been let down once and they were losing every world they’d ever possessed because of it, and that bitterness would permanently reside in the Meintre going forward.

3

June 20, 3543

Solar System

Earth

Rio ran out of a surface cupola on the surface of Atlantis with the doors telekinetically flying apart before he rolled out at an easy cadence. They shut behind him and he took a hard left, ‘jogging’ along the length of what had once been the location of a long since removed runway. Now it was a much wider landing pad split up into segments with buildings sitting in the middle of what had originally been the longest airstrip in the city when the trailblazer had first arrived here well over a millennia ago.

Atlantis had changed a bit since then, but it was still his home and the other trailblazers felt the same way. Right now though most of them were out doing important stuff while he was on permanent vacation, though he was still running Clan Rwby from afar. His duty to Star Force now was digging into his dreams and dragging out as many Tier 4 psionics as he could. That meant he did nothing but train, train, and train some more. He’d learned early on that his dreams occurred more frequently when he was pressing his limits…so that’s exactly what he now did on a regular basis, and as of three days ago he was now the top ranked Archon.

He was pleased with that, but also sore about it. Morgan was busy prepping to prepare Star Force’s defense against a possible Skarron Crusade and Paul was out in the Rim Region desperately trying to save as many people as he could from the failure of The Nexus to control their own turf, with neither of them being able to train 24/7. Even Rio’s Clan duties occurred when he was on brief rest periods, with every moment that he could spend in action being so. Even now Rio had on a headset that he could use to handle administrative duties while he was doing an ‘easy’ workout in between harder sessions.

That easy workout had him jogging at 18 mph and ducking into narrow streets between buildings as he made his way from one landing pad to another, zigzagging across the cityscape that most people never came up to. Most of the city was internal, and those who didn’t need to go topside usually didn’t given the humidity this time of year. Rio actually liked it, and even as he was running easy in a T-shirt and shorts he was sweating a bit that would gradually escalate until he was thoroughly drenched.

He ran for an hour exactly, not caring where he went, and ended up in front of a building that handled flight pack rentals. There was a sparse crowd inside, all of them Star Force personnel, for the tourists of old were no longer allowed in Atlantis. This was simply a perk of living in the city that had off duty personnel flying with anti-grav backpacks up and over building tops in a particular sector that wouldn’t interfere with the light ship traffic coming and going from orbit and other locations on the planet. In fact, Atlantis was a lot calmer than most cities, for those who were here tended not to be visiting. Hence they lived here and there wasn’t a lot of non-cargo flights in and out, with most local travel being accommodated by rail lines on the ocean floor that connected Atlantis to its nearest twins.

Most of the oceans were now full of cities that blanketed the seafloor. Some rose up to break the surface, but the vast majority were fully submerged and Atlantis was plugged into them via a transit grid hidden beneath the water. With that and occasional dropship or mantis flights coming from far off places, only a dribbling of orbital cargo and personnel flights remained, leaving the surface of the city a low key and almost lackadaisical place.

The ocean around the city was the same, with a lot of recreational facilities that were packed on good weather days like this. Rio kind of wanted to hop on a jet ski or put on an aqua pack and go out to play, but he wasn’t going to waste time on that when he had a job to do. People were dying out on the frontier that he could have been helping to save…but the problem was there would always be that need. There would also be one more thing the Archons could do, and if they let themselves think on those terms they’d never get around to doing things that were needed to plan ahead. Archons lived in the moment but they couldn’t afford to get lost in it, and Rio’s mission here was definitely forward looking. Already Vortison was studying the two Tier 4s he’d unlocked and developed, hopefully one day to be able to trigger them manually.

But unless he could find the hidden ones too, someone had to access them the way they were designed to be earned, and that someone was Rio. His skills climbing to the top Archon spot were an extra bonus, and while he was competitive as hell with the others…and had sent Morgan an appropriately mocking message…his real fight was with the future and the hidden gems the Zak’de’ron had hidden within his genetic code.

When he stopped outside the flight pack shop he glanced around and smiled at those few people that took notice. He crossed his arms over his chest and activated his Yen’mer, rising up slowly into the air without having to get any equipment of his own. He waved sarcastically before he got out of view, then he accelerated and flew up overtop the building before veering off from the safe zone and cruising out over one of the landing pads with a dropship currently coming down from altitude.

His biological anti-grav wasn’t that strong yet so his acceleration was limited, but he had more than enough strength to lift his own weight. Flying up near the dropship as it slowed into a hover several hundred meters up, he waved at the pilots then made a quick loop around the Dragon-class craft that was a bit challenging, but worth it. He angled off and let the dropship continue its descent, then he moved laterally and crossed Atlantis until he got to the far edge, suddenly seeing blue ocean well beneath him.

Knowing he couldn’t press his strength too far, he let himself slide down at an angle until he was over top the jet skis and flew over one of the obstacle courses where Sara still had a few of the records, the rest of which a bunch of second gen Archons had gone after and plucked from the trailblazers. They hadn’t mounted a decent challenge to retake them given other priorities, but those running the courses now weren’t that good. They were just personnel out having fun or working on improving their own marks.

He didn’t interfere more than visually, coasting along in an upright position and waving to various people that freaked out seeing him there, then freaked out again when they realized he had no flight pack on. His ability to fly wasn’t officially known by anyone outside the advanced training group, but there was no great secret in it and Rio liked flaunting the ability for the simple reason that it would make people flip out that weren’t in the know.

But eventually he leaned forward and flew superman-style horizontally out past the recreational courses and into open water. He came to a hover there some 60 meters up and scanned the water for minds. Finding nothing close, he placed his palms together at the base and opened both Choratrik ports in the center of his hands, igniting a fiery blue plasma from both that melded together into one small ball that he shot down towards the water and pushing more in its wake in a line that never made it to the waves.

It dissipated into hot unglowing air before it hit, making a few wind ripples on the surface but nothing more. Rio frowned, finding himself a very poor substitute for Goku, but still, he was the only person who could do this, possibly ever, unless the Zak’de’ron had Zen’zat that had unlocked both these psionics. There were no records on them so it was impossible to say, but even if they had they wouldn’t have known what Goku or Dragon Ball Z was, so he was for sure the only person in the history of the universe capable of trying this homage.

He summoned up the plasma again, but this time when he formed a ball he grew it rather than releasing, with his hands having to pull back to accommodate its width. He held the plasma within energy fields, both to guide it and to contain most of the heat, but some still leaked out and he could feel it hit his face. He didn’t need to throw up a Rensiek to shield himself aside from what was already around the orb, but it did testify to how much of a beastly bioweapon he’d developed.

Resisting the urge to say the words, he released the ball and threw it towards the water, seeing it shrink as the outer layers cooled and dissipated, then it ballooned out when it passed beyond his control range. The blue dot mushroomed but stayed somewhat intact by the time it hit the water, eliciting a huge geyser of steam that shot straight up and sprinkled his sweaty clothes with salty ocean rain.

Rio laughed, both at his inability to do a full Kamehameha and the fact that he was literally able to do a partial one. Who would have ever thought that particular anime could ever be something other than pure fiction?

Well now it wasn’t, and he was digging his newfound powers enough to stay here and throw some more plasma balloons into the water, but his flight muscles were starting to get tired. If he didn’t want to swim back to Atlantis he needed to head there now, so he tipped over into a more aerodynamic position and began to accelerate, suddenly realizing he was more fatigued than he’d thought. He wasn’t going to make it all the way back, he wagered, so he found one of the jet ski paddocks and landed on the lagoon-like artificial island amongst a sea of scantily clad Star Force personnel waiting for rides.

Jaws dropped everywhere, but Rio brushed off his flying in as inconsequential and sat down on a nearby railing with his back to a couple of girls waiting in line on the other side.

“Who are you?” one of them asked, with Rio turning around innocently.

“Name’s Yamcha,” he lied. “Have any of you seen Bulma recently?”

Both shook their heads, unaware of the fact he was totally punking them out, but so be it. If they didn’t know DBZ then they deserved it.

“How did you do that?” a guy asked just ahead of the girls as everyone, including a couple of chicks on jet skis that circled back and were floating nearby, stared at him.

“Have you heard of psionics?”

“You mean you’re an Archon?” a guy said, suddenly turning to the girl standing beside him. “Can you do that?” he asked her.

“No I can’t,” the acolyte said, though without anything more than a very defined six pack to separate her from the other personnel, for none of them had uniforms on, or much else for that matter. “What Tier?” she asked Rio.

“Four,” he said with a wink.

The pink pigtailed Archon raised a matching eyebrow. “I thought there was only 3.”

“There’s a fourth, but I’m the only one that’s been able to break through to it. Flight is a power, but I’m still not very good at it. Thought I could make it back to Atlantis, but needed to stop here and recharge a bit.”

One of the girls on the jet skis shouted at him. “Do you give rides?”

Rio laughed. “Honestly, I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Can I get first dibs?”

“You’ll have to wait a few more decades. I can’t lift twice my body weight yet.”

“I’m light,” she argued.

“Not light enough. I’m still a wimp.”

“Yeah right. What’s your Archon number?”

“058.”

Somebody further back in line slipped when he said that and a guy slid down the short embankment into the shallow lagoon, though few even bothered to look at him with a trailblazer in their presence.

“Really?” someone else asked.

“Really,” Rio confirmed. “I only need a few minutes, then I’ll be on my way. Don’t let me hold up your runs.”

“As you wish, Captain,” one of the girls on the jet skis said with a sarcastic salute, but as she spun her watercraft after in a twirl Rio grabbed her with a telekinetic grip and yanked her off it, flying her through the air over to him and landed the bikini-clad chick down on his lap with an appropriately startled giggle coming from her.

“Archon,” he corrected her. “Not Captain.”

“You do have magic,” someone else said nearby as the girl was too happily flustered to say anything else as Rio looked into her eyes from a few inches away.

“Not magic,” he said, twisting his head around, “just really cool science. Pretty much the same thing though.”

“Archon means single, right?” the girl on his lap asked, whom he quickly identified as a computer tech thanks to the skin to skin contact that allowed him to get past Jennifer’s Ikrid block.

“Permanently single,” he said with a hint of regret. “But someone has to bear the responsibility of being total ass kickers…and you can’t do that when you’re getting fucked up.”

“Word,” the acolyte said approvingly.

“So why am I sitting on your lap then?”

“Just being friendly,” Rio said with a smile. “But I’d better put you back before someone steals your ride.”

“You sure?” she asked, pouty faced.

“Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Alright,” she said, rolling her eyes mockingly. “If you must.”

“Find me in 20 years and I’ll give you that ride,” he promised. “The aerial one, anyway,” he added as he sensed a different thought coursing through her mind.

“I’ll hold you to that, Yamcha.”

“His name is Rio, newb,” the acolyte said with mock disgust as she floated through the air and landed back on the pommel of her jet ski, then Rio hopped over the railing and took a few steps through the crowd to the acolyte.

“That it is. Thanks for noticing, babe,” he said, leaning in and kissing her on the lips, then he pulled back, smiling as deviously as she was, then dipped down slightly to flex his legs into super jump that sent him up above all of their heads where he caught his weight with his partially recharged Yen’mer and floated there for a moment, waving to everyone below, half of which waved back while the others were still laughing with most of the guys wishing they could steal a kiss from the Archon and get away with it.

Knowing his strength was still low, Rio didn’t hang around and accelerated away from the paddock, reaching a decent speed as he angled up to the much higher elevation of the top of Atlantis. He really had to fight to keep his effort up the last minute, but he reached the edge and dropped down on top of the nearest roof he could get to, landing in a crouch that he stayed in for a moment as his burning flight muscles protested that last little push he’d made to avoid losing his coolness by falling short and taking a dive in the ocean before making the edge.

He stood up a few seconds later and turned back, seeing the paddock he had been on as a tiny dot in the distance.

“Whoo,” he said gratefully. “That was too close. Sorry Goku, I still suck. I’ll work harder.”

With that half sarcastic promise he ran across the rooftop and jumped down several stories over the far side, braking his fall with a telekinetic crash bag rather than stressing his flight muscles again, then he was off and running back to an entry point that would get him into the city proper and over to the advanced training group’s private sanctum for his next ‘real’ workout in the High Gravity chamber.

4

April 4, 3545

Jec System (Rim Region/Zargor territory)

Inner Zone

Brad-050 stood on the bridge of his command ship just in front of his seat watching the hologram of the system before him. His Protovic fleet was in enemy territory along with some Clan Sangheili battle groups and the Jec System held 4 highly populated Zargor planets that he was inspecting as his bridge crew worked furiously. They’d just arrived in the system and were analyzing everything as the Sangheili were keeping the Zargor busy near the third planet.

They’d been here several months already, but Jason didn’t have enough ships, let alone troops, to take out this stronghold so he’d been having them raid it continuously. Shipyard production had been reduced by more than 30% as a result and only large convoys were making it in and out, but Star Force needed to remove this thorn from their side and that’s exactly what Brad and his Protovic were out here to do.

His Clan Beyond wasn’t out here holding territory like the 2s and some others were, rather he was here leading a massive Protovic force that was operating independently and going after the bad guys rather than waiting for them to make their move. Already the Protovic had been responsible for the capture of 12 systems and the destruction over 43,000 enemy warships, but they were just getting warmed up and this assault is really what Brad had come out here for…an enemy that wouldn’t yield and a major system to nut punch.

He could have been standing in his command nexus watching all the information in mind’s eye, but that wasn’t necessary. His crew knew what they were doing and right now they were just gathering their fleet as it was coming out of convoy jumps. His calm demeanor was reassuring to the Protovic, who took it as a compliment. They’d been fighting with him for a while now, so there wasn’t much that surprised them other than the fact that he wasn’t commanding from a Clan ship. He was here with them and they grew emboldened to have the trailblazer onboard. The only Human in the fleet at all, but he felt just as much at home here as elsewhere and the Protovic felt the same about him.

He’d created their civilization from the scraps of ancestors that Star Force had collected from across the vast expanse of space and now they were a force that no one would take lightly…not to mention they had the best combat record of infantry warfare out of all the factions, Humans included, and that was not a feat that anyone had pegged them capable of given their ‘youngness’ compared to the Calavari or Bsidd, but what they lacked in muscle mass or multi-tasking capability they made up for with telepathy.

Archons were more powerful, and the Protovic couldn’t take control of a mind given that the structure of their psionic was different, but when all of your invading army had that power it made for a very different type of warfare.

Right now thought that didn’t matter, for they were in space and not on the ground…yet, but they were going to have to fight their way down through some tough defenses in addition to the defending warfleet and the sure to be reinforcements whistled up and on their way by now. If not, the arrival of the Protovic would give even a fool reason to demand help to safeguard this key system, for without it a significant chunk of the Rim Region was going to be off limits to the Zargor unless they wanted to go the long way through risky jumplines where Star Force and others were prowling and waiting to ambush passing ships.

From this system there were jumplines going out in six different directions on the ‘safe’ Zargor network, and even as Brad’s fleet had come in they’d seen ships avoiding the fighting with the Sangheili and just transitioning around the star. Take out this system and throw up a decent blockade and the Protovic would be protecting dozens, if not hundreds, of worlds that the Zargor just wouldn’t be able to reliably threaten due to the geography involved.

But beyond that, the Zargor just needed a bitch slap. They knew they couldn’t fight the elusive Star Force fleet head to head in the massive battles outnumbering them that they sought, and if they pushed into the really well defended worlds such a battle wouldn’t go well for them. They couldn’t bait Star Force out like they’d been doing to other civilizations, so they were just spamming in all directions and not carrying how many troops they lost so long as they were achieving most of their objectives and doing damage. Between the strategy involved and the attitude of the few prisoners they’d taken, the sense of arrogance was overwhelming. Even when shown superior skills they still denied that they were inferior and stuck to the promise that they would eventually be victorious and this piece of what had been The Nexus would be theirs to dominate and rule over from now to infinity.

Star Force had taken worlds from them already, chipping away at their supply lines and support bases, but the Zargor were still playing this as if they couldn’t be hit back. That their own territory wasn’t an issue and all they had to do was attack until the enemy crumbled. All offense, no defense.

And pretty soon, having so much of their fleet spread out into attack campaigns was going to get painfully obvious as being a flaw, for Brad was about to hit them in the jugular and wreck a system that had belonged to them for more than 20,000 years, dating back to the very beginning of their interstellar empire. Their homeworld and capitol were not the same, as most races’ were, with the Zargor homeworld only 118 lightyears away from Jec. If hitting them here didn’t send the message, then that’s where Brad would be going next.

And they’d either have to pull back their offensive fleets to counter him, or let the trailblazer cut a path of destruction across the interior of their empire…which was exactly what he intended to do while the rest of the trailblazers played the defensive game, figuring that he could provide more ‘defense’ by keeping the Zargor distracted. Star Force could only throw so many ships into systems to defend, with the Zargor able to mass a fleet and hit them where they had few because they could choose their targets, but now Brad was choosing the battlefield for them and they were going to have to fight here against the mass of his fleet or he’d simply move from one important system to another and knock them all out.

Either way, the bulk of the Zargor invasion was coming to an end.

“Level 4 defense shields deploying, Archon,” his Admiral said from a nearby chair where he was reviewing intelligence data being relayed from Sangheili scouts spread across the system.

“Where?”

“Their largest world.”

Brad adjusted the main hologram and zoomed in to its orbital map. The planet was twice the size of Earth and had a gravity of 1.7 g. That wasn’t too much for his Protovic to handle, but it was more to the liking of the giant wolf-like race. They were bipeds nearing 8 feet tall and had the musculature to match, giving them an advantage in the higher gravity…or so rumor said.

Right now there were already some defense shield domes up across the surface of the dry planet, giving it far more land area that most worlds. There were only a few pinpricks of lakes on the yellow grassy plains, though more than half of those were full of infrastructure. Those basic defense shields had been up ever since the Sangheili had arrived, but as some had suspected the Zargor were not so weak. They’d been keeping the true power of their worlds hidden, but now that the Protovic had arrived with over 1200 jumpships they were bottling themselves up tight in order to make sure that nothing could get down to the surface to stage a ground assault.

Brad spun the hologram around, seeing that the new shields were not domes. Rather they were flat and intersected at angled lines, making for a far less aesthetic protective barrier, but a far stronger one. Flat shields were better defenses than round ones due to the way the energy matrixes were constructed, and it looked like these had been built for maximum deflective power.

“I wonder if they always had these or they built them specifically for us?”

“There are notable alterations, even if they aren’t new construction,” the Admiral pointed out, throwing a matrix analysis over to an adjunct off the main hologram that appeared beside Brad’s left arm.

“Hmmn. They have been studying us.”

“That’ll delay our establishing a foothold enough to be troublesome if they also have the anti-orbital weaponry to back it up.”

“Agreed. What about the other 3 planets?”

“Patchwork protecting certain regions. The fourth planet has water access not covered by shielding at all.”

“Sloppy. Maybe they didn’t expect we were coming.”

“The Nexus doesn’t have much in terms of aquatic warfare.”

“Well we do and we’re going to exploit that breach before they get a chance to pop up some temporary shields. Begin drawing up invasion plans for the fourth planet, hot drop.”

The Admiral didn’t bother even looking at his bridge crew, simply issuing a telepathic order given his ‘yellow’ ranking. All the bridge crew, ship’s crew, and troops were ‘pink’ level, meaning they’d reached their final form and had the complete set of Protovic psionics. Yellow was a color alteration with no additional powers, but it was a very hard skill level to earn. Having it meant the Admiral had a good command of his telepathic powers and the fact that everyone else on the ship were pinks meant they could talk back and forth without comm channels over short range with ease.

It was something that Brad had gotten used to, so he didn’t call into question the lack of visible orders being given, trusting that the Admiral would get the right people on the job as soon as possible.

“The Sangheili are requesting immediate reinforcement,” the comm officer said rather than relaying the time delayed transmission, for it hadn’t been sent specifically to Brad but to the Protovic fleet.

The Archon switched the hologram over to the 3rd world where the Clan fleet was and took a quick glance at their positioning. At first he didn’t see any reason to call for help with the poking/containment formation in no real danger, then he spotted the opening. It wasn’t something the Zargor would see as a weakness because they didn’t know the capabilities of the Star Force fleet or their tactical playbook…and there was a very big opportunity to take advantage of if they acted quickly.

“Admiral, we have to move. Sound battle alert throughout the fleet that has arrived and leave a message buoy for the others coming in. We can’t wait.”

“What do you see?” the Admiral asked as he issues orders to the crew.

“They don’t know we can curve jumplines.”

The glowing blue/yellow face studied the main hologram as he walked over next to the Archon for a moment, then he tentatively pointed at a cluster of defense stations holding position outside a vast shipyard complex.

“Here?”

“No,” Brad said, walking into the hologram so that the shipyard marker was inside his head as he pointed to a spot on the surface of the planet. “Here.”

“The elevated shield is beyond the atmosphere,” the Admiral said coldly.

“They think it’s covered with the underlying shield overlap and the defensive blockers in orbit, but they’re using straight line navigation. They want their ships to be able to come and go without opening windows for us to shoot through, but they’ve left a huge hole for us to exploit without knowing it.”

“Looks like a tiny hole to me,” the Admiral said disapprovingly.

“You don’t think we can make it?”

“I’ll defer to your judgement on that, but it’s not something I would attempt on my own.”

“Their shields can’t reset altitudes fast with that shield matrix, and if they try they’re going to lose better than 80% of the deployed strength in the transition.”

“Which is why we need the fleet…all the fleet,” he said, suddenly understanding.

“Bold enough for you?” Brad asked sarcastically as the command ship he was on suddenly made a microjump headed for the planet in question.

“How sharp a curve can we manage?” the Admiral asked, looking at the navigator this time as he mentally fed him the specifics.

“With that moon, quite a bit. Running the numbers,” he said as he the glowing face turned back to his work station.

“We need as far inside as we can get, preferably over the clear zone,” Brad added as he let the entire bridge crew see the plan with a few holographic drawings on the main display. The jumppoint they were headed to in orbit was marked with a dot, then a straight line came out of it in past several defense stations then headed for a part of the planet protected by one of the big level 4 flat ones, but the straight line curved slightly as it passed the stations, angling to the right with a steeper curve as the relative position of the moon changed. It was a guess on Brad’s part, but he had the curve end underneath the elevated shield and over top the gap between the lower side shields where ship traffic was coming up and down at a pedestrian pace.

“I want this if we can make it work,” he announced. “And I think it’s just a matter of picking a slow enough approach speed. They won’t see it coming, but we’re going to have to move fast before they can react. I need drones released now and put on individual decel runs. We can’t wait to deploy and I don’t want to try and squeeze the jumpships inside. The command ships should fit, but I’d prefer not having to plow through civilian ships in the conduit. We’re sending the drones in and I need safe passage charts ready to go before the first braking maneuver. Use the old data and update enroute.”

“Archon, I have a cruiser path,” the navigator said, throwing up a line a bit more steep than his arbitrarily drawn one, though it curved much more fiercely at the bottom end to slide under the elevated shield, just skimming the extremely thin top layer of the atmosphere.

“We’re going to cause a hell of a hurricane,” Brad said, having wanted to come in a little higher than that, but this would work. “Configure drones shields for needle alignment…or any others preferable to individual approaches. Get me lines for the other hull sizes and throw in a command ship just for fun,” he said as the little dots on the system map that stood as a tiny secondary field of view to his right showed the progress of the fleet moving from the star to the planet and the countdown they were under. If the Zargor got paranoid they might lower that shield entirely, and the Sangheili were right to ask for immediate assistance to…

“Archon, approach to gap in planetary shields requested by the Sangheili commander.”

Brad smirked. “Gotta love comm lag. Tell him we’re already on it and the hammer will be dropping soon. If he wants to take advantage of the diversion, let him know his window of opportunity will be closing quickly.”

And with that the bridge dropped into a mediocre silence. People were breathing and moving about, but there was no further talking as the ships continued to coast across the system. Analysts pulled up and sorted data, filing reports that both Brad and the Admiral studied while the navigators worked up independent deceleration plans for each of the drones that were being unpacked from the carrier jumpships. They were sliding out of their parking slots and into space as if they weren’t moving at all, but once they reached the jumppoint they’d have to brake using their own engines and with all the different masses of ships involved you could end up with them running into each other if you didn’t organize it all precisely.

And above that the drones had to keep some of their momentum as they slid in towards the planet and pulled hard on every other available gravity well, namely the nearby moon, to curve their trajectory in a way that the Zargor had probably never thought was physically possible, let alone seen before, else they wouldn’t have left the side door wide open like it was.

When it finally happened Brad didn’t feel anything. The artificial gravity was steady and the command ship decelerated whisper quiet. The blue-shifted image of the planet clarified itself upon deceleration, as did the battlemap relay signals, but there was nothing to see or feel on the bridge. Despite that fact Brad felt a little surge of adrenaline, for his brain knew what was happening and how razor tight it was going to be even if his senses were clueless.

The thousands of drones passed them by in a flash, extending out into a thick staggered line that gradually condensed down into a very narrow stream only a few ships wide and high curving down and under the Zargor battle stations and coming under the level of the upper shield. Brad watched from the point of view of the leading drone, seeing the shield marked with an artificial overlay due to it normally being invisible, but he could still feel the massive barrier that would have soaked up hours or even days of orbital bombardment if they’d had to pound their way through it.

The drone skidded on the atmosphere right underneath it, bypassing two other ships coming up through the atmosphere and braking to a descending curve as it shot down into the thicker atmosphere between the lower altitude shields. It didn’t open fire, rather it moved down as fast as a meteor with many others in its wake causing such a disturbance that the air caught on fire and the entire column looked like a tube of fireworks reaching down to kiss the planet…only they never got that far. They slowed rapidly and hovered over the surface, oddly not drawing any fire for almost a minute before the Zargor realized the horror of what had happened.

When they did every surface battery within range started to open fire on the descending ships, but those already hovering low to the ground were spreading out and hunting down those weapons. The nearby shield generators were domes, however, so they couldn’t duck underneath those, but as the giant topside shield suddenly disappeared readying for a lower altitude reset the drones clustered down near the surface getting as many of them under the minimum height as they could.

When the shield finally did reset at a lower height, some of the descending drones rammed it, breaking apart on impact and weakening the shield. The other incoming ships slowed before they could hit, but the ones already underneath were busy attacking the shield generators and anything else of value within the region. About ten minutes later the shield went down entirely as big anti-orbital batteries from nearby regions depressed and fired into the column of descending drones, trying to pick off as many as they could, but it was far too late.

Brad had his surface foothold on the planet, and now that his drones were down and blasting the key pieces of infrastructure in preparation for the ground troops to follow, there was no way the Zargor were going to be able to remove them no matter how many surface armies they sent to counter. The navy was in the sky, and anything they wanted dead ended up so in short order.

“Admiral, orbit is yours.”

“Good luck,” the naval commander said as Brad left the bridge heading for the ground assault prep areas.

5

June 19, 3545

Jec System (Rim Region/Zargor territory)

Lokedd

“Here we go,” Maddok said, walking up to the edge of the lowering boarding ramp in the dropship. “Give ‘em hell.”

The Protovic Commandos ran out in their blood red armor and jumped, falling several meters to the ground as their ride took hits on its shields, but they were splayed out in such a way to give the infantry cover as they quickly scrambled out of the ship as it buzzed the ground. As soon as Maddok’s feet hit he rolled forward through a somersault over his right shoulder, smashing the weapons attached to his back but that was ok. It was awkward, but they were built to be knocked around to no end.

As a unit the 28 Protovic ran up the street towards the battle ahead, linking in with the battlemap system and getting waypoints. Suddenly Maddok was turning right and breaking from the group along with three others, running through the alien Zargor streets and ducking under a low something that was blocking one. It was a giant pipe and he had no idea what it was there for, but he and the others had no problem getting under it and back into a run as they began to feel enemy contacts ahead.

There were a lot, but not enough to give them trouble despite the fact that they were the size of giants. Every time Maddok saw one at a glance he thought it was Nasus, though these were not so well armored. They had shield generator belts on, but otherwise they were naked save for an ugly loincloth. Their bodies were totally covered in fur though, and underneath it was a mountain of muscle capped off with a muzzle full of teeth that stood a good two feet higher than the Protovic’s head.

That said, the 40 or so that were trying to flank the main battle ahead weren’t going to be a problem now that he saw other Protovic were following them off the main street, so the foursome ran right at the group, getting a few more strides in before the Zargor noticed them. Rifles spun around and fired at the quartet, but the shots missed high as the enemy soldiers inexplicably raised their guns at the last moment.

They reaimed but missed again, shooting the ground or walls…anywhere but the rushing Protovic who fired back and did not miss. They all hit the same target and its shields went down, but it dove out of the way as more came up to block for it and take aim. Those fired and one of the shots hit another Zargor ahead of them…then the Protovic were on them and firing at pointblank range with the Zargor still unable to shoot them.

Friendly fire hit a few more Zargor, then some of them dropped their rifles altogether and dove towards the Protovic, intend on battering them to death or maybe ripping a few arms out of socket, but two of them stumbled and fell while the others ran the wrong way as the Protovic continued messing with their minds using their telepathy. They couldn’t take control of the enemy like an Archon could, but they could still use a long list of tricks they’d learned confusing the enemy and making it almost impossible for them to aim in the right direction…for when they did, they saw it as being askew in mind’s eye.

