Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (45-48)
Author: Aer-Ki Jyr
Date: 2016-03-31T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Literature & Fiction; Action & Adventure; Science Fiction & Fantasy; Science Fiction; Colonization; Galactic Empire; Military; Space Fleet; Space Marine; Space Opera; Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages); Teen & Young Adult
Description: The Origin Series is empire building at its finest, with 100 episodes and over 2.5 million words in the military science fiction serial detailing the rise of Star Force from corporate entity into an interstellar empire over the course of more than a millennium. Follow a core group of characters known as the Trailblazers as they use alien technology and knowledge discovered in Antarctic ruins to obtain limited immortality and lead Humanity out into the galaxy, encountering, befriending, and fighting hundreds of alien races all the while desperately trying to prepare Earth for the unbeatable thr
Publisher: Archon Lore
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

BATTLEMELD

1

36 years ago…

Travis-189377 hopped over a barricade on the ‘indoor’ paintball training chamber, ducking down and rolling to the left before popping up and shooting the target sphere on a turret with a red stinger…with a purple one coming in almost simultaneously from behind him where Karen-189376 emerged, jumping over the same barricade then hurdling the next. The pair repeated the process on the next turret, working their way out from the start area in the center of the chamber towards the outermost ring where the finish pedestal lay.

They didn’t know where it was, hidden behind the barricades and pillars, with various bunkers on the outer wall where trainers were stationed to add their sniping skills to the tandem challenge. To make things worse, each of the turrets had to be hit by both colors of paintballs, else they wouldn’t deactivate…and the shots had to come in together, meaning the Archon trainees had to coordinate fire, all the while ducking for cover and keeping themselves from getting hit.

Travis and Karen were having little trouble, moving from point to point in a snake-like pattern that coiled them in an expanding spiral rather than trying to head straight towards the outer ring as most trainees attempted. Even now, after completing several circulations, the pair was nearing the outer areas with most of the turrets atop of the pillars inside of them still active. There were too many of them to take out with their limited ammunition, so they had to pick and choose as they found a path to the outer ring.

Their chosen path was longer, but more reliable. Travis and Karen had ran this challenge multiple times, and had worked out the route they were most comfortable with, allowing them to move quite quickly, despite the extra distance they had to run and jump. The two trainees were so in sync that they very rarely had to stay behind cover, with most of their ducks followed by rolls, runs, and jumps that kept them moving constantly.

The trainers were a wildcard, for there were many hidden bunkers in the exterior walls and they never knew which ones would contain the sniper rifles throwing stingers at them. There was also a rover moving about through the rings, passing through the gaps between the low walls that were heavily guarded by turrets, discouraging trainees over the centuries from taking that direct route to the outer ring.

Travis and Karen had tried that way before, as many others had, but like their predecessors they knew that running the gaps was a sure way of getting hit, though the rover had no such difficulties. If trainees stayed put for too long the rover would come up on their flank and dislodge them…which was another good reason to keep moving, and at the speed the trainee pair were progressing the rover wasn’t going to be an issue. Their indirect path kept it moving around chasing them, reducing it to a ranged sniper like the trainers, except it wasn’t designed to operate as such.

Travis leapt over another of the low walls, firing at a turret simultaneously as Karen popped up out of cover to his left, with their binary rifles tagging and disabling the target sphere on top and deactivating it. By the time the trainee had dropped into cover with a few stingers passing over his head, Karen was already coming over with him, but a few meters to his left. When she ducked down, drawing the turrets her way, he popped up and moved over the wall, ducked down, rolled to the right, then came up and fired on another, becoming a distraction for Karen who likewise came over firing, hitting the same turret and deactivating it before she dropped down behind cover.

Both of them then moved left, rotating around the wide curve and taking out two turrets that were actually inside their ring before coming up and moving over again…this time with a feint from Karen that drew sniper fire just long enough for Travis to go over. As he did he spotted a barrel within a wall bunker over the outer wall. Remembering the spot as he dropped down, he rolled to the right and came back up, sending three shots towards it.

Two missed and hit the upper wall over the small firing slit, with the third hitting low and doing little more than throwing a few red paint splatters up onto the barrel…which flicked his direction.

A muffled groan sounded as Karen’s more carefully placed purple stinger slipped through the four inch gap and hit the trainer inside. That gave Travis an opening that he took, flinging himself up and over the last wall, whereupon he landed into a somersault roll and came up with his back towards the outer chamber wall, glancing side to side.

He didn’t see the finish pedestal, but he knew from gut instinct that there was a sniper nest to his right, and as he looked he saw two stubs of barrels sticking out around the curve of the wall move towards him. Travis dropped to his belly as he turned, giving him an extra split second, then fired off two quick shots. They hit low, but were followed up by Karen’s shots as she came over almost directly in front of the snipers, firing as she fell.

Both barrels went askew, and Travis knew the trainers were unconscious or numbed to the point that they couldn’t hold onto their weapons. He got to his feet, pushing his safety sunglasses back up a fraction on his nose, and followed Karen further around the curve of the outer ring, combining fire with her on another turret as the rover finally showed up ahead of them…but on the far side of the short finishing pedestal.

Travis sprinted ahead, dodging left as Karen went right and the rover shot between them, then Travis jumped up into a superman pose over the middle, giving the rover a very shallow firing angle as Karen went low and ducked behind the pedestal’s silhouette some ten meters away, using it to block the rover’s shots. Travis fell to the ground hard behind her, but he rolled out of it and came up shooting a couple of pointless shots at the rover as she scrambled forward and came up next to the pedestal.

Just then a distant sniper caught Travis in the gut and he doubled over…but remained conscious. His uncontrolled landing smashed his face into the ground, popping his glasses off as he fought to twist his neck around to unblock his nose that was filling up with blood from the impact and allow him to breathe easier as his torso seemed unwilling to respond to his body’s commands.

His legs still worked, and he got them up underneath him, flipping him over to where he could see the blue finish lights on the ceiling, indicating that Karen had gotten to and slapped down the button on the finish pedestal…but he already knew that, even if he didn’t actually see it happen. She’d been close enough that there was no way she was going to miss.

“Looks like your rifle took half the hit,” she said, suddenly appearing over him and helping stretch out his body into a more comfortable position. “Your face is a mess though.”

“That I can feel,” he told his sister, finding it a little hard to talk, for once the stun energy hit his blood stream it spread throughout his body in small amounts…which actually helped to mitigate the larger amount in his torso as it slowly broke down and absorbed into his cells.

The sensation didn’t last long, for a medic came out to him and injected the destunning serum that returned life to his body, then applied a small device to the side of his nose that triggered an acceleration of the healing process enough to clot up the breach within seconds. He kept the small Star Force device on for several minutes, knowing from past experience that if he didn’t his nose might break open again, for the thing wasn’t a regenerator. He’d never been injured bad enough to need one of those, but Ender-189388 had when he almost snapped his arm completely off in what looked like a harmless enough fall on Blood Gulch.

The thing had repaired him on the spot, making it obvious that the alien technology was far superior to the weak ass devices Star Force built, but he was glad to have the help, otherwise he’d be holding a bloody cloth to his face for a half hour or so. This way was much quicker…and cleaner.

“Congratulations,” the medic offered. “Is that your fifth?”

“What…oh, yes. Yes it is,” Karen said, belatedly realizing that he was referring to the challenge record once she took at glance at the display board on the ceiling that held their time. She’d gotten distracted by Travis’s faceplant and forgot to look. They’d finally got the mark…but only by 1.4 seconds.

“Thanks,” Travis offered as the medic retreated.

Karen reached down and offered her brother a hand up. “Good?”

“I think so. We got lucky that it was that close this time. Not sure we’re going to be able to shave much more time off without a hundred more runs.”

“We don’t have time for that,” she reminded him, referencing the end of their training. Their class was through all of the challenges, with them going back to boost their scores with redos that theoretically had an unlimited amount of attempts, but all of them knew that they wanted to get to the Final Challenge and graduate before too long, so they weren’t going to draw this out forever. A few more weeks at most, maybe, but not more than that.

“Agreed,” Travis said, picking up his rifle and walking off around the ring until they came to the open doorway that the medic had entered through. “Let’s focus on the Ring-out course. There’s points there to be had.”

“Aquatics first.”

Travis sighed. “You still think we can add anything there?”

“If you quit moping, yes.”

“Alright, we’ll play it your way.”

Karen lightly punched him in the ribs. “We’ve got this.”

“We’re still 70 some points off their mark.”

“Doable.”

“But not easy.”

“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge.”

“We’re talking trailblazers here. That’s more than just a challenge.”

“We just took another course record away from them,” Karen pointed out.

“Small stuff compared to the tandem record…and I don’t want to hold everyone else up while we’re scraping for points.”

“We won’t need to,” she said confidently.

Travis half laughed. “Right, let’s get to it then. At least underwater my nose isn’t going to bump into anything…so long as you don’t kick me again.”

“That,” she said, pointing at finger at him, “was half your fault.”

“And all my pain,” he added as they checked in their equipment and slipped out of their challenge uniforms and into their traditional trainee uniforms. From there they headed over to the aquatics section of the training facility within Atlantis.

Two weeks later they’d give up the ghost and turn in their final score, abandoning any further attempts at gaining more points. A few days later the last of their class did the same, moving them all on to the Final Challenge.

And the two siblings went into it carrying the overall tandem record with them.

Nathan-47434 ducked underneath Travis’s sword slash aimed at his head, then rolled across a knee to his left to avoid Karen’s thrust that came within an inch of his butt. As he twisted he flicked his double-bladed practice sword around, causing Travis to flinch backwards and give the level 83 acolyte enough time to get back to his feet.

He didn’t stay there long, jumping up into a dropping kick towards Karen as she came at him. The level 52 adept jabbed up at his knees, but a quick twirl of the double blades knocked her blade askew, prompting her to jump/roll to her right, over top of which Travis came and locked up blades with Nathan. A moment later Karen kicked up at his gut from somewhere on the ground and the Sangheili was propelled backwards a couple of steps…ending with a satisfied smile on his face.

He came back at the two, no longer holding back now that he’d gotten a feel for the way they moved, and attacked Travis hard for a pair of sword blows that the level 51 adept barely blocked, given the acolyte’s greater strength…then he switched to a jab towards Karen, knowing that she’d be coming at him in the blink of an eye.

Then he was back on Travis again, not giving either one much of an opportunity to move or think without having to defend themselves until the pair split, with each going to the far sides of the training mat. Nathan let them go, then sprinted towards Karen, knowing he had a few seconds of time to get at her alone.

She recognized that too and ran to her right around the perimeter, but Nathan caught up to her and exchanged three blows before he got her off balance and set up a fourth hit that swept her left leg out from under her. Nathan brought the stroke high, pulling her calve up above her waist and flipping her over, then spun around, pulling that half of his double sword away from his body as Travis came down on him from behind.

He caught his attack and repulsed it, pushing the adept backwards and taking him down quickly with a foot to his gut…then Nathan retreated to the center of the mat and waited for the pair to come at him again.

The brother and sister pair brushed themselves off and walked towards the much older and stronger acolyte slowly, watching their spacing, then the pair rushed him…with Travis just slightly in the lead. When Nathan moved to counter his blow first Travis hit the brakes and let Karen arrive ahead of him. Nathan switched targets quickly, then the pair reversed again at arm’s length away from him, with Travis jabbing his sword past Nathan’s as Karen locked it up with a two-handled leverage hold that used most of her right forearm for bracing.

It was all she could do to resist Nathan’s strength, but she didn’t have to hold it for long and down the acolyte went, bending over forward with the impact, then getting both adepts’ swords coming down on his neck/back at the same time, smashing him down into the mat face first…after which they backed up and waited on him to get up.

Nathan did so slowly, trying to learn from the encounter. Travis and Karen had developed quite the reputation for their tandem skills, not just by beating Jason and Paul’s trainee record, but by the near magical ability they had to coordinate with each other…and without telepathy at that. They’d gotten so good that they were able to take on higher ranking opponents together that neither could touch individually, with Nathan being their latest attempt. He’d requested the sparring session to test their skills…as well as his own, seeing how he’d react to such an unusual pairing.

He was getting quite the education, for even given a handful of seconds he could own either one of them, but the way they were working together exploited weaknesses that he didn’t realize he had, for virtually every time he struck at one he was leaving himself open to the other, causing him to rethink his defensive posture on the fly, with the pair of adepts getting the better of him in roughly a 2 to 1 ratio, leaving him the inferior in this engagement.

But Archons liked challenges, and he was loving this, so even as he pulled himself back up he was eager to get back at it…and was glad they were beating him, because that meant he had cause to up the difficulty again. So far he’d been sticking strictly to swordplay, but he was an acolyte, and that meant he had other options.

Nathan walked towards Travis, seeing him reposition accordingly as Karen rotated around the pair, getting in almost behind Nathan but not quite out of his peripheral vision by the time he struck. The acolyte locked swords with Travis and pushed him back with one half of his double blade, then reversed his handhold, whipping the other half forward and knocking the adept in the head before he could get his footing enough to evade, then Nathan spun both ends of his sword around in a defensive twirl, not knowing where Karen was.

When the first quarter turn didn’t contact blade or body, Nathan released a Fornax field, intending to catch her wherever she was…then found his legs being knocked out from under him as Karen slammed into him. He fell on her and their swords, getting poked in the groin and bending around the point of impact as much as he could, but feeling himself get sick to his stomach from the blow.

He laid there for a moment, then rolled off her and onto the mat where he lay in sickened agony for a number of seconds until it began to slowly wear off. Forcing himself to stand up he put a knee on the ground under him and got his head upright enough to see where the other two were.

He frowned, and not from the awkward pain he was still suffering from. Both Karen and Travis were laying on the mat and not moving. They were limp, and for a moment Nathan wondered if he was somehow still transmitting his Fornax energy, but he wasn’t. And even if Karen had somehow gotten knocked unconscious when they were tangled up, slim as that possibility was, that didn’t explain why Travis was also down.

“Guys, you alright?” Nathan asked, getting to his feet and walking over to Karen. He knelt down and put a hand on her head, linking with her telepathically as much as his limited skills allowed. When he did he jerked back, getting a none too pleasant feeling in his own head, almost like he’d touched a live electrical wire.

“What the hell is going on?” he whispered, checking to make sure they were both still breathing. They were, so he tried to wake them up physically, but no matter how much he poked or shook them they were both out cold, so he jogged off the mat and found the nearest comm terminal, calling for a medic.

2

May 3, 2476

Solar System

Trunks

“And?” Nathan asked as the head medic walked over to him while both Travis and Karen were lying unconscious in the med bay on adjacent table/beds with other techs doing further scans.

“They’re not injured as far as I can tell. If I had to guess I would say it’s something psionic…except that they’re adepts. At this point I have no idea why they’re out, but they’re both showing anomalous brain activity.”

“Could it have anything to do with them being twins?” Nathan asked, grasping at straws. He didn’t know how a Fornax field could have done this to them, because it actively disrupted the nervous system, meaning once he stopped transmitting the effects equally disappeared.

The medic shook his head. “Fraternal twins are no different than any other sibling pair, aside from their birthdate.”

“They’re identical twins.”

The medic frowned and looked at the Archon like he’d lost his mind.

“They both have identical DNA and XY chromosomes, but Karen’s male genetics never activated.”

“Oh, Androgen Insensitivity. That is curious, but I don’t see how it could be a factor…then again, with us being unable to determine a cause I suppose it’s possible,” he said, referencing a condition found in some Humans where they are immune to the effects of certain bio-chemicals. In the case of Karen and others, one of those chemicals was the developmental trigger to activate the male portion of her genetic code.

All Humans contain female genetics, with approximately half also containing male genetics. During pre-birth growth a ‘fork in the road’ moment occurs where one is chosen. For XX chromosome females there is no male genetics to activate, thus they develop the only genetic characteristics they have. Those Humans with XY chromosomes have the option to go either way, and a trigger chemical is surged through the individual during development at the moment of differentiation.

That chemical activates the male genetics and they develop. In a few cases something goes wrong with the chemical trigger and the male genetics don’t activate, leaving the default female genetics as the blueprint for development. In this way a handful of females carry inactive male genetics, whereas all males carry inactive female genetics.

Karen was one such case, leaving her with the same DNA as Travis, despite the fact that they had developed into different genders.

“Scan me,” Nathan insisted.

“For what purpose?”

“Just in case my psionics are operating incorrectly. Them both going down simultaneously can’t be a coincidence.”

“Have a seat,” the medic said, pointing to an open bed/table beside Travis. Nathan walked over and hopped up, then laid back as several pieces of scanning equipment were extruded from the wall and brought out over his head.

“I have something,” the medic continuing to scan Travis said. “Looks like malformed Ikrid tissue.”

Nathan waved off his own medic and sat up, careful not to bump the hanging equipment. “He has Ikrid tissue?”

“A very small amount, but it’s not developed correctly…at least, it’s not developed according to the base pattern we have on file.”

“He shouldn’t have any at all,” the head medic said, walking up and viewing the scan results. He glared at the datapad then glanced at Karen. “Check her.”

It took a moment to set up the proper scan, for the wealth of their equipment operated in different ways without there being one ‘check all’ function. Her medic did the scan, then handed the results to the head medic.

“She has one too,” he told Nathan, then stared at the ceiling for a moment trying to piece it all together. “We’ve seen others have similar spontaneous psionic tissue growths, and the fact that they’re operating off of an identical genetic code can explain why they both have them, but I can’t theorize a link between this and their current condition. Ikrid acts as a biological comm relay. It doesn’t control any bodily functions, let alone anything critical enough to knock them unconscious. Am I wrong in that?” he asked Nathan.

“I didn’t use any Ikrid abilities on them, but it is possible to overwhelm them in various ways, none of which I’m capable of doing even if I tri…” Nathan cut off, flinching suddenly as Karen jerked awake, sitting up so fast that she banged her head on the scanning equipment and reflexively hit back at it with a right forearm swing, breaking it off and throwing it into the medic at her side.

He took the equipment to the face, breaking his nose and knocking him off his feet.

“Easy,” Nathan said unnecessarily as Karen fully woke up and got her bearings.

“What?” she asked groggily, seeing that she was in a med bay and Travis was lying beside her unconscious.

The head medic raced around the end of the bed and got to the injured one, with Karen belatedly noticing…then feeling the dull spot on her arm where it had hit the now broken equipment.

“Did I do that?” she asked apologetically.

“He’ll live,” Nathan said, walking up beside her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “What happened to you?”

Karen looked down at the medic and the river of blood oozing out between his fingers as he grasped his nose lightly, wincing against the pain.

“Sorry,” she offered.

The medic lazily waved off her comment with his free hand as the head medic pulled him to his feet, then motioned for one of the others to take him over to another station for treatment while he got back to their patients.

“How do you feel?” he asked her.

“Sucky,” she answered, then looked at Nathan. “Last thing I remember was getting tangled up with your legs. What’s wrong with Travis?”

“You both blacked out at the same moment,” the acolyte told her. “I used a Fornax field on you, but I have no idea how it knocked you out.”

“I thought Fornax was white noise,” she said, staring hard at Travis. “It loses effect when you stop transmitting.”

“As far as I know that’s the case…but something happened to you two.”

“Did you wake me up?”

“No. You just came out of it on your own. I tried waking you up on the mat, but your mind was locked down. Both of yours were. I don’t know how to do that with mine if I tried. Have you two ever blacked out at the same time before?”

“A couple times,” Karen admitted, “but that was because we both got hit at the same time. You didn’t hit us with any stun weapon?”

“No.”

“Then this is new,” she said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed and looking directly at Travis.

The head medic pushed between her and Nathan and got to the head of Travis’s bed, where he rotated the scanning equipment around to reach over to Karen, given that she’d just trashed her own.

“Hold still,” he said, running the equipment around her head with Karen accommodating him.

“Did you know you have some psionic tissue?” Nathan asked.

Karen glanced at him. “I do?”

“Both of you do.”

Her eyes moved to Travis, who was lying perfectly still. “No we didn’t. What type?”

“Ikrid.”

“A very small anomalous growth,” the medic corrected. “I’m not even sure if it’s active. Have you any conscious control over it?”

“I didn’t know I had any,” she reminded him. “How did I…did we get it?”

“It’s very rare, but some people have them without going through the upgrade process.”

Karen looked at Nathan and saw the acolyte shake his head, indicating that the medic didn’t have clearance to know what the ‘upgrade process’ truly was, though all medical personnel involved with Archons had to be given some knowledge of psionics in order to treat them.

“They’re usually nonfunctional or malfunctioning without the designer genetic modifications. I’m not sure how it works, but we’ve got documented cases of many civilians being treated by Star Force to correct the growths. How you guys were missed I don’t know.”

“They were never scanned,” Nathan said, a few puzzle pieces falling into place. “Any bad headaches in the past?”

“Nothing like what you’re talking about,” she said, looking at Travis again. “And he’s been with me since basic training. He hasn’t had anything either.”

“How’s she look now?” Nathan asked.

“The anomalous brain activity has ceased, and now that she’s awake she appears fully normal. Am I right in assuming that there’s some information that you’re withholding that would require passing this on to a higher level tech?” he asked, looking directly at Nathan. “Psionics seem to be a touchy subject with you guys and I don’t want to pry.”

Nathan was silent for a moment, glancing down at Travis.

“Is he going to wake up anytime soon?” Karen asked the medic.

“I have no idea what’s keeping him unconscious, so I can’t answer that, though the fact that you woke up on your own is encouraging.”

“Give me 10 minutes,” Nathan said, lightly punching Karen in the shoulder as a friendly gesture before he hurried out of the med bay.

“Is he just asleep or something worse?”

“His mental state is erratic, so I can’t really say,” the medic answered as one of the others came back over, though the one with the broken nose was no longer in the bay, having been sent back to his quarters while he recovered. “But it’s more than just being asleep, otherwise you two would have woke up with some chemical persuasion. The source of the lockdown is mental, I can tell you that much. And if it is psionic related then I’m not going to be of much help to you.”

“But we do have psionic tissue?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling the datapad over and showing her the scans from both adepts, along with a bit of translation for the images. Before they finished Nathan came back in and pointed to Travis.

“Get him mobile. You two are going to Earth.”

“How soon?” the medic asked as Karen took a step over to Travis and lightly lifted him up into a sitting position.

“As soon as we can get to the spaceport. Anything you can do for him in transit?”

“Other than run additional scans and stand by to act if something changes, no.”

“Go ahead and transmit the data you’ve gathered to Atlantis. You’re relieved,” the acolyte said, looking to Karen. “Let’s go.”

She slid an arm underneath Travis’s knees and lifted him up across her chest, carrying him out the door and all the way down to the waiting puddle jumper, with the insystem transport carrying them up to orbit and onto a jumpline directly to Earth that got them to Atlantis within 3 hours.

Travis woke in the same manner as Karen, bolting upright still in combat mode, that having been the last waking memory he had. When he blinked away his grogginess he found that his head hurt…along with the rest of his body.

“What the…”

“You’ve been out for four days,” Karen said, walking up beside him in a small med bay with half a dozen medics around him, plus one Archon that he recognized as Jaime-532, the highest ranking Sangheili currently stationed in the Solar System. “We’re in Atlantis.”

“Why, what, and how?” Travis asked, picking up on Karen’s serious mood.

“That’s rather complicated,” one of the medics said, hopping up on the foot of Travis’s bed as the Archon sat up. “I’m Chandler Vortison. Me and my team,” he said, thumbing towards the other medics, “are tasked with trying to understand the V’kit’no’sat genetic engineering. We haven’t learned much, as pathetic as that admission is, but we have learned what happened to you.”

“I’m all ears,” Travis said after throwing Karen a glance.

“Well, first off you blacked out during a sparring session. Somehow you transmitted this to your sister and knocked her out too.”

“Thanks, bro,” Karen said sarcastically.

He glared at her then turned his attention back to Vortison. “Transmitted?”

“Both you and your sister have malformed Ikrid growths. How this occurred is not known, but it’s not unheard of either. We have 834 documented cases of psionic tissue developing in non-Archons, all but 3 of which were dysfunctional in some way. The three that weren’t were lucky, because the genetic degradation should have messed them up. You see, Zen’zat were never meant to reproduce. As such, the V’kit’no’sat never took into account translational problems when they genetically engineered the psionic abilities into the Ter’nat.”

“Wait…you’re saying I knocked both of us out because of faulty Ikrid?”

“No, it’s more than that. Let me explain in full before you ask further questions…it’ll save time. When our ancestors were left on this world and began to reproduce, their Zen’zat abilities transferred to their offspring, but over the millennia they degraded. They’re still fully intact within our genetic code, but they’re no longer active, just something we carry around with us like a lot of additional coding. For some reason these dormant abilities wake up in a few people, but they don’t fully wake up and you get all kind of problems as tissue develops incorrectly, sometimes resulting in death, but most of the time in partial abilities. Then again, a lot of the cases we’ve seen have tissue that doesn’t do anything because it’s not fully formed. We imagine there are more people like that out there, but we don’t scan everyone, so it’s usually the ones experiencing problems, headaches and such, that we find.”

“Your Ikrid growth is malformed. It is smaller, incomplete, and the tissue that is present is very different from what it’s designed to be…trick is, yours is actually working, but in a new way. Somehow your body adapted it to serve a specific function, which in this case is providing a low Ikrid link to your sister and only her. It took some time to identify, but you’re both continuously transmitting to one another. That’s probably why you never noticed it before, but your tandem skills, I’m told, are top notch, which suggests that you’re both using this connection in a positive way, so it’s not just random transmissions.”

“Basically you cheated,” Jaime interrupted, “but it’s a very useful cheat. One that I’d prefer you didn’t waste.”

“Waste how?” Travis asked.

“Well, normal procedure in these cases is to correct the malformation by fully unlocking your psionic abilities and allowing you to grow proper tissue. Problem is, that will destroy your current Ikrid growths, severing this connection you two have.”

Travis looked at Karen. “What connection?”

“I said the same thing, but the computers say there’s a link, and I’m not interested in finding out what it will feel like to not have it.”

“What’s the range of this link?” Travis asked Vortison.

“We’re not sure, but we’re guessing about 20 meters based on Karen’s transmission strength. You’ve been in lockdown so we couldn’t measure yours.”

“I’ve been further than 20 meters away from her before and I didn’t notice any negative effects.”

“It may not work that way. It could be that you just get tidbits of information from time to time that are useful, like knowing where she is during close range training drills without having to look.”

“Not that it’s perfect,” Karen noted, given the number of injuries they’d given each other over the years, all of which were light.

“You two hold the tandem trainee record and are one of the better team pairs regardless of rank,” Jaime pointed out. “It might be natural for you, but you’ve definitely got an advantage. Don’t waste it.”

“Wait, what happened to make us…me, black out in the first place? You said I was in lockdown?”

Vortison exchanged a glance with Jaime, then swallowed hard before he spoke.

“The trailblazers have been breaking through into tier 2 psionics, and we’ve been fortunate enough to get some of them under observation when it happens. We’ve learned there are triggers that have to be satisfied before the flash growth of tissue occurs. You hit a trigger and your body tried to grow new tissue that your genetics didn’t appear to have, because it’s dormant. When that happened you blacked out, and stayed out because your body kept trying to access what wasn’t there in an endless cycle that we only just now broke.”

“How the hell did I try to skip to tier 2 psionics?”

“We’re not sure, but we think it might have to do with your link to your sister. If the trigger somehow was reading you both at the same time it might have thought you were more developed than you are, but that’s just a theory at this point. I don’t have a firm answer for you.”

“What’s to stop it from happening again?”

“We’re going to give you the other 6 basic psionic abilities,” Jaime told him. “Adept or not, you’re a special case.”

“What if what I need is in the 7th?”

“That’s the problem,” Karen agreed. “If we reset our Ikrid, we lose our link. If we don’t, you could be blacking us both out at any time now.”

“It probably won’t occur unless you’re in training or combat,” Vortison added, “but we don’t know for sure what the actual trigger is. We’ve partially mapped out some of the others, but this one is new to us.”

“Mapped out?” Travis asked.

“We know what we need to do in training to trigger them,” Jaime answered.

“More or less,” Vortison added. “We still don’t have specifics, nor are we close to finding a way to medically trigger the upgrades.”

Travis frowned. “Is that even possible?”

“If you’re a V’kit’no’sat, sure,” Vortison explained. “We, however, are not.”

“And good thing too,” Jaime chimed in. “Because we’d probably be killed for even suggesting it.”

“Point,” Travis admitted, knowing that the V’kit’no’sat wanted the Zen’zat to earn everything, even though the other races got their bio upgrades at birth where Ter’nat did not.

“Ultimately it’s your choice,” Jaime told him, “but for the time being I want both of you down to the pyramid for upgrades and a permanent training assignment. The techs are going to study you in detail, and you’re going to explore this link you two have got. If you lock up again they know how to end it, so for now we’re in information gathering mode. Later on, if you want, we can erase this, but I strongly suggest that you keep your link. It’s the only one we know of to exist.”

Travis looked over at Karen. “Just when I was starting to get tired of you.”

“Shut up…this is all your fault anyway. I didn’t knock you out.”

“You’re just sore that I advanced sooner than you did.”

“Tried to advance,” she reminded him, “and failed.”

“Whatever,” Travis said, brushing off her accurate comment and looking at Jaime. “How long do you expect we’ll be down there?”

“I don’t know. This is new territory for us.”

“I’ll be going with you,” Vortison said.

Travis raised an eyebrow. “That high of a priority?”

Vortison nodded, underscoring how much so with his silence.

Travis glanced at Karen, then she turned to face Jaime. “When do we leave?”

3

July 25, 2476

Solar System

Earth

Karen ducked down as Travis jumped over her and landed on an illuminated square on the floor, with the red marker going out on contact. A split second later a green one lit up along with a tone to Karen’s left, prompting her to take a short hop over to it, landing on one leg for the square was too small to fit both feet on…and stepping anywhere else would have disqualified them both from the tandem challenge.

A red square lit up two over and one back from where she was standing, and immediately she knew it was going to be a problem. There was only a few inches between it and her leg, with Travis on the opposite side and only three seconds for him to get to it. Her brother jumped into a slow half flip and she caught him with her hands on his waist as he passed over her. The momentum threatened to tip her off balance so she knelt down on the one leg she was standing on, using it as a spring to cushion some of the force as she dumped him over to the left.

Travis’s left hand came down on the square in time, leaving the pair forming a crude living arch that extended even further as another green square lit up in front of Karen. She reached her free leg out and tapped it, forming a tripod between the two of them. So long as she didn’t lift either foot the squares would stay safe, and at the moment she needed as much leverage as possible, for as she guessed, Travis’s next square popped up some distance away.

Without discussing what they were going to do, her brother pushed off with his hand and she held him up over her shoulders as her legs were spread wide, with her balancing on the balls of her feet to keep them from sliding off and hitting the adjacent squares. Once she had a fairly firm posture Travis got a foot on her hip and jumped off to land awkwardly on his square, then the challenge continued on with them alternating new positions for as long as they could keep up.

This ‘Twister’ challenge was a new one, specifically created to test and push their sibling connection further than other challenges had…and both twins admitted it was by far the hardest for them to manage, not for sheer strength, but because they had to incorporate balance, timing, and each other’s body position into an impromptu acrobatics display, creating a situation that was very frustrating, but one that they were gradually adjusting to.

The landing squares were tiny, barely big enough for one of their feet to fit in. Both of them had opted to go barefoot to save a few centimeters, and fortunately they both had size 7 feet, because some of the other Archons that had taken a crack at it just for fun couldn’t put more than their toes down without stepping out of bounds. The challenge had been created specifically for Travis and Karen, and even though they couldn’t consciously feel it, it was triggering an increase in activity through their Ikrid link, which the coin-sized biomonitors that they were wearing were measuring and transmitting the data from to the medical team stationed nearby in the pyramid.

The longest they’d progressed through this challenge was 7 minutes and 23 seconds, with them just now passing 4 minutes. The computer was programmed to only give them target squares within a certain radius, but the chamber itself was half the size of a basketball court, meaning they had quite a bit of room to bounce around and the computer was doing a good job of not letting them get into a rhythm. It’d throw several close squares together, then switch to a distant one that would require a jump or throw to get into position, then another long followed by a short and every conceivable combination trying to shake their coordination.

Karen and Travis were constantly having to adjust with no time to think it through. They had to react and go on gut instinct…or failing that, remember from the last time how to attack certain maneuvers, with the more times they ran and failed to complete the challenge giving them experience in the terms of flash maneuvers. Those were what some people referred to as ‘muscle memory’ only on a higher, more coordinated scale, with Karen pulling a flip landing or Travis doing a one-handed pushup to tag a square as if they were predetermined chess moves that they could throw out at a moment’s notice.

Such flash maneuvers had been expected by the Archons who’d developed this challenge for them, the trick of it was that flash maneuvers were individual based, and the 3 second move limit wouldn’t give the two of them time to coordinate verbally. They had to act on ‘instinct,’ which in their case meant they’d be relying on their twin link, the full dynamics of which the med techs hadn’t yet been able to deduce. The patterns didn’t match up with any tissue growths on record, suggesting that the twins’ bodies had adapted the Ikrid tissue for their own purposes, creating an entirely new ability.

Or so some hoped. Without more data they couldn’t know for sure, and the pair of adepts now wore their biomonitors round the clock to squeeze out as much as they could, prompted by challenges like this designed to push their psionic limit to new levels of activity.

Karen and Travis got through 5 minutes before Karen felt a wash of disorientation and tipped over, smashing an elbow onto a square that wasn’t lit and ending the challenge. She almost blacked out again, but this time managed to keep ‘standing’ on all fours, fighting off the effect after some twenty seconds and looking for Travis…whom she found lying on the ground a few meters off, unconscious again.

“Crap,” she said, crawling over to him as the door to the chamber opened and a lower ranking med tech rushed inside.

“You’re still awake,” he said, glancing at Travis then staring at her.

“Wasn’t easy,” she admitted, still feeling a bit light headed. “You guys were right. I can block it out…at least partially,” the adept said, pressing a pair of fingers against her temple and trying to use the pressure to force her head to stop spinning.

“Can you hang on another 30 seconds?”

“More data?”

“As much as we can get,” the tech prompted.

“I’m good for now,” she said, tipping over a few inches and sitting down. The bump of her butt against the floor sent her head spinning again, but it leveled out after a few seconds of stillness that stretched out into more than a minute before the medic got around to reviving Travis.

Using a bit of the V’kit’no’sat genetic engineering they understood, he placed a rectangular strip across his forehead that acted like a crude regenerator, save for it made only a handful of mental alterations…in this case shutting down the ascension trigger that had activated once again. Both adepts now had their Rensiek, Lachka, Sesspik, Pefbar, Fornax, and Ensek abilities activated with fully developed growths…but whatever this trigger needed to go along with it had to be located within the Ikrid tissue that had never developed, leaving Travis in this endless cycle of flipping the genetic switch and having nothing happen.

The device took away the impetus to flip the switch, breaking the mental lockout like unfreezing a computer, with him waking up almost instantly.

“Not again,” he said, looking up at the ceiling as the medic removed the device from his head, though the small biomonitor button still remained.

Karen, whose head had cleared along with Travis’s, stood up and offered him a hand, pulling him to his feet as the medic looked him over.

“All is well, I hope?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Travis answered, “but I’m beginning to wonder if keeping this link is worth the trouble. We can’t have this happen in the field…or a hot tub,” he added as the thought of blacking out and drowning to death crossed his mind.

“Does that sound like a Sangheili to you?” a voice asked from behind them.

“Sounds like quitter talk to me,” someone else said as Karen and Travis turned around to look at the doorway, with their draws dropping when they saw who it was.

“Definitely quitter talk,” Paul confirmed.

“What are you two doing here?” Karen asked as the medic quietly slipped out past the two trailblazers.

“Arriving just in time, it seems,” Jason answered. “Sounds like you were going to throw away your advantage to get rid of a temporary weakness.”

“I’m starting to be glad I lost that coin toss,” Paul mentioned, his eyes on the pair of adepts.

“We’re here,” Jason continued, “to help you solve this problem.”

“What can you do that the techs haven’t?” Travis asked.

Paul smiled. “Training.”

“Meaning what?” Karen asked.

Paul glanced at Jason. “Are all Sangheili this dense?”

His blonde counterpart poked him in the ribs as he walked forward and came up within two feet of his fellow Clansmen. “You need fully formed Ikrid tissue, but to get it the normal way you’ll lose the adaptation you already have. If you treat this like a wound, you’d heal it through activity, gradually reestablishing full strength and range of motion, and you’re going to do the same with your Ikrid…helped along by a lot of trips to the V’kit’no’sat medical station.”

“I don’t understand,” Karen said, with Travis thinking the same.

“We’re going to build each of you a custom Ikrid through training. The tissue you already have will be added to, bit by bit, with your bodies adapting to the demands and the medics feeding you tiny changes. The link you two have is too valuable to waste, meaning we can’t adapt it to regular Ikrid tissue…so we’re going to adapt regular tissue to it through customization.”

“Do the medics even know how to do that?” Travis asked.

Jason shook his head. “Not yet. Your bodies are going to teach them.”

“I still don’t get it,” Karen said.

“You’re going to get a treatment, then you’re going to train your asses off. You’ll get scanned, the medics will determine what you need next, then you’ll get another treatment, followed by more training. Long term, you’ll grow a fully functional Ikrid that will retain your special ability rather than having it wiped out in the Zen’zat car wash.”

“To be more precise,” Paul added, walking up behind Jason, “the treatments will undo the unwanted parts of the previous treatment, with the training flushing out what works and what doesn’t.”

“Why do you need to be here for that?” Karen asked.

Paul raised an eyebrow. “I thought that would be obvious.”

Jason didn’t say anything, and both of them just let that comment hang in the air until one of the twins decided to say something.

“You want to study our link,” Travis finally guessed.

“More than that,” Jason answered. “We want to teach you to make the most of it.”

“As well as unlocking this new trigger you’ve discovered,” Paul added. “There’s a lot of new stuff going on with you two, psionic wise, and we want to probe it.”

“Probe all you want,” Karen said with a smirk.

Jason held up a warning finger. “Hush youngling. You do through instinct what Paul and I learned to do through training. You have a psionic link, we never did…and what we have now is different from yours. You’re going to learn from us to consciously enhance your coordination, meanwhile we’re going to try and figure out your trigger problem,” he said, looking at Travis, “from an Archon perspective. You’re wholly inferior to us, so the question is what benchmark have you reached that we haven’t?”

“I’ve been asking myself that quite a lot, and I don’t have an answer,” Travis admitted. “I also don’t know why she hasn’t got it. She’s a level above me.”

“Another valid point,” Jason agreed. “You focus on the training we give you, and we’ll figure out the rest.”

“Is that really worth pulling both of you off the front lines?” Karen asked.

“Our work there is mostly done,” Paul told her. “Others can handle the rest, and it was time we rotated out anyway.”

“Yes, this is that important,” Jason answered her more directly. “You’ve developed an ability that normal Zen’zat do not possess. I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s important.”

“You don’t,” Travis said, understanding his meaning. “But from our point of view we’re completely unaware of this ‘ability.’ I don’t feel any different when she’s standing beside me or miles away. If it wasn’t from the scans I wouldn’t believe there was anything psionic involved.”

“That just means you’ve fully assimilated it, probably as a child,” Paul pointed out. “When we teach you how to do it old school you’ll start to see the difference.”

“If you say so,” Karen said, not fully convinced.

“Walk,” Jason said, turning around and heading to the exit with Paul.

The twins glanced at each other, sharing a perplexed expression at the sudden end to the conversation, then they jogged a couple of steps over to pick up their shoes then caught up with the trailblazers and followed them out and over to another training chamber, with them each picking up a sword and sunglasses in the antechamber on their way in. Paul input several instructions into the control panel, with two large circles illuminating on the floor spaced 8 meters apart.

Jason walked over to one of them, with Paul joining him a few seconds later, swinging his training sword up into a guard position while standing back to back with his friend.

“Time to show off,” Jason prompted.

“Are we working together?” Karen asked, stepping into the other 3 meter wide circle with Travis.

“Nope,” Jason said, flicking his sword into a reverse grip with the tip pointed towards his toes.

“Hold on…our laces,” Travis said as they both quickly got to retying their shoes that they’d only slipped on.

Paul telekinetically hit the start button, with a series of countdown tones descending and Karen and Travis quickly trying to finish tying their shoes before the tiny projectiles began shooting out from the walls.

Travis ducked one, then got pelted with two more before he got to his feet and his sword up into guard position and began intercepting the little thuds, swinging around in a twirl a split second before Karen’s head came up to hit one coming in at his back. The limited Pefbar he had didn’t help, but somehow his situational awareness knew it was coming in, allowing him to make the block and reposition for another.

Meanwhile Paul and Jason were both moving about inside their circle, alternating positions and moving around each other’s bodies with a fluid precision, seeing the incoming thuds with their Pefbar and moving to intercept them before they could get hit while avoiding the temptation to telekinetically stop them midair…which would have been cheating as far as this challenge was concerned.

The computer was scoring both pairings, with impacts measuring as negative points and deflections as positives. The program Paul had chosen worked them through a few easy rounds then began escalating through the harder settings remarkably quick, with the twins having a hard time keeping up with the faster moving thuds as they also came in greater numbers.

Within 6 minutes Karen and Travis were doubling over from hits more than they were swinging to block, but the challenge didn’t end. It continued well past the -100 points that usually deactivated it, with the pair getting pelted regularly until Paul finally turned it off.

“What happened? I thought you guys were good,” the trailblazer taunted.

Karen rubbed a sore spot on her leg just above the knee and glared at him. “Is this payback for breaking your record?”

“Yes,” Paul said deadpan.

Karen blew out an exasperated laugh.

“We need to know what your current capabilities are,” Jason explained, “in order to start giving you specific workouts. Best way to do that is to overload you and see where you break.”

“And you guys went through it for what, fun?” Travis asked.

“So you’d have something to compare with on the replay later.”

“Remember,” Paul added. “Useful as your link is, it only coordinates your individual abilities, and if those are lacking you still lose. You two should train together, but not all the time. I hear you’re both holding yourselves back in that department, with several marks already in acolyte range?”

“Is that uncommon?” Karen asked.

“It is when they’re not in your specialty. You two are drawing off of each other and advancing far faster than most Archons, but you’re neglecting certain skill areas and have more than a 50 level spread. Archons face their weak areas, not hide from them.”

“We haven’t been hiding,” Travis objected. “Our weak areas are well above the strengths of our classmates.”

“So we’ve noticed,” Jason said, stretching his neck a bit in a disinterested manner. “But the spread says you’re sandbagging. We want you to press this psionic link for all its worth, both for your sakes and so we can learn from it, but you can’t let yourself rely on it or it’ll become a weakness. Already you’re knocking your sister out, or close to it, because of the feedback through your link. You both have to work on becoming individuals, as hard as that may be.”

“We already are,” Travis argued. “We don’t even feel the link.”

Paul sighed. “That’s the problem.”

“If we’re leveling up, in all areas,” Karen asked, “faster than the others…then where’s the problem?”

“It’s a problem in attitude,” Jason said simply. “None of us would let a weak area persist to such depths. We’d hammer it until it was more on par with the rest of our skills.”

“You’re slacking…even as you’re succeeding,” Paul added. “And nobody has called you on it because of your impressive advancement rate.”

“So…you want us to focus on our individual skills,” Karen said slowly, “while we focus on honing our link? How can we do both at the same time?”

Paul smirked. “That’s why we’re here to show you how…along with a great many other things.”

4

October 2, 2476

Solar System

Earth

Karen stood in front of the wall, facing it from only a few inches away and raised her right hand up, touching it above shoulder height and tracing a zigzaggy path with her palm all the way down to the base before letting go. She stood up and pressed her left knee against the wall, then fist bumped three vertical taps at torso as if she were punching the lights on an old school stoplight before dropping to the ground and resting on her ankles before pushing both knees in and leaning them against the wall. She followed that with both hands pressed flat wide above her head, making her feel like a tree frog.

How much longer do we have to do this? she asked her brother telepathically.

No clue, he answered from the other side of the wall, choosing the various body positions she was to mimic just as she’d done for him several times over the past hour. The wall was solid and sound proof, with them unable to see or hear the other, and their Pefbar blocked by the material of the prototype psionic cage that a number of techs had recently constructed by incorporating one of the new arc elements into an already discovered design. The chamber was one of a handful of initial projects to get their limited but growing supply of the elements, and given that it had been constructed in the pyramid Paul had decided to make use of it for the twins’ unique training.

The shielding was designed to prevent Pefbar only, which in turn would render Lachka useless without the controlling mechanism of the Pefbar, but Ikrid wasn’t blocked, meaning that while Karen and Travis had limited Pefbar abilities sufficient to ‘see’ through a normal wall they couldn’t use them here. None the less, Karen was mimicking Travis’s body placements almost perfectly, with cameras set up on both sides for monitoring purposes.

I heard that, Jason told Karen telepathically. You’re transmitting in the open again.

The adept frowned even as she was continuing to match Travis’s movements, searching out the location of Jason’s mind and sending him a direct reply. How do you know that?

A direct link and a broadcast feel different on reception. Focus is something you have to develop over time, and right now yours is lacking.

Can you give me an answer then? she asked, still playing mime against the wall.

Another 10 minutes.

Karen sighed. Alright.

Some place you’d rather be?

Practicing combat applications, she said honestly.

Combat applications run off of base attributes, the trailblazer reminded her.

I know, I know, she said, reaching up high and tapping on the wall four times, copying Travis’s hand on the opposite side. She couldn’t see him through the wall, but she could feel where he was and how his body was moving almost as if it was an extension of her own. They’d been able to know where each other was within close proximity as long as she could remember, never having given it much thought, but now that she didn’t have sight or sound for the sense to piggyback on the extra perception was coming through much clearer…and weaker, forcing both of them to push to try to retain constant perception.

Normally it operated in blips, like someone blinking their eyes constantly, and training themselves to keep a steady flow of position information through their normally subconscious link was meaning they had to assert conscious control over it, both to maintain and boost the signal…which was something this training drill was frustratingly accomplishing.

But both she and Travis kept it up until Jason finally called them off and back over to the sanctum they’d built inside the pyramid, meeting him in one of the many sparring chambers.

“Tighten these,” he told Travis as he walked over to him.

“Ok,” the adept said, cinching up the cuffs on Jason’s wrists until they were bound together in front of him with only a half inch of separation. “What’s going on?”

“I’m tired of having to hold back against you two. Cramping my style,” he said, pulling a blindfold over his eyes. “This should make things more even.”

“Seriously?” Karen asked.

“Knockdown,” Jason ordered, walking over to the center of the ring and dropping into a light combat pose. “Let’s see if you can do better this time.”

“What good is the blindfold if you can see with Pefbar?” she complained.

“One less sense to use. Something you won’t understand until yours develops further. Now, be warned, I’m not pulling my punches like normal. So expect to get knocked on your ass harder than you’re used to. If you two can’t take me down at least a few times…well,” he said, letting that thought/insult hang in the air.

“Always like to make things interesting, don’t you,” Travis said as he and Karen split up and walked around to different sides of Jason.

“It’s called training,” Jason said as Karen suddenly moved towards him in a feint that drew a wrist block from the striker. Travis moved in and struck at his back a moment later, with Jason whipping around, grabbing his leg, and pulling him in even as Karen jumped on the pair of them and tried to get him in a stranglehold.

A moment later she was flying back through the air and landed on her ass four meters away, suddenly realizing that Jason hadn’t been kidding about not holding back. She got up and moved back into the fight, intent on rising to meet the challenge.

Paul looked up from the lounge chair in his quarters as Jason walked in, his blonde hair still slightly wet from the shower he’d just taken.

“They do any better?”

“Not good enough,” he said, sitting down in an identical chair set across a low table that held a plate of biscuits, two glasses of blue, and a second datapad. “But they’re starting to get innovative…not that it helped them.”

“Did they get any hits in?” Paul asked with a smile.

“A few, but no knockdowns,” Jason said, picking up his sugar-laden drink. “Karen has a habit to transmit in the open. Not sure if that’s all newb or she’s missing a few neurons.”

“Just been working through their latest data,” Paul said, gesturing to the datapad on the table. “I think they’ll be needing another adjustment in a few days. About half of the new tissue is running smoothly, but the rest is normal trash, with about a third really getting junked up this time. Have they been complaining about headaches?”

“Not to me, no,” Jason said, exchanging his drink for the datapad. “Travis hasn’t had an incident recently either, and I’m starting to wonder if we accidentally knocked him out of alignment.”

“I hope not,” Paul said earnestly.

“Or maybe Karen is.”

Paul frowned slightly. “You think her learning to restrict their link is suppressing him?”

“If the trigger is erroneously reading both of them…”

“Good point, but she shouldn’t be doing anything consciously.”

“Unless she’s learned to do it subconsciously. Not block the whole link, but just the component that gets her body thinking it’s his.”

“Damn…didn’t see that coming.”

“Just a theory. We still don’t know what’s provoking the trigger anyway.”

“Actually,” Paul said, raising his datapad symbolically, “we have a partial answer.”

“We do?”

“It’s syncage.”

“Is that even a word?” Jason joked.

“It is now. The techs haven’t been able to identify the type or intensity required, but it’s definitely occurring when they’re of one mind, so to speak.”

“We’ve been of one mind before,” Jason pointed out. “So have a lot of the others. Aaron especially. Why haven’t one of us triggered this?”

“I have a theory.”

“I thought you might.”

“We coordinate, they meld.”

“Explain,” Jason prompted when the distinction didn’t immediately sink in.

“Everything we do is based off of individuality. They’ve been a pairing since before birth. Even during basic training they were in the same class, same team, and have been giving the same assignments since. I’m thinking their individuality has a different meaning than ours.”

Jason shook his head slowly in disagreement. “The triggers all have something to do with the abilities they activate. I’ve been through the list multiple times and I can’t find anything like a tandem skill.”

“Neither have I, which is why I said it was a theory.”

“I think it’s time we tested another theory.”

“Which is?”

“This supposed resistance to Fornax.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “News to me.”