Same thing with the few that tripped and fell. Their sense of balance was pushed off by the Protovic as they stepped in and gunned down several, though with only four against 40 they couldn’t mess with all of their minds, so they focused on those closest and kept them in between so the others didn’t have good firing lines. By the time the first few fell more Protovic were coming up from behind and adding their telepathic skills to the fight even before they fired shots.

The Zargor had no chance whatsoever. Disoriented, confused, and furious as hell, they all were shot dead eventually with the Protovic putting extra shots into their big bodies to make sure they stayed down. Their orders were to kill any that fought back, and in previous days of fighting they’d had some get back up when they had no right to. Their big bodies seemed to adjust to the trauma and block it out temporarily to give them some additional fight time before they blacked out, meaning that if you didn’t actually kill them you could have a crazed giant punching you in its last few breaths…which was what had happened to Maddok his second week here.

The Zargor was so strong the single punch knocked him halfway across the street and bounced him off a side wall, and had he not been wearing armor he probably would have been knocked unconscious and soon to be killed, but with the Star Force protection the blow did little more than bounce him around like a beach ball, though it did instill on the Protovic just how powerful the Zargor were and why they were so feared.

But Maddok and his fellow Commandos now knew how to close get and not get, and they were getting better at taking these giants down as the days progressed. Their missions were always hunt and destroy in this sector or that. There were no prisoners being taken, nor were there cities. Star Force wasn’t claiming this planet as their own…they were simply here to destroy select pieces of it. Not enough that the population would starve to death after they left, but enough to cripple its communications, military industry, and all shipbuilding functions.

What Maddok’s assignments had been were going after defensive emplacements, shield generators, training centers, etc. The big combat was being taken care of by the mech units, leaving the infantry cleanup duties along their path and being sent on little offshoot missions like this. Up ahead was a munitions factory that supplied some very nasty explosive traps and cluster grenades that Star Force had been fighting against in other systems, but they were most effective against unarmored infantry or light vehicles and had a penchant for maiming rather than killing.

The factory had to go, but the Zargor citizenry thought otherwise. They were coming to the aid of the few soldiers defending it, and as many that did the Protovic were going to kill. These bastards were out across this region of the galaxy conquering and butchering countless worlds, so Maddok and the other Protovic weren’t going to cut them any slack. If there truly were noncombatants here they could prove it by not fighting, but anyone who took a shot or claw at them was going down hard.

And as long as the Protovic didn’t get sloppy, the Zargor couldn’t ambush them with hidden troops. Their telepathy passed through walls as if they weren’t even there, allowing them to look for minds and disable them even before the Zargor got sight or scent of their battle armor. Sometimes Maddok could trick one Zargor into shooting another one, but it was all based on misdirection rather than control, and thankfully these guys weren’t too bright. All muscle and tenacity with little problem solving involved. They did one thing and did it well, but take that option away from them and they all but pouted, getting madder and madder which only helped the Protovic manipulate them easier.

Once his unit got finished with this 40 the Protovic kept moving out from the main street hunting additional flanking units coming in. Every now and then a group would have armored individuals denoting either current or inactive soldiers, but most wore the loincloths and carried handheld weapons, some even without shield generators. It was as if they were expected to fight even if they didn’t stand a chance, and with the number of them on this planet that could pose a problem if they got organized, but it seemed like they were just coming at the Protovic as soon as the individuals arrived here from whatever nearby building they were originating from.

And Maddok’s unit was chopping them into bits because of it. Maybe the Zargor on the other planets would take notice and adapt, but these weren’t and they were already 2 months into this slash and burn operation. Literally, there were smoke plumes rising from across the planet from where the warships had toasted key buildings and weapons batteries. Not all of the planetary defense shields were down yet, and those that weren’t were going to see more Protovic on the ground going in to drop them the hard way…and after they did the warships would own anything that was left exposed.

They’d already been through this area, but the factory wasn’t something they were just going to blow up. Using infantry allowed the workers time to run away, though any that felt like sticking around to die were welcome to do so. If you were inside a shield generator then it was your unlucky day, because those were being taken down as quickly as possible, often by mech units that just blasted the things into oblivion once they got close enough.

The Zargor had a lot of tanks in play, but they weren’t built for their own city streets. The mechs that were capable of it were climbing over the buildings and flanking…or sometimes landing on and flattening…the tanks, taking advantage of their hand to hand superiority and keeping the Zargor from massing firing lines on them by avoiding the few wide open areas within the city and sticking to the synthetic jungle that Maddok was now traversing.

Every time he was dropped into battle it was nonstop. Run, disorient, kill, and repeat until he got so tired that he had to cycle out and fresh troops would come in. Sometimes he’d get a breather after a particular mission was accomplished, but with so much of the ‘civilian’ population coming to fight the invaders there seemed like there was never too many people to kill and these Zargor did not have a problem running to their deaths, seeming to be happy if they could just get in a single attack against the enemy.

It was zealotry in its rawest form and Maddok wasn’t guessing about that. He was in their heads and could feel their emotions. They had one impulse for the lot of them, and it was to kill the Protovic. Didn’t matter how. Didn’t matter how many died in the process. They simply had to get to the defilers invading their planet and rip them apart in whatever way they could. There was no strategy or tactics. They weren’t fighting as a team, but rather as a pack. Rushing the enemy with numbers and fighting individually…and against an empire that had cut its teeth against lizard swarm tactics, defeating these guys would have been easy even without the telepathy.

Suddenly a mech stepped out into the side street ahead of Maddok and he got a ping from the pilot who lowered the right barrel on the Madcat-class mech to the ground. Two other Protovic ahead of him jumped up onto it and climbed, with Maddok doing the same until they plus another six were riding up around the boxy shoulders and holding on via their armor’s grip pads, otherwise the walking motion of the mech would have thrown them off as the pilot moved them forward through a lot of ground fighting and up to the roof of the factory.

The mech rammed its shoulder into the wall and its little ticks jumped off, with Maddok and the others sprinting across the lower rooftop towards an access door just shy of a taller section of the factory that was shaped similar to a ziggurat. They blasted their way through the lock and got inside the facility, flanking the defenders and attacking them from the backside with their telepathy and disabling a few stationary guns as the Zargor operating them started seeing bigger targets in the sky to shoot at that weren’t really there.

Maddok and the others kept up their telepathic attack without using their weapons for more than self-defense. The longer it took the Zargor to realize they had a group in their midst the better, so they hid out and opened up as many avenues of attack as possible for the Protovic outside before moving forward and helping with the final breakthrough. Maddok had used up almost all of his ammo at that point and logged himself to ‘low ammo’ status using his HUD, quickly getting a waypoint further back along the street leading up to the factory sent to him under new orders.

He ran back to it, seeing a few others heading in the same direction, then he spotted several rolling wheels coming down the street ahead and unfurling at that point. Each Rammus was carrying weapons or ammo, and when he got up to that position one of the little support troops opened up his carrying boxes and Maddok refilled all his weapons and his own ammo pouch, topping off with as much as he could carry before heading back and logging himself as ‘restocked.’

He got new orders that brought him back inside the factory where the Protovic were sweeping the facility, either killing or chasing out everyone inside with numerous telepathic sweeps to pick up people hiding, though with the Zargor that didn’t usually happen, but more civilians were coming into the factory where they could and Maddok was posted to one entrance to keep people out while the sweep was ongoing.

They had to do a lot more killing to accomplish that for the Zargor would not let up, but eventually he was signaled to push out from the factory and establish a neutral zone around it. That took another 10 minutes to accomplish, then he got a warning that bombardment was incoming and where not to go…namely back into the factory.

In the sky above a Destroyer-class drone drifted overtop the factory and the triangular cube began raining down a massive amount of firepower that, coupled with the munitions components that they were shooting, began to blow apart the Zargor facility piece by piece. It wasn’t one large explosion, but a methodical buzz saw of energy attacks that eventually leveled the factory.

When that was done the drone’s weapons suddenly fell silent and it glided off out of view heading for its next fire mission as Maddok and the other Protovic Commandos were likewise reassigned, bypassing huge chunks of the enemy city as they plucked away the key facilities and left the others untouched.

6

August 1, 3545

Uyit System (Rim Region)

Orrpwer (Tolsoi capitol)

Davis ran out the door from the building where he had his command center and into the streets in the Star Force built city within a city on the Tolsoi capitol. 99% of the personnel here were Tolsoi that had been maturia raised or conversion trained, making them full Star Force rather than transitional workers. In the 110 years that the Star Force Director had spent in the Rim Region a lot of work had gotten done and a lot of people had died for lack of adequate help, but the Tolsoi themselves were no longer at risk.

Their borders were firm and their economy stable with the population only about one third converted, but that wasn’t stopping Davis and Greg from using the faction in the making to help stabilize surrounding areas and further push back against the Zargor and Firbyns. The monkey-like race was decent across the board and were slated to become a full faction in Star Force down the road with all 5 divisions of their military currently developing and their taking the mantle of responsibility on themselves as the leading race within the Rim Region.

Right now Greg was out with a Tolsoi warfleet making strikes against Firbyn incursions and sending an ongoing message to the denizens of the Rim Region not under Star Force control that they were the new sheriff in town, and no matter how big the vast stretch of territory they’d laid claim to was, they were not going to ignore any of it. Conflicts that were long done and over with were still going to be righted and villains dispossessed, with Davis currently work on a plan for a 6 system confederation that the Firbyn had invaded and enslaved to join Star Force.

They didn’t have much to offer, but that was pretty much the point. The Firbyn had destroyed or stolen most of what the Friq Colo had, and if Davis just left them alone after kicking the Firbyn out the conglomeration of 8 races were either going to be invaded again or implode under the chaos that would result. Right now the Star Force occupation forces that were a mix of Tolsoi and Clans Firestorm, Skystrike, and Dark Knight were all that was keeping the Friq Colo together and Davis knew he’d be causing a disaster if he pulled them out now.

Correction…more of a disaster. There were already shortages of practically everything and Star Force had the local supply production facilities under close guard and were pumping out as much equipment and foodstuffs as they could using local workers who were glad to no longer be slaves, but were not in very good physical health. No one was starving, but it was hard to heal up past damage when your food was being rationed.

Shipments were coming in from the Paladin and being put to use, but it was going to take a long time to get the Friq Colo self-sufficient even within the Star Force structure. Abandoning them to their ‘freedom’ would be a death sentence, so Davis was obligated to take them on as a ward and scrape by to make do despite the thousands of other systems out there that needed Star Force assistance. For as much as they’d accomplished over the past century, the Rim Region was so large and so messed up that there was always more to do and not enough personnel and ships to do it with.

But overall the Rim Region was better off than when The Nexus had left, and there was even a small amount of people coming to Davis and asking to help rather than joining in with the refugee stream. These were skilled individuals or coalitions within the current Nexus boundaries that were voluntarily leaving and asking to join up with Star Force for a variety of reasons/conditions. Some of them were people with experience working the grid points, others were manufacturers, soldiers, technicians, scientists, farmers, etc…and they were all top notch people that had no reason to leave The Nexus.

Why they were coming here had to do with the future. Events happening in The Nexus were something that Davis was keeping an eye on but he didn’t know much and was so busy he didn’t have time to work to find out more, but apparently conditions were slowly deteriorating in some areas and drastically falling apart in others. Even the ‘secure’ regions had growing concerns of how and when that status might change, and that’s where most of these volunteers were coming from. They saw the Rim Region steadily improving over time while The Nexus was further deteriorating and they were savvy enough to want to jump ship before anything worse happened.

Oddly that meant they were coming into worse conditions than they were leaving, but they knew it and were here to work. Davis was grateful for that, but he still didn’t have enough people to do everything he needed and the Friq Colo were a perfect example of that. He needed to rotate out his Clan troops but didn’t have enough capable Tolsoi to do it, so he was trying several theoretical personnel swaps in his head even as he ran through the Star Force city getting in an easy workout while mentally continuing on with his administrative duties, doubling up as he did most hours of the day, for never had a single day gone by since he arrived out here that he wasn’t in over his head and trying to accomplish more than was possible with limited resources.

It sucked, but he’d learned long ago to put the plight of people outside his reach mostly out of his mind. He never gave up on anyone, but if he couldn’t reach them then there was no point in wasting thoughts lamenting their plight. He couldn’t change it, but he could change others and that’s where his focus went in addition to taking a few minutes here and there to rest and attend to himself. This was a marathon of an assignment and that fact was something he had to continually remind others of even as he had them rotated through different duties and even back to the ADZ as needed, but he was the one link in the chain that could not falter, so he mentally disconnected from the chaos and barbarism out here as much as he functionally could.

He’d gotten so good at it that when his head hit the pillow at night he was able to completely blank his mind of everything else and focus on regenerating himself…then when he woke up his priorities snapped back into rescue mode with him working to save as many people as quickly as possible while building up or reworking those who had been saved in order to add them to his current assets.

To others that might have sounded cold, but it was the only way Star Force could function out here. There was too much misery and suffering, and if one got fixated on it it’d drive you insane. He’d had several discussions with Greg on that matter and the Archon agreed, with both of them closely monitoring their people to know how far they could push them before they snapped.

But here on Orrpwer, at least, there was a forming island of tranquility. It wasn’t fully rebuilt yet and would still be another few centuries of ‘make it up as you go’ work in order to assist other systems with exports as much as possible. They didn’t have the luxury of tearing down and rebuilding everything here just yet, but Davis wouldn’t let offworld concerns block progress, knowing that it was important to not just keep people alive but also nudge them forward. When one escaped a bad situation they often became stagnant in the ‘good’ zone they found themselves in without realizing that they were still damaged and needed to press on. They mistakenly thought that wanting more was ingratitude, and it was important that Davis led by example, which was why key regions of the planet were constantly under demolition and reconstruction with proper Tolsoi-designed Star Force infrastructure rising like growths on the world.

Davis had administrators running most of that, and those ‘growths’ would gradually expand to consume the planet in time, but it wasn’t important work for someone like him. It was essential, but Davis’s efforts had to be zoned in on troubleshooting beyond the Tolsoi, whether that be outside their borders or into their own future, for despite the progress they’d made most of them weren’t up to Star Force standards yet and there were far too few maturias for what the population required, meaning that a lot of younglings being born were having to grow up the old school way.

That annoyed Davis to no end, but he didn’t have a choice. Pouring all his resources into maturia construction would have been a huge mistake. It would have aided the Tolsoi greatly, but have left so many others in jeopardy that only someone willing to sacrifice them while playing a long term game would pursue that path, and Davis never would.

As for the Tolsoi themselves, they were smart and loyal and didn’t argue with his orders. After bringing them back from the brink of destruction he’d earned their trust and effort, with them doing more work than required because they believed in the righteousness of what they were doing. That was something you couldn’t get from slaves or employees. It had to come from people wanting to engage, needing to engage in the fight against the darkness that was choking the Rim Region, and both the Tolsoi and others saw Star Force, and especially Davis, as the torchbearer for that while everyone else was pretty much in ‘cover your ass’ or ‘every man for yourself’ mode.

As he ran, zigzagging across the small city but staying amongst the Star Force built structures, he passed by many people without noticing them, his thoughts elsewhere, but most of them noticed him. He wasn’t wearing armor and his face was Human, which was rare on the planet, but Davis’s was the most well-known amongst the Tolsoi, even more so than Greg’s given that he was almost always off planet. And while some of the Tolsoi had gotten used to having the Humans around and let him pass by without staring, most stood frozen as he passed or gibbered at each other pointing excitedly.

Davis had gotten used to that long ago and tuned it out as well, but one thing that got picked up on his mental radar was a body heading towards him. He started to veer out of the way slightly, as was common when people didn’t see him coming, but this one picked up speed and tracked after him. When he turned to look with his eyes he saw one of the Tolsoi diving towards him with a weapon.

Caught partially off guard, all Davis could do was get a hand up on the shorter, but jumping monkey as he spun away. The two rotated opposite each other, and in that split second Davis got the advantage and latched on, spinning him around an extra turn and throwing him into the nearest wall as the Human stumbled to catch his footing.

With a grace native to their race, the Tolsoi bounced off the wall, hit the ground, then came jumping back up at him…at which point a single side handed punch caught the monkey in the face and sent him to the ground stunned. His weapon fell out of his hand and clattered on the ground a moment before flying up into Davis’s. He looked at it, seeing that it wasn’t unusual other than the fact that the knife had been sharpened to a very high degree. Too sharp, in fact.

His nose picked up an odd scent and he realized it was coming from a thin sheen on the blade as the Tolsoi started to clear his head. Davis kicked him back over against the wall then walked up and put a foot on his back, smashing him to the ground as he used his telepathy to search his thoughts. It took him a while to dig out what he needed, but the surface thoughts weren’t hard to follow. When he finished he had Tolsoi in Star Force security uniforms standing behind him waiting along with a large crowd of assorted personnel and passersby.

“An assassin,” Davis said loudly enough all nearby could hear. “Hired to kill whatever Humans he could get to with a poisoned blade. His contact is on the planet,” he said, taking a step back and pointing to the wriggling Tolsoi that tried to run when released, but the others were even faster and had him face planted again within seconds, then hauled up in a choke hold to get him moving while others cleared the street ahead.

“Are you injured?” one of them asked Davis.

“Almost. Have there been other attacks on Star Force personnel, Human or Tolsoi?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Neither was I. Put out an alert and get this one to an Archon with a higher telepathy rating than I have.”

“May I?” another one asked, pointing to the knife that Davis carefully passed over to him. “This isn’t local. The shape is right, but the materials are different.”

“Infiltrators?” another one asked.

“He was hired,” Davis added. “And they were Tolsoi.”

“Traitors…”

“I’ll get this analyzed?”

“Go ahead,” Davis said. “I’ve got a run to finish.”

The security forces didn’t say anything else, breaking up and going their separate ways as they knew the idea of their protecting an Archon was laughable. Even though Davis was the head of the entire Star Force empire he was also a ranger and could take care of himself.

That said, the dirty little monkey almost was able to stab him. Even if he had the poison…well, he didn’t know what it was yet, but whoever arranged this obviously had no knowledge of a regenerator. Even if it killed Davis, he’d be back in the land of the living within minutes, and there were so many medical personnel around here that it was all around stupid to try an assassination short of blowing someone up.

But Star Force’s enemies didn’t know a lot of about them, meaning they thought this was probably a good idea. Send a lone disposable hire in to stupidly attack a Human, hoping to kill them with the poison so long as one good thrust was registered…with a sharpened blade to make sure it dug in deep.

Davis turned and started running again, keeping his Pefbar on just in case a second try was made, but this was his city on his planet in his empire and he was an Archon…he wasn’t going to not finish his workout.

But there were Human techs here less able to defend themselves and he was sure this Tolsoi hadn’t been targeting him specifically. If you wanted to find Humans this was the place to be and there weren’t any major security checkpoints set up to keep people out. The Tolsoi had been so supportive since Star Force got here there had never been a problem. That didn’t mean security forces weren’t deployed all over, but people who didn’t work in this city were still able to pass through and look around.

He wasn’t going to change that, but he was going to get to the bottom of this even if there wasn’t a trail to follow back. Whoever did this hiring should have covered their tracks if they had even heard the vaguest of rumors concerning Humans’ ability to read minds, he just didn’t know how careful they’d gotten. Never the less, there were other ways of finding people who didn’t belong here, even if they were hiding amongst the non-converted populations on the most secured planet in the Rim Region.

As he ran he considered what that meant. Were they just trying to hit the most easily accessible Humans or were they trying to dent Star Force’s ego by striking here? He didn’t know and the assassin most certainly didn’t either, for he was just a crazed dupe recruited as a tool who didn’t realize as much. He thought he’d actually get away even if he managed to kill Davis, though the stupidity of that showed that he wasn’t from around here, otherwise he would have known where the security stations were and have seen the roaming patrols. There was nowhere to run to that the cameras covering the streets couldn’t follow, and he was sure that was public knowledge by now.

Davis mentally sighed. He’d assign the appropriate people to follow up on this but there wasn’t anything else for him to do. Any deviation from his routine could mean a planet or two got wasted, and there was no way he was going to let himself get distracted. If there was a larger plan in play here that was uncovered he’d deal with it, but right now he had limited resources to divvy up and not enough winning solutions in play…which meant he had to create more, and the only way he could do that was by working the various problems and leaving everything else to his subordinates.

Train, eat, work, and sleep…often with number 3 overlapping with 1 and 2, and that was the way things were going to stay until the Rim Region was out of danger and he had enough fleets and resources to rescue all those who needed it. Davis knew that meant centuries more, if not another millennia, but as the ADZ and especially the occupation zone grew they’d be importing more support and his job would get easier, though no less frantic. He literally held the fate of billions in his spare time, which was why he could afford none. He wasn’t going to leave anyone hanging while he played videogames or…did whatever normal people did. Odd how he’d forgotten already after only a century.

“Nice try bastards,” he whispered as he turned another corner and weaved through a group of civilian Tolsoi, then kept clear of the feet of a passing construction mech by cutting across to the other side, “but I’m not that easy to kill…or distract.”

7

March 29, 3546

Jec System (Rim Region/Zargor territory)

Nwox

Brad was the last man off the fourth world that the Protovic had just finished raiding, flying up into orbit onboard a dropship at the tail end of a scattered line of others returning to the jumpships with the ground troops. Below them were columns of smoke rising from numerous locations on the planet marking the facilities that had been destroyed…all of which had been used to facilitate the Zargor war campaigns, but they wouldn’t be aiding any raiding fleet soon, nor building others. Every shipyard and factory that supplied them had been wrecked while leaving the rest of the planets intact, and now it was time to leave.

Star Force didn’t have the resources to deal with a captured population out here, so this was the best option. Yes, the Zargor would remain in possession of this system but they’d have to rebuild all their cool toys and that would take time…all the while knowing that Brad’s Protovic could return at any point to take them out again. In some ways leaving the system in their possession was a psychological advantage, for if it had been taken from them it could be a rallying cry for vengeance. Now it stood as a testament to the Zargor’s inability to stop Star Force, and that sentiment could be hammered in as many times as necessary if and when they started to rebuild.

When Brad returned to his command ship he had the fleet begin recovering their deployed drone warships and lining up to make the microjump back to the star as he sent the Zargor a final message detailing his intention to return and destroy the various defensive and offensive installations if they were rebuilt, but bothered to mention that if they just turned their efforts to sustaining their current population they’d be left alone.

He doubted the arrogant bastards would listen, but the trailblazer was going to make it clear what was going down. They weren’t here to murder all Zargor in the system, but rather to clip their ability to fight and conquer other worlds…and there were four planets full of witnesses to testify to what had happened, though those four were seeing significantly reduced populations given how many citizens had come out to fight and die along with the soldiers. Hopefully those that remained were a touch wiser, for even with all the deaths, the Zargor had too many people and not enough resources to feed them all given the destruction caused, for Brad had made certain to evacuate and destroy the meat production facilities on the planet.

And now packed into the Star Force jumpships were the herds that they’d rescued, some of which had already been moved out of the system to a sanctuary hastily established. Fortunately this system only used the meat production as a supplementary food supply and Brad’s fleet was large enough to move the various races away without having to call in additional help, but it was also fortunate because the Zargor weren’t denied their only source of foodstuffs. They had grain production, but not enough. They’d have to go on reduced rations while building up that resource, but if they chose to instead rebuild their planetary defense shields and weapons batteries then that was on them if people starved to death.

Brad had left their honorable food production facilities intact, along with their power stations, insystem communications, etc, so there wasn’t a great amount of damage to the planets. It just hurt where it was supposed to…the war effort and their ego.

With the Protovic’s job done, his fleet jumped out from the star and left the system behind enroute to the sanctuary world to deposit the rest of the rescues, and then after that back to the nearest Star Force base large enough to resupply his fleet for their next attack against Zargor territory.

17 months later…

A Vedran stood on its rail perch looking at the Star Force hologram of the system as ships came and went. This outpost was the only construction within this system built by the new masters, and they were lucky to have it. It wasn’t more than a defensive overwatch station but it had sensors far superior to what the Vedran had. It was able to monitor traffic and stay out of sight itself while having the capability to send signals from system to system, keeping the single world here connected with the others far faster than the Vedran relays could.

The defense forces here were all Vedran as well, but not a single individual had come from the maturia that were training the next Vedran…those that were pure Star Force. This system was small and unimportant and there hadn’t been any construction here save for the outpost, and it stood as a reminder that while the major worlds were being reworked and heavily defended by Star Force, they hadn’t forgotten about Mecbio.

As the Vedran monitored the incoming traffic he suddenly realized someone else hadn’t forgotten about them either, for there was a large convoy coming out of a jump in very near to the star. It didn’t take long for the Star Force sensors to pick out ship silhouettes and match them to Zargor ships, but the sheer number of them was staggering. Far too many for what would have been needed to conquer Mecbio and at first the avian thought they might be passing through enroute to Jaagron, but their transit around the star was limited to getting over to the planetary jumpline.

They gathered there then began microjumping en mass headed for a world that was totally unable to defend itself against a force even a tenth that size…but as the outpost watched from afar the Zargor ships entered orbit and just sat there. No combat broke out and eventually a message was sent from Mecbio to the outpost for them to send on to Star Force.

The Zargor wanted to talk, and they wanted to talk here.

9 weeks later…

The Excalibur entered orbit around Mecbio alone, no support fleet, no drones, not even a Ma’kri with it. It coasted in towards a fleet of 3209 Zargor ships totally outmatched…yet with the confidence that it could come and go as it pleased. The Zargor ships had no technology to pin it in place, and with the combination of advanced shields and engines the only way they could defeat it was if Paul stood his command ship in one place and slugged it out. That would be a sure loss, but even an Archon adept wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake, let alone ‘The Admiral.’

So he just strolled into the system and sent a quick message to the pitifully small Vedran defense fleet sitting in a much lower orbit telling them to stay away and if combat occurred to run like hell, for standing and fighting wouldn’t accomplish anything, and if they didn’t have orders to the contrary they would follow existing ones and die uselessly. The standing orders had come from Paul, but ‘defending the system’ was something too complex to be able to be written out specifically, movement for movement.

Tell the Vedran to run away when outmatched and they’d turn tail when the enemy had one more ship, or even one more weapon. Using strategy and tactics to outmatch your opponent was something that was beyond them, so they were told to fight until they received a certain amount of damage to their ships, then to withdraw from combat. Problem was, against a fleet this size, they’d be blown up before they could retreat after that line was passed so Paul just told them flat out to run in order to avoid stupid adherence to protocol. Had these been maturia trained Vedran it wouldn’t be an issue, but there were too many worlds that had yet to be indoctrinated and this was one of them.

Paul stood in the command nexus when the Zargor soon made contact. The image of a trio of wolf-like heads and torsos appeared before him in holo with computer translation lagging slightly behind the native spoken words that were significantly reduced in volume to avoid overlap problems.

“Archon,” the Zargor greeted with obvious animosity but a note of forced respect, a sign that he didn’t want to be talking. “We have come to discuss the terms of a ceasefire.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

“We can hurt you, and as you’ve recently demonstrated, you can hurt us. If this war continues we will both be damaged and others could take advantage of the situation. That would benefit neither of us. Make no mistake, we despise you, but your strength is not to be underestimated and we know that you will damage other enemies with certainty, therefore we believe there is mutual advantage in negotiating an ceasefire arrangement.”

“Do you know why we are at war with you?”

The Zargor trio looked shocked at the question, as if they didn’t have an automatic answer for it and thinking hurt their angular heads.

“You seek dominance in this region.”

“Partially true. We stepped in when The Nexus withdrew in order to protect and stabilize this region. You can call that dominance if you wish, but it does not involve invading worlds that do not give us cause to.”

“And if we no longer give you cause and remain within our own borders and out of a list of worlds designated here, will that eliminate the cause you have for invading ours?”

“Not entirely,” Paul said honestly. “We have many allies that coinhabit the regions where we hold dominance. They must obey a list of rules, and if they do we leave them alone to do as they like. If they do not obey those rules, we will intervene. If you withdraw from your current attacks we will stop hitting your worlds in the short term, for we have other places that need our forces, but if you continue to misbehave in other ways you will attract our attention eventually, so I cannot agree to any permanent cessation of hostilities without a code of conduct.”

“We are not interested in debating the merits of what we do on our own worlds with you. We only offer a ceasefire to the present conflict between us.”

“There is room to negotiate there, but no agreement will ever be used as a shield to condone misbehavior. That said, there are a lot of civilizations out here that need to be taught a lesson or conquered. Lowering yourself on that list will cause us to leave your territory alone in the immediate future.”

“And will turning our fleets into territories that you do not claim dominance over draw your ire?”

“Probably, given the way you operate.”

“We are here to negotiate. If you do not wish to do so state it plainly.”

“I will state this plainly,” Paul said, crossing his arms over his chest with a very defiant look on his face. “You’re losing. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be coming here to talk. You would be taking and destroying whatever you want. We will never tolerate races that do so, but we are stretched thin right now. We have a long list of enemies to deal with and you’re at the top of that list. You’re hitting so many worlds we can’t defend them all, so we’re going to hit you hard where it hurts and keep hitting you until you choose to stop or no longer have the resources to continue. Is that plain enough?”

Two of the three Zargor snarled, but the third held a more amused expression. Paul couldn’t sense their minds over a comm channel, but he could tell that the middle one respected the art of intimidation.

“So you admit we can hurt each other?”