“Just one of the rumors floating around the Clan regarding them. It seems they don’t go down as easy as they should when they’re fighting together.”

“Resistance…or a calibration point?”

“That’s what I was wondering.”

“Let’s add the element of surprise.”

Jason smiled. “Way ahead of you.”

The next morning Karen and Travis were finishing up a run around the pyramid’s command deck and nearing one of the internal buildings Star Force had constructed, about half a kilometer from the Archon sanctum when a buzz went through Karen’s head, nearly tipping her over into a faceplant…but she caught her balance and ran on, onto to realize that Travis was no longer beside her.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was down, so she skidded to a stop and turned around just as he was getting up…only to have her body go twitchy limp with her legs collapse underneath her.

Travis likewise stumbled when she was hit, but he kept his balance and started to walk over to her, pounding a hand against the side of his head to try and realign his brain that seemed to be malfunctioning violently.

“Are you ok?” he asked as she climbed to her feet.

“What the hell happened?” Karen asked as he got to her. “Did you black out again?”

“I don’t know, I…” he started to say when both of them got wobbly at the same time and dropped into each other, clawing for balance until the mental maelstrom finally stopped and their heads fully cleared.

“Sis, I think we’re really screwed up.”

“What did we do to bring this on…we were just running.”

A sound to their right turned both their heads, just in time to see Paul standing up from a crouch in front of the V’kit’no’sat pedestal he’d just jumped off of. “Morning.”

“What the hell was that?” Travis demanded.

“Fornax,” Jason said from the top of the gigantic, dinosaur-sized lounging pad as he too jumped off and dropped a few meters into a soft landing crouch.

Travis and Karen exchanged glances. “I didn’t think it would be that…intense,” she said.

“You guys suck,” Travis said angrily, finally letting go of Karen and standing on his own balance. “You could have at least let us stop first.”

“We wanted to catch you off guard,” Paul explained.

“Congratulations,” Karen said vehemently, her head still hurting from where she’d smacked it against the stone-like floor. “Other than you two are dicks, what did we learn?”

“If we hit one of you, the other one feels it,” Jason said, ignoring the insult.

The twins looked at each other oddly. “That’s never happened before,” Travis said warily. “Is it the new tissue growth?”

Paul shook his head. “No. It’s because you’re also using each other to resist the Fornax effect. When you lose bodily coordination the world seems to spin out of control, but unlike the rest of us you’ve got your sister’s body as a stable point to steady yourself on. That means you can take a Fornax hit and not go down, and vice versa.”

“But we did just go down,” Karen argued the obvious.

“That’s because we hit you with a lot more than normal,” Jason admitted.

“Oh, duh,” Karen said in a moment of mea culpa. “Acolyte Fornax and Striker Fornax…I should have expected this.”

“No, you guys can’t be that strong,” Travis argued.

“Correct,” Jason agreed pithily, waiting for him to come to a conclusion or for Paul to speak. Travis wasn’t sure which at first, but the lingering silence inclined him to think the logic through, though Karen got it first.

“I got hit with mine and a part of his,” she said, thumbing her right hand towards her brother.

“Technically no, but fundamentally right,” Paul half agreed. “The Fornax didn’t transmit across your link, but the messed up sensory data did. That said, you were both recovering from the effect even though I was emitting a low level field continuously after I took Karen down. Even disrupted, you were pulling orientation data from each other.”

“Wait, you haven’t had time to analyze the data,” Travis said, gesturing to the biomonitor on his head.

“We don’t have to,” Jason said confidently. “It’s logical deduction. You both have the ability to help each other weather a single or double Fornax attack so long as it doesn’t completely overwhelm you…”

“…and when it does,” Paul finished, “it becomes a disadvantage by backflowing.”

Come with me, Jason told Karen telepathically as he turned and jogged off in one direction, with Paul doing the same going the opposite way.

Karen took a step towards Jason as Travis did likewise towards Paul, then they hesitated for a moment, exchanging glances before following the trailblazers off.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Karen said as they split.

“Ditto,” Travis agreed, racing to catch up with Paul. “What are we doing now?” he asked.

“Getting you out of range of your sister.”

“So you can knock me out again?”

“Yes, but you can stand this time,” the striker said as they ran off across the huge command deck, zigzagging their way between pedestals in long, smooth turns.

“Wonderful. This is payback again, isn’t it?”

“A part of training is trial and error.”

“So you’re not still ticked we beat your record?” he asked bluntly, looking across his shoulder at the slightly shorter man who seemed to embody a raw power that made Travis feel infinitely smaller this close to him.

“Nope.”

“But you were earlier?”

“Of course.”

“What changed?”

“We found out you cheated,” Paul said lightly.

“What, you’re going to erase our scores?”

“No.”

“Then…I don’t get it. We either cheated or we didn’t…which we didn’t.”

“Yes you did, and no, your scores stay.”

“Why?”

“Because you beat it fair and square.”

“While cheating?”

“Yep.”

“You lost me.”

“That seems to happen a lot.”

Travis snarled. “If you weren’t so strong I’d hit you.”

“That wouldn’t stop me,” Paul teased.

“Probably wouldn’t,” Travis said with an ounce of grudging respect, even though he was still sore at both of them for ambushing them like that. “So why no payback?”

“There’s nothing to pay back.”

“We beat your record.”

“And kudos to you for that. We’re glad you kicked ass. We’ve got too many weak Archons as it is.”

“Wait, you want people to beat your records?”

“Of course.”

“But you got upset when we did?”

“Yep.”

“But not now?”

“Nope.”

“Is this some sort of love/hate thing you got going on?”

“If someone beats our record that means they’re better than us…but no one is,” Paul said cockily.

“We did.”

“But you cheated.”

“Oh, I get it now. Our scores count, but they don’t really count as far as you’re concerned.”

“Bingo, kiddo.”

“We didn’t know we had a link back then.”

“I know.”

“And we couldn’t have turned it off if we did. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Never said you did.”

“You said we cheated.”

“You did cheat. And please continue to do so. The more cheaters like you we have the stronger Star Force will be for it.”

“So cheating is a good thing now?”

“When it helps you defeat the enemy, yes.”

“So why were you sore earlier?”

“You broke our record.”

Travis felt like smacking himself in the head. “Why won’t you give me a straight answer?”

“I’ve been giving you nothing but straight answers,” Paul reminded him.

“You’ve been giving me nothing but gib…” Travis said, suddenly falling over as Paul slowed to a stop.

“This is far enough,” he said, releasing the Fornax field as he knelt down next to the adept. “Looks like we were right. You went down with a much weaker hit now that your sister is out of the equation.”

“I hate you,” Travis said, pulling his feet up under him but resisting the urge to stand for fear of Paul knocking him down again.

The trailblazer half stood up and offered him a hand. “On your feet. You need to fight for balance as I lower the intensity level and see how much you can withstand on your own.”

Travis grabbed his wrist and let Paul drag him up on his feet, then out of spite Travis summoned up the strongest Fornax field that he could muster and released it, knowing that at this range Paul would get the full brunt of it.

Stoically, Paul didn’t budge, with little more than a forehead crease to suggest that anything had happened at all. “Wow. That almost tickled.”

“Just get it over with,” Travis said with a sigh.

“Brace yourself…” Paul warned before emitting a field approximately 3/4ths the strength of his last one, which also took Travis straight to the ground and half blacked him out as Paul held the effect a moment longer.

“…record breaker,” he finished with a smirk.

5

October 5, 2476

Solar System

Earth

Travis stepped out of the V’kit’no’sat medical station, trading places with Karen who was waiting nearby the tech and Jason. He had a light headache now that the numbing effect of the machinery had worn off, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d been told that since the tissue being added was makeshift there would be some ‘roughness’ to the transition, and this time was no exception.

This was the 8th adjustment he’d had made, with his sister progressing on an identical track. He’d been told this upgrade would bring his Ikrid tissue up near 90%, but how much of it would take and how much would have to be undid at the next treatment was anyone’s guess. Once Karen got her new tissue added, flash grown in place drawing from a vat of biological molecules so the regenerator portion of the machine didn’t have to suck material from other parts of her body, they’d go through a now familiar set of psionic drills while the biomonitors registered their efficiency and logged any anomalies.

Already they both had more tissue than normal, given that their original Ikrid growths had been left in place to preserve their link. The new tissue was forming around that, creating an even larger lump in their heads that the rest of their brain tissue had to adjust to, and in fact Travis had been told that the machine actually enlarged their skulls microscopically to adjust for the extra mass.

He’d tried to notice the changes in the mirror, but never could, making him wonder exactly what ‘microscopically’ meant in med tech terminology.

Karen’s treatment didn’t take any longer than his had, with her stepping into the small platform and having the various equipment arms encircle her and connect to her body, through which the regenerator tendrils entered and worked their magic, altering her DNA slightly and growing new tissue to match. Less than two minutes later she stepped out, having completed the procedure…then she stopped short, with a weird look crossing her face.

Travis felt the same thing, and a simultaneous beep from both their biomonitors caught Jason’s attention.

“Don’t fight it,” he urged.

“What is it?” Travis asked, holding his head as the internal stress increased.

“Your trigger is activating again, and this time it’s not being blocked. You’re showing 3 yellow.”

“So is she,” Travis said, pointing to Karen.

“Is he doing this to me or am I doing it to him?” she asked Jason, wincing against the pain.

“Could be either one, maybe both,” the trailblazer said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Sit down and work your way through it. Let the pressure build but keep it channeled.”

Travis and Karen sat down crosslegged, facing one another. “That’s not very helpful,” he mentioned.

“You’ve got to work it internally,” Jason said eagerly. “Stay with it. You might not get it this time, but the further you go the more you’ll learn. Only block it if you’re spiraling out of control.”

“What happens if we don’t?” Karen asked.

“Mental rug burn, so focus.”

The twins didn’t ask any more questions, instead working to corral the escalating instability and pressure within their heads. Travis could sense Karen’s distress, and she his, but there was too much for each of them to worry about that they couldn’t focus on the other, with their mental haze rising so high the rest of the world outside the two of them seemed to disappear from mind’s eye.

“One red,” Jason informed them. “Keep at it.”

Travis let out a grunt, but otherwise the two of them remained silent, though Jason could see them rocking back and forth a bit, which meant they were starting to lose a bit of their balance as their minds were being overloaded with instability…which was why he’d had them sit down in the first place. When he saw Karen twitch badly, the trailblazer knelt down next to them and grabbed each of their necks from the back with his hands and firmly held their skeletons in place so they could shift some of their processing power away from balance to the problem at hand.

In truth Jason thought it would have ended by now, for the first time he’d gone through this he hadn’t been able to control the instability and he’d lost it…but maybe their twin link was helping to give them both an added bit of control, especially given the fact that they were just adepts.

“Two red,” he said aloud and telepathically so they’d be sure to hear him. “Stay with it.”

They barely heard him, awash in a mental fog that seemed to be charged with electricity. Surviving that swirling mess was hard enough, but trying to channel it to where it was trying to go was virtually impossible, with every small success being rewarded with yet more mental wind. Karen resolved herself to wait it out while Travis was a bit more bold and reached into it, actively trying to redirect the flows.

Both approaches bled across their link and affected the other, but soon Karen lost all conscious contact with Travis, reduced to the only stable point within the mental hurricane she was experiencing, with the pressure in her head continuing to escalate. Though she didn’t know it, the extraneous link to her brother remained, helping both of them to keep their center, though Karen nearly lost it three times before it finally exploded.

She never heard Jason’s warnings about 3 red lights, nor about them starting to flash. The adept was doing her best to survive what seemed to be uncontrollable, with the last thing she remembered as the pain became too much for her being her screaming…then the next thing she knew her head was throbbing and her eyes were open, looking down in her lap as her physical senses suddenly returned to her from wherever they had disappeared to.

Jason still had a hand on her neck, and for the first time she felt his presence in her mind.

“What…did you do?” Travis asked a moment before she did.

“I helped stabilize you as much as I could. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Karen said honestly.

“Ditto,” Travis echoed.

“You’re still bleeding off the instability…down to 1 red, and that will continue to decrease. Do you feel any new abilities?”

“No,” Travis said flatly. “I think I screwed it up.”

Jason shook his head firmly. “I felt you ascend…both of you. I just don’t know what changed. Where are you hurting?”

“Head,” Karen said immediately and emphatically.

“Just your head?”

“Yeah,” Travis answered.

“Well that’s a small datapoint. Just sit still and wait this out,” Jason said, loosening his grip and feeling both of them slump down on their spines. “Can you sit up?”

“Didn’t realize I wasn’t,” Karen said, straightening her spine enough for Jason to fully let go.

“I’ve been through this before, so I know what it’s like.”

“What did you get?”

“Rentar…it lets me see and disrupt others’ Lachka tendrils. It’s a psionic ability that manifests from the entire body, not just the head, so my pain was everywhere at once.”

“Meaning nobody can force choke you anymore?” Travis asked sarcastically.

Jason smiled. “Nope.”

Karen groaned. “I don’t know what just happened, but I really need a nap…bad.”

“Same here.”

Jason nodded. “Don’t worry about training today. Whatever just happened needs to process further. I was burnt out when it happened to me, and you’re just a couple of weak ass adepts, so…”

“Shut up,” Karen said, punching for his leg and missing as her arm protested halfway there and dipped towards the ground.

“Like I said,” Jason commented with a frown. “Can either of you stand?”

“Some help,” Travis said as he started to get to his feet. Suddenly he felt a firm grip around his waist and legs, belatedly realizing that Jason was steadying him with Lachka rather than a traditional arm under the shoulders.

“Ow…ch,” Travis said, standing up and feeling his head explode like a grenade had just gone off.

“Karen, stay put. Travis, head over to the platform. I want to see what was added.”

“Ok,” he said, walking very slowly over to the device with Jason doing most of the heavy lifting. Once he got inside he leaned forward on the two circular pylons and felt the trailblazer let go.

“You good?”

“So long as I don’t move, sure.”

“Just stay put a few seconds,” the tech prompted, pulling a full body scan that Jason was eagerly watching build in holo. When overlaid with the previous one taken a few minutes ago the computer immediately identified a new growth on his Ikrid tissue, and Jason immediately knew this was something new, for he’d studied all the tier 2 psionics listed in the database and their corresponding physical growths, but nothing that been even close to this size, for the tissue was nearly half again what the normal Ikrid material would have been.

“And?” Karen prompted, still sitting on the floor.

“And we’ve got a mystery on our hands,” Jason told her. “This isn’t one of the tier 2 psionics.”

“Tier 3?” Travis asked hopefully.

Jason shook his head. “No. This doesn’t match up with anything in the database.”

“Don’t tell me we grew a faulty one again,” Karen begged him.

“No, no…the placement is different. This is something new. Feel anything yet?”

“Just a monster headache,” Travis answered.

“Alright,” Jason decided. “Switch up and then I’ll take you back to your bunks to rest and we’ll figure this out later.”

“Thank you,” Travis said, stumbling out with Jason telekinetically catching him again until he got to the adept and wrapped an arm around him, freeing up his Lachka so he could help Karen into the device as she stood up a few inches before falling back down.

“Take it slow,” he prompted, dragging Travis out of her way.

The pair spent the next 38 hours in bed, with Travis being the first to make his way to the sanctum for a very easy run to flush the crap out of his system, feeling like he hadn’t worked out in a month. His head had stopped complaining with every little movement he made, but it was still a constant dull ache, with it taking more than a mile before he started to feel any relief.

He got through 8 miles on the track, watching his pace carefully because his body was feeling all out of whack, before Karen showed up. As soon as she did his head exploded…but not in pain. Suddenly his senses seemed to wobble and he nearly ran off the track before he adjusted to a very strong pull coming from Karen.

Travis coasted to a stop and walked off to the side, seeing her ‘glowing’ in front of him.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“What are you feeling?”

“You…like you’re the only thing around here in color.”

“Ditto. Happened as soon as you came within range.”

“Meaning Ikrid. If this is a new ability, what the hell is it supposed to do…other than distract us.”

“Don’t know. You up for a few miles?”

“How many have you done?”

“8…it’s helping out my head.”

“Good. Maybe this will wear off too,” she said, slowly getting up to speed as they both angled into lane 1 and ran side by side with Karen taking the inner curve. By the time they got around to the backstretch they both knew something was different. They’d always known where each other were, even when they couldn’t see each other, but this was far more intense.

Travis could literally feel every inch of Karen’s body, her footsteps, arm swings…even her breathing and heartbeat. Her bio telemetry was saturating his senses and taking precedence over everything else, but with focus he was able to keep running and quickly got a handle on it. Her ‘glow’ didn’t diminish, but it quickly incorporated into his normal twin feel as the shock of it first activating wore off.

They both completed the first lap without comment, then they began pulling weaving maneuvers close in to one another on the second. By the third they were seeing how close they could get, stepping inside each other’s stride and coordinating their arm swings to the point they were literally jumping on and over each other as they held sub 6:00 pace, drawing some very odd looks from the other Archons on the track.

They pulled off after completing a mile, and as soon as they got out of lane 1 and to the outside of the track they started shadow boxing…and missing each other by a fraction of an inch. That lasted some 20 seconds before they started going through gymnastic maneuvers, again missing each other by narrow margins, and eventually leading up to paired holds and flips, executing them with more precision than they’d ever been able to do in the past.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Karen asked once they finally stopped and got their breathing under control. As elated as they were, they still felt drained from their ascension two days ago.

“Our link just got stronger.”

“Way stronger,” she echoed.

“Is that what it’s supposed to do, or did it just do it for us?”

“Don’t know. Let’s run this by Paul and Jason before we try anything else.”

“They should be doing their own workouts now. I think this warrants disturbing them,” Travis suggested with a wry smile.

Karen copied it perfectly. “Let’s go.”

Paul and Jason were locked in a heavy, blow by blow sword fight in a small sparring chamber when suddenly they lost their balance and stumbled into each other, quickly steadying themselves and pulling apart…which was when they finally noticed Karen and Travis standing just outside the doorway as they released their steadying arm lock.

“Sorry, did we interrupt something?” Travis said, smiling widely due to the fact that their overlapping Fornax fields had been enough to break their rhythm, though they’d had to blast each other with it as well because they hadn’t learn to send out individual Fornax blasts yet, but it was well worth it.

The two trailblazers glanced at each other, then both pointed towards the twin with their free hands, jerking them off their feet and throwing them onto the mat a meter away with a heavy telekinetic ‘Force’ tug.

“No, not at all,” Paul said lightly, looking down at them.

“What did you want?” Jason asked, matching his mocking tone as the twins climbed to their feet minus their previous levity.

“Something happened,” Karen said, biting back a curse.

“Our coordination got better,” Travis explained. “A lot better.”

“When, where, and how?” Paul demanded.

“As soon as we got within Ikrid range, on the track, and we’re guessing our new tissue,” Karen answered succinctly.

“Is it still active?” Jason asked.

Both twins nodded.

“Have you tried shutting it off?” Paul asked.

“No,” Travis said, resulting in Jason pointing a finger at the door. “Right,” he said, walking out and putting some distance between him and Karen.

“How’s the head,” Paul asked her.

“Dull ache,” she said, then jerking suddenly. “Ouch.”

“It shut off?” Jason guessed.

“Yeah. There was no fade out. Ugh, everything is…dull now.”

Jason sent a telepathic summons for Travis to return. “Explain what improved.”

“I know exactly where he is at all…times,” she said, twitching when Travis returned into range. “I can feel exactly where his arms and legs are right now,” she said without looking behind. “And he glows, like everything else is a weak signal.”

Paul held out his hand. “Show me.”

Karen took it in hers, allowing the two Archons to form a direct Ikrid link. Most of Paul’s mind was shut off from her, but she let him through her defenses and highlighted her new sense…with Paul also digging through her recent memories and transmitting what he saw to Jason.

Then suddenly he let go and walked around the pair, heading to the door and leaving the three of them behind.

“Where’s he going?” Travis asked.

“To send a message. Ok then, if you have enough energy to be pulling pranks, you’ve got enough to start probing this enhanced link. Let’s take a trip to Balboa Lane and see how coordinated you really are.”

6

November 11, 2476

Retari System

Atlantica

Kara woke when she heard the soft tone in her otherwise silent quarters onboard the Broadsword, prompting her to sit up in her bunk and look towards the comm terminal. As she’d suspected a message from one of the trailblazers had come in, meaning that the ship had finally returned to Star Force space and linked up with the network. After several months in lizard territory backlogged messages coming through in bunches was common, but she’d programmed her terminal only to audibly signal her when a priority alert or a message from one of her ‘peers’ came through, with all others waiting until she decided to check in and see if she had mail.

Kara slid out from under the thin covers and walked over to the terminal, feeling the slightly cool air on her bare arms and legs. She sat down and pulled up the message, seeing it was from Paul, and opened a nearby water bottle to take a swig…then nearly choked as she read his startling revelations.

The twin prodigies that Paul had tried and failed to recruit into Clan Saber had been confirmed to have a psionic link, which invariably helped to aid their tandem coordination, but Paul also indicated that he thought it was helping them to level up faster than the average Archon. He couldn’t put his finger on how exactly it was occurring, but he was sure they were gaining some type of advantage through what was described as being a continuous subconscious bond.

But that wasn’t what startled Kara. It was the headline for the message that Paul had chosen.

UNKNOWN PSIONIC ABILITY DISCOVERED

Paul went through in detail what they’d learned from Karen and Travis, eventually working up to the recent ascension that had both of them transforming simultaneously. That was unheard of, and Paul cited that he also believed that whatever allowed them to train to more effect had also triggered the simultaneous ascension, and not just because of their prior blackouts. He theorized that whatever the trigger was searching for it had found it in both of them because of the link, meaning that either one could have triggered it in the other…or that it had been looking specifically for a binary ability.

That blew Kara’s mind for a moment, then she started staring at a spot on the wall above the vid screen as a memory made its way to the forefront. In it she was a Zak’de’ron looking at a display with Zen’zat data and having a discussion with one of the other dragons about the abilities they were placing in their genetic code. They dismissed the foolish sentiments of the other V’kit’no’sat races involved in the programming and decided to include the full lexicon of abilities into the tiny beings, citing that if any of the Zen’zat proved to be capable enough of handling the myriad of skills then they would need the more extreme abilities in order to serve their purpose.

A light argument was had about whether or not to create a separate genetic template for the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat or to use the same for all of them, with the later proposition winning out. They would design the Zen’zat as they so chose, but not inform the rest of the V’kit’no’sat about the extra abilities they were weaving into their genetic code…abilities that the Oso’lon and Hjar’at were adamant that the Zen’zat not possess.

Their concerns were deemed paranoid, for even with all the abilities they were giving the Zen’zat the potential to develop, they would still be grossly inferior to the Zak’de’ron and the other major V’kit’no’sat races. True, the Zen’zat would have the full slew of V’kit’no’sat psionic abilities available to them, but their tiny size would make them inferior…so long as their counterparts worked to develop their own abilities. The dragons didn’t care one bit about the whinings of the lazy, especially when the Zen’zat would have to earn all their abilities past the initial 7 they were granting to them.

All the other races received their psionics as default, and while they did have to be developed, none of them had to be unlocked in the way the Zen’zat gained theirs. That way the Zen’zat would never be superior to those who continued to work and advance, but they could exceed…and far exceed, those who did not. That is what most of the other races feared, despite the fact that the full range of psionics would make the Zen’zat far more useful servants.

The Zak’de’ron that Kara was seeing the memory through wasn’t going to hobble their own Zen’zat based on what the others wanted, so they decided to go ahead with weaving the full array of psionics into the Zen’zat genome they were creating, while leaving out the controversial ones from their official report. The Zen’zat would maintain the potential to develop the other abilities, and if/when they did they’d deal with the backlash from the others. In the meantime the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat would train to develop them all, leaving the rest to chart their own path.

The memory suddenly shifted, as if her Vorch’nas was sorting through the knowledge it contained to tell her exactly what she need to know and nothing more, and came to an overview of Zen’zat abilities from the view of the V’kit’no’sat and not the dragons. It showed what she had already seen in the pyramid database…the 7 basic abilities, 15 second level, and 3 third level. But from this memory she knew there were more that had yet to be unlocked, with a brief glance at the true ability tree from the V’kit’no’sat point of view, with 7 basic abilities, 27 second level, and 8 third level.

She didn’t know what the others were, for the memory didn’t let her focus on that, but next came the Zak’de’ron ability tree, with many more being added that the V’kit’no’sat had never learned of…meaning their Zen’zat had never developed them. This memory wouldn’t let her count, but it did show her that there was a 4th level of even more powerful abilities…but there was also an 8th basic ability showing, which spawned its own very large ability tree of which, again, she couldn’t focus on enough to count, let alone identify the abilities.

The basic 8th did come through clearly though, with the word Pa’no’semak emblazoned over it. The name translated as ‘battlemeld,’ and as soon as Kara focused on it alone a wealth of knowledge opened up to her, all in a split second, making her feel like she’d known it all along but had somehow forgotten.

The memory epiphany ended, leaving her blinking and wondering how long she’d been staring at the wall. Bringing up a comm prompt, she activated the holocamera, intending to send Paul a recording instead of a text message.

“Paul, just had a…” she said, pausing to tap her fingers on her forehead twice, “update. What the twins stumbled upon is very significant. It’s something in the Zen’zat genetic code that the V’kit’no’sat never unlocked, only the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat did. The other V’kit’no’sat races don’t even know it’s in their code. It’s called Pa’no’semak, translated as Battlemeld…”

Paul watched Kara’s message for the third time, having brought Jason in for this showing, as she detailed how three of the other V’kit’no’sat races had the ability to link together to create larger and more intense Fornax fields, increase Ikrid transmission range, and generate stronger bioshields. Those abilities had been given to the Vi’vek, I’rar’et, and Ni’ma’so, respectively, for special purposes unique to those races while any and all tandem skills were forbidden to the other races.

The Zak’de’ron, however, already could combine virtually all of their skills to greater power…though they had never elaborated to the full extent of those abilities. It was yet another sticking point between the dragons and the other V’kit’no’sat races, and they had been adamant that the soon to be created Zen’zat not possess any tandem abilities.

The Zak’de’ron had originally wanted the battlemeld to be part of the basic skills granted to the Zen’zat, but instead they chose to hide it, with the trigger being any individual developing a similar tandem skill using their existing Ikrid ability. As far as Kara knew none of the V’kit’no’sat Zen’zat had ever opened it up, and if that were still true to this day, then it was an opportunity to one up them if they could figure out how to do what the twins accidentally did.

She then went on to explain the other abilities that she’d glimpsed, indicating that the V’kit’no’sat Zen’zat had not discovered all of their hidden talents. That was a welcome bombshell, despite the fact of being unaware of what was happening to them over the last 100 millennia. It meant that as good as they were, they were still ‘inferior’ in the eyes of the designers of their genetic upgrades.

Kara went on to apologize for not having further information, insisting that there must have been some safety protocols in place to keep her from having full access to the memories and that any further breakthroughs should be relayed to her immediately, for they might unlock further information. Then she ended with the option of recalling her to Earth if Paul thought her knowledge and skills would be needed in their probing of this new ability.

Jason sighed after the message ended. “Are you going to bring her back?”

“I’d like to bring all of us in to work on this, but I think you and I can handle it.”

“I concur. After Travis and Karen we’re the closest to developing a sufficient psionic link…though from the techs’ analysis I think we’re still far off.”

“Way off,” Paul agreed. “But we’ve got them to actively pattern off of, and I think I’m starting to get a feel for what they did. From what Kara said, the battlemeld is just a primer used to link other abilities as they manifest, with the enhanced coordination being mostly a side effect.”

“You’re underrating it.”

Paul shook his head. “I know it’s valuable, but by the way it’s designed it lets two people work together…like creating a conduit between them. Useful enough on its own, but it’s built as a foundation to build on. They could practice with the meld, but since we don’t have it…”

“…or anything like it…” Jason added, catching on.

“…neither we nor they knew what to train for.”

“Until Ken and Barbie stumbled onto it.”

“A very fortuitous stumble,” Paul agreed, “for the linking they do is far more than we ever tried. Everything we’ve done is transmit, not read.”

“They can’t read either.”

“No,” Paul said, pointing a finger at Jason as he began to pace around his quarters. “They can’t. But they’ve gotten around it with years of experience. They transmit constantly and openly, so there’s no need to read because they’re not holding anything back…well, some things obviously, but not the essentials.”

Jason gave him a funny look. “You’re saying our badassness is blocking us from attaining the necessary linkage?”

“We think and fight as two individuals coordinating together. They act as a pair that occasionally operates as individuals. Whatever these battlemeld powers are, they must require an enormous amount of connection, either in finesse or processing power. All we’ve ever needed is some situational awareness and thought sharing.”

“You’ve obviously got an idea of how to train for this, so spit it out already.”

“We spend a few more days piggybacking on their battlemeld, then we one-up their twin link by training with constant physical contact.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “That will get us past the Ikrid blocks that even their twin link suffers from. After which we get very comfortable inside each other’s head.”

“More than that…we have to stop thinking like individuals.”

“Yeah, that could be a problem. Archons are supposed to act as individuals.”

“And they will once we learn how to teach them to meld, but since the twins are clueless as to what they’re doing, we have to go overboard.”

“Alter our training, temporarily, and go deep into paired philosophy?”

Paul nodded. “We put our individuality on the shelf for a while, then reclaim it after we’ve learned what we need to.”

Jason followed that line of thought quickly through several logic functions. “We’ll need to minimize breakage. The twins spend most of their hours together. They even have quarters next to each other, though I’m not sure if their bunks are within transmission range or not now, but they were growing up. They shared a single room.”

“Then we do too from now on.”

“Handcuffed,” Jason reluctantly suggested. “That way we don’t have to worry about holding hands constantly.”

“Ugh,” Paul said, realizing he was right…and how this was going to hamper their training, but it had to be done if they were going to stand a chance of unlocking the battlemeld. “Restroom breaks?”

“And shower, but nothing else and we keep those brief.”

“Agreed. Let’s get the techs to design something more useful than normal restraints.”

“Already got a few ideas,” Jason said as the two headed for the door, intent on starting this deviation in their training immediately, knowing how big of a training hit it was going to be and not wanting to let their minds dwell on that with second thoughts before they committed to it and linked up.

Six hours later they were bound together at the wrist with palms facing out so that the back of Paul’s right hand was smashed against Jason’s left inside a short gauntlet that not only held their hands and wrists together, but the lower portion of their forearms. This kept their skin in constant contact without rubbing from rotation, a deliberate design with long term planning in mind.

The gauntlet could be switched off from arm to arm, meaning they wouldn’t be stuck with a strong arm and a weak arm after weeks of training, but the pair quickly learned that there wasn’t much they could do with their linked arms, meaning all sparring blows had to be accomplished by their other three limbs.

Paul and Jason got through several hours of training on Balboa Lane and an awkward lap around the command deck before Travis and Karen finally met up with them…laughing their heads off.

“What the hell is that?” Travis asked between additional snickers.

“I didn’t realize holding hands required any…accoutrements,” Karen added mirthfully.

“We’re replicating your twin link,” Paul said calmly, dismissing Jason’s idea to Vader them both, “since you two don’t have a clue what you’re doing.”

“You’re trying to gain our ability?” Travis asked, settling down.

“It’s called a Battlemeld,” Jason explained, equally calm, “and is an ability that the Zen’zat never attained.”

“Except the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat,” Paul added.

“And it is the 8th basic psionic,” Jason finished.

“What? I thought there were only 7?” Karen asked.

“There were only 7 known to the V’kit’no’sat. The Zak’de’ron did the genetic programming and included things the others didn’t know about, and over their objections. Apparently the Zen’zat didn’t stumble onto them on their own…until now,” Paul said, looking at both of them in turn.

“Kara filled us in,” Jason told them.

“What’s it supposed to do?” Travis asked. “The battlemeld, I mean.”

“It creates a link between two individuals that is the precursor to a number of tandem abilities. Kara couldn’t give us specifics, but there are many.”

“And the V’kit’no’sat don’t know about them?”

“Apparently not, as of 106,000 years ago. That’s why they’re not in the database.”

“Though they do know of some that aren’t in there,” Jason corrected. “The pyramid database is the system hub, but it seems some things are kept more private. The restricted files didn’t contain the other abilities yet to be unlocked, so it’s possible that most of the V’kit’no’sat didn’t know they existed either. And according to Kara there’s a lot the Zak’de’ron knew that the rest didn’t.”

“Did the dragon Zen’zat have these other abilities?” Karen asked.

“The battlemeld, yes,” Paul answered. “The others…somewhat. Kara couldn’t be specific.”

“Is she still in Alpha Region?”

“Yes.”

“Well nuts. She could be a lot of help here.”

“She already has helped. And now that we know…”

“Kind of know,” Jason added.

“…what we’re doing, we’ll figure this out and learn to teach the others. You two just focus on getting better at what you do. Oh, and Kara did say the battlemeld isn’t supposed to be constant. You’re supposed to turn it on and off at will.”

Karen and Travis looked at each other and shrugged. “We’re fine.”

“Thought you’d say that,” Jason said as he pointed to the perimeter of the command deck. “Once you finish your laps meet us in Cerebro 6.”

“Will do,” Karen said, taking one last glance at the trailblazers’ bracelet and snickering as the pair ran off ahead of them.

Little pricks, Jason thought.

Slow pricks, Paul amended as they started running again and, despite their arms being bound together, quickly caught up to and passed the twins…who then sped up to match them.

That set up an impromptu race that lasted a quarter lap before Paul and Jason veered off to the interior and kicked it up another notch, getting better at syncing their strides together. They weaved back and forth and around the giant lounging pedestals, sometimes doing two or three completed circuits before breaking off again and chasing some of the mongooses on their painted trails.

Eventually it ended up with a long, straight finish run that had the twins barely hanging on when they began it, but another speed increased dropped them a few seconds later…with the trailblazers running ahead and waiting for them at the foot of the down ramp, seemingly untired while the twins were dragging as they finally caught up.

“Stupid younglings,” Jason commented with a shake of his head before he and Paul rotated around and began hopping down the dino-sized steps in a bit of a victory dance.

Karen and Travis watched them descend, not feeling like walking with them down to the lower level in the pyramid where additional training facilities had been built.

“Pricks,” Karen commented, with Travis nodding in agreement as they walked over to the side where the smaller steps were and slowly made their way down the ramp.

7

February, 2477

Solar System

Earth

Paul sat with Jason in one of the cafeterias built inside the pyramid, eating along with a few Archons and a lot of techs, their arms bound together but having no trouble getting food in their mouth, for in addition to their free arm they also has telekinesis to work with, making every meal a bit of a show for the techs that weren’t used to having them around. Just for a bit of fun, Jason had gotten used to pulling liquid out of his drinking glass or bottle telekinetically, and in between bites of pasta he created a snake of red that stretched out of the bottle’s thin neck and arced up into his mouth.

Doing so was far more difficult than people thought, given that he had to grip the entire exterior of the liquid glob with Lachka and not just a few key points that would suffice on a solid. After a few more bites he did it again, but this time tried for a loop rather than a straight shot. As he got through half a curve in his invisible straw, the liquid started to drip off at a couple of points as Jason’s telekinetic skills were pushed to their limits in terms of small scale control.

Being Ikrid linked at the hands, Paul knew he was having trouble even before the first drop fell and reached out with his own Lachka to grab the drops and return them to the stream, then combined his telekinetic power with Jason’s to reinforce the loop, succeeding in delivering the post workout replenishment liquid to the striker’s mouth.

Jason, already being inside Paul’s head to a degree, didn’t thank him, for they’d gotten in the habit of just picking up after one another over the past months without recognition, whether it be in training drills or seemingly pointless tricks like this, though they both knew that every bit of psionic practice they got, regardless of the circumstances, would have an additional training effect, meaning they actually had a reason to play with their food.

Paul reached his left hand over and grabbed a cookie from his tray, but it stopped halfway up to his mouth as a beep sounded from his biomonitor. Jason looked over at him and saw 2 yellow lights glowing, but he didn’t need to say anything, for Paul knew it from his thoughts anyway before he could even have bothered to form the words.

Jason wondered if it would be enough for Paul to latch onto, but again he didn’t ask the question in words or even telepathically. The thought was just there, for both of them to think, with Paul beginning to grasp hold of the mild instability and channel it in the direction he wanted…which ramped it up to 3 yellow.

Both of them were excited, but Jason’s biomonitor wasn’t showing any activity and suddenly Paul’s sense of Jason began to blur away as he had to draw more and more of his concentration into channeling the instability. Jason could still sense Paul, but knew better than to interfere unless he asked. He watched through mind’s eye as the Paul controlled and pushed the instability on, then when the biomonitor got up to 2 red he decided to disconnect.

Jason pulled the gauntlet off and felt Paul’s mind disappear…an odd sensation given how much time they spent linked nowadays. If Paul needed him to he’d link back up and help him as a focal point, but they both assumed, for some reason he couldn’t identify, that it was probably a disadvantage to have another set of biofeedback thrown into the mix, and even if Paul wasn’t consciously trying to read Jason, he probably was doing so at least some subconsciously.

Right on cue, as soon as he disconnected the monitor went 3 red, with Paul pushing his chair back and dropping to his knees on the floor as he tried to control it. Jason could see his muscles clenching up against the stress, but he made no sound as the 3 red lights started flashing. A few people turned to look, wondering why he’d quietly dropped to the floor, then all of a sudden Jason heard his mental scream and everyone in the cafeteria jerked in shock and fear as they heard it too…with several people dropping trays as the involuntary Ikrid transmission washed over them.

“Stay put and relax!” Jason yelled to the crowd as he kept his eyes on Paul. “It’ll pass in a moment.”

He heard a number of questions raised, for the mental scream was painful enough just to ‘hear’ and wasn’t subsiding. It seemed to oscillate and then increase in intensity right up to the point where it vanished…leaving everyone in the surrounding area taking a deep breath and shaking off the effect.

“Sorry about that,” Jason apologized, “but that’s what happens when you step on an Archon’s toe.”

He waved to everybody, most of whom got the joke but didn’t know what was going on, then knelt down beside Paul as he continued to rest on his knees with the biomonitor dropping down from 3 red to 1.

Did you make it? he asked telepathically.

Yes.

And?

Get one of the twins so I can check. I felt the flash growth, but I have no ability to use. It’s like I’ve got a spotlight reaching out for something that isn’t there.

You staying here?

It’s not as bad as the bioshield upgrade, but I’ve got quite the headache.

I’ll be back, Jason said as he stood up and left the cafeteria, leaving Paul to wobbily climb back into his chair and scoot it back up to the table.

“What just happened?” a woman asked from the table next to his.

“A spontaneous psionic upgrade,” Paul said, cradling his head in his hands in tripod fashion on the table without looking at her. “Sorry about the scream.”

“It hurts?” someone else asked.

“Yeah,” he said, his head throbbing as he felt someone walk up behind him and place a hand on his neck.

“Do you know what you got?” the medic asked, with Paul recognizing the voice as one of the geneticists on Vortison’s team.

“I think so. We’ll know as soon as Jason gets back.”

“You’re really chewed up in there,” the medic said, feeling inside his head with his own Ikrid ability…infantile as it was compared to Paul’s.

“Flash growth,” he reminded him.

“Or you’re pushing it too fast,” he differed. “The instability surge is designed, we think, to allow you to partially upgrade in stages. How many times was this?”

“First,” Paul said with a touch of pride.

“I’d recommend taking it slower next time,” the medic said in all earnest.

“We can’t control when it happens, and we’re not going to waste the opportunity,” he said, wincing against the pain.

“A few dozen repeats and you might not have to,” he said, referencing the data they were gathering with the biomonitors, “but I suppose it doesn’t help your group.”

“Tip of the spear,” Paul said in agreement.

“Is there somewhere you’d like us to take you?”

“I’m good,” Paul said, still face down to the table as he held as still as possible while several waves of pain rippled across his forehead. “Go back to eating.”

“Actually, I think I’ll go see what new data you just gained us,” the medic said, laying a light hand on Paul’s shoulder before he walked away, leaving him in blissful anonymity until Jason eventually returned.

“He’s not glowing,” he heard Karen say from beside him, surprising him by the fact that he hadn’t notice her or Jason walk up…nor Travis, for that matter, who was standing behind them as Paul finally pulled his head off his hands and looked at them. He used what he felt like a spotlight and pointed it at Karen, feeling her to be slippery and not wanting to accept his contact, but after some 30+ seconds of trying the link finally took and she began to glow within his mind.

“What the…” Travis said, flinching as Karen’s glow disappeared.

“I guess you did join the club,” she said, seeing Paul glow as well as feeling him as she’d only felt Travis before. “Damn, you are in good shape.”

“So you have the battlemeld?” Jason asked to be sure.

“Seems so,” Paul said, marveling at the depth of connection it was providing him. Not only could he feel Karen’s body position, the light stress in her muscles from standing and the slight bind of the hair tie in her ponytail, but he could sense what she was thinking similar to the Ikrid link he’d had with Jason…except there was no physical contact here. “I think the meld overrides the Ikrid block. I’m getting more connection with her than I had with you…a lot more.”

“My condolences,” Jason offered, drawing a glare from Travis, but Karen didn’t seem to mind.

“Can I have my sister back please,” he said, slightly annoyed.

“What do you mean?” Jason asked.

“I’m not connected to her anymore. It shut off whenever Paul did whatever he did.”

“It’s supposed to work with more than 2,” Paul said, reaching out with his spotlight and finding Travis, who was just as slippery. “Try and connect with me.”

“I don’t know how. It’s always been automatic.”

“Just let me in. Karen will try to reach out for you too.”

Travis stared for a moment, then closed his eyes as he concentrated. His sister was wanting to connect, he could feel that through their twin link, but she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, until he finally found a crack to let Paul in, then they both connected simultaneously forming a 3-way link.

“Holy shit,” Travis said as both the other Archons’ senses flooded into his.

“How’s your head now?” Jason asked.

“Like King Kong is pounding on it,” Karen answered for him, using the phrase he was about to speak.

“I suggest you disconnect soon and get some rest…alone. You can get me up to speed later.”

“Feeling left out?” Travis asked.

“A bit,” Jason admitted. “We didn’t ascend at the same time, and I think it’s pretty obvious why you two did.”

“Might be true of all their future ascensions,” Paul commented. “Actually, I can feel their auxiliary link now. It’s weaker, but definitely there in the background. Encrypted, I think. It’s like they’ve become wireless components of each other’s brain. I think that’s why we couldn’t pick it up before. We don’t have the right context to interpret it because it’s not traditional telepathy. We were looking for sentences and they’re communicating in numerical code.”

“Fascinating,” Jason said sarcastically, “but this has to be frying your head, especially with 2 people linked in.”

“It is,” Paul said, reluctant to let go of the new sensation. He concentrated and withdrew from Travis…immediately getting dropped by Karen. That made sense, given that Travis’s connection should trump his since he’d spent far more time with his sister. Then again, he’d been able to trump him to establish a connection in the first place.

“He’s out,” she said, suddenly missing his presence. He wasn’t half the jerk she’d thought he was.

“I off,” Paul said, slowly standing and walking away. “I’ll check in with you guys tomorrow.”

“Night,” Jason joked, then turned to the twins as he grabbed a roll off his plate and took a quick bite. “Try disconnecting from each other again.”

The twins looked at each other, then both shrugged innocently. “We don’t know how,” they said in tandem.

“Try,” Jason pressed as he sat back down. “And keep at it the rest of the day until you do.”

“I think that means we’re dismissed,” Travis quipped, glancing around at the others in the cafeteria, most of whom were not paying attention to them, though there were a few nearby that were listening and pretending not to notice, though their body language gave them away.

“Want to grab something?” Karen asked.

“Just a snack.”

“K,” she said, heading over to the food lines as she examined their battlemeld link. It was firm and constant, and no matter how she tried to manipulate it, it felt like she was trying to grab a bar of soap under water, with it slipping through her fingers every time. With no ‘grip’ she couldn’t disconnect, and short of walking out of range or having Paul bump Travis out again, she didn’t know how to even theoretically go about manually disconnecting from her brother.

“We’re going to be at this for a while,” Travis said once they were out of earshot.

“I know,” she said, grabbing a bottle of green.

It took another 3 weeks of handcuffed training before Jason’s trigger activated, and like Paul he also nailed the ascension on the first try…with an equally nasty headache in exchange, but as soon as it passed the two got back to their normal training with a few additional melding sessions that surged them past the twins’ scores on the challenges that they’d developed for them, and after only a few hours of trying.

From there it was a constant whirlwind of training, with most of their free time spent either designing new challenges and equipment or kicking the crap out of the twins as Paul and Jason continued to oversee their training, and now that they knew what the melding was like, they pushed them far harder than they’d pushed themselves previously, now with no excuse given that the twins were now on the short end of the psionic stick.

Or at least they were for several months. With the new training regimens that the trailblazers were creating, Karen and Travis started working on things that they hadn’t even imagined were possible before…like sequenced timing of Fornax blasts, oscillating telekinetic holds so one could rest while the other held an object aloft, allowing both to keep it levitated for far long than either could do individually or in turns, and overlapping Rensiek fields to hyper-compress their heat emissions and turn their limited skill in that area into a metal-melting handhold that, when combined with Lachka, gave them the ability to craft crude objects out of raw materials.

The twins thought some of the training was downright stupid, but they went along with it and during a paired telekinetic drill involving an overlap of their Lachka energy to try and extend their combined range, they both suddenly found themselves on the floor and going through another ascension…this one a bit quicker than before, but no less traumatic.

The next day Vortison and his team confirmed what Paul and Jason suspected after running the twins through a few exploratory drills…that they now, through the battlemeld, could produce one Lachka field rather than an overlapping two. Now in perfect sync, the tissue in both of their brains functioned like an extension of each other, producing one field as if they were a much larger individual with greater brain size…like some of the medium V’kit’no’sat races. But more than that, the binary nature somehow enhanced the effect, with Vortison speculating that it had to do with the field being produced at an angle rather than from a single point, in effect giving them the equivalent of more leverage.

In a private conversation later on between the genetics team and Paul and Jason, they discussed in detail how they thought the twins were leveling up faster due to their non-meld link, with Vortison adding some more tidbits of data that confirmed their ‘duality.’ For whatever reason they’d developed and grown the link before birth, he suspected, and on some level they were operating as a single individual while maintaining the option of individuality when they were separated.

As such, the genetic triggers were reading them as a pair, which was why they were ascending together and why, it seemed, they had a great deal more aptitude at the battlemeld. Paul and Jason disagreed with that vehemently until Vortison revised his assessment, specifying that the duality that they suspected the triggers were searching for was already partially present in the twins due to their link, letting them get into the specified ‘zone’ with far less adjustment…though with only the four of them to study that was only a little less than wild speculation at this point.

That grudgingly made sense, and the two strikers left their info chat satisfied. If the twins continued to unlock battlemeld abilities then that would be good for them and Star Force overall…but they weren’t doing it because they were better, they were doing it because they, once again, were cheating.

Which meant the race was on, with Paul and Jason diving into the challenge. They’d have to work longer and harder to keep up with the twerps, which they’d come to almost like now that they could see them from a new perspective with the battlemeld, but there was nothing that spurred the trailblazers on more than going up against a superior opponent...and one that was cheating to do it gave them an even greater drive to ‘correct’ that injustice.

That set up a war between the two pairs, with Paul and Jason decided to remain in the pyramid for continuous training indefinitely, knowing that the sooner they uncovered and mastered these new abilities the sooner they could teach others to do the same, enhancing all of the Archons. They both made long term adjustments to their previous assignments, seeing that others could function in their absence, and set themselves in an even more rigorous schedule as they probed their potential in their own unique way while simultaneously getting a read from Karen and Travis and trying to replicate the Lachka meld.

They would succeed four months later…but only after the twins had unlocked yet another ability, with the two gleefully staying ahead and mocking the trailblazers whenever they got the opportunity, for their own schedule was becoming quite rigorous as they had no intention of letting Paul and Jason catch up.

8

May 31, 2489

Solar System

Earth

Greg arrived in the pyramid, haven’t seeing Earth in a very long time and only now returning at Jason’s request, leaving the ever-expanding lizard front in Alpha Region as their enemy was constantly trying to flank the Star Force colonies and push around the edges of their sparse defensive line. He’d been leading one of the roaming fleets hunting them down and pushing them back as the reformed Alliance was extending that line with newly colonized shared worlds along with three Irondel/Star Force colonies that were forming quickly as the physically smallest race in the Alliance was staking out a piece of the shared border to assist in the defense, rather than merely hiding out on the interior with the other refuges.

The chipmunk-sized race wasn’t the only one beginning to pitch in, for there were four more races doing the same…one on the lizard border, one on the Calavari, and two on the Skarron front, though those weren’t originally from the Alliance, but from Randy’s contacts near Beta Region that had fled the Skarron invasion, and still more were talking about claiming their own piece of the ever-growing puzzle that was the Alliance Defense Zone.

That was the semi-official title, with the Alliance portion of the races still referring to it as the Sanctuary Zone, but with many more non-Alliance races being allowed in by Star Force the term ‘Alliance’ had taken on a new meaning, with the ADZ meaning all of Star Force’s allies, making them the center of power while the Hycre were still the dominating force within the anti-lizard Alliance.

The recent surge of help from the ADZ denizens had come on the heels of Star Force deploying its first Sentinel-class defense platform that outraged all weapon systems within the Alliance and their enemies…by far. It utilized a new power core and targeting orrery coupled with multiple cleansing beams that could now hit ships in excess of 1,000 miles with the accuracy of what had once been the equivalent of 20. With the promise of several such defense platforms being built, numerous races were now eager to position themselves on the ADZ borders, wanting both a chance to strike back at the enemy and to gain more stature within the quickly growing ADZ community…now that they felt they had a safe haven to run back to, provided by the Sentinels.

Blade-097 and Zack-085 had been sent to the lizard front to replace Greg and to take care of several new projects popping up within Alpha Zone, with several more trailblazers and other high ranking Archons repositioning throughout the ADZ in a slow shuffle as a new, multi-racial dynamic was forming within what had once been Star Force’s ‘territory,’ though in truth it had been more their neighborhood than their possession.

The few star systems they actually owned had remained exclusively theirs, and thus far the Core Region was remaining a Star Force-only zone, but Alpha, Zeta, and Beta Regions were seeing heavy colonization, including lesser amounts in Gamma and Delta. Only Epsilon, which had very few Star Force colonies, was left unsettled by Alliance refugees, and Greg wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.

With their borders becoming more firm by the year, Greg wasn’t overly concerned about leaving, but he had never liked Paul disappearing from what had been his personal little empire out in Alpha, and would have much preferred he’d stayed out there tinkering with their infrastructure and defenses.

That said, he understood the importance of what Paul and Jason were doing, which was why he hadn’t complained when they’d called Greg back to Earth.

“Been a while,” a familiar voice said as Greg walked in the main doors of the pyramid along with a light flow of mongooses carrying both people and cargo in and out.

“That it has,” Greg agreed as he walked up to Aaron carrying his gear duffle and shook his hand. “How goes the psionic training? You qualify for the X-men yet?”

“Not quite up to Xavier levels yet,” Aaron said with a laugh, “but it’s really Paul and Jason that have taken it to another level.”

“So I heard. What exactly have they been up to?” Greg asked, stepping aside as a super-sized mongoose drove past.

“What haven’t they been up to,” Aaron corrected him. “I’ve managed to keep the top Ikrid marks, but their battlemeld skills are getting scary. They’ve uncovered 7 of the 19 abilities, and have developed a couple of them to combat ready levels in an incredibly short amount of time.”

“Whoa…hold up. 19?”

“Kara was finally able to give us a specific number.”

“How’s she been doing?”

“Been here two years and working her tail off every day, but she’s not up to Paul and Jason’s level.”

“Who is,” Greg scoffed as the pair of trailblazers began to walk inside and down one of the humongous hallways meant for dinosaurs that stood dozens of meters tall.

“Actually, in a very narrow field the twins are, and it’s pissed them off something fierce.”

“Really?” Greg asked, suspecting that there was some grounds for teasing to be found there.

“They’re the ones finding the new abilities first, then teaching them to Paul and Jason. They like them having the breakthroughs, but are aggravated that they aren’t getting to them first.”

“How are they getting to them first? They’re just adepts.”

“If you ask me they’re just getting lucky. Paul and Jason are designing their training for them, so in a way they’re working against themselves, but they know the twins are the best bet to finding the other melding abilities. That doesn’t stop them from trying to get there first though.”

“Define ‘lucky?’”

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing and they’re just finding them by accident.”

“Isn’t that how we find all the new psionics?”

“No, I mean lucky by getting there without training…or much anyway. Their whole messed up Ikrid link somehow skips them ahead and puts them very close to the trigger requirements, then they just stumble around and trip over them and…boom, new ability. Neither Karen nor Travis is even a tenth as powerful as Paul or Jason in the battlemeld category, yet they’re the ones ascending first.”

“That is interesting. And that’s where this mind meld came from?”

Aaron nodded. “Jason was the one who found it…with a lot of help from the techs. It’s the one actual trigger we’ve been able to locate, and without the twins to study we wouldn’t have found it. Their lack of skills is giving us a much smaller haystack to look through.”

“Score one for the newbs,” Greg said as they turned a corner and headed up one of the segmented ramps, choosing the smallest pieces along the side that were meant for their tiny legs.

“I give them some credit. After Paul and Jason they’ve got the next highest battlemeld scores.”

“Out of how many?”

“Last I checked there were 15, though I don’t know about Rikku. She got here a week ago.”

“How long’s it usually take?” Greg said, taking very steep steps with almost a bouncy ease, despite the duffle over his shoulder.

“Depends on the individual. Took me four days with Paul.”

“Are the twins helping?”

“Like I said, they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all instinct with them. Their battlemeld automatically turns on as soon as they’re in range of one another and stays on permanently. They had to work to learn to turn it off and link with others. With each other their linkage is crazy good and effortless, which allows them to rack up some considerable scores on the challenges.”

“But Paul and Jason are better?”

“They’re writing the training as they go, which is the only reason why the twins are progressing. They have no knack for it, and without the push they’re getting they’d be stuck on a plateau…but it’s a very high plateau within the discipline.”

“Sounds like cheating to me…no wonder Jason and Paul are pissed.”

“If their situations were reversed, we’d have all 19 by now. Probably would have had them by the end of the first year.”

“The twins are that close by default?”

“Seem to be, which makes them very valuable. Otherwise I think Paul and Jason would have beat them to death by now.”

“Attitude problem?”

Aaron laughed. “Oh yeah. Those four have had a private feud going on for a decade. Karen and Travis even went so far as to revoke their Clan affiliation, citing they were going rogue and too valuable to this training research to be distracted with Clan issues.”

“Is that a nice way of saying nobody else would take them?”

“No. They meant every word of it.”

“Screw that. And you said they’re still writing workouts for them?”

“They have to, otherwise Star Force loses out, and you know they’re not going to let that happen because of a personal squabble. The twins have got situational leverage and they’re milking it in compensation for every ounce of strength they don’t have.”

“Oh, I have got to meet these pricks.”

“Later,” Aaron promised. “We want to get you going as soon as possible. I’d do it myself, but sadly I’m not advanced enough. Paul’s spending his time with Rikku, leaving Jason free for you.”

“Let’s get to it then,” Greg said, accelerating into a jog as they climbed the second half of the ramp, with Aaron jumping out ahead of him and leading the way.

The pair of trailblazers moved to a level above the command deck that had been a Rit’ko’sor area, now repurposed into more training facilities, with the one they were coming up on being of recent construction. Inside was a room that mimicked the Jedi temple from Star Wars, right down to the fake windows making it look like they were standing in the council chamber atop one of the spires. Greg didn’t see any cityscape outside, but there was a desert-like landscape that gave the interior room a feel of great space with an empty, calming ambiance.

“Paul’s idea?” Greg asked, setting his duffle on the floor behind one of the masters’ chairs.

“Of course,” he said, coming out of the doorway on the far side. “What better place to meditate?”

“Like the view,” Greg said as the three of them met in the middle.

“The walls are shielded for Ikrid,” Paul added, “so when the doors are shut you know you’re not going to be disturbed. Kind of a necessity, for the battlemeld trigger is tricky to find.”

“How exactly does that work,” Greg said, picking one of the cushioned circles and sitting down. “Comfy.”

Paul and Aaron backtracked a few steps and sat down on their own chairs, with Paul sitting in what would have been Yoda’s spot, prompting an ironic smirk from Greg.

“It’s a two part process,” Paul explained. “First is simulating the trigger, which I can do because I know what it is and I’ve already achieved it. I just have to resume that state, which in this case is a mental processing requirement necessary to achieve the battlemeld. High sustained bandwidth with an interlinking component remaining open for the duration…which basically proves that you’re capable of limited Ikrid ‘melding’ before you’re given the hardware for the real thing.”

“You can measure it?” Greg asked.

Paul nodded, then hesitated as Rikku-452 came out of the back area with her shirt off and just now pulling it over her head.

“Sweetie, you didn’t say we had company,” she said sarcastically, drawing a muffled laugh from Aaron.

Greg looked at Paul questioningly. “You didn’t say it was naked meditation.”

“It’s not,” Rikku said as she walked through the middle of the circle of chairs headed for the exit. “I just prefer the simplicity.”

“And trying to distract me,” Paul added.

Rikku shrugged as she got to the door. “Hasn’t worked yet,” she said with a wink before walking out.

Paul rolled his eyes after she left. “Second gen are always trying something.”

“Are you complaining?” Greg asked.

“Nope,” Paul said with a hint of a smile, “but now that she’s gone there’s something else you need to know…in house.”

Greg’s amusement faded and he responded with a nod, knowing that by ‘in-house’ Paul meant it was to be kept private amongst the trailblazers.

“The second part of the process involves recreating the way the twins share their biofeedback. When they ascend they both do so simultaneously, because on some level their minds act like a single individual. It’s a very weak bond that doesn’t compromise their individuality, but it’s created a glitch in the trigger process that I think the V’kit’no’sat never anticipated, given that Zen’zat were never meant to reproduce.”

Greg nodded. “So you need to teach me how to form that link with you to trigger the battlemeld upgrade?”

“Not me, Jason will. I’m still working with the stripper and it takes several hours a day, the rest of the time I have to spend training. Right now the two of us are the only ones that have learned to create what we’re calling the ‘mind meld’ effect. The twins have it, but they don’t understand what they’re doing, so they can’t help train others.”

“So I’ve been told,” Greg said. “What’s the in-house part? I assume you told Rikku the same thing.”

“If we can identify more triggers, Jason and I think we can figure out how to share our abilities with other Archons…all of them, not just the battlemelds.”

Greg whistled. “That would certainly change things.”

“No kidding,” Aaron agreed. “Right now we’re restricting battlemeld to rangers with Ikrid level 50 or better.”

“Ranger 1 plus the Ikrid?”

“Yeah,” Paul answered. “Learning the mind meld takes a lot of skill, and there’s only so much I can do from my end.”

“And if you can find the other triggers?”

Paul sighed. “I don’t know. We’re all going to get them, but the second gen and others…we’ll have to figure that out later.”

Greg looked at the ground for a moment. “How certain are you that you can do this?”

“It will work,” Paul said confidently, “if we can find the triggers. For that we’re going to need a lot of help from the techs, but this will only work if at least one of us gains the abilities on our own.”

“What’s the chances of the techs being able to unlock the rest directly?”

“Nil,” Paul said. “The only reason we’ve even got this option is because of the twins’ cheat.”

“But in theory, if the V’kit’no’sat could create these abilities, then someone with equal knowledge should be able to do the same…or at least turn them on?”

“We’ve already had this discussion,” Aaron said. “Kara seems to think that the pyramid database isn’t complete. That there are deeper secrets that had no need to be known on this planet, or probably a lot of others. She also says that the Zak’de’ron were responsible for most of the genetic coding, and those files are not definitely not in the pyramid. She thinks they kept them to themselves and maybe the V’kit’no’sat don’t even have a full copy.”

“Wait,” Greg stopped him. “Do we or do we not have the necessary genetic engineering knowledge in the pyramid?”

“We think yes,” Paul said noncommittally, “but the coding is essentially a masterpiece of ingenuity, and it was designed with triggers, not ‘on’ buttons. We’d have to rebuild the abilities from scratch, and from what Kara said that’s a very bad idea.”

“And the techs agree,” Aaron added. “Plus, they’re nowhere close to understanding that level of science.”

“Alright, I like the training route better anyway,” Greg admitted. “I just hate the idea of some V’kit’no’sat tech being able to whip up new superpowers on a whim and us not able to counter that.”

“Kara thinks the Zak’de’ron gave us the premium package,” Paul said, feeling much the same way Greg was. “If that’s true, we should at least be on par with the V’kit’no’sat no matter what new tricks they pull out of their collective butt.”

“Once we root out all the abilities,” Aaron cautioned.

“Work, work, work,” Greg said with a sigh. “Good thing we like training our asses off.”

“On that note, I’m due for a workout with Jason. His schedule is a mirror of mine, more or less, so he’s not going to be able to work with you until tomorrow, probably.”

“Good enough,” Greg said as Paul stood up. He and Aaron did as well, then as they walked out with Greg in the rear he added, “Might as well take the opportunity to meet the twins.”

Paul half stopped and glanced at Aaron.

“I filled him in a bit.”

“They’re valuable,” Paul said deadpan. “Try not to break too many bones.”

“I heard they joined Clan Asshole?”

“Founded it, actually. I’ve tried cognitive recalibration…doesn’t seem to have any effect. They’re a stubborn pair. See what you can do.”

“Happy to,” Greg said, both interested in seeing how these two little adepts could have got under his skin this bad, and reflexively viewing them as adversaries given they’d set themselves against two other trailblazers. Tick off one of them and you’d usually get the other 99 gunning for you as an added bonus.

9

June 11, 2489

Solar System

Earth

Greg sat crosslegged opposite Jason in one of the smaller meditation rooms in the back of the ‘council chamber,’ facing each other with their arms resting on their legs and their fingers interlocked with one another’s until Greg jerked suddenly and broke their Ikrid connection as the biomonitor he wore went straight to 2 red.

Jason pulled back slowly on his padded seat, giving his fellow trailblazer a few more inches of room as he saw him physically clench up as he fought to both maintain control of the surging instability and to ward off the pain of the flash tissue growth. It only took a few seconds for him to reach three flashing red lights, then the ascension process fully activated and Greg suffered through a brief, but intense period of pain…all the while riding it out in his meditative pose like the beast he was.

Jason noticed the slack return to his form a moment before Greg reopened his watery eyes.

“Damn that hurts.”

“Well done,” Jason congratulated him. “Now try and link up.”

Greg reached out his hands again, but Jason sat still and shook his head. “Not like that. Just pick up my call.”

“What call…” Greg said a split second before he felt what Jason meant. He released his mental clenching a touch, despite the fragging his mind was still fighting against, and opened himself to the connection…immediately seeing Jason ‘glow’ in mind’s eye as he got a wave of biofeedback from the other trailblazer.

“Wow,” Greg said, swiping a tear from his eye. “This is one hell of a mind meld.”

“And it doesn’t require a physical link,” Jason said, referring to the Vulcan version. “Now break and reestablish.”

“Give me a moment,” Greg said as he concentrated, quickly finding it wasn’t difficult to break. He reestablished some of his mental armor and the connection severed, but remaking it was far harder, for Jason wasn’t reaching out to him this time.

“You have to search me out with the ability, not your standard Ikrid,” Jason said when he realized he was having trouble. “The battlemeld has its own spotlight.”

“Trying, but my head really hurts right now.”

“I know. I felt it when we were linked.”

“Duh,” Greg said, realizing how slow his thought processes were at the moment giving the searing pain. He felt like someone had just cauterized his brain with a plasma torch.

It took several bumbling tries before Jason telepathically sent him a memory of what it felt like, after which Greg was able to find and reproduce it in short order. Locking it onto Jason took a bit of work, with him realizing he needed to search out a target with his Ikrid before aiming his battlemeld spotlight. Once he did he got a firm lock on Jason then reached out towards him as if he were extending a shield column on an aquatics warship.

When the invisible energy conduit reached him it connected immediately, with the glow of telemetry coming from Jason dulling all his other senses.

“Why is everything…”

“That’s just your senses getting adjusted. It won’t look so dark later.”

Jason reached a hand up in response to a subtle suggestion from Greg and they did a triple fist bump, 360 swirl, and a top/down/side/side/middle fist bump before finishing off with a finger ripple with perfect coordination, almost as if Greg were mimicking his reflection in a mirror.

“This is so cool,” he said, going through a few more unpredictable arm and hand movements that Jason mimicked perfectly. “Just wish my head wasn’t killing me.”

Suddenly Jason withdrew his connection.

“We can practice later. I just wanted to make sure you could link in at will. Go take a nap.”

“Yes, Master,” Greg joked, standing up on the wide cushion and stepping off onto the hard floor. “Looks like you’re ready for a new apprentice. Who’s up next?”

“Dakota and Dante should be on their way,” Jason said as he too stood up. “At the moment, I’ve got some practice to do with Paul.”

“Battlemeld?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“You need to sleep.”

“I can sleep later. I want to see you two in action.”

“Danger Room,” Jason said, checking his watch. “2:30. You can catch a half hour nap before that.”

“No, I’m going to get something to drink. If I crash now I have a feeling I won’t be getting up for a while.”

“Walk slow,” Jason suggested, heading out ahead of him.

Greg knew enough to not try and match his pace, and as Jason suggested he took his first few steps slow, feeling a pounding in his head with each one. Rather than wince and curse he chose to take it as a challenge and managed a decent pace after a few dozen steps, heading down to the lower levels in the pyramid and stopping by the cafeteria on the way to make a ‘suicide’ out of the available drinks, mixing red, blue, green, and black together in a large bottle and taking it with him as he headed towards the Danger Room, sipping away as he walked out to grab one of the mongooses.

He drove down the narrow ramp that Star Force had installed over portions of the V’kit’no’sat version and down into the lower levels of the pyramid, not feeling like running and knowing that walking would mean a lot more pounding in his head. When he got to his destination he was early, but found Paul already inside, along with several more rooms being occupied by other Archons…though Paul had claimed the largest of the Balboa Lane upgrades.

The ‘Danger Room’ was where the Archons went to cut loose on targets, with multiple versions being able to be remotely controlled and moved throughout the chamber, which in Paul’s case had a diameter the length of a football field and a ceiling height spanning several stories, making Greg feel like he was entering a sports stadium. The floor was firm but slightly cushy, expecting occupants to fall regularly as they got knocked about, but there was nothing else inside aside from Paul who was doing some warm-up drills that included flips, tumbles, and spins.

The targets to come were stored in wall compartments and computer controlled, with thousands of different combinations possible. When Jason finally got there he programmed the scenario they wanted to run and left Greg by the control console to watch as he and Paul met up near the center and a host of man-sized vertical pylons came out from the walls and moved down to the floor, forming up into a grid that flowed out around them and set up covering almost the entire chamber. Each object was lightly padded and had pressure sensors to register hits and intensity of hits…but that’s not what they were using them for this time.

Jason stayed put and braced himself. Greg could see him angling his legs to the side, putting himself almost off balance as Paul jogged off behind him then curved around and ran forward on a flanking line. When got back up even with Jason and set about 15 meters away Jason put both his hands up, palms forward towards Paul and he did likewise, jumping up slightly into a twist and landing with both feet planted, whereupon he skidded on his heels.

Greg was surprised he could manage the slide, not because it was hard to do but because it was something he had never tried, let alone at the speed Paul managed. A moment later his jaw dropped when he saw Paul’s skid arc to the right, pivoting around Jason’s position. Eventually he came to a stop almost 90 degrees into the turn, whereupon he held position and Jason took off running, going wide them coming back up even and them switching rolls.

The same thing happened, with Jason skidding forward and curving around Paul, with Greg seeing that they were going around at least two of the pylons each time. They didn’t stop after a few goes, but worked their way throughout the chamber, zigzagging here and there and setting a pace that thoroughly impressed Greg. He didn’t know what they were doing, but it was all very clean and rhythmic…up until they swung by his position, which was when he noticed a little bobble in the skidding arcs.

It took him some 7 minutes of observation until he figured out what was happening, realizing that however they were linking themselves together, probably through some type of energy field, every time their line of connection passed through one of the pylons it either weakened or cut out, reacquiring on the other side as they skidded around it. Greg saw them stumble a few times from the disruption, but neither of them went down throughout the 20 minutes they practiced the odd, but very cool drill.

Greg was about to ask them what was going on when Paul came over to him, but the fact that he was running suggested he should hold off on the questions, with him coming over to adjust the control panel before running back out to the center. As he did the man-sized pylons retreated into the walls and longer horizontal bars shot out, flying towards their positions and hovering in place, locked into magnetic/anti-grav holds to keep them solidly in place as various sized cubes came out and coated the floor in clumps…setting up some sort of an obstacle course.

Once it was in place Paul hopped up about a meter and set his feet into Jason’s hands, then somehow he launched him up more than ten meters over his head to where Paul got a hand on one of the horizontal bars and flipped himself over it and dropped back down to the floor…except he never made it down. Halfway there Jason walked underneath him and put his hands over his head, almost meeting Paul’s feet but the two never touched…at least that’s what it looked like to Greg, but he was so far away he couldn’t be for sure. The gap had to be only inches if there was one.

Regardless, Paul launched back up into the air and passed over another bar, with Jason repositioning underneath him and sending him back up like volleyball multiple times until they got to one of the cube clumps. Paul grabbed hold of the last bar and climbed up on top of it, tightrope walking across and dropping off onto one of the clump peaks as Jason took off into a sprint below.

Paul angled his legs and pushed his hands out towards him, looking for all the world like he was about to let loose a Kamehameha blast. Jason did the same and jumped, with their invisible link somehow acting like a rope that pivoting him up through the air like a fulcrum to a half-sized cube stack top…but he didn’t wait there, for as soon as he got his footing he jumped off at a different angle, or more precisely ran off, stepping down a couple times to gain speed before pulling a Tarzan and swinging through open air and coming down on the floor.

But again Greg was surprised, for he didn’t hit despite the obvious math that said he was about to. Somehow the ‘rope’ between them shrunk and Jason swung out through the  middle of the arc and back up the other side to where he was suddenly cut free and let to drop on the top of another cube cluster equal in height to the one Paul was on.

As soon as Jason was there he turned and pointed his hands towards Paul, who then jumped off his. Together in alternating fashion they moved from one mini mountain to another, zigzagging their way seemingly in random fashion across every corner of the Danger Room until they came back to the center and the largest of the cube clumps. Paul swung Jason up to the top then dropped down the side in three leaps until he got to the floor and set up on the receiving end of a platform dive by Jason.

Greg flinched as soon as he saw it, for despite how strong they were, dropping from that height, head first, was going to result in some sort of injury if he hit ground, potentially even snapping his neck if he came down wrong, but with the way Jason jumped off it looked like he didn’t care. He came down hands first and absorbed most of his fall against Paul’s equally outstretched hands, with the remainder bouncing him back up into a short arc that he twisted out of and landed on his feet a few meters away before both of them took off running towards another spot on the course.

“Shit guys, you’re making me look like a newb,” Greg said to himself as he watched them launch each other over various obstacles before moving to a gauntlet of short cube clumps where he saw them each climb up on one side and jump into the narrow gap between them where they bumped into each other and rebounded off with surprising force back onto the cubes without hitting the floor. They did that multiple times, working their way through the gauntlet and Greg was fairly sure by the end that they weren’t actually touching on impact.

The pair worked through a few more drills before finishing off with the high beam throws, this time with Jason going up and Paul bumping the volleyball, after which they came back over to Greg and the control console, shutting it down rather than starting another session.

“What…the…hell…is…that?” Greg asked slowly, the coolness literally dripping from his voice.

“Thought you’d like that,” Jason said with a smile.

“It’s called a Repulsor,” Paul told him. “It’s a type of binary energy that acts like a tractor beam.”

“And it’s inverse.”

“Push, pull, and…bounce?” Greg asked.

“That counts as push,” Paul explained, “but we also have a neutral version that only pushes or pulls enough to maintain shape.”

“Like a rope?” Greg guessed. “I saw you using it on those swings and skids.”

“Yeah, cool stuff when you figure out how to use it. Takes two to work, which is why it’s a melding ability only.”

“So the V’kit’no’sat don’t know it exists?”

“Hopefully not,” Jason said, “though it’s possible they might have discovered it by now, or at least seen the Zak’de’ron Zen’zat use it when they fought them.”

“That doesn’t mean they know they have it,” Greg differed. “They could have thought it was an upgrade the Dragons gave them after the fact.”

“Point,” Paul conceded. “Either way it’s useful if you don’t mind getting fancy.”

“Which you two don’t,” Greg pointed out.

“None of us do,” Jason reminded him, “which is why we’re cooler than the second gen.”

“Among a hundred other reasons,” Greg agreed. “Do the twins have this Repulsor energy too?”

“They’re the ones who discovered it and we copied them, but they haven’t done much with it.”

Greg frowned. “I thought they couldn’t train others?”

“By ‘we copied them,’” Paul explained, “he meant we figured it out by watching and feeling them, then we had to uncover it on our own.”

“He got it a few weeks ahead of me,” Jason pointed out. “By keeping our training almost the same and sharing the battlemeld every day we’re ascending at more or less the same pace and the same abilities.”

“But you still can’t share them directly?”

Paul shook his head. “It’s different with the melds, but no, we can’t.”

“What we can do is nudge each other in the right direction by linking up,” Jason added. “We share so much biofeedback that it helps to physically align us properly in order to trigger the upgrade. What we’re trying to learn to do is mentally align with an Ikrid link to trick the trigger into thinking that we’re physically where we need to be. Still a long way from achieving that.”

“So I heard. I saw you bobbling on the skids when a pylon passed in between?”

“We can transmit through thin walls, but matter in the transmission path diminishes the interlink effect,” Paul said. “It’s not a normal push/pull relationship, it’s a single energy conduit that we both contribute to, like tying each of us to the end of a long beam.”

“Stable then?”

“Very, until something passes in between. We weren’t losing full connection, but the momentary dip in power caused the bobble you saw. Just something we have to get used to and anticipate.”

“Wish I could join you, but it looks like I’m a long ways from this.”

“So’s everyone else,” Jason admitted. “We can’t train like this with anyone else, so it’s pretty much just us and us writing the training manual for the battlemeld.”

“Don’t know who’d be more qualified than you two anyway, though I wish I could help out a little. I’m going to stick around at least a few months and get a handle on this before I head back to lizard land. If there’s anything I can help you guys with let me know. Right now I’m heading to bed before I keel over. You guys going again or have something else to do?”

“We’ve got other abilities to work on, so we’ll be in here a bit longer. You need a lift back to quarters?” Jason offered.

“I’d say yes, but I don’t want to lose you any training minutes. I’ll make it back alright. I’m not so far gone that I can’t sit and steer. Keep at it, fellas.”

“Night,” Paul said as Greg slowly walked out, bottle in hand.

He’s got to be really hurting right now.

He is, Jason confirmed, but it’s a good pain. The more the better.

I hear that, Paul agreed, walking over to the control panel and setting up a scenario designed to test their linked Lachka fields, which the V’kit’no’sat called Nemsa, though they referred to it as ‘Power Lock.’

The first of six large targets exited nearby walls and moved towards them, with the pair already with an active battlemeld linking their telekinetic fields and throwing an invisible punch into the first of them with far more power and range than either could have managed solo.

10

June 23, 2489

Solar System

Earth

The Danger Room spat out another weight, floating it over to the target zone and dropping the couch-sized cylinder a moment later. It fell straight down, but slowed to a sudden stop four meters above the floor as Kara and the twins used a three-way meld to combine her considerable Lachka abilities with their weaker versions, strengthening all into a single field that allowed them to stop and hold aloft the object before it crashed down on top of them.

Stopping it was hard enough, stretching the three near to their limit, but in order to achieve a count for this drop they had to move it over a few meters to the left and up to a holographic wall almost as high as it had been dropped from. That required more skill and power, for the longer the range involved, the less effective their Power Lock.

But this wasn’t their first object, rather their 18th. They were all of the same mass but different shapes that required different grips, some of which made the objects increasingly difficult to both stop and maneuver over to the finish point. The cylinder was one of the easier shapes to catch, and together the three Archons lifted it up and over to the desired location in midair until it breached the holographic plane, at which point the Danger Room retook control and floated it off elsewhere as the twins took a short, but much needed breather.

The next object came some 22 seconds later, dropping a sphere on them that was much more difficult to telekinetically grab, but the threesome managed all the same and chucked it back up and out, then waited on the next one. They made it through several more tries, but on number 25 it was a no go, with a cube coming down on top of them and Kara reaching out to stop it like before with the twins’ help, but as soon as they made contact she felt the two of them disappear from her mind and her/their available power level dropped drastically…as did the cube.

Kara’s own strength was insufficient to lift it, but she did slow the fall as Karen and Travis dove out of the way. Kara didn’t follow them, choosing to hold her ground, and raised her left hand in the air as her wrist burst forth in a flurry of red particles that coated her arm and spread over the rest of her body as the cube made contact before she was fully covered.

Kara had trouble holding onto it, but its weight wasn’t a threat to her, even without armor. Using her own Lachka as a third hand she steadied the cube, then like Atlas from mythology she held it over her head and jumped into the air. There she spun around in a circle twice before flinging the object over to the holographic wall with ease given her powered armor, whereupon the Danger Room picked it up and cycled it off, ready to bring in the next one.

“Tomosat, ka,” she said, instructing the computer to stop in V’kit’no’sat.

The next incoming object froze in place, as did the others circling around near the ceiling. Kara held her airborne hover for a handful of seconds, then the mass of red armor scales retracted and she dropped to the floor in her Archon training garb, landing in an agile crouch.

“Sorry,” Karen offered.

Kara shook her head. “Don’t be. That’s three more than last time. You two are making progress, but you’re still dropping your battlemeld when you get fatigued. You have to learn to focus at all times.”

“Our battlemeld stayed up,” Travis told her. “It was you that disappeared.”

“I didn’t sever the connection. Both of you pulled out simultaneously…again. Your twin mojo has a lot of advantages, this…is not one of them. You’re reverting back to each other as your default when you get rattled, not when you’re incapable of continuing the meld, which is why you jerked away from me.”

“You felt that or are you guessing?” Karen asked.

“I could feel your strength give way, then you both blinked out. Some simple deduction and you can figure out what happened.”

“I still don’t understand why we give out so suddenly,” Travis complained. “You’d think it would be more gradual.”

“It’s not muscle, it’s an energy pool,” Kara explained. “When you exhaust it, all you have to work with is the recharge stream.”

“Are we done here?”

Kara nodded. “Good work for today. We’ll have a go at some more tomorrow if you’re available.”

Karen snickered. “We live here.”

“I meant if you didn’t have other training planned.”

“We’ll make time,” Travis promised. “I like sucking off your power reserves. Makes me feel superhuman.”

“We are superhuman,” Karen reminded him.

“Super Saiyan then,” he amended.

“Tomorrow then,” Kara said, looking over at the distant control panel and telekinetically punching a few buttons that ended their current scenario and withdrew the objects into the walls, along with the hologram disappearing. “If you don’t mind clearing the deck, I need the chamber for another workout.”

“You go girl,” Travis said as he and Karen jogged off towards the doors. Kara followed behind them at a walk and came up on the control panel once they were gone, locking the doors and bringing up a scenario she’d designed specifically for herself…and one that was too dangerous for spectators. Normally she had to work her way around others using the main chamber, but today, at least, she didn’t have to worry about that for another 45 minutes, which would be more than enough time for her 20 minute scenario. She might even go for two if she was feeling like it after the first.

Kara tapped the start button, then immediately turned and ran away from the control panel, activating her Vorch’nas and leaping into the air after four steps, fully covered in red, dragon-like scales. She flew up to about half altitude in the room and punched a meter-wide object flung at her like a remote-control missile, knocking it aside and scoring a point as more popped out from the walls and came at her.

Kara flew around, hitting, kicking, ramming, and dodging the objects that ranged in size from a basketball to a hovertruck, scoring points and trying not to get hit herself. This challenge wasn’t about using psionics as much as it was her getting in some flying combat practice with her armor…something she rarely got outside of real combat, for none of the standard Archon sanctums had a chamber such as this. She was lucky it had what she needed to practice, though it hadn’t been designed with her in mind.

By the end of her first session she’d broken two of the smaller targets, hitting them so hard that the pressure sensors overloaded from the blunt trauma, and added three more in her second round. The techs would fix them up later, as they had numerous times before. She didn’t mind giving them extra work to do because they’d been a bit slow to design new targets that could hold up against her powered armor, and now they had five more reminders to get their asses in gear.

Once completed, Kara flew back down to the floor and resumed ‘normal’ mode with her Vorch’nas retracting back into the clear crystal that rode imbedded into her left wrist like an ornament...but an ornament she could never take off. It was fused into her bone and had become a permanent part of her, which she had objected to at first, but she’d long since gotten used to it and now viewed it as another body part.

Her score for the second round was slightly lower than the first, but that was to be expected due to fatigue. Even with the power-augmentation of the thin armor covering her body from head to toe, flying around and hitting things took a toll on her body, with a considerable amount of the power she employed coming from her own muscular strength.

The score was acceptable, given that she hadn’t tailed off too much and it made for several more minutes of valuable experience. When she got back to the control panel and reset the room to normal, she unlocked the door and found Paul and Jason outside waiting for their reserved time slot that was still a few minutes away.

“How many did you break this time?” Jason asked.

“Five,” she said, walking by the pair and giving Paul a fist bump as she passed. “All yours boys.”

They went inside and she walked on, eventually heading up to the command deck for a few laps of medium intensity running that left her dripping in sweat afterwards. She thought about heading for a shower but Kara decided against it as a thought kept tugging at the back of her mind. She took off jogging easily until she got lost in the pedestal forest and out of sight, then quietly leapt into the open air and flew up through the chamber, hanging from the jewel on her wrist.

Quietly she ascended up to the platforms around the narrower roof where the I’rar’et and the few other flying races had some built-in perches. They had backdoor access for Zen’zat, but nobody was ever up there, giving her a quiet place to think.

She landed Mary Poppins style, coming in over the meter high ridge/railing that separated what was essentially a series of small hangars from the drop off that would have easily killed anyone falling over the side, which was why they had the railing, she knew, to protect the Zen’zat from doing just that, either by their own stupidity or by accidentally getting knocked off by the winged creatures moving about.

She landed just inside the ledge and looked around, seeing nothing new since the last time she’d been up here. Sooner or later she expected the techs to start annexing these areas, but apparently they hadn’t run out of room below just yet.

Kara turned around and climbed up on the railing, then sat down on the half-meter wide stone slab and let her feet hang off the side, not fearing the height. It was odd, because before she’d always been wary of heights…and with good reason. One little ring-out and it was all over.

But now that she could fly the only thing she worried about was falling while unconscious, meaning she wasn’t going to be taking a nap on the ledge any time soon, but just sitting here she was in no danger, for all it would take was a single thought and her jewel would levitate with her hanging from it. That gave her a freedom that she relished, especially since no one else could follow her.

She kicked her legs a bit, pounding her heels on the outside of the ledge as she leaned back and grabbed the inner edge with her hands, then closed her eyes and focused on her handholds while letting her mind spin about, trying to get at that elusive thought that had been dancing around on the edge of her senses. As she’d done many times before, she lost herself in a wash of thoughts and didn’t pull out of it until sometime later when she got a slight telepathic tap on her ‘shoulder.’

Kara opened her eyes and her senses returned to normal, with her feeling a presence behind her on the ‘roost.’

“I’m sorry, I didn’t sense you coming,” Kara said, twisting her neck around as Greg walked up.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked, coming up behind the railing on which she sat, but off center to her right.

“Not really,” she said, glancing down at the watch on her right wrist. “I thought I had another memory resurfacing, but if I haven’t gotten it by now I’m probably not going to today. Did you need something or were you just wandering around?”

“No, I just sensed someone up here and came looking. The door was locked, so I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone or not.”

“I came up this way. I never use the door.”

“Quite the view,” Greg said, leaning over the edge carefully to halfway look over the drop-off.

“Care to join me?”

“I’m fine standing, thanks.”

“Relax, I’ll catch you if you fall.”

“Didn’t think you were that fast.”

Kara looked down past her feet. “Fast enough. Pick something up and chuck it over the edge if you want to test me,” she said, half expecting him to say ‘don’t bother,’ but to his credit he slipped off his own watch and casually tossed it over.

Kara pulled with her legs and pushed with her jewel’s anti-grav, sliding her off the edge and dropping her out of sight. Greg didn’t lean over to watch, but some 8 seconds later her wrist came back into view, dragging her arm and body underneath it until she got her feet on the ledge and sat back down in her original position. Then, without a word, she held up his watch in her right palm.

He picked it up and slid it back on his wrist, then carefully sat up on top next to her crosslegged, feeling a little wobbly but resisting the urge to grab the back edge.

Kara laughed. “It’s ok. I never liked heights either.”

“I’ll manage,” Greg said, sticking with it. “I heard you’re working out with the twins?”

“Yeah, but just with the three-way meld. They’re not that powerful, but their coordination is amazing. Second only to you know who.”

“I’m surprised you can stand them.”

“Well, I’m second gen, so it’s not quite the same. Their feud with you guys doesn’t seem to include me, so we get along for the most part…once you accept that they’ve got a chip on their shoulder that’s driving their arrogance. They’re still barely more than kids, so I cut them a bit of slack. Though they do push the boundaries every now and then.”

“Funny, I thought we adopted you?”

Kara smiled. “Apparently they don’t see it that way…and they didn’t break any of my records.”

“You have records?”

“No…which is why there’s less conflict there, I suppose.”

“Paul and Jason are still ticked about that, but mainly because the twins are being jerks and poking the tiger on purpose. Do that and you’re going to get the claws.”

“As they should,” Kara agreed. “They just don’t feel like poking me for some reason.”

“Then they’re finally starting to show some wisdom.”

“They have an ability that they didn’t have to earn, and it makes them think they’re higher rank than they really are. That doesn’t excuse their arrogance, but it’s the source…and the fact that they keep accessing new abilities before Paul and Jason is only feeding it. If they’d had a full smackdown I think they’d learn quicker, but as long as they’ve got an edge on them they’re going to put their stock in that and continue this feud.”

“I just wish they’d leave the fantasy out of it,” Greg said.

“I think they’re learning that through me. Sharing a battlemeld has a way of opening one’s eyes.”

“That trinket doesn’t hurt either.”

Kara held up her jewel and looked at it. “Kind of surprised they don’t react harsher to me because of it.”

“They can’t compete with it and they know it. But they’re stupid enough to think they can best us in psionics. You said something about more memories?”

“Yeah, happens every now and then. Some just come out without me trying and others nibble away until I dig them out. Felt one earlier when I was running, but haven’t been able to get at it.”

“You remember something special about the three-way melds?”

“Meaning is that why I’m putting up with Prick and Pam? Maybe some truth to that. I do have some memories, but they’re incomplete. Shielding things I’m not ready to know yet, I’d guess. I do know that during the war Zak’de’ron Zen’zat would form hunting parties to go after stronger opponents, be that other Zen’zat or the larger races. We made a lot of takedowns that way until the V’kit’no’sat got wise to it and adjusted their tactics.”

“So they do know of the battlemeld?”

“They know the Zak’de’ron used it in their Zen’zat, but I don’t think they ever knew they had the potential themselves.”

“They thought the dragons made extra enhancements?”

“Seems like it, because we never saw the battlemeld used against us.”

“I keep thinking, with all these defensive abilities that we keep finding, might not there be a more offensive set? Kara’s Jumat is, I know, but that’s just knocking things around. We know the Hjar’at have an energy weapon built into their biology. Might not the dragons have included one for the Zen’zat too?”

“A good question, and I…” Kara cut off as something flashed into her mind.”

“What is it?”

Hold on, she said, chasing it. The memory didn’t want to be found, darting here and there like trying to catch a bug, but she’d had enough practice by this point that she eventually pinned it down and forced it into the conscious portion of her mind.

When she did it almost hurt, like she was forcing something into place that wasn’t meant to be there…or wasn’t meant to be there that soon, for as she did, some of those blocks on the psionic abilities dissipated, letting memories arise that had been previously shrouded in mental fog.

When it did she held her mind motionless, fearing that it might whip away as soon as it arrived, as had happened a few times in the past, but as she waited and let it soak in she got a memory of a very specific ability, a tier 4 psionic with its battlemeld counterpart, that literally made her jaw drop.

“Holy shit,” she said, looking down at the palm of her right hand.

“You remembered something?” Greg asked.

Kara nodded. “Now I know why we have Rensiek. It’s a precursor to something a lot more powerful. A tier 4 called ‘Choratrik.’”

“What is it?” Greg asked excitedly.

“Something I saw firsthand from the Dragon,” she said, remembering him arch his neck back towards the ceiling and spew a plume of white fire that melted the material of the chamber she’d found him in. “It translates as ‘bioplasma.’”

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EXCURSION

1

September 8, 2495

Fvatt System (Hycre territory)

Kri’mas

Iesmena shuttered as he felt the concussion ripples impact his translucent skin, which he then ‘saw’ as his sensory organs translated the sonic signature within the Hycre’s brain. Not needing to turn its body, for he could perceive in all directions simultaneously, Iesmena watched the streak pass through the thick atmosphere of Kri’mas, which had been his home for the past 23 years.

The object came in high and dropped amazingly fast, passing Iesmena’s altitude and falling further into the planet’s gravity well, burning the atmosphere from the friction and creating the ‘boom’ that he could see from kilometers away. The muted flash of light was almost undetectable given the thickness of the atmosphere at this level, but given the normal blackness the flickering glow stood out…as did the second one coming down from above.

Iesmena was free floating in the atmosphere and ‘swimming’ as fast as he could while remembering to pace himself. The four internal air atriums that he used for propulsion were rhythmically pulsing as they sucked in air from ahead and expelled it out behind from numerous surface exits on his body that opened and closed as necessary, making his internal body structure look like a spike ball. Most of those spikes were inactive, save for stabilizing squirts, as he forced all the air he could get out his rear ‘jets’ as he raced towards the outpost that was considerably far ahead.

It was an unmanned outpost, but the closest bit of infrastructure to the Hycre and the location of his parked skip that had brought him this far out from the nearest cluster. He’d left it tethered there before heading out in person to study the nakra flocks that inhabited this region of the planet, as he regularly did. By the time the word of the Cajdital invasion had come through over the communal comms he’d already been out in the field, with the warning sitting on his communication device that he’d left in the skip.

The first notice he had that anything was wrong was the sound of a very distant detonation. He’d stayed put after that, listening/looking for any further sign of where it had come from, but he hadn’t perceived anything else until the rain had started to fall…and he wasn’t talking liquid variety, for those streaks coming down from above were solids by the telltale way they echoed, plus the disruption trails were an easy sign that they didn’t belong, for the Hycre ships never moved in such a way.

Iesmena knew that meant this was most likely asteroid bombardment and held his position, for the falling rocks were far away, though he would have definitely preferred to have been indoors. He continued his observations of the nakra for a few minutes until a sinking feeling in the pit of his gas bladder manifested itself as he realized the impacts weren’t random, but rhythmic…meaning they had an artificial origin.

That was horrifying, for he knew it was nothing of Hycre origin, and he had left the flocks immediately, heading back to his skip as fast as possible.

Halfway there the closer objects began to fall.

As Iesmena swam he scanned ahead with his bjovo, a biological organ that functioned as a spotlight sensor that created casendic energy…which his skin could also ‘see.’ Right now it was trained in the direction of the outpost, which was finally coming into view some 1500 meters ahead.

A much closer object fell behind him and soon the little nakra came swimming by, moving far faster through the dense air than he ever could. Then another object fell ahead, passing within 400 meters of him and creating a huge concussion wave that knocked him and the nakra around…with the little critters turning and the fleeing the other way.

Iesmena saw the outpost rock slightly from the wave, but it was the impact far below that caught his attention as the object dropped deeper into the planet’s atmosphere and impacted the top of one of the Hycre’s deeper clusters, with the boom of impact clearly audible despite it being some 18 kilometers below.

After that impact more objects began to fall on an identical track, coming down in a conduit of disruption that forced Iesmena to travel a different direction, fearing for his life but knowing he had to get to the outpost. Fighting the disruption turbulence he swam far wide, making a huge arc up and around the danger area but was still too close, with fear spiking through his body the entire time. Gone were the nakra, leaving him with nothing but an up/down/left/right trajectory as object after object fell down through the atmosphere, knocking him around violently until they eventually stopped when he was within 300 meters of his target.

It took his senses a moment to recalibrate, then he saw the objects start to come down in a more distant location, giving him a calm swim over the last 50 meters up to the outpost, seeing its shell had been cracked…and his skip was gone.

Iesmena swam around the outside of the bell-shaped building, feeling a huge relief as the skip came into view. It had been knocked free of the outpost, its tether snapped, but it appeared to be intact.

The Hycre swam over to the needle-shaped craft and inserted his spherical body into the rearmost section, sliding inside the thin hull and gripping the handholds with its six tentacles, giving his tired atriums a rest as he physically leveraged his body into the pilot’s cradle and opened up a diagnostics program, gratefully finding the craft to be fully operational.

He started up the engines as he checked the comm, finding the myriad of warnings and sitreps detailing a Cajdital attack on the planet, first a massive orbital assault that saw the Hycre losing their orbital facilities and many ships, then the upper atmosphere combat as the enemy began sinking their warships into the planet and trying to assault the higher clusters.

As he read the reports he kept his tendrils off the steering mechanism, realizing he was safest right where he was. Several of the upper clusters, which were lightly connected structures clumped together into city-like formations, had been hit by the Cajdital suicide cruisers. The remaining Hycre warships had retreated into the planet’s atmosphere and were defending the upper levels, but the enemy had ran several formations down and succeeded in getting single ships through…which then rammed and detonated against the cluster, destroying or at least heavily damaging it.

12 clusters had already been hit, with the Hycre making them pay for it by destroying hundreds of escort cruisers that had run interference for the suicide craft.

Iesmena was much deeper than those clusters, and based on the alerts he figured he was safe from that type of attack so long as the fleet remained in the fight, but the more recent warnings detailed assaults on deeper clusters via orbital bombardment…not by the Cajdital’s traditional plasma, but by a type of mass launcher that was hurling objects on fairly accurate trajectories down towards the lower targets, including some below where Iesmena now sat.

He was sure the torrent that had nearly hit him had been one such attack, and from the various warnings from individual clusters, or about individual clusters, he knew he couldn’t return to the one he had come from.

Trolling the skip over to the side of the outpost, Iesmena powered it down and swam outside to check on the condition of the tether mount, finding that only the line had snapped. He slid a tendril in underneath the hook for another and pulled it over to the latch on the skip, detached the broken one, and hooked up the good one so his only means of transport wouldn’t drift off. Then he swam around the perimeter of the outpost on tired atriums inspecting the damage, finding the one huge crack as the only visible disruption from the building’s usually smooth form.

He poked a couple of tendrils into it experimentally then withdrew and swam around to the entrance, opening up the uninhabited structure and moving inside, again resting his atriums as he used tiny crater handles on the walls as grip points to pull himself along through a narrow tunnel that emptied out into a U-shaped main room that held most of the outpost’s internal volume.

Iesmena reached out and grasped one of several vertical poles, swinging his bulbous body around to a control panel where he grabbed hold of a front handle and pulled himself up taught to it, leaving his other 5 tendrils free to operate the controls, powering up the outpost and linking in to the Hycre’s comm grid.

A holographic map materialized in ultraviolet spectrum, detailing the Hycre civilization on Kri’mas that was present on only a quarter of the massive planet. They had 1,291 clusters spread out through multiple layers, but spaced far enough apart from one another to provide ease of movement for their fleet between them on the prescribed zonal lanes. This outpost existed in one of the ‘safe’ zones where the starships and other large craft would not go, allowing Iesmena and other Hycre the ability to free float without fear of collision.

The map, which only hours ago had been intact, showed dozens of clusters off the grid, either having been destroyed or having the comm systems knocked out. Evacuations were being ordered and those clusters that were capable of descending were doing so, trying to put more atmosphere between them and the Cajdital ships in orbit, for as fast as the objects were descending Iesmena could see that their acceleration profiles were slowing once they hit the 5th layer, meaning the lower you got past it the less damage they could do.

He knew others would be heading down there, pressing their biological limits if they were out in the open, or descending in craft where possible into the thicker layers of the planet, but eventually there was a line that only a few of their craft could pass without being crushed from the pressure…and fortunately the enemy’s projectiles didn’t appear to be reaching that far down at speed, though the heavy objects would eventually sink down to the core, but at a lackadaisical pace.

The currents were also helping to throw off their aim, Iesmena saw, as one of the clusters under attack was seeing many misses, but he knew the shielding on them was limited and couldn’t hold up to very many impacts. He couldn’t tell from the limited data how large the Cajdital projectiles were, but he could see the damage statistics updating as three more clusters were taking hits…one of which suddenly dropped off the map.

Seeing that his current location was in a region that had already come under attack, Iesmena figured he was safer here than elsewhere, and that the outpost was too small to target from orbit. How the Cajdital were targeting their lower clusters he didn’t know, for the atmosphere should have shrouded them from orbital sensors.

The map didn’t show their fleet in the planet, but it did show the orbital situation and the ships that were bombarding them. Iesmena wasn’t a soldier, but he did know what their enemy’s ships looked like. All Hycre did, for they’d been fighting them since before he was hatched, and this was not a normal design.

The ship, or rather ships, were larger than a cruiser but smaller than a battleship. They were thick and blocky, with what looked like squarish pouches poking out at multiple angles…a complete departure from the sleek cruisers and the bulky but smooth larger capital ships. These vessels almost didn’t look Cajdital, save for the same yellow/tan hull coloration, but the 16 of them were the source of the targeted ‘rain’ falling down into the atmosphere.

And those 16 were surrounded by hundreds of escorts, preventing the Hycre ships from popping up out of the atmosphere and attacking them. None of the defense ships had the new Human ranged weapon, so they were going to have to fight their way through to get at them…which apparently had already been tried and failed, for there were no Hycre warships visible in orbit.

The cluster Iesmena had been living in was still showing active, now descending slowly as the next closest one to it was coming under attack, leaving him nowhere to run to so he decided to count himself fortunate and remain at the outpost, but he knew he couldn’t stay here forever.

Moving over to the vertical poles he pulled himself across the room and checked the storage compartments, finding some limited foodstuffs and gear when he heard a whine/thump from outside, quickly followed by several more. He pulled himself back over to the entrance tunnel and saw flashes from outside, prompting him to jet his way back inside and over to the control panel where he brought up the outpost’s sensor array.

Outside was a small dot, what it was was unknown, for the sensors weren’t very advanced, but it was floating several dozen meters away and it was not his skip, for it was far larger. Then he noticed that his skip wasn’t showing as an intact object, but rather several small ones as more thuds sounded, this time on the outpost hull, along with damage statistics popping up.

Trying not to panic, Iesmena activated the outpost’s distress beacon then fled over to the area furthest away from the sounds of plasma fire. There were no weapons on the outpost, nor in it, for the Hycre didn’t carry personal weapons except in the most extreme of cases. While this definitely qualified as one in Iesmena’s mind, the outpost didn’t have any, leaving him completely exposed as the pounding continued to mount, with successive damage occurring with each hit, small as they were, given that plasma weapons were far less effective in the thick planetary atmosphere.

The unprotected outpost only held together as long as it did due to that fact, with each impact from the Cajdital weaponry being small, but it ate through the thin hull plates with ease and began trashing the interior equipment along the outer walls, leaving Iesmena waiting in cover, frantically thinking of a way to survive and deciding that playing dead was his only option. If he swam outside he’d be easy to shoot down, and one shot would be enough to kill him. He couldn’t see what was attacking the outpost, but he knew how susceptible their bodies were to plasma, despite their high heat tolerances.