“You can’t hurt my forces much, but you can hurt those we are here to protect,” Paul clarified. “If you wish to strike a deal that will spare them continued attacks, then I’m open to negotiation. What specifically were you considering as terms for this ceasefire?”

“A defined border that neither side will cross.”

“No.”

Silence followed his quick denial, but Paul let it hang in the air until one of them finally spoke.

“Any such deal is dependent on that. It is not a caveat, but a functional staple of a ceasefire.”

“I said no.”

The middle one snarled this time, but it was obvious that they had been sent here to get a deal and walking away wasn’t their first available option.

“Shall we make it more simple? We stop attacking you, you stop attacking us.”

“No,” Paul repeated.

The three Zargor exchanged looks that ranged from aghast to desperate. They wanted to be the impetus behind the terms, but they weren’t able to get any leverage with Paul being so outwardly defiant.

“This world will be destroyed if we do not reach a deal and we remain at war. You have already stated that you wish to protect those under your domain, and the Vedran you have already adopted into your empire.”

“If this world is attacked, I can promise you that the ship you are on will be destroyed during the fighting.”

“Our lives are immaterial. We serve the pack.”

“Never the less, you can count on me honoring that threat even if I can’t stop the destruction of this world…and you can also count on the vengeance that I will enact upon both your homeworld and your capitol in due time. Protection is our first priority, but if we cannot achieve that we will avenge those that are lost.”

“In that we are the same, and you have struck against our territory. Such an offense must be punished.”

“And yet you can’t do it, can you?” Paul sniped back. “You don’t negotiate, you kill. You are here because you cannot see a way to win and you believe you can manipulate us into legitimizing your conquests in other areas. We will never do that. If you want the fighting to stop, you have to stop misbehaving. If you want to temporarily avoid fighting, you have to withdraw from your current incursions so that my top priority becomes others who are misbehaving. Fortunately for you there are many of them, otherwise we would be conquering your civilization right now instead of just raiding it. We typically do not let those who do what you do retain their sovereignty, but these are special circumstances and we must make the most of what few resources we have. If you want to take advantage of that, I suggest you think it through carefully instead of assuming I’m a mark you can manipulate with false offerings of peace or threats of more war. I am a defender. It’s not peace I seek, its protection, and I do not dislike fighting. I’m very good at it, more so than others, and if needed I will demonstrate here and now if you strike at this world.”

“That is enough,” another voice said as the hologram expanded and a fourth Zargor walking into view. The other three exchanged glances with him, then they departed and the newcomer’s image grew to fill the air above the control board in front of Paul, looking down on him slightly.

“And you are?”

“The one who has the power to negotiate.”

“A Hafren or a Treemach?” Paul guessed.

The Zargor’s eyes widened a touch. “You have studied us.”

“Of course we have. We’re not that overstretched.”

A deep, reverberating laugh answered him that needed no translation. “Very good, Human. Very good. You are not the timid caretakers we were mistakenly told about.”

“Bad intelligence?”

“Of a sort. I have studied you as well, and you in particular. Your method of conquest is most intriguing. You do not use fear of death to intimidate. No. You use a much…wider net to ensnare your opponents and turn them into servants. It is quite remarkable, actually, and makes our methods seem brutish in comparison.”

“You admit that? I thought your collective ego would have prevented any such simple thoughts.”

“Ah, and you can also insult. Very good indeed.”

“Now that we’re properly introduced, do you have an offer to make or are you going to turn tail and run. The threat against this planet is hollow, or at best poorly thought out. We respond to the biggest threats, so making yourself a bigger one is…”

“…poor planning. Yes, my subordinates are not very inventive and fall back on habits when presented with an unfamiliar situation. That is why I am here. You are right not to concede anything to us, for you are winning. We can hurt you badly if we wished, but that would also be poor planning. We cannot destroy you entirely, and I know you have a vast empire far from here to draw resources from that we can never eliminate. So where does that leave us?”

“You have to change your methodology.”

“Quite so. Hence we are…negotiating.”

“And doing poorly, I might add.”

“What would you recommend?”

“Something substantive.”

“Then I offer you this. We will never yield to your standards of conduct. To do so would destroy who and what we are, and there is no victory in that. Better to die fighting than convert.”

“We can arrange either one.”

“You will not take us alive, nor our offspring. That I can assure you.”

“Don’t be so sure. If properly motivated, we can make a lot of things happen.”

“Your rumored mind powers?”

“Fishing for information?”

“Should I not be?”

“Feel free to come onboard my ship and discuss such things in detail.”

“Thank you, no. That truly would be a misstep, for I do not believe I would be able to kill you if you could read my intent beforehand.”

“If we’re to be obvious enemies, then what do you have to offer?”

“Exactly what you said. You have a reputation for honesty, though we are not going to count on that. I will reciprocate though, and state that we already know your resources are stretched and that your attacks against us are in desperation. Desperation to distract us from the worlds that we can take and you cannot protect. It had been assumed you were disinclined to reprisals when ships drawn off to do so would expose other worlds. Those who predicted as much are now dead, and rather than pushing our advantage into your weak areas we are withdrawing ships to bolster our own defenses. You have turned our aggression against us and have made us the prey.”

“We’re not finished yet.”

“Yes you are, because I’m going to give you what you want. You will never abide us and we will never abide you, but we do know when we’re outmatched. You might eventually prevail in this region even if we bleed each other out, but you will fail in your stated goal of protecting those who are in danger and we will lost a great amount of territory and prestige…so the only suitable course of action for us both is to go our separate ways.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Disengaging. We will spend our resources on opponents other than the ones you protect…specifically the Trefu.”

“You can’t hold their territory even if you could take it,” Paul said, surprised by that revelation. “They’re far from your borders and you’ll have to cross through territory that we control.”

“Try to control,” the Zargor corrected. “We can slip through easy enough, but our goal isn’t to take what they possess. We have a score to settle with them that will only be acquitted with blood. You are also fighting the Trefu in a few engagements, correct?”

“More than a few, though not me personally.”

“One of your other factions?”

“Three, actually.”

“Then I recommend that we do not agree to a deal. There can be no peace between us. But we can pursue different opponents and ignore one another for a while…at least as long as it benefits us.”

“I’m curious. What’s your long term play beyond the Trefu. You know you can’t best us, and I doubt you’ll give up the worlds you currently have and run far, far off into the galaxy where we can’t find you…”

“There will be no running, and our future is our concern, not yours.”

Paul stared at him for a long moment, with the Zargor disinclined to break the silence.

“We have combat missions against your worlds either ongoing or planned. They will continue until we see your ships leave. I will not cancel them on words alone.”

“Nor should you. You judge an opponent by the size of their teeth and claws, not their voice.”

“Was that your mistake, because Humans don’t have claws?”

“Perhaps it was,” the Zargor said, smiling widely enough to show the large daggers he had for teeth inside his snout. “It is not a mistake we will make again. I suggest that if our ships cross paths in your domain that we ignore one another, for the combat would be a waste for us both, as we have others that need killing.”

The hologram cut out before Paul could respond, and within a few seconds the entire Zargor fleet began to move towards the Excalibur…then flew around it, heading for the jumppoint for the star as the command ship held its ground amidst the thousands of passing ships.

Paul sighed, then whispered an old bit of wisdom from James Tiberius Kirk regarding diplomacy.

“Words don’t always solve problems. Sometimes you just have to punch an alien in the face,” he said, stepping down from the nexus before turning back and telekinetically flipping a few buttons that brought up a map of the Rim Region and the gap between the Zargor and the Trefu. This was going to get interesting, no matter how it played out.

Paul snorted with mild disgust as another thought occurred to him.

“Picard would have given them a neutral zone.”

8

January 13, 3548

Iocane System (Gamma Region)

Outer Zone

Ace-095 yawned as he walked onto the bridge of the small insystem transport that was carrying him, Ryan-096, and about 300 passengers and cargo out to a point far beyond the last planet in the system. So far, in fact, that they were having to creep their way out to it navigationally speaking, for the gravity was so weak here that engines didn’t have much grip to work off of.

When the trailblazer came into the small compartment Ryan was already there, leaning against a wall while the crew of 4 manned their stations as he noticed on the holographic map that they were already decelerating towards their destination…at which was the surprise Ryan had promised him.

“Sleep well?”

“Did you have to put it so far out?” Ace complained.

“Yes, and for good reason. My Clan has been working on this for a long time and we needed someplace remote.”

“You’re almost inside the nebula,” Ace pointed out, referencing the huge gas cloud that was larger than the entire system and blocking nearly a third of all possible jumplines out from the star. It sat beside it and nearly swallowed up four adjacent systems that had to go the long way round, while another six stars were located inside the nebula itself but unreachable at any decent speed for the drag on the gasses would be too much strain at jump speeds, even for Star Force’s advanced shields.

“Hence it’s remote,” Ryan reiterated.

“How long until you’re going to let me in on the secret?”

“About four more minutes, then we’ll be within visual range.”

“Why isn’t the hologram showing whatever it is?”

“Because it’s sensor stealthed,” the pilot offered. “We’re working off of coordinates.”

“Dude,” Ace said, addressing Ryan, “if you built a Death Star out here, so help me…”

“I’m not Paul. And besides, this is way better.”

“Uh…huh…I’m waiting to be impressed.”

“You will be.”

Ace decided to just wait it out, watching the various readouts on the small bridge as the ship continued to decelerate, then out of nowhere the sensors finally got enough of a return bounce to register. It looked like eye with two flat arcs intersecting at either end and he noticed Ryan smiling silently.

Determined to figure it out without asking, Ace walked up to one of the stations and politely pressed a few buttons to pull up additional data. The length of whatever this was was big…really big…and sitting at just under 800 miles. The gap inside of it was…

Ace’s eyes widened as he realized he was seeing it from the side. The two flat arcs weren’t flat at all, rather opposite sides of a giant ring viewed slightly askew from the side.

“You built a frickin Halo?”

“It gets better,” Ryan promised.

“Alright tour guide. Feel free to show off.”

“Happy to,” he said, pushing off the wall as the half mile long ship continued to get closer.

“Clan Spartan…” Ace muttered. “I should have known.”

“You wouldn’t have guessed anyway. I put a lot of thought into this.”

“By copying Halo?”

“Wait and see,” the trailblazer said, suddenly clamming up and making Ace wait out their approach.

There were no other ships nearby the giant ring that was some 6 miles thick and 38 wide, and to Ace’s disappointment there was no visible land or water on the inside surface. The entire thing was black, but when Ryan sent a transmission the blackness disappeared and the grey hull plates that he would have expected to see materialized…as did the green and blue of land features.

Sensor readings lit up, and before Ace could get to inspecting what was before him he noticed a giant spherical energy shield around both them and the ring that wasn’t there before.

“What’s the bubble?”

“Sensor shield. I had them expand it beyond the ring so we could take a look. Normally it’s pretty tight to the construct.”

“Sunlight?”

“Artificial. There’s an atmospheric shield that doubles as internal light generation. You can see out, but it makes it look like a sunny day without the sun.”

“Training facility?”

“That and a great deal more.”

“Is this weaponized?”

“No. It’s got nothing at all on it. I couldn’t fit anything in with all the other equipment. There’s a mile and a half of air, then another half mile of substrata with the remaining mass being equipment. And yes, we hauled in rock and water to make it legit.”

“Awfully expensive.”

“But not wasted.”

“You’ve had your Clan working on this for how long?”

“378 years.”

Ace frowned. “I know it’s big, but…”

“It’s not the only one.”

Ryan glared at him. “Ok, what gives?”

“I could make you sweat it out…but what the hell. It’s too cool to wait any longer. You see the rim on the edges?”

“Yeah.”

“The very top is an array that keeps the land area safe beneath it when activated. Everything inside the ring’s perimeter is affected though, so you can’t land and take off when in use, and the only access points are on the inner track. There’s not so much as a single airlock on the outside.”

“Sentimental monkey,” Ace jibbed, but Ryan could tell he approved. “Please tell me there’s a blood gulch down there?”

“That and many more map replicas.”

Ace did a silent fist pump, but Ryan shook his head ‘no.’

“That’s not why I built it. At least not the primary reason.”

“What does the array do if it’s not a weapon?”

“We got the idea from The Nexus before we ever got our hands on the schematics, so our design is crude but now polished for our purposes. After all, we don’t have to send anything across hundreds of lightyears…just a handful.”

Ace’s eyes widened with pure shock and an equal dose of disbelief.

“You built a mini grid point?”

“Without much gravity out here, we gotta have some fast way to move around our clandestine network.”

“We?”

“The rest of the Clans established networks of secret bases. I’ve just taken it a step further…and yes, I’m willing to share.”

“Where are the other Halos?”

“Inside the nebula and on its perimeter. This isn’t the only way in, and hopefully with the stealth shield nobody will find the door.”

“How fast?”

“Not super speed, but about the equivalent of our current gravity drives.”

“What about the nebula itself? You’re still going to have to run through it.”

“Well, the Halos are more than just grid points. Every 13 minutes they send an automatic pulse of kinetic energy. It took us a long time to calibrate it properly, but…”

“You’ve cored holes through the nebula?” Ace asked, his jaw open.

“Yes, and the pulses keep it clear. It’s a needle shot in and out, but the density is low enough for our shields to handle. If the Halos shut down the nebula will fill back in and we can shut the draw bridge if needed.”

“One or two?”

“Given the length of this one, both ends have to be pulsing to keep it clear. But if one goes down you can send a ship through slower and still make it with proper modifications. It takes a few years to fill back in completely, so you have a window to get there and fix the problem. If not, you’re stuck with sending a very slow shield ship through.”

“How many years did it take the first time?”

“On this leg, it took the crew 17 years to travel 3 lightyears.”

“With or without a pulse from this end?”

“With. We didn’t want to risk them getting stranded due to unknown amounts of friction, so we waited until we got this Halo’s pulse generator operational. It’s a separate mechanism from the magnetic field matrix.”

“So you have to have a special fleet of ships to move through it?”

“Yes. One will be coming in a few days, but I thought you’d like to have a look around the surface first,” Ryan said with a smirk.

“How do you know when to turn the field on if landing isn’t possible when it’s operational?”

“You tell me.”

Ace raised an eyebrow. “Comm grid?”

“Not needed, though we do send signals through the conduit to bypass the nebula. The Halos also act as relays.”

“But of course,” Ace mocked. “You had to smash as much coolness into this project as possible.”

“Jealous?”

“Much.”

“The ships send out a signal that the Halos read when they get close and they turn on the field…with a proper warning first for all ships in the area to clear out. Once an incoming ship is stopped, the field goes down and you can come and go.”

“What’s the downside of moving through the field?”

“If your ship isn’t configured for it there can be malfunctions, not to mention biological ramifications. We have to pump a hell of a lot of juice inside that arc to get the speeds we need.”

“I believe it. Same for the pulse generators?”

“13 minutes is the best we can do with recharge times, and the deeper you get into the nebula the less effect it has.”

“Wait, what about encountering a pulse from the other side?”

“They cancel each other out when they hit, and our ships’ shields are configured to pass through without resistance. If anyone else tries to get through, the pulses will slow them and maybe even knock them off course.”

“Right into the nebula…”

“There’s that, yeah.”

“Cross traffic?”

“The corridor is wide enough to pass, and everyone holds to the right side of the road.”

Ace smiled at the inside joke, knowing well that there was no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in the galaxy, so they had to arbitrarily assign such parameters.

“And where does this lead?”

“You’ll see when we get there, buddy. I’m not spoiling that part. Pilot, take us down at your convenience. We’ve got some exploring to do.”

“Copy that, Archon. ETA is 18 minutes to the LZ.”

When Ace stepped out of the transport and onto the synthetic deck of the facility’s landing pad he jogged over to the edge and the pitifully small railing there that separated you from a sheer drop off that descended into rocky cliffs that the nearby lake’s waves were crashing against. He looked out across the vast stretch of water and thought he could just barely make out the far side. There was a tiny bit of haze involved, but what caused him to have a wave of nostalgic goosebumps was the fact that the horizon curved up rather than down and that he could see the inside of the ring as the land/water arced up into a tiny ribbon in the distance that stretched over his head then widened again behind him when he spun around, seeing the dense jungle that surrounded the landing pad on the three other sides.

Ryan followed him out to the railing, giving him a moment to soak it in before saying anything, for his face was blank with an expression he knew well from their early days in Atlantis when they were going through Archon basic training together. His teammate was literally dumbstruck, which was better than even Ryan had hoped for.

“Like it?” he asked sarcastically.

“I want one,” he said deadpan, though his eyes were still focused on the ribbon in the sky and the tiny spec of a star off to the left that was at the center of the system that had no idea this Halo even existed.

“Davis wants us to have a backup plan for the far rim if the V’kit’no’sat come back. We’ve been planning survival and harassment strategies in the ADZ. This is another option I came up with.”

“You don’t think they’ll find it?”

“Not unless they follow a ship here.”

“What about the hole in the nebula?”

“They don’t have a reason to look, not to mention it’s tiny.”

“You know, if they do find this they’re liable to just blow it up rather than landing ground troops to fight us.”

“Oh I know. This isn’t our main base. It’s just the portal to get there. We’ve got 6 star systems unavailable to the V’kit’no’sat to hide in, and as of now I’m offering your Clan first dibs on franchise rights.”

Ace frowned. “Franchise rights?”

“I’ve got a master plan in the works, but not a fraction of the resources needed to really get work going on it. Building the transport ships, for example. I’ve got a fleet of 209 right now, so if you’d like to help start spamming those and other items I’ve designed you can be the first to sign up. I’ll bring the other 9s in on it too, and all the Clans eventually, but I wanted you to have first dibs.”

“What is there to claim? Do we each get a Halo?”

Ryan smiled again. “You’ll see once we get inside.”

“You know, I could beat it out of you,” Ace said, finally looking at him instead of the awe inspiring view.

“You’re welcome to try, but I’m not saying anything more about what’s there. Here though, you’re free to ask questions about.”

“How’d you get this built without people knowing it was here?”

“Simple. I built it elsewhere and moved it into position once the superstructure was in place. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of having a construction crew that can keep their mouths shut. You have to keep yours that way too, by the way.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Ace said, looking back at the uptilting horizon again. “This is fucking awesome.”

“That’s what I was going for,” Ryan scoffed. “And I think it’s worth the cost.”

“Shut up and take my money…” Ace said with a laugh.

“Unfortunately, like you said, unless they’re hidden the Halos are target practice.”

“Still worth it, portal or not. This is why a lot of us got involved in Star Force in the first place.”

“I know. Too bad I couldn’t build one to full size.”

“Close enough, buddy. You did good.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said, then letting the moment persist as Ace continued to look around at the sweeping landscapes. This really did feel like being in the video game, and there was no need to rush the tour. Their ride wasn’t here yet and first impressions never repeated themselves, so he was going to let him soak all this in at his own pace…and revel in the total victory he’d just achieved over the other trailblazers in their ongoing construction war.

9

April 22, 3549

Aatrox System (Rim Region)

Darkin (Clan Sangheili Rim capitol)

Jason returned to his command center buried deep beneath the barren moon that orbited a giant red gas giant, just having completed another naval mission in the Sanguine Blade. They’d been blowing apart a Virdeen pirate base and cleaning out yet another point on what he was establishing as a ‘safe’ trade route…which meant he also had to devote troops to patrolling it so that it remained clean.

Right now there was one Clan Sangheili warship there supported by six Belledeir capital ships of mixed sizes. He’d scrapped the entire Belledeir starfighter core when he got here and took control of their civilization, but their carriers were still somewhat valuable in that they could be reworked into mobile search and rescue craft, and one of those was also with his small patrol fleet. It wasn’t much, but now that the Virdeen base was literally nothing more than bits of debris there wasn’t anything left in that empty system to counter them with, and he knew they’d give any potential pirates or raiders entering the system a hell of a hard time poaching ships.

The trailblazer walked past a few Clan personnel at workstations in the small room. One was a Calavari, another two were Protovic, and the fourth was a Urik’kadel. They had their individual oversight tasks to attend to so he didn’t bother them, simply talking a standing position in front of the main hologram next to a pedestal that doubled as a control nexus. He laid a hand on it and accessed the interlink controls, mentally adding the dot that was the Hyfernk System to a list that would update automatically and be sent out through the comm grid he was continually growing, though unfortunately it didn’t connect far enough to reach any of the other trailblazers’ realms.

That was because there were far too many systems nearby that needed them and he couldn’t waste units in a long chain over to Paul, Megan, or the others just to stay in quicker contact. Message packets were continually being ferried through the grid point system and added to the comm relays so it wasn’t a total blackout, but he was still isolated from the others far more than he would have liked.

As he added the Hyfernk dot, three other nearby systems linked to it with glowing golden jumplines indicating that those routes were now open for the commerce traffic that he was slowly developing in order to bring a greater structure to a region that had been incredibly isolated due to the rampancy of the hits on shipping. Systems only a dozen lightyears apart from one another had no connection because interconnecting systems were too dangerous to pass through, forcing them to go around or, in most cases, trade and travel with only a handful of others nearby, making the entire Belledeir region a collection of tiny communities that did not communicate or support one another, and that left them ripe for conquest by those strong enough to take advantage of the situation.

But with every jumpline that Jason cleared out and the addition of comm relays that would follow later, the various races now had the freedom to move about knowing that Star Force was on the patrol and that the hunters were now being hunted. Many were still too fearful to veer off their known and trusted trade routes, but gradually as the brave began making extended journeys and living to tell about it the freeze on interstellar travel was slowly thawing…though only along the links that glowed gold before Jason on the starmap.

The system he’d just added helped, but the main routes were the black holes and a handful of super large stars, all of which he’d already claimed and secured, but a lot of the local races didn’t have gravity drive technology sufficient to make the longer jumps, thus they were very isolated and limited to sometimes less than 7 lightyears per jump. In order to facilitate their movement Jason had begun using the Belledeir to create his own transit network for hire, but he still had too few ships. Those out and about were visibly establishing where the safe routes were and jumping across the longer distances where others could not, bridging the gap for those with the resources to purchase tickets for personnel or cargo, but the first full-sized jumpship capable of carrying other ships wasn’t due to come off the Clan Sangheili shipyards for another 3 years.

Jason hated having to work with so little when everything he produced got gobbled up by the void of need out here, but he kept chipping away year after year and had succeeded in bringing a spider web of stability throughout the otherwise chaotic and barbaric region to which he’d been assigned. Just getting to the point where he’d even consider building civilian ships rather than squeezing out every warship he could was a milestone, but he was still stretched thin on the military front. The Belledeir were secure, but his decision to start sucking a bit of Clan resources into development of a transit grid was due to the necessity of uniting this region in order to avoid more headaches down the road.

He needed partners, and in order to reach out and find them he had to actually have reliable links in place. Infantile as it was, he was already contracting out mining work to various races in bad need of resources their systems couldn’t produce. Jason hiring them provided them with the currency to trade for what they didn’t have and it provided him with additional materiel. He wasn’t going to start giving out advanced technology, so that was something his Clan was going to have to produce on their own, but he was sharing lesser tech that was a huge improvement to a lot of races that were being friendly and not trying to kill their neighbors over scraps.

Economy was a weapon, and that was a lesson Davis had taught him a long time ago. Jason wasn’t just fighting enemies that lived and breathed but fate itself in numerous forms. You couldn’t blast your way out of a food shortage or a plague, meaning that some wars you fought had to occur via different means and Jason badly needed clear jumplanes and as many systems hooked up to his relay grid as he could get, and spam as they did, his Paladin could only build so fast.

As Jason updated the map and searched it for new additions since his last visit he saw an update on Zargor activities with the pullout continuing. Paul’s meeting with them hadn’t been a feint after all. They were pulling back from one invasion zone after another, even abandoning some of the worlds they had taken. That was probably out of fear that Jason would eventual get to them and recover them the hard way, but the fact that they were leaving without even a shot being fired spoke volumes for how spooked they were. Star Force hadn’t backed down when hit, and had in fact hit them back harder and in a way they hadn’t expected. It seemed they were more bark than bite, and now running away with their tails tucked between their legs…despite the fact that they didn’t have actual tails, but the metaphor fit.

If this pullout continued it was going to remove one of seven major headaches Jason had in his region, and that was a major relief. He couldn’t be sure that the Zargor didn’t have some devious plan up their sleeve, but based off of what he’d learned about them he doubted it. They were trying to buy time, pure and simple, now that they saw they couldn’t win head to head and that Star Force was willing to not reinforce smaller worlds they were attacking to instead hit the Zargor where it hurt.

Jason would never leave a system defenseless, but those systems that he hadn’t even known about other than them being a dot on the map had to wait. He hated that, but the strategy had worked. Now with the Zargor disengaging, if it held to course, a lot more of those small worlds would be protected without even sending a single ship to them. They’d still have to deal with raiders and other threats on their own, but the big bad Zargor were not going to be around to threaten them anymore.

Some people would say Star Force had sacrificed some of those races and their worlds in order to make the Zargor back down…and from a misguided point of view that would appear to be correct. But like Star Force’s edict about not killing prisoners, they were under no obligation to actually take prisoners in the first place. The same was true about putting a system under their protection. A lot of them needed it, but if Star Force hadn’t gotten to them yet it was simply a matter of priorities, not selling someone out.

And when you had people dying everywhere and you couldn’t stop most of it, let alone all of it, there came a time when you just had to say ‘fuck it all’ and go on the offensive. Star Force hadn’t quite got that far in over its head, but they’d used the same principle.

When the enemy is making you play defense to the point where they don’t have to defend themselves, you need to call their bluff and make them defend by keeping fleets in reserve. If you never attack their territory they don’t have to leave any ships behind to guard it and can hit you as hard as they like without their population and infrastructure coming to harm.

That’s why the few civilizations that Jason had learned about, via the V’kit’no’sat database and other intel, that were pacifistic to the point where they would only fight when attacked got abused regularly if they didn’t hold a significant technological advantage. It made you a huge target, and fear for your own safety was a weapon you had to wield. If you declared up front that any enemy would not be counterattacked then you were just begging them to come out and use your worlds for a weapons test…then they could just turn around and run safely away.

Races that were totally pacifistic…well, they didn’t last long enough to make the historical records for the most part. The Zargor had wrongly assumed that Star Force was partially pacifistic and they weren’t the first. Doing what was right didn’t mean you were weak, though it did mean you didn’t always strike when you saw an opening. An enemy had to earn that marker, and whereas the Zargor would attack anyone who they saw was vulnerable Star Force would not, nor would they use the most efficient means of killing people.

The Zargor thought winning meant killing or enslaving all of the enemy. For Star Force, defeating the enemy was the objective…and that could occur in many different forms.

The Zargor had misjudged Star Force badly and were now doing the first wise thing he’d seen out of them. They were running away, back to within their original territory for the most part and Jason would kick them the rest of the way back if needed, but he had no illusions that they were going to change their ways. There was always the possibility of that, and they were certainly going to have the time to make a change and prove him wrong, but the Archon would bet credits that they just turned their attentions to targets that weren’t on this side of the map.

And while that meant others out there would come under attack far sooner than before, at least it gave the people in Jason’s assigned region a bit more breathing room…as well as allowing him to reposition pieces of his Sangheili and Belledeir fleets, which he was going to start doing now in the wake of the confirmed Zargor withdrawals.

Jason brought up fleet positions and strength levels on the starmap then got to work moving his virtual pieces around, sending out orders via the relay grid or courier where needed, and transmitting a thank you message to Paul for getting the big bad wolves off his back.

“Do we have confirmation?”

“Yes, Dafchor.”

“Show me,” Cal-com said from the bridge of a conglomerate that he’d been fighting from for the past 12 years on the edge of Skarron territory as he took system after system that he then left his builders in custody of as he pressed onward carving out the new border region the Elders had dictated.

The reconnaissance report from a recently arrived scout ship popped up before him showing a distant Skarron system that was a high traffic trade route within a portion of their empire that the lizards had not encroached upon yet, but were moving steadily towards. The reports showed gradually increasing amounts of ship traffic coming out through that system towards the front, but nothing on a scale that would alarm him. It was just an escalating reinforcement as one would expect when the enemy was pushing into your territory. When fleets were destroyed they had to be replaced, thus the flow of ships in would always be greater than those going out save for the exception of an evacuation…but it appeared the Skarrons weren’t budging and deciding to fight it out to the last ship and last breath.

Cal-com watched a speedy retelling of events the scout had recorded, then slowed it down rapidly as the flow of ships suddenly jumped. There wasn’t a huge convoy coming through, but several with over a thousand ships each. The Skarrons didn’t use jumpships, so it was easy to tell what class these vessels were. Most were warships and they had a small amount of cargo vessels that were probably logistical support traveling with them for however far they’d come to get here.

They didn’t stay in the system under surveillance, but moved through without even bothering to stop until the 9th large grouping redirected to one of the inhabited planets and appeared to be restocking on supplies. There was no visible battle damage being attended to, so Cal-com suspected these ships had come from so far away that they needed to stop off occasionally for provisions, and the fact that most of the convoys coming through didn’t stop here suggested they were travelling different lengths…which meant different points of origin.

The convoys continued to come out of two different jumplines, but they left on the same one. Another indicator that this was a convergence point and probably not the only one. The reinforcements coming in were significant, but not overwhelming, and he didn’t yet understand why the scout ship had returned prior than instructed until he scrolled through the timeline of ship arrivals and saw the numbers continuing to escalate until there was almost constant transit around the star from both incoming jumplines.