It took forever for the Cajdital plasma to break through to the main chamber, which fortunately was on the opposite side from where Iesmena was hiding, giving him a few more minutes. Bits of charred debris flew everywhere, floating about in almost neutral buoyancy before slowly falling to the floor.

Then the outpost lurched downwards and Iesmena thought he might have a chance. If the tiny anti-grav unit holding the outpost was already damaged and didn’t engage, then the broken bladder that had currently been holding the structure aloft now doomed the structure to slowly sink down into the planet’s core…and if the Cajdital thought it was dead then they might just let it go to its eventual death rather than blasting it apart, leaving an opportunity for Iesmena to escape if they didn’t know he was inside.

But a glance at the partially functional control board indicated that the bladder was still intact, which didn’t make any sense until a much larger flash/screech sounded outside, followed by an ‘all clear’ vocal transmission.

Iesmena floated over to the control board and quickly activated the comm, signaling that he was still alive and receiving a response. He turned about, grasping the vertical poles and pulling himself out into the tunnel as fast as he could, then he jetted out of what was left of the outpost, pushing his way around debris and through smaller pieces, which tore into his thin skin but he didn’t care. He had to get outside now before his rescuers left.

When he got into the clear he saw what had caused the sudden downward lurch of the outpost…a huge and beautiful Hycre frigate hovering over the remains of the small Cajdital scout craft it had destroyed in a single plasma blast. A tiny ring illuminated on the hull indicating the airlock that Iesmena needed to enter through, with him swimming as hard as his air atriums would allow and even adding a little fin ripple to gain some extra speed.

By the time he got over to it his fin was fatigued to the point of it going limp, meaning he had to use his atriums to steer as it began to pull him off course, but within a few more meters he was able to grip the hull handles with his tendrils and pull himself inside the tiny compartment where he passed through a double energy shield as the outer doors closed behind him.

Once he was past the shields he felt the crisp and clean atmosphere of the ship’s interior as another Hycre met him. Seeing his injuries Iesmena was led to a compartment where he would be attended to as well as being out of the way of the crew as the warship moved off, staying away from the projectiles falling into the atmosphere and looking for any opportunity to exploit. Best case scenario would be the Cajdital fleet moving down into atmosphere to press their attack, but that didn’t look to be the case with the surviving Hycre clusters moving down into the thicker atmospheric levels where the Cajdital plasma would be virtually useless.

Some of those clusters were hit on the way down, with those that couldn’t descend, or descend fast enough, being targeted and eliminated as the Cajdital trimmed away part of the Hycre’s 2.3 billion population on the planet before settling into a large fleet cluster in geosync orbit, intent on blockading the planet and waiting the Hycre out rather than moving down into what would be their prime kill zone.

2

March 19, 2496

Volnu System

Jasperion (Hycre Capitol)

“The Kri’mas System has been retaken. Orbit is secured. Surviving clusters are rising to altitude.”

“How many ships did we lose?” Arnja’el asked.

“67,” Bv’en answered, “but we destroyed over 400 of their vessels before they fled.”

“I am not concerned with how many the Cajdital lost. They are infinite,” the Hycre queen said. “They will wear us down through attrition. It is only our losses that are a concern.”

“They are many, but they are not infinite. The more we destroy, the more we slow their advance. They may build fast, but they cannot summon ships at will.”

“They may as well be,” the third Hycre of six in the chamber said to the military commander. “Their numbers grow while ours dwindle. We cannot hold our current territory. We are spread too thin.”

“What would you suggest?” Bv’en asked, heavy with sarcasm.

“We begin evacuating to the sanctuary zone with the rest of the Alliance.”

The queen puffed out multiple little spurts of air in all directions, nulling out the movement but producing a razzing sound of displeasure.

“That would be folly,” a fourth Hycre said. “It would take centuries to build new worlds equal to what we already possess. Abandon our territory and we hand victory to the Cajdital.”

“I concur,” Bv’en said, snaking a tendril out to a control board and producing a holographic map between the Hycre leaders for emphasis. The map showed the widely spaced Hycre systems, many of which now sat inside Cajdital ‘territory,’ though their enemy didn’t possess all systems in the area, leaving many uninhabited or unclaimed ones that were useable for transit, but the former Alliance worlds belonging to other races were quickly falling, leaving the Hycre as the last man standing in many regions.

A handful of the systems were highlighted with danger markings, indicating that they were under assault, with intelligence coming in through courier ships for the most part now that the Bsidd relay grid had mostly been destroyed, which meant that the data wasn’t as current as it used to be. They’d requested the specifications of the technology from the Bsidd so they could patch or reroute around breaches in the grid, but they’d hadn’t responded to their multiple requests and the Hycre didn’t expect them to now after several years of silence…which from the Bsidd was their polite way of saying ‘shut up and stop asking.’

In fact, all Alliance coordination and assistance on the Kvash half of their combined territory had ground to a halt. Those races that hadn’t chosen to relocate to the Sanctuary Zone had either thrown in with the Kvash or Bsidd, or just backed out of the Alliance altogether, attempting to find their own means of surviving the Cajdital advance.

The Hycre still had systems in those regions, which they were continuing to defend, but the Kvash and Bsidd wanted nothing to do with them now, for what reasons they couldn’t fully comprehend.

“We must maintain our current territory,” Bv’en continued. “Time is now our ally, for with every year that passes we field more of the Shaven vessels. They are wholly superior to the Cajdital fleet, and with them I believe we can hold out against their advance.”

“But we don’t have the ships to hold our territory now,” one of the other Hycre leaders stated, this one serving the queen as her master builder.

“Not all of it, no,” Bv’en conceded. “Which why I suggest that we temporarily evacuate these systems down to a minimal caretaker population,” he said, adjusting the hologram with dozens of dots shifting color. “We can sink the clusters below what the Cajdital have shown to be capable of reaching while leaving a few ships behind with them. Our orbital facilities will be a loss, but if we can maintain functioning clusters in a type of stasis we can return to these worlds later, once our fleet is full of Shaven, and restore them to productive status without having to rebuild.”

“How long will this take?” Arnja’el asked.

“It will take many years to evacuate them, then well more than a century to build up our fleet. It will allow the worlds we choose to hold greater defense and less distance the Shaven have to travel to respond to attacks,” Bv’en said, using the Hycre term for ‘hybrid’ to describe their warships that incorporated Star Force tech into the design.

“Where would these evacuees go?” the Hycre in charge of internal harmony asked.

“To the new colonies in the Sanctuary Zone,” Bv’en said firmly. “There they can assist in building Shaven to send back here, but it is here that we must make our stand. If the Cajdital destroy our primary shipyards the war of attrition will weigh heavily in their favor. The Sanctuary Zone production must add to this, not replace it.”

“Can Star Force protect the Sanctuary Zone without us?”

“They do not have the numbers,” Bv’en dismissed offhand.

“But they do have the technology,” the master builder said. “I have seen data from a recent weapons test in their second home system. They have developed a medium-ranged weapon of immense power, and of a type I cannot categorize. It is energy-based, but neither beam nor plasma. They are keeping the nature of the weapon a secret, but not its damage potential. I believe they fear our portion of the Alliance cracking, and are releasing this information to instill unity and hope in securing the Sanctuary Zone, but they are not sharing the technology with us.”

“Have we received a response regarding the relay technology?” Arnja’el asked.

“They have offered us a choice between their older, slower models…which we just received the specifications for two days ago, or the option of them building newer models for our use.”

“In exchange for what?” the logistics chief wondered.

“They offered their older schematics freely, but the production of their newer models would be in trade for assistance with deep mining of gas giants. They are having trouble procuring enough specialized materials, namely corovon, to produce their advanced technology. They have located a number of sources but are unable to reach them, given the pressures involved. They want us to teach them how to access them.”

“Material in exchange for knowledge?” Arnja’el asked.

“Star Force has garnered a reputation amongst the other races as generous, as this exchange would also suggest, but I believe they are savvy negotiators who do not allow others to know what it is that they want or need, so as to not provide diplomatic leverage. It is quite possible that this mining technology is essential to their future plans…then again it could be simply an enhancement that they desire. What their motivation is, I do not know. But their breakneck advancement belies great wisdom in their planning. If not for their small population they would be able to hold back the Cajdital on their own.”

“Then it is fortuitous that we came to their aid when we did,” Arnja’el pointed out. “Sanction the exchange.”

“Looking at this map,” the internal harmony adjutant said, addressing Bv’en, “you would have us cede several valuable worlds, including Darmek. How is that in our best interests?”

“They are valuable in a non-military sense. We must build more ships, thus those worlds with extensive shipyards and material resources take priority. And we will not be ceding them to the Cajdital, for they cannot claim them. Only we can live there, and it is possible that if we appear to abandon them they might not try to get at the sunken clusters…or even realize they exist.”

“A big assumption on your part.”

“A probability,” Bv’en countered. “Regardless, we cannot waste resources guarding extraneous systems. If we can preserve them for later, it is best not to devote fleet resources to them.”

“Is this a limited list?” Arnja’el asked.

“I do not understand your question.”

“Have you chosen the minimum number of worlds to lie dormant?”

“I have. Any fewer and our continued existence is a gamble. The Cajdital will send as many ships as necessary to defeat us, so only by feigning weakness and hiding our true strength will we buy enough time to create enough Shaven. Grouping our existing fleet deployments gives us more regional strength than they are expecting.”

“Then I command you to choose more worlds to lie dormant. Keep only those that are vitally important to us and send the rest to the Sanctuary Zone,” she said, startling the other four Hycre, with Bv’en seeming unphased. “We cannot act meekly, and if these worlds can be reclaimed later then we should not be hesitant to hide them away now. Choose no more than half to keep, and go as low as you dare. When we are surrounded by enemies, our footholds must be like stone.”

“We will lose resources,” the logistics chief informed without complaint.

“If the exchange is greater, then so be it. Choose your worlds carefully,” she told Bv’en, “then begin relocating all non-essential personnel from all our worlds to the Sanctuary Zone. We need to lean our numbers here before the Cajdital grow bolder in their attacks. See to it that transportation begins immediately, then allow the evacuees from the worlds we are abandoning to transition through here. Let them feel the atmosphere of a secure world before they go to the Sanctuary Zone so that they know this is a strategic decision rather than a defeat.”

“Are we staying to buy time for Star Force?” the oracle of wisdom asked.

“We are staying because this is our home and we intend to keep it,” Arnja’el said stoically, “but the two motivations are not mutually exclusive.”

6 years later…

“Fourth section has arrived,” Captain Dseng said, taking a momentary break from overseeing the Starkill’s drone fleet as it fought the Skarrons around the perimeter of the construction site.

“Bring it in immediately,” Jennifer-801 ordered from the bridge command nexus, having taken direct control of the construction drones. “And get that jump cradle out of here before the Skarrons strafe it to death.”

“Copy that,” Dseng said, then he went about issuing orders to his remote pilots who were also on the bridge and spread out into rows of control booths. On the main hologram several dozen of the drone warships peeled off from their defensive assignments and retreated in to the massive space station Star Force was constructing in orbit over Praxnek, a Protovic world that had been a Skarron target for more than two years, but one that the enemy had failed to land more than a few ground units on.

Both the Protovic fleet and Star Force’s smaller naval force, that was constantly jumping around from system to system to assist on multiple fronts, had managed to hold planetary orbit at great cost, with the Skarrons responding by upping the pressure periodically, with this latest assault hitting them hardest of all…simultaneous with other assaults across Protovic space. This planet was the most vulnerable and on the verge of falling, which was why Star Force had retasked one of its Sentinel stations for deployment here, and after the debacle the Skarrons had suffered when they’d assaulted the one set up at Erentia they knew they couldn’t let another one come into play here.

As a result they’d repositioned their entire insystem fleet and sent them after the first piece of the jumpship-sized station that had arrived, with the Protovic moving en mass to block their way, leaving all Star Force warships to set up the final defensive perimeter and escort the massive jump cradles in and out from the star they were arriving on.

Each one looked like a giant spider with legs that would wrap around the craft they were carrying and extend an IDF field over the entire inner area, as well as latching on with any range of physical holds. Current there was an empty one sitting a couple of kilometers away from the station that Jennifer was hurriedly putting together, for the massive segments had been designed for quick assembly, though like with all new toys, some assembly was required.

The drones that broke off formed a wedge ahead of the cradle, whose legs were now curled in underneath it and creating a much smaller presence than what it had just been. It had a small crew onboard that took control of the drones after it reached an outgoing jumpline, pulling them with it in nearly simultaneous jumps and hanging onto the escort until it got to the star and an outsystem jumpline. There they ordered the drones to return to the planet, but they’d be late getting back to the party.

The jump cradle that had just arrived was likewise built by Star Force, having slightly patterned themselves off the Hycre version, and inside its open space hold it carried a 7 kilometer long piece of Sentinel that contained several package pieces ‘glued’ alongside. Once it made it past the Skarrons and into the ‘safe’ zone that Star Force and the Protovic were mostly holding and losing a lot of ships to maintain, the jump cradle moved it into position alongside the other three main segments that were already attached, with Jennifer getting it into the position she wanted before dismissing the cradle, but not ordering it out.

There was enough room in the defensive perimeter for it to sit for the moment, and she didn’t want to lose more drones in escort or risk losing the cradle and crew by sending it out alone. She picked the spot she wanted it and sent the nearby coordinates, getting it clear of the massive chunk of station that her construction ‘bots’ scurried out to and began removing the extraneous pieces.

Some of the bots moved into positions around the perimeter of the mass and latched on, becoming maneuvering thrusters, and very gently lowered it down atop the other three, forming a long, cigar-like grey gem with multiple faces, all with sharp lines and not a single curve in the design. Onto those faces the extra pieces were added, some fitting into preexisting slots and all but disappearing inside, others remaining on the surface like ugly warts.

Jennifer knew they were running out of time, so even as the last pieces were being put into place she began reworking the internal configuration of the completely automated station and got one of the lower cleansing beams online, then routed control of it over to one of the pilots on her warship, bumping him from drone control and leaving his drone with only 2 pilots instead of 3.

The pilot immediately put the large cleansing beam to use, targeting the strongest of the Skarron vessels within firing range, for many were blocked by friendly ships, and proceeded to put a shot into its shields that penetrated within a second and a half. When it abated there was a small hole in the ship that was otherwise fully intact.

The next shot didn’t hit the ship, but picked another and likewise breached its shields, leaving it vulnerable to the Protovic fleet. Wisely the pilot continued with the targeting motif, plucking shields off the Skarrons’ heaviest ships rather than taking the time to cut one apart.

Satisfied with that addition to the battle, Jennifer continued with the construction efforts and avoided any more reprogramming shortcuts, knowing that the cleansing beam she’d jerry-rigged would have to be taken offline and retasked before it could link up with the others. Normally that would have been accomplished with only a few keystrokes, except that the Sentinel station was designed with moveable internal equipment that would allow for reconfigurations to keep it fighting at maximum potential when suffering from battle damage.

Getting the fourth piece in place took too long, but in reality was accomplished in all of 6 minutes once the main section made physical contact with the others…which was remarkably fast for the size of the project they were undertaking. As the construction bots scurried out of the way and back to their own specialized jumpship sitting nearby, the cleansing beam went silent as the internal components began to shift, but the other 9 large batteries came online instantly once the primary power cores synced up, which Jennifer quickly delegated off to more of her crew, leaving the main extra large battery silent to save juice…plus none of the Skarron ships were strong enough to require its attention anyway.

With its power being rerouted to the others cleansing beams the 26 kilometer long behemoth began spitting out tiny lines of light that looked like tinsel falling off a Christmas tree, inconsequential compared to the overall mass…but those tiny little beams were so concentrated with energy they ripped through Skarron shields and armor with ease, prompting a massive retreat 20 seconds after they saw the station go operational.

The Protovic fleet, or what was left of it, let the Skarrons go, but the Sentinel station continued to tag them at range until they all microjumped out, giving the Alliance a 1000+ mile radius around the station into which the Skarrons wouldn’t go unless they had overwhelming numbers…and at present they didn’t have close to enough ships within the system, and probably wouldn’t for some time.

That didn’t prevent them from assaulting the planet from other locations in orbit, but it did mean the Alliance now had a foothold that the Skarrons would be hard pressed to remove…and to which any ships would greatly add to the defense, for the enemy had to throw everything they had against the station to take it out, with any delay resulting in egregious damage to their fleet while its cleansing beams remained active.

“Begin recovery operations,” Jennifer ordered once the Skarrons were well away. “I’ll get the construction bots to help,” she said, referencing their own control pilots onboard their jumpship and the massive amount of debris and damaged ships left behind in a crude halo around the now fully operational station as the Archon saw the 10th cleansing beam move into the green on her holographic schematic. That meant it was good to go and any Star Force warship or properly equipped outpost could remote control it and let the Skarrons waste hundreds of ships taking it out if they so chose, and if not, it would pick apart any fleet that came near it, letting Alliance vessels run towards it for sanctuary.

Yet one more piece in the overall ADZ defense line now in place. Problem was, the massive stations were both hard and expensive to build, but worth every bit of their construction. And the longer the conventional forces of the Alliance could hold their turf, the more of these would come online, making the ADZ that much harder to breach, whether it be Skarrons, lizards, or anyone else.

Time was on their side, so long as they could win or reduce these current and near future battles to a draw. Doing such was burning through a lot of Star Force drones and an even larger amount of Protovic lives as their unaugmented ships were aggressively defending their territory, knowing the stakes and the overall strategy, and leaving their growing mainline fleet with roving duty as they hunted the Skarrons with their own cleansing beams and maulers.

The old school ships and their crews were the barricades being thrown up as defense, and they were committed to doing their part, no matter how many of them were lost to the effort, if it would ensure the Protovic race’s survival.

3

May 3, 2502

Rvot System (Protovic territory)

Praxnek

Two days after the Sentinel went online Jennifer boarded a dropship and descended to the surface of the varied planet, landing in an ice field where the Protovic didn’t have any native populations. There Star Force had been allowed to establish a small base that it was continually expanding into a home for a significant ground force. With the Skarrons looking like they were fully committed to conquering the Protovic no matter how long it took, Star Force had decided to put down roots as well rather than flying in troops and dropping them into combat zones essentially unsupported.

The base Jennifer was landing at had one of the strongest shield generators ever built, far stronger than those on any Star Force warship, and with multiple units to provide redundancy enough to keep a 100 square mile area protected from orbital bombardment. Those shields were down at the moment, allowing her dropship easy access to one of 6 spaceports. Another was under construction along with a slew of new buildings creeping out across the ice as the artificial surface of the base slowly replaced it.

In between the buildings were large pathways meant for mechs, along with two airfields and 6 mech bays…plus a small aquatics cupola sticking up, underneath which was a water corridor that stretched under the ice to a nearby ocean, with Star Force having done a lot of digging to make the connection.

The Protovic hadn’t colonized their oceans, which covered some 34% of the planet and interconnected with each other in the form of long tendrils that segmented the landmasses. Star Force had received permission to develop infrastructure there, with the intent being to create outposts and troop deployment centers that the Skarrons would have a difficult time hitting, for so far they hadn’t deployed any type of aquatics forces, making the Alliance wonder if they even had any in their ranks.

Jennifer’s dropship nestled down into one of the spaceport’s enclosed bays, landing on one of six pads after dropping through an environment shield that kept the cold air out but let the transports come and go, meaning that the Archon walked out onto a warm pad that was busy unloading four Dragon-class dropships bringing down more construction materials from a convoy that had just arrived 3 hours ago.

They’d be busy the next few days unloading as the 3 mech galaxies already on planet were finishing up the last of the Skarrons’ most recent attempt at a surface attack. They’d already finished off the last of the enemy walkers, leaving only infantry to mop up on the rolling grasslands of a southern hemisphere continent.

Their dropship transports were housed in and operated out of the airfield, leaving the spaceports as the commerce terminals, but as Jennifer made her way to the interior she moved up several levels to the skyline walkway that gave her a brief glimpse of the nearest mech bay promenade.

She paused a moment to look it over, seeing the normal burrows that the mech bay was constructed inside and coated over top of with multiple layers of dirt/rock/armor…which in this case was all armor given that they were on an ice field and the actual ground was deep beneath them. Outside the surface ‘bumps’ were large clearings broken up by a scattering of buildings. Here there were multiple mechs, most of which were stationary and set into lines, but a few were walking about and heading towards a couple of dropships, ostensibly readying for deployment.

The other mechs should have been berthed inside, not standing outside. Jennifer wondered what they were doing out there, for she didn’t think there were any pilots currently in them. They looked like they were parked, and sticking them out in the open was a bad idea in case the base came under attack and the enemy either got through the shields or slipped in a sneak shot before they went up.

She’d have to inquire about that when she got to her headquarters, now that this base was falling under her command.

The skyline walkway ran across the top of the spaceport and several other buildings before it came to a tram terminal. Jennifer boarded one of the small craft that ran the enclosed rails and rode it across the top/mid level of the base, passing over some buildings and through others until she got off at the terminal nearest the headquarters and hiked the rest of the way on foot, travelling down multiple levels until she got over to the subterranean control room where she found Kip waiting with his personal bundle set on the ground beside his feet while he studied a hologram of something on the planet’s surface.

“In a hurry?” she asked, glancing at the duffle.

“Places to go, things to do,” he said with a smile. “I trust you can keep things together here?”

“I find that question insulting,” Jennifer said sarcastically.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Make sure this cleanup skirmish is thorough. We don’t want to let the Skarrons keep a few infantry in place to act as scouts for their next attack.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“All yours then,” he said, offering her his armored hand.

She shook his black glove in her bare hand, glad that he didn’t squeeze too hard. Jennifer nodded and Kip released his grip, grabbing his striker helmet and locking it in place before retrieving his duffle and heading out of the control room.

He didn’t waste any time, heading for one of the airfields and climbing into his personal skeet, painted blue through the fuselage and yellow on the anti-grav ‘T’ tips. The trailblazer shoved his duffle into a compartment below his feet and slid onto the pommel seat before hitting the button to lower the armored canopy into place, blocking out his view until the holographic HUD activated, replacing the armor with an exterior view seemingly through the material.

Kip lifted off moments later, flying up over the base and accelerating laterally as he continued to gain altitude, eventually rising up to orbit some 1500 miles to the east and rendezvousing with his ride out of the system. Using nothing but anti-gravs, for the skeets didn’t have maneuvering thrusters, Kip gently crept the aerofighter through the vacuum of space and into one of the hangar bays of the Taro Adun.

His normal flagship, the Tassadar, was sitting in a Star Force shipyard undergoing an extensive refit after getting the crap kicked out of it by the Skarrons. Fortunately for it and him the massive warship had enough mass to survive the assault and keep the drones operational, though the Skarrons had destroyed almost all of the transmitters. They’d had to rely on a short range backup placed at the center of the warship to continue to orchestrate their defense escort, though if that hadn’t functioned there had been other Star Force warships in the area that would have picked up the control slack, meaning the drones wouldn’t have been taken out of the battle.

But it had shown that the Skarrons knew the warships were the control units for the drones, and that they weren’t going to be hesitant in attacking them. It was a potential weakness for Star Force, one that they’d armored over considerably, including preprogramming attack profiles into the drones so they could continue fighting even without exterior control, but so long as they maintained a technological edge Kip wasn’t worried, for they’d been reworking the warship design continuously, now up to the Mk. 23 variety that the Tassadar was being reworked into.

The Taro Adun was a Mk. 22 that had only seen light combat, but that was likely to change as Kip left the Rvot System and headed further down on the galactic plane.

He took no other ships with him, traveling several weeks until he crossed over into Gamma Region, which sat below Earth and the Core Region, but stretched out wider the farther down you went, given the 45 degree angle from centerline that it was charted off of. The system to which Kip was headed was far beyond the scattering of colonies that Nevil oversaw, putting it closer to Zeta and Beta Region colonies.

It was nearly straight down from Protovic territory, with a slight coreward shift, and totally uninhabited…containing two gas giants orbiting a pair of red giant stars that were near to merging into one. Beyond that there was nothing else in the system.

Traveling to the outermost of those gas giants, the Taro Adun made a microjump across the system and dropped into battlemap transmission range with Kip seeing numerous Star Force signatures popping up on the bridge holo. There were three other Warship-class jumpships, one from the 13th fleet and two from Ivan’s Clan Cookie, which took the award for the most ridiculous name, especially when paired with the colored M&Ms paint scheme that all their craft were covered with, including the pair of jumpships.

Hilarious to newcomers, Kip no longer saw anything other than a strong Clan when he pictured the Cookies, and was grateful that Ivan had been able to devote the pair of warships to this latest puzzle piece mission, given that Kip had none to spare. Clan Protoss was fully engaged in the defense of the Protovic, leaving little resources left to go hitting the Skarrons elsewhere.

The rendezvous system they were in now sat 1.4 lightyears from their target system of Dcan, and formerly home to the Issvoks, an associate of the Protovic. They’d been a single system race with trading ties throughout the region, and hadn’t put up much of a fight when the Skarrons targeted their world. The most recent intel the Protovic had suggested that the Issvoks had been completely wiped out, with the Skarrons taking possession of their planet and moving on, leaving the conquered world behind their forward pressing fleets and giving anyone who was bold enough to hit it an easy target.

Normally Kip wouldn’t have bothered going after Skarron conquests, knowing that it would probably draw a reprisal, but this was a special case. First off the Protovic had brought it to his attention, citing they would like to incorporate what Issvoks had escaped destruction by being off planet at the time of the invasion into the Alliance refuge populations. Arrangements for that had already been made, but so far only a handful had been found and brought into the ADZ.

The second reason was the location…just on the edge of what Star Force had loosely tagged as the ADZ border in Gamma Region, despite the fact it was far from any Star Force or Alliance colony…officially. In truth it was close to one of the private networks Star Force was setting up, with this one belonging to Ivan and Megan, which was one reason why he’d been willing to devote resources to the mission.

The nearest outpost was 15 lightyears away, giving them a light, backup supply line out to them if needed, but the plan was to have a self-sufficient presence that could then backfeed into that portion of Gamma Region, establishing colonies that would then link up with current ones decades down the road.

Which brought him to the third reason…and the owners of the bulk of the fleet sitting next to the three warships.

For years Canderous had literally begged the trailblazers to let them have a greater role in the warfront, with them always playing it safe and giving the Canderians small, yet crucial assignments for them to gain some experience on. It had never been enough to satisfy the military civilization, but they’d done their duty all the while expanding their network of sedas throughout the Core Region and elsewhere where allowed.

This was to be the first major Canderian assault, with Kip knowing that he needed to be present to make sure nothing went wrong…and to make sure they got their foothold on this wide open border in the ADZ before the Skarrons felt like pushing inside it. He and the Canderians both knew that the Skarrons might respond aggressively to losing the planet, and they were prepared to face the brunt of their reprisal. In fact, the Canderians seemed to welcome it, while Kip would much prefer the Skarrons overlooking the loss of the world and continuing to press their attacks against the Protovic, much as they hadn’t hit another Star Force world since they’d gotten their butts kicked in their first attempt at an invasion.

He had no doubts the Skarrons hadn’t given up on the idea, but the Protovic were putting up a good fight and he assumed the enemy needed to concentrate their resources on the one target before trying to branch out onto multiple fronts in the region. That, or until the Skarron leadership decided to pay more attention to the region and send the mass of reinforcements that Star Force knew they were capable of producing.

All the more reason to get at least a single point of defense established on the Gamma Region border, especially with more and more refugee populations, and sometimes entire races, fleeing both the Skarron and lizard fronts and filling in the very large amount of territory within the ADZ…of which they had plenty more to accommodate as many allies as they could collect, so long as they weren’t too picky about the environment of the available worlds.

As soon as Kip’s ship arrived the assault fleet was complete, with the entire armada microjumping out to the central stars and making the interstellar jump over to the neighboring system with the Taro Adun and the other warships leading the way. As soon as they arrived in Dcan they scanned the area around the central star, seeing it devoid of ships, then microjumped out to the Skarron-held planet of Waxcvat, finding only 6 Skarron warships in orbit…all of which were destroyer class.

There were more than 50 other Skarron ships, all of which fled the newcomers as the warships moved to intercept them as the Star Force jumpships began to deploy their drones. The Skarrons made a quick run against the Taro Adun, unloading some plasma and missiles against her shields before jumping away from the planet…or rather 5 did. One got skewered by a cleansing beam and couldn’t jump out, leaving it easy pickings for the drones.

The four warships settled into low orbit with their full complement of drones deployed as the Canderians began jumping in. First came their own warships, shaped like knife blades and accompanied by independent drones that were far larger and not block shaped. They had no crews, but operated a variety of functions. Some were carriers that housed smaller drones and fighters, others were pure battleships and some were shield ships that carried few weapons but acted as blockers to stave off heavy, directed attacks against the commanding warships.

Looking like Super Star Destroyers, the warships settled into orbit, some 73 strong, bringing their drone fleets with them ahead of the much larger ships to come.

Or rather the sedas that came, carried into planetary orbit by specially designed jump cradles. First came a trio of small ones, each only 2.3 miles in diameter and specialized for strategic mining operations. Following them came progressively larger ones, culminating in a 23 mile wide giant that took 6 jump cradles working together to carry between the stars.

Those jump cradles detached immediately upon arrival, with all of the 13 sedas maneuvering into their desired orbits on their own, much smaller gravity drives. Once settled in those sedas spewed forth hundreds of landing craft, with Kip taking to his skeet and dropping down from orbit with them as the Canderian troops headed for the wreck of a planet that the Skarrons had taken up residence on in a few key locations.

There might not have been any Issvoks left alive to save, but they were definitely going to be avenged, with their planet serving a strategic purpose against the Skarrons as it was shortly to become part of the ADZ and a big middle finger waving in the enemy’s face.

4

December 19, 2504

Numar System (Calavari Territory)

Sashneo

Morgan watched from the command nexus onboard her Melee-class warship Green Ranger as the last Alliance evacuation fleet slowly moved out of orbit, a few ships at a time, enroute to the system’s star and from there across what had formerly been Calavari territory to Drema and the conduit into what was now being called the ADZ. Most of the ships were non-Star Force, and even non-Hycre, for this was the last call, with the masses that were left on the planet being crammed into every transport available.

Sashneo had served its purpose as one of the transitional worlds, but its time had come to an end. The lizard lines were now just next door, with Morgan’s fleet having held the system against their probing attacks for the past 7 years as they pulled more refugees from the surrounding systems. Recently most of those had been non-Calavari, for despite how large their empire had once been, they’d run out of people to rescue…and unfortunately that was due to the war and not their evacuation efforts, for less than 7% of their former population had been relocated.

There were still other worlds within the region that had been Calavari territory, inhabited by dozens of races, but if they hadn’t pulled out by now the train wasn’t waiting for them any longer, and they’d have to deal with the lizards on their own…or hope that they deemed them inconsequential and passed them by.

Morgan was in the command nexus because several lizard attack groups were snooping around the system, and despite the hunter teams she had out pursuing them they had yet to be completely eradicated. That meant that some of the evacuation ships might come under attack, which was unacceptable. Hence she had her defense fleet spread out to cover the evacuation route to the stellar jumpline, with her massive ship holding the anchor position in planetary orbit where the last of the transporters were clustered as they picked up the remaining dropships coming up from the surface.

Onboard those dropships were the architects of the transition world, those people that had overseen its setup and operation, and who now had just overseen its closure, with the removal of all sensitive materials that they didn’t want the lizards to get their hands on. Morgan had considered bombarding the planet to destroy the infrastructure in order to deny it to the enemy, but ultimately decided not to waste the ammunition. If the lizards wanted the Alliance structures then they were theirs to claim, for in a few hours’ time they’d be abandoning the planet and the system, with Morgan knowing they weren’t planning on coming back.

Wanting to keep the last bit of this operation tidy, Morgan stayed in the nexus keeping an eye on all ship movements and tweaking them as she wished until the last of the dropships were onboard and the transports made microjumps out from the planet with their escorting warships…leaving the Green Ranger as the last ship in orbit.

Morgan pulled up a holographic display of Sashneo and gave it one last real time look, seeing the mass of construction they’d jammed onto the planet only a handful of years ago, only now to abandon it. It had served its purpose, but it still felt like a waste and Morgan knew that while they had accomplished their mission this was still a defeat. Yet one more Calavari world that would soon go to the enemy…assuming they wanted it.

With a simple signal sent to the bridge, Morgan gave the order to leave and Admiral Wilkinson got the massive warship underway as it chased the tail of the evacuation line over to the star, finding a few dozen still waiting to make the jump out when they arrived, surrounded by 6 warships and their fleets of drones that were now beginning to be recalled into their berths. Morgan’s command ship waited on them and let them jump first, meaning they were the last one out, which as fitting, since Morgan had been fighting on the Calavari front for a full century now.

Over the days that followed the Green Ranger made slow jumps, following the long line of transports as they bounced their way from system to system and into the Star Force Calavari territory that was on the edge of the ADZ, but nearly all of the transports didn’t stop there aside for fuel and supplies. They continued down the conduit to various locations while Morgan’s fleet stayed behind, either reinforcing the defense line there or being redeployed out to the other 7 transitional worlds that were still operational.

The Calavari worlds that the Protovic were diligently guarding were the only other Calavari systems remaining intact, with those on the far side of their former territory having succumbed when the Kvash and others abandoned their defense. Morgan had helped to evacuate as many of them as possible, but given the distances involved and the aggressiveness of the lizards and their Nestafar allies, few of those Calavari had survived, leaving only these two little bastions of defiance remaining, with the Protovic protectorate having been convinced to join with the Star Force Calavari.

Taryn was there, facilitating the evacuation routes to that area and organizing their defenses as part of their population was being siphoned off to HTC for conversion training. Slowly, year by year, newly minted Star Force Calavari were being return to replace them, giving the new Calavari territory two clusters on the edge of the ADZ, with Leif heading up the defense and remaining evacuation efforts in the Drema-centered section, which had become known as the Rim sector, with the Calavari systems on the Protovic border likewise being labeled the Core sector.

With a trailblazer overseeing each and the combat within the old Calavari territory all but over, Morgan’s time there was at an end, with her leaving the Green Ranger behind to become part of Leif’s fleet as she took temporary command of one of the older Warship-class jumpships and traveled the full length of the conduit back to Epsilon Eridani, where she spent several weeks getting caught up on Clan Ninja Monkey activities and assets there while she got in some much needed ground training.

She’d spent so much time on jumpships that her ‘land legs’ were quite rusty, with Morgan relishing some long forest runs and the uneven footing challenge that they provided. While she had gone on surface missions from time to time those had been rare…and none of them were workouts where she could just relax and grind out the miles over the terrain.

It took her a few days to begin to really unwind, not just from the outdoor runs, but by the change of venue. The personnel around her, from the Clan to the mainline Star Force colonies, to the workload, which was management, training, and creation, were suddenly back to what had been normal to her prior to going to the Calavari front. She’d been back for short stays on occasion, but it wasn’t until her mind began to release her responsibilities to the Calavari and turning that horrific situation into something positive did she realize just how much she didn’t like being cooped up on jumpships.

Like any Archon, she’d adjusted to the circumstances at hand, but now she was realizing just how much she’d been missing, and after a few weeks of letting it all sink in she promised herself she wasn’t going to take on any more long term fleet assignments…if she could help it.

It was a full month before she eventually got around to meeting up with Dakota, Tyr, and Kerrie at Corneria Prime, the planet’s command center and capitol of the system. She got to the briefing room last, with the other three trailblazers already engaged in a conversation with ArchDuke Hightower.

“Well, well…look who finally showed up,” Tyr said as she walked in.

“Shut up,” she said lightly, pulling out a chair next to Dakota and sitting down. “I had a mountain of Clan stuff to take care of. What did I miss?”

“Not much,” Hightower said dismissively. “We were just arguing over production quotas.”

“Clue me in.”

“Warships vs. infrastructure,” Kerrie summed up pithily.

“Infrastructure builds warships,” Hightower reminded them. “Corneria has a great deal of untapped resources that I want to exploit, but to do so at the pace I desire means we can’t be overrunning the shipyards due to lack of available material.”

“Epsilon Eridani’s shipbuilding capability is beginning to exceed its resources,” Dakota explained.

Morgan frowned. “Doesn’t matter how many shipyards you have if you don’t have the supplies to feed them.”

“Exactly my point,” Hightower said, throwing a glance at Tyr and Kerrie.

“Morgan, you know how badly we need more warships on the front lines,” she argued. “Aside from Sol we’re the major producer, and the Clans can’t field enough as it is. We have to have mainline production ramping up.”

“The real question is how urgent is the need,” Hightower inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“I need numbers,” Morgan prompted.

Dakota tapped the tabletop a few times and a statistical hologram lit up between the five of them at the rectangular table, with Hightower sitting at the narrow end.

The others stayed silent for several minutes as Morgan absorbed the production numbers and the proposed plan that Hightower was floating, which would reduce warship production by 32% in exchange for building MCV jumpships over the next 12 years that he would then use to amp up construction on the slew of smaller planets in the system.

Currently there were 14 main planets, one of which belonged to the Hycre, all of which were heavily populated, but there were hundreds more tiny ones in odd orbits at great distance from the others. Some of them had already been lightly inhabited by mining and construction crews, but there were far too many to get to in a short period of time with their current production slate…and Morgan wasn’t sure why they’d even want to, given their small size.

She glanced up from the holo and looked at Hightower, who technically was in command of all non-Clan infrastructure in the system, meaning he could tailor the production quotas as he liked, but he knew better than to mess with warship production without the Archons’ approval.

Morgan shook her head. “I don’t see what you’re trying for here. These planets are far too small to worry about right now. Surface facilities on the current ones should field more resources in the near future.”

“It’s not the near future that concerns me. It’s our rate of growth. Individually these planets are not significant, but combined they will be the equivalent of two more Class E planets. The trouble is getting facilities built that can service them all. The spread out nature of the resources they contain is the issue, which is why I need smaller development platforms. A temporary reduction in warship production will yield a higher rate of production down the road once the resources from these planets are added into the supply chain. Plus the MCVs can be deployed to other systems afterward. With so many planets going to other races, we’re going to have to be savvy to get what we need in future expansions.”

“Yet we have to survive long enough to get there,” Kerrie countered, “hence the problem.”

Morgan groaned. “We need both.”

“Exactly,” Dakota agreed.

“Where’s the Kiritak supply level at?”

“Holding steady, but it’s limited by the amount of cargo traffic available. Most of our local production is fed by local resources, and even if we had Kiritak supplement it wouldn’t scratch the surface of what we need. Epsilon Eridani has to be self-sufficient, and it has to be able to provide the fleets that the rest of Star Force needs. That need is growing, and if our ability to provide it doesn’t also grow we’re going to limit ourselves in centuries to come.”

Morgan looked at Kerrie, then Tyr, and finally Dakota. “You’ve been here longer that I have been. What do you suggest?”

“Keeping to the production schedule,” Tyr said firmly.

“How bad is it out there?” Dakota asked.

Morgan sighed. “Bad enough, but it’s only going to get worse. The lizards aren’t to the Rim sector yet, but when they get there we’re going to need every ship we can get.”

“Or Sentinel,” Kerrie added.

Morgan looked at Hightower. “Are you building those here?”

“Just the ones for our own use. We’re not exporting any. That’s Sol’s turf.”

“I hate to say it, but…”

“Time to rip the band-aid off?” Kerrie finished.

Morgan nodded.

“Now that’s a reference I haven’t heard in a long time,” Hightower commented.

Dakota frowned. “Meaning what?”

“We go all-in and build his MCVs as fast as possible. Full production.”

Hightower raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

Tyr shook his head. “That’s not going to work.”

“If we have two bad options, might as well get it over with as quick as possible,” Morgan explained. “This way the onus is on us being able to hold the line with the ships we have, not on him,” she said, pointing at Hightower, “to build more ships than he is capable years from now. The war is only going to escalate, so if we’re going to take a production hit now is the best time to tackle it.”

“Wars,” Dakota corrected.

Tyr looked at Hightower. “How long with full production?”

“I haven’t run those numbers because I didn’t think it was a realistic option, but if we go full-in on both military and cargo lines I’d guess 2 years, 3 max, with a delayed implementation as we finish up the current slate.”

“And that will give you what you need here?”

“As well as the ability to expand to other systems not currently possible, though those projects wouldn’t be under my command.”

“This is a bad idea,” Tyr reiterated. “But I agree that things aren’t going to get any better in the future. If this gets us more ships down the line, then it’s worth doing…so long as we can hold out. As it is, I’m not sure any of us know how hard we’re going to get hit and where, which is why I’d prefer having every ship we can get.”

“I don’t disagree,” Morgan told him, “but I know if he’s asking then there’s a significant need.”

“Thank you,” Hightower said, bowing his head slightly. “I promise I’ll make this work to our advantage if you can hold out.”

“You better,” Kerrie joked, “or we’ll bust you back down to Duke.”

“If I don’t I’ll bust myself down.”

“Ok, next item on the list,” Dakota said with a straight face. “Morgan, what level are you at?”

The striker gave him a bemused look. “54.”

Tyr whistled, and Morgan saw him and Kerrie exchange a glance.

“What?”

Dakota reached over and put his hand on Morgan’s consolingly. “Paul is at 55.”

“Oh, hell no…”

“Afraid so,” Kerrie confirmed. “He’s been on a training tear ever since he got back to Earth.”

“Last update I got said he was at 52. How’d he jump 3 levels?”

“We were curious about that too,” Dakota said. “Seems he had a weak score holding him back that he had a breakthrough in.”

“Let me guess, swimming?”

“Yep.”

“Damn him,” Morgan whispered. “How’d he jump three levels?”

Dakota dug into the interface and eventually brought up the Archon training scores…at least the ones most recently updated, given how spread out they were across various star systems.

“Not three,” he said, pointing to the jump in swimming scores.

Morgan’s jaw dropped. “19?”

“He hasn’t bothered to note how that happened, but we have a few guesses,” Tyr commented.

“What’s the leading theory?” Morgan asked, going through his subcategory list and seeing several swimming scores that were now above her own.

“He cheated and grew gills,” Dakota remarked.

“We’re guessing he finally fixed whatever his drawback was,” Kerrie translated. “Maybe made a correction with the V’kit’no’sat medical station.”

“Why wouldn’t he have done that before…assuming there was something wrong with him. I just thought he was slow.”

“He’s not slow,” Hightower commented, having been his former Clan Marquis.

“He’s not fast in the water either,” Morgan countered. “Do you know something?”

“Afraid not. Other than communiques I haven’t talked with Paul in years.”

“Well has anyone bothered to ask him?” Morgan wondered.

“Message sent, still waiting on a reply,” Tyr told her.

“Well do share when it comes in,” Morgan said, now thoroughly miffed. She’d held top Archon status forever, and she definitely didn’t like Paul pulling some magic out of his ass to suddenly jump ahead of her in the standings.

“Aren’t you due for a check-in with him and Jason anyway?” Kerrie asked. “You still haven’t gotten the battlemeld yet, I assume?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“So go ask him yourself,” Dakota suggested. “And send pictures.”

“I think I will,” Morgan said, having planned to get there eventually anyway.

“If that’s settled,” Hightower said politely, “we have personnel transfers to orchestrate.”

Kerrie could tell by the look on his face that he considered such things to be painful, given that each time it occurred he had to ship out some of his highly skilled subordinates to other systems that were starting up or expanding into larger colonies. That couldn’t be helped, for the most talented people were either here or in Sol, meaning this is where the brain trust had to be siphoned from.

“That we do,” Kerrie agreed, being the one that would be setting up a trio of new colonies in Delta Region through Clan Ahsoka that would eventually become mainline run Alliance Worlds. Her people would be overseeing the supply lines that would feed the startup costs, but it was mainline personnel that would be running them, meaning that they needed both skilled and experienced leaders that Hightower was going to have to part with. “What have you got?”

Hightower brought up the short list he’d assembled and began making his recommendations as Morgan stewed, thoroughly ticked at herself for letting Paul pass her up, despite the meteoric rise his swimming skills had undergone.

5

June 23, 2505

Solar System

Earth

Davis looked up from the datapad he was reading as he heard footsteps entering his office late at night. He was just about to call it a day himself, then was suddenly glad he hadn’t when he saw an old friend climbing the stairs into his office with the gentle grace that made her almost silent, and Davis was proud to have even noticed her approach.

“Now that’s a face I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said, setting the datapad down and standing up.

“Figured I should drop in while I had the chance,” Morgan said as Davis came out around his desk to meet her, then wrapped her up in a big hug.

“I never had a chance to thank you for the work you’ve done with the Calavari,” he said, stepping back and waving her towards a chair. “You’ve saved a race…and one very important to Star Force’s future, I think.”

“Not enough of them,” Morgan countered, sitting down and remembering back to the first time she was in this office along with Paul and Jason as the secrets of ambrosia were spelled out to her.

Davis nodded, knowing better than to argue the point with her. Archons didn’t like losing anyone, and no matter how many she saved her mind would be focused on the failures rather than the successes.

“Are you back to stay?”

“We’ve evacuated everyone we could find, save for those who didn’t want to go. We’ve actually been pulling more from other races than Calavari in recent years. If there are any more out there I don’t know where they’re hiding. We’ve sent a scout into every system that was formerly Calavari territory and evacuated everyone we found. The other races in the region have already evacuated, save for those who chose to stay, so my time there is over. Leif and Taryn are staying in the new Calavari sectors to organize their defense, leaving one trailblazer too many, so I’m cycling back to catch up on Clan matters and soak in some sun. Didn’t realize how much I missed planetary atmosphere.”

“Where are you heading next?”

“I’ve got some business in the pyramid, then I’m a floater until I find another mission. Don’t suppose you have anything for me?”

“Nothing worthy of your skills, no,” Davis said with a light laugh. “You’ve earned a vacation. Why not take it?”

“Being off a jumpship is vacation enough, and I had several weeks of downtime on Corneria already.”

“Typical Archon.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

“I’m not involved in combat.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Davis sighed. “Probably before you were born.”

“More Archon than you give yourself credit for.”

“Hardly,” Davis said dismissively. “But seeing how we both have an aversion to off time, how about you bring me up to speed with what you guys are working on.”

“Something specific you want to know about? We usually keep you in the loop.”

“Not your current projects, but where you’re thinking ahead. The stuff I suspect you talk about with each other prior to solidifying any plans. You guys run the frontier regions, just want to know where your heads are at.”

Morgan studied him carefully. “You’ve got something of your own in the works and you want to make sure it doesn’t conflict with what we’ve got running?”

Davis leaned back in his seat with a smirk on his face. “How in the hell did you know that? I thought we all had Ikrid blocks.”

“Deductive reasoning. What are you working on this time?” Morgan asked curiously.

“The future,” he said, with concern on his face, “of this new Alliance we’re forming.”

“Problems?”

“A few, but more on the horizon, I fear. Maybe you haven’t been keeping score, but population wise Star Force is in the minority. We still have an infrastructure advantage, but reports I’ve been getting are indicating that the other races we’ve agreed to shelter are beginning to merge into a communal identity, with plenty of power games beginning to be played.”

“I caught some of that in Corneria.”

“Your thoughts?”

“Not something I’ve been worried about, given my previous mission. But it seems like we’ve picked up a lot of backseat drivers who are thinking less like refugees and more like equal partners, minus the defensive responsibility. Some of the races appear to be stepping up in that regard, but a lot are sitting behind our defense lines and building up their powerbase. Dakota says the diplomatic situation has become a bit like…well, it’s chaotic as everyone is trying to define their position, and some races are using that to advance their own agendas.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say it reminded me of the Citadel in Mass Effect, but I figured you never played that video game.”

“You figured wrong. A friend of mine was an addict and dragged me through the games. I admit I was less interested in the combat than I was in the logistics, but Citadel Station is familiar. A lot of politics and self-serving races with little interest in the common welfare.”

“Well, that’s pretty much what we’re developing, minus the communal watering hole.”

“That’s where my line of thought was taking me. We’re on good standing with the Hycre and Protovic, thanks to you guys. I still haven’t met either race, and I’d prefer to keep it that way, though I do have a suggestion for how to stabilize this growing internal conflict.”

“Almost no one has met a Hycre,” Morgan corrected him, “and for me there was still a wall in between. Why don’t you want contact with them? I’d assumed your duties here prevented you from traveling out to meet them.”

“I understand Humans, but I’m only beginning to get a grasp of Calavari and Kiritak society. And that’s mostly because you guys have created a bridge by training them in Star Force ways. Jace brought one of the Calavari with him to Atlantis a few years back, and that encounter opened my eyes to a great many things. I felt his mind, limited as my Ikrid ability is, and I was surprised by how different it was. All the training reports I’ve read about the Calavari have been quite detailed, but I made a mistake when interpreting them. They are doing things for a different reason than I believed, and I get the feeling that they’re the most like us of any of the races.”

“I understand them,” Morgan offered, “it just takes some time to get used to them.”

“Which is why I’m glad you guys have stepped up and handled all inter-racial diplomacy. I’m behind on the learning curve, but I can still spot some warning signs. Our guests cannot be trusted, and if we’re not careful we could be ushering in our conquerors if the exterior threats lesson.”

“Not that I disagree with you, but the lizards, Nestafar, and Skarrons aren’t going anywhere.”

“But if we’re able to establish a defense line and truly create the Alliance Defense Zone, those threats will decrease in immediate importance and a new internal dynamic will form.”

“You’re saying the guests are going to want to start running the place?”

“I can’t be for sure, because of my unfamiliarity with the races, but I suspect a high probability of it.”

“The Hycre came to our aid in the beginning when there was little need to do so. I think they can be trusted, more or less. And while I’m not personally familiar with the Protovic, Kip seems to think they can be trusted in a similar manner.”

“Both of them are engaged in heavy fighting,” Davis pointed out. “And they are not my immediate concern. They and Star Force create the defense shield that protects the others. It’s the others that I foresee the problems developing in.”

“You said you had an idea?”

“We need to provide more structure to this Alliance than handing out territory slots and establishing basic rules. We need to stay in the lead, which means an active involvement in internal affairs.”

“Such as?”

“I have some ideas, but like I said, I don’t know the players we’re dealing with. I need to personally get involved, and I don’t want to bring an embassy into Sol.”

“Transfer to Corneria then. It’s already the hub of the Alliance, both the original and the overall one we’re cobbling together. Every race plus outsiders have an embassy there.”

“I’ve thought of doing just that, given that Sol is pretty much a calm property. There are still some special tweaks that I need to make, but most of that can be handled via the relay network.”

Morgan leaned forward, resting her elbows on his desk. “So what’s stopping you?”

“Changing one office for another isn’t going to be enough. In order to build a real Alliance out of the pieces you’ve rescued, I have to learn who we’re dealing with. And to do that I need…closer contact.”

“Spit it out already or I’ll just grab your hand.”

“For most men that wouldn’t be viewed as a disincentive,” Davis said with a flirty/sarcastic wink. “The problem is I need to go on a tour of everything we’ve got out there beyond Sol, but the travel lag is going to keep me out of contact for too long. Stationing on Corneria isn’t much different than here, as far as comm lag is concerned. But if I move about I’ll be off the grid too much.”

“You’re afraid the kids won’t be able to mind the store without you?”

“They’re used to having me around. I’ve never had kids, but some old friends of mine, now long dead, did, and I haven’t forgotten some of the stories they told me about how everything could be fine and in order at home, then they step outside to do something and come back inside 2 minutes later and all hell had broken loose. That shouldn’t happen with Star Force, but that unknown factor is why I’ve stayed put as long as I have, and I don’t know how to alleviate the problem.”

“Well that’s easy enough. Don’t tell them you’re gone.”

Davis frowned. “I’m not exactly someone that can go missing without being noticed.”

“Why not? Most of your interactions aren’t face to face, are they?”

“You obviously have no idea what my schedule is like,” Davis said with a laugh.

“Aside from personnel in Atlantis,” Morgan corrected herself.

“I have holocomm communications with other locations on Earth and Luna, but you’re right that we don’t bring in guests to Atlantis all that often.”

Morgan smiled. “I know what you need to do.”

“I see that devious look on your face…and for some reason I find myself liking it.”

“Go rogue. Assign a stand-in, an Administrator you can trust that can take your place here and give orders in your name. That will get rid of the time lag, from others’ points of view, and you can check in with him via the relays to stay in touch. Then you can go wherever you need to and no one aside from a few trusted individuals will even know you’ve left. No records of transit. You’ll be a ghost in the system until you come back here and resume your place. Plan it right, and no one will even miss you.”

“How do I do that when you guys won’t let me leave without an armada for an escort?”

“You won’t be in danger if no one knows you’ve gone, and you can travel in my shadow. I’ll be your guide and escort, and me pulling a warship for my personal transit won’t draw attention.”

Davis sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

Morgan shook her head. “You said you need to get to know the races out there. Well, I can get you far closer anonymously than you can as yourself. And no, we’re not letting you go out without protection. And I wouldn’t trust anyone other than a trailblazer to do this. I’m looking for my next mission and this is it. As soon as you can get things set up we can leave…after I make a short trip down to Antarctica.”

“Battlemeld upgrade?”

“That and a few other things…”

“How?” Morgan demanded.

Paul looked up from his tray of foodstuffs in the cafeteria, having sensed her presence before she’d walked up to him, and raised a wait finger as he chewed the last half of a roll and grabbed the last four cookies in his left hand as he got up.

“I’ll show you,” he said, ditching the tray in the return slot as he walked out with Morgan in tow. “When did you get back?”

“I haven’t posted anything since I left Calavari space. I got here yesterday.”

“In between missions?”

“No.”

“What’s new?”

“What’s new with you?” she countered as they walked through the halls.

Paul laughed. “Ticked?”

“Depends on how you did it.”

“Better if I show you. Let’s head down to the pond. You’re going to like this.”

“Is this what feeling second best is always like?” Morgan said deadpan. “It sucks.”

“Watch it, sister. I found a way to overcome a weakness. Even after you learn it, I’m not going to be so easy to stay ahead of from here on out. My Kryptonite is now gone.”

“You were never ‘easy’ to stay ahead of.”

“Well that’s better,” he said as they got outside the building and Paul grabbed a nearby mongoose. Morgan slid on behind him and wrapped herself up tight against his back as he zoomed off, eventually making their way down to the lower levels where the swimming dinosaurs had made their home.

Both trailblazers donned swim suits and found a small pool that was really a cupola off the underwater levels where one of the swimmers could interface with the Zen’zat in air. The roof was curved and the pool was oblong, with the far end connected underneath the wall to the main area beyond where a number of arrowheads and other craft were zipping about on training runs.

“Alright,” Paul said from the rim of the empty chamber. “Old school. Down and back. Ready?”

Morgan stepped up to the edge. “Ready.”

Paul sounded a three tone countdown telepathically, mimicking Mario Kart, with both of them jumping off head first into the water on the final ‘sound.’

With an ease born of tens of thousands of hours of training, both swam the 72 meter length to the far side, touched the wall that spanned the top of the subsurface connecting tunnel, and reversed direction. As was typical, Morgan beat Paul back by three body lengths, prompting a confused look on her face as they both floated with their hands on the rim catching their breath.

“That’s the normal you,” she commented. “What’s the new?”

Paul pulled himself up out of the water and took up his starting position again.

Morgan followed him up and set herself, then took off when Paul sent her the start tones…but this time he hit the water and took off far faster than she was capable of swimming. By the time he hit the turn he was already two body lengths ahead and pulling away, finishing ahead of her by at least five.

She pulled up along the edge and spat out a bit of water. “Ok, I’m impressed,” she admitted. “What did you do different?”

“Bioshield enhancement,” he said, holding out his hand above the water and pressing it down into the surface…with the water around his fingers smoothing out, showing Morgan that he essentially had an invisible flipper. “I can alter my body line and even add some fins as needed. Took me a long time to figure out how to do it, then even more to build up the necessary strength, but it works wonders.”

“I’ll say,” Morgan said, envious.

“And I can use it to block off my nostrils.”

Morgan laughed as she bobbed slightly in the water. “I bet you were more excited about that.”

“I was,” he said enthusiastically. “No more water in the airways.”

“Ok, I’m not ticked anymore. That’s actually pretty cool,” she said before pulling herself back up onto dry land.

As Paul came up a second later he saw the moisture on her blow off in all directions, save for her hair, as she threw off a little concussive energy to dry herself, then she pulled the tie out of her ponytail and began to ring it out.

“While you’re here, there’s something else I wanted to try.”

“What?” Morgan asked, standing back up straight and replacing the hair tie.

Paul walked to the edge of the water and pointed for her to stand opposite him on the dry side. “Hit me with a hard blast,” he said, bringing his left forearm up in a guard.

“How hard?” she said, taking her position.

“Make it challenging.”

“You think you can block it?”

“Fairly sure.”

“Alright,” she said, summoning up a good wave of tingles across her back and channeling them down into her forearm. She flicked it forward and released a concussive wave directly into Paul, then was shocked to see a wall of firework-like static flash in front of him when it hit.

It disappeared as quickly as it began, with Paul not having moved an inch.

“Did you even feel that?” she asked.

Paul shook his head. “No. Energy on energy. I can produce shields independent from my body or hard linked to my skeleton. This was independent. I just didn’t know how well it’d work, given that you can use it to walk through shields.”

“Most shields,” she corrected him, having read up on the psionic files multiple times. “Do it again.”

Morgan saw his forehead crease slightly, then he nodded.

She walked up and put her hand against the invisible wall, feeling it hard like glass beneath her fingertips and a good foot in front of Paul’s extended arm, then she summoned up another wave of tingles and shunted it into her hand and pressed into it.

The shield sparked and gave microscopically, but even as she leaned her body into it she couldn’t penetrate, eventually giving up and retreating a step.

“Nope,” she said, now thoroughly jealous.

“Good, because I’m almost out of juice. The shield eats ambrosia like crazy.”

“I know. How much force can you withstand?”

“Hard to say. There are a lot of variables involved.”

“What about plasma?”

“Lizard rifle, I’ve been able to hold up against 12 spaced shots when on full ambrosia load, but only three when they come in fast.”

“Useful,” Morgan commented.

“Very, when you’re caught outside your armor. You here for your battlemeld upgrade?”

“Yeah. Don’t suppose you’ve learned how to share that shield?”

“We haven’t found any of the non-melding triggers, and so far I’m the only one with the bioshield, so the techs only have the single sample to work with, though they’re guessing it had something to do with my resistance to an incoming Fornax hit.”

“I read that report. Hasn’t helped me find it yet.”

“You’ve found 3?”

“And stuck on three.”

“Well, let’s get you up to four. Have a seat.”

“Here?”

“We need someplace quiet, and this will do.”

“Works for me,” she said, sitting down crosslegged with Paul sitting to mirror her, reaching out to grab her hands and linking their minds directly, bypassing the Ikrid blocks. She resisted at first, out of reflex, then let him in, finding the presence of another trailblazer mind immensely soothing as it burned out the isolation she’d unwittingly accumulated during the Calavari mission.

Two days later she’d achieve the upgrade which, in typical Morgan fashion, was an unofficial record.

6

August 30, 2505

Prolio System (Alpha Region)

HTC

“There?” Davis asked over his dedicated comm line to Morgan.

“Yes,” she said, looking down on a wide plain full of Calavari from a high building top as they roamed about underneath the morning sunlight.

Davis zoomed in a bit more via the Archon helmet that he wore, seeing the smaller four-armed aliens moving about. “What exactly are they doing?”

“The old Calavari society had a strict gender gap. The males controlled everything and the females preferred it that way. Jason and Jace eliminated that by changing the way their younglings are raised. Those females are four years old and earning points for their brood by moving small weights from the pedestals to the intake slots.”

“What is this accomplishing?”

“Materially nothing, but two very important things. Previously the females were nesting freaks, with many staying indoors for years at a time. To break them of this habit they started them on very basic training activities, but in order to give them motivation to do so they had to tie everything into the brood standings. With the Calavari, their inner society is all about the broods. It’s been their excuse for lack of activity, and now we’re using it to drive their training, both physical and giving them early experience so they can join the workforce later on if they choose, rather than it being a completely unfamiliar field.”

“You mentioned points?”

“The Calavari broods are a bit like our Clans, except they’re based off of bloodlines and a lot of other foolishness. Bottom line is the females are insanely loyal to their broods, while the males view it as a childhood thing. They look down on the females and for good reason. They wouldn’t accept females within the military or workforce until they proved themselves to be capable…while the previous culture discouraged any physical training without actually banning it. End result was the females sat on their asses and let the males handle everything.”

“And now?” Davis asked, glancing at Morgan, who wore nothing more than her white with black stripe striker uniform, as opposed to the set of red adept armor that she insisted he wear whenever they went on one of their field trips.

“We broke the broods apart at birth and created new ones without all the old baggage. At present there are over 2,000 of them, and we create new ones as needed. When an infant is born, whether male or female, their lineage is hidden and they’re assigned to a discovery facility like this. They have to earn their bloodline association through completing their basic training, which usually takes them to the age of 5 or 6. Those you see down there don’t know which brood they are, but they want to know, which drives them on.”

“How long does their childhood last?”

“They’re fully mature at two and a half years, but will continue to grow in size for another 10 or so. They used to say that was just for the males, but once we put the females into training they began to grow beyond their normal size as well, but still far less than the males.”

“So these can reproduce?”

“We keep them segregated so they can’t. Once they earn their brood they’re moved to other facilities where their seconds stage of training occurs, which is still segregated. When they graduate from that they move into an integration period, out of which they can join Calavari society or continue on with advanced training.”

“What’s the current split?”

“We’re getting about 40% going on. The rest usually go turtle and start giving birth, but the underlying experience they gained from the training has had a decided shift in their society, leaving those born here very different from the refugees.”

“Trouble between the two?”

“There has been, but it’s fading as the generations wash.”

“So the females still identify heavily with the broods, but the males don’t care?”

“Oh they care, but more as a hobby. They have a very strong loyalty to their race that supersedes their brood…while the stagnant females tend to show the reverse. The ones that join the males tend to open their eyes to the greater whole, but on an individual basis. They develop a rogue mentality, creating two very different female personas. Those you see here are more uniform, having yet to make that split.”

“How do they respond when their newborns are taken away?”

“The refugees are very resistant, and we’ve had some incidents, but those born into these maturias are reluctant at worst. They understand where their younglings will go. The refugees do not and are understandably concerned.”

“How are the refugee broods handled?”

“They retain their old identity, but their younglings are randomly assigned to a new one. Trying to get them to accept a new brood is like getting gravity to push. Doable, but very difficult. We found it easier to just make a place for them until the old broods die out, unfortunately. Very few Calavari have achieved self-sufficiency, even with their ambrosia.”

“How many is very few?”

“Enough for an upper echelon to develop. Their leadership has stabilized, but it’s not very deep.”

“Have any of the females?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Davis watched the small Calavari continue moving about like ants, carrying the weights across the short distances with the tallies being marked up, making it clear what they were accomplishing.

“What do the points result in?”

“Perks and property. The stagnant females won’t cohabitate with non-broodmates. Rather than try and break them of this we turned it to our advantage. Each brood has a base amount of habitats, enough to hold their population uncomfortably. To get more living room they have to earn it, with the younglings’ points figuring in. The bulk of the points come from the habitats themselves, where the stagnant ones have to do some work or learn to live a bit overcrowded. All the work they do is brood related, but there’s considerable pressure for the younger females to do part-time work, maybe a 6 month stint or so, so the older ones can sit on their ass,” Morgan said disapprovingly.

“Any rebellion there?”

“Usually the rebellion occurs by the females simply leaving to do work that benefits all Calavari…and their brood doesn’t get points for that, so they’re pretty much going rogue.”

“Where do they live if they go rogue?”

“Standard Star Force quarters. If we can encourage them to break with the broods, then there’s no problem, but there seems to be a strong default bonding urge that has to be broken on an individual level, so this is the method we’ve established to facilitate that.”

“Getting unplugged from the Matrix?”

Morgan looked at him, a bit surprised. “Well said.”

Davis smiled beneath his helmet. “I got tired of you guys throwing out references I didn’t understand, so I asked for a list and went on a movie binge a few centuries back.”

“How’s the weight?”

“Tolerable, but I don’t know how many more hours I’m going to last.”

“Let’s get moving then. There’s something else I want you to see today.”

“Lead on,” Davis said, feeling the slight burn in his muscles from moving the armor around, something he hadn’t trained for.

He followed her easy gait down out of the open air of the planet and into one of the Calavari buildings that was a mix of Star Force and their native architectural preferences. They passed by hundreds of the Calavari on their way through the infrastructure, drawing many glances, but none that lingered, for while Humans weren’t common place in this complex, they were a familiar sight elsewhere on the planet.

While sections still housed refugees in a holding fashion, the bulk of the planet’s infrastructure was 100% Star Force, meaning integrated cities built for the use of both races. The Calavari were part of Star Force now, and as such having Humans walking around wasn’t a big deal.

But where Morgan took him next was a bit different. She didn’t don her armor, which may have seemed a bit reckless to others but Davis knew that with her psionic powers she could disrupt multiple minds and hinder any potential attackers. Still, he was glad for his own armor protection as they got off of a tram and crossed through a security checkpoint into one of the refugee sectors.

Davis didn’t need psionics to pick up a very different vibe here. As alien as the other Calavari had been, there had always been a thread of similarity that he could latch onto…and now he recognized how that thread had been Star Force training rather than something inherent to their race. As the pair of Humans walked through the high ceilinged walkways that stood three stories and were just as wide, giving the large bodied males that predominated the area plenty of room to maneuver.

Davis could see many more up on the 2nd and 3rd tier walkways where their quarters had their entrances. Many of the males were simply lounging around on the narrow platforms, leaning or sitting and watching the foot traffic below. A few females were seen moving about, but it was obviously apparent that they didn’t want to be caught outside unless necessary, keeping inside as Morgan had said.

“Has there been trouble here?”

Not much, she answered telepathically now that there were non-Star Force personnel around, hearing Davis’s voice in her earpiece. There is a lot of despair. Remember, these people came from a war zone where they lost, badly. Some are able to put it aside and look towards the future…but most of those have already left these areas for training programs. Those that choose to stay here are, frankly, a shambles.

“Are you giving them space or are they refusing to do anything?”

We haven’t pushed. After what they’ve been through just being alive is a victory.

“But their offspring go to the maturias?”

Yes. And most of the females don’t like it. The males could care less, for the most part. Some here are still awaiting training slots, so it’s not entirely the emotional slum you see here.

“Not the term I would have used.”

What would you use?

“Dangerous.”

That’s your ignorance talking. I don’t fear them. Can you touch their minds?

“I haven’t tried,” Davis said, reaching out with his limited Ikrid ability. He got a wash of weird, alien thoughts, but using what he’d learned of the Star Force Calavari’s minds in previous days he got a basic correlation…then began to see how much different their emotions were, and how they were clouding out everything else. He did feel anger in one of the people they passed, but mostly he felt evisceration. They didn’t want to be here, but had no home to go to, leaving them without purpose and no reason to continue living.

“They’re zombies.”

But they’re alive, and so long as they’re alive they have a chance to recover, she told him as the pair’s path was blocked by an extra large Calavari who had to stand upwards of 8 feet tall.

“What do you want here, Human?” it asked in the trade language.

“I want you to retrieve your honor,” Morgan bit back in a language Davis didn’t speak, with him guessing that it was native Calavari. After a century of dealing with them it only made sense that she would have picked up at least a few words…and knowing the trailblazers he should have expected her to have learned it in her spare time.

Davis felt a flare of anger from the Calavari, churning up his already chaotic mind.

“What do you know of honor, weakling?” he said in kind, leaving Davis out of the conversation.

“I know you are wasting your life here. There is an enemy to fight, yet you wallow here like a female…you coward.”

The next thing Davis knew Morgan shoved him to the side and he hit the ground, cushioned by his armor, then felt/heard a hard thud. He rolled over, getting his head upright, where he saw the trailblazer standing atop the Calavari’s chest and looking down into his wide face.

“Now get up and fulfill your duty,” Morgan said icily, hopping off the behemoth and picking Davis up by the arm before walking back onto their former path as if nothing had happened.

Don’t look back, she warned.

“What just happened?”

I poked the tiger. That one will be alright now, and maybe a few others that saw.

“Why did he get in our way?”

I did that. I felt him stewing and amped up his frustration, then planted the suggestion to confront us. Worst thing for some of these guys is to treat them with kid gloves. Sometimes all they need is a spur to get their heads clear. When you’ve lost so many times, some people stop fighting altogether, even when they can win. Bring the battle to them and old reflexes kick in.

“So you picked that fight?”

Yes.

“For my benefit?”

No, for his. I’ve never met him before, nor expect to in the future, so I had to seize the opportunity when it presented itself.

“You do that a lot?”

Picking fights is part of communication with a warrior-inclined race.

“Do the females respond the same?”

Different pressure points, but the same internal mechanism is there. We have it too, we’re just smarter about it. They may be alien minds, but they still have pride. Just a different flavor you’ll have to learn.

“I have a lot to learn, it seems,” Davis said as they continued to walk through the refugee section. “What other lessons do you have for me today, Master?”

Your sarcasm is improving, at least. Up ahead is what I wanted you to see.

Davis waited patiently as they walked the last bit in silence, with Morgan letting him soak in the scenery and sample the local minds…which he made a point of doing as often as he could without giving himself a headache from the effort.

Eventually they came to a stairwell and climbed up many levels until they arrived at an interior promenade overlooking a type of park, inside of which there were hundreds of females sitting together. Morgan quietly leaned against the wall, trying not to make any sounds, as she looked down on them through the scattering of potted trees.

This is one of the old broods, she said as Davis walked up next to her and looked down over the railing as a Calavari male came up behind them for a quick look, then backed out and gave them some space. Can you reach their minds?

Davis tried, but they were too far away. “No.”

Take off your left glove.

Davis reached down and disconnected it, with Morgan taking his hand in hers and creating an Ikrid link, allowing him to see their minds through her remarkably advanced Ikrid ability. This wasn’t the first time she’d done this to show him something, but every time she did he was no less impressed by her power.

“They feel so…damaged.”

They are damaged. People are meant to be active. This is what stagnation feels like on the inside, and it’s killing them.

“This is normal for a brood?”

More or less. There’s an extra depression here, due to their situation, but this sessile nature is typical of broods I’ve encountered before on their worlds.

“They feel…linked to one another.”

In illusion only. They have no telepathic connection. What you are feeling is a very strong fiction created off the natural biological urges. This is what we call ‘bad bonding’ run amuck, and it manifests most frequently with people who have surrendered or never developed their individuality. They’ve linked themselves to a fictitious hive mind, and because it’s fictitious there is no guiding force. They just sit here and rot…and occasionally mate.

“And they did this originally?”

They had brood pride then that drove them to some small activity, and their pride in their empire gave them cause for joy, but the stagnation remained. It just took longer for it to kill them. This is an original brood on a bad day, but still true to form. And it is this that we have tried to kill with the maturia. We don’t want their younglings transitioning to this without at least seeing that there’s another alternative. Their parents don’t want the separation, but it’s in the younglings’ best interests.

“What about the refugee younglings that come in with their parents?”

It’s hardest on them, with a painful transition, but once they make the adjustment they’re better off. It sounds harsh and if you go about it in the wrong way the parental protection drives flare up and you have an incident, but the Star Force Calavari are seeing the wisdom in it. These, sadly, are probably just going to sit here and mope with each other until they die out.

“You can’t poke the tiger here?”

Pick one.

“At random?”

Doesn’t matter. Just choose one.

Davis ‘looked’ around with Morgan’s sense, then slowly pointed to one with his mind.

The trailblazer responded by blacking out everyone else and highlighting that one mind. He felt her hack into the Calavari female and take control of her body. He didn’t understand what Morgan was doing but paid close attention, feeling her walk the Calavari over to a water fountain where she got a drink, gradually releasing control to the point where the female didn’t realize anything was amiss and finished her drink.

When done she turned and walked back to her spot, with Davis feeling the ugly transition. It was almost as if activity was evil in her mind, with her wanting to return to her sessile pose. When she sat back down it felt like an iron gate closed, with her mental signature diminishing greatly, almost as if she were going into a hibernation mode.

“What is that?”

A mix of fear and despair. Fear of individuality. Despair of purposelessness. If there’s an internal spark to access, you have a chance of waking them up. If there isn’t, you can try the reset button, but it’s a painful option, and if you don’t know the person or have cause to try, it’s near to a futile effort.

“What’s the reset button?”

Forced activity. You saw how she changed just by standing up and walking. The body has a strong influence on the mind, and by encouraging or forcing certain activities you can trigger certain reactions…which is why physical training for the younglings is so important.

“So you just leave them here to rot?”

We’ve given them shelter from the lizards, foodstuffs and a place to live…along with training if they want it. All they have to do is try. If they’re not willing to do that, well, some responsibility has to be on them.

“But each one is still a loss?”

I’ve had a great deal of experience with loss. What it comes down to is what battles we choose to fight. We might be able to wake up a few of these Calavari with intensive time and a lot of jarring, invasive prodding…but our efforts are best used providing the opportunity to those who don’t have it, rather than trying to prod these who simply refuse to try. Many would trade places with them in a heartbeat.

“When you put it that way, it kind of makes me mad.”

It should. But others, like the male we encountered before, are still trying on the inside, buried deep down. On the surface the two can look the same, so it’s important not to write anyone off. And even if they are like these, there’s a part of me that is angry with them as well as a part that doesn’t want to give up on them.

“So what do you do?”

What we can…and recognize the fact that in this messed up universe we’re not going to win every battle, no matter how hard we try. If you can’t come to terms with that you either quit trying or drive yourself insane from the horrors out there.

“Some of these people are so messed up they fight those trying to help them?”

You’re learning.

“As well as getting a bit queasy.”

You learn to deal with that too.

7

January 12, 2506

Dcan System (Gamma Region)

Waxcvat

“They’re heading to ground,” Kip warned from the command nexus onboard the Taro Adun. “Do not try to intercept with fighters. Their anti-air will rip them to shreds.”

“Copy that, Archon,” Consul Dayna-A003-73 confirmed from his command center onboard the A-231 seda that was the largest among the 13 in orbit. “Squadrons will establish perimeter escorts and intercept anything coming off their transports.”

“Keep them well wide,” Kip emphasized as he worked the nexus controls and ordered some of his and Canderous’s drones into more favorable positions to potentially catch the enemy transports on their way back up from the atmosphere after they dropped off their walkers and ground troops. The Skarron warships that had entered the system a few hours ago had retreated back to high planetary orbit and broken up into small groups after a light, exploratory attack on one of the sedas.

They’d been repelled easily, with the 284 warships deciding not to press the issue above screening to get their transports to ground. Entering the atmosphere at points well outside the sedas’ firing ranges, the transports had gotten through while the Canderous remotely-controlled drones had made their first kills, taking down 3 enemy destroyers and damaging several other capital ships.

Now that the transports were in atmosphere they were heading to a variety of landing zones, of which Kip was following closely. Canderous had established several mining outposts, as well as recycling measures for the mass of technological rubble on the planet, mostly due to the previous Issvok civilization, but there were a few bits of Skarron infrastructure that had been trashed/captured and were now being ‘mined’ for raw materials as well.

As he watched, Kip saw that none of the transports were headed to those locations, instead preferring to land in neutral territory, meaning both sides would have ample opportunity to plan out the coming ground game before they made contact.

“Archon, will you be taking part in the surface combat?” Dayna inquired.

“If necessary. We need to see how they plan to play this first.”

“With your permission, I’ll continue coordinating out forces from the ground.”

Kip smiled. “Trust me when I say that there will be plenty of combat opportunities in the coming months. These Skarrons are intractable bastards, and if they’re devoting troops to retake this world then they’re going to make a serious effort. We may get in over our heads, in fact, so don’t get in a rush for direct action. That said, permission granted and good luck. Where are you going down?”

“Firebase 8.”

“Copy that. I’m staying onboard for the moment. Their fleet is experienced and devious, and I want to feel them out a bit before I’m convinced that they’re staying back and watching.”

“That’s why I asked. Having both of us in transit to the ground would have been a momentary disadvantage that I did not want to afford the enemy.”

“Get moving, Consul. Time to impress me with your toys.”

“Challenge accepted,” the Canderian mission commander said, signing off.

Part of Kip wished he had mainline or Clan troops here, above and beyond the four warships he commanded, because the Canderians hadn’t taken standard Star Force equipment as their own. Like their unique warships and drones, they’d designed different aircraft, mechs, armor, and just about everything else, taking Star Force tech and putting their own spin on it.

That meant these troops and their equipment were green…in so far as combat with the Skarrons were concerned. A good portion of the troops down there and in the sedas had seen at least light combat against the lizards, but overall this mission was an experiment to see what the Canderians were made of, and Kip hoped the Skarrons didn’t throw down the hammer on them. So far the ground troops they were deploying were well within the ‘safe’ number that Dayna had calculated when he’d been tagged to head up this mission.

But given that they’d never gone up against one another, that number had been based off of Star Force ground battles with mechs…with the Canderians taking a slightly different approach.

Their entire civilization was based off of living in space onboard their sedas, each of which was a battle station in its own right. Because of this there were no ‘civilian’ Canderous facilities. All of them had the means to defend themselves, and so too did the people that inhabited them. Each of them was trained as a soldier from birth in their maturia, which vaguely resembled a school, after which they chose their place in Canderous society…meaning that even those who chose not to become active soldiers or security still had the basic combat skills to fall back upon in a time of crisis.

But their combat skills and overall philosophy were still space based, with them building temporary ground facilities rather than permanent bases. This aversion to the ground was omnipresent in their society, and as such their ground forces, above and beyond pure infantry, had been designed with a transitory motif.

Originally Canderous had used Star Force mechs, preferring the thor over all others, but they’d since scrapped all the older mechs and built original ones of their own, save for the starscreams, whose flight capability made them a good fit for the Canderians. The mechs were tier 1 and lightly armed, but they were able to convert to full ‘jet’ mode and fly about from location to location on a planet without having a dropship come and pick them up.

That left them with good anti-infantry and strategic reinforcement capabilities, but no hard hitters, which against the Skarrons was outright suicide. But ever since the lizard threat reared its ugly head the Canderians had been working on developing a counter to their low flying cruisers. Likewise, when the Skarron walkers emerged as a threat, they also began retooling in order to combat them, with some impressive results…in theory.

That theory was about to be tested in earnest, with Kip transferring down to the planet the next day with a handful of mechs and his handpicked mechwarriors, all of which came from Clan Protoss. He landed at firebase 3 and unpacked his voltron, assembling the 5 sections together and giving him a tier 2 mech with 5 tier 1s equipped with a hoard of anti-air weapons to knock down Skarron missiles.

His voltron also had additional anti-air weaponry located in the shoulders, a necessary redesign in previous years as the Skarrons learned that only through a huge missile barrage could they take out the biped mechs at range, often launching on a single one from multiple walkers simultaneously. Kip’s forces fighting on Protovic worlds had had several voltrons trashed in such attacks, forcing them to bring yet more smaller escort mechs with them to counter the tactic. That decreased mobility and required a redesign, with several compartments worth of intercepts shoved in, making the Mk. 2 voltron look like it was wearing football pads.

The Mk. 3 would be considerably slimmer once they were completed with the new technology that the arc elements opened up, but there were so many advancements possible that it was taking a long time for the engineers to hammer out prototypes, let alone get to the point of building production models. And in addition to that, creating the arc elements required a whole slew of new factories to be built for just that purpose, with the specialized atoms being in short supply. Already Star Force was producing 12 different elements, with hundreds more possible.

That meant that Kip had to either make do with what he had available or wait for the advancements to come down the pipe…which the Skarrons weren’t letting them do. The Protovic were putting up a good fight, and as more cleansing beam-equipped ships were coming off their lines the more they were able to hold against the Skarrons’ never-ending stream of reinforcements, with Kip believing that they’d soon have the strength to start pushing back and reclaiming territory that was lost to them…but not without Star Force assistance.

Even now, if Star Force pulled out its help, the Skarrons would eat away at the Protovic until they had nothing left to defend themselves with and were forced to run like the other Alliance races had. The balance of power was very even at the moment, with the tech upgrades they’d given the Protovic seeming to start to tip the scales in their favor, but Star Force had to continue to fight aggressively, else all that they’d gained, or saved, would fall apart.

This foothold in Gamma Region needed to happen now rather than later, so Kip didn’t feel they had the luxury of waiting. Plus, if the enemy ships and ground troops in the system had been peeled off form the reinforcements going to Protovic territory, so much the better. But if they were from an entirely different wing of the Skarron war machine, then Star Force need to push them back now before they inched their way too close to the Core Region.

That meant bringing Canderous to the forefront, for nearly all other combat resources were tapped out or held in reserve to counterattack another incursion…save for the Australians and Kiritas, both of whom he didn’t feel were ready for this level of combat. Canderous had been patient for years, waiting for this chance, and now that Star Force had a need for them, the wardogs were about to be let off the leash as they followed the trailblazer against the enemy.

The surface conditions around firebase 3 were swampy, slowing down the mechs and all but stopping the Skarron infantry from making a push. Their hobbits were out and about, but the Skarrons themselves were too heavy to do anything but plod through the grass-covered mud and make good targets for themselves, so they stayed at their landing zones, sending up huge plumes of steam as they had specialized equipment attached to their arms that blasted the moisture out of the soil.

They looked like an army of maids vacuuming the ground on the intelligence scans coming in from the circling Canderian fighters and reconnaissance drones that had slipped their way across the surface. The little probe droids were remotely/computer controlled, giving the Canderians eyes on every landing site the enemy had, though most of what was going on was being obscured by the steam plumes.

The huge, pointy legs of the Skarron Type-4 walkers and up didn’t appear to be as effected as Kip’s own mech legs were, with a convoy of the battlewagons heading out from one of the Skarron LZs towards a Canderian mining operation, which was where Kip and his star of support mechs were heading to intercept, slugging their way through the muck and hoping to catch the enemy at least a few kilometers short of their target.

Following behind Kip’s voltron were the Canderian mechs…or rather what had replaced their mechs. Floating solely on anti-gravs were a line of Turtle-class mechs, though Kip didn’t quite agree with calling them mechs. To him a mech had legs, with these having none. What they had were landing struts. They couldn’t propel the ‘mech’ forward, just keep its belly-mounted weaponry off the ground and give the anti-gravs a rest.

They had a flat underside, but the top was a modified half sphere that held a very thick layer of armor plating, dotted with shield emitters and nothing else. They hadn’t wanted a lot of weak points in the armor shell, so they’d put all the weaponry underneath the turtle, allowing it to drop out of the belly and fire ahead, then retract out of the enemy’s firing line on command.

That meant the belly was the vulnerable point, especially to infantry. Because of this the turtles always flew low to the ground and had a slew of anti-infantry weaponry underneath, so anyone who thought that they could hide underneath the turtles was in for a rude surprise. If the Skarrons chose to hit them with a missile attack they could drop all the way to the ground, without putting out struts, and let them hit the shell, over which a strong energy shield was deployed.

Short pylons could then extend out around the perimeter of the shell from underneath that held anti-air batteries that could shoot down some of the incoming ordinance, but if they were destroyed it was a minor loss, given that they were expendable and designed only to reduce damage to the shell…which carried more armor than Kip’s voltron.

The turtles were the backbone of the heavy end of the Canderian ground game, with Hive-class and Grappler-class mechs carrying lesser firepower for more specialized roles. The grapplers were essentially neos build with collapsible limbs and a heavy anti-grav that allowed them to fly across the battlefield in ‘ball’ mode, then drop to the ground on legs and fight hand to hand with enemy units, inspired in no small part by the Nestafar protomechs.

Unlike the neos, the grapplers had no ranged weaponry of any kind, with most of their damage potential coming from physical, ripping/punching strength coupled with touch-release weaponry inspired by the lizards’ plasma rod technology.

There were no grapplers following Kip, nor were there any hives, which operated like a heavily armored carrier that dispersed attack drones that could swarm a single target or spread out to hit multiple ones simultaneously. Both versions were too light to hit the Skarron Type-3 walkers with in this upcoming engagement.

“Legat, you’re free to break ranks and engage at will. Good luck and don’t shoot me in the back.”

“With pleasure…and we won’t,” the Canderian in charge of the 18 turtles replied, with the single file line breaking apart and the anti-grav floaters moving off with ease over the swampy muck that was holding Kip up. Ahead of them the line of 8 Skarron walkers was just becoming visible on the horizon, with a scattering of trees here or there masking the lower edge of their silhouettes.

Kip switched to his local Clan comm. “Alright fellas. Looks like their missile boats aren’t coming out to play, so follow me in and add damage where you can,” he said, accelerating his voltron up into a run…something that the Canderians, who were passing him on either side, hadn’t expected him to be able to do. He had a hard time compensating for the mud that he was sinking into with each step, but he’d run through mud before with his own feet, so he had some experience there, and with the mech moving as his body moved, the trailblazer was able to make a workable crossover.

That left him running forward at a decent pace, but the turtles still outpaced him. They knew better than to get too far ahead, for they wanted his firepower augmenting theirs, but he was still the slower, with the tier 1 mechs using their jump jets and hopping from footprint to footprint  behind him rather than trying to make their own.

Kip worked up quite a sweat, glad that he’d removed his shirt before strapping into the control harness, as he fought the controls to keep the big mech from stumbling and falling flat on its face. He wouldn’t have advised anyone else to try such a breakneck pace with such bad footing, but he thought he could handle it and was proved correct when the first of the white plasma showers hit the leading turtle, instigating the first ground combat with the Skarron reinforcements.

Kip kept running, not bothering to shoot as he knew he had a better chance of taking down the Type-3 closest to him if he ran right up to it, but he held off arming himself until he started to draw plasma fire on his energy shields. He slowed to a stop, not wanting to attempt the necessary acrobatics while slogging his way forward, and detached the plate covering his back.

It fell to the ground, almost sticking in the mud before leaning forward and laying against the back of the voltron as Kip spun it around and grasped the inside handle on the huge, knight-like shield, lifting it up and around in front of him where it picked up most of the incoming plasma on its own dedicated energy shield. Reaching back with his mech’s right arm he pulled out the ‘fan’ that was imbedded in the back of the mech’s nonexistent neck and held it at his side as the sword elongated and locked into place, then Kip started walking forward slowly, unable to run as he had been with all the extra weight in his arms.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” he said as a warning flashed across his HUD. “Guys, heads up. We’ve got a redeployment. Continue the attack but be ready to swat missiles.”

“Copy that,” his Protoss wingmen confirmed, still following the big mech forward in its footsteps.

“Hurry,” Kip said to himself, walking a bit faster towards the Type-3 that was starting to backtrack as it bathed his shield with every plasma cannon it had in a useable firing line. The energy shield covering the knight shield in a surface blanket shimmered its last time then breached, allowing the physical material of the shield to start eating up the plasma blasts. Kip knew it would last for quite a while, but he didn’t want to delay…and the damn walker was almost as fast as him with this bad footing.

It took him far longer than it should have to get up to the enemy machine that stood nearly twice his voltron’s height, then he swung his sword out beside him to the right and activated his anti-grav jump jets. Adding the strength of his mech’s legs he launched himself up into the air at an angle, dropping his massive shield as he released the grip, and sailed up overtop the enemy walker…dropping down on its back as he took a slew of heavy lachar blasts to the chest that punctured his own shields.

The next moment his sword came down point first and sliced into the weak section of the armor that held the anti-air cannon, cutting through it and driving to the interior as the Type-3 struggled to remain standing with the voltron’s extra weight on top.

Almost as soon as he got the sword inside the armor a hoard of missile launches were detected some 100 miles away as a Skarron transport dropped off a Type-2 within firing range.

“Kip, heads up!”

“I see it,” he said, sliding his mech off the right side but hanging onto his sword and dragging the entire Skarron walker over onto its side, using it as a barricade as he popped up his shoulder-mounted anti-air pods and began pumping intercepts into the sky even as the walker he was hiding behind shot him at pointblank range with some of its plasma cannons.

8

The missiles coming towards the voltron diverted when their target became obscured, heading instead for one of the turtles as 5 of them took the brunt of the attack. Already having dropped down to the ground, their extendable pylons were peppering the missiles with plasma shards while Kip’s voltron was throwing up intercepts and sniping a few missiles on the way down beside him with his shoulder-mounted lachars. Unlike in previous engagements, the Skarron Type-2 walker didn’t hold back, choosing to empty its hold as quickly as possible, hoping to overwhelm the defenders.

Behind Kip his escort mechs lit up with the sky with their anti-air weapons as the swampy ground around the turtles lit up in huge plumes of steam as the missiles that got through exploded and vaporized the water in the muck…which worked to the Skarrons’ advantage, for the Canderian plasma shards and Star Force lachars couldn’t fire through the vapor while the missiles had no trouble reaching their targets.

Kip held his sword in the top of the Skarron walker and kept it pinned on the ground as he popped out his plasma cannon on the other arm and started popping some of the turrets that were firing at him as the missile storm continued to come down and expand its impact radius. Meanwhile the other 7 walkers maneuvered about and took shots at the mechs, with Kip’s star having to redeploy to avoid getting bushwacked. The swampy footing caused them to take some damage as they moved off, still throwing up as much anti-air as they could as the turtles got hammered.

Kip finally pulled out his sword and took a step back, then rammed it in again to the right of his original hole, pulling the walker taught to the ground again as he popped up his mauler cannon on top and took a knee, bringing it directly in line with the puncture in the armor and firing through it. Most of the energy melted the armor around the hole, but the bits that got through began slagging internal components and eventually got to the living compartment, killing one of the pilots inside.

The trailblazer kept pounding on it until he sensed all of them die, then he stood up and withdrew his sword as one of the others came around and threw a flurry of white plasma droplets at him. Not wanting to abandon his cover, he dug the sword down into the ground and opened up both plasma cannons and the mauler mount and began slugging it out face on with the enemy walker as waves of mist flew across both of them from the missile impact zone behind Kip.

Before his shield could go down the dead walker beside him exploded with missile hits, clouding his vision with debris as the Type-2 was no longer avoiding the friendly target. Kip ran over to where his shield was laying on the ground and picked it up, feeling a hit on his back as his anti-air missed one. Twisting around he dropped to a knee and hunkered down, having to use both hands to hold the shield steady against the explosions now popping up against it.

Fortunately the explosions created their own mist cloud around him, blocking the plasma from the other walker, and Kip knew he couldn’t do anything but wait it out and hope his shield held up long enough…but then after a few seconds it was over and the pressure he felt in him arms disappeared. From the battlemap data being transmitted by the other mechs he could see that the Type-2 had stopped firing, presumably out of missiles, but there was a wave of Skarron fighters on their way and he knew they couldn’t call their own out, otherwise the enemy walkers would eat them for lunch and still be hungry for more.

With the steam/mist momentarily shrouding him from the plasma fire, Kip picked up his shield and ran forward to get his sword, having to lift up a piece of the dead walker to retrieve it, then, taking plasma fire again, but this time from three different walkers, he cradled his shield over his left shoulder and ran as fast as he dared with the footing towards the original one and swung against one of its legs as his own armor began to take hits, his energy shields now down.

The swing didn’t get through the leg on the first cut, but it did on the well-aimed second, chopping off the bottom half of the front left leg as Kip’s voltron got a plasma bath. He twisted the knight shield around in front of him then ran forward and pushed into the walker, hoping it was off-balanced enough to topple.

And he was right, for the juggling act it was doing with its legs, poking multiple holes into the mud to reposition, had centered its balance again on the remaining 7 legs by pulling them in closer to the center and thus making it a bit easier to tip over…though Kip had to really leverage it hard as hull warnings began to flash in his cockpit as the enemy plasma from behind him began to chew through the mech’s armor.

Lifting more than pushing, Kip got underneath the flank with the severed leg and got 2 of the other 3 out of the mud, then used the others as a pivot point to topple the giant machine despite its desperate attempts to stick a pair out even further to stabilize, which drove the remaining two even further into the soft soil. They went in so far that when Kip finally got the thing to flip over they broke off, bent backwards farther than they were designed to move, leaving the double-hulled behemoth pinned on its side, but it was still throwing plasma into his knight shield and his right side that was exposed.

Those plasma cannons quickly came under attack, and with the walker’s own shields down Kip’s escorts picked off the batteries targeting the larger walker while jumping from point to point on the muddy terrain to get into more favorable positions to use the dead walker parts for cover. With a mix of maulers and plasma they chipped away at the downed walker as the incoming plasma from behind Kip faded out, leaving only the fallen one to try and eat through the voltron’s now pot marked armor.

Glancing at the battlemap and seeing the Canderians swarming the remaining walkers, Kip stepped away from his walker and brought his knight shield around, covering up from the additional damage and pulling his sword up level with his waist. Then he walked forward a couple of steps and jammed it into the underbelly near to the boarding ramp where he knew the crew pod was located.

When he pulled it out he fired into the slit with both plasma and mauler blasts, then jabbed the sword in again slightly to the left, making another slit that he then added the energy attack to. Reaching out with his Ikrid he sensed the minds inside the walker and their approximate locations, keeping up the slash and burn strategy until they all winked out, leaving the somewhat operational walker without a pilot to operate it.

When he pulled back and turned around he saw only two Skarron walkers remaining, and both were taking heavy plasma streamer hits from the turtles that were melting away the enemy’s armor plating. The amount of plasma they were throwing out dwarfed what the voltron could manage, though his mauler cannon made up for it as he walked within range and added the superior weapon damage to what the turtles were already racking up on one side of the closest Type-3.

Kip’s shot melted away what thin armor remained on the damaged patch, letting the next plasma streamer into the internal components of the walker. A few more shots like that, plus another pair of mauler blasts, brought the behemoth down with all its legs going slack. It crumpled and smashed into the ground, sticking in the muck rather than rebounding from the impact.

The turtles floated around it, hitting it from multiple sides as the other one went down as well, save for it locked into place on its rear legs, doing a face-plant into a makeshift tripod that the Canderians likewise continued to bombard with loads of dark green plasma…now their signature color, while the voltron and other Star Force mechs continued to use the traditional light blue.

Kip looked to his battlemap and was about to call for their own fighters, now that the Skarron anti-air threat was eliminated, but he saw that they were already on their way, having broken off their holding patterns just outside of the perimeter boundaries he’d ordered the Canderians to maintain around all Skarron walkers across the planet and throughout this war. They’d followed orders, but now that they were no longer valid they had already started heading for the turtles and the enemy fighters that were just about on them.

Kip nodded, happy to see they were on the ball, then activated his one remaining lachar to auto-target the Skarron fighters as he got a quick look at the condition of the Canderians.

The turtles were a mess, with only 4 of the 18 still with active shields. The rest had messed up shells, with huge chunks of armor gouged out and missing pylons, evidenced as they now stuck out what they had left and started to fire their anti-air plasma shards up at the Skarron fighters as they approached. Three of the turtles never made it off the ground, and were still sitting on the mud and smoking from internal damage through armor punctures.

Kip highlighted those three and sent a query comm pulse, which was essentially an electronic poke to get a response. Two responded with a status update in text, while the third was silent.

“Dayna, once we clear the fighters get to your people. I’d rather not have to call for a dropship to pick up survivors. How are you doing?”

“Still operational. You?”

Kip glanced at his status holo. “Significantly chewed up, but still mobile.”

“A significant victory then?”

“First round,” he said, seeing some of the Skarron fighters overhead try and hit the smallest of their mechs…and run right into an anti-air barrage. Two of them fell from the sky nearby and made small splash marks, one of which flipped out enough to hit Kip, though you couldn’t tell with all the other mud already on his mech. “They learn and adapt, we learn and adapt. This is a feel-out skirmish. They probably don’t have any data on Canderous since their original defense fleet bugged out and we killed all the witnesses on the planet.”

“They know better than to hit us with so few numbers,” the Canderian remarked.

“Take a look at the condition of your turtles, Legat. You’re not fit for another mission. They did considerable damage for such ‘small’ numbers,” Kip lectured him. “Do not underestimate them. What they can’t win directly they will win through attrition, and it’s going to take a lot to get your turtles back into fighting form.”

“Noted. Shall we head back or go after that Type-2?”

Kip glanced at the battlemap, seeing it standing off so far away that it would take him hours to get there in his voltron, though the turtles could fly there much faster. That was one advantage to the anti-grav design, and one that he and the other trailblazers had debated initially, but they eventually chose to go with mechs rather than floating tanks, which is what the turtles really were, because of the power requirements. Bipedal motion, while complicated, required far less power than anti-grav did, pound for pound. As such his voltron had significantly longer battlefield potential than the turtles did, which would have to cycle back for refueling after a period of time.

The muck was making him reconsider that logic, but he knew that legs beat tanks in most situations, though he was glad the Canderians had chosen the anti-grav route. While it wasn’t for the Archons, it did have its advantages…which gave Star Force more options to fight with, and frankly the turtles were better at combating Skarron walkers than the mechs, so far as the Type-3 and smaller ones went. The Type-2s had never been hit by them, relying instead on a Hoth counterpart that also contained a tiny cleansing beam.

The planet hadn’t had any Type-1s in play when the initial invasion began and only the single Type-2, letting Canderous get some good early experience in against numerically weaker forces. Now was an altogether different matter, and Kip had to make sure the Canderians learned the enemy’s strength and tendencies without it requiring an ass kicking.

“Not a chance. Even without missiles it would tear you apart. It’s out of range anyway, and if we get that close they could drop reinforcements nearby and cause us a world of trouble.”

“If you stay behind we can attack with anti-grav only mechs,” the Canderian suggested. “That would give us the mobility required, and we can call in fresh turtles to assist.”

“Possibly, but I don’t want you hitting a Type-2 without a tortoise. They can throw down far too much plasma. We have to hit them at range to own them. Don’t let them draw you in or you’ll regret it.”

“Understood,” Dayna agreed. “I’m just eager to press the attack. Where do we hit them next?”

“We don’t. Next move is theirs. They’re the invaders, so we’ll wait and see what they have planned. If we start to get bored then we’ll stir the pot and see what comes out.”

When Dayna didn’t respond Kip sighed. “Patience, Legat. They nearly killed you with that missile attack. The last thing you want to do is hit them with less anti-air than you had here. This isn’t a challenge where you want a tough opponent, it’s for keeps, and you want to hit the enemy where they’re weakest and you have an advantage…while prepping to defend yourself against the enemy’s advantage. We get to choose the former, they get to choose the latter. Make sure you choose wisely.”

“Wise words,” the Canderian agreed as their fighters appeared overhead, mixing it up with the Skarrons. “We’ll pick up the crews from the damaged turtles. Your mechs should get a head start back, unless you’re going to call for dropships?”

“Negative, we’re walking back and I’m waiting here until you get them out. I may have to lift up an edge, otherwise you’ll have to dig through the muck.”

“There are enough armor breaches that we can go in through the top as soon as the fighters clear the air.”

Kip glanced at the battlemap again, seeing that between the Canderian fighters, which were being remotely controlled from the nearby firebase, and the anti-air mech support, the Skarrons were getting eaten alive. They didn’t stay and fight it out to their deaths, but mixed it up with the Star Force fighters long enough, Kip thought, to get a decent set of battle data, then they flew off, heading back towards their own base with the Canderians nipping at their heels and making a few more kills before pulling out to avoid running into the no-go zones around the enemy walkers.

“Copy that,” he said, heading over towards the downed turtles anyway, arriving just before the fighters disappeared with his escort mechs hopping around like crickets behind him as they kept pace. He looked down on the turtles, each of which easily outmassed his voltron, and saw the holes torn through meters of dense armor by the Skarron missiles.

Those things were damn dangerous, and it looked like the Skarrons weren’t saving them up to use in small amounts anymore. That meant that any pairings of Type-2s and larger were going to be very difficult to hit, and Kip knew that they’d use that to their advantage, with the larger engagements to come featuring dozens of walkers working together across a wide area, overlapping missile ranges while preserving skirmishers to go after the tortoises when they got within cleansing beam range.

This had just been the first of many battles to come, and from the look of it the Skarrons weren’t taking the Humans for granted this time. They were going to learn about this new version of their enemy and adapt before they made a major strike, both on the ground and in orbit, meaning the coming year was going to prove to be very interesting for Kip, and he was quite certain the Canderians were going to get an education in the ways of warfare.