“So this is how it looks,” he said softly enough that only his closest aide could hear. “They don’t move en mass, they just send out word to come and they get here whenever they can.”

“How is that not en mass?” the other Voku asked, pointing to the hundreds of thousands of warships moving around either side of the star like a string of ants to get to the outgoing jumppoint, save for a few moving off to refuel at nearby planets.

“There are subtle variations in the fleet movements that tell me they are not under a unified command. The traffic density tends to blur it all together at a casual glance, but these are unique fleets passing through the same location at the same time.”

“The ship counts remain the same regardless, and if this rate continues to persist…”

“It will escalate.”

The other Voku looked at him silently, not voicing the obvious question.

“It is like a flood,” Cal-com elected to explain. “First a little bit trickles in, then a bit more, and a bit more. You have a flow that continues to gain in speed and volume until you suddenly find yourself in over your head and swept away by the current. These ships have not been brought together at a waypoint and then sent here…the front with the Li’vorkrachnika is their waypoint and they will continue coming in far greater numbers from across the Skarron Empire as they get funneled down into fewer and fewer jumplanes.”

“This is sooner than I had hoped,” the Dafchor continued, “but the Crusade is manifesting. If they throw their full might against their primary target then we will have time to complete our invasions and strengthen our defenses, but if they split their attention and send some of their forces against us immediately…”

“What are your orders?”

“Unless the Elders counsel otherwise, we continue as planned and assume they will go after their priority target. If that is true, let us hope the Li’vorkrachnika do them enough damage that they will rethink the wisdom of coming after us in the aftermath. If not, then we stand our ground and find out which civilization is the superior. Either way, we have fighting to do and the clock is ticking.”

10

February 18, 3550

Ozpin System (Occupation Zone)

Middle Zone

“What is it?” Baron Tajmon asked as he heard two pairs of footsteps approaching from behind him and he spun around in his chair to turn his glowing blue Protovic eyes toward them.

“We’ve got our 17th slot,” the Human told him. “Ships are beginning to arrive already.”

Tajmon frowned. “Why haven’t I been notified?”

“An Archon brought them in and just notified us two minutes ago.”

“A special entry?” he asked, rising from his chair and following the two staffers out of his office towards the main control room on the space station that sat in a lonely orbit around the central star, keeping it separate from the 13 habitable planets that were in varying stages of construction.

“They are in great need,” the Kiritas answered. “He cited emergency standard 4.”

“Damn,” the Baron said, knowing that meant these guys, whoever they were, were close to dead due to bad living conditions and other attrition factors. None of the other 16 races sent to this system had rated a 4, and while that meant they weren’t in danger of starving to death it meant he was going to have to handle them with kid gloves as far as work orders went…and that meant he was going to have to recruit volunteers from the other races to help out initially while these guys healed up.

“Who are they?” he asked as they turned out of the hallway and into the Beacon control room for the entire system. This wasn’t the only location for the newest Star Force faction, but everything here was under the Baron’s command and he exercised it from this neutral seda that housed experienced personnel in all categories that were responsible for helping the refugee races sent here assimilate and become part of the empire. Normally that meant his people would advise and demonstrate while the newcomers did most of the building work, but if these newcomers were a standard 4 then it was going to take months, if not years for them to recover health sufficient to join the workforce and he didn’t have the luxury of waiting that long.

“Their name is Dotopa and they’re between 4 and 9 inches long, avian, feathered, and quadruped.”

“So much for manual labor. We’re going to have to start minimech production facilities, but at least we won’t need as much infrastructure to house them. How many are we looking at?”

“93 billion.”

The Baron stopped in his tracks at the top of a staircase that led down onto the main platform.

“Say again?”

“93 billion is the number the Archon quoted me.”

“Which Archon?”

“Vex-761, ViLord ranking.”

“Ok…not a newb then. Did he say how much foodstuffs 93 billion Dotopa would require?”

Neither Administrator knew the answer, but an analyst with incoming data on her screen overhead the question and gave him the number before he was halfway down the stairs.

“440 million, Human equivalent.”

“That’s still a lot,” the Kiritas pointed out.

“Where’s our prep work put us…assuming the Dotopa don’t require special foodstuffs?”

“Bioharvest facilities on planet are 71% complete.”

“310ish then,” he said, doing the mental math as to the output potential. They’d been building up infrastructure in the last empty slot in this system not knowing who or what would come in, and the design goal had them stopping once they hit 500 million Human equivalent foodstuff production. None of the other races sent here had more than 72 million on arrival, and the Baron had thought he was being prudent in his planning, but they were going to fall short. “What are their current reserves?”

“There’s a fleet of Kiritak jumpships escorting them and providing them with supplies. Expiration date anticipated in 8 months, 4 days without additional resupply, but ships are already enroute to extend that mark.”

“Good,” the Protovic said, walking his glowing face up near the equally glowing hologram and competing for luminosity as he saw the ship icons coming into the system near the star. “Route them into a holding orbit around 17 and get an evaluation team assembled. We need to find the healthiest ones and get them into indoctrination immediately. And start assembling construction crews of Berthal and Renti, as many as can be spared from their own assignments. We need those bioharvests up and running at 440 capacity as soon as possible.”

“Materials?”

“Syphon off from others until we can get the food production stabilized, and do we have any information on why we weren’t told they were coming?”

“None, but the Archon’s ship is coming here. ETA just under 4 hours.”

“Good. I want to know why protocol has been breached. If we hadn’t been building ahead...nevermind. I’ll find out what’s going on, meanwhile get everyone activated and in scramble mode. We’ve got 93 billion people to get organized, and their being tiny doesn’t help. Most of this system’s future population is in those ships and we need to get them sorted before any more die.”

“Standard 4 means imminent death, not fatalities already,” the Human pointed out.

“Not in large numbers, no, but out of 93 billion you could lose a million here or there and no one would even notice. We’re not going to be that sloppy, so get on this now.”

“Already am. You were the one with meditation lockout on,” he said with a smile as he grabbed a console of his own and started waking up the people under his command on this station and the various planets out there.

“So I was,” the Baron said, referencing the information blackout he used when he needed to do some contemplative thinking…which was why they’d had to walk in to tell him what was going on. Right now it’d have to wait, for the thinking required meant incorporating data as it came in from the refugee fleet and its Star Force escorts, so he stayed on the main platform walking around the system holo as he oversaw his administrators and other staffers and troubleshooted as issues came up until the Archon’s ship came within realtime comm range, then he retreated to his office and got a life size image of the ViLord standing next to his desk.

“Sorry about the rush,” the Archon offered.

“Yes…what’s the occasion?”

“We didn’t know these guys were coming until they showed up on our doorstep. Took the black hole routes on their own volition then popped up at Garadan asking for sanctuary. They had some pursuers a few days behind them that we dealt with, but it’s safe to say any ship that couldn’t keep up with the flock was lost, and according to their sketchy records more than half didn’t make it.”

“Where did they come from and who was after them?”

“Nexus territory and a race we’re unfamiliar with. They called them the Traquim, and their ships fled as soon as they saw one of their own puff like confetti when we intervened. Low tech on both sides, and the Dotopa have the equivalent of slave syndrome. They’re a mess in the head, and I don’t envy the task ahead of you.”

“Slave syndrome? Are they escapees?”

“Sort of. More like picked on and bullied rather than actually owned. When their worlds eventually got wasted they packed up as many as they could and ran. Numbers from that are…hard to swallow. What you’ve got here is a tiny fraction of their former population and all that we think are left.”

“93 billion is a tiny fraction?”

“So you can understand how messed up in the head you can get when you see so many more die helplessly.”

“Military?”

“Other than ships, no. They have no concept of mechs and most of their construction is done on assembly lines. When a ship is damaged they can’t even repair it unless it can get back to ground. These guys are a mess on numerous fronts.”

“We’ll get to work on them. Thankfully we’ve got a full deck now and that means more help than just pre-existing staff.”

“To which I’m adding more, which I’ll be transferring over shortly. About 22,000 instructors and techs.”

The Baron blew out a relieved breath. “Much appreciated.”

“I’ll be over myself soon and help you make introductions. In the meantime know that their airlocks are a bit…odd. You’ll have to make modifications on your end to access them, and they don’t have dropships or shuttles.”

Tajmon facepalmed, and when he looked up again the Archon’s hologram was gone.

“Save the hardest for last I guess…”

“Alright, impress me,” Rio said as he walked into one of the advanced research labs in Atlantis.

“If you insist,” Yiori Bessmot said, waving a hand towards a display table at the far end. The master tech was among only a handful of researchers working to push the limits of Star Force’s tech as they explored the remaining untouchable technologies in the V’kit’no’sat database, but he’d gone a bit off the reservation on this one and supposedly built something inferior that they had never thought of or cataloged anyone else as having designed.

Rio frowned. “That box?”

“Inside it.”

The trailblazer looked for a lid, but seeing none visually he switched on his Pefbar to have a look on the inside, the top of which was hollow. A little telekinetic pressure on the underside and the seams materialized with him pulling it off entirely and setting it to the side while throwing Bessmot a look.

The tech frowned. “Thought it’d take you longer than that to figure out.”

“Pefbar works wonders,” Rio said, pulling out a wad of material that was slick to the touch and felt like clothing. “This is armor?”

“Put it on. There are three pieces.”

Rio fished around in the bundle and pulled out what looked like pants, setting the rest on the table beside the box. There were no holes in the legs, so Rio just stepped into them and found that they stretched around his shoes loosely, but there was no waist band and they wouldn’t stay up, being far too big for him.

“Explain.”

“You’re supposed to put the top on first. Just hold them up telekinetically for now.”

Rio did as instructed and pulled the top off the table. It had a neck hole but no hand holes. He slid it on and let the baggy shirt hang loose over his waist, with it coming down halfway to his knees.

“And now?”

“Find the zipper and hold for three seconds.”

“Zipper?” he asked, looking in the general area and finding a tiny hard coin, barely the size of his eye’s iris. He pressed his finger to thumb with it in between but nothing happened. When he was about to ask he noticed an identical coin on the shirt edge. He brought them together and pressed, waited three seconds, then the edge of both melted together at the coins and quickly continued out both directions snugging the two together with the extra material disappearing.

“Well that’s nifty,” he said, standing in now trim but still loose clothing and having his hands inside flaps of material without even any finger holes or slots.

“Neck buttons,” the tech instructed. “Press the far left.”

Rio scanned his neck with his Pefbar and found four. Rio touched his covered hand to the one indicated and suddenly the material around his body snugged up, with his fingers materializing as the pouch transformed to fit his digits perfectly and the stretchable coverings on his feet were now slick and shiny as laceless boots.

“From your left…on/off, attach helmet, lock form, and power assist. Use your telekinesis for the lock form or you’re going to have a hand to your neck when you do it.”

“Hmmn,” Rio said, grabbing the last bit of cloth and pulling it over his head. He couldn’t see anything through it until he hit the second button, then an interior HUD lit up and he could see out without having to rely on his Pefbar. He noticed it had also sealed to his neck, meaning the armor now covered him head to toe with no skin showing and no breath mask plate. The air was going straight through the material somehow.

He poked a finger against his arm, finding the armor wasn’t firm. It felt like clothing, so he hit the ‘lock form’ button but as Bessmot had told him, his entire body froze in place with him unable to move. He used his telekinesis to release himself, realizing that he couldn’t have moved his finger to do it anyway, then gave the tech a look he couldn’t see through the solid black face covering. In fact his entire body was covered in an oily black that seemed to soak in whatever light hit it.

“How do I get the armor to firm up without locking it?”

“It is firm,” the tech said with a satisfied smile as he picked up a metal rod nearby and poked Rio in the chest with it gently. There was a ‘clank’ on impact, then the tech hit him with it on the arm and to his surprise it didn’t dent. The clothing held its form exactly, not even twisting his arm back, but taking the momentum against his entire body as if he were a solid piece of rock.

“Whoa,” Rio said. “Now that is impressive.”

“The armor is solid once you form it to your body, but it adjusts to where your body wants it to move. No telepathy involved, it just acts like clothing and lets your body movements dictate how it moves. It obeys your interior movements but defies exterior movements.”

“Any shields?”

“No. Just a pure prototype. It’d have to be a lot thicker to have additional equipment added.”

“Thin as hell and you still got a HUD in,” Rio pointed out.

“Your head doesn’t flex, so I squeezed some more basic thickness there to hide it. This isn’t a replacement for your standard armor by any extent, but I figured you guys would figure out a use for it regardless.”

“Armor in a box? Hell yes. How small will this compact?”

The tech held up his hand. “A little smaller than my fist, all three pieces combined.”

“Emergency survival gear for sure,” Rio said, moving around and checking his flexibility range…which appeared to be infinite. Even with regular Archon armor being gymnastic friendly, there was always some restriction. Here he was feeling literally none.

“It is thermal resistant to decent extremes.”

“Air?”

“Basic filter right now. Will shut down when submerged. I haven’t worked anything more into it than that.”

“Armor rating?”

“17,” he said with a shrug, which meant it was far lower than the standard adept armor rating of 37, which increased with rank and later with armor type variations.

“And you can add more material if you want?”

“I can, and will have to if more features are needed.”

“What’s the power feature? I assume it’s already powered to match my movements?”

“It is, but it will give you a strength boost if you need to lift something or punch through a wall and can’t based on your natural strength.”

“Alright, count me impressed.”

“Thought you’d be. Any initial suggestions?”

“How is it powered?”

“Solari reactors, microscopic. No recharging capability yet, but that’s on my list.”

“How big a person will this fit?”

“It stretches, but armor density will be less with the increase.”

“Can I put it over my standard armor?”

“You could, but I don’t know why you’d want to. It doesn’t require flesh underneath to mimic movement.”

“Battlefield patch to cover armor damage. Is this airtight?”

“You can take it into vacuum, but you’ll suffocate yourself. I guess if you had your other armor underneath you’d be fine for air, as long as your backup worked. Good idea, actually.”

“It’s a way to get people through airless environments without having to try to patch damaged armor…or cargo. I can put anything in this, right?”

“The buttons are exterior, so yes, you can.”

“This is definitely going in our inventory as a supplement. Work on incorporating a stealth field and we’ll have ninja clothes.”

“Additional or variant?”

“Variant.”

“Alright. Anything else?”

“Nice work,” Rio said appreciatively, pressing the button to disconnect the hood but leaving the rest intact as he pulled it off his head as if it were nothing more than a soft hat. “You mind if I put it through some quality control tests?”

“Please try to break it,” Bessmot urged. “I have several spares and need to know where the failure limits are.”

“You’re just saying that to make me happy.”

“I assure you, I’m not.”

“Well then, I’ll go play with this and report back. How long do the batteries last?”

“About 40 weeks of continuous combat.”

“So…for an Archon about 2 hours?”

“40 weeks,” he reiterated slowly.

“I’ll get back to you,” Rio said with a smile, carrying the hood with him as he left the lab and headed for one of the interior training parks to do some terrain tests. He had concerns about the soles of his feet and holding form too much, but maybe Bessmot had that covered. If not he’d have something to criticize when he got back to him.

When Rio got out into the hall and out of view of the tech he hopped up and down, then did a few jumping jacks followed by a backflip then a cartwheel, drawing some odd looks from the few people in the corridor ahead of him. Rio ignored them and did a few more agility tests before returning to a casual walk, suppressing the huge grin that he felt inside. This was supercool, and now the idea of clothing having an armor rating in videogames didn’t seem so absurd.

Now he could throw on a T-shirt and have it block bullets for real…or a Batman outfit.

“Cape,” he said to himself, already thinking up potential applications. “I definitely need a cape.”

www.aerkijyr.com

STAR FORCE Wiki

1

May 18, 3560

Twan System (Expanded Region)

Heffen

Nero-22834 stood on the bridge of one of the four Clan Scorpion Invader-class jumpships that had just entered planetary orbit having blown by the Mendz defense ships around the system’s star. Their naval fleet was pathetic compared to Star Force technology, as were most in the Expanded Region, but the forces in this system and on the planet below were definitely hostile despite the lack of initial combat. Plus the Mendz weren’t stupid, thus their defense ships here were keeping their distance, for they knew that Star Force had enough weaponry to blow apart anything they had.

“Contact the planetary capitol,” Nero said, standing in a comm circle that would transmit his full body image to the planet below when contact was made rather than just a torso or headshot. He was prepared to wait upwards of half an hour to get a reply, but there was no hesitation on the part of the Mendz, for their representative appeared before the Archon in a simulated vid screen into which Nero’s hologram was being translated, for the primitive planet didn’t have hologram technology…nor much else save for a signature natural strength that had allowed them to conquer 4 other nearby systems.

“State your purpose,” the snarling, cat-like face said in a loosely diplomatic tone.

“You are in violation of the treaty of Adorez. Per stipulations agreed to 53 years ago, your planet is now forfeit and Clan Scorpion is here to claim it.”

“We no longer acknowledge that treaty or your legitimacy. The Mendz will do as they please and will not be beholden to others, including your Star Force.”

“This is not a negotiation,” Nero said without missing a beat. “We are here to take possession of the planet. I expect to fight, but am obligated to give you a chance to surrender.”

“You know that we will not.”

“Of course, but protocol must be followed and your deaths chosen by you. We’re not the murdering butchers, after all.”

“Your offer is dismissed. While we cannot match you in orbit, but you cannot take this world. Our planetary shields will not fall and our Tabers cannot be overcome beneath them. The idea that we would surrender to 4 of your vessels is insulting. If you wish to do battle bring a bigger army, otherwise do not waste our time.”

“These are all we’re using, and I’ll grant your space forces immunity from attack so long as they reciprocate and do not attempt to assist the forces on the ground…where we both know this will be settled.”

“Settled? If we defeat you, you will send another larger force to try again.”

“That’s always an option, but our forces have better things to do than overwhelm you. My four ships are sufficient to defeat you, though it will be something of a challenge. If we get sloppy, you might prevail.”

“And a warrior deserves a challenge.”

“You wouldn’t know,” Nero said icily. “You kill the helpless and gang up on the weak. When have you ever fought a fair fight?”

“Is it our fault they don’t oppose us more?”

“It’s your fault in your choice of targets. We gave you a chance with the treaty and now you’ve wasted it. People who don’t learn will be conquered, and now you fall into that category.”

“Then let us broker one more deal. One which we cannot back out of.”

“The time for deals is over. This world will be ours one way or another. Surrender or fight.”

“We intend to fight, but we have something you want and I’m willing to trade.”

“And that is?”

“Hostages.”

Nero’s face turned grim. “Who?”

“Slaves taken from Vishaw and Belni, numbering somewhere around 230,000. I will trade you all of them in exchange for your word.”

“My word?”

“That this invasion that you have chosen will settle the matter between us. Your four ships vs our entire planet. If you truly believe you can defeat us with so little, swear to it. If we win, Star Force will never enter this system again. If you win, we will be dead but you will have your hostages as well.”

“And if I don’t agree, you’ll do what with them?”

“Whatever we please, but you will not be allowed to retrieve them. Star Force’s word is good, and there are some neutral observers here that can witness. We agree to fight with what we have in this system and it will settle the outcome between us. Our word you do not have to trust…”

“Nor would I.”

“…but yours is trusted. Should you break it here others would know. I challenge you to fight for this world with the forces you have brought and to live with the permanent outcome.”

“And your other worlds?”

“Irrelevant. I want immunity for this one.”

“So you can base out of here to hunt in others as much as you want with a sanctuary to return to that we won’t hit?”

“I see we understand one another.”

“And you think the hostages are worth that?”

“What I think doesn’t matter. It’s what you think and if you are sufficiently ranked to make a promise that others will hold to.”

“I have the rank,” the ViLord promised. “So surrender is totally off the table?”

“It is.”

“Even for your civilians?”

“What becomes of them after I am dead is not my concern. The military will fight to the death.”

“Then let us make this a military fight,” Nero said, entertaining his unusual willingness to negotiate terms of battle. Usually most people negotiated to avoid battle, but the Mendz had a fighter mentality that the Archon was already well aware of having led a few Clan Scorpion units in support of the local defense forces on the worlds that the Mendz had expanded to. With his help they’d pushed them back from some planets and continents, but this was their homeworld and he’d successfully argued for 4 full Invaders to take these guys out…otherwise no one would have, for the entire Expanded Region was too large and too wild to control save for a sprinkling of Star Force worlds and a few roaming patrols that Nero was a part of.

“Meaning?” the Mendz asked.

“If we take cities and regions from you, your civilians will not attempt sabotage or suicide after the combat has subsided. They become the property of the victor along with the buildings and other assets at those locations. There will also be no destruction of such assets in order to avoid the enemy capturing them. I am referring to non-military assets.”

“You want our people alive?”

“If I wanted you dead I’d just bombard the planet.”

“You don’t have the firepower to get past our shields.”

“After I took your shields down through a ground assault,” Nero clarified.

“Warrior vs warrior then?”

“I don’t consider you warriors, but your point is taken. Yes, military to military only, though your civilians can assist you during combat if they wish. But afterwards, they must behave as property. Do you have the rank to achieve that?”

“Those who do are listening.”

“Compliance of your civilians would be required for us to hold to the agreement. Should they not behave as instructed during the battle and we should lose, their misbehavior negates the immunity agreement.”

“Interesting. So you are comfortable with the basic arrangement?”

“We can beat you with 4 ships, so yes, I’m comfortable with the basic arrangement.”

“One moment please,” the Mendz said, with the screen turning to oscillating static.

“What are you doing?” an Archon ranger asked him, standing a few steps out of view.

“I didn’t expect this, so I’m just going with it.”

“We’d really promise to never come back?”

“If I made the deal Star Force would honor it…especially since nobody cares about what’s happening out here with all the combat going down in the Rim Region and the possibility of more on the lizard border.”

“But they don’t know that?” she asked deviously.

“No, they don’t,” Nero said with a smirk. “Do you think we can win?”

Before she could answer the comm line returned and the same Mendz appeared with a bit of movement coming into view from the right from wherever he had just been.

“Civilians will behave as property of the owner of each city and geographical region. Planetary defense assets will not be targeted, and in return we will allow you an immune surface base in a variety of possible locations that we stipulate and you will choose from. Access to and from the surface will be available from that point continuously, but the remainder of the defense shields will remain raised.”

“Accepted.”

“We also want a time limit so you cannot stall inside your base. How long do you believe you will need to conquer the planet?”

Nero glanced to the side and used some telepathic controls to bring up planetary data he’d already become familiar with. “There are 853 major cities on the planet. We will complete conquest within 20 years.”

“Too long.”

“18, but once a city has been held for 2 continuous years it become immune to counterattack.”

The Mendz’s eyes focused off screen for a moment.

“10 years.”

Nero shook his head. “No. We do not have the troops to spread out in defensive allotments across the planet. In exchange for preserving your shield generators and planetary defense batteries for use against non-Star Force units in the eventuality that we fail and leave, we have to be granted the ability to fight and claim territory without the burden of excessive defensive measures. If you wish less than 18 years then the timeframe for immunity has to be lower than 2 years. You may be in a hurry to gain your immunity, but do you fear we will have an advantage in the long term?”

“15 and 1.8, with reconquest resetting the immunity timer.”

“Contingent on every individual brought here from other worlds be released to us. If we find evidence that even one wasn’t turned over, it nullifies the agreement.”

“You want our other slaves as well?”

“Slaves, prisoners, anyone who was brought here. Let’s just clear the battlefield of everyone but your people.”

“1.9 in exchange for that caveat.”

“Agreed, with an immunity for any craft we arrange to visit the system to evacuate the people being turned over to us. We won’t have enough room on our ships, so we’ll have to contract out with others and I want them untouched.”

“And the same will hold to our ships coming and leaving the system?”

“The fight will only be on the surface and in atmosphere, and transports coming up and down from our immune base will also be immune with a geographical corridor established to denote proper boundaries.”

“Then we are in accord. Even one city possessed by us at the end of 15 years will result in our victory and you will leave to never return?”

“Yes…contingent that you hold to all agreed upon terms.”

“We will.”

“Base locations?”

“We will designate regions to choose from soon, then come to an accord for the exact parameters of the immune base.”

“And you want to think it through carefully?”

“We will not take long,” the Mendz said, cutting the comm enroute to conferring with the other vermin on how best to work their strategy. Possession of the planet had just become a war game and he expected them to work every advantage they could manufacture.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” the ranger said as other bridge crew were giving him odd looks. “Orbital bombardment was our most potent weapon.”

“And it bought us hostages that we otherwise would have tried to rescue or seen thrown up in front of us as living shields. We should have a clean battlefield now, and access to the surface.”

“But we can’t snipe their mechs from orbit…and they have far more than we do.”

“Their Tabers are junk. If we’re good, we can work through them over time.”

“They’re going to play for time.”

“Of course they are, but this is a challenge worthy of our Clan rather than an automatic win…and I’m not disappointed with that when it’s what enables us to secure hostages.”

“Are you sure we can do this with the numbers we have and the timeframe? Attrition alone…”

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Nero said, turning to an Archon striker on the other side of him. “Assemble all mechwarriors in the pit and link in the other three ships.”

“What about the pilots and infantry?”

“Key them in through relays, but keep them in separate locations. In fact, key in everyone on the ships no matter where they are.”

“How long?”

“Half hour.”

“Going,” the striker said, disappearing from the bridge as Nero sat back down in his command chair and began pulling up some data. They all had a lot of work to do, for he’d given the Mendz a significant advantage in order to get the deal…but he knew his Clan could still pull this off.

“Plans have changed,” Nero said as he stood on a small platform in the middle of a circular briefing room with tiered seats ringing him on all sides in which sat the mechwarriors assigned to this ship whether they be Archons or Regulars. A few small screens on the podium in front of Nero showed the other pits holding the mechwarriors on the other three ships who would be seeing a hologram of the Archon so detailed it would look like he was actually there.

All four ships were sitting in orbit alongside one another so lag wasn’t an issue, but unlike typical Warship-class jumpships the Invaders only carried 12-20 drones each as opposed to the standard 60-100. The rest of the interior of the Invaders was made up of cargo and living space meant to accommodate the mechs onboard. Clan Scorpion was a mech-centered civilization and as such they and several others used the Invader-class jumpships to ferry around ground assault teams with a mech-heavy focus. The naval drones were meant for ship defense and limited offensive options necessary to get the mechs to ground and support them.

The same went for the limited aerial and infantry, who on the Invaders were meant purely for support operations. The mechs were the combat method of choice and as such the Invaders carried a lot of them. Each ship carried between 1000-1800 mechs, but typically only had 500 mechwarriors…a full galaxy each, meaning a total of 2000 for this invasion with multiple mechs available to them along with repair facilities that were capable of fabricating entirely new machines given the right materials, though he didn’t have the resource gathering teams for that. Clan Scorpion was going to have to conserve their battle machines, otherwise the Mendz could win just by damaging them in losing battles.

“The mission we came here to accomplish has changed,” Nero began, addressing those seated in front of him and those behind his back, but he wouldn’t be rotating around to give everyone a look at his face. Such juvenile techniques were for speech makers and Nero was a warrior along with everyone else in this room. They could hear just fine looking at his back, but a hologram of the planet popped up above his head that gave them something that everyone could see as it slowly spun around.

“We are still going to conquer this world, but in order to get a large number of hostages that the Mendz have taken from other worlds we have negotiated the terms of battle. We only have the four ships we brought without the option of reinforcement and 15 years to take every city on this planet without the help of orbital bombardment. If we cannot do that then we lose, withdraw, and never return. The Mendz want a planet of their own that Star Force will not touch, and I’ve accepted their offer in order to get the hostages out.”

“That means we have a tough fight ahead of us rather than a cleanup mission. We knew we were outnumbered coming here, but the Mendz were never really a threat to beat us. Now they are, because we can’t take our time. Their Tabers are crap, but if they can take out or even damage one of our mechs for every 100 we kill they will win by attrition. This cannot be a battle for kills. It has to be for cities. We take one and hold it for 1.9 years and it becomes ours permanently. We won’t have to defend it after that point. If the Mendz try anything devious then they break the deal, at which point we’ll already have the hostages so they lose out…which is why I think they’ll hold to the terms.”

“We have to fight, kill, and keep from taking damage…with an emphasis on the latter. If we get too cautious we will take ground too slowly. There are 853 cities, which means we have to take a city every 6.4 days on average to conquer the planet in 15 years. That is doable, but difficult without letting the attrition eat us away. I’ll be arranging for shipments of food to supplement our supplies, but we will not be getting any replacement war material per the terms of this deal. We will be salvaging as many damaged or destroyed mechs as we can, so if at all possible defend the debris and don’t let the Mendz take it or destroy it further.”

“I can’t over emphasize this point. Time and attrition are our enemies as much as the Mendz are, and expect them to be smart enough to use them against us at every turn. We can’t afford to be better than the enemy this time. If we are, we lose. We have to be way better to pull this off, and I want input from all of you on any possible advantage or disadvantage you spot over the next 15 years. Do not assume anything is frivolous. We have a supply cap people. And if you don’t know what that means I suggest you take to the video game archives and learn how much of a bitch it can be...”

2

August 11, 3560

Twan System (Expanded Region)

Heffen

Sarah Averdy climbed into the cockpit of a waiting Nova Cat-class mech, sliding in through the back hatch then sealing herself inside with heavy armor plates covering the entrance. Stripping down to her underwear, she stowed her clothing and shoes in an optional side compartment before stepping down into the control sphere. Once inside, the mech began scanning her mind and allowed her to interface with its controls remotely with her prompting several hatches nearby to open and extrude mechanical arms that came up next to her body.