Kip just had to keep them alive long enough for the lesson to sink in.

9

February 1, 2506

Mden System (Zeta Region)

Nexus 4

Morgan and Davis dropped down from orbit to one of 7 Star Force mega colonies on the planet, already having visited several other systems in their unofficial tour, landing in the Mssot spaceport. They came down through an atmospheric shield that separated the landing bay from the airless world, then parked next to dozens of other Star Force dropships and exited their craft amongst a Human deck crew.

The pair didn’t see one of the Mssot until they had progressed further into the colony, coming out into extremely high hallways, taller even than what the Calavari required, where they saw a very gangly creature nearly three times their height walking past. It was covered in black, almost oily scales and had a single red eye on his head that looked down upon them as it waved a three digit hand at the pair, seeing Davis’ red Archon armor and Morgan’s black stripe, which it knew meant she was one of the elite strikers.

Morgan waved back and they passed it, heading further into the colony.

“That’s the largest yet,” Davis commented over the comm.

Not very strong though, Morgan replied telepathically.

“These are their offspring?” Davis asked as they came across another two ahead of them as they approached the entryway onto the main promenade.

Yes. The bad ones are still on their prison station, serving their penance with genetic work. The Mssot you see here have been trained by Star Force from birth.

“Are they loyal?”

I’m told so. This is the first time I’ve seen them in person.

“What are you getting from their minds?”

Curiosity and respect. They don’t get very many Archons here.

The pair walked out through the archway and onto what looked like a miniature canyon with roads stacked along the sides and interconnecting walkways…all of which were stairs, segmented into large steps and small to accommodate the mixed population.

“How long can they hold their breath without those filters?” he asked, noting the small wrap around their chests that covered their lungs vents. They breathed the nitrogen in the air, but the oxygen that the Humans required was toxic to them.

I’m told several minutes.

“Do they intend to stay with Star Force?”

You’ve read the same reports I have. And Randy hasn’t told me otherwise. I do know that a few of their individuals have left.

“Where did they go?”

Bolo, I think. Where we’ll end up eventually. They may have left Star Force space from there or remained. We can check the files later if you want.

“Where are we heading?”

Morgan pointed to their right and Davis lead the way, walking down one of the long, straight roads until they took a short staircase off and down, which lead to a road that ended in a commerce station…inside of which were a mix of Mssot and Humans conducting daily business.

Davis walked in, his hesitance gone as he saw the Humans interacting with the larger Mssot without a second thought. He headed over to the trading board and noted the exchange rates for various natural resources that the Mssot were nano-processing for Star Force. With a great deal of engineering and biotech help, Star Force had modified the Mssot’s own technology towards a mechanical foundation, in this case replacing designer microbes with biological nanites who had a controlling core of technology that then grew a ‘body’ made of organic compounds.

Those nanites could then be remote controlled in a limited fashion by a computer, with the Mssot then upgrading them heavily with their knowledge of biology and using them to deconstruct various ores that Star Force mining teams on the planet were providing them. The refined materials and various molecular conversions were then put up for sale on the Star Force planetary market, with many visiting races or alien entrepreneurs that operated within the Star Force system purchasing the materials they needed.

This made the Mssot useful to Star Force, with them acting as a subservient part of the overall empire while their future as a group remained uncertain…with their individual liberties remaining intact and with the same travel permissions as any other secondary Star Force citizen, below the tier 1 status that the Humans, Calavari, and Kiritas maintained. They could travel to any ‘open’ system, while the rest of the citizenry had a restricted list. Visitors had very few travel options, with the colony Davis and Morgan now stood in being off limits.

The market transactions took place here, but with relays up to vendor stations in orbit where the physical transactions would occur, facilitated by Humans, leaving the Mssot isolated in the colony, which most of them preferred. Also, with their future uncertain, Randy didn’t want them mixing with the general population that the Alliance was quickly forming. They could go out and mingle in the communal colony, which was located elsewhere on the planet, but no other races could come here aside from the tier 1 citizens, with no Calavari or Kiritas having reason to do so.

Do you feel it?

Davis reached out with his Ikird, trying to sense the minds of the Mssot around him and getting little but jumbled thoughts. “Feel what?”

Pride. It’s stronger here than in other places, because this is their contribution to Star Force. Some of these materials are only available here, with them being shipped out to other planetary markets. We can produce everything for our own purposes in other facilities, but as far as the open markets go a lot of these are specialties…which you already know well.

“I didn’t know they took the production so personally?”

It gives them a purpose and a leg up on the other races. They know their progenitors’ history, and how we don’t hold them accountable for it, but they still want to prove they’re different and valuable. This allows them to do that, and it’s displayed prominently here, as they earn credits that go to Star Force, whom they identify partially as their saviors. They were born into our system, so they don’t know anything other than it, but most of them realize they wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t made a place for them and they want to return the favor.

“Some of them?”

They’re individuals like all other races. There will always be rogues, and that’s not a bad thing.

“And the lizards?”

Their individuality is being suppressed, but it’s there. We just haven’t been able to reach it in an effective way…yet.

“You still hope to find a way to save them.”

We kill them because we have to, not because we want to. Those lizards being born now have no choice, bound together by a combined will woven into their genetic code. If we can break that hold we may have a chance.

“How would that work? The ones you’re fighting are still being born in a lizard lab.”

We’ve discussed that at length. Right now it’s more about not falling into the trap of disregarding them as individuals and labeling them as an automatic enemy.

“Which they effectively are?”

Yes, they are. But in a way they’re also prisoners, slaves to the collective will. We don’t want to ever forget that…but we’re not going to be suckers either. It’s a very narrow perspective to keep, and finding a way to undo the genetic suppression would help immensely, even if we never find a way to implement it on a wide scale.

“I understand,” Davis said, looking at the economic figures being displayed and updated in real time…whereas the ones he got back on Earth were delayed by more than a week. “Are there areas where the Mssot have a natural environment?”

Only their personal quarters and the lounges connecting them. That’s one of the issues on the table.

“Downside?”

If they go independent, no. If they want to remain a part of Star Force in some fashion then we lose a communal atmosphere. We won’t be able to go in there without special equipment, and if we can’t insert Archons at a moments’ notice that opens up a whole slew of defensive weaknesses.

“We’d have the same problem if the Hycre join…worse, actually. Even in armor you can’t stand their environment.”

Is that in the works?

“No…just thinking through probabilities. Sort of a habit of mine.”

A useful one.

“Can you show me the atmospheric transition point?”

Sure.

“This way?” Davis said, pointing to the right.

Morgan nodded, glad that he’d taken the time to familiarize himself with the colony map beforehand.

The next day they visited another of the colonies on the Nexus world, one of 6 that Star Force had created to house irregular populations. They weren’t refugees as far as the Alliance was concerned, nor did they contain territory slots like the Alliance worlds did. They were completely Star Force owned, with the races/groups contained within them being wards of the empire, having come to them through a variety of situations.

This one held a race known as the Zevveks, who had agreed to give up their homeworld to Star Force in exchange for a position within their society. They had been a primitive race, with only minimal space travel, similar to Earth in the early 2000s. They had managed to build three space stations and had been planning to expand to the nearby moons around their planet when Star Force had made contact with them in Beta Region.

A simple survey of their planet had showed significant corovon deposits…something that the Zevveks regarded as a worthless ‘heavy’ metal that they discarded, not having the technology to be able to mold the traces they’d mined into anything useful and unable to get at the deeper deposits within the planetary crust. When Star Force had approached them with an economic offer to gain access to the corovon, they’d responded with an atypical request…which had been to join with the Humans as the Kiritas had, for they had learned through intermediaries of the growing power in the region and they wanted to align themselves with it.

Randy had agreed, but on the terms that they abandon their homeworld entirely and relocate to a Star Force colony…which they had eagerly agreed to. Morgan and Davis were now in that colony, which housed their entire 552 million avian population.

Like the Mssot colony, this was also a mix of Humans and the bird-like creatures. Whereas the Mssot had huge road-like walkways and open air ‘canyons,’ the Zevvek colony had circular pedestals inside of large domes connected by small walkways for the Humans but allowing a lot of clear air and perches for the Zevveks, which were about the size of a dog. They had four wings and a rounded, beak-bearing head, with a flight style that mimicked hummingbirds, only at a slower wing flap.

As Davis watched his step to stay on the railless paths, he looked up, seeing a few of them flying to and fro from small compartments that looked like bird houses, not all of which could be accessed by the Humans, save for concealed ladders for emergency situations…though more often than not they’d just grab a jump pack and head up directly, and Davis could see that several of the Human personnel were in fact wearing the packs so they could move about quicker than the pathways allowed.

Davis, in his Archon armor, walked up to a booth with a blue-uniformed Star Force attendant and caught her attention.

“What can I do for you, Archons?”

“What do you do here?” he asked, keeping his helmet on just in case he’d be recognized.

“I’m one of several hundred liaisons that communicate with the Zevveks regarding their needs. They’ve learned English, but their dialect is hard to understand if you’re not used to it. So if you need a translator I’m your girl.”

“That won’t be necessary. Tell me your impressions of them. This is my first time on this world.”

“Well, they’re a bit skittish. I think they requested to join Star Force for our protection, along with other reasons. They can fight if they need to, but they’re not good at it, so their personalities have developed around evasion and caution, but they’re very industrious. Now that we’ve given them the tools…or rather created the tools for their forms to utilize, they’re cranking out all sorts of products. They specialize in foodstuffs and other organics, but they’re also making a lot of small parts and personal…um, what’s the word?”

“Accoutrements,” Morgan offered.

“Yes,” the attendant said, not sure if that word was sufficient, but settling on it none the less. “Accoutrements that go on the body. Clothing, backpacks, harnesses, holsters, and other things, not just for themselves but multiple races. They like tinkering and coming up with improvements. I’ve modeled several things for them…though they always want me nude to do it. At first I balked, but since there weren’t any Humans watching I agreed. Kind of fun, actually,” she said, winking at Morgan. “The dry air in here feels good after a long day of work.”

Beside Davis one of the Zevveks flew up and landed on the rim of the desk the attendant was standing behind, gripping the cylindrical railing with its clawed feet, which was when Davis saw that it also had a pair of small arms extruding out from its chest, much like a T-Rex from the old days, which Humans guessed to have spindly little limbs, based on the skeleton…though now they knew that wasn’t the case.

“Hello, Chaavrakka,” she said, with the Zevvek nodding its beak respectfully.

“Veeseetors?”

“Archons,” she clarified, looking back at Davis, despite the fact that he was the lower ranking of the two, but because he was the one who spoke to her first. “Is there something specific you wanted?”

“Just exploring a bit,” Davis said, looking at the Zevvek, resisting the urge to ask it if it wanted a cracker, then belatedly realizing that some of Morgan’s sarcasm was starting to rub off on him…or maybe it was a side effect of her being in his head so much.

“You nid gyd?”

Morgan glanced at the attendant. “Are there some spare jump packs lying around?”

“Yes there are. Would you both like one?”

The trailblazer nodded, then the attendant hurried off to a back room, leaving the two Archons with the Zevvek as two more flew in and landed a respectful distance away, staring at them with their three tiny eyes.

“How is your training progressing?” Davis asked him/her, for he couldn’t tell the difference between the genders, though he did know from the files that they did have them…and laid eggs.

“We arre neerin feef levl. Whin we reech seevin we git starsheeps.”

“Have any of you reached self-sufficiency yet?”

“Naht me, boot twow hayv.”

“Two people?”

“Yis.”

“Could you show me to one of them?”

“Fahr froom her, boot I can.”

Good call, Morgan agreed as the attendant came back with two bulky harnesses.

Davis took one and swung it over his armor, finding several latches that matched up with reception points on his red plates while Morgan snugged up padded straps to fit her smaller frame.

“They’re fully charged,” the attendant said as Davis pressed the on button and experimented with a small jump that took him two meters up into the air before floating him back down.

“Thank you,” Davis said, looking at the Zevvek. “Lead on.”

In the following days the pair visited all of the colonies on this Nexus world, including a well hidden group of Nestafar that had been relocated from a planet near the Calavari border that seceded when their race backstabbed the Alliance. They hadn’t broadcast that change of sides, but had quietly informed their Calavari neighbors that their tiny little colony wasn’t abandoning the Alliance. They had lived in anonymity for many years after that, but after the Calavari territory was whittled down to almost nothing their dropping off the grid was discovered and they were forced to flee their own people, originally taking refuge with the Protovic before Star Force gave them sanctuary.

Davis found them to be the most unusual of the races he’d encountered thus far…which was saying something. Not because of their flight capabilities, but because of the way their minds worked. Morgan had found that odd, for she had no such feelings regarding them, but to the Director they were the most odd, even when he piggybacked on Morgan’s Ikrid for a closer look.

After they left Nexus 4 they traveled to another system, this one containing an Alliance world that was split into 8 territorial zones, each of which was ringed with a thin strip of Star Force territory that separated the denizens. Here Star Force was not in control, merely acting as peacekeepers and providing a resource market, for the various races were essentially sovereign nations, save for the few stipulations that they agreed to operate under in exchange for the territory slots.

Morgan wasn’t allowed to visit all of them, but they did get permission to explore a newly started Urik’kadel colony…or rather the portions of it that a Human could fit inside, for a lot of the residential sections had ceilings too low for them to walk through upright.

Davis spent a lot of time on this Alliance world, not so much to explore as to investigate, for he was able to interact with the multiple races in the Star Force facilities where they mingled. He asked questions…lots of questions, getting some answers and generating even more questions. This new interracial dynamic was vastly complicated, but as he chased various society and cultural threads he began to get a sense of the various races he encountered, as well as the common ground most of them had, resulting from previous interactions that had formed a slight multi-racial culture that he was beginning to pick up on more and more.

To explore that even further, the next stop on their trek was Bolo, which held the closely compacted and most diverse interracial population within Star Force territory…which also made it the most dangerous.

10

November 30, 2506

Mensolon System (Beta Region)

Bolo

Morgan and Davis walked through the wide city streets, all of which had been built by Star Force but now customized by the various denizens into a collage of multi-cultural imagery. Both Humans wore full armor, Davis in his borrowed red and Morgan in her black, as they mingled about in the pedestrian flows that held very few Humans. There were hundreds of races present, with the majority in this sector being Critel, though they accounted for barely a quarter of the people he was passing by.

The Critel were notorious traders, with those here on Bolo acting on behalf of themselves, various corporations, or perhaps even their nation, though it had no official standing here, nor did any. All citizens of Bolo were welcomed as individuals and had to operate under a loose Star Force code as they set up their various establishments…some for industry, some for entertainment, and some that Davis didn’t fully understand yet.

Star Force owned the kiosks, but the denizens filled them with personal property and outfitted them as they liked. A very loose hand had been given to the business side of planetary affairs, and he knew that was due to a lack of oversight potential. Star Force owned the planet, but Randy didn’t want to have to babysit it, and had developed a…or more accurately had let develop a mostly tranquil commerce zone with a strong Star Force security presence to discourage the unruliness, and if necessary exile the disruptive individuals from the planet.

That had kept things orderly, but Morgan knew that there was a lot going on in the shadows, and even if there weren’t any riots or uprisings taking place that there would be more quiet dangers. The security detail wasn’t large enough to police the denizens in typical Star Force fashion, so there was a ‘wild west’ element here that was tolerated so long as things didn’t escalate.

That said, Bolo had accomplished what few planets had before in that it brought together so many races, many of whom did not like each other, and had them living side by side without any bloodbaths breaking out. That in itself was an accomplishment, but Davis feared that this ‘wild west’ environment was what the ADZ was going to turn into…or worse.

But one thing that Davis had learned in his recent travels was that as strange and varied as these races were, there was an element to them that made them ‘people’ like everyone else, and that was something he could use. Self-defense, advancement, pride…these were present in some form across the board, along with many other themes, but the trick was they were twisted by biology and culture into strange combinations, like a rope wrapped up into a huge knot that he had to patiently unravel.

Today, like yesterday, Morgan and Davis just walked through a section of the ever-growing planet. Star Force insisted on everyone using their infrastructure, but in many cases Star Force engineers would build roads, rail lines, markets, and substructures topped off by flat, ground-level clearings that they then let the denizens build their own structures on, linked into a mutual power and utilities grid. In other cases Star Force would build huge shell structures, allowing entrepreneurs from other races to construct their own facilities inside them.

Those builds were off limits to the public, but technically Star Force security and the Archons had access to them whenever they wanted. Morgan and Davis dropped in on a few key ones, but for the most part they just made themselves part of the traffic flows, losing themselves in the anonymity of the crowd as they circulated about, observing and learning. While individuals coming to and from the planet had to pass through strict security checkpoints, once they were permitted inside the Bolo network they were free to roam about and conduct business as they liked, making the planet a large, wild pool of strange alien life that Davis was fascinated with.

Not for the normal reasons, but for the economic and social ones. For most of his life he’d been schooling others in what to do and how to do it…but here he was the reverse, learning how other races conducted business and their philosophies, many of whom had been in practice for thousands of years. The economics were the easier of the two to grasp, for supply and demand were universal constants, with the societal wrinkles making for a truly eye-opening experience above and beyond what he’d had on his tour stops to date.

But not in an uplifting way. As many small things that there were that he was impressed with, the mass of what he was learning was junk. Problems on top of problems on top of problems. People clinging to tradition and beliefs and habits, all of which preserved the status quo and hindered problem solving. Most of Davis’ wonderment came from a sense of ‘how could they be that logistically stupid?’

He was also learning the various grudges between races, and who trumped who in the galactic turf…but also realizing that there were pockets of space where the rules reversed themselves, which was something that hadn’t been present on Earth. He’d had a long conversation with a particular Scionate vendor they happened across, and it dawned on him that the lack of communication, and often transit, between star systems created a sociological factor that he hadn’t had to deal with regarding the former nations of Earth, where everyone knew what everyone else was doing.

That wasn’t the same out here, with some races being the big dogs in their core systems but subservient ones on the fringes. It became clear to Davis that ‘locality’ was the driving factor, divvied up largely by star system rather than by planet. The same was somewhat true within Star Force, but due to the relay network and the way Davis had built their supply and transit system they were more connected that most of the other races appeared to be, who basically left isolated systems writing their own rulebooks.

The Scionate, by the name of Gas’para, had been a soldier prior to going into the shipping business and becoming a galactic traveler. He’d set up operations throughout 23 system before hearing about and scouting out Bolo, then deciding to move his headquarters here in order to access the hub of interracial commerce. He said many others had done the same, especially information brokers, for the traffic coming through the system was far greater than any other within the region.

He’d told Davis that wherever his shipping contracts went, they had to learn and adjust to the local culture, and as such the Scionate had got a feel for a few of the tendencies present in this part of the galaxy. Some temperaments were strict, others with a nearly total lack of oversight and control…which was bad for business, save for the adventurous sort who didn’t mind gambling their credits, and sometimes life, to exploit an opportunity.

But the biggest thing Gas’para explained to him was the naivety the local populations had regarding one another. Most people were not travelers, and with the isolated nature of the smaller systems they developed some vastly different cultures regarding trade, commerce, transit, permissions, and a host of other things a shipper had to deal with. And almost exclusively, they all believed there was only one way to do things.

Bolo was different, he’d said, being such a mix and having 10 ways of doing something sitting within 10 blocks of one another. He credited Star Force’s guiding structure within Bolo’s business society, citing that without it he didn’t think that the planet could sustain itself.

Davis had went on to have an in depth conversation regarding that point before bidding the shipper farewell and moving back out into the traffic flows and looking for a restroom with Human accommodations. He had some trouble removing his armor once they found one a couple of blocks away, but the enclosure was private and gave him a shield from prying eyes while he disconnected the cod piece and took a much needed leak.

He met Morgan outside the cubicle, with her waiting on him while several other races with similar biological needs were coming in and out of the other ‘stalls’ that, like all Star Force designs, were a private, tiny room that had no distinction between male or female…or in this case any race that was bipedal. Quadrupeds had another restroom facility, with a few others for more specialized needs.

Despite the filters on his helmet, Davis was exposed to a host of new smells that the air scrubbers were fighting to eliminate, prompting a private chuckle on his way outside, for this was an area of interracial relations that hadn’t crossed his mind before.

“Where to now?” Morgan asked via comm as she scanned the sea of irregular people through her black striker helmet.

“Security station. Let’s see if they can point us towards some of the problem areas.”

“Looking to pick a fight?”

“I need to find the problems if I’m going to fix them.”

“I’m looking forward to that,” Morgan said, stepping out into the foot traffic under the bright walkway lights with Davis following a step behind her. It took them a lot of walking until they got to the Star Force security outpost, which was little more than an emergency response firebase situated in one of the more remote regions of the city to decrease response time, but it held more than 20 staff with multiple rooms, allowing Davis and Morgan to have a private conversation with the ranking officer.

“What sort of trouble are you looking for?” she asked, wearing the light golden flex armor that most of the security division preferred, giving them adequate protection for their day to day work without the bulk of their combat armor.

“The kind that you have trouble dealing with, or can’t get at at all,” Davis said through his external mic.

“If we know of a problem we deal with it,” the security officer said, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her upper arm with a gloved fingertip. “But there are always rumors we can’t track down. We have monitoring equipment on all public areas, but most of the activity around here occurs in private zones.”

“Any ongoing feuds?” Morgan asked.

“Nothing major around here, but the Davpz have tried to wall off a niche up in sector 831. You might want to check there. Rumors of intimidation and scare tactics. Security dealt with the obvious stuff, but there’s still a bit of a bad vibe, or so I hear.”

“Thank you,” Davis said, turning and heading for the door before looking back. “From your point of view, what’s the number 1 thing that needs to be improved on this planet?”

“On this planet? That’s a hard question to answer. Guess the biggest thing is not enough Humans around. Sometimes it feels like we’re the visitors.”

“Thank you,” Morgan said, following Davis out into the traffic flows again and over to a transit terminal where they boarded a tram that took them across the city to a rail line network that connected the entire planet. They both caught a nap on the trip across the continent to sector 831 then took some down time in the Human complex there. Davis stayed put, as usual, and dug through the local databases as Morgan got a few hours of workouts in at the local sanctum before coming to pick up Davis for his much shorter version. After they both completed their workouts they headed back out into the streets, with Davis having identified a particular individual he wanted to talk to.

It took them several hours to locate it, having to move through a large facility that was not open to the public, but eventually the two Humans found themselves in a nest of reptiles that looked to be assembling small components with their 8 digit hands…all four of them, plus using their short tails to grasp larger objects, as well as move around from various perches. Davis had to walk a zigzag course to get past them all, eventually coming up to one of the knee-high creatures that their guide lead them to.

“You wish to speak with me?” Hi’ch’mek asked in the trade language, looking up from the computer nexus cluster it was assembling from a box of components.

He’s not the one, Morgan told Davis.

“We’re looking for unregistered individuals, and we think you might have some knowledge of their whereabouts,” Davis said, looking down on the small reptile.

Good, Morgan said as the Davpz visibly flinched. Keep pressing.

“Why do you ask me? I know nothing.”

“I’ve been analyzing some of your economic figures. You’ve been consuming more foodstuffs than needed, which I suspect have been rerouted elsewhere.”

Got it, Morgan said, telepathically pointing Davis to another section of the facility.

“We eat more than we appear,” Hi’ch’mek said as Morgan walked past him and Davis fell into step with her a moment later. “Where are you going?”

“To your stash,” Davis said as dozens of the Davpz jumped down off their platforms and rushed to block their way, spamming the floor with bodies.

Morgan simply waved a hand and pushed them aside, opening up a meter-wide walkway that she telekinetically held open until they passed through, with the reptiles scrambling back into the gap behind them as more and more came into view, flooding into the area in response to a primitive telepathic call that their race possessed.

Morgan pointed to a piece of equipment, seeing below it with her Pefbar.

“Remove the concealment or we will,” Davis threatened. “No one will be harmed.”

“There is no concealment,” Hi’ch’mek denied, only to have Morgan step up and, with a thought, activated the powered attribute of her armor, sliding a hand into a small gap on the underside and lifting the car-sized chunk of metal and tubes up off its hidden railing, popping the guide wheels off track and tipping it over onto its side, revealing a tunnel hidden in the floor.

“You were saying?” Davis asked as the little aliens swarmed around Morgan and tried to block her from going down…but the trailblazer merely stood in place, waiting to see what Davis wanted to do.

“There are hundreds down there,” she said through the comm as she focused her Ikrid down further than her Pefbar would reach. “I think they’ve been digging underneath the utility grid to add unsanctioned additions to the complex. Habitats, I think, given how closely they’re packed together.”

When the Davpz didn’t answer Davis knelt down and looked Hi’ch’mek in the eyes. “I know there are more of you down there. If we check their genetic codes will we find that there is no record of them in our database. Explain why not, and do not lie to me, I can tell when you do.”

Hi’ch’mek hesitated, not sure what to say and desperately searching for some way out of this when Morgan sighed.

“It’s not what we thought. They’re being hunted and have been trying to group together for mutual protection,” she said, digging into its memories. “They’re bullying everyone around them to create a defensive perimeter.”

“Hunted by who?” Davis asked over the comm while the Davpz still couldn’t find anything to say.

“They don’t know. But there have been too many of them disappearing to be coincidence.”

“Why haven’t they reported this?”

Morgan hesitated for a moment, trying to dig into less accessible memories. “Xenophobia. They don’t trust anyone other than their own.”

Davis turned back to the Davpz. “How long have your people been going missing?”

The little alien was silent.

“How long?” Davis insisted.

“Three years,” it finally answered.

Davis knelt down again. “You should have told us. We’ll find out what’s happening and stop this, I promise you. But these people down there,” he said, pointing at the tunnel entrance, “have to be registered. We have to know who’s living on this planet to make sure we can take care of them.”

“We only trust our own.”

“Then why did you come to this planet?”

“We have no planet of our own. This world is one of few accepting people in. We have few options.”

Davis raised a warning finger, despite the fact he knew the Davpz probably wouldn’t understand the gesture. “Do not prey on others here again. If something bad happens report it. You have friends to watch your back so long as you behave yourselves.”

“We do what we have to to protect our own.”

“We protect more than our own, and we will protect you as well.”

“You have not.”

“Because we didn’t know there was a problem because you didn’t report it,” Davis said, knowing there was some blame to be had regardless. This sort of thing should not have been happening on any Star Force world, even one as loose as this one was run. “Bring your people out from below. Security is going to log them into our network and you’re going to provide as much information as you can concerning the people who have gone missing. Agreed?”

“Will we be expelled?”

“No, but you will comply with our rules from now on.”

“Agreed.”

Davis stood up and looked at Morgan. “Call it in.”

“I just did.”

The pair stayed put until security got there, then they left and continued on with their wanderings, checking back in over the following days until security finally got a lead after going back through security camera footage. They’d picked up some of the missing individuals and followed them on the old recordings, eventually finding a handful of kiosks where they entered and never came out of again.

Morgan took up the investigation from there, heading directly to one of the locations and beginning a sweep of the minds present with Davis tailing her and security waiting nearby, ready to be called in when needed. They spent the next hour wandering throughout the Chartran shopping complex where all kinds of small, technical devices and parts were available for sale. The facility had many interior divisions, giving it a close feel despite the fact that there were well over 1000 people browsing about inside.

Finally Morgan came across an individual with the memories she was looking for, and after a thorough information download she yanked the ape-like Dangon out from behind the counter it was working behind with a strong telekinetic hold and dumped it on the ground in front of her. A moment later she delivered a light kick to its thick midsection and doubled the thing over, then she stepped forward and reached down, grabbing the shorter alien’s head, whereupon she twisted it in a flash, snapping its neck.

She let go and let the body fall to the ground, and despite the lack of a telepathic link he could tell by Morgan’s body language that she was furious.

“What just happened?” he asked over the comm as the workers and customers nearby flew into a frenzy, yelling and running about to get away from the pair of Archons.

“The Davpz were right. They were being hunted. This one killed several of them, plus a lot of other smaller races. He ambushed them here, injecting them with a sedative then hiding them away in the storage area. He comes back later, kills them, and cuts them up into bits that he smuggles out as cargo to a dealer who we’re about to pay a visit to.”

Davis swallowed hard, finding his stomach unsettled. “A meat black market?”

“Yes,” Morgan said, the word dripping with anger.

“I thought we didn’t execute people,” Davis said evenly, asking it as a question rather than an accusation.

“We don’t kill our prisoners,” Morgan explained, not taking offense, knowing that Davis had never been in a battle, let alone a war, “but we choose who we take prisoner, and I wasn’t feeling generous,” she said as security came into view, running around the corner to the Archons’ location, responding to Morgan’s comm summons.

“Remove the body and explain to the locals that he was a murderer who’s been using their store as a hunting ground. Then get more boots in play, I’m going to give you a list of individuals to round up shortly,” she said, looking at Davis. You coming with or do you want to sit this out?

“Coming with.”

“Sorry for the unexpected show,” she said, switching back to their private channel.

“Show me what you saw.”

“You don’t want me to.”

“I trust you, but I need to know.”

“Alright,” Morgan said, transmitting a select few of the memories she’d taken from the Dangon. They weren’t as crisp as what she had seen, but they were mostly intact, preserving the graphic nature of the ‘work’ the now dead individual had been doing.

Morgan saw Davis bend over in his armor, then not stand back up straight for several long seconds as he fought to keep his stomach intact.

“You alright?”

“No, but I’ll live. Let’s get the others before they kill anyone else.”

Morgan clapped him on the shoulder and gave the security team a few more instructions, then Davis broke into a run to stay with the Archon as she lithely wove her way through the pedestrians enroute to a location only she knew. He stayed tucked up behind her so not to lose the clear path she was plowing for him, and as he did he came to several conclusions.

One was that if the growing population in the ADZ was left to their own ways then more stuff like this would happen. The second was that even if Star Force devoted itself to policing worlds like this in sufficient numbers and scrutiny to provide a typically safe Star Force environment to live in, that they’d never have enough people to do it. Humans accounted for less than 1% of the ADZ population, and most Humans were civilians, not Archons and security forces.

The third conclusion was that Morgan had been right to kill the bastard on the spot. When he’d seen her do it he’d questioned the move…not her motives, but the fact that word would get around that an Archon had just walked into a store and killed one of the employees. The public didn’t know about their psionic abilities, and even if they did it conflicted with Star Force’s no death sentence policy. But as Morgan said, Star Force did kill, and their military was quite experienced with it. Normally that killing happened on the war fronts, but the reason for it remained the same no matter where it happened.

Star Force was a defensive body that protected others from killers, whether they be lizard, Skarron, or a butcher like this. Morgan had talked with him several times about the Archons’ efforts to find a way to combat the lizards without having to kill them at every turn, but it wasn’t until now that he fully understood that dilemma. It wasn’t a moral conflict, but a matter of patience. The Archons, and Star Force overall, were treating their enemies with a respect that they didn’t deserve, not because of a code or a promise, but simply by choice.

Circumstances against the lizards took that choice away from them, forcing them to turn their encounters into a bloodbath. The Archons didn’t like that, but weren’t hesitant when it was necessary. In this situation Morgan could have taken this butcher prisoner and sent him to an isolation cell for the next half century…but she hadn’t, and Davis finally glimpsed the burden she and the others were under. With so much darkness in the galaxy they were taking an overly positive perspective regarding their enemies, not because they hoped they would change their ways, but to give them the chance regardless.

That allowed them to forgo the ‘gray’ areas by risking a miscalculation downside of giving them better than they deserved rather than a potential injustice. In this situation there was no ‘gray’ area, this man was a monster, and while they could have eliminated the threat he posed to others with confinement, Morgan had simply had enough with the kid gloves and fought back at the enemy.

It wasn’t until now that he realized how much she and the others had been holding back for fear of making a mistake. They’d incorporated that ‘safety net’ into their combat procedures, and had ordered their subordinates to employ them as well, but knowing that there was no ambiguity here she’d dealt with the threat how, Davis thought, she and the others wanted to deal with their enemies…fight them head on.

Taking him into custody would have been an injustice, after a fashion, and Morgan, as she’d said, hadn’t felt like it. The murderer got what he deserved, even if it was a breach of protocol. Despite how others might react, it had been the right call.

Which led him to his fourth conclusion…which was how he was going to deal with the ADZ alien population. It’d been top on his priority list ever since he’d started this tour with Morgan, and now it finally dawned on him what he had to do…not the details, which he’d work out later, but the basic premise on which the ADZ would have to be structured.

He had to annihilate the racial divides, destroying their cultures, their beliefs, their traditions, and their phobias…creating a single Alliance culture with Star Force at its core.

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AXIUS

1

April 30, 2521

Achkor System (Skarron territory)

Zenniza

Morgan reached out with her Ikrid to sense the positions of the Engineers around her, timing her run accordingly before dropping down from her perch in the empty cockpit of the Skarron version of a forklift and sprinting across to the open side door of one of their parked transports. She kept a mental link with those closest to her, insuring that they didn’t see her and ready to make a few memory alterations if they did, but by the time she slipped her black armor inside the Skarron ship no one was the wiser.

She took a moment to make sure of that, then moved through the cramped tunnels built specifically for the Engineers who maintained these craft. This one was the Skarron version of a dropship, but far larger than Star Force’s Dragon-class…then again it had to be, given the size of the Skarrons themselves. It was parked along with some 30+ others in a semi-enclosed landing platform that sat on the edge of one of the city’s interior clusters.

Unlike with Human cities, or those of most other races, Skarron infrastructure didn’t occupy all the land space in a given area. Instead it had clusters connected to one another via strips of infrastructure. Large gaps of unused land existed like lakes in between them, save for they were nothing more than scorched earth or bare rock. From above the patterns reminded one of a bush with berries, for the clusters held a more or less circular/square geometry, while the interconnecting infrastructure resembled stalks or shoots, but again, they were also irregular.

Irregular regularity is how Morgan would have described it, but given that she was on the ground behind enemy lines she didn’t much care for how it looked from overhead. This spaceport held a tiny portion of the planet’s transports that were constantly ferrying troops and supplies up and down from orbit. The Achkor System was located well coreward of Beta Region, and was the first truly Skarron world Star Force had discovered, though there was little doubt they had taken it from someone else some time ago.

Whoever that was was long gone, with all native infrastructure erased and replaced by the Skarrons’ own construction. The planet appeared to have been geared towards resupply rather than habitation, for there wasn’t much in the way of a local population other than what was necessary to service the troops coming out from deeper within Skarron territory to the warfronts against the Alliance and others. Zenniza was one of three worlds in the system that the enemy had put down roots on, but the only one with a breathable atmosphere, which was probably why it had become the center of their operations within the system.

The other two were mining operations with additional production facilities being built up around them and even the beginnings of a full scale shipyard in orbit, currently operational and producing Skarron transports and other ‘small’ craft for them, but with major upgrades under way that would allow them to produce their Destroyer-class warships.

Or rather it had been, until they’d seen some recent setbacks. Morgan wasn’t the only striker in the system, and she knew Paul had already damaged the shipyard to some extent from the inside, much as she was about to do now with the transports. The key was to stay invisible and do damage that wouldn’t immediately give her away, for while she could control a few minds around her, if the Skarrons or their Hobbits came after her en mass she’d be forced to run, for she didn’t have enough ammunition to make a long fight of it.

Morgan worked her way through the transport using a schematic Star Force had obtained from downloading portions of computer memory from post-battle Skarron debris…after the techs had learned to interface with their systems, which had included familiarity files that the Skarrons used to train their people with. The files weren’t blueprints, but rather user indoctrination assets, allowing green crews to learn their way around the various craft they would be serving on so that they wouldn’t get lost the first day and become a problem to the existing crews.

And Morgan could understand why getting lost would be a problem. The Engineers were small bodied and apparently nimble enough to work in the tight confines she was now passing through that were designed with a similar erratic motif that the Skarron cities used. No straight hallways here, for everything was twists and turns and cutbacks, not just laterally but up and down as well, making for what seemed to be a very inefficient network of support tunnels.

Spotting a few minds enroute, she navigated around them or, in the case of one Engineer, she froze him in place and walked over him, releasing the freeze when she was on the other side with him not even realizing he’d lost 20 seconds. Morgan remained a ghost as she worked through the underside of the transport, eventually coming up into the larger areas where the Skarrons operated.

The transition was like night and day, with the Engineer labyrinth feeling like tunnels and the Skarron areas seeming as if open fields. Morgan avoided the cargo bay, staying instead in the pilot areas as she crossed them without incident. At present this transport was grounded for either storage or maintenance, with barely any crew onboard. She sensed only 9 Engineers and 4 Hobbits, all of which she was able to avoid as she worked her way through the ship to the sweet spot she’d discovered earlier in another sabotage run.

It was on the Skarron level, in a maintenance panel that she had to remove without notice. Once Morgan had it open she made several small adjustments with a plasma cutter she’d brought with her, then replaced the panel and moved on, eventually sneaking out of the transport and over to the next one…and the next…and the next, working her way through the spaceport and disabling as many of the craft as she could get to, but even as she got to more than half of them some of the others were lifting off and making room for more to come down.

Those coming down held troops, the first of which had an army of Hobbits pour out, while the second contained all Skarrons. They moved out of the spaceport straight to a processing center that got them situated on the planet where they needed to be while they waited for their next posting.

Troops transfers like this were coming in every hour of every day, with the traffic activity around the system’s star being continuous. Even now there were well over 1000 warships in orbit, with more than five times that number of cargo ships. The transports that Morgan was hopping to and from weren’t interstellar capable, but the means for the Skarrons to move cargo and personnel to and from the surface. The ones in space were downright huge, larger than even Star Force jumpships, and the fact that there were so many of them and the rate at which they were changing out was a testament to the importance of this system.

It was too bad Star Force couldn’t take it from them, for that would put a crimp in their assaults on the ADZ, but with so few ships available they didn’t have the resources for the scale of attack that taking and holding this planet would require…thus Morgan and a few of the others had decided to slow the enemy down a bit by going in on the ground and doing what damage they could in person, which turned out to be considerable.

This wasn’t Morgan’s first sabotage run, more like the 100th. She’d been on the planet for more than a month, with this being her fourth trip down. Her team had been ghosts to the Skarrons, having employed a few new Infiltrator-class puddle jumpers that significantly reduced sensor detection range. Using one of them, Morgan had come down to an uninhabited portion of the planet undetected, leaving her ship behind and crossing the varied terrain via mongoose up to the small ridge that ran north of this city complex. From there she had came in on foot, crossing some 11 miles before getting into the city.

First item of business had been to find a safe haven to stash her equipment pack, then after that she’d made sixteen sabotage runs into various parts of the city, with this being her 17th and last. Her supplies were almost exhausted, meaning she had to return to her ship for more, but she was going to cause a disruption at the spaceport first, one that was noticed before she got to the last few transports.

Thanks to her previous sabotage runs within the city, the local Skarrons were already on the lookout, so when one of the transports failed to engage its anti-grav and essentially became a big rock blocking part of the platform, the area went on alert and additional security patrols popped out of the surrounding areas, heading towards the exits and each of the individual ships.

That said, Morgan took her time and disabled another of the transports, hopefully in a way that they wouldn’t find for some time. The damage she was doing wasn’t hard to repair, but it did require new components to replace the ones she was severing. If they already had some standing by it would be maybe a 10 minute fix, but then again if the anti-grav simply wouldn’t engage and they didn’t know why it could be a very long wait.

She wasn’t counting on that, which was why she was quietly sabotaging other systems within the transports as well, learning with each attempt and adding more quick cuts here and there to her choreography, making her stay within each of the transports short and sweet…though the next dash between the two became much more difficult.

Rather than risking going to ground where the security troops were, she worked her way up to the top of the transport and ran over to the edge, using her powered armor to enhance her leg muscles and jump from one to another, given how tightly packed they were on the pad. Morgan barely made it across, falling onto her stomach as her legs missed, hanging over the multi-story drop, then she climbed up over the edge and out of view. She checked for nearby minds, hoping not to have triggered an alarm, then moved on to the maintenance hatch that led to the interior…where she began her well-oiled sabotage run again.

Morgan came back up to the top of the transport when she finished, seeing the next transport beside her lift off empty, for she could sense the hoard of minds below that had just came off it. All soldiers by the feel of them, prompting her to sit down on the roof of the transport and wait until they filed out before she moved on.

It was a weird feeling, for her black armor stood out against the dull white coloration of the hull, meaning that she was easy to spot from above, but fortunately all the troops around her were below eye level. It was the transports coming up and going down that could spot her…or the occasional fighter flying past. Morgan just sat there, looking up with idle curiosity to see if any of them did notice her as she waited for the floor below to clear.

Taking mental inventory of the ships she had left to hit, she picked out two more and waited for an opportunity, losing one as it took off, but able to slink back down into the ship she was on and out another of the small Engineer exits before the next one left. She hit the anti-grav’s first thing, making sure she didn’t go with the ship, then proceeded to move around ransacking whatever systems she could get access to and hitting about half of what was on her normal list, for there were more Engineers about, including a ship full of Hobbits and Skarron troops ready to be transported up to a cargo ship, and from there off to the war zone to reinforce one of the numerous enemy positions.

When she went to leave her exit was blocked, so she circled back through the Engineer section in the transport to another hatch, finding it also with people outside. Figuring it was time to call it a day she mentally froze the few Hobbits outside and made a dash for the nearby cover of a stack of cargo pallets. She didn’t make it cleanly, for someone from further away raised an alarm, after which she abandoned her subtlety and sprinted for one of the spaceport exits, drawing a bit of white plasma fire that fell well wide.

After that she was inside the city interior and disappearing into the infrastructure again, eventually working her way into the less obvious pedestrian routes that she’d become familiar with, avoiding the Skarron areas entirely and working her way through the Hobbit and Engineer-sized passages, psionically picking up on the none too subtle search effort taking place around her.

With her cover already blown, she took a small detour to a power plant and easily fought her way past the guards using a combination of Fornax and Ikrid…the former to knock them down and the later to render them unconscious one by one. Once by them she moved into the power plant and carefully knocked it out of commission, blacking out the local region of the city, aside from emergency backups that gave a little light in the now dark interior areas.

Using her armor’s night vision she evaded/fought her way through the search patrols and into the clear, moving through section after section until she came back into the lit areas and on to the spot where she’d set up her temporary camp. Taking a seldom used maintenance ladder up to the top of the city, she came out into the planetary atmosphere and walked on the irregular rooftops, with jutting pieces that went every which way. There were several tower-like segments, but for some reason the Skarron structures had no windows at all, giving her a little field of infrastructure debris to lose herself in.

Finding her way back to the waypoint marked on her HUD, she crept into the narrow trench that was blocked from overhead view and retrieved her pack, finding it sitting in two inches of water from what must have been a recent rain. Morgan pulled it out and checked on the contents, taking a moment to remove her helmet and drink the last of her water bottles, as well as eating a condensed ‘fuel rod’ and an ambrosia wafer, with the former being a heavy, chewy cylinder that held a massive amount of calories in its small volume.

Getting her stomach filled with badly needed fuel, she took one last moment to relieve her bladder in the small hovel, then she reattached her armor and pack and began a light jog across the rooftop terrain, alert for low flying ships as she started a 3 mile trek across the Skarron infrastructure that eventually led her to the northern edge where she dropped down to the surface and began to run at the best speed she could manage across the band of rocky ground surrounding the city and off into the grasslands that mostly obscured her passage up to the far ridgeline yet more miles away.

Morgan had to rely on her battlemap to guide her, for most of the time the 4 meter tall grasses didn’t afford her much of a view…which was the only reason she’d been able to approach on foot in the first place. Eventually she came up to the ridgeline, unable to see exactly where it from her position, but not far down the opposite side and out of direct sensor range she found the waypoint where she’d hid her mongoose and was relieved to see it intact underneath the small grass hut she’d made to cover it.

Pushing and kicking the thick mat clear, she slid up on top and powered the awesome little steed up, then knelt low over the front as she took off, pushing her way through the grasses with them rubbing on the mongoose and her helmet in razorblade fashion as she accelerated up to speed, following the approximate path she’d taken to get here, though the grasses had long since eaten up the tracks she’d made on the inward run.

It took several hours for her to make her way out of the grasses and onto clear dirt ground, with Morgan then being able to accelerate up to decent speed and tear her way across the rolling landscape, meandering her way around hills rather than going over top of them and opening her up to distant observation, all the time loosely making her way back to the Infiltrator’s hiding spot, tucked up nicely inside one of the small valleys and covered over with a deployable camouflage canopy that mimicked the surrounding topography in both color and sensor profile.

Morgan drove up underneath the canopy along a small creek bed that had a steady 3 inch deep flow to the water that splashed up on the mongoose’s tires as the boarding ramp lowered and she drove up inside, happy to be back in Star Force territory, even if it was just the inside of a small ship. She docked her mongoose next to three others in the bay, seeing one empty slot amongst them, meaning one of the other strikers was still out in the field, though whether it was Kip or Olivia she didn’t know.

Morgan slid off the mongoose and headed for the puddle jumper’s interior, finding her way to the lounge area that had been built into what otherwise would have been the cargo bay on other models.

“Welcome back,” Kip said, sitting in one of the chairs with his feet up and looking at a datapad that held a now paused movie. “Any trouble?”

“Not much,” Morgan said, pulling her helmet off and seeing Kip wrinkle his nose. “Bad?”

“Tolerable,” he said, referencing the fact that she had been inside her armor and not showered for several days.

“Olivia still out?”

“Pilot says she came back early then went out again after picking up some special supplies. Not sure when to expect her back.”

“We’re due at the warship in 3 days,” Morgan commented, unlatching her pack and setting it aside. “She knows the timetable. What’d you get?”

Kip smiled and tossed her a different datapad. Morgan caught it telekinetically and flew it over to her hand, then began reading through the list of targets Kip and Olivia had hit since she’d last checked in.

2

“Miss me?” Olivia-051 asked, returning to the puddle jumper some 18 hours later with a nasty cut on her face.

Morgan pointed up at it, now showered and in a fresh Archon uniform. “How did that happen?”

Olivia tossed the helmet in her hand to Morgan as Kip walked into the lounge from another chamber in the ship.

“That’s how,” the trailblazer said, referencing the puncture in the tinted faceplate just above the nose piece on the left side. Morgan touched a finger to it, seeing that there wasn’t a melty edge to the fracture that would have indicated the high heat of plasma damage.

“Shrapnel?”

“No, a damn structural beam fell on me.”

“What’d you blow up?” Kip asked.

Olivia shook her head slightly, not wanting to add much movement to the already scabbed-over cut that ran a good 3 inches across her left cheek. “Wasn’t me. A whole section of the build came down and I got buried underneath it. Don’t know if they knew where I was and were trying to get at me or if something else happened. I dug my way out after a Sesspik nap, then headed back here. I expected them to be all over me, but I hardly ran into any troops on the way. Mostly Engineers and Hobbits coming to work on the debris.”

Olivia started detaching her armor and suddenly Morgan and Kip saw how much blood she’d lost. The inside of her neck collar was coated with it, but it had also seeped down through the thin line between the collar and her neck and soaked into her white uniform underneath…which had the most of the upper left torso colored deep red.

“Ouch,” Morgan said, taking a step closer to her and gently laying a hand on her head.

“I’m low,” Olivia confirmed as Morgan hacked into her nervous system to gleam some information on the state of her body…which was running low on blood, but fortunately not low enough for the Archon to pass out. “And hungry.”

Morgan stepped back and let her finish climbing out of her armor, then Olivia stretched for a moment before picking up her helmet and looking at the damage from the outside again, tapping a finger on the intact portion of the transparent material.

“I think it’s time for a design change,” she said, throwing Morgan a glance as Kip came back in from another room and tossed her a water bottle and two sealed foodstuff packages.

“Harder faceplate?” he asked.

“No faceplate,” she countered, opening the water and sucking it down inside of a few seconds, pausing only for breath before tearing open the first of the packages and biting into a dense breadstick.

“You think we should go full HUD?” Morgan asked, knowing that the suggestion had come up before. The ‘visor’ portion of the Archon helmet was the weakest point, but now that they also had an energy shield covering it there hadn’t been much discussion about that weakness…and for good reason. The material wasn’t glass, but a super hard transparent synthetic that was stronger than steel, allowing them to keep the visor thin and avoid any lensing effects that would diminish their vision and situational awareness.

“Yo…ell me,” she said, still chewing as she glanced at her helmet.

“Your head hurt?” Kip asked, noticing that she wasn’t using psionics, which could easily allow her to talk and eat at the same time.

She swallowed. “More lightheaded than pain. I’ll be alright.”

Morgan turned the damaged helmet over in her hands, looking at it again and picturing what no visor would look like. It would mean they wouldn’t be able to see out of it except for when it was powered, using sensors on the exterior to translate images inside to a vid screen directly in front of their face…or more likely a holographic version, similar to what was used in the skeets.

“We’d have Pefbar as a backup, but the adepts and others wouldn’t…and we’d have to coat the thing with microcameras, otherwise a little armor damage would blind us.”

“Make it ranger and up then, but I want it.”

“Not going to argue with you there,” Kip agreed, with Morgan tossing her helmet to him so he could take a closer look.

“Are we ready to leave?” Olivia asked, tearing open the second foodstuff package.

“Yep,” Morgan said, “unless you have something to finish up?”

“Let’s…go,” she said, abandoning her previous targets that the explosion had stopped her from getting to, knowing that they didn’t have time nor an extra helmet for her on this run.

Morgan nodded and headed aft to take care of the camouflage canopy while Kip headed forward, walking through the sections of the comfortably small ship until he came to the pilot’s quarters and knocked lightly.

A moment later the door opened and a Star Force Regular stepped out.

“We’re leaving,” Kip told him.

“Back to the ship or repositioning?” he asked, stepping past the trailblazer on the way to the cockpit.

“To the ship. Morgan’s getting the canopy. As soon as it’s secured you’re free to work your magic,” Kip said, referencing the fact that the man had a higher pilot’s rating than he did...which running blockades necessarily required.