The mechwarrior went old school and began strapping herself into the manual controls for the mech just in case the neural link went down in battle. Such things were rare with all the redundancies, but she didn’t want to be in a pitched battle only to have to sit and take fire while strapping into the manual controls if the neural interface died, so she was doing it now and getting movement matching arm and leg flaps secured to her body along with the foot pads and finger controls that always felt better against bare flesh.

When she was strapped in to her liking she triggered the restraining field that would have held her body in an upright standing position if she hadn’t had the manual equipment deployed, but she still wanted herself in what the mech pilots referred to as ‘statue’ mode so her limbs didn’t flop around while her mind was mostly disconnected from them, for when she fully engaged the piloting program her senses were 95% replaced with those of the mech, with her mind essentially being transplanted into the new mechanical body.

She saw through its sensors, felt its movements and restrictions, and knew the power charge and ammo levels of every piece of equipment as if it were different parts of her body. Light pain stimuluses would even register damage to the mech, but nothing so extreme that it would distract her. Just a little prickling here and there to get her attention and such levels had been programmed into her profile long ago so whatever mech she hopped into would identify her and reconfigure itself to her settings based off a neural scan or a seldom used physical pin attached to her uniform should she find herself in a mech that wasn’t part of her unit and didn’t have her settings preloaded.

That pin would also act as a data recorder linked in with the mech’s own systems. Should her steed be destroyed she could carry information of how that defeat had occurred with her assuming she lived through the ordeal, but it would work just as well from the bin as it would on her body, and if she needed to evacuate the mech her clothing wasn’t going to offer much protection. Better to be a little more efficient with the manual controls if they were needed, but the stripping down was also a fad that seemed to increase one’s connection to their machine. It was mostly psychological mind games, but there was just enough truth in it that the practice hadn’t disappeared with the advent of the neural interface technology.

The Archons had had the ability to mentally control their mechs long before the Regulars did, but now they were on par and the specialists like Sarah were back to having an advantage. She’d never make the mistake of underestimating an Archon, but they had so many different duties and skills to train for that they’d never be as good as a mechwarrior that spent all their time focusing on their specific skillset. The Archons knew this too, which was why most of Clan Scorpion’s mechwarriors were Regulars and the Archons that fought alongside them had to be damn good just in order to keep up.

The leadership of the Clan was still Archons that could do everything better than Sarah. Cora-005 had founded the Clan and basically wrote the book on mech warfare, and the trailblazer’s skills were far beyond hers…and when you were dealing with mechs that usually meant little variations and subtleties in combat, for most of their damage potential came from the raw machines themselves. It was up to a good mechwarrior to get more out of their machines and avoid simple, straight throw downs of weapons against one another…and that’s exactly what she couldn’t afford today as they started their first attack on the Mendz.

When her mind connected to the Nova Cat she was also linked into the battlemap so that she didn’t just see it, but could feel all the units around her. Not just those in the mechbay, but all across the base and even those units already in the field assaulting two nearby cities. They were a few hours ahead of her and trying to draw out whatever Mendz strategy might be in play, with her and the others not yet released into combat studying the battlemap data live as they got their first good look at the Tabers here.

Most matched the mechs that the Mendz had been using on other worlds but they also had a few new varieties…all heavies that contained a decent amount of firepower. The Tabers had armor, shields, and a decent movement package but where woefully inferior to the Clan Scorpion mechs, especially in firepower. The Tabers were armed with plasma weapons, particle slugs, and some better than average missiles. Those would be the most dangerous threat to Sarah and her Clansmen today, and from the look of it the Mendz weren’t holding back their ammunition.

“Damn they’re getting lit up,” Zander Ironwood said from the Madcat-class mech that was walking out of its berth beside her as Sarah stepped out herself and turned to the right to follow him and the other three members of her support star. “They can’t even get close to the cities without their shields going down.”

“They don’t have an infinite supply of missiles,” she pointed out. “We just have to weather the storm until we get a break.”

“There won’t be one,” their star leader, Michael Tanison countered. “They have factories across this planet pumping out more round the clock. If they stall us long enough they win, so don’t expect a let up. We’re going to have to punch our way in.”

“We’ll take damage,” Zander objected as the five mechs walked outside into the daylight of the base as other mech bays were also releasing 5-group ‘stars’ of mechs to meet up with Ryan-93888, who would be leading the assault on a third nearby city currently choked with aerial fighters that would make any hot drops difficult, thus they were going to march overland to get there and dare the fighters to come within their anti-air range.

“That’s what they’re going to try and force,” Tanison agreed. “We have to make it less than they want but avoid a standoff.”

“And how do we do that?” Swittni asked, the lone Urik’kadel along with the four Humans in their star.

“I have some ideas, but it’s Ryan’s call.”

“Not much terrain to work with,” Sarah pointed out as the two madcats, her nova cat, and two starbursts ran in a single file line across the prefab deck plates until they passed out through one of four gates and onto the soft brown/green soil of the Mendz capitol planet. The little plants squishing beneath her mech’s feet were only inches tall and covering most of the area around the base, with very little in the way of hills or other line of sight blockers between them and their distant target…meaning they’d be out in the open for the Mendz to strike at will.

“That’s why we make our own,” Tanison said as he led his star out behind a huge Donatello-class walker that already had a head start on them.

“Geez,” Sarah said, seeing the six-legged behemoth had been heavily retrofitted. “It doesn’t have any weapons left.”

“Those extra shield generators are going to cover the lead thrust while we snipe support, so we’re just going to ride in the back for now.”

“Copy that,” Swittni confirmed, bringing his Starbright-class mech around on Sarah’s left and forming the traditional ‘2 ahead of 3’ double line that their star typically traveled in when terrain wasn’t an issue. All around them other mechs were walking or running into place and forming up with their units. A lot of them were Neo-class frontline mechs designed with less weaponry but by far more agility. They fought like giant infantry, punching and kicking as much as shooting, while the traditional ‘stiff’ mechs like Sarah’s star was using carried the bigger guns.

What followed was several hours of walking, during part of which Sarah disconnected and let the autopilot keep her on route while she stretched out and grabbed some water. Mech cockpits weren’t huge, but they did double as tiny living compartments given how much time a person could spend in one in the field. After all, having to send a mech back to base so you could relieve yourself wasn’t viable on extended distance missions like this.

Sarah made sure to keep appraised of the situation when she took her break, then was back with her mind resuming control of the toe-running mech when the Tabers showed up on her visuals. She’d been monitoring them via the battlemap and other people’s points of view, but now hers was full of tiny little figures on the horizon…and they were numbering in the tens of thousands.

When the mech army that Sarah was part of got within missile range the Tabers generated a cloud of wash above them as it looked like every one of them fired at the same time. There were so many missiles in play she couldn’t even guess at the number herself, but the mech’s onboard computer/sensors could count so she knew exactly how many of them were coming into the sky and her specific region…and the fact that it was a constantly changing figure as the Tabers launched more than one salvo.

Sarah got a waypoint change and she sprinted her mech for a few steps to the right as her star got closer together with each other and the other 17 stars alongside them. Coupled with another 6 quadruped Porcupine-class walkers, the 96 mechs held as close together as they could around the refitted heavy walker with it shrinking its shield radius slightly before the first of the missile waves hit.

Primitive as the Mendz tech was, it wasn’t that primitive and the impacts on the umbrella-like shield over her gave her a wave of goosebumps that pushed through her mech senses and took prominence for a moment. She could see the shield level readings from the donatello drop considerably, and even with Star Force’s impressive recharge rate the protective barrier was getting chewed down alarmingly fast as sometimes over a thousand missiles hit within a second.

Sarah didn’t receive the order, but apparently Ryan realized the same thing as part of the still walking formation broke and made way for the porcupines to head to the edge of the donatello’s shields. They all kept moving forward, she knew, to help make them harder to hit and the dirt hurricane behind, and to a lesser extent in front of them testified to the lack of accuracy involved. Spoofing gear was preventing easy lock-ons, so it was probably the result of the Taber pilots having to manually aim and fire their missiles to predetermined locations, given the arcs they were flying through…and a moving target was always harder to anticipate and hit.

But even with the numerous misses it was clear that they weren’t going to be able to hide under here long enough to get to the enemy. They could be firing back even now with their long range weapons but Ryan hadn’t given the attack order yet. Why they didn’t snipe down a few mechs and eliminate some missiles coming at them was curious, but she did know the reason the porcupines were moving out to the edges of the formation.

When they got there they walked underneath the gap between ground and overhead shield and began firing their anti-air weaponry up into the missile swarm, but not without cost. Several missiles hit them at first, deflecting off their own much weaker shields, but then the area directly above each porcupine became a torrent of tiny energy blasts that shredded everything coming in at them. Eventually that torrent rose up higher and higher until more than a third of the incoming missiles were going down before they could land on target.

Sarah checked the stats and saw the estimated time to shield failure extend greatly. If they pushed the donatello to its limit then they could get within medium weapons range…but no. The stupid Mendz began falling back in groups, with some remaining to continue firing and others turning around to run a kilometer back and form another line. They fired again while the front line retreated, thinking to extend the barrage before the Clan mechs could get too close.

“Are you serious?” someone in another star asked, laughing.

“They just gave us our window, people,” Ryan said, addressing everyone in his attack group. “When I give the order, break by stars and poke hard. The donatello will be holding a creeping position and provide cover for cycling mechs. Don’t get greedy or hesitant. We have to eat up a lot of these guys here and now before they learn from their mistakes, but there’s no way we’re taking all of them down today. Get what you can and fall back when needed.”

“And if they fall back inside the city?” another Archon on the other side of the donatello from Sarah asked.

“Then expect traps. If it comes to that we’ll regroup and probe accordingly, but these guys know they need to mass fire on us to be effective and they can’t do that with buildings in the way. Break order in 25,” he said, with a countdown immediately popping up on Sarah’s mental stats.

“Here we go,” Tanison said over their star’s private channel. “Sarah, you have lead.”

“On it,” she said, holding to their cruising formation until the countdown finally expired. When it did all the bipedal mechs took off running at maximum speed, looking like a bee hive had just got whacked and suddenly started stinging back at the guy with the big stick. In this case that meant the sea of Tabers ahead that were still firing missiles, but fewer of them now, offset with ranged projectiles launched from crude railguns.

Sarah accelerated her nova cat and poked out ahead of her star while making sure not to run into other mechs as they all fanned out. She immediately fired the two cleansing beams in her big right arm in sequence, the first of which hit a Taber in its chest and punched all the way through the forward plate, but missed hitting anything vital as the machine continued to fire from a stationary position along with the others beside it.

A hail of projectiles hit her mech, bouncing off its shields and draining them with each hit. There were so many Tabers in front of them that there was literally nowhere to go without taking fire, for they were lined up shoulder to shoulder and firing what looked like invisible ammunition until her nova cat peeked into plasma range and drew a green curtain of blasts as she swung her mech to the side and ran laterally, just getting kissed with the dying flames of the plasma as she returned fire with the four mauler cannons in her other arm.

Her mech walked sideways while her top torso rotated to stay on target, pummeling two Tabers so badly that the armor was literally melting off and falling like water to the ground. She added in a sweep with both cleansing beams that hit some six mechs in total, then combined with the damage from the rest of her star the front line of 26 Tabers near their position all went down…only to have those behind them step up and begin firing in their place on the line that stretched to both sides further than Sarah could see, though there was a bit of a flanking curl starting to develop in it.

Then the two madcats in her star launched their own missiles. At first it was a small salvo of individuals, meant to do damage if they hit but also to proc any anti-air defenses the Tabers might have. A few of them were taken down prior to impact, but the others punched through the Tabers’ shields like they were popping soap bubbles, then proceeded to eat away chunks of armor…but that was only the cover fire for the much fatter missiles that followed a split second later.

They landed with a thud, not exploding, and dropped to the ground spread out in a predetermined pattern. Sarah recognized them as ‘birthday presents’ and saw that they were sitting some 6-14 rows back in the Taber line a moment before they detonated, sending additional munitions out laterally and obliterating everything around them in a radius of 230 meters. Additional concussion damage was racked up after that, and oh so quickly the precisely formed Mendz lines now had huge holes filled with debris in them for the Clan mechs to jump into.

And Sarah did literally jump…following a nearby neo in and running her mech up near to pointblank range and knocking down four more Tabers with her maulers before hitting her jump jets and launching up and over their intact lines to land in one of those craters. She fired throughout the flight arc, then began running around evasively inside and daring the Mendz to shoot at her and not hit each other all the while distracting them away from the neos that were going to work hand to hand with the front liners.

As it turned out they didn’t care, firing on her with the intent to destroy no matter how many of their own they hit. Her shields dropped below 50% quickly, but there was so much additional weaponsfire hitting friendly targets that it was worth it as she got closer to some of them to use as blockers, leaving them intact rather than shooting them down and opening up firing lines for three or more enemy mechs further out.

Not long after, the rest of her star joined her jumping in over the other Tabers and forming up into their star pattern in a rotating circle that kept them moving at all times and mowing down the enemy with so many weapon cycles that Sarah couldn’t guess at a count, but when all of their shields were getting perilously low her star leader signaled for a retreat and they fought their way back through what remained of the front lines where the neos were still busy at work building a debris field as the Mendz fired at her star in retreat.

They also followed them past the neos, not being able to run as fast but clearly not wanting the weak mechs to get away. They made the mistake of getting the attention of the donatello by pushing too far out and it lowered a section of shield directly in front of them…with the Tabers running into it and bouncing backwards, falling to the ground where they had a hard time getting back up.

Sarah’s star never gave them that chance. They momentarily halted their retreat and turned around to unleash hell on the fallen Tabers, then they moved out far behind the donatello and watched the fireworks as their shield counters slowly climbed back up. Once they all hit full they’d go back in and add to the carnage being unleashed for a few more rounds then it’d be a full retreat, for the distant flanks were filling up with the sight of approaching Tabers and they did not want to get caught in a crossfire from three directions.

There’d be time to evaluate and keep score afterwards, but right now it was all about doing as much damage as they could while keeping their own mechs intact and so far Sarah’s nova cat didn’t have a scratch on her armor…but neither did the city that was their actual goal. Dying as they were, the Mendz were delaying its capture and there was a time limit to this invasion, odd as that sounded, but the enemy had given up their hostages so Star Force was going to honor the terms.

15 years and over 800 cities to capture and hold…and right now they couldn’t even get inside one of them.

3

August 13, 3573

Zordon System (Ninja Monkey territory)

Alpha

“Five here,” Peter-493 said, pointing to the holographic map around which Morgan and her Clan leaders were assembled for yet another troubleshooting session, “and two more on the edge of this nebula.”

“No,” Jenna-732 said with a wave of her hand as if erasing his invisible markings. “We need a scattering along the base. Stop thinking 2 dimensionally.”

“I’m not. I’m thinking of what’s on the most direct line of attack.”

“We don’t know where they will come through,” Gary-933 pointed out, for the Skarrons’ Crusade had barely begun hammering back the lizards, though the records coming back from the scouts made for interesting entertainment as their overpowering spamming ability was getting schooled in what ‘spamming’ truly meant.

“Which is why we need to focus on a spherical defense perimeter,” Jenna reiterated.

“We’re the shield and we need to make it as strong as possible,” Peter said firmly. “They won’t take any roundabouts when they think they can just bowl us over. They’ll hit along here,” he said, drawing a line around a small region in the floating map.

“We can’t gamble on where we think they’ll hit us,” Morgan said, her arms across her chest as she stood beside her four most trusted Ninja Monkeys…the four that ran the Clan for the most part. Peter oversaw their infrastructure development and logistics, essentially doing part of the duties their current Marquis Devon handled and giving the Ninja Monkeys some stability in that department as various Marquises came and went. Davis still used the Clans as practice for his Monarchs, but Morgan had grown to hate the turnover and had put Peter in charge of keeping the Marquis on track and in line so not to make any rookie mistakes that could hurt the Clan when it was needed the most.

Jenna was their ‘Admiral,’ not as good as Paul, Roger, or Liam, but she had higher naval marks than Morgan did while the rest of her skills didn’t match up with the trailblazer. Morgan liked/hated having someone better than her in the Clan, but Jenna’s skills were too valuable to ignore and she’d become a leading pillar of stability that didn’t clash with their trailblazer founder at all. The two were solid on the naval front and where Morgan couldn’t figure something out Jenna usually would…and vice versa.

Andre-155 was the head of their mech division, to which the Ninja Monkeys had put a heavy priority…not just for use against Skarron walkers, but because she knew that the only way to effectively fight V’kit’no’sat on the ground was with mechs. Sending infantry against Era’tran or Brat’mar was effectively suicide, for the V’kit’no’sat in their armor literally were walking, agile, and very smart tanks…and the best way to counter tanks was with mechs, with some special prototypes that the Ninja Monkeys had been field testing for the past century designed specifically for that task, though they still needed a lot of refinement against actual targets.

Last of the four was Gary, who headed up their aerial division. He did not have a higher rating than Morgan in that division, but he was semi-specialized in it and that was something she could not afford to do. She was head of the Clan and had to oversee everything, and having Gary and others working to develop new strategies and equipment to battle the Skarrons from the air absent naval firepower was a burden that she’d gladly taken off her shoulders.

Like it or not, Clan Ninja Monkey had grown into a small empire of its own at this point and there was literally too much going on for her to micromanage…thus she’d learned to delegate responsibility to those she could trust, and these four were it.

“Our skirmisher outposts have to be located where it’s convenient for us,” she continued. “Then we’ll adapt to them.”

“We don’t know what numbers we need to prepare for,” Peter complained, “and that makes it difficult to plan.”

“I know, but you’re thinking more along the lines of playing these dumb bastards for fools and baiting them in. We can’t take the chance that they’ll get smart to it or accidentally pick another invasion corridor. We have to be solid on all fronts.”

“Then I suggest locations that will cause frustration and higher levels of attrition. If they choose to bypass them because of that it’ll give us bases behind their lines.”

“If they pass by…” Gary added with incredulity. “Based off what we’ve seen so far, they’re obliterating everything in sight like a starving Archon in a donut shop.”

“And we don’t know how much attrition they’ll suffer going through the lizards,” Andre added, “so guessing is pointless. We need to be prepared to get hit hard, no matter what we’re expecting.”

“We still need a front line,” Peter argued. “If not here, then where?”

Before anyone could answer, the door to their private planning center opened and another Archon entered.

“Ever learn to knock?” Jenna asked, mildly perturbed.

“New data,” Ira-151882 said, holding up a datachip.

“Why didn’t you just send it?”

“Because this will take some narrating,” she said, looking at Morgan. “With your permission?”

“If it’s not good, Jenna gets to beat you up,” she said deadpan.

“It comes from the Voku,” Ira said, sliding the chip into a slot on the holoprojector and overriding their map. “The Skarrons aren’t just fighting the lizards.”

“Who else are they hitting this early?” Peter asked.

“Someone that neither us nor the Voku knew about,” she said, bringing up a much larger map and highlighting a small area near the growing Crusade front. “They’ve got at least 3 systems to their name, but speculation goes much higher. Two are currently under attack and they’re doing a better job of holding off the Skarrons than the lizards are.”

“Higher tech?” Jenna asked.

“Much. Similar to some of the new races in the Rim Region. They’re getting hit hard, but they’re also preemptively hitting the Skarrons in addition to defending their own turf. The Voku estimate they’re not going to be able to hold those two systems, but a curious thing about it is this…”

Ira brought up visuals from the system not currently under attack, which showed both this new race’s ships mingling around a star with the lizards’ and not exchanging weaponsfire.

“They’ve found another dupe of an ally,” Morgan commented.

“Possibly, and even if they’re just non-interfering neighbors they’re going to help slow down the Skarron advance. How much, there’s no way of telling with more reinforcements continuing to pour in. Without a final number to guess at there’s no way of speculating, but it’s safe to say that unless these guys have a lot more worlds in reserve they’re going to get run over soon.”

“What were they hitting back at?” Jenna asked.

“Fleets enroute.”

“With any success?”

“A lot, according to the Voku. More so than when they get massed over a target.”

“Allies or not,” Peter added, “they’re already fighting someone other than the lizards. The only real question at this point is do they go for the heart of lizard territory before or after they come at us.”

“How are the Skarrons countering their tech advantage?” Morgan asked.

“Grinding, for the most part. We haven’t had a lot of time to chew on this.”

“Not exactly time sensitive information,” Jenna commented.

“What else?” Morgan asked, suspecting there was more.

Ira smirked. “Something that might be time sensitive. The Voku were able to pull some recon of the worlds this race owns. The images were taken from range, but I think they speak for themselves.”

Ira adjusted the information packet and brought vids of people moving about on the surface in an unfamiliar city. They were little more than specs at the range the recordings were made, but the features were glowing for all to see.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jenna said, not wanting to trust her eyes.

“That’s not much to work off of,” Gary admitted, “but I think it’s obvious enough. These guys are Orange Protovic.”

“Damn,” Morgan swore with a glint of anger crossing her eyes. “That complicates things.”

“They haven’t transformed,” Andre pointed out, “and they’re about to get obliterated anyway.”

“Are there more than just Oranges?”

“Not in the few images we’ve received. Do you want a scouting mission sent?” Ira asked, throwing an ‘it’s urgent’ look Jenna’s way.

“We have to.”

“And what else?” Peter asked.

“It’s too far for us to organize an evacuation, but if they end up getting overwhelmed you know the lizards aren’t going to give them safe harbor.”

“Unless they wanted their technology.”

“Point,” Morgan conceded, “but we need to figure out what’s going on there, preferably before they’re destroyed. If you’re right about them having a larger empire, we need to know how large and how many.”

“To what end? We can’t account for all the Protovic in the galaxy anyway,” Jenna asked.

“This is by far the most advanced group we’ve discovered, and from combat we can’t tell what level their genetics research is at.”

“Oh shit,” Andre said, catching on. “They might activate it themselves without knowing.”

“We have to get there, find out what’s going on, and quietly inoculate any that are going to survive.”

“And bring some back?” Jenna asked.

“No point in leaving them all to die,” the trailblazer quipped.

“I agree,” Gary said regretfully, “but we don’t have the resources to pursue this. Someone else will have to do it.”

“You’re right,” Morgan admitted. “We need the intel, but someone else has to track this down. Let’s review everything the Voku gave us, then I’ll find a volunteer…”

Aaron-010 returned to his quarters after another long day that was a mix of his personal training and him running his ‘X-men school’ finding himself mildly fatigued as was normal, for that was the only real way to push one’s psionic abilities to adapt into greater power reserves. Ikrid especially, for which his own personal training group was built to focus on and hosted by his Clan Nova Wolf on their capitol of Kell. He had the highest Ikrid ranking of all Archons, and as such he was needed to personally duel with others in order to challenge them where mechanized drills would prove insufficient.

That also gave him a lot of extra low level practice, but it left him drained each day…which he was using to train his psionic tissues to accommodate more endurance. He was one of only three trailblazers having assigned themselves to permanent training duty, but he still kept up to date on what the others were doing and how events were going in the Rim Region. When he got finished with his quotas for the day and was ready for bed, he sat down at his terminal intending to spend an hour or so surfing data entries as his brain detoxed from the mild overload.

But when he saw Morgan’s post to the trailblazer private board his fatigue was forgotten. There were more Protovic found, and these weren’t primitives like most of the others had been. They were technologically advanced with at least a small empire of their own that might be allied with the lizards?

The more Aaron read the more he realized that he needed to get to the bottom of this. Most of the others were busy with combat assignments or tasks that pulling them off of wouldn’t be preferred, and while his work here was important it wasn’t urgent and this was. Wait too long and these Protovic might not be around to question if the Skarrons kept hammering them like they were now.

The whole Skarron Crusade that was still in its infancy was a major concern of his and he’d been following developments there closely, but this was the first time he’d heard of someone other than the lizards getting hit. Was this juggernaut really that clumsy, or were they hitting the Protovic for a specific reason?

Morgan laid out the basics, pointing out the futility of an evacuation and the possibility that these guys might end up tampering with their own genetics and unleash the beast within. What she didn’t say was that these Protovic might know of others out there, and through them they might be able to identify and inoculate a great deal more. It was a long way there, and perhaps further still if there were any leads found, but if the Chixzon returned they’d be far more trouble than this temporary inconvenience.

Aaron could find a second gen to go, but they wouldn’t be able to report back in time to make decisions regarding this new Protovic empire. If part of it was to be saved it was going to have to be a judgement call on the spot, and while some second gen were capable of that he just got the creepy feeling that this situation required a trailblazer, hence he replied back to Morgan and posted on the board that he was going to deal with it personally.

He spent the next four hours thinking before finally forcing himself to get some sleep, then in the morning he informed his ‘school’ that they were going on a field trip. Anyone that couldn’t afford a long journey needed to stay behind, but there was no reason why he and the others couldn’t spend their time enroute training with one another. Aaron could train well enough on his own, but as far as Ikrid went you needed other minds to work against/with and these fellow Archons needed his overbearing skill to push their limits against, so most of them agreed to come with him without hesitation.

It took a few weeks to get the necessary fleet assembled…two Warship-class jumpships from Mainline and a Nova Wolf cargo ship that was going to house the training group and the supplies needed for a long mission like this. They weren’t going to stop off at any scouting resupply bases due to the time involved. Instead they were going to run straight through lizard territory in order to get to the Crusade front and these Protovic while they were still alive, hopefully, and Aaron knew the lizards couldn’t interfere unless he decided to stop and engage them.

Run fast, run hard, and unless you hit a mine field the lizards couldn’t catch you…and that’s exactly what his trio of ships did once leaving the ADZ and passing through Ninja Monkey territory, picking up a handful of personnel there for Morgan’s purposes, then diving into the vast gulf of lizard systems that stretched all the way across to the now distant Skarron border that extended coreward farther than Star Force or Voku intelligence had mapped.

Letting his ship Captains handle the navigation, Aaron and the other Archons adjusted their training to their new facilities and got back into the daily grind that they’d hold until they arrived and saw what the Skarron Crusade was about firsthand. Until then there wasn’t anything else to do with no reports coming in now that they were beyond the comm relays. It was just boring travel anticipating a destination.

And rather than keep pestering the Captains with an infinite number of ‘are we there yet’s Aaron had learned long ago to put the solitude of starship travel to good use, for here there were no distractions and more often than not that was when you got your best training sessions in.

4

December 1, 3573

Twan System (Expanded Region)

Heffen

It had been a long extended decade. Battle after battle at an unrelenting pace to kill Mendz Tabers faster than they could build new ones. One city after another taken and plucked of defenders and factories to reinforce them alike, but otherwise left intact. Counterassaults to retake them that never worked while occupied, but that happened often when the Clan Scorpion troops moved on, unable to leave garrison units or overseers behind.

The idea of ‘holding’ cities until the window passed and they became safe was a misnomer. The only way to hold a city on Heffen was to destroy any and all enemy units in the region with any defensive assignments being a waste of resources. There were so many enemy mechs on this world it was insane, but fortunately they weren’t well built and their pilots were crap for the most part.

But they were still deadly in groups and attrition was a factor with the mechwarriors having to press past their shield levels and into armor-grinding territory in order to accomplish the assaults fast and deep enough to keep up with their quotas to destroy the mech-producing factories, their armament stores, and fuel depots. In the beginning the entire invasion seemed pointless, with the Mendz rebuilding almost as fast as they were being destroyed, but over time the deleterious progression of each city’s facilities taken and destroyed tipped the scales in the Scorpions’ favor.

Now it was all but over. Only two cities remained with the last Mendz defenders clustered in both with every weapon left on the planet hoping to hold out two more years. The northern of the two cities was makeshift defenses cobbled together from other retreating units as had been the norm the past year, but the southern city was much more intricate with permanent defensive emplacements that looked to have been built long ago.

It was going to be a tough nut to crack, and for that reason Nero hadn’t hit it previously. Getting to and destroying the multitude of factories had been the priority, but now that they were coming to the end and the Mendz were making their final defiant stand, it was going to be a hunt and destroy mission only here as the northern city was already succumbing to the forces Nero had sent after it.

“How long?” Nathan Hampton asked, walking up beside Nero on a hillside several miles away from the fortress city as the Archon was scoping it out with the zoom on his helmet.

“We’re going to start poking in three hours.”

“Waiting for the rest to finish up?”

“Yeah. I get the feeling these guys have something special planned here.”

“Those mines?”

“More than that. We haven’t detected any nukes, but these guys should have the tech level to shield them properly.”

“They would have used them before now if they had anything like that,” the Regular argued.

“I hope so. This is the last of their military and they’re not surrendering, but I’m worried they’ll take the city inhabitants with them when they die fighting. They know they can’t hold out another 2 years.”

“Would they try chemical or biological?”

“We’re always in armor, and usually in our mechs. I don’t see how they’d think that would work.”

“Scorched earth? Maybe afraid we’d take them prisoner if they’re the last few left.”

“Possible.”

“We’ve almost won and you seem spooked. What’s up?”

“There’s been a lot more construction here, battle prep construction, and I get the feeling that may have given them time to get fancy.”

“So we poke and see what happens. Are you worried about them preemptively killing the citizens?”

“I honestly don’t know at this point. All the rest have submitted as agreed, but with this being the last holdout…”

“Have sensors picked up anything curious?”

“No, but those deflector shields are hampering accuracy with the orbital scans.”

“We’ve almost done it, Nero. If this one gets messy, so be it. We’ll do what we can, as always, but you’ve taken a planet away from the bad guys in probably the cleanest invasion in Star Force history. Even if everyone in that city dies, that won’t change that fact. And you did it through bartering, just like in the old Clan lore.”

“That’s what bothers me. The Mendz don’t seem the type to go out stoically.”

“At this point they only have one play…and that’s to stall for 2 years, which they can’t do.”

“So if you knew you were going to die, wouldn’t you want to cause as much trouble as you could before you did?”

“I’d fight to stay alive…but these guys, yeah, I’d say that’s a good guess.”

“So what can they do here?”

“Those new walls are going to be tough to fight through. They might just try and kill a few mechs as the price for the city.”

“Too small scale, but I agree.”

“Hidden explosives?”

“Mines on approach and even in some wall segments that have redundancies. There could be more, but…”

“These guys don’t have the tech to hide them and we’re going to be scanning as we walk up and knock on the door. I don’t see that we’re missing a beat.”

“I don’t either. That’s what worries me.”

“You could be overestimating the opponent.”

“After 13 years of nonstop battle, I’ll gladly err there.”

“Only one way to find out,” the mechwarrior said, looking out across the few miles of slightly rolling terrain to the giant concrete walls that had been built up as a maze surrounding the city that they’d have to fight or blow through to get inside.

“Yep. But until then I’m going to keep brainstorming…just in case.”

“I’ll pass the word to be on the lookout for subterfuge. Do you need to catch a nap? I can stand watch.”

“I’m good for one more. Then we can all get a badly needed rest.”

Nero ran through one of the city streets in his Neo-class mech, feeling heavy and slow but otherwise as limber and bouncy as he was in real life. He was mentally connected to the metallic monstrosity but fortunately didn’t feel any of the burns in the armor resulting from booby-trapped buildings the Mendz had rigged up and drawn the Scorpion troops into. Some blew out laterally, with most of the explosion focused on the mechs, but others destroyed entire structures and pinned down the mechs beneath the rubble.

It was a tactic that they hadn’t used before, and with only 83 of the battle machines left fully operational, even taking down one hurt Nero’s forces badly…but it was too late for the Mendz. Why they hadn’t tried this tactic sooner he didn’t know, but having the civilians move the explosives into position after the battle began had defied the pre-attack sensor sweeps. Even now he couldn’t be sure what was going to blow up, but his mech and others were scanning furiously even as they chased down the last few Tabers within the city.

Nero got a warning only a couple hundred meters away and skidded to a halt with his metallic feet digging into the ‘soft’ pavement and plowing two furrows in it. Both buildings ahead flanking the street had explosives in them, meaning he wasn’t going to be going through this way, so he backtracked another hundred meters and turned to the right, heading to the next street.

But when he got there and turned he only got a few sections further before more bombs showed up, but this time when he backtracked there were others popping up on his sensors behind him.

“No…” he said, realizing he’d walked into a trap. The civilians must have had the explosives in shielded canisters that only showed up on sensors when they unpacked them. He clicked on the comm.

“Keep the infantry clear. We’ve got mobile explosives being set in place. We’ll deal with them in the mechs. I don’t want anyone without a wall of armor between them and these det packs in play, but get me spotters everywhere.”

The ring of dots surrounding him grew complete, blocking off every street, but fortunately he had another option.

Nero walked to the nearest building, pumped up his anti-grav as high as sustainability would allow, and punched a hole into it with his hand. He did the same with the other higher up, then he jumped and got his feet into the two holes as he punched again, then he began 3-hold climbing his way up to the top making handholds as he went.

When he got there a piece of the roof broke off and fell to the ground below with his mech’s foot slipping. He went down on his chest but caught himself from sliding off, then stood up and reset his anti-grav, returning his mech to normal weight and charging the capacitor high enough to allow him to jump…which he did, over to the next building.

When he hit his feet broke through to the next floor, pinning him in place. It took half a minute to climb his way out, and by then the Tabers he’d been trying to flank were long gone. That didn’t matter now, for he just needed to get away from the explosives, but he saw on his battlemap that two more had been taken down in his absence.

That still left at least 200 in the center of the city tucked underneath a lot of anti-air batteries that were now repositioning to shoot at him. Missiles streak across from those with lines of fire and Nero popped up his shoulder mounts and began shooting the bulk of them down with Ichod pulse cannons, vaporizing everything within a cone of fire and missing those that came from other angles simultaneously as what seemed like the entire Mendz anti-air arsenal was coming at him.

Nero knew he’d get chewed up if he stayed up here, so he weathered the storm as long as he could, hopping to two more buildings before his shields finally fell before dropping back down to the ground. Sensors showed explosives along several streets, but he had a few that appeared to be clear so he took off down those hoping to get out ahead of the ambushers and wondering if they were carrying them through the streets.

Nero worked his way through the city until he hit a line of defense that had big barricades up to block the street, but he just walked right in front of it and started blasting with his mauler cannons. When he did, batteries in the side buildings opened fire on him and he turned and obliterated them as they chewed away a little more of his armor, popping his renewed shields when they came back up halfway through, in the middle of which another explosive appeared on his sensors right next to him.

Nero knelt down and pivoted, ignoring the batteries and fired into the bottom of the building over and over again until the contact went out. He didn’t know what these explosives were made of, but apparently they required a trigger. He’d expected some detonation, hoping redirect some of it along with the debris he was blowing into the building, but he’d gladly accept nothing. In fact, it meant that unless this one was a dud, they could take them out before they detonated.

“Explosives can be neutralized by mauler cannons. Shoot into the buildings before they blow,” he said, standing his mech back up and finishing destroying the weapons batteries around him, after which he took the time to knock down the barricade rather than climbing or jumping over it just in case he needed to come back this way later.

Another few minutes of individual pushing had him meeting up with another two neos that were escorting a Catapult-class support mech that was a mix of auxiliary shields and missiles. It could block the explosives if it knew to put up the extra strong energy barriers first, but it wasn’t the most agile within the city streets.

Nero took the lead but stayed close enough that it could throw up a shield ahead of him, and it did when the pilot saw that his shields were paper thin. It stretched out ahead, not to the sides, and that shield took the first weaponsfire from the Tabers that targeted them when they entered a courtyard that took the place of several buildings…though the rubble of those buildings was still here and arranged to give them cover while interfering with the attackers’ approach.

Multiple hits came from Tabers who were focusing on the entry point, but when Nero got to it he and the other three neos ran out of cover of the catapult’s shields and jumped over the debris, landing near some of the enemy mechs and pounding them…literally. Punches were as prevalent as mauler blasts as they drew the attention away from the awkward walking mech that followed them through and stopped just clear of the surrounding buildings.

Missile hatches opened and a torrent of smoky streaks shot out, some passing within 10 meters of the neos, and hammered the Tabers relentlessly. Rivers of destruction flowed from the catapult…then all was silence.

Nero checked his battlemap and saw that all the Tabers were down here, with a few locations left in the city that were near to falling as well.

“More explosives,” the catapult pilot noted as dots were continuing to appear nearby.

“Target them,” Nero ordered. “Blow right through the buildings. Anyone near them is going to die anyway when they detonate.”

“I could use some elevation if you can knock out those anti-air turrets.”

“Good idea. Guys, let’s go raid the nests,” Nero agreed as he and the other two neos started climbing again.

Three hours later Nero was walking his lightly damaged mech through pacified streets looking for additional contacts. All had been quiet for the past 23 minutes, but part of him didn’t want to accept that it was all over. There were still a lot of civilians here, but they weren’t attacking them anymore and he’d ordered the infantry in to do building searches and find any caches of explosives that might be remaining.

All of the Mendz military was now dead, assuming they hadn’t chickened out and ran. None had that he knew of since this invasion had begun, and as they’d boasted, they’d rather die fighting than surrender. Fortunately the civilians hadn’t followed suit, and if this really was the end of the fighting then the planet now belonged to Clan Scorpion.

A planet without the Star Force workers needed to restructure it. He had nothing here other than his attack force, so he was going to have to rule it rather than own it. That was a new trick, but as long as the civilians kept following orders as they’d been doing in the previously captured cities things would be alright. Some of those cities were already being altered towards Star Force standards, in small ways. Fortunately the Mendz didn’t eat meat, so there wasn’t large numbers of rescued ‘livestock’ races to evacuate or care for here, though he had put an immediate end to the sport hunts in the wild areas of the planet.

He couldn’t monitor that very well, but the bottom line was the food supply was stable and growing…along with other necessary staples of infrastructure needed to strengthen this planet, with which what Clan Scorpion was going to do hadn’t been decided. They’d eliminated a threat to the region, but whether or not there would be a permanent Clan presence here was going to be a decision made back in the ADZ. Nero was to babysit here while a courier ship went back, then he’d hear from Cora as to what she wanted done.

But the mission was a success already, and as predicted the Mendz’s naval forces had attacked all out once it was clear that they’d lost the war on the ground. Their ships were now rubble floating in space and Nero had complete military control of both the planet and the system, but he had some decisions to make regarding how he was going to babysit…though right now he still wasn’t sure something wasn’t going to explode next to him. Maybe that was being cautious or just a reflex, but as he continued his patrols along with the rest of his mechs spread out across the city and the Commando and Knight teams continued clearing buildings it began to finally sink in.

The fighting was over. It’d been 13 hectic years, now all of a sudden it was done. There was no one left to shoot or to shoot back at him…and it felt weird.

When he eventually got out of his mech back at base it felt even weirder. He was on a hostile planet without any more hostiles. Nero didn’t expect the civilians were going to be all warm and friendly, but it looked like any of them capable of attacking the invaders had already done so and died. Leaving what behind he wasn’t totally sure, but for right now the entire planet was quiet and the few overseers he had spread out were continuing to monitor that orders were being carried out as word spread of the final defeat.

Nero didn’t send that message out, but left the Mendz to do that on their own and come to the realization that they’d lost. Their mighty warriors had been defeated by a small army of Clan Scorpion…and that filled him with a pride he couldn’t articulate, but he carried it with him into bed that night as he took the liberty of setting his alarm two hours later than normal.

5

December 3, 3573

Twan System (Expanded Region)

Heffen

Nero was asleep in a small bunk room in the main Clan base when the door opened and he half noticed, rolling over slightly as someone walked up next to him.

“Wake up,” Taren-152991 said, poking him in the shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Nero asked, sitting up.

“They’re rioting.”

The Archon rubbed his eyes. He’d been in a far deeper sleep than he’d managed in years.

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” Taren said, and Nero could hear the panic in his voice.

“Define rioting,” he said as he stood up and grabbed his shoes, slipping them on with a little telekinetic nudge.

“Every city on the planet, and they’re destroying whatever they can get their hands on. Our overseers are under attack too and we’ve got dropships enroute to pull them out.”

“Did we miss some troops?” Nero asked, following him out and through the residential section of the base towards their command cneter.

“No. It’s like the civilians have gone feral. The recall was ordered because there’s so many of them.”

“Are they coming here?”

“Not yet. They’re just destroying everything. Maybe to keep us from using it, but I don’t know. It’s like they’ve all gone crazy with word that they lost.”

“I knew it was too easy a win,” Nero all but cursed as he accelerated into a run and followed Taren without any more conversation until they got to the command center where a handful of other personnel were monitoring and trying to break down exactly what was going on.

“Talk to me,” he said, walking towards the main holo at the center of the room.

“This is organized,” an analyst noted. “Simultaneous implementation across the planet as of 31 minutes ago with a variation of no more than 2.”

“Backup plan?” Taren asked.

“Scorched earth policy,” Nero growled. “They don’t want us getting our hands on their intact cities and resources.”

“It’s not that,” a Regular said from the other side of the room. “This is anarchy. They’re destroying everything. Even the food supply.”

Nero and everyone else in the room fell silent as the Archon looked at him.

“Say again.”

“Food production facilities are being hit in at least 3 cities that we still have eyes on. Food store warehouses too in addition to virtually everything else in the cities. Even some of the smaller buildings are being torn down with crude explosives, and the larger ones was being torched from the inside.”

“Are they really that stupid?” another Archon asked.

“They’re crazed right now,” Taren added. “So they might be. How do we stop that?”

Nero looked at the hologram of the planet with icons indicating riots popping up virtually everywhere based on orbital scans and the few people they still had out in the field.

“Get our people out, now. Bring everyone back here that isn’t sitting inside a mech. Are there any cities not showing activity?”

“No. All are burning,” an analyst confirmed.

“Are there any signs of rebellion, or is the entire population united in this?”

“We don’t have enough assets to say planetwide, but the locations we can monitor show no fighting amongst the Mendz, nor any unit cohesion. People are just running around and destroying whatever they can.”

Nero put his hands on his head, missing the blissful victory sleep he’d just been woken from as he saw the planet they’d conquered literally destroying itself in protest.

“All mech units on location are to proceed to the nearest foodstuff production facilities…not the warehouses…and shoot anyone seen messing with them. We’ve got to preserve as much as we can.”

“If they’re already inside that won’t matter,” Taren pointed out.

“Pull from orbital scans and find me even one facility that hasn’t been hit yet, one calm area that we can reinforce, something we can save,” he said angrily. “If not we have to try and save some scraps that can be rebuilt.”

“We need their construction equipment too.”

“Prioritize what you can,” he said, snapping his fingers in a way that got all the analysts and half the other personnel to turn to their stations and get to work. Taren altered the main hologram to give them closer views of what was happening in several locations, with the cat-like bipeds running around in the streets carrying makeshift weapons, canisters, or mostly nothing at all as they scrambled around setting new fires, breaking windows, and trashing vehicles in whatever way they could.

“Give me something,” Nero reiterated after a few minutes of watching the carnage.

“Pullout in the southern hemisphere is complete,” someone noted, with Nero seeing the dropship tracks returning from those locations with all personnel onboard save for mech units. A few other dropships still hadn’t recovered people in the northern hemisphere, but so far there were no Star Force casualties…despite the fact that most locations had only one or two individuals per city stationed to oversee it.

“There goes a field.”

Nero looked over and saw a secondary hologram displaying a fire in progress in one of the many crop fields the Mendz had across the planet…fields that the Scorpions had deliberately avoided hitting so not to destroy the food supply. Now both the factories to process the food and the fields where they mass produced it were going up in smoke.

“Deploy every skeet we have to the most intact fields left with orders to shoot the torchers before they can get to them. Anyone that even gets close gets killed. If they don’t even have raw grain to process by hand…”

“I think it’s too late,” Taren mumbled from beside him.

“We lose nothing by trying,” Nero countered. “Prioritize something close and drop a few mechs at each one we can preserve. Have them hunt and destroy around a perimeter. Use the damaged ones too. Anything and everything we’ve got left. We have to preserve a piece of the food supply, else we’ll have nothing left to ration.”

“On it,” Taren said, running out to get to a mech himself along with the rest of the Archons and mechwarriors in the command center, leaving Nero there with the analysts as they continued to pull data from multiple sources and collate it for him to see.

In the minutes that passed things only got worse. He watched as more fields were set on fire. Fruit trees were chopped down. Roads were damaged by people running out with shovels and axes like morons just wanting to damage stuff so it couldn’t be used. It didn’t happen quickly, for the cities were huge, as were the fields, but Nero had so few people to counter it that he was literally helpless to stop the destruction that was happening everywhere across the planet.

After four hours two large fields, each more than 100 square miles large, were secured due to the fact that there was only one city near each and a single approach that was being blasted to hell by the skeets, yet more Mendz kept trying to run that gauntlet in order to get to the fields. Nero eventually sent a few of his limited infantry there to deal with anyone that managed to sneak through and put out any potential fires before they got too large, but 2 fields wasn’t going to feed a planet.

He worked the resources he had and secured parts of 9 more, having the mechs dig trenches with their feet in some cases to stop current fires from spreading. Nero knew time wasn’t on their side, so he chose where he was going to defend against this madness and dug in all the while the rest of the planet burned.

8 days later…

Nero walked off a dropship that had set him down on the killing grounds between a city and a preserved field, immediately smelling the stench of dead bodies. His infantry were out of sight, mostly, as they were inside the city now searching it for any sane Mendz left…for all the rest had finally ended themselves in suicide runs trying to get to the fields. That left a wrecked, empty, and in some parts still burning city before him with a pristine countryside of crops behind. If there was any silver lining to this, it was the fact that there were less Mendz around to feed now, but he knew it wasn’t going to matter.

No one was coming from the other cities to try and attack here, but there was also no one left to harvest and care for the fields. He was hoping there would be some Mendz found that hadn’t taken part in the rioting, but so far his searchers were coming up empty.

Could all of them have been in on this? Was there not even one individual hiding out somewhere in the city just trying to stay alive?

As his people continued to search here others were fighting to keep the Mendz out of partial fields saved that had numerous cities around them. He could have been there fighting, but he had a bigger challenge before him…how to pull the planet out of this mess. To that end he began walking through the dead, many of which were now pieces of bodies after being shot by aerial or mech weaponry.

He took his time, thinking hard and soaking in everything around him and trying to make sense of it. The military was dead. They were the ones that wanted to die fighting, so why would the civilians do this? They’d put up with Scorpion rule…limited as it was…for years now. Why do this now when it made no sense?

They couldn’t have done it before, else it would have broken the agreement the Mendz were counting on to secure their planet when they won the fight. As soon as that was no longer possible…

Nero worked his way into the city, in which he didn’t see a single window intact. The roads had holes in them where there wasn’t building rubble blocking the way. Black burn marks were everywhere on the structures that still stood, having been gutted by the flames that had mostly subsided by now, though Nero could still see a few here and there. The smell within the city was of ash, which was an improvement over that of the dead outside, but it was still a visceral sign of defeat.

He hadn’t seen this coming, for it was completely illogical. Dying fighting in battle was one thing, but destroying the very infrastructure you needed to survive made no sense no matter how he looked at it, and Nero realized that was why he hadn’t seen it coming. It was so stupid, so completely moronic, that it had escaped his mind. He’d spent 13 years preserving these people while killing off their military, keeping their cities intact and them out of the fighting except where they chose to insert themselves. Hating him and Star Force was expected, for he didn’t expect them to welcome Scorpion rule, but this…

Nero still couldn’t believe it as he reached out with his psionics looking for survivors. If there was just one here that would be something. Someone to save and to prove the point that there might be others out there that he could collect, rally, and start rebuilding with while the rest killed themselves off however they damn well wished.

But no, for as he walked what was left of the streets and climbed over and through destroyed buildings he found no minds other than those of his own troops, and neither did they. The entire city was dead. And those who had destroyed it now lay in bits and pieces outside.

The Archon inspected what was left of the various factories, finding some small pieces that could be salvaged but not enough to get anything working. If other components were found elsewhere maybe he could transport them all to a secure site and patch together a working facility, but that was the best he could hope for. And if he didn’t have anyone to work those factories then it was a moot point anyway.

Nero roamed for a long time, so long that eventually a madcat walked up behind him, its giant metallic feet making small tremors with each step as it moved across the debris far easier than he did. Turning around, he looked up at it as it stopped a few dozen meters away and a private comm channel opened up inside Nero’s helmet from Taren.

“It’s over,” he said simply.

“Are the other sites secure?”

“Burn attempts have diminished, but there are still stragglers coming out to get themselves killed…and that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I mean it’s over. These people just killed themselves. We can’t rebuild without techs and a workforce.”

“We can’t assume everyone on this planet is in the same boat. There could be pockets of resistance out there that are just hunkered down trying to wait this out.”

“A possibility that we can’t stick around to find out.”

“Why? Got somewhere to be?” Nero said with more venom than he intended. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“You’re taking this harder than me, but I feel it too. These bastards made their own bed, and we can’t save them from it. It’s time to leave.”

“And just let them…”

“If we can’t stop it, there’s no need to stick around and watch. Even if we called for and got a relief fleet here, there’s not enough time. These people are dead, Nero. When they torched their storehouses they doomed themselves to be dead within a month, two tops, and there’s no one here left to save anyway. I wish there were a dozen or so we could rescue from this, but there’s not. And I doubt there will be elsewhere. Meanwhile, as we search, they starve or kill themselves in whatever way they want. They meant to deny us, not survive.”

Nero balled up a fist and punched his armored thigh hard.

“This isn’t over yet. We’re not just packing up and leaving…but you are right.”

“What did I miss that we still have to do here?”

“We’re not just bailing. We’re going to tidy up first.”

The madcat’s right arm dropped until the barrel touched the ground.

“Let’s get to it then,” Taren prompted, with Nero running over to it and climbing on so the Archon could ride back with him to the LZ.

Over the next three weeks Nero had the Scorpions out searching the remains of every warehouse and collecting what bits of food and other essential supplies remained, then when they were ready to leave that individual city they piled up a fair amount of it in one central location for any survivors left to use or burn…whichever they chose.

They spread out the supplies between the cities, saying goodbye to each one that they’d painstakingly conquered previously until all that remained were those surrounding the intact fields they still guarded. In those they added what equipment was still workable, stacking it on cleaned up streets in the chance that someone out there might have a wish to survive and take to harvesting the fields on their own or using the equipment for other purposes.

The surplus of foodstuffs they left there as well, thinking that if someone was going to harvest the fields they’d need more strength to do it, plus the fields might draw others to these locations and increase the local population…which wasn’t much at this point, with quite a few starving Mendz visible scurrying around the city at a much slower pace than before, doing what Nero didn’t know, but he was going to give them a lifeline before he left.

If they chose not to take it and just trash the supply dumps, well, he wouldn’t be here to know either way.

Once those fields and the nearby supply caches were laid out and a final transmission was sent telling anyone who could receive it where the supplies were, the forces guarding the fields were picked up by aerial transports and taken back to the main base where they were disassembling it piece by piece, intent on leaving no Star Force technology behind.

The mechs went back to their ships in orbit along with all the structural pieces, leaving only a few patrolling skeets over the shallow crater in the ground where the base footprint had laid. Nero made one concession, staying behind a few minutes and placing a portable holographic generator the side of a footlocker in the center of that crater where he recorded himself giving a long explanation of events that happened here and detailing how the Mendz chose to destroy their own planet rather than accept foreign rule.

Nero made no excuses for them, but wanted an accurate account of what had happened should someone come to this planet later and find it lifeless and in ruins. He didn’t need to explain himself or Star Force’s actions, but what happened here was an abomination that he felt like turning his back on responsibly, so when he was done recording the message he played it back, ensuring it was sufficient, then set the proximity sensor to display it whenever someone or something came near, thus preserving its power cells for a very long time.

As Nero walked away it triggered, creating a duplicate Archon behind him as he slowly headed for the last waiting transport that would take him back up to orbit and from there his small fleet would return to the ADZ…in victory or defeat was the question. They’d accomplished their mission in stopping the Mendz from attacking nearby systems, and in subsequent years the Mendz holdings there had been retaken without resupply from their homeworld, but at this cost it didn’t feel like a victory, even given the fact that they’d done this to themselves.

Either way, Taren was right. There was nothing more for Clan Scorpion or him to do here.

6

October 20, 3574

Unknown System (Crusade front)

Inner Zone

Aaron’s three ships came out of their jump into one of the systems known to be controlled by the Protovic, braking hard to avoid low stellar orbit and immediately glad they did as Aaron saw from the bridge of the cargo ship the immense Skarron fleet choking off the bottom end of the jumplane.

“Well shit,” another Archon mumbled beside him as some dozen of them from his training group had come up to observe their destination and find out what these new Protovic were like, but no one had expected this system to be under attack. “They moved fast.”

“That fleet is insane,” the Captain of the jumpship mentioned.

“I’d guess they’re not getting much resistance,” Aaron agreed, “and that’s why they’re here sooner than anticipated.”

“Or have more fleets available,” a titan chimed in.

“That too. What are we getting on the two planets?”

“Vislight indicates Skarron fleets over both.”

“Is there anyone left?”

“We need a closer look,” the analyst said, having next to no information to work with so far away other than what amounted to telescope imagery.

“What do think they’ll do when they find us here?” the Captain asked.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Our ship hulls are almost identical to what they fought in the past, so I’d be surprised if they didn’t identify us. Given how many ships they have here…”

“At least 2 million,” the sensor officer chimed in.

“…I think they’ll be extremely territorial in mindset and try to chase us down. They won’t be able to catch us, right…” he said, looking at the Captain.

“Not unless you want us to loiter, no. Our engine capacity far exceeds theirs.”

“We’re not going to, but we are going to see what the status of those two planets are. Bring us in close but keep us moving at all times.”

“In concert?”

“One warship with us, the other to the other planet.”

“Shall I give the order?”

“Unless we start shooting, I’m playing spectator,” Aaron said, referencing the seldom-used command nexus build into the side of the bridge. Most Star Force jumpships had them as standard design, but on a cargo ship without Archons they almost never found use.

“Do you have a preference?” the Captain asked as he began pressing buttons on his command chair.

“The green one.”

“Helm, new coordinates,” the Captain said, shooting him an approach vector that the pilot would tweak to his own satisfaction before implementing. “Let’s get moving.”

When they got closer to the planet the carnage became obvious. Debris in orbit was rampant, but the mass of Skarron ships there created a broken ring around the planet, a piece of which detached and began to pursue the Star Force ships futilely. But while the battle in orbit was over, the ground campaign was not yet complete. There were a mind boggling amount of walkers deployed and visibly running over cities no matter how much defense the Protovic put up, though there were a fair number of white dots covering the surrounding area to attest to the fact that this was not completely a one-sided fight.

But the outcome was not in question. There were so many Skarron units in play that no matter how many the Protovic destroyed there would be more stepping in to take their place and pour firepower into any defenses they had en mass. The only advantage the Protovic seemed to have was the fact that the Skarron walkers were slow and they were able to hit and run somewhat, though the Skarron air power was pummeling them relentlessly.

Better than 80% of the planet near Aaron was theirs, while the other one was worse off with only a handful of areas not yet succumbed, though in a few days they would be. The Skarrons were exterminating them with no visible prisoners being taken, though a detailed inspection of the images taken from the surface showed two instances of Aronsic camps that were feasting on glowing orange/green flesh.

As much as he hated the lizards he’d been kind of hoping the Skarrons would kick their ass, but now seeing this and having old memories of the Skarron war returning fresh to his mind, he couldn’t stomach either of the dishonorable empires. He hated not being able to fight either one because of the stupid V’kit’no’sat, for they both needed conquered or destroyed in a bad way, and as long as they remained people like these Protovic were going to suffer for it.

Though to be honest, he didn’t know if these Protovic were good guys, neutrals, or just as bad as the Skarrons…but there was only one way to find out.

“Dexter.”

“Yeah,” the Archon answered, looking up from a station on the bridge where he’d been having a private discussion with an analyst.

“I need you in the big chair.”

The ViLord raised an eyebrow. “What are we up to?”

“Forced extraction,” Aaron said icily.

“Our dropships won’t get through their air cover.”

“Not on their own, no. We’re going to box with the drones.”

Dexter smiled. “If their navy goes atmospheric, we won’t have much time to work with.”

“We’re going to wait until a region is almost obliterated, then swoop in and pick up whoever is left. In and out one shot, leaving no one behind.”

“That’s going to be hard to time.”

“I know, but I’m not going to go down and capture part of the defenders only to weaken the last stand of others.”

“Good call there.”

“Captain, we’re going to need both warships, so get us looping together in a way that doesn’t suggest we’re going to ground. We’ll need as much head start as we can get.”

“I assume you’re going down yourself?”

“I’m the biggest gun we’ve got, so yes.”

“And while the drones are waiting for you to do your collection?” Dexter asked.

“You torch every Skarron unit within range.”

“Turkey shoot,” he said with pleasure.

“Mind the missiles. It appears they’ve upgraded a bit.”

“So have we.”

“I know, but don’t get sloppy. We’re going to get hit going down and up.”

“Then you’d better let me use all of them and keep the jumpships running.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“Making it so,” Dexter said, walking across the bridge towards the nexus to start prepping.

“Captain. Make preparations for unwilling guests.”

“How many?”

“As many as we can fit on the dropships.”

“A single load?”

Aaron nodded. “We won’t have time to cycle, and if we made time we wouldn’t have the supplies or room to house them all. I’m going to wait until there are just enough left,” he said grimly. “I hate that, but getting anyone out of here alive is going to be a victory.”

3 days later…

16 cubes fell down through the atmosphere so fast they appeared to be meteors all the while being tracked and intercepted by missiles fired from the Skarron walkers, though most of the ominous streaks headed towards them never made it, for there was a halo of other drones coming down around them in skirmisher formation and hitting the missiles with what anti-air could break through the turbulent fireballs. When they all slowed enough to become visible, the missile carnage increased as even the boxes fired back and knocked chunks of the rivers of ordinance down before they struck shields that barely flickered with energy loss.

Star Force technology had progressed so far since their war against the Skarrons that there was no contest now…but sadly there was no way to save this planet or the other with the fleet and army arrayed to destroy it. Superior tech was one thing but so was numbers, and even inferior weapons did damage. Take enough hits and they’d get through the drones’ shields, which was why the anti-air fire was so intense. Offensive defense in its purest form, and it was more than enough to get the drones down to the surface.

But the missile attacks didn’t end there, nor did the curve of the planet stop incoming fire. More and more missiles flew across the horizon towards them but Dexter, safely tucked away onboard a jumpship, organized his chess board with the loose drones forming a circular perimeter around the falling city they’d chosen to rescue as the boxed up formations floated in low over the center and blasted away at the Skarron walkers and any large groups of infantry that were visible on the city streets.