“Alright, let me know when she’s back,” he said, moving into the pilot’s seat and beginning the power up sequence. This was his fourth trip down into enemy territory, with him knowing well that the trick to beating the Skarrons both down and up was in getting a head start on them. He didn’t know if they’d spot the ship when the canopy came off, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

As soon as Kip signaled him that Morgan was done he kicked in the anti-grav and accelerated ahead, maneuvering through the rolling terrain at low level to mask their hiding spot in case they wanted to use it again, then when he had the spot he wanted lined up with his preferred orbital escape vector, he tipped the nose of the puddle jumper up to the sky and accelerated hard, tearing a narrow gash in the atmosphere that sucked energy out of the ship’s shields from the high friction.

He kept the speed just slow enough to not breach them completely, then as the air thinned he increased speed to match, seeing several Skarron ships in orbit altering position to try and intercept them…but it was no use. The Star Force vessel had a clear patch of orbit ahead of them and the Skarrons couldn’t get there in time, nor did they want to, for the puddle jumper would have just flashed by them in the blink of an eye.

What the enemy was attempting with their smaller vessels was to match the speed and outgoing vector, essentially meeting up with the puddle jumper further out as they accelerated towards a guessed rendezvous point…but it was no good, for as soon as the ship got outside the atmosphere and up to decent speed the pilot made a course correction, using their binary drives to curve their trajectory in an arc that the Skarrons couldn’t follow.

That broke them free of their pursuit and brought them to a jumpline for a neighboring planet, which they then took…with the Skarrons following at a considerable delay.

When they arrived at their destination a few minutes later the pilot immediately moved them around to the stellar jumpline and shot them off again…but at a very slow speed. Once they were outside the effective sensor range of the Skarrons he used their binary drives to move them off the jumpline and bring them to a standstill out in extremely high orbit around the planet. There they waited until the Skarron ships made their own jump towards the star, bypassing the puddle jumper and leaving them in the clear.

It took a while to pull back up to the planet, but once they did the pilot swung them around to another jumpline, this one to one of the outer planets in the system. From there they made another slow jump out to where they rendezvoused with the warship Luigi, which had been their ride into the system and their quiet base of operations for their sabotage runs against the Skarrons, now parked in a position that the enemy couldn’t get to easily, due to their lack of binary gravity drives.

The Infiltrator-class puddle jumper showed up on the warship’s sensor at a far greater range than they did on the Skarrons’, giving the bay doors time to fully open before the pilot flew their interplanetary transport inside and gently landed it on the deck next to several others of identical design.

The three trailblazers exited the craft wearing their armor rather than carrying it and headed for their individual quarters on the ship, depositing their armor there then heading off to various locations. Olivia headed to the med bay to get her injury attended to, Morgan headed directly for the sanctum to catch up on missed workouts, and Kip went to their impromptu war room, which was an extra set of quarters the trailblazers had reworked into a private bridge where they could monitor and plan all insystem raids.

When he got there the room was empty, but as Kip uploaded the data he and the others had compiled from their most recent run the door opened and Paul walked in, having tracked him down once he heard they’d returned.

“Surprised you’re still here,” Kip said from his seated position as he walked in.

“Have to get some training in every now and then,” Paul argued, pulling up a chair and accessing one of the four terminals so he could see what his fellow trailblazer had just added.

“What’d I miss?”

“We hit three more orbital facilities and did some light damage on the ground.”

“How the hell are you getting past their sensors?” Kip wondered, knowing that he’d hit a shipyard earlier.

“Very carefully. Kara’s shadow mode is rather useful, but even she has to be cautious at close range.”

“So you’re letting her hit the orbital stuff solo?”

Paul shook his head. “No, but she’s been getting me in and out.”

“Not worth the risk, bro.”

“Well,” Paul said with a smile, “to be honest their sensors are crap compared to the lizards.”

“But their anti-air is better…and you look an awful lot like a missile floating in space.”

“I don’t do the floating thing…that’s all Kara. She’s got a way of measuring the sensor intensity as it hits and absorbs on her armor, so she can pretty much sniff around and find the weak spots without giving herself away. After that she goes in and does a little reprogramming to create a blind spot…then I come in.”

“Using what?”

“A stealth pod.”

Kip shook his head. “You’re nuts.”

“Haven’t gotten killed yet,” Paul said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, what’s the point of saying ‘I told you so’ if you’re not around to hear it. Stop while you’re ahead, will ya?”

“You do anything on the ground other than inconvenience them?”

“Kind of hard to do that without blowing stuff up…but yeah, I managed to slow down a few of their factories.”

“Which ones?”

“The specialty kind. They won’t be making any more gravity drives for a while…their corovon stores just got significantly thinned.”

“You didn’t bring it back here did you?”

“No, way too heavy. I hid it inside their own infrastructure. I doubt they’ll find it anytime soon, if they’re even looking for it. By the way, Olivia took a nasty hit. Messed up her face when she got caught in an explosion. Leveled the building around her and a piece went through her faceplate.”

“Ouch. What blew up?”

“She doesn’t know, but she’s got a good gash across here,” Kip said, drawing the line on his own face, “and lost a lot of blood, but she made it back to the puddle jumper on her own. She thinks we should redesign the helmet to get rid of the faceplate.”

“Were her shields up when the explosion went off?”

“I don’t know, but she’s shook enough that I don’t think she’s going to let this one go…and I can’t say I disagree with her. We’ve got Pefbar to use as a backup if the HUD loses power, so I don’t see why we don’t make the change, for us at least.”

“Guess you two just volunteered to test the prototype.”

“Jason’s been the one tinkering with the armor. Why haven’t we made this upgrade already?”

“We were waiting until the neuro link became useable, but if Olivia took a hit then we probably should have come up with an intermediary before now…at least as an option. I may stick with the current model though.”

“Should we send this off to Jason or handle it ourselves?”

“If Olivia took the hit, then she’s probably the best one to design a defense against it. I’d throw what you come up with to Jason and see if he can add anything helpful, but there’s no need to shuffle it off to him if Olivia has the spare time.”

“That depends how much longer we’re going to be out here,” Kip reminded him.

“A few more runs, at least. Sam picked up something insightful on his last mission. You got an hour to spare?”

“Can…but after that I need to hit the sanctum.”

Paul nodded. “Come with me.”

“Where to?” Kip asked, following him out.

“The holding cells.”

A little over 10 minutes later the pair of trailblazers walked in behind another two sitting on the free side of the containment field that separated them from a captured Hobbit, and one that was apparently more than willing to talk, for Kip could hear him rattling off the Skarron language that the computer was translating. Kip hadn’t learned more than a few words himself, having to keep V’kit’no’sat, the trade language, Calavari, and now Protovic straight in his head…and was glad that Davis had begun implementing English as the standard Alliance language, for with the insane number of races in the galaxy, maintaining native languages was utterly absurd when the point of communication was to actually communicate with each other.

Paul and Kip didn’t say anything, preferring to stand in the back and watch as Sam and Mark-099 were having an animated conversation with their prisoner…which Paul had explained to be more of a guest on their walk over to the cell.

WE WERE A LARGE RACE SPREAD OUT TO SEVERAL HUNDRED STAR SYSTEMS WHEN THE SKARRONS FOUND US. WE COULD NOT OFFER MUCH MILITARY RESISTANCE AND THEY KILLED MORE THAN A THIRD OF OUR POPULATION BEFORE DECIDING TO INCORPORATE US INTO THEIR EMPIRE TO REPLACE THE BERULATS. THEY FOUND THEM TO BE INADEQUATE AND KILLED THEM ALL WHEN WE ARRIVED TO REPLACE THEM. WE FEAR THEY MAY DO THE SAME WITH US IF THEY ARE ABLE TO ANNEX ANOTHER RACE THEY FEEL IS SUPERIOR. IT HAS BEEN RUMORED THAT THE PROTOVIC COULD BE A POSSIBLE REPLACEMENT, BUT SUCH RUMORS ARE COMMON AMONGST THE ARONSIC.

“How long ago was this?” the ‘other’ Mark asked, for there were two of them amongst the trailblazers with the same name.

APPROXIMATELY 1500 YEARS AGO.

“How many of the other Aronsic feel as you do? How many are loyal to the Skarrons?”

ALL ARE LOYAL. WE HAVE NO CHOICE IN THAT. BUT THOSE THAT WHISPER COMPLAINTS ARE MANY ON THE WORLDS THAT I HAVE SEEN.

“How many worlds do the Skarrons possess?” Sam asked, already knowing the answer but gauging the Hobbit’s reactions to see whether or not it was playing some angle here. When it had come across Mark on his most recent mission it hadn’t fired its weapon, responding with enough curiosity that when the trailblazer had reached out with his Ikrid and accessed its mind to render it unconscious and wipe the memory of his being seen, he’d been prompted to make a different call, first engaging it with conversation then deciding to bring it back here for further questioning.

TOO MANY FOR US TO KNOW. WE ESTIMATE AT LEAST 10,000 STAR SYSTEMS, BUT THE TRUE NUMBER MAY BE MUCH LARGER THAN THAT.

And it was, for in recent years Star Force had accessed a measure of data from captured enemy ships, including a navigational map that tagged some 72,912 systems as Skarron territory, with the bulk of those in the neighboring galactic arm well over 1,000 lightyears from the ADZ.

“What about the Jenipars?”

I DO NOT KNOW. WE HAVE LITTLE CONTACT WITH THEM AND I PERSONALLY HAVE HAD NONE.

“And the Aronsic and Jenipars are the only two races the Skarrons currently have incorporated into their empire?”

AS FAR AS I KNOW, YES.

Aren’t these the same guys that were eating Kiritak a while back? Kip asked Paul telepathically.

The Word was also composed of Humans, Paul reminded him.

Not what I mean. If this is headed where I think it is, we’re going to have to distinguish between unwilling slave and willing slave.

At least we can have this discussion with them. By now a lizard would have tried to tear its own throat out.

Not my area of expertise.

But this is, Paul countered.

Prisoners are prisoners. We don’t give them a chance to switch sides after shooting at us…and by us I mean the Protovic too. We have to find a way to get to the willing ones first, if they really exist. Switching sides is easy after you lose.

Sounds like the beginning of a plan.

Down the road…after we’ve got a few more sentinels deployed. Right now I’m sticking with shooting them.

I get the feeling these two are going to want to start earlier than that, Paul said, gesturing towards Sam and Mark.

They’re welcome to try, so long as it doesn’t eat up resources.

You think it’s a bad idea?

Kip sighed. No, we just can’t fall into the trap of trying to help the guys shooting at us.

We won’t, Paul said confidently, but if we can undermine their own ranks, we might get them to hesitate before shooting us.

Kip slowly broke into a smile. I hadn’t considered that.

Being the good guys does have its advantages.

That it does, Kip said, silently walking out, having seen enough to give him something to think about on his way over to the sanctum.

3

May 3, 2521

Solar System

Ceres

Haley Somerson returned to her temporary quarters within the colony that had been her home the past 26 years, only to finish packing for the trip away from the small, icy planet to a distant star system, not even in the Core Region, but further out inside Zeta Region. She’d just said her goodbyes to her father, having spoken with her mother a week ago. She liked him far more than her, but neither were emotional affairs, given that she’d only met them a handful of times. It was her family she was having a hard time leaving, but now that she and her brothers and sisters had graduated out of the maturia they were all going their separate ways.

A lot of them were staying on Ceres, but about a third were moving on to other worlds. A few more had yet to graduate, with the first of them having tested out a year and a half ago. Since then it had been a steady progression through the 100 of them, with each completing their primary maturia training on an individual basis. Once that occurred they were given regular quarters in the city, such as Haley was now located in, and free run of the colony, having become full-fledged Star Force citizens upon graduation, despite the fact that she was only 26.

Her quarters were small, no larger than they’d been in the maturia, but the biggest change were her neighbors, for they were no longer her family. The closest member of her orisect was several blocks away and about 7 minutes of walking, making a quick stop in to catch up on how they were doing impossible. Before it was just a few steps down the hallway…now the brothers and sisters she’d trained with were scattered about the city, but at least they were still in this complex and not one of the other cities, meaning she had a few familiar faces to visit from time to time, but it wasn’t the same…not by a long shot.

Haley had been told to expect this, and that it was common. Back in the old days most people didn’t even have 99 siblings. They had one or two biological ones, at most, which she couldn’t comprehend. The other 99 in her orisect had been her closest confidants and friends, with them, more often than not, helping each other out with the tasks the trainers demanded of them, working towards this day when they would finally graduate and be free to chart their own life.

But now that she was here, she realized that freedom sucked. Some of the others remaining in the Ceres colony, which was actually a conglomeration of 19 huge cities wrapped around the low grav world, had requested quarters transfers so they could be next to one another, with those occurring as spaces were available, but Haley hadn’t gone in for that, knowing that it was going to be clinging onto something that was now lost. She’d graduated, she’d completed the quest that they’d been working so hard on since they were born. Now it was time to move on, for there was no going back.

Some of her brothers and sisters were moving on to advanced maturia training, meaning they were still housed in the maturia. Haley hadn’t considered that, because just getting through the primary training had taken all the effort and skill she had…and the thought about voluntarily going into even harder challenges was downright stupid. She’d done what was required of her, and was better for it, but the loss of camaraderie was more than she’d guessed it could be, leaving her feeling hollow inside and adrift.

But now she had a new purpose, which was what she was packing for and saying her goodbyes. Haley wanted to get the easy ones over with first, which were her biological parents. They’d chosen to remain in contact with her in the maturia, meaning they were able to monitor her progression, review her scores and achievements…and not all parents did. Being raised in a maturia, as they both knew for they had also been raised in one, as virtually everyone was nowadays, though some regions on Earth  still operated under hybrid systems, meant no contact with her biological parents up until she had achieved a certain benchmark in her training, which Haley had attained at age 7.

When that occurred she was given the option of learning who her parents were, or not. Haley had wanted to know and had been given information on them. After another benchmark had been attained two years later she had been allowed to communicate with them if they also agreed, and they had. Since then they’d kept in touch irregularly, for the amount of contact was limited so as not to interfere with her training. She’d met them several years later and had liked them both, but her father more so. A lot more, but he was still a stranger compared to her brothers and sisters, and saying goodbye was really just a ‘hey, I’m leaving’ FYI, while talking to her family that was still around had got her choked up on more than one occasion.

She still had 17 more of them to meet with over the next few days, but after that it was time for her to start the next chapter in her life. There were many options for pure citizens, and even more for those who had scores gaining them access to the Star Force network…but those required the advanced training in the maturia. She could always go back and do it later, but she knew she wouldn’t. She’d had her fill of training.

Which meant she wasn’t going to work for Star Force, on any level, but there were a huge number of other jobs out there if she was interested in earning credits, but in truth she wasn’t. She had a small set of quarters to herself, a clothing and small item allowance that amounted to as much stuff as she wanted, within reason. It was said that some people tried to hoard items or use them for raw materials to construct others, which was why there were limits, but so far she hadn’t hit any of them.

She’d gone to one of the Star Force clothing stores the day after she graduated, wanting to see what new varieties she could incorporate into her wardrobe…now that she could have one. Maturia uniforms were all pretty much the same, but the civilian line of clothing was much more diverse.

She’d come back to her quarters with several boxes full, each of which deducted from her allowance account that would refill gradually, but that was really not an issue so long as she wasn’t going nuts grabbing everything off the shelves that she saw…and right now it looked like she was going to have a hard time fitting it all into the four bags she was packing, meaning she might have to throw out some of it.

Haley knew she’d get more where she was going, so she mentally prepared herself for a trip over to the recycling station tomorrow, but was still adamant about squeezing every bit into her bags that she could, along with a host of personal items that she’d never had access to in the maturia, her favorite of which was hair color. She’d been changing it up each morning, washing the gel into her hair and letting it set for a few minutes in the shower, then rinsing it out and…poof, new color. Today she had gone with a faded green, and figured she’d settle on one eventually, but right now she was a kid in a candy store trying every little thing she saw, including all 283 different color/tint varieties.

So those bottles were a must pack, along with the makeup that she was trying out. Right now she had a claw-like pattern on her left cheek, which she’d noticed was popular amongst the Ceres crowd. Maturia rules didn’t allow for such luxuries, so it was a learning experience for her, and she was dabbling in it even if she didn’t like most of the looks she was seeing in public.

One thing she hadn’t gone in for was the dating scene, which had also become instantly available upon graduation. Apparently newly graduated individuals like herself were highly sought after, and despite not having logged into the network she’d received over 100 messages from guys in the colony who’d located her somehow. A few of them she’d met as neighbors, but she wasn’t interested in getting into a romantic relationship, on any level, especially when she knew she’d be leaving soon.

Her parents weren’t together anymore either, having completed a 5-year residential coupling then deciding not to renew. That was longer than most chose to hook up, she’d learned, but after a while they’d just grown tired of each other. They’d both fulfilled the agreement and stayed together until the coupling period ended, then they went back to living in individual quarters and leading mostly separate lives, though they’d said they still interacted with each other occasionally, given that they both lived in the same city and were close friends.

Her father had chosen to stay solo, but her mother was currently in a 6 month exclusivity coupling, meaning that she and her boyfriend agreed not to screw anyone else until it expired. Most people held to the agreements, though there were some ‘cheaters’ that did not, as her mother had explained to her in one of their chats. All the ‘coupling’ protocols were voluntary, with the relationship network set up to facilitate the interactions with a measure of organization and clarity, but without enforcing anything.

Her current boyfriend wasn’t to the ‘live with’ stage yet, and she admitted he probably never would be, but she expected them to renew another 6 month stint when this one expired in three weeks. She had talked long on the subject of dating, too much so for Haley’s liking after getting her initial perspective, for while the maturia training had informed them of such things, there was no relationship network inside for them to utilize.

Some of them had hooked up unofficially, but that had always been an extra thing. Their training took priority and left them with little free time. They all had individual quarters and lockdowns in place when they were younger, so their sexual explorations couldn’t occur until later…until the official training began. If they chose, they’d been assigned their pick of volunteer trainers to mate with in order to ‘show them the ropes’ and Haley had nervously agreed. After that she’d hooked up with a few of her brothers and sisters, but that got old quick, and to be honest none of them were as good at it as the trainer had been…but then again he probably had a lot more practice.

Haley hadn’t been with anybody in years and wasn’t planning to anytime soon. Nor was she looking for any of the other bonding protocols that Star Force organized. The couplings were all sexual oriented, ranging from casual kissing to full-on baby making, depending on the level you chose, while the ‘companions’ ranged from hangout buddies to roommates of either gender. Usually co-habitation companions were older individuals who had obtained larger quarters than what Haley and the others had starting out, either by purchasing them with credits or earning them through Star Force or colony service, because the standard quarters were quite the crunch when you tried to squeeze two inside.

More often than not you’d have two, three, four or more people that were working jobs and earning credits pool their funds and rent a huge set of quarters, both for the extra living space and to have someone to go through daily life with, much as they’d had in the maturia. Companions also had different levels with varying timespans, none of which exceeded five years, which was the maximum for all relationship programs.

There were four divisions in the relationship network. Coupling, companions, partners, and adversaries. Partners was strictly for workouts, usually with someone on a similar ability level that would agree to meet up at a certain time of day and act as both motivation and workout checker as the two or more partners would, again, go through their workouts like they once had in the maturia. Solo workouts were common throughout the Ceres colony, but more often than not you’d see pairs and quartets out running because it was easier to get the work in if someone else was expecting you…whereas if you were going it alone it was all that much easier just to sleep in and forget about it.

Adversaries were the funnest relationship, by far, but also the fewest. They’d had some experience with these in the maturia as well, where one person was paired with each other for a week, during which they had to point out every flaw and mistake the other made in ridiculing fashion. Exaggerations were allowed, but there always had to be a kernel of truth to what you were saying or there was no point…for adversaries were meant to make you better by meanly pointing out things that polite people would never say.

During her experience in the maturia it had gotten particularly nasty the first day, but by the end of the second it had turned into a competition to see who could come up with the best insults, with no holds barred. The dose of harsh honesty it provided had been cathartic, and apparently Star Force had felt it important enough to incorporate into the colonial relationship network.

Haley didn’t hear it much, but every now and then she’d walk by two people strolling through the colony calmly chewing each other out in what was usually hilarious fashion. She tried not to laugh when she passed them, but sometimes she couldn’t contain at least a smirk. Adversaries were simply too much fun, though not something you’d want to last forever. Also, she’d noticed quite a few in the training areas, railing on each other as they pressed their limits, though those exchanges tended to be more yelling and aggressive than calm and humorous.

But none of that mattered now, because where she was going there wouldn’t be any relationship network. All such things were local, with Ceres having its own network, Mars its own, etc. The colony that Haley was leaving for wasn’t even finished, barely 5 years into construction and containing only one city…one populated by numerous races, with very few Humans not in Star Force’s employ.

Haley had figured that if she was going to leave the maturia life behind, she might as well go for one as distant from it as possible, and living with a bunch of non-Humans seemed to qualify in that regard. The colony was part of the new Alliance Xeno Interstellar Unified Sanctuary thingamabob that Star Force had recently created, known better by the acronym AXIUS to Haley and the others that had responded to calls for Human colonists.

She’d been surprised when the requirements were so low, or in this case nonexistent as far as skill benchmarks were concerned. The main thing the recruitment office wanted was people willing to live side by side with nonhumans in a communal colony that would be created from the ground up, meaning that she’d be one of the first ones there and would have to do absolutely nothing. She wasn’t required to work, or train, or nada. It was a Star Force colony like Ceres, except there wouldn’t be very many Humans there.

That interested her, and gave her something exciting to look forward to as she made her final round of goodbyes in the days to come, with many tears shed as she put the finishing touches on her previous life before heading to the spaceport with four heavy bags in tow, ready to set out on an adventure, being one of the first Axius colonists…and in Star Force, with so much history and protocol firmly established, being the first to do anything was exceedingly rare, and for someone like her nearly impossible, given her lack of skills.

Once her bags were loaded onto a dropship and her into the passenger section she left the thin atmosphere of Ceres for the first time, looking down on the tiny planet and feeling a mix of loneliness and the thrill of exploration as she made her way up to the waiting jumpship. Once onboard she felt very much at home, for the interior of the massive vessel looked and felt like a Star Force colony, only given entirely new faces.

A few days later and the jumpship left the system headed for Sirius, and from there Haley would make several changeovers as she worked her way through the Star Force transportation network out to Zeta Region and arrive at the planet Zastdan, which would shortly become her new home.

4

June 4, 2521

Leil System (Zeta Region)

Zastdan

As soon as Haley stepped off the dropship she felt as if she were in a truly alien place. The spaceport was built with telltale Star Force infrastructure, but the sizing and decoration was different. The first doorway she walked through along with the other Humans coming off the dropship was way over her head, making her feel like a midget. And unlike the normal whites and greys that predominated Star Force infrastructure, these hallways were a mix of grey and red.

She knew Clan colonies had different color schemes, but it still shocked her to see it, after living her entire life with one motif, so she walked through the security checkpoint far more nervous than she had anticipated, passing under the scanning arch and having it confirm her identity and credentials, allowing her access to the colony. From there she was shunted off into a smaller, yet still oversized hallway that took her away from the main traffic flow, all of which were Humans in Star Force uniforms.

Haley and a few others were escorted into a briefing room, whereupon they sat for the next 3 hours going through indoctrination lessons familiarizing them with the colony layout and protocols, after which she was given her quarters’ access code and her luggage…leaving her a full and free Axius citizen without any further fuss.

When she walked out of the processing area dragging her stack of luggage she gulped, both at the nearly empty promenade as well as the fact that the few people roaming about were not Human. This was her first time ever seeing any in person, and it was quite overwhelming…but she tried not to stare and walked out into the open, dragging her belongings on nearly silent wheels and heading through the nearly deserted city.

They’d told her it was a startup colony and that she would be one of the first citizens, but she hadn’t thought it would be this empty. Haley was used to crowded streets, making these feel ghastly huge since they were extra wide. The ceiling top was normal, given that it stood several stories and gave the potted trees plenty of room to expand upwards, but seeing all manner of creatures roaming around immediately gave her the creeps.

She saw a cat, a glowing man, a no-armed tripod, lots of quadrupeds that she couldn’t describe if she’d wanted to, and a host of bipeds that made her feel like she was in a costume party and very underdressed. It took her seven minutes of walking before she even spotted another Human not in a Star Force uniform, with him seeing her as well and waving her down as he crossed over the median to her side of the street that was bracketed by numerous kiosks, most of which were still without vendors.

“Hello,” he said, smiling beneath a mat of thin, brown hair. “My name is Arron. You look new here.”

“How could you tell?” Haley asked, gesturing to her luggage with a sigh of relief.

“Need a guide?”

“Sure, if you’re not busy?”

Arron waved her off. “Nothing that can’t wait. Where you headed?”

“EC203.”

“You’re heading in the wrong direction for that.”

“I wanted to stick to the main routes until I got used to the layout. Name’s Haley.”

“Well no need for that with me here, Haley. We can cut through up ahead on the right.”

“Lead on,” she said, with the slightly shorter man smiling as they fell into step beside one another…something that was usually hard to do in crowds, but was remarkably easy here, given the lack of people.

“What time of day is it?”

“Everything here is internal, so there’s no cycle to worry about. It’s 14:03 and everyone seems to be on their own unique sleep patterns, so there isn’t a morning or evening that I’ve found yet. Here, take this turn.”

“How long have you been here?” Haley asked, rounding a corner and coming into a narrower walkway, but one that still had a high ceiling that a Calavari would have had trouble jumping up and touching.

“A little over a year now.”

“Wow. And I thought things looked deserted now.”

“No, no…there are plenty of people here. Star Force just builds fast, and instead of cramming us all into one little section they’re spreading us out and letting the gaps fill in over time. You probably won’t have too many neighbors in your quarters block for a while.”

“How many Humans are here?”

“Quite a few, if you know where to look.”

“That aren’t Star Force.”

Arron smiled. “Well, now there’s the kicker. I know of 52 personally, not counting the new arrivals such as yourself.”

“52?! How many people are in the colony?”

“Upwards of 10,000, last I heard.”

Haley whistled.

“Not many, I know, but I think that’s the point. I’ve developed some non-Human friends and from what I hear, each of them had to go through some pretty intense training just to get colony slots. They all know English, but most aren’t very good at it until they’ve spent some time here and get used to the various dialects. You’ll probably get some attention just because they want to practice dialog with someone who speaks it as their native language.”

“Trade language as backup?”

“Yes, but all the media is in English. It was difficult at first, but the community has adjusted somewhat.”

“What have you been up to the past year?” Haley asked as Arron pointed her down another walkway, with this one leading to a wavy path through an interior park.

“I’m a writer, so I just bum around from place to place, getting ideas or keeping up on current events…meeting new people.”

“What kind of writing?”

“Fiction. Mostly romance, but I do chime in on the news nets every now and then. People back home want to know what Axius is all about, so I do a bit of correspondent work for Jasper. What are your long hours here going to occupy you with?”

“I just graduated from my maturia and I haven’t a clue,” she said with a laugh. “Felt like having an adventure.”

“Well you’ve certainly come to the right place…though after a while you’ll get to see that all the ‘wildlife’ are still just people. Strange, odd, and sometimes crazy people, but people just the same. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Just got out of indoctrination. Three hours of indoctrination.”

“What do you say I take you around for a tour and a bite to eat after we get you to your quarters?”

“Am I to assume there’s more to that request…coming from a Romance novelist?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Arron held up his hands in innocence. “Not today. Newbie rule is in effect. You get at least a week before I start hitting on you.”

“I think that qualifies,” she said with a smirk.

“Just a friendly offer. There’s no dating scene here, at all, so us few Humans try to stick together as much as we can, help each other out, and so on.”

“Promise me I won’t end up in one of your books…”

“I promise.”

“Alright then, friend, let me dump my overpacked cargo off and you can show me around as much as you like…with my thanks.”

“My pleasure, Haley. Think nothing of it.”

“Ok, wasn’t expecting this,” she said as they both walked into the cafeteria and saw the wide variety of foods. There were stations with universal foodstuffs, much like Star Force colonies usually served, but then some of the stuff Haley ate was located in another section. It had various tags on a banner overtop, made up of icons she didn’t recognize other than them having been mentioned in indoctrination as being warning labels. Sometime during that part of the lecture she’d started daydreaming, and she didn’t have any idea what they meant.

“Expecting what?”

“What do all these thingamabobs mean?”

“The labels?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you see the black one that means Humans can’t eat it without getting sick. Same goes for the Protovic, Densan, and some others. The other labels are things that we can eat but other races can’t, so you don’t look for an ‘ok’ label, you look for one that says ‘not for you’…which in this case is just that one section,” Arron said, pointing to their left.

“So we can eat any of the others?”

“Well, if by ‘eat’ you mean digest, then yes, but I don’t think you’ll like the taste. Various races have various tastes, and in fact that’s one of the biggest complaints going around,” Arron said as he picked up a plain roll and put it on his plate next to a glopping of golden macaroni. “A lot of people don’t like the Star Force food at first.”

“Or ever,” a Critel said from ahead of them in the loose line that had formed along the various foodstuff displays.

“What’s wrong with it?” Haley asked, staring up at the gangly alien and its X-shaped lips.

“It’s not food,” he said in perfect English, but with an accent she had never heard before. “It’s nutritional supplements. No sauces, no meat, no smokes. It’s edible, but beyond that I wouldn’t call it food.”

Haley glanced at the station the Critel was pulling a variety of items from, and to her eyes it all looked like normal foodstuffs, just a different variety from what she ate. The mashed potatoes they had were red, the rolls and other baked goods were the same as hers, as far as she could see, and there were small pockets that contained who knew what inside. It looked alright to her, but then again she didn’t know what Critel usually ate.

“You eat meat?”

“Used to before coming here,” he said with some disgust. “But some sacrifices had to be made.”

“Excuse me,” Arron interrupted. “Smokes?”

“Is that not the right word? Things you breathe in. Inhalants,” he said, switching to the trade language.

“We don’t breathe in food,” Arron said, intrigued.

“Well that certainly explains a few things,” the Critel said, adding a blue-tinted pocket to his plate. “I still don’t see why we have to eat Human-style food when most of the population here isn’t Human.”

“What was that about sacrifices?” Haley asked.

“I don’t know what got you here, being Human and all, but the rest of us had to make a lot of changes to be allowed to live here.”

“And why do you want to live here?” Arron said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Not for the food, that’s for sure,” the Critel said, adding one last item to his plate before giving the two Humans his full attention.

“Then why?” Haley wondered.

“One thing that Star Force knows how to do is business. I’m here to make credits.”

“And why can’t you do that outside of Axius?” Arron asked, hoping to get a line on another story.

“I can and have, but Axius is special. The rules don’t permit visitors, at least not yet. Not sure if that will change, but there’s also an embargo on outside goods. Nothing comes in except through Star Force, meaning everyone here has to buy from them or local vendors,” he said, tapping himself on the chest.

“A fresh market?”

“An unreachable market for my competition. Trouble is I have to rebuild everything here from scratch using a local workforce and supplies purchased from Star Force, but once I overcome those hurdles I’ll have dozens, if not hundreds of stores up and running, enough to make me rich enough to tolerate this food.”

“Why not make your own?” Haley asked.

“I’m not that kind of vendor, and most of the ingredients I’d need aren’t available here anyway. Most native foodstuffs require either meat, milk, eggs, or sperm…none of which Star Force will allow. Some races agree with them on part or all counts, but the Critel do not. As it is, I doubt I could do much better than what they serve here for free.”

“Sperm?” Haley asked, wondering if she’d heard right.

“Andolosian sperm is a very expensive seasoning.”

“Oh gross,” she said, holding a hand over her mouth. She’d never seen meat, and while that idea turned her stomach a bit she had smelled sperm, hence the ideas coming to mind of what it would taste like on her food.

“Seasoning?” Arron asked.

“Additions made to food. Similar to your icing paste, but in granulated form. With the consumer allowed to make whatever additions they want. That’s something Star Force is missing as well.”

Arron glanced back at the section that held pastries and the small bottles of icing that could be added on top, each of which held various nutrients and was color coded to know what you were getting. He’d always known it as simply ‘icing,’ with the word ‘seasoning’ not ringing a bell, making him wonder if the Critel had gotten the wrong word. His own knowledge of the trade language was limited, which was why he didn’t inquire further.

“What do you sell?” Haley asked as she stepped aside to let a short, rabbit-like creature move past, whereupon it climbed a mini staircase to get up to the platform that she’d just been sitting her tray on so that it could retrieve a stack of cookies on its own miniature version that was barely the size of her palm.

“A variety of things that Star Force doesn’t care to produce, mostly imitations of products unique to the various races. Things that they already know and use but can’t get here. Clothing, decorative pieces, grooming tools, knickknacks, custom electrons, software, games…whatever there’s a demand for. But all of which can be sold in package form, whereas foodstuffs would have to be served in store and fresh. That’s where I draw the line.”

“Interesting,” Arron commented as Haley started to geek out over how cute the little Urik’kadel was. “How many stores do you have at present?”

“None as of yet, but I’m renting three fabrication slots using the credits I brought with me. Star Force operates with a very low overhead. They barely charge anything on their leases, and there are no taxes whatsoever, with the promise that there will never be. I found that hard to believe until I investigated their other economic activities, but it seems they are very shrewd operators. How they manage a profit is a mystery I have yet to unlock, but with the vast amount of slots available, I’m going to sweep up as many as I can. Problem is the limited and unskilled workforce. I have found three employees thus far, and am in need of far more. I don’t suppose either of you have skills I could use?”

“I’m a writer and currently engaged with my own projects, but thank you for asking.”

The Critel looked down at Haley, who had finally turned her attention back to the conversation after the tiny alien had left with its plate full of cookies. “And you?”

“I’m new here, today actually. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, if anything.”

“That’s another interesting facet of the Axius colonies,” the Critel mewed. “Everywhere else that I’ve ever been or heard of, an individual has to work for themselves or a collective in order to survive. The fact that Star Force is welcoming in individuals to this colony without compensation and is willing to house, feed, and otherwise sustain them indefinitely  is a very odd occurrence…but one that I think will serve my business interests. I won’t have to worry about the welfare of my workers and can offer up as small of salaries as I like, so long as I can entice them to work for me. That will keep costs low, assuming that boredom and greed set in with the populace.”

“Greed?”

“Star Force may be odd, but I’ve found that they are not stupid. They give everyone what they need to survive and live well off of, as far as necessities are concerned, but they do not hand out luxuries. The want of more without the need of it is the essence of ‘greed’ and is what will drive the economy here. It’s a much more sanitized environment than I’ve traditionally worked in, and will present new challenges…but where there are challenges there is opportunity…and where there is opportunity there are credits to be made. So I will ask again, Human, do you have any skills that would be useful in my employ? Surely you have something of value, or you would not have been granted a place in this colony?”

“I’ve been through maturia training, but that’s it.”

“And what does that entail? As of yet this colony doesn’t have a maturia, but it will when the denizens begin to reproduce in sufficient numbers, I’m told. Are all Humans taken into this maturia?” he asked, looking at Arron.

“There are a few exceptions, but I’d say 99% are.”

“And what happens in one?”

Haley and Arron exchanged glances. “Well, it’s really a bit of everything,” he finally said. “Physical training, linguistics, math, science, history, games, fabrication, design…it pretty much gives you a base level of knowledge in everything, then once you graduate you can choose whether you move on to more advanced training or leave to join the general population.”

“As I just did,” Haley added.

“Do you speak the trade language?” the Critel asked.

“A bit,” she answered pithily.

“Would you care to earn a few credits?”

“Doing what?”

“I do not know, but having someone with a wide variety of skills will undoubtedly become useful as I build my corporation.”

Haley shrugged. “I’m not sure what to say. I just got here.”

“Take your time, Human. I am not in a rush. I have many people to recruit, it is true, but the bulk of my customers are not even here yet, so there is time. If you find yourself interested, seek me out. My name is Kasdema, and I have an administrative office in section 18. One of only a handful there, so I will not be hard to find. Between 02:00 and 06:00 every day.”

“That’s normally when I sleep,” she said offhand.

“Sleep cycles in this colony seem to be all over the chart, none the less, if you are interested I’m certain I could find a place for you in any timeslot. Good day, Humans,” he said politely, turning and walking off with his tray towards one of the more private tables in the pavilion-like lounge that made up the bulk of the cafeteria.

“First day here and offered a job?” Arron commented. “You certainly seem to be on the fast track.”

“Not sure I want one.”

“Could get you a bigger set of quarters.”

Haley considered that, never having had more than a small pod-like room to herself, with the ones here nearly identical to the ones on Ceres.

“I don’t know. Eat now, think later,” she said with a smile a she stepped over and grabbed a few cold carrot slices to add to her plate before the pair found themselves a table and proceeded to talk about a great many things.

5

June 21, 2521

Leil System (Zeta Region)

Zastdan

Cor’san and his fellow Scionate walked off their own transport, wearing their equipment satchels on their backs, as they met their welcoming committee…a Human ranger, the third tier of the Archons within Star Force’s military. He had been standing in his green armor on the edge of the landing pad when the Scionate transport landed and hadn’t moved since, with the 14 volunteers walking over to his position…all without their standard armor, for they’d been told it wouldn’t be used.

As soon as the Scionate departed the transport left, heading back up to a Star Force jumpship in orbit that had brought it and a few other non-Star Force vessels into the system as part of the ADZ transit network. While Cor’san knew that was strategic folly, many of the lesser races were utilizing the service that Star Force was beginning to provide in increasing numbers and focusing their resources on building smaller ships and infrastructure. That would only work so long as the Alliance defenses held out, and in truth would probably make better use of their lesser strength, though Cor’san and the other Scionate saw it as a mark of weakness.

Their transport had come through the ADZ network simply out of convenience. The Scionate had many jumpships, but for the purpose of transporting only 14 individuals it had been deemed a wasted trip, so they’d been shipped out via Star Force, though allowed to travel on their own vessel as a measure of pride…but from this point on everything would be Star Force, whether they liked it or not.

The Scionate volunteers walked up to the Archon, but he didn’t move or speak until all 14 of the quadrupeds were standing before him, with their heads coming up to his shoulder. There were many different sizes of Scionate, with all assembled here being the larger variety more suited to hand to hand combat, or in their case paws.

“Follow me,” the Archon said unceremoniously as he turned and led the group off the landing pad and into the spaceport. After a very short trip through security they were taken on a long walk through the colony, seeing dozens of different races inhabiting it, much as they’d been told would be the case.

Without a word, the Archon took them to their quarters, which were spread out in three different sections and each on different floors. Cor’san felt that was probably deliberate, but it didn’t matter. He was just glad that proper facilities had been built to accommodate Scionate, for the needs of quadrupeds differed greatly from those of the biped designers of the colony.

One by one they were given their quarters, allowed to drop off their satchels, and given a half hour to acclimate themselves. Cor’san was 5th in line, being left alone to inspect his small den. There was a single entry door, inside of which were two levels. The bottom level held a small secondary restroom and cleansing chamber with a door that opened into the small open area that contained a vid screen and cushioned reclining pedestal. Opposite the restroom door was a Scionate ladder climbing the right side wall, leading up to the second level of the den.

The ladder was a mix between rungs and stairs in a circular fashion that had his body wrapping around the central pole as he climbed…except there was no pole. Star Force had reworked their stairs to not include it, and Cor’san found it odd, but functional as he climbed up and slid into the low ceilinged top level.

It was dark until he pressed a paw against a panel on the wall, low to the floor, that turned on a series of amber light strips on the walls that revealed the shallow sleeping pit that Scionate favored. He examined the temperature controls, seeing that they were in English but otherwise structured in Scionate fashion, and set the device to his preferred setting so that it would be appropriately warm when he returned later.

Cor’san headed back down to the lower level and opened up the storage bins built into the walls and ceiling, seeing a satisfactory amount of volume despite the compact nature of the quarters. He didn’t bother unpacking, for he knew he had to rendezvous with the others shortly, so after a quick stop in the restroom and a reset to his quarters’ security code he headed out into the very large hallway and moved down to the intersection, following the route the Archon had instructed him to take.

Passing few others in the residential section, he met up with the other Scionate and waited for the last of them to arrive while the Archon stood passive once again. As soon as the last of them caught up they moved off through the unfamiliar geography of the colony to a training center where the group had exclusive access to a large chamber with nothing inside it except for padded walls and floor…and a control panel on the wall.

“I was told you all speak English,” the Archon began. “Is this true?”

“We speak your tongue,” one of the Scionate said, with Cor’san and the others having to have spent more than a year to grasp the basics of it…but it had been required prior to entry, which was one reason why there were so few volunteers. Others had been willing, but balked when they heard the traditional trade language would not be used, not wanting to learn a third tongue.

“How well remains the question, but you will learn in time. If there is something I say that you do not understand, it is best if you ask for clarification,” he said, removing his helmet and tossing it to the side. “First things first. You’re here to learn how to fight properly. That I will teach you, but I want to know why you are here and not in your own military. You first,” he said, pointing a finger at Cor’san.

“We are part of the Scionate military,” he said with a low growl, “but our worlds are not under assault and our leaders will not deploy us to the war zones. They want us as a defensive force. I want to fight our enemy before he gets to Scionate worlds. The same is true of all of us here.”

The Archon looked around as he continued to disconnect and peel off his armor. “Good. Now on to step two. You don’t think there’s all that much we can teach you,” he said, picking up on their thoughts, “and the training you’ll go through here is an annoyance that you’re willing to put up with in exchange for a chance to fight. Time to end that nonsense.”

The Archon stepped out of his boots and collapsed his armor down into a small wad that he then attached the helmet to, setting it aside underneath the control panel as he input the scenario he wanted. Suddenly wall compartments opened up and large objects came out, startling the Scionate as they floated into various positions, setting up 22 vertical pillars in a wide circle with plenty of space in between them.

“Your objective is simple,” the Archon said as he walked towards the arrangement. “Throw me outside the pillars. Organize yourselves and devote as many of you as you think it will take. Injuries are not the objective in our training, nor will they ever be. Your objective is to move me, my objective is to stay inside. Am I clear?”

“What is ‘clear?’” one of the Scionate asked.

“In this context it means ‘do you fully understand me.’”

“We understand.”

“Good. Once I reach center you may begin.”

Cor’san and the others exchange glances. Despite their reputation, the Archons were puny. This one massed less than half of what they did, and while well-muscled, it didn’t look like it would require more than two of them to remove, giving the Human the benefit of the doubt. To that end one of the others stepped forward alone and dropped into a reduced height stance as it crept forward into the circle as the Archon made it to center and turned around, starting to move a bit in response to Hra’ton’s approach.

The Scionate began with a simple jump lunge, reaching up into the air and coming down on the Archon with his front paws…but the Human deftly moved to the side and the Scionate missed cleanly. They both reset, getting a couple of meters between them, then Hra’ton jumped at him again, this time without the arc up.

With almost a comedic grace, the Archon reached out and placed a hand on his head, pushing it down as the Human rolled across the Scionate’s back and stepped off behind him…again avoiding the attack.

“You are quick, Human,” Hra’ton said as he turned around.

“It will take more than one of you to have a chance of moving me,” the Archon taunted. “Far more than one.”

“We will see,” the Scionate said, upping his game and coming at the Archon with a serious attempt, combining several movements that were meant to disguise his true angle. He nearly got hold of the Archon’s arm in his mouth, going for a hold rather than a bite, but the Archon slipped aside at the last moment, causing him to miss.

Then the next thing he knew he had a foot in his side and he was flipping over through the air as the Archon bodily threw him across the circle. Hra’ton flipped over midair and fell onto all fours, looking back at the Human and wondering how he had the strength to lift him.

“Come on, guys. This isn’t even hard,” the Archon said, waving the others forward.

Cor’san stepped up next to Hra’ton and the pair exchanged a few words in their native language. From there they split and got on either side of the Archon before moving towards him in a flash of motion. Cor’san swiped his front left paw at the Human’s thick leg while Hra’ton jumped to his head as a distraction. Cor’san got a light grip on the leg, then felt it go limp as the Archon moved it in the direction he was swiping.

Then his paw got pinned under the Human as it dropped down to the ground, causing Hra’ton to fly over his body and land next to Cor’san, missing him by a few inches…but the Archon held onto his paw and reached forward, getting an arm around his neck. Suddenly Cor’san was yanked to the side…then the Archon vanished.

Out of view the Human passed over Cor’san’s back and jumpkicked into Hra’ton’s side, knocking him down as the Human backed out from the two as they quickly recovered and got to their feet.

“I could do this all day,” the Archon mocked, “but for your sake let’s skip to the end. All of you come at me at once. You need to know how powerful I am.”

The Human waved at the others with both arms. “Come on, get in here. I’m serious.”

“You are quick, Human,” Hra’ton said, “but we won’t need all of us.”

“You won’t be able to with all of you,” the Archon responded. “But I need all of you in here and trying to prove a point.”

“As you wish,” Cor’san said, gesturing to the others just before he ran towards the Archon again. This time the Human didn’t move, and the two bodily met each other. Paws and fists flew, but Cor’san found himself without breath as the Archon palm-punched into his ribs several times. He got in at least one good swat, claws withheld, and knocked the Human aside just before he felt himself get tripped and go down.

By the time he got back up he saw the Human in the midst of the others, hitting them in very deliberate and odd ways. Most bipeds used their fists as weapons, but this one didn’t. He most certainly used his arms, but it was the side of his hands, his forearms and elbows, shoulders, head…he was using just about everything but his fists and knocking down the Scionate left and right.

That shot a bolt of adrenaline into the pack, and they no longer held back, feeling the light stings of his hits. They didn’t go for claws or bites, but they were going to knock him down and out of the circle without the restriction they had been planning on using. With that energy surging through them they started circling and lunging in coordination with one another, starting to make hits while being taken down time and again, then just as it seemed they were about to get the upper hand Cor’san’s head went dizzy and he fell.

He shook it off a moment later, only to stand up and have it happen again. His body seemed to betray him and he toppled over, smashing his muzzle into the lightly padded floor.

When it stopped he lifted his face up, but didn’t try to attack…which was when he noticed the others in the same position, all on the floor looking up at the Archon in the center.

“I love that look,” a voice said from outside the ring as another Scionate approached, this one wearing a distinctly Star Force uniform. “But they didn’t do poorly.”

“No they didn’t,” the Archon agreed as the other Scionate walked inside the circle.

“I am Ske’ro’ta,” the slightly smaller Scionate said, using a three syllable name that shocked Cor’san and the others almost as much as their mysterious ailment. “I am a Star Force Scionate, born amongst your previous worlds and unwanted, then given to them as an orphan. I spent my previous few years of life on a Nexus world, learning their ways and becoming one of them. Like you I want to fight our common enemy, but here you will not be able to maintain your previous identity. While you may keep your names, everything else has to change.”

“What you just witnessed,” Ske’ro’ta continued as he paced around the perimeter of the others, who remained sitting or standing as they listened, still wide-eyed, “is a secret known to only a few. The power of the Archons is not a myth. They are far stronger than even the rumors say, and as you felt first hand, they have special abilities. Not all Humans do, and the younger Archons don’t attain them until later on in their development, but what just happened to you, after getting your asses kicked in hand to hand, was a disruptive energy field that causes your nervous systems to malfunction, equivalent to white static in technological combat.”

“He generates it biologically, and as you have already noticed, it gives him a significant combat advantage. Do not underestimate their power, skill, or drive. They are your superiors, and from them you can learn much, but if you are to become a part of Axius then you must willingly become part of Star Force, because they are one and the same. The Alliance Defense Force is not a cooperation between the races, we are a single entity and you must join us. I will admit it is far easier for me and the other orphans. We were unwanted and discarded, but we have been trained from birth, and as such we have a head start on you.”

“It is true we have not seen combat, I will grant you that, but there is much we will help you learn and you will help us. But above all, we learn from him,” the Scionate said, gesturing towards the Archon with a flip of his head. “He is your master now. Treat him with respect, for he possesses powers that our enemies cannot contend with, nor can we. They will protect the ADZ, and perhaps even defeat the lizards in time…yes, that’s what we call the Cajdital here. But there are too few Archons to fight alone. Their numbers will never rise high enough, for they are the elite of their race. It is up to us and others to fight alongside them. They lead, we follow, and together we will prevail.”

“You will be the first ADF Scionate in this colony, but there will be more to come in time. We will learn to work with other races, combining their strengths with our own and covering for their weaknesses, as they will cover for ours. How this will all work out is unknown, for we are building the ADF at present. What it will eventually become is uncertain, but you can be assured that if we contribute what we are able, they will find a way to make the most use of us.”

Ske’ro’ta bowed his head to the Archon respectfully, then kicked one of the other Scionate that was still lying on the ground. “Get up. This is not a time for rest.”

“No, it is not,” the Archon agreed, letting his guard down as he sensed the Scionate were no longer eyeing him for a takedown. “We are all warriors here, so let us dispense with the civilities that many races have when dealing with others, Scionate included. You came here to fight, and you will, but first we must build an army. You are among the first. The example you lay down, others will follow, just as you will learn from Ske’ro’ta. Others will hear of what you do here and more volunteers will come. Younglings will be born in this colony and join. More Nexus individuals will come to us. All will remake themselves into ADF troops…or they won’t.”

“You will combine with us or go a separate way. If you want to remain Scionate military, then the Scionate military is where you belong…not here. When I give orders they are to be obeyed, not because they are orders, but because I know better than you. Compliance isn’t about position, it’s about wisdom and who is right. As we build the ADF, if you have suggestions then speak them. If you spot problems, speak them. This is a team effort, and while you have much to learn, you are quadrupeds. I am a biped. There are things you will know that I will not. We share, we learn, we rise together. Clear?”

“Is that why you didn’t want us to bring our armor?” one of the Scionate asked.

“You will receive new armor,” Ske’ro’ta answered. “Better armor, when you have earned it. ADF armor.”

“How did you do that to us?” Cor’san asked the Archon.

“Which part?” he asked, knowing what he meant, but he needed to teach them to be specific.

“The part where I lost control of my body and fell.”

The Archon nodded. “It is called Fornax. I can direct it against a single individual or release it in a limited radius to affect all that are near. My strength is limited, so I cannot hold the effect for long, but I can repeat it numerous times. Would you like another demonstration?”

“Yes,” another Scionate said, standing to his full height.