After several minutes of cleansing, the bottom edge of those boxes detached with that drone sliding up and gaining some more altitude to help shoot missiles or anything else while the others held a rigid position and the dropships safely protected within began to spill out and down into the city on flights of less than a mile.

One Dragon-class dropship landed over the rubble of a crushed building and opened its big bay doors to release a pair of mechs…the only two Aaron had brought with them. The neos ran out and into the city hunting for Skarron elites in their battle armor or anything else they could squash while the trailblazer followed them out on foot along with several other Archons that had been accompanying him in his training group…which he was now very glad to have alongside him.

They broke up, heading different ways and hunting down whatever Skarron or Aronsic minds that they came across nearby the dropships while Aaron and others headed straight for the failing Protovic defenses. The last few bits of them were confined into two main areas and a handful of other holdouts that were about to get run over. Aaron headed on foot to one of the latter, bypassing everything else hostile in between himself and them in order to get there in time, though he did shoot a few Aronsic on the way exacting a tiny bit of revenge for the planet’s inhabitants, but given so much carnage around him it didn’t matter. Dead Protovic, Aronsic, and Skarrons were everywhere, with a lot of their bodies smashed by the feet of walkers or the Skarrons themselves as they ran over the dead or dying as they pushed further and further into the city.

With a crash a Skarron fighter…or more like half of it…fell to Aaron’s left and imbedded itself into the bottom half of a building, adding to the rubble and throwing out a shower of tiny rock chips that bounced off the Archon’s shields as he continued to run with more fighters going down as they tried to get to the city interior to target the dropships. That was a suicide run with all the drones overhead, but they were making it anyway hoping to get a few through…for they had many to replace whatever they lost and it didn’t look like the Skarrons were worried about reducing casualties so long as they achieved their objective.

A thought about them not coming with enough supplies anticipating major losses crossed his mind, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it as he came up on the Protovic defense lines and saw several hobbits get vaporized by a pulse cannon that pulverized some building debris behind them at the same time. Bits and pieces of flesh flew everywhere, but more Aronsic poured in from a street on the far right in columns to charge the gun until Aaron waved a hand and knocked them all down with a Jumat blast.

The pulse cannon didn’t hesitate, blasting away at them on the ground as Aaron came into view and Jedi jumped over their firing arc to land on the other side in a nook where the gunner couldn’t see…out of which flew four more Aronsic, but before the Protovic could shoot them a series of blue plasma bolts from Aaron took them down and added to the defensive effort. When the trailblazer ran out into the sights of the gunners they didn’t fire on him, suddenly knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a friend and allowing him to run up to them and hop over the broken wall they were positioned within, coming down in the midst of the 8 glowing faces.

He didn’t speak, but thoughts flowed into their minds sufficient enough that when he pointed to the sky they knew he was here to evacuate them. Who he was they didn’t know, hidden beneath that unusual armor, but given that these men were about to die along with the rest of their mostly dead planet, and they knew it, they didn’t ask questions and followed Aaron out, leaving their pulse cannon mount behind and rushed the approaching Aronsic wave…that suddenly all tripped and fell over one another.

The next moment their bodies were flying back through the air like rag dolls and piling up further down the street, with them not having a moment to rest as Aaron was throwing one Jumat blast after another to clear the street up until a Skarron came into view and was too massive to dislodge in a similar way. When it tipped its topside arms over and pointed its infantry cannons on the tips at the Protovic it became a statue, freezing in place as Aaron put several shots from his rifle into its ugly face as he led the Protovic by and back towards the dropship.

The trailblazer continued providing psionic and traditional weaponsfire cover along the way, though one of the neos came crashing into view from the right just as a group of Skarron elites came charging forward on the left hunting the Protovic survivors and intending on running them down with their heavy, shiny armor protecting them from most small arms fire. Aaron immediately circled around to get between them and the Protovic, throwing up a wide bioshield to cover all of them while sending the telepathic impulse of ‘get behind me’ to them while also messing the with minds of the first few elites…though he needn’t have bothered.

The neo ran out and right by Aaron’s group, punting the first Skarron with a kick from its metallic foot across the street and into the side of a building, then it dropped to a knee and punched another one flat into the pavement as the rest scampered away from the far too agile mech while returning some fire. A few got away, but those stupid enough to stay put and shoot were physically smashed so to avoid firing maulers close to the Protovic, though Aaron could have shielded them enough if needed from anything less than a direct hit.

The caution was welcome, as was the assist, and with another dose of telepathic prodding Aaron got the 8 Protovic moving again. When the dropship came within range he pointed and all but shouted at them to go, breaking off from them while a couple of other Archons guarding the craft took over and escorted the war weary fighters inside using their lesser telepathic skills.

Minutes passed and more arrived in small groups, but over an hour later several hundred showed up along with Aaron, who gave the go ahead for the pilot to take off once the pair of mechs walked back onboard.

The Protovic, who’d been politely disarmed, stood against the sides of the bay as the two giant machines strode in and parked themselves in statue position and cracked open the access ports on the back with more usually armored aliens climbing out and down to the floor of the bay as the outer doors closed, but not before the skyline shifted and the Protovic could see their damaged city drifting below them.

One of the mech pilots walked over to Aaron as the Protovic were starting to ask questions that he couldn’t easily answer, for their language was new and undocumented. It would take time to learn it, though a few Archons had been sent on tech retrieval missions on their way back to the dropships to see if they could find something to grab that would help in the process.

Right now though all he had was telepathy to work with, and that was a powerful tool at his disposal. If worst came to worst he could knock them all unconscious with a thought or take control of their bodies, but right now he wanted them to know they were among friends and while getting inside their heads to do that was certainly effective, there was another way that he’d thought of before leaving the ADZ, though he hadn’t expected it to come into play during combat.

The mech pilot walked up beside Aaron and the trailblazer triggered his armor to split apart. When it did and his Human visage became visible all the Protovic recoiled, either physically or mentally, and he knew they’d never seen his like before. Aaron continued to send reassuring emotions to them then pointed to the mechwarrior beside him.

After a short delay that set of armor split apart as well, with all of the Protovics’ jaws dropping. As battle scarred and manic as these survivors were being suddenly rescued when they were doomed to die fighting an unwinnable battle was enough to put them on edge, but the sight of another Protovic face amongst these aliens was almost too much to bear and a few of them stumbled as they lost their balance with sheer relief and shock.

The orange and green glowing faces, some bleeding, most covered in grime or dust that diminished their bioluminescence, just stared at the new Protovic’s face, uniform and overall alien persona. He was one of them, but he glowed pink and blue…something that none of these Protovic had ever thought possible, and in that moment Aaron knew that these, at least, did not know of other variants. Though if they had, they still wouldn’t have recognized a Star Force Protovic, for the base green had been replaced with blue and that offset the pink creating a color combination that was theoretically nowhere else in the galaxy aside from Star Force.

The mechwarrior walked up to one of the shaky ones and put a hand on his shoulder, knowing he couldn’t understand his words, but using his own limited telepathy to help translate as much as he could.

“You’re safe now, brothers. Safe,” he repeated as two others walked closer, with one of them reaching out a glowing finger and poking him in the side of the head to see if he was real.

“You are not dreaming. You are here. I am here. And both of us have many questions to ask.”

7

October 29, 3574

Unknown System (Crusade front)

Outer Zone

Sitting far out into the system with no planets nearby to navigationally grapple with, Aaron’s three ships waited out of the reach of the Skarrons while recording from afar the final destruction of the Protovic civilization in this system while the trailblazer met with the escapees one at a time. With him was a neural interlink similar to a control nexus, worn around his head, that allowed him to mentally link with the ship’s computer and, more importantly, the language analysis program there that he’d help design long ago.

Using his Sav-enhanced Ikrid, he was able to analyze the thoughts of each Protovic as he talked with them. Neither could understand the other’s language, but with each word spoken by the Protovic he analyzed what it meant inside the mind and cataloged it using the analysis program…or rather cataloged all the possible meanings, and fortunately with Aaron’s Ikrid skill, his Sav, and his familiarity with the program, he was making thousands of notations per second as he gradually established the basis of these Protovics’ language via process of elimination.

Once the basic structure and vocabulary was established he no longer needed them to speak, and he went about ransacking their minds for more words and meanings, funneling them all through his own mind and into the program faster than any Archon or even the language specialist techs could have…for he’d taught many of them these very skills when they’d been gifted the Ikrid necessary to begin unlocking unknown languages, making him the best in-person translator Star Force had.

Within only a handful of days he had a basic language program for ‘Veersnobva,’ which was what they called their language. Rather than trying to speak it himself, he used an automated translation matrix in which an auditory dampener was set up via energy field between the two of them on the table, diminishing but not eliminating the sounds passing through as they were analyzed and overlayed with the computer translation.

“Can you understand me?” Aaron asked, and he didn’t need his Ikrid to see the shock in the Protovic’s eyes when he did.

“Yes.”

“Good. Over the past few days we’ve built a translation program. It will get better with time, so be aware that there may be some errors involved at present.”

“How have you done this?” the glowing orange/green face asked Aaron, as they were the only two people in the interrogation room.

“I can read your mind, Dashmir,” he said, using the man’s name, “and I have taken what I learned and input it into a computer program. I still am now, using this device.”

Aaron pointed to the ring on his head, but the Protovic merely shook his in dismay.

“What is going on?”

“The galaxy is far bigger than you know,” Aaron indulged, sensing his confusion and brittle nerves. Even with a few days to rest the destruction of his world and the bloody fight he’d made to defend it were nearly crippling his will to live. “Not many races have telepathy, but a handful do. Including some Protovic. You’ve not seen others of different colors, have you?”

“No.”

“There are those with green and pink markings that have it naturally, or rather once they unlock the dormant ability. All of you have dormant abilities, though my medics say yours has not unlocked yet. I find that curious, given how technologically advanced you are. To answer your question in part, we came here looking for your people because we are searching for Protovic everywhere within our reach. This area was beyond our search zone, but word of the fighting reached us through an ally.”

“What do you want with us?”

“It is complicated, but know that we have been inviting all the Protovic that we find to join us in our territory where we have built a section of our empire specifically for you. The one you met earlier was born there, and is special because he has the abilities from all the different colors, making him very powerful. He has the strength and speed enhancements that Oranges possess, and that you have within you. At some point it will unlock for your people and you will see a great increase throughout your civilization, and the same has happened for others. Not all, but many. There are Protovic spread throughout the galaxy in small groups and we have been trying to bring you all together.”

“For what purpose?”

“Our empire has hundreds of different races within it. We stand as a beacon of light against the darkness, and to it many fleeing tragedy run. Your civilization is far from us, but you are welcome there if you wish you come. The same goes for the rest of your people if they have the ships to travel the distance.”

“You came to offer us sanctuary?”

“Yes. And to investigate your current condition.”

“How far away?”

Aaron knew that wouldn’t translate, so he paused a moment while he dug into the Protovic’s mind and pulled up the distance measurements. They were approximate, given he had to reference images, but it should have been a decent ballpark figure.

“1300 lightyears straight shot. Longer when you have to bounce back and forth between stars.”

The Protovic slumped in his seat. “That would take us years.”

“I know. But you and the rest we pulled out of that fight are welcome to travel back with us, and it will take less than a year. We would offer more, but we have limited supplies onboard our three ships.”

“Thank you for saving us…whoever you are.”

“My name is Aaron. I’m an Archon. One of the leaders of Star Force.”

“Leader? You were the one on the planet fighting.”

“Yes.”

“Since when do leaders do anything but hide behind the soldiers?” he said with obvious disgust.

“In Star Force, those with the highest skills lead. Thus the military leaders are the most combat capable and we belong on the front lines in the thickest of combat. Especially when we have abilities that the others do not. Do not be alarmed, but I am going to demonstrate,” Aaron said, gently picking him up out of his seat with his Lachka and floating him in the air.

A string of shocked curses didn’t translate through the program, and Dashmir’s eyes remained wide and glowing when Aaron sat him back down.

“How can you do this?”

“Biological weapons carefully woven into our genetic code. All Archons have them. The rest of our troops do not, for the most part. This is part of the reason why we go into combat where others dare not.”

“Can you help us evacuate other worlds?”

“Possibly, but it would take time to get a message sent back and even more time to get even a small evacuation fleet here. How many more systems do you have?”

“I don’t know for sure,” he said as Aaron delved more deeply along those memories than he’d been able to do before. “At least 50 or 60. I know four have been destroyed, not counting here. Is there anyone else left?”

“No. The last points of resistance have been overwhelmed. We’ve seen no evidence that the Skarrons are taking prisoners, and portions of the attacking fleet are already transitioning out of the system.

The Protovic closed his eyes as if he were about to cry, his glowing blue lids replacing the deeper blow glow of his eyes, but after a moment of intense emotion he gathered himself and looked at Aaron again.

“What race are you?”

“Human. We founded Star Force, but now we make up only a small portion of it. All Archons are Human, but not all Humans are Archons.”

“How can we assist you?”

“By telling me as much as you can about your people. If there’s a way to assist what’s left of your civilization with my three ships we will, but we can’t stop an invasion of that size no matter how many of their vessels we kill.”

“Why didn’t they attack you?”

“They didn’t get the chance. Our ships are faster than theirs. If we keep moving they can’t catch us. Right now we’re sitting far out in the system where their gravity drives can’t take them with any decent speed. We’ll stay here until we determine where to go next.”

“We were promised help before, but it has not been forthcoming. They just let us die.”

“Who?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

“The Li’vorkrachnika. A large empire that fought back against the Skarrons and conquered their worlds on our border. We brokered a deal with them to help defend this region, but when the Skarrons came with such great numbers they did not come to our aid. Not a single ship.”

“We are at war with the Li’vorkrachnika,” Aaron admitted, “and we conquered and captured their homeworld. We cannot push this far out from our current territory, so they have migrated further coreward. They had another ally, one that betrayed us, and in the end they too were destroyed by the Skarrons. The Li’vorkrachnika only make deals to benefit themselves, and inevitably they will betray you when it suits them. This is something we also came to warn you about.”

“You’re stronger than them?”

“Far stronger.”

“And why would you want to help us?”

“Because we can, and because it’s what we do. We’re protectors, not butcherers like the Skarrons. We’re currently fighting many wars on our other borders, against enemies stronger than the Li’vorkrachnika in some places. I came here because we seek out and find every Protovic civilization that we become aware of. I’m sorry it has to be under these circumstances, though.”

“I am grateful. But I do not see the point in saving us. Without the Li’vorkrachnika support we were promised, we cannot survive this.”

“I know.”

“But you said there are other Protovic out there? How many?”

“We’ve found over 230 different civilizations. Some with only a handful of people surviving in a small settlement. Others have planets full of them. Yours is the largest we know of.”

“How many have joined you?”

“We accept individuals from all, though some groups have completely joined us. A few not by their own choosing. Some Protovic act as the Skarrons do, and we had to stop them.”

“You wanted to know if we were honorable?”

“Among other things, yes.”

“And your conclusion?”

“Based on your memories and those of the others here, your civilization has done some bad things but it does not deserve what the Skarrons are doing to you. The Li’vorkrachnika do, and we’re happy to watch them fight each other, but you’re caught in the middle of it.”

“If I tell you a planet to go to, to see our leaders, will you still take us with you back to your territory?”

“If you wish, yes. I won’t trade you off for others or make you leave if your leaders demand it. We saved you from death, now you are ours to care for until you decline that help.”

Dashmir sagged in his seat, and this time he did start crying with relief.

“You will be welcome amongst the other Protovic,” Aaron promised him. “Tell me where to go so I can figure out if there are others that can be saved as well.”

“Do not go to the capitol. They will most likely fire on you and try to steal your ships. Go to Dfarch. The Empress there is trustworthy…if the Skarrons haven’t killed her yet.”

Aaron brought up a starmap over the table, zoomed in to their present location.

“Show me where to go.”

2 weeks later…

Aaron strode up through the throne room on Dfarch, escorted by more than 20 Orange Protovic with heavy beam rifles while he was in his armor but carrying no weapons. The atmosphere was compatible with his lungs, but he wasn’t about to come down onto an alien planet without some protection hence he’d insisted on his armor being worn, though there was no one else with him and his dropship was over 6 miles away at the royal airfield. He’d been brought here via a ground vehicle and now was approaching a posse of elaborately dressed, and in some cases scantily clad, Protovic females sitting and standing on an elevated dais in a myriad of poses.

“I am told you can understand our words,” the female in the most ornate chair said as he was stopped at the base of a shallow staircase before her.

“I can,” Aaron said, with his armor translating back into their native language, now more efficiently than before thanks to many tweaks made during the trip here.

“Speak then. Why have you come to me?”

“I was told that you were the most reasonable Protovic leader.”

“Flattery aside, if you will.”

“My empire has a policy of seeking out any and all Protovic civilizations that we can find. Yours was recently made aware to us by an enemy of the Skarrons that noticed their invasion into your territory. Thus I have come looking for you.”

That caused a stir, with muffled conversations happening amongst the lot.

“What do you mean by other Protovic?”

“Your civilization is not the only one. In fact, we believe there are Protovic scattered across the entire galaxy.”

More buzz and hushed voices followed, but the Empress didn’t avert her gaze from Aaron.

“Why have you not returned our people that led you here?”

“I rescued them from certain death. I will not leave them with you only to face it a second time. I have offered them sanctuary with us and those that have agreed will be traveling back with me on my ship to our territory where they will join with the Protovic there.”

“There are Protovic within your civilization?”

“They make up a significant faction of it, yes. We have sought out all of you to offer to incorporate you into our empire. There are many different kinds of Protovic,” Aaron said as he used his armor to project a hologram onto the steps between him and the Empress, nearly sending her protectors into a frenzy but a slightly raised finger from her and they backed off.

“You are what we refer to as ‘Oranges’ based on your secondary color. All others have green as the base, but there are Reds, Blues, Aquas, Pinks, Whites, Purples, and Yellows. Within your genome are suppressed abilities, and each variant has a unique one. Yours is an enhanced strength and speed that has not unlocked yet. Purples have enhanced senses and Pinks have the very rare telepathy that I also possess.”

The Empress moved ever so slightly. “You claim to read minds?”

“I can do more than that,” Aaron said as the room suddenly fell deadly quiet.

The Empress looked around, but no one was moving or talking.

“My apologies, but I think a private conversation is in order. I have temporarily frozen everyone else. My telepathy is stronger than even that which the Protovic possess. I can read minds…and I can also control them. I have left yours untouched so we can talk.”

The Empress stood up as if bitten.

“What treachery is this!” she demanded, but didn’t move more than a step away from her throne.

“We do not have time to play games, Empress. Your people are being annihilated by the Skarrons. I could play coy, talk to no end, bow reverently and all other types of crap, but what is the point? You’ll be dead soon no matter how hard you fight, and every moment that passes is a lost opportunity for some of you to survive. So I am showing you here and now how powerful I am, and while not all others of my kind are equal in skill or strength, our empire is stronger than the Skarrons and currently preparing a defense line in case they choose to attack us as well. They are here to kill the Li’vorkrachnika, but with such a high massing of fleets they will undoubtedly pursue other agendas within the region while assembled. Thus we are preparing to face them again if needed. We beat them the first time and pushed them out of our territory, and with a little more preparation we’ll even be able to hold back the insane fleets attacking you now.”

Of all the emotions swirling through the Protovic, anger flared to the forefront.

“You claim they are here to kill the Li’vorkrachnika?”

“I know it for a fact. They have suffered too many defeats by the Li’vorkrachnika, who have now crossed a boundary that they will not tolerate. They believe, and rightly so, that the only way to defeat the Li’vorkrachnika is to wipe out every last one of them. To do that they have assembled the majority of their fighting forces from across their entire empire to come here and kill them.”

She looked at Aaron gravely. “Then we have been betrayed.”

“Yes you have. They used you to shield themselves. The time and resources spent killing you will slow the Skarrons down a bit, and every world that the Li’vorkrachnika have is pumping out additional troops and ships at an unbelievable rate to counter this Crusade. The more time they have, the more resistance they can put up.”

“What is it that you want of those about to die?”

“To save as many of you as possible. We can’t evacuate your people given the distance involved, at least not with enough ships even if I could get them here in time. But if your people evacuate they will have a destination to run to,” Aaron said, bringing up a starmap and gradually expanding it out until the edge of Star Force territory came into view. A line connected the Protovic to the edge of Ninja Monkey space, then the map expanded out again until it showed all of Star Force territory and as much of lizard and Skarron space as they knew about.

“You are horribly outmatched,” Aaron said as the grandiose scale of the conflict sunk in on her, for she’d never had access to a map beyond the local region. “And you are not close enough for us to come to your aid. But if you can flee to us, you will have sanctuary.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Nothing.”

“If we are of no value to you then there is no cause for you to be here.”

“Yes there is. We’re the good guys. Saving people is what we do…amongst other things.”

“And you demonstrate this by taking control of my people,” she emphasized with a shaky wave of her hand to the living statues around her.

“They’re not harmed, and some of them were going to argue against whatever I said no matter how true. It’s best if you think clearly. I am monitoring your thoughts but not interfering with them. If I wanted to I could make you speak the words ordering an evacuation, but I have come as a potential friend and have no intention of being that rude without cause.”

“And what cause would justify such an offense?”

“Your ego causing people to die who otherwise could have escaped to safety.”

“I still do not believe you have no motive in this.”

“Then I will show you what we have done before, and who we are. It will take a moment, but you might want to sit down.”

“I am not so fragile. Show me what images you wish.”

“The hologram is too slow,” Aaron said as he linked to and started feeding a bunch of his own memories of Star Force into her mind. Halfway through, the effort and the content overwhelmed her and he jumped up the steps to catch her as she fell. He continued with his mental download until complete, then set her back onto her throne as he triggered his helmet to peel back and reveal his pale, unglowing face.

“Ugly, I know. But I’m a friend.”

“You can save us?” she asked, trembling.

“I know I can save some. How many more is up to you and how quickly we can work, but you have to trust me from this moment forward. We do not have time to waste, nor do I have time to explain this to others.”

“They would not believe you…but I do. And if this should be some trick,” she said, standing up as Aaron took a step back to give her room, “we are as sure as dead anyway. I will need my attendants.”

Aaron theatrically snapped his fingers and the people on the dais came back to life. He held onto the escorts and the rest of the people in the room until he’d backed down the stairs to his previous position, then released them…but they freaked out anyway upon seeing his helmet suddenly gone.

“Geez,” he said, waving a hand and rendering them all unconscious as they swarmed him. They fell to the ground as the Empress looked down at him. “They’re fine, but are way too jumpy.”

“Everyone hear me,” she said, gesturing with both hands to all assembled. “This person I declare to be an ally. You will not harm nor hinder him in any way going forward, under penalty. He has come to help us, and I am accepting this on behalf of our people.”

“Good,” Aaron said, climbing the stairs again until he was half a meter away. “Let’s get to work.”

8

November 12, 3574

Hammer System (Core Region)

Ironhold (Clan Scorpion Capitol)

Nero had gotten back two days previously, disbanding his three ships and their complement of warriors and techs that’d he’d worked with so well over the past decade and a half so they could pursue individual agendas or be reassigned to other missions. As for him, he didn’t feel up to commanding again and decided to continue the intensive training he’d put himself into on the trip back.

At the moment he was on the halo track in one of the Scorpion sanctums on the capitol/training world that served as the heart of the entire Star Force mech branch. Here Cora had designed, tested, and created the numerous prototypes that had then gone out and become standard equipment within the empire…but it was also home to their Clan and the only place he felt he should be at the moment.

Nero still couldn’t come to grasps with what happened. It had totally blindsided him and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d made a tragic mistake, though he was unable to pinpoint what it had been.

As he was running on the never ending track that had him traveling ever so slightly ‘up’ in a loop while being perpendicular to the ground thanks to the artificial gravity. Nero had gone through 8 loops on the mile-long track so far, passing most of the other Archons and getting passed by a few, for he wasn’t running hard, rather just maintaining a steady pace that most couldn’t match for more than a single lap.

He was working hard but not intensely, grinding away the big laps when a brush of air hit him as a slightly smaller female body buzzed past…only to turn around and start running backwards in front of him so she could look him in the eyes.

“We need to talk,” Cora said, matching him stride for stride while going in reverse.

“I’m sorry. I would have reported in person but I didn’t think you were on planet,” Nero said, still running. “I assume you got my report.”

“I did, which is why we need to talk,” she said, raising her left hand towards him…with Neo suddenly feeling a pressure on his chest that slowed him down.

“Now?” he asked, not fighting back and coasting to a stop. Cora matched his deceleration then pulled him over to the side of the track to get out of the way of the scattering of traffic coming their way from behind.

“Yes now,” she said, keeping her voice subdued but not whispering or talking with him telepathically. “What error did you make?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think,” Cora prompted.

“I have been thinking, ever since it happened and the entire trip back here. I don’t know where I went wrong.”

“I thought as much. You’re kicking yourself over what happened.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“You shouldn’t like it, but unless you can find fault in your actions why are you doing it?”

“Because I left those people to starve to death.”

“Could you have prevented it if you’d stayed?”

“For a few, at least.”

“Which ones?”

“There had to be someone on the planet that wasn’t suicidal.”

“Did you look?”

“Not enough.”

“Did you search at all?” Cora pressed.

“You know we did. It was detailed in my report.”

“Which is how I know that everyone you encountered as hostile. An entire city full of hostile, suicidal, so-called ‘civilians’ without so much as one person who didn’t feel like being an asshole.”

“They’re all dead by now unless something miraculous occurred.”

“Did you do it to them?”

“No, but their survival was my goal and I failed. If you know how, please tell me. I can’t get a good night’s sleep no matter how hard I train. Only a few hours here and there.”

Cora held up a finger as a pair of Archons ran past, not saying anything but looking at the bystanders oddly.

“You were given a limited invasion force, so conventional construction projects were out of the question. You were going to have to rely on the local infrastructure and work force, and you preserved them as you should have. Meticulously so. The deal you struck was inspired. There is no fault in that.”

“But now they’re all dead.”

“And who is to fault? You? I think not. They decided to ransack the planet when they lost the wager. To deny it to Star Force. They had no intention of living, Nero. They did it to themselves. Why can’t you see that?”

“You’re saying I’m not at fault?”

“Yes I am.”

“I can’t accept that. It was my mission and it failed.”

“You took two gambles. The first one was the deal you struck, and that succeeded. You conquered the planet before the time limit expired and you kept virtually everything intact. It was your assumed gamble that failed. The one where you bet that these people, absent the defiant factions, would want to live more than they would want to spite you. You didn’t expect their entire population would riot to the point of destroying their own food supply. You didn’t expect them to be that stupid, because you were trying to do a very good thing on limited resources, and if you hadn’t made that assumption there never would have been a mission. The mission itself was a gamble, but the Mendz spited us in order to deny us our prize. They either thought it was the planet itself or their lives…to be used as slaves or what naught. They decided not to let that happen, and given your limited troops you could not have stopped that.”

“But it still happened,” Nero said, a bit of anger boiling over into his voice.

“Yes, it did happen. Something very bad happened, but neither you nor any of your people caused it. The Mendz trashed their own cities. They destroyed their own fields. They destroyed their warehouses. Who in their right mind does that? Think about it. Their entire military fought to the death. Not one surrender, correct?”

“No.”

“Why would you think their civilians would be different? They behaved because of the terms of the deal required them to. Once they’d lost you saw what they were really like.”

“What should I have done differently?”

“If a population will not submit, you either have to see them destroyed in one form or another, by your hand or theirs, or you choose not to invade. If you hadn’t gone, what would have happened?”

“They’d still be there…but pushed off the worlds they’d invaded.”

“For how long? We can’t babysit out there. There are too many worlds. You were right in wanting to find a final solution, and you did remarkably well with it, but ultimately they had a choice to make that you could not control short of an army of wielding stun weapons and foreknowledge of their actions. They either accept your rule or they destroy everything of value to you knowing that they’d die as well. They chose the latter.”

“I can’t be sure of that,” Nero argued. “If there was even one person out there that didn’t riot…”

“How could you have saved them?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“Leaving was the right decision. They created that mess on their world, and there was nothing to be gained from staying if there wasn’t someone reasonable there to aid. If bad things are going to go down and we can do nothing to stop it, then there’s no purpose for us in being there…because we will try to mitigate it. And there are some battles we should not step into.”

“You didn’t do that with the Kiritas.”

Cora’s expression grew grim. “They asked for our help, Nero. And many died because we could not save them. We had to pick and choose which areas to help and strengthen, and no matter what choice was made people died. If we had walked away far more would have, but it was dirty work. I’m glad I wasn’t there, but those that were had to make a choice to keep their own supplies separate. Keep their ships, their crew, everything they had separate from the Kiritas. When people are dying you want to do everything you can, and they would have reduced their own rations to save a few more. They knew this going into it, so they established the rule beforehand.”

“How can you say one person isn’t worth saving if you’ve got food to share?”

“It’s a cruel rule, but a necessary one. Our people had to remain strong in order to help the Kiritas at maximum efficiency. If they reduced their own rations down to minimum in order to share them, then they would have become so weak they couldn’t do the job. The Kiritas on the whole needed Star Force there, fit and strong and active, where they couldn’t be. When you can’t save everyone, first you save yourself then go for bonus points. You do not make saving everyone your mission, for if you do you will suffer failure anxiety the entire way and it will both cloud your judgement and eat away at your heart. Remind yourself that you’re not causing this and that you’re here to help. Be the beacon of light in the darkness…but you can’t fear wadding into it.”

“But what could I have done different?”

“If you don’t act because they might kill themselves, they control you with the threat. So not invading wasn’t an option. This should leave a bad taste in your mouth, Nero. You shouldn’t feel good about it. But after all this time fighting the lizards it shouldn’t be a new thing.”

“They didn’t starve to death,” he pointed out.

Cora closed her eyes, feeling the horror that difference entailed.

“No, they didn’t. The Mendz made a choice, perhaps without thinking about the consequences, but they did do it to themselves, Nero. It wasn’t you. And they knew it wasn’t you. You specifically preserved all that equipment, all those resources. No one was starving because of you.”

“Should I have asked for more people?”

“No,” Cora said, shaking her head. “You took enough and made it work.”

“But ultimately failed.”

“Those in the surrounding region don’t think so.”

“No. That part of the mission was a success. But destroying an entire planetary population wasn’t part of the plan.”

“We can’t control people, Nero.”

“Ironic considering the fact that we can.”

“Temporarily. We can’t make people’s choices for them, and whenever we go into a bad situation the history of that place can’t be wiped away with the wave of a magic wand. Actions have consequences, and whatever the Mendz had done over the years to put them in a societal state that encouraged and glorified defiance at the price of self-sacrifice is not something you could undo upon arriving. You know what it’s taken for the Veliquesh, right?”

“They lived.”

“Because we took them prisoner. And no, they didn’t all live. Some killed themselves because they wouldn’t accept being prisoners…and some died because they wouldn’t exist outside of their society. We live in a vicious galaxy, Nero. And sometimes things go bad even when we win.”

“But it happened on my watch.”

“And I’d be pissed if it happened on mine, which technically it did because you’re my Clan. And if the entire population of Heffen has starved to death by now, what do we do?”

“Short of traveling through time…nothing.”

Cora jabbed a finger into his sweaty chest. “Wrong.”

Nero raised an eyebrow. “What have I missed?”

“You won a big victory, but had it soured by a defeat. The civilians on that planet were supposed to be part of the spoils of war. They were a prize that the Mendz denied us. That was a loss, and a painful one considering how it went down. It wasn’t our fault, but it was a loss none the less. We didn’t have enough people there to subdue them and they took advantage of that…and that’s something we risk when we fight without overwhelming advantage. There is no fault there, but there is still the shame of defeat. So what do we do when we’ve gotten our ass kicked?”

“They’re dead by now. There’s no one to get even with.”

“Mojo.”

“I don’t take your meaning.”

“I’m giving you an MCV and three cargo ships filled with techs, plus one warship in escort. You’re going back there and claiming the planet for Clan Scorpion. If there are any survivors you can deal with them as you like, but the galaxy saw us run away from that system and in a way the Mendz won because of that. We’re going to deny them that barbaric victory by going back and making that world one of our own. I’ll give you three subsequent convoys of supplies, but beyond that you have to produce everything locally. I want a proper expansion and I want you to expunge the horrors that have happened there by shining the light as brightly and obnoxiously as you can. And when you’re done building a proper colony, either you or someone else is going to use it as a base of operations to put some order to the surrounding star systems. Do you understand me, youngling? Go back and kick the crap out of those bastards’ ghosts.”

“Yes, mom,” he replied in an automatic tone.

“Ships and crew are assembling. Get your ass off the track and into motion. You can train on the way back.”

“Thank you.”

“We’re Scorpions, all of us. In victories and defeats we’re united, and we need to settle the score here. And while you’re doing it on our behalf, stop putting the fate of the galaxy on your shoulders. It’s worse than weighted training clothing and slows you down far too much. I know from experience.”

“So what do you do?”

“Become the avenging assassin. Go after your targets and leave everything else to its own fate. Don’t let their misery drag on you. Be as strong and powerful as possible.”

“Detached?”

“To a point, yes. That way the only way the darkness can kill you is directly. Never by proxy.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Never said it was easy, and you can’t let yourself become heartless in the process. It’s a matter of focus. Go practice,” she said, raising a fist up to shoulder level in front of her.

Nero did likewise and bumped his against hers, then he was off and running to the nearest available exit while Cora stayed put for a moment until another Archon caught up to her, then she fell into step with him.

“Need something?” he asked.

“A little more effort out of you, pansy. How’s the arm feeling…”

9

January 31, 3575

Dfarch System (Crusade front)

Dfarch

“How many?” the Empress asked Aaron.

“We’ve got more worlds than we know what to do with, so that’s not an issue.”

“And you give them out freely?”

“Sometimes. Others have to pay for them. We do what’s needed.”

“If you fought the Li’vorkrachnika and won, why are they so powerful here?”

“They are beyond our reach here and chose to evacuate their leadership and start rebuilding while their old worlds fell to us. They abandoned them in order to buy time.”

“And what did you do with their people?”

“Most of them fought to the death rather than surrender, but in the end we were able to convince some of them to switch sides.”

The Protovic looked at him wide-eyed. “You are allied with another faction of Li’vorkrachnika?”

“No. They became part of our empire and are even now helping us fight on our rimward border against other enemies. We don’t kill people unless we have to. We’d rather…”

“Excuse me,” a Protovic said, half out of breath as he ran up to the Empress and took a hasty knee. “We have received…a warning from…our scouts. The Skarrons are coming…here.”

The Empress’s eyes widened, and Aaron could see her words catch in her throat.

“How long?” he asked in her stead.

“Our scout ship is faster than them. It made the jump once they started to in order to make certain. They will be here within a day. Two at most.”

“Load up whatever ships you can and get them out of here,” Aaron told her firmly, drawing some objectionable glares from her attendants who would never have used that tone in her presence. “We’re out of time. Save as many as you can and we’ll escort them back to our territory and I will find you a planet.”

“Of our own or as part of your empire?” she asked cautiously, though the fear in her eyes drained her curiosity in her own question.

“We’ll figure that out later. Right now we need to save as many as we can.”

“Take the children on your ship,” she pleaded. “You can carry more of them.”

“Good idea, but I’m going to do more than that,” he said, looking at the messenger as he was backing away. “You. Do you know what jumpline they’re coming in on?”

“Yes. The same the scout arrived through.”

“Do you have any space mines?”

“We don’t use such tactics,” the Empress said, with the messenger relieved to not have to answer that question.

“Do you have any rocks or rubble that we can drag in the way? Asteroids, old stations, dead ships…anything?”

“Not that will matter.”

“Every ship we destroy matters. And if we know where and approximately when they’re coming, we can ambush them. It may not save your world, but at least we’ll make them pay for it.”

“We?”

“I’m taking my two warships and waiting at their exiting jumppoint. They can’t send very many ships through at once, so there will be a bottleneck and I intend to kill them as quickly as possible. I need your warships there in support, and the longer we can hold that point the more time your evacuation ships will have to pick up people and exit via the star. If we lose stellar orbit, can your ships outrun theirs to get to a jumppoint?”

“Ours are faster, but it won’t matter if they blockade them.”

“Which is why we have to hit them as they exit to buy time. But you have to give the order now to evacuate. Every minute wasted could be more people dead that didn’t have to be.”

“We don’t have nearly enough ships for everyone,” she said gravely.

“I know. That can’t be helped. Save those that can be saved and don’t waste time trying to pick favorites or some lottery. Just shove people on the ships as fast as you can and get them to a nearby system where I can rendezvous with you later. I’ll stay here and kill what I can, then meet up with you.”

“I can’t leave people here to die.”

“They’re dead no matter what you do or don’t do.”

“Anja,” the Empress said, with another female Protovic walking up next to her throne and taking a respectful knee. “You hereby have my full authority to give orders in my name. Go with the Archon and command our fleet as is necessary. We cannot waste time with relayed orders. She will go with you on your ship, yes?”

“I’ll need comm protocols for her to use, but yes, she can stay by my side on the bridge.”

“I will stay and die here with my people. Anja, help the Archon kill as many Skarrons as possible. That is your purpose now. Go with him.”

“As you deem necessary, Empress,” she said, standing up and walking over to Aaron, then spun on her sandal-wearing heel to stand shoulder to shoulder beside him and completing the symbolic changing of service.

“Innet. You will take my full authority and organize and leave with the evacuation fleet. I will see to it that there are those with the necessary skills onboard, but the bulk of those being taken away will be our children. Do not allow the fearful to steal away their future.”

“I will need guards at the loading zones.”

“You will have them,” she said, looking to Aaron. “It seems the question of a new planet is moot. I am giving our next generation into your care. Take them to your Protovic and promise me they will be well cared for.”

“If they can make it to our borders, they will be.”

“Innet, Anja…see to it that happens, and at that point your service to me ends. Survive and find a new life with Star Force afterwards. That is my last command to you.”

Both remained silent, and Aaron could feel that they did not want to leave and live if she was not, but they weren’t going to contest her orders.

“Go. Before we waste any more time,” she said with an angry flick of her hand.

Aaron didn’t waste any time with sentiment, throwing the Empress a respectful two finger salute then turning and picking up Anja.

“Sorry, but we have to run,” he said, tossing her onto his back and holding her there telekinetically as he sprinted off through the assembled crowds, shoving aside those that did not get out of the way.

“Take her with you, please,” Anja implored him as she bounced around on his back once they were outside and he was moving as fast as a ground vehicle.

“Once the Skarrons start to arrive, I intend to kill as many of them as I can in order to give your planetary defenses the best odds possible. We won’t have time to come back to the planet and pick her up.”

“She is the most deserving person on this planet. If anyone is to live it must be her.”

“She’s decided otherwise and I don’t have time to argue. Right now my priority is getting as many of you off this world as possible. Which ones aren’t my concern. I’m sorry, but she made her choice and now I need your help to get as much junk in that spacelane as possible. Even something small hit at jump speeds can kill a ship and I want every advantage possible. Can you do that?”

“There are no asteroids to move.”

“Debris then? Unflyable ships? Cargo crates? Anything with mass…”

“Go right. That tall building,” she said, managing to extend an arm to point around the invisible lashes holding her onto his armor.

Aaron swerved without question, taking the moment to send a few orders via comm to his three ships in orbit.

“That door,” Anja amended when they got closer. When he got there he slung her off his back so skillfully she was able to step into a casual walk immediately and entered the building with her normal poise…or the best imitation of it that she could manage given the circumstances.

Orders followed, and to her credit Anja didn’t waste any time. A few minutes later when she was finished a vehicle was waiting for them outside the doors.

“Get in,” she told Aaron, and he hopped over the tall railing, bypassing the door entirely as she and two other personnel entered and sat behind the driver. “To the alien craft with all haste!”

Aaron held on as the wheeled vehicle accelerated quickly, and somehow the traffic ahead was clearing for them, opening up a straight shot to where his dropship was parked.

“These two are for communications,” she said, pointing to the pair of male Protovic accompanying her. “May they come with me?”

“Yes. And him too.”

“The driver?” Anja asked, shocked.

“And those three there,” Aaron said, pointing to a trio of guards unnecessarily standing near the dropship as they slowed next to it, for no one else was allowed within 200 meters of it. “I can make room for them on the warship, but we have to go now. 4 more lives saved, Anja. Order them to come.”

“Guards!” she yelled to get their attention. “On orders of the Empress, come with me now. You too driver.”

“Why?” he asked, though he was walking the direction she indicated without disobedience.

“It’s your lucky day,” Aaron said, shoving him along faster towards the ramp.

“You are assigned to me for the duration of my mission,” Anja said formally, though she was starting to tear up as the reality of the moment crushed her. “Get onboard.”

Aaron didn’t wait for them, running on inside and having a chat with the pilot. When they took off he flew low rather than heading straight to orbit, coming over top the crowds on the streets that had no idea what was about to happen to them.

“Grabbing a few more on the way out,” Aaron told Anja as he walked to the edge of the still lowered boarding ramp. “Explain it to them when they’re onboard.”

As the dropship moved into a drifting hover one body after another flew up and into view as Aaron telekinetically yanked them off the street and into his arms, then he tossed them back to the other Protovic so they could deal with their panicked states. Coordinating with the pilot to keep them moving over the thickest crowds, Aaron kept fishing people out at random until the dropship was packed, literally, then he closed the hatch and stood still in the rear as there wasn’t enough room left to walk up to the cockpit. He’d wedged them in that tightly, and even though they were freaking out now it wouldn’t matter later. They were on their way to orbit, and despite whoever they’d just left behind, either on the street or in their homes, it wouldn’t matter in a few days or weeks or however long the planet held out, for they were as good as dead already.

Harsh as it was, he’d just done them a favor…though he didn’t expect them to feel that way. Very bad things were about to happen on this planet, the kind of things that would drive an Archon crazy if you let yourself dwell on it. But for a few more people, at least, they weren’t going to have to be here to experience it.

“Here they come,” Aaron told Anja as she stood next to him in the command nexus onboard one of two warships he had with him on the jumpline. The cargo ship, while it did have some weapons and good shields that could have helped in this situation, was now full of Protovic children packed in as tightly as the Protovic supplies that had accompanied them would allow and was already on its way straight back to Star Force territory, leaving just the two warships and their drone fleets to fight.

He didn’t even have 300 ships in total. Less than half that at 142, which put him at an even greater disadvantage than Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae. He did have 1,209 Protovic warships in support, but the enemy fleet was also larger. Estimated at 2.8 million, so all in all, the video clip he pulled from the ship’s entertainment library and sent to all of his remote pilots onboard both warships seemed appropriate.

“We will not win this battle,” he told them as the first Skarron ships arrived, running into pieces of space stations disassembled and flung far out into the spacelane beyond where the invaders were expected to emerge. “We will not die here either. The warships accompanying us will, because they will not abandon their worlds to the Skarrons.”

“So this is where we hold them. This is where we fight. This is where they die,” he said, cuing up the clip from 300 and sending it to every remote pilot’s station so they could hear the same words in that setting to get his point across, then he turned to Anja. “At this point, you just watch unless I need an order relayed.”

“You’re right about them not leaving. Even if the Empress gave it, they will ignore all orders to run and fight to the death.”

“We’re going to make sure a lot of Skarrons go with them,” he said, turning away from her and closing his eyes. “Now I have to concentrate.”

“Do your best,” she urged. “And thank you.”

Aaron fully linked into the nexus using his Sav-enhanced mind and became the fleet, watching the Skarron ships arrive and seeing the first of them to get through the debris as the rest broke up and flew past their position on in towards the star unable to slow down further. When the first intact one did emerge Aaron sent a corvette after its dark red bulky hull, a coloration that indicated it was from a faction different from those that had invaded Star Force territory long ago.

The corvette flew in towards it so fast the Skarron never had a chance to evade and quickly succumbed to a braking run that left the drone sitting right above it and pounding it with Dre’mo’don cannons. Its shields popped with the second hit and its hull didn’t last much longer than that. Being tempered against plasma weapons meant nothing against the vastly superior Dre’mo’dons and within a few seconds the ship was dead and the drone was accelerating around to another flanking position as a few more Skarron ships made it through the debris field intact.

Eventually the mines ran their course and the enemy ships began coming in in clusters. Aaron had the Protovic holding back in a large halo around the calculated jumppoint and sent out correction maneuvers to get them focused on the actual one…which was a bit deeper into the stellar gravity well than he’d expected.

They were given orders to let the Star Force ships shoot first and to go after any that got past them, so at the moment they were holding position and waiting while Aaron’s ships put on a display of what ‘superior firepower’ truly meant.

And it was working. Several Skarron ships would emerge every 10 seconds or so, but Aaron’s drones were so powerful they were able to destroy or disable them enough to be able to move on to the next batch as they came in…but it didn’t last. Apparently those dying were able to send a message back up the jumpline and the exit point began to drift further out as they began braking a bit harder.

Aaron moved out with it, chasing the incoming ships and soon finding that they weren’t just pulling back the jumppoint, but using multiple ones so they wouldn’t run into a single location…which also meant that if Aaron sent his ships into the middle of the line there would be a possibility of collisions.

With a thought he split his fleet and arrayed it like a cylinder, stretching it out up the jumpline and sending in the drones to target the now widely spaced ships as more kept coming in like little bugs on the battlemap. He kept the two jumpships at the base of the cylinder with the Protovic behind them as he quickly determined what sequencing the Skarrons were using so they didn’t run into each other. Once he figured that out he sent the drones into the zone on pointblank attack runs, blasting apart the Skarron ships as fast as he could while the jumpships sniped at the few that penetrated deeper through the jumppoint with their bloon launchers and Bra’hem beams…the latter of which penetrated a Skarron dreadnaught straight through with a single shot.

It’s working, Aaron thought to himself, but that debris was going to accumulate and make his attack runs harder. It would also interfere with the last bit of the Skarrons’ braking, causing lower level collisions, but if it delayed his ships from getting them their deaths were going to be to their advantage.

“Anja, I need your fleet to tow the debris in towards the star.”

“What?”

“Just give it a tug, or we’re going to get so much here it’ll prevent our ships from maneuvering and the Skarrons will bunch up.”

“Won’t they hit it too?”

“Just relay the order. They’re not responding to mine.”

Anja used a portable headseat and started talking as Aaron kept assigning targets and his remote pilots flew their assigned drones or targeted their weapons batteries as the Protovic ships eventually began breaking from their battle positions and moving into the base of the column, but not to shoot the remains of the Skarrons, for they needed them intact in order to tow them out, and that was the sticking in point in the order that Aaron had given within a millisecond along with numerous others going out to his own fleet thanks to the nexus neural interface.

Piece by piece the clogging debris started moving down to the star, but more and more was being added and soon Aaron had to request all the Protovic ships start moving in to assist. If they could keep the jumplane mostly clear then maybe Aaron could actually do this…but even his weapon systems had their limits in terms of ammunition/power, and if there was ever a time to test them this was going to be it.

10

February 3, 3575

Dfarch System (Crusade front)

Inner Zone

Aaron cycled back a destroyer nearly out of power towards his warship’s hold as the jumpship continued to fire its beam weapons. It had reserves the drones didn’t, but all the available recharges for them had been swapped out over the past 2 days of continuous fighting. Aaron hadn’t left the bridge for more than a handful of minutes as the Skarron convoy continued to come into the system in steady, staggered formations…right into the Star Force buzz saw. They’d altered their arrival jumppoint as much as they could, but given their weaker gravity drives they couldn’t brake much harder than they already were, meaning Aaron had them right where he wanted.

But it was all coming apart now and the Protovic ships were fully engaging rather than clearing debris, with a huge trail of it drifting in towards the star like a road of Skarron torment, for their ships didn’t have a chance arriving in such small numbers. The Protovic would not have been able to destroy them fast enough on their own and their numbers would have swelled, quickly giving the invaders the advantage, but Aaron being here had changed that, and blast it all, he was going to have to retreat because he was running out of fuel!

If he’d known he was going into heavy battle he would have stocked up appropriately, for while the standard complement of disposable weapons and fuel cells to power the gravity drives and beam weaponry were always in great number onboard carrier jumpships such as these, 52 hours of straight fighting was not something that was prepared for. When the lizard core worlds were invaded such battle longevity was expected over the course of weeks and they would have extra cargo supplements, but Aaron had no such resources here.

And damn it all, he could have pulled it off too! The Skarrons were dying in waves and the Protovic were sweeping the floor to keep his drones flying free…but now the Protovic were going to die because his ships were running out of fuel. Of all the defeats in history this had to be the most spectacular and most humiliating at the same time. 1,394,338 Skarron ships destroyed and counting by his 142, but now only 6 of them were still in the fight and the four drones among them would be recalled within 12 minutes before they were dead in space.

He could keep fighting with the jumpships’ weapons, but he couldn’t hold the jumppoint with them. The Skarrons would start getting ships through and their numbers would swell, meaning this position was about to be overrun.

The Protovic defense fleet was engaging and buying some more time, but they couldn’t lay down the same damage his drones could, meaning the Skarrons would gain numbers as the debris field increased and eventually overwhelm them, then head in to the planet and begin obliterating it.

Aaron, still leading the ongoing battle with his mind, opened a comm channel to the Protovic fleet. Anja was on the other side of the wall watching the battle alongside the Captain and in Aaron’s command chair, but since the first hour of combat there had been no need for her to relay orders. Seeing the damage Star Force was doing, the Protovic fleet captains bent over backwards to do everything they could to assist him without hesitation.

“You have fought well, allies, but my ships are running out of fuel. Within minutes only my two jumpships will have weapons and engine power, and we will not be able to hold this position any longer. According to your scouts’ report, there are many more ships on their way. Too many for you to defeat. You may want to die here, fighting, but as hard as leaving with the knowledge of what is going to happen on the planet is, know that you cannot stop it. You may buy them an extra hour, but no more. I will do what I can to slow the Skarrons as we leave, but I invite you to come with me and help escort your evacuation fleet back to our territory.”

“I hate leaving, but there is no choice. If we stay here, we die and we do not prevent the planet’s fall. If we leave, the planet falls but we survive to avenge them later. It is a bad choice to make, but the Skarrons have given us no other. Dfarch dies no matter what we do. So when we begin to withdraw, please come with us.”

“By the power the Empress has bestowed upon me,” Anja’s voice added, “I order all warships to assist in a fighting retreat centered on the Star Force jumpships. If we can distract the Skarrons into chasing us, we may be able to buy several more hours for the Empress where our deaths will not. So long as we live the Skarrons will have to split their focus, therefore we must stay alive and secure what time we can.”

“There is one last thing I can do,” Aaron added. “If the Skarrons are sharing information with those up the line, then they will know what has happened here and how many of their ships mine have killed. They may value destroying us more than attacking the planet. I will linger in this system and try to get them to chase us. If they take the bait it will buy some more time, but I don’t have the weaponry left to kill enough of them.”

Aaron saw in mind’s eye comm channels opening up across the Protovic fleet as dozens of their captains, weary from the past 2 days of maneuvers and seeing the unbeatable foe for what it truly was, were chiming in their individual support and allegiance to Aaron, bypassing their fleet commanders and going beyond Anja’s orders. After seeing what he had done, and how it had not been enough to stop the Skarrons, they no longer wanted to stay and die if there was no hope of saving the Empress.

With a thought Aaron uploaded comm protocols to all those ships and folded them into the Star Force battlemap, immediately giving them deployment orders as Skarron warships began to slip through the lesser firepower that Star Force was throwing down. He had them abandon the direct engagements and begin covering for the damaged ships in order to allow them to withdraw. Some wouldn’t go, so Aaron didn’t bother contacting them again. If this was where they wanted to make their last stand so be it. He’d done what he could.

The Archon made sure to get the Protovic fleet out ahead and have his two jumpships bring up the rear as the last of the drones redocked on nearly empty fuel cells. Accelerating away from the jumppoint slowly, he looked back and saw more and more Skarron ships coming in and pooling up in the debris field with a fair number of them colliding with it and taking themselves out.

The Protovic ships that stayed behind were superior in firepower and shields and were able to hold their own for a good while, but they couldn’t kill the Skarrons faster than they were arriving and the numbers tipped to their disadvantage quickly. At the end several Protovic ships changed their mind and turned to run…but three were damaged and couldn’t make better acceleration than the Skarrons’ weaker gravity drives.

Immediately Aaron reversed course with his two jumpships, ordering the rest of the Protovic to keep moving forward as he went back for them, popping out two of his drones with the most fuel left after he got the jumpships back on site so they wouldn’t have to burn off more power braking on their own. The destroyer and cruiser shot on ahead though, diving into the cluster of Protovic ships limping off and Aaron knew he was going to lose both of them. At this point he didn’t care and kept them fighting and destroying Skarron ships left and right as he brought his jumpship up and ordered the damaged Protovic vessels to get alongside it, at which point he extended his IDF field and grabbed them within it, then used his own engines to tow them away from harm while the rest of those fleeing Protovic ships accelerated away under their own power.

The two drones remained on station fighting, with the cruiser running out of power 18 seconds later and the destroyer lasting another 2 minutes. Their armor held up for a long while after that, but the Skarrons mercilessly pounced on them, not even thinking about capturing and studying them. If they were Aaron was going to swing back and take them out himself, but the ravenous combat appetite of the Skarrons took care of it for him.

He and the Protovic fleet now loyal to him kept to stellar orbit and waited while the Skarron fleet massed, then made a few feints to pull them out of position and danced around the star for a long while until the enemy got it in their heads to start blockading all outgoing jumplines…at which point Aaron had to leave the system behind. He repeated his request for the Protovic to come with them and Anja backed him up, but still a few ships changed their minds and headed back to the planet.

The rest jumped out along with the two Star Force jumpships, headed to the rendezvous point where every other surviving Protovic ship from Dfarch had fled with as many children shoved into them as they could fit.

When Nero returned to Heffen he did so alone. None of the Scorpions who had fought alongside him during the 13 year war had been assigned to him, giving him a fresh group of warriors and techs that hadn’t witnessed the struggles and horrors that had happened here. Those that did had been allowed to move on and shake it off, leaving him alone as the only one with a tie here.

As soon as they got back to the planet a scattering of ships in orbit ran off. None of them were Mendz, but rather scavengers coming to pluck what they could from the surface ruins and the fields of dead…but as soon as he got his people to surveying the planet from orbit he discovered that there were pockets of survivors. None too large in scale, but they were numerous and spread across the planet in a shotgun spread of malnourished and dying Mendz…with a few having fared better at or near where Nero had left the supply caches.

He immediately ordered troops to the surface armed with stun weapons and orders to hunt down and capture the survivors. Meanwhile he had techs pouring into one of the burnt out cities to start refurbishing pieces of it in order to establish a prison where the Mendz could be kept while they pumped food into them and dealt with whatever other medical issues there were…whether they liked it or not.

None of them were going to be allowed to run free, but as it turned out about a third of them had no wish to fight him. The others were textbook copies of those that had burned the planet, with the resulting horrors having done nothing to diminish their uncompromising defiance. Nero had them put in a separate area while he collected those that were, or had become reasonable out of the small groups that the hunters kept sending back as they scoured the planet.

It would take months to pick them all up, and at the end of the day there was just under 30,000 surviving…but that was 30,000 more than he’d expected, and while he wasn’t giving them back the planet it did feel good to know that his original mission here hadn’t been a total failure. Most of the planet’s population had died, but not all of it. And out of that tiny remnant there were those that were able to be worked with. Nero decided not to bother trying to incorporate them into Star Force via indoctrination, so he had one city partially demolished and then rebuilt for them to live in while his people began claiming the rest of the planet for their own.

The prisoners remained prisoners, and as he got proper facilities built he put them into the standard ‘indoctrinate or isolate’ protocol that would give them a chance to change their ways and if not they would be contained and cared for until they died. They wouldn’t starve to death or be eaten by their fellow Mendz. They’d have an ‘easy’ end, if there was such a thing, all the while with the obvious out available to them if they wanted to try for it.

With them taken care of and the agreeable Mendz wanting to be left alone anyway, he gave them a set amount of square miles to reestablish their fields and build other buildings as they were able, then put them out of mind while assigning a personnel relations attendant to oversee the building of a voluntary indoctrination program that he knew they would not make use of. It was there as an option there so there was a way out in case he was wrong and an individual amongst them suddenly decided to grow a brain.

With that redundancy in place Nero was able to write them off. His mission here was to create a full colony for Clan Scorpion, and from it to exert their influence on the surrounding systems and put some order to the chaos in this region. Right now that meant he had to build, build, build, and in the process of doing so pick up all the dead and clean away the riot marks on the Mendz cities as he slowly deconstructed and recycled them, removing one dot on the map after another while adding his own, made of proper Star Force architecture.

What had happened had happened and couldn’t be undone, but Cora had been right about not letting the defeat linger. This planet was a marker for a great horror, but it wasn’t going to remain as such. With every day that passed the stain on it was slowly removed with a new destiny rising in its place…and the same was true of Nero’s mojo, which had been utterly destroyed upon his previous failure here.

His brain told him otherwise, but his screaming heart had been overwhelming it with grief and futility that were washing away with the therapeutic construction that he was overseeing. There were no more battles to be fought here with weapons, for the Mendz were all contained and the scavengers and other visitors wanted to have nothing to do with the impressive warships in orbit. The battle here was now one of resources and construction, which were also part of an Archon’s impressive skillset.

Nero would stay here for a long time, but Cora would never come. Not that she had to with so many other projects on the table and an empire to lead on top of her Clan, but this was still due to her. He and the others might be doing the work of building, but had she not seen fit to send him back here, he felt that he would have carried a scar from this place for the rest of his life rather than experiencing the slow healing that this assignment allowed him.

And as the decades went by the free Mendz population expanded, their older ones dying off, and in what was a blink of an eye for an Archon centuries old, those who had been part of the great Riot were all gone. None had even attempted indoctrination amongst the prisoners or the colonists, leaving him with fresher minds to guide and who, after several generations, grew restless enough that they wanted more than to simply exist. They wanted a purpose, a mission, and to avoid the boredom of their reclusive existence they decided to officially become a Star Force ward and join the empire…even as it was crumbling.

www.aerkijyr.com

300 clip

Table of Contents

- Star Force: Crusade (SF93) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr

- Star Force: Paladin (SF94) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr

- Star Force: Capitulation (SF95) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr

- Star Force: Leonidas (SF96) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-Ki Jyr