“Ready yourself,” the Archon warned. “I will hit you with a weakened version. If you focus you should be able to remain standing.”

The Scionate clenched up. “I am ready.”

The Archon stared at the cat-like alien and held the gaze…then it shook on all fours and collapsed to its knees, but fell no further.

“Good. You handled that well.”

“I do not like that,” the Scionate said.

“Nor do I,” the ranger admitted. “The others can do it to me as well, but I have learned how to minimize it. We face two very different enemies, three if you count the Nestafar. How we fight them has to be based on learning where we are weak and adapting. As unappealing as it is to be hit with a Fornax blast, I am rather used to it now, and when sparring with another Archon it is simply one means of attack out of many. We learn, we advance. Those who do not learn, will lose, and I will beat that lesson into you if I must.”

“What other powers do you possess?” Cor’san asked.

The Archon smiled. “A few, but for today your lesson is over. Now it is time for you to teach me. This room can be configured into many arrangements, including obstacles courses. Scionate are supposed to be faster than Humans, and I like a challenge. Let’s compare your speed to mine, shall we?”

Ske’ro’ta ran off over to the wall and adjusted the control panel with a claw tip, sending the pillars back up into the air and bringing out a lot more of various sizes, all of which lowered to the ground save for where the others stood. Those pieces waited in the air for them to move aside to the start area, then they settled down into position.

“I will go first,” Ske’ro’ta said. “You will watch and learn, then you will go in groups of three. The computer will record your progress and times. The Archon will go in the fourth group along with two of you. For the sake of our race’s pride, you had better beat him.”

With that little barb Ske’ro’ta toed the start line and pressed the start button with his chin, which started a three tone countdown, after which he was off.

The Scionate lined up in groups of three, with the Archon settling into the fourth row, one spot ahead of Cor’san as they all watched their fellow Scionate so they knew how to move through the course, despite the fact that it was fairly obvious, after which the first trio went, with the others following and watching, attempting to beat each other’s times.

When the Archon went Cor’san was relieved to see that he couldn’t keep up with the Scionate on the running segments, though he did pull back a bit moving through some of the obstacles…and he did appear to be trying, for he was scurrying about in a blur, with his reflexes showing to be considerably better than theirs…but overall he was the slower, so when Cor’san took off he found his mind back on firm ground. The Human might be powerful…far more powerful than he could have imagined. Scarily so. But as he had said, each race had advantages and disadvantages. Running was theirs, and it felt good to be able to defeat him in this.

When Cor’san had arrived an hour ago, he had felt superior amongst the other races, then when he’d been taken down by the Archon’s invisible attack he’d felt inferior. Now he felt on equal standing, with the inkling that the coming days of training were going to be far more interesting than he and the others had expected. The idea of becoming ADF troops didn’t seem like a procedural hurdle anymore. It felt like a very powerful team he was joining, and with his pride kicking in he felt like adding to it where he was able…and that was a sentiment the others would share as well in the coming days.

6

December 1, 2521

Kentir System (Epsilon Region)

Pollus

Chitticki woke up to his alarm, a rhythmic booming that continued to get louder until it cut out, then it began to repeat again, soft at first, until he crawled out of his sleeping tube and hit the off button. The Irondel yawned and stretched out his four legs, curling his back up into a ball then twitching all his muscles loose, finding he was still sore from yesterday’s training.

He walked over to his vid screen and input a few commands onto his keyboard, bringing up the most recent statistics from the ongoing competition and finding a few changes having occurred over the past 10 hours as he slept. Beta regiment had notched up another pair of challenge victories, catching them up to within 6 points of Epsilon, which had the overall lead in their ADF training. Chitticki was a member of Alpha regiment, which was last out of the 5 groups, but not too far behind the others…and every month that passed brought them closer to their first level of graduation.

Which was what he was working towards. The competition was just extra motivation.

He flipped off the screen and moved into the small restroom in his quarters, relieving himself before crossing to the bathing chamber and giving himself a good roll in the dust basin before getting dressed. After he stepped into the air tube to remove the lingering dust, he pulled out a fresh uniform and slipped it on, then headed out the door and down the hallway tube in his quarters complex.

When he got to the main road the tube ended and the massive walkway opened up, rising some 30+ times his height as he ran off along one of the pathways, keeping to the side as a few of the large Urik’kadel passed, not wanting to get run over. They were big brutes, but much faster than the Irondel…and they tended to want to run everywhere, which was why Chitticki kept to the side to give them plenty of room, despite the fact that the road was wide enough for more than a dozen of them to stand side by side.

Chitticki fell in behind another Irondel, watching his neighbor move forward with the distinctive hop/lurch that they used when they wanted to cover distance without running. True walking was too slow in a colony of this size, with the Irondel being the smallest denizen…and the Humans being the largest. He didn’t see any of the giants out and about today, but then again they never came to these areas unless there was a problem, preferring to keep to their own quarters and the communal areas.

As Chitticki progressed through the colony he came down a level, preferring to use the stairs than wait on an elevator…which was also a matter of pride, given that he was part of the ADF rather than just a random citizen. When he got to the next level he scurried off across the street, dodging a Gnar in its envirosuit, and got to the far side where he followed a narrow strip of street meant specifically for the Irondel, so the larger races could avoid stepping on them.

That was no small threat, which was why usually the Irondel didn’t cohabitate with other races, but the Humans had designed this colony to service their integration and so far in the 3 years that it had been operational there hadn’t been a fatality, partly due to the fact that races larger than the Humans weren’t permitted to live on Pollus, just as Irondel weren’t permitted to live in other Axius colonies.

Chitticki hurried along, not fully running, and passed through a tunnel in the wall while the bigger denizens went through an archway. On the far side he took a shortcut through another wall, turning left and arriving at the cafeteria and running up a plank to get him up to food level. He grabbed a tray and set it on a conveyor, nudging it along in quadruped mode because he didn’t feel like carrying it. Irondel could move on two or four legs as they chose, but carrying the stupid plate made walking awkward, so he just moved it along and put on his breakfast ‘pebbles’ as the other denizens referred to them, given that the smaller races had to have special portions made for them.

Save for some things. The mashed potatoes he especially liked, and he scooped out a lop onto his tray from their basin. Going up and getting some out of the main one was doable, but the last thing he wanted was to fall into it as one of his friends had done a year ago after first arriving. They’d ridiculed him for that ever since, and Chitticki knew it had taken him days to get the food out of his fur. Irondel didn’t like water, for bathing anyway, and it’d taken numerous dust baths to get the potatoes out.

Knowing not to load himself up with too much, Chitticki finished his gathering and pushed his tray along to the end of the conveyor, then picked it up and transferred it to another one that he walked out to a series of tables. He pulled it off and sat on the soft floor, nibbling away his breakfast until he was finished. Afterwards he left for the training areas, meeting up with a few hundred other Irondel for some running laps.

Their track was 100 meters long, with multiple lanes and pacing holos. Chitticki used the control pedestals and activated one for himself in the 18th lane and got going, having to pass only two others also in his lane as his marker overtook theirs. As was traditional, he got a good, long workout in, making his 16 laps/mile in 12:42. Afterwards he pulled off to the side, thoroughly gassed but looking none the worse for it. Irondel didn’t sweat like other races did, instead using their fur as heat dissipaters with varying intensities.

He shook himself once, forcing the heat out his hairs like he was pushing water out a plethora of tiny tubes, and cooled himself with the single effort. He was still breathing hard, but not as hard as he once had been. He’d gotten considerably fitter since arriving here, more so than he’d ever thought possible…leaving him with plenty of energy for his combat training.

He left the other Irondel to their running, moving to nearby chambers where he put in a half hour of hand to hand exercises before reporting to the infantry bay along with the other members of his regiment.

The bay was tall…more than twice the height of a Human, and filled with niches that held the minimechs Star Force had designed for them. Normally Irondel were useless in ground combat against other races, but no longer. Chitticki and the other volunteers were now riding mechanical steeds into combat, and training against Archons no less.

When he got into the bay Chitticki went straight for the nearest ‘Neite,’ as the Humans called them. They’d designed two varieties, one a biped auto-walker that Chitticki could drive by controls in the cockpit, and one quadruped that linked up to his actual body movements. Few Irondel had mastered those controls, making Chitticki ahead of the others in Alpha regiment. About one of every five minimechs in the bay were neites, so he didn’t have to travel far around the edge walkway before he came to one.

Taking to the ladder he climbed up to the top platform and entered through the back of the quadruped. Though the mech had a head, the cockpit was located in the body just beneath the neck, giving it the most mass around it in a defense perimeter in addition to the armor shell that he now stood within. Chitticki closed the door and triggered the armor covering to seal him in, then he got hooked up to the harness and powered up the minimech.

Tired as he was from running, working the neite around wasn’t a big deal. The machine couldn’t move as fast as he could, so he was always having to move his muscles slowly. The attachments to his body pretty much moved themselves, even though they looked heavy. All in all it was a cool way to drive the minimech, but that wasn’t why it had been developed.

With the holographic displays now surrounding him, Chitticki walked his neite out of its slot in the bay and headed towards the main doors, careful to make sure no one was out on the floor to step on. When he got into the clear he saw a lot of other minimechs out in a huge chamber, along with multiple suits of armor that belonged to an Archon and several other Humans, which they referred to as ‘commandos,’ plus there were three enormous ‘knights’ that stood taller than the biped mechs, which were little more than walking turrets.

They had no arms and backward-canted legs, with all maneuvering being done by the onboard computer while the pilot drove the mech around. Chitticki was quite familiar with their design and function, having piloted them for a long time before trying the neite in simulators and eventually qualifying to pilot the real thing. Today was just a training day, no challenges to be had for him, so he got up to speed and ran his minimech across the open area with a hop/lurch that somewhat mimicked his own body movements, but was otherwise lethargic.

He stopped short of the Archon in his silver armor and waited to be given instructions. From his position he had to look up, being about equal in height to the Human’s elbows, though if he wanted he could stand the neite up on its rear legs and get over his head…but it wasn’t designed well enough to operate that way for long, making it a truly quadruped mech, whereas Chitticki himself was bodily capable of both ‘modes.’

Future design modifications were promised to give the neite that ability, for after all, the Humans had designed it for hand to hand combat so he could protect the ‘chicken walkers’ as they handed out the majority of the weaponsfire. They were easy to tip over, and with no arms they didn’t have much more than their mass to use when an opponent got close…and the Archon had himself and the other Humans exploiting that opportunity as often as possible to teach the Irondel how to compensate for the disadvantage.

Chitticki had more options in his neite, but less weapons…all of which were non-lethal variants here in training. In the head of his neite he had a stinger weapon that fired little balls of paint laced with stun energy…but that was all, and he had a limited supply of shots. After that all he had to work with was his mechanical paws, but then again, that was what the neite had been designed for.

The Archon assigned him and two other neites to an area of the training deck that held variable terrain, where they ran through a series of obstacle courses for time before eventually getting into a training fight, whereupon he was paired up with four chicken walkers against two commandos in a series of maze-like barricades that the Humans immediately took to, disappearing from view.

“Chitticki, how do you want to play this?” one of his Irondel teammates asked.

“If you go in there you’re an easy takedown. I’ll go in and flush them out. Stay here.”

“They won’t come out.”

“We’ll see,” he said, lopping off to one of the entrances. He snaked his head to the left and went inside, knowing that to take him down the Humans would have to eliminate the chicken walkers. He was the escort, so there was no way to disable him…but the chicken walkers were being monitored, and every time they got knocked down to the floor Chitticki’s team lost a point. Lose ten and the drill was over.

Meaning that he was free to go after the Humans without penalty…which is exactly what he did. He knew they wanted the Irondel to come to them, and they weren’t going to take the bait this time. If they wanted to take down the chicken walkers they’d have to come out in the open, meanwhile he’d hunt them in the maze.

Or so he thought. Almost as soon as he entered the first mini hallway that led to the right he heard weaponsfire from outside, coming from the chicken walkers, only to find that one of the commandos had gone up over the maze walls and into view, whereupon he came down on top of the neite and knocked it to the ground.

Chitticki had all four of his legs go wide as he was smashed flat, then he heard three hard taps on the outer shell of the minimech as the Human punched its back in a rhythmic insult before jumping off and running away.

“Stupid giant,” he grumbled, getting the minimech’s feet back underneath himself as he heard comm calls from the others. By the time the Irondel got back outside he saw all four chicken walkers tipped over on their sides and the two Humans fist bumping each other as they retreated to the cover of the maze without a spot of paint on them.

Chitticki opened his minimech’s mouth and shot three stingers at them, hitting with only one but succeeding in giving one of the Human’s a limp before he disappeared from view.

“Curse them,” Chitticki complained as the chicken walkers pulled their legs up underneath themselves and wiggled into an upright position that they then stood up from. He’d planned to be the hunter, but then had become the hunted.

“I think we have to go in after them.”

“I know,” Chitticki complained. “Follow me in.”

In another section of the colony an Irondel by the name of Lissicki showed up for his daily training, already having run a half mile on their track and eaten breakfast, whereupon he entered the pilots lounge with a group of Humans, Urik’kadel, a Gnar, and a Densan. Almost all of them were Urik’kadel, for their race seemed to have an inordinate number of good pilots, and Lissicki was proud to be amongst them…and as an equal, for they all flew the Axius Valerie.

After a brief meeting they headed for the hangar and boarded their individual fighters. They couldn’t share, given the different biological needs, but Lissicki had the distinction of piloting the most heavily armored fighter of them all…for the simple fact that he required the smallest cockpit, and the extra space had been reinforced with additional armor, meaning that if he was shot down, or crashed on his own, his survival was almost guaranteed…which he greatly appreciated.

When he got to the hangar he climbed up the ladder and onto the fighter, using built in steps to finally get to the cockpit entrance, which was little more than a small hole in the port side. He crawled through it until he met up with three more tunnels. Two were to other exterior entrance points, with the third being the route down into the cockpit.

Once he was inside he hit a button and the fighter scanned the entry tunnels. Confirming that there was nothing inside, their walls collapsed until they became solid armor, sealing Lissicki in. He got into his pilot’s couch and powered up the Valerie, then floated it out of the hangar on anti-grav and accelerated up into the planet’s thick atmosphere. With so many people moving into the spinward half of the ADZ, most of the best planets had already been taken, but with Pollus being located in the anti-spinward half, the Axius colony had pretty much had its pick, giving Lissicki and the other pilots a gem of a world to practice maneuvers on.

Once in the air the differences in their biology no longer mattered, and Lissicki was just as ‘big’ as the other pilots, all of whom were trying to learn the delicate operations of their Valeries in order to pass their qualification tests. So far only two had, both being Urik’kadel, but that wasn’t enough to build a unit around, so they were still training with the rest of them under Human direction, working towards the day when they’d get to take the fight to the enemy…which would come soon for the pilots. Little did Lissicki know, but barely 8 months later he and a group of the others would be leaving for the warfront to support the Protovic as they repelled the withering Skarron invasions.

So many Protovic worlds were getting reinforced with Sentinel defense platforms and newly built Protovic warships that the enemy was losing the few worlds that it had taken. They weren’t going quietly, making the Protovic and Humans work for every square kilometer of territory they had to retake and beginning new invasions on less protected worlds…some that were Protovic and many others that were not.

Lissicki and his squadron, the first ADF squadron to go into combat, would help the local Protovic and Star Force fighters clean up infantry on the planet of Chodrar, which in itself would take years to accomplish with the Skarrons reinforcing the ground troops regularly. He and his squadron wouldn’t go near the Skarron walkers, but would be used to help mop up the ‘easy’ ground targets, freeing up the veteran pilots for more dangerous missions and giving Axius its first taste of combat.

With news of their contribution to the warfront…as well as their success and unique combination of races with access to Star Force technology, the volunteer applications to the ADF and the Axius civilian population swelled, with many more colonies being constructed to absorb the inflow of those qualifying for the program, as well as expanding those that already existed, using resources harvested and produced by Axius rather than putting a drain on other parts of Star Force.

The snowball that Davis had started took a while to get rolling, but once it did it continually gained speed and prestige, quickly becoming the ‘it’ section of the ADZ where everyone wanted a piece of the action, forcing those individuals to train for and accept the Axius ways, including English, and creating a new Alliance society and culture that flew directly in the face of some of those on the Alliance worlds, starting a true philosophical war amongst the various races as they saw their own kind converting over to the Star Force way of life, whereas before they’d merely put up with the Humans as a generous landlord.

With the tiny prick of the ADZ population that Axius held being a light shining on the dark cultures of some of the Alliance races, it became clear to all those who hadn’t previously figured it out, that Star Force was going to assert itself as a dominant player within the Alliance, and not just due to its being able to hand out territory allotments. They were attempting to remake the interracial Alliance relations as they saw fit, and it appeared that the Hycre and Protovic were willing to let them do it.

That did not go over well, and set off a social civil war, fought through economics, population, and propaganda.

Fortunately Star Force had the greatest social warrior on their side, and it was deeply ironic that most of the non-Humans would never even know Davis’s name.

7

May 19, 2532

Shveda System (Zeta Region)

Wiox (Alliance World)

The jumpship A392 decelerated against Wiox’s gravity, arriving over the world that contained the standard 8 regions, two of which belonged to the Reen, two to the Gnar, and one each for the Ansp, Nabboni, Prasx, and Etti. It was a Star Force vessel, part of the ADZ transit network that had been set up to facilitate movement between the Alliance worlds and the few racial territories that had been allowed within the region. Those amounted to four, being the Scionate, Dvapp, Hycre, and Lacvamat.

The Hycre kept to themselves, given the biological differences, so there wasn’t much traffic to and from their worlds. The Dvapp were in a similar situation, except that they preferred to be left alone and traded exclusively with Star Force, using them as a medium to link in to the Alliance. The Scionate and Lacvamat were well connected, each with some original Alliance World slots that provided them with ‘neighbors’ to interact with, but they also opened up their own territories to commerce and foreign relations, seeking to exert their influence over the Alliance community as major players.

In addition to the four races given permission to establish their own, independent territories within the ADZ, there were more indigenous races that had been welcomed into the Alliance. Some had chosen to have nothing to do with outsiders, but those that did also now had a position on the transit network. Their traffic levels were variable, but they were yet more players in the ever growing ‘game’ that the ADZ political situation was developing into…with more and more refugees pouring in as both the lizards and the Skarrons continued their conquests, driving off those they would not or could not kill.

Those fortunate enough to flee in the direction of the ADZ were welcomed in by Star Force, so long as they agreed to a code of conduct. Many came in small numbers, while others moved as united factions or entire races once the word spread that there was sanctuary to be had. Wiox was the 17th Alliance world to be colonized, with far more than that now in existence. The planet was lifeless on its own accord, with Star Force having established its usual ring of colonies separating the 8 regions and facilitating their development through the availability of their resource and service markets.

The A392 was carrying both passengers and cargo to be deposited on the planet, as well as the neighboring two in the system. Star Force didn’t have a full colony world of their own insystem, but they did have the scattering of surface colonies on all three, orbital facilities, and mining sites throughout the other planets that they used to funnel resources to the ‘client’ races.

Laying claim to all systems in the ADZ, Star Force didn’t permit the Alliance races from expanding to nearby worlds without their permission, with the Hycre and Protovic backing them up on that. The Protovic already had their own territory on the edge of the ADZ that Star Force had no part of, and the Hycre likewise had worlds throughout the ADZ that had predated its inception.

That had created friction as well, for it seemed Star Force would let the Hycre continue to expand as it pleased, though it was also argued that since they colonized gas giants where the other races could not there was no reason to limit their expansion…yet as far as mining rights were concerned, they also got special treatment.

The Calavari also backed Star Force, but for most purposes didn’t interact with the other races. As far as they were concerned they now were Star Force, so they let the Humans handle most of their Alliance affairs while they concentrated their efforts on the warfront. The lizard excursion forces had finally started to probe the new Calavari borders, with the promise of heavier fighting coming in the near future. Right now there was a bit of a land grab going on between the two as the Calavari secured a handful of additional systems around them, both to deny them to the enemy and to give them room to expand as more of their now growing population coming off of HTC wanted to stake out a claim.

They had enough room on their current systems, but knowing what was coming their way and out of a sense of sentimentality they wanted to retake a few of their old worlds before digging in. That would provide them room to grow later, which was why the Archons were onboard with it, despite the fact that those new worlds would require even more Sentinels to defend.

That left the once great Calavari race squarely in Star Force’s pocket, and two of the five founding members of the original Alliance backing the Humans. That kept most of the dissenters suppressed, but Star Force’s unwillingness to budge on any of its stipulations created an enormous amount of animosity amongst the races with cultures that ran counter to Star Force philosophy.

Those cultures kept to their own territory slots, only marginally restricted by the terms of colonization that were agreed upon before they had been permitted into the ADZ, but in order to operate elsewhere in the Alliance additional restrictions and requirements were added. This meant that if you wanted to become a more predominant member of the Alliance you had to take to Star Force’s ways…if not, you had to keep to yourself and leave your fate in others’ hands.

The only exceptions to this were the systems where Star Force had no reigns. The Scionate and Lacvamat had been given systems rather than planets, meaning that aside from a handful of shared systems that Star Force used to keep a resource and transit link to them, those races had the privacy to expand as much as they sought within those systems…and invite others in as they so chose.

Travel, while now mostly facilitated by the ADZ transit network, was not restricted. If you had a jumpship you could move almost anywhere within the ADZ and come and go from it as you chose. This freedom saw many races with political and economic ties outside the ADZ on worlds yet to be challenged by the lizards or Skarrons…though they weren’t the only predators roaming about, for many other belligerent races were taking advantage of the chaotic situation and making assaults on more local levels that escaped public view aside from the stories passed on by travelers.

Outside the ADZ Star Force’s rules didn’t apply, and the ‘kids’ went out there to play and let off steam while the more patient ones stayed inside the protected borders and planned out their rise to prominence. There were many players, but one of the most determined amongst them were the Reen. They utilized the transit network and Star Force markets heavily, intent on building their way to dominance as they took the territory slots they’d been given and crammed as much infrastructure into them as they could afford.

They did this to facilitate their population, which had mostly evacuated prior to the lizard invasion of their now forfeited worlds, as they pressed their reproduction capacity to its logistical limits all the while searching out more Reen beyond the ADZ. Their race hadn’t been confined to a specific territory, but had spread out across a very wide region that went more coreward and spinward of the original Calavari territory. When the lizard front inevitably came into contact with them many fled in those directions, either in a coordinated way or on their own.

Now those populations were being sought out by Reen scout ships, which they were busy building by the dozens, as they traveled far outside the ADZ to spread the word of a safe haven and the need for numbers to increase their stature amongst the Alliance.

So it wasn’t surprising that when the A392 entered planetary orbit that it decelerated near to a large fleet of old Reen jumpships in the process of sending dropships down to their two territorial regions on the world. Their green-hulled scarabs were visible throughout the spinward bulk of the ADZ, moving to and fro as they brought refugees in and went back out in search of more, invariably bringing back more ships with them that added to the retrieval fleet they’d mustered.

That fleet was taking more than 2 years round trip in some cases, and was staggered so that Reen jumpships were a common sight amongst the Alliance, while their warship count amounted to a big fat ZERO…so far as defense fleets went. The warships they had were part of the retrieval fleet, having been restructured to haul a few additional passengers as well as to protect their civilian ships, both of which nestled up into their moderately-sized jumpships and now, for the sake of expedient transit, were disengaged from them so they could open up their individual landing bays and begin the mass exodus down to the surface.

And yet more Reen were aboard the A392, having purchased passage on another Alliance world where the retrieval fleet had dropped them off, with their government feeling that was more economically viable than delaying their own ships from heading back out again immediately. The Reen were a common sight onboard the Human-built Alliance jumpships that facilitated all the races, yet still belonged to Star Force. Their large size had been accommodated into the design, given that they were the second largest race in the Alliance, biologically speaking, after the Ikrotor.

The six-legged bluish/green giraffes were larger than the Skarrons but could hunch down and walk on their spider-like legs at low height, curling their necks low like a snake and allowing them to move through walkways and rooms that a lot of other races used, but that wasn’t an issue onboard the Alliance jumpships, for the main areas had plenty of ceiling height.

That said, with so many Reen onboard space became tight when they wanted to get out and about in the communal areas, but the crew and passengers had managed well enough. They did require larger dropships to debark upon, but most of the passengers onboard Alliance jumpships didn’t head straight to the surface. Instead they got off onto a starport that the jumpship actually linked to directly using an umbilical. That was uncommon, with the umbilicals usually reserved for emergency situations, but it had become a common enough practice with the Alliance jumpships as they found it was easier to move the Reen and other large species directly rather than sending wave after wave of jumpships across…so long as you had a good pilot to null out the drift.

Fortunately the starport was bigger than the jumpship, which also had carried a few other races’ ships inside it, now releasing them out into the system save for two that were moving on to the next stop. More ships would be hopping on for the ride out, as well as more passengers boarding, with the jumpship sticking around a few days and a second coming in before it left. As was usual, there was at least 1 insystem at all times, with certain transit routes landing five or six there simultaneously, making a lingering connection to the rest of the Alliance and an opportunity for quick departure…should you have the credits.

And it was Star Force credits that ruled the ADZ, not by the choice of the denizens, but for the fact that Star Force markets accounted for over 90% of all natural resources being consumed. Some races chose to live the self-sufficient lifestyle, but those that did saw small growth as their own industries proved inadequate to match the pace of what the markets provided, meaning that for those races vying for position, they had to deal with the Star Force markets, which only dealt in credits and raw materials, making the other races’ currency pointless outside their own colonies.

Add in that Star Force maintained fair prices and didn’t engage in gouging, and you had people actually wanting to do business with them rather than their own governments. And when they wanted to trade with Star Force they needed credits, not local currency, so they put pressure on the resistant governments to switch over to full Star Force currency…which many eventually did, though there was a considerable lag in getting the actual currency in their hands/claws/tentacles because Star Force didn’t hand it out generously.

Physical credits were still used commonly in local areas, but most transactions occurred electronically, but because Star Force wouldn’t accept other currencies it had become quite the chore for a race to switch over completely…with those that did finally achieving it through a massive game of shuffling resources, ending up with an economic boom that further encouraged others to make the switch.

The Hycre and Protovic did not, for they dealt with Star Force on their own terms, with private trade deals off the public markets. That also was a point of complaint, with it making it clear who the major drivers in the Alliance were. The Big 3, as they came to be called, were the foundation upon which all the other races built their renewed empires. Star Force was the economy, the Hycre were the navy warding off the Cajdital, and the Protovic were the army holding back the Skarrons.

That wasn’t the full truth of the situation, but that’s what the ADZ populations came to think of them regardless. Those contributing to the fighting on the fronts knew better, with the Protovic fielding a huge, well-equipped navy and Star Force being the key to everything, despite their small size. The Calavari were seen as an anomaly, with the public unsure where they fit in, and reduced to a pair of points on the perimeter, their once massive military now reduced to scraps. With their deliberate seclusion from ADZ affairs, most people forgot about them entirely, with their focus going solely to the Big 3.

The Hycre were the Hycre, virtually untouchable and alien, not having a huge influence in Alliance affairs save for where they wanted to. Most things that concerned ground-pounders didn’t affect them, so there was a disconnect there. The Protovic had their territory intact on the edge of the ADZ, with the Skarrons having been pushed out and them resorting to hitting weaker targets, some well inside the Protovic border before they were quickly met and repulsed by a combined fleet.

Further incursions continued as the Skarrons probed the ADZ, with even a Scionate world getting hit, reminding everyone of the danger and the fact that there was no ‘wall’ to hide behind. Still, the Protovic were distant from the Alliance Worlds and mostly unconnected to them, socially and economically.

That left Star Force as the only big power on the ‘inside’ that the other races had to contend with. The Reen more than others had been pushing for some level of peerdom, and as a result had received more territorial slots than others, proving that they could and would make good use of them, as well as bringing in a lot more people from outside the ADZ, increasing their need for more territory.

Others had seen this as well and were trying to outgrow their neighbors in terms of population, but Star Force hadn’t given in to that tactic entirely, favoring those who built wisely as opposed to those who scattered their territory slots with sparse infrastructure to fill it up quickly then demand more. Star Force insured they had what they needed, but they weren’t ones to be fooled. Given the Reen’s approach, they had gained considerable advantage over the others during the ‘learning curve’ that happened, upping their stature considerably.

Those Reen that departed the A392 remained on the starport only as long as necessary to arrange transit to the surface of Wiox, accomplished through a mix of surface to orbit craft of Reen manufacture, saving them the credits that would have been necessary to purchase transit down to the planet. The dropship tickets were cheap enough, requiring very little for an individual to get to orbit, or even around the ADZ transit network, but when you were dealing with the movement of billions of individuals per year even the small amounts added up, with the Reen saving credits by fielding their own craft for this last leg of the immigrants’ journey.

Once they landed at their own spaceports the Reen were taken into a processing center patterned off of Star Force’s own facilities and quickly got their people integrated into the population, with a good number of them going to supplement the mining teams harvesting resources from their territorial slots. Those resources they didn’t have to pay Star Force for, meaning the more workforce they had the more material they could harvest…and the more material they could harvest, the more equipment they could build/buy, creating a snowball effect.

That snowball effect was occurring across all the Reen territories, but not just with them. The other races that had seen the writing on the wall and gotten a head start on the others were building quickly, gaining additional territory slots and increasing their population and influence in the ADZ…with the others scrambling to catch up by following their example.

In this way, Star Force was remaking them without giving a single order or threat. Simply by setting up the playing field and letting the races do as they like, they were channeling them towards economic responsibility, proper infrastructure, and population growth…with those not getting onboard being left to their isolation as they were gradually overshadowed by the rest of the ADZ races.

But still, tricked as they were into the general direction Star Force wanted them to go, they were not onboard with the Humans’ agenda, merely willing to work within their system with the intent of walking it back later on. That approach may well have worked if their own populations didn’t see the truth of it on their own streets and how Star Force had better living conditions and greater opportunities, for both individuals and groups.

A good portion of those ‘enlightened’ individuals made their way to Star Force in one form or another, with the bulk of those who proved themselves worthy ending up in the Axius colonies, which under Star Force’s direction was growing more rapidly than most of the other races, population wise, and faster than them all infrastructure wise.

And of those people who left their previous races, few ever returned, in body or spirit, for after just a year or two living amongst the Axius inter-racial community their viewpoints changed greatly with the experience, no longer having to rely on hearsay or stereotypes to get an idea of what was beyond their own borders.

But above and beyond that they got to experience what Star Force really was and the genius behind every facet of it…right down to ceiling heights and drinking fountains, which were designed to accommodate all of the various biologies, not to mention their focus on individual sovereignty…something that was sorely lacking among the other cultures that predominated the local region of the galaxy and now had been brought into the ADZ.

That close proximity and interaction created a cultural war that Axius was surging to the forefront of as it siphoned off the races’ own population…and since freedom of movement was one of the stipulations for receiving territorial slots, they couldn’t officially close their borders and force people to live under their dominion.

That meant they either had to cheat or entice people to remain…and doing the latter meant becoming more like Star Force, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

8

While at Wiox the A392 also had the distinction of picking up the Omnigame delegation from the planet and those from the other Alliance Worlds in the system, which the jumpship would eventually deposit on Califret, the Axius colony near the edge of the Core Region that was hosting the biannual competition.

Each delegation was comprised of highly skilled individuals from each Alliance World and the Axius colonies, with the teams competing in a variety of competitions ranging from mathematics to biathlon to mech warfare. Prizes would be handed out in each category in the form of a small amount of credits to the participating individual/squad and a lump sum of credits accounted to the world they were representing…on a scale that would mean significant infrastructure expansion. The account was only good for local purchases, split evenly amongst the 8 territorial regions on an Alliance World, which was a significant enough reason for the various races to push participation in the games.

The biggest prize came from the overall standings, in which the top 5 worlds got a huge load of credits on top of the category prizes. With the societal war fueling a population boom, infrastructure expansion/upgrades were critical and those worlds winning the previous Omnigames had surged ahead of their completion with each victory. The trick of it was, for both the Alliance Worlds and the Axius colonies, no one race controlled them, meaning your best chance of victory was by fielding a combined team, forcing those races greedy with their own advancement over the others to seek out assistance on their local worlds in the hope of winning and splitting the prizes…for there were no participation prizes, and you had to earn your way to the credits.

With every event cycle bringing more and more people into the fold and greater pressure on them to succeed, the Omnigames became a social event across the ADZ with intense media scrutiny, broadcast out over the relay network Star Force had set up so people could follow it ‘live’ as it occurred over the month-long competition. Omnigame ‘athletes’ rose to prominent social status, with many devoting their lives to the pursuit of making their world’s team.

This cycle’s tournament held 198 events, adding 3 to the previous competition and expanding the field once again. Star Force continually grew the event, and the prizes, but always in a responsible way and not in demands to the public, who wanted all manner of things added. Simple things like running races were not included, for the simple fact that biology would win out and a Scionate vs. an Irondel would be no match whatsoever.

Also, all the events had real life applications. Even the videogame subset of the Omnigames had crossover applications to the remote-controlled drones that Axius used in the ADF, and which Star Force had begun producing in small amounts for purchase by the various races, encouraging them to move away from mass casualties military tactics and go in for more of a hardware expendability platform.

Remotely controlling various simulations essentially negated the biology differences, save for the control interfaces, but in addition to Star Force’s work in developing unique harnesses and controls for every race, those motivated races created their own upgrades, wanting the most efficient means of interface available to increase their chances of success, and with races like the Reen who had colonies on multiple Alliance Worlds, producing new tech to aid their athletes gave them more than one opportunity for gain, and the same was true of the other races, for Star Force hadn’t let any of them colonize an entire Alliance World, wisely mixing them up from the inception of the sanctuary program.

There were favorites in certain events and categories, but the competition was so diverse that there was no dominant planet or race, meaning that as much as the races were competing against each other socially, they actually were rooting for each other when it came to their local worlds, for their success would mean credits awarded to all, which encouraged a great amount of teamwork in the games and prep work that otherwise would not have occurred.

A392 wasn’t the only jumpship entering the system with Omnigame delegations, which included athletes, dignitaries, and hoards of media. Califret was one of five Axius colonies that had the facilities to host the Omnigames, with them rotating accordingly, and as had become common in the run-up to the games, orbit became saturated with jumpship arrivals, with the transit network having to reroute existing circuits and pull jumpships off others to accommodate the influx of visitors to the planet.

Califret was the only Axius colony in the system, though several other rocky planets remained uncolonized at present. That said, more than 10 million spectators arrived on the planet specifically for the Omnigames, in addition to the regular traffic flow coming off the Alliance jumpships.

But they weren’t the only ones coming. Many of the races brought their own jumpships into orbit, carrying their own media and dignitaries, such as the Scionate, who only had 1 Alliance World representation, which was Vashni, in the Lkat System, that had served as their transitional base to facilitate the transfer of their population to the systems Star Force had given exclusively to them. Those planets didn’t qualify for the games, but since they had one foothold in the Alliance Worlds they stocked it with their most skilled individuals, transferring them there for the express purpose of competing in the Omnigames and giving Vashni a favored position in several events.

Other Scionate were here, representing Axius colonies, but they were independent of the Scionate Empire, and while there might have been a little bit of racial support there, they were mostly considered to be competition rather than allies, for if an Axius colony won a prize, it went to Axius exclusively, fueling their already impressive growth and allowing for more immigration slots that were draining a growing trickle of population away from the other races, which was more of a hit to their pride than their population pools. Axius may have been growing, but the bulk of the ADZ’s population still resided on the Alliance Worlds.

New to this cycle’s tournament was the addition of the Protovic, who up until now hadn’t qualified because they had no Alliance World colonies. With their own territory now mostly intact and their military fighting the Skarrons on other people’s worlds, their government had begun to focus itself more on the political situation within the ADZ, and at their request Star Force had granted them a territory slot on one of the newest Alliance Worlds. The same was true of the Dvapp, who had also been enticed into joining the ADZ community, along with several other races that had previously been located within the ADZ without a piece of an Alliance World.

The only exceptions were the Hycre and Star Force, except that Axius was part of Star Force as well as the host of the games. No Human, Kiritas, Kiritak, Nexus, or Calavari colony took part, for they had no Alliance World slots…and Hycre couldn’t live on the surface very well, thus they had not been interested in the program or the games. They, like the Calavari, had more important things to worry about. That attitude also set them apart from the others, and further insulated the Calavari from the public’s perspective, with few realizing just how large and strong they were regrowing.

So with the influx of transit network jumpship traffic came small fleets from the major powers, showing off as much as they were coming to watch the games and support their various delegations. The gathering also functioned as a diplomatic and commercial event, with a lot of wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes for all types of endeavors, with the influx of a wide flung populace being brought together onto a single planet for the mutual event. That alone brought more traffic into planetary orbit, with a lot of the non-Star Force jumpships coming from races who came to conduct business rather than focus on the Omnigames.

When Mark-084 arrived on a Clan Gunstar jumpship he met up with the traffic mess in orbit, but the local navigational system had it all neatly arranged into prescribed orbits, having taken a cue from Earth’s well experienced network which was far more cluttered that Califret. The trailblazer rode a dropship down to the planet along with a host of other pilots that he had brought with him from the Alliance starfighter training center that he had created on Oberon, or rather recreated after Daka had to be evacuated. A lot of his former colleagues were here, participating in the games on behalf of the Alliance Worlds, which was why he and some of his current training delegations had come to observe…wishing they could actually participate.

Those that came with him were mostly Star Force, for the elite pilots from other races were usually recalled specifically for the games, though there were a number of Scionate with him that hadn’t been qualified because they weren’t currently living on their colony and weren’t deemed as the best the Scionate had to offer, so they’d tagged along on Mark’s invitation.

But like any good trailblazer, Mark wasn’t just going to sit and watch, and as had become common, in the days leading up to the piloting competitions he and other Star Force pilots had an exhibition tournament of their own, completely prizeless save for bragging rights, in which the athletes could participate or not as they chose. It was all simulator work for the games, but Califret had a decent atmosphere and Mark extended some of the exhibition to real life, having brought with him a lot of spare and new starfighters for others to try out above and beyond the standard Valerie. He’d even brought the X-wing with him, given that he’d been tinkering with it and bringing it up to snuff…barely.

Still, it was fun to fly and see a few others he let in the cockpit have fun with it, adding to the Omnigames a pilots gala on the side, with the same being true of the mechwarriors. Not all races used mechs, and in fact most did not, but since Star Force did and others were patterning after them and creating their own versions, Cora had started coming to the games as well and schooling the other races on just how much you could do with a biped war machine.

Mark caught up with her a few days into their preview tournaments, which they scheduled to conclude before their respective Omnigame events so as not to overlap and draw attention away from the competitions, finding her having a chat in a public lounge with an envirosuit-clad Gnar. He walked up to her and telekinetically poked her in the ribs, but otherwise let her finish her conversation before saying anything else.

When the Gnar left her table she waved a hand at him to sit down, with several other onlookers frowning, wanting to have gotten a few minutes to talk with the mechwarrior legend…though when they saw the white with black stripe uniform that Mark also wore their curiosity at seeing two of the Archon strikers in the same place overrode their disappointment as they stood around trying to listen in amongst the noise in the overcrowded lounge.

“About time you showed up,” she said, poking him back as he sat, enough to see him visibly shift to the side from the invisible impact that she screwed in hard for extra effect.

“Busy busy,” Mark said, smiling as he looked at her never-changing face. “How’s business?”

“The same. Ironhold now has more mechs than any other planet in the ADZ, most of which are mine, but the more advanced ones are running short of qualified pilots. I’m having to beat the bushes to find good recruits, and most of the ones I spent so much time on in the past have retired to old age or died already because they didn’t achieve self-sufficiency…which is really frustrating. I don’t like losing friends in the first place, but to have spent so much time training these wannabes only to have them quit and go civi is insulting. You can’t train a good mechwarrior in less than a decade, and most of these jokers,” she said, pointing at the various races around them, “want it done in 2 years, tops.”

“What for, most of them aren’t fighting on the fronts anyway?”

“They want their defense forces up to snuff without actually making them up to snuff…which they can’t unless they start insisting that their troops attain self-sufficiency. I’ve added extra physical training requirements for them while they’re on Ironhold, but when they go back home I have no control. I’ve managed to grab hold of a few and make them permanent residents, otherwise I’d be pulling my hair out. It’s sad to say, but the Australians are now kicking their butt.”

“I know,” Mark said, having to endure a similar situation. “But on the up side, I recently came across a squadron of Kitot, and they’re settling in nicely for at least a century of training…or two.”

“Kitot? I thought they went with the Kvash.”

“They did, but some are finding their way across the lizard lines and into the ADZ. Not many, and they’re having to do it on their own. No Hycre help. But a combat squadron made it across in a trashed cargo ship, with them ending up on my doorstep. From the stories they’re telling, it’s gone from bad to worse over there and had they stayed they’d have been doing nothing but digging their own graves.”

“They deserted?”

Mark nodded. “A group of five ships, with no jumpship to travel on. Only the one made it across the occupation zone, and as I said, it was beat to hell when the Calavari finally found it. They sent the pilots to me, given that one of them I’d briefly met on Daka had requested asylum. Their longer default lifespans are quite a relief compared to some of these younglings.”

“I didn’t know we had any Kitot in the ADZ.”

“319, to be exact. Not enough to build a colony for, so they’re just being logged as guests in a number of facilities. I bought Ekka with me, and he’s been getting quite a few stares, which is surprising, given how many different faces are around here.”

“You got any current pilots in the games?”

“Can’t with the residential restrictions.”

Cora raised an eyebrow. “Well I do.”

Mark frowned. “How?”

“They were born on the Alliance World. Only those migrating around have the residential restriction.”

“Why weren’t they pulled off for pre-games training?”

“Because Ironhold has the best facilities for that.”

“Well not me. Anyone they want for the games they take away early and I usually don’t get them back.”

“Competition is a lot more fierce for pilots,” Cora said offhand, referencing the fact that mech combat had only been added to the games two tournaments ago. That had been encouraging the races without mechs to start experimenting with them, even if just for the sake of winning credits for their worlds…with most of their hopefuls training under Cora on Ironhold.

“So they think. The Calavari I’ve got would wipe the floor with them easily.”

“And you?”

Mark locked eyes with her. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

“Am I to assume that means you’ve been showing off the past few days?”

“It does. And you?”

“Not yet, but I’m working up to it. The neo is too mobile for them to handle, so I’ve been going easy on them. Don’t want it to be a total trouncing on their first run,” she said with a smile, glancing at several of the mechwarriors standing around her…though in truth they didn’t truly merit that title.

“Would you like a better challenge?”

Cora’s eyes widened. “You have the time?”

“I can squeeze in one demo. That way these guys can watch and you won’t have to hold back.”

“Much,” she said with a cocky glance.

“We’ll see. I have no doubt I’m going to lose, but I bet I can make you sweat a bit.”

Cora turned to look at the others. “Hear that fellas? You’re in for a show. Archons train in all 5 disciplines, and even though this one is our best pilot, he’s also a decent mechwarrior for Star Force standards,” she said, looking back at Mark. “And if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to round up a few more Archons for a bit bigger melee.”

“I’ll see what kind of a team I can rustle up,” Mark promised.

“You do that,” Cora said, standing up and telekinetically poking him in the ribs again. “But right now we’re heading to the sanctum…unless you’re pressed for time?” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“Been there earlier, but I’m up for a second workout before I hit the sack.”

When he stood up there was a chorus of groans, with the mechwarriors seeing that the two of them were going to depart.

“I’ll catch the rest of you later,” Cora promised, “but right now a couple of old friends need to do some catching up over training drills. I’ll be back here tomorrow evening.”

“You are quite popular,” Mark commented after they’d left the table and got out the door, having to smoosh their way through a couple of clogged points. Any more bodies in the lounge and it was going to be difficult to move at all.

“Like you’re not?”

“I don’t get out in the crowds unless I have to.”

“Chicken.”

“How?”

“You’ve got psionics, so what are you afraid of?”

“Wasting time.”

“Normally I’d agree, but I’m here to meet and greet and school. Not everything can be taught from the cockpit via beatdowns.”

“Don’t they get annoying?”

“I don’t spend that much time mingling. Training always comes first.”

“Good. Thought you’d gone civi there for a moment,” Mark said, blocking her elbow as she tried to ram it into his gut as she cut across in front of him to head to an opening in the crowd that led to the main walkway. “Too slow, chica.”

“We’ll see,” she said, eager to get into a sparring match with someone that could keep up with and potentially beat her.

9

June 13, 2532

Ursala System (Beta Region)

Califret

“Are you heading to the viewing arena?” Ekka asked in the trade language, given he hadn’t quite mastered English yet, as he and Mark climbed out of the simulators in the training area along with a dozen other pilots.

The little three-legged ‘tripod’ stood next to the trailblazer’s pod, already having climbed out ahead of him as Mark briefly ran through the post-drill statistics. The Kitot barely came up to his waist, but in the cockpit of a fighter size mattered little, evidenced by the Urik’kadel who were heavily favored in the piloting events, the next of which was due to start within an hour.

“Not straight off, but I’ll meet you guys there before the first challenge.”

Ekka inclined its pointed head and shuffled off on tiny, rapid steps as it followed the other pilots out. Mark shut down his simulator and did the same, having finished yet another informal session in his school of badass. He’d asked the Kitot to join him, with the rest of the pilots being people he’d never met before, but all of which were veteran or aspiring pilots with résumés that deserved his attention. Some wanted to test the trailblazer’s skills, or just watch them in action, while others found it an honor to interact with him or were hoping to show him some sign of latent skill to get them an invite to Oberon.

As it was, he had a full slate of pilots, both from Star Force and other races that he was overseeing the training of. Now that he was in charge instead of the Calavari, there had been some changes made to the feel of the pilot mecca. There was still a looseness to it all, but what Mark provided was structure that the pilots could latch onto as they chose, jumping into challenges as well as joining training teams that progressed through very specific drills meant to home or teach a specific skill set.

It was all a la carte, but Mark was now leading the advanced teams personally, flying an Alliance Valerie as much as he was a skeet, for both the Protovic and Humans had endorsed the model for the standard aircraft for the new Alliance they’d forged…albeit with some additional tinkering. It was those Valeries that the non-Star Force pilots trained in, plus the Calavari and a handful of Kiritas, leaving the skeets as the signature aircraft for the Humans, to which Mark had added a few others.

The original gunships had been retired, replaced with three different heavy fighters. One was anti-infantry, one was anti-mech, and the last one was anti-air. Each could take on other rolls, but were specialized in those areas, giving Star Force additional flexibility and punch while the skeets remained the multitasking workhorses that they’d always been.

The Valeries that they now produced had 12 different models. The race-specific ones that the Calavari had originally designed for the Urik’kadel and others had been eliminated, with cockpit modifications for all versions becoming modular, giving the smaller races the ability to fly the same craft with the added armor protection rather than shrinking the entire fighter. Star Force produced four versions of Valerie for sale to the Alliance, while the Protovic and Calavari now built their own. The blueprints were available to all Alliance members, but most preferred the ease of purchase rather than building the necessary production infrastructure, and Star Force was happy to oblige them.

One difference from what the original Calavari had been selling was that Star Force didn’t sell starfighter models, for they didn’t want their allies wasting lives by putting them into space combat. What they did offer were attack drones operating off a small carrier, using outdated communications systems far inferior to the interlinking that Star Force used, but still more than advanced enough for the use of their allies in short range engagements. The fear of many races was the control signals being jammed, and it was a legitimate concern, but over time many got over that impediment and began purchasing them for defensive deployments around their various Alliance Worlds and for excursions beyond the ADZ, for apparently they’d gained a reputation for being good at fighting off pirates.

That was another thing that had increased in the fall of the major powers. Pirate raids in star systems had increased outside the ADZ, and those that attempted some within it were heavily hunted by both Star Force and the Hycre, ensuring mostly reliable jumplanes to travel on, but you could never know for sure, even in Sol, which occasionally had an unwelcome visitor.

Things were so bad outside the ADZ that Star Force was getting requests from races to purchase the same weapons, which wasn’t allowed. Star Force only sold to the Alliance members, and in general practice didn’t sell weapons to the public. There was no stopping the other Alliance members from doing so, and some had tried to become middle men, buying Star Force tech and then turning around to sell it to outsiders…but they hadn’t gotten far with that before Star Force security found out what they were up to and sales were temporarily suspended to those races involved.

That in turn had led to other races outside the ADZ requesting to become members of the Alliance, most of which were located above and below on the galactic plane and not directly in contention with the lizards or Skarrons…yet. Each of those requests were handled individually, with a high amount of scrutiny. Many were denied, but some were accepted, despite the fact that they didn’t plan to move their entire population into the ADZ, but rather establish a foothold there in order to join the community of races, gain access to Star Force markets, and in some cases to create a fallback location in case the lizards or Skarrons or other nasties out there moved into their territory.

It was a pilot from one of those races that was waiting for Mark outside the simulator complex, along with a host of others wanting to catch a moment with him for a question, autograph, photo or what not, though those in this area of the colony had to have special access rights, given that the training areas were off limits to most of the visiting public.

Dealing with the crowds was something that he had to get used to, so with a now practiced grace he engaged a few of those waiting outside while bypassing the others…that was, until the Voku pushed its way through the others and shoved Mark into the wall.

“Yu wil listen,” it said in crude English as the shorter Human went ramrod still and slowly turned a glaring eye on the alien with a look that would have made Clint Eastwood proud.

“Watch it, punk. Do that on a bad day and you’ll end up with injuries.”

“Yu moost listen to mi,” the thickset alien insisted, its pitch black muscles easily twice the size of Mark’s…with the trailblazer sizing him up and not really worried about a conflict. He could take him down easy enough, but he sensed the alien’s intent was not to bully. Mark didn’t recognize the race, but whatever it was, it had something it thought was important enough to say to risk the insult.

“This had better be worth my time, youngling.”

“It es impotant.”

“Follow me, then,” Mark said, forcing his way through the crowd until he came to a room in the hallway that was unoccupied. He pointed the alien inside and walked into the four-pod simulator chamber, shutting the door behind him so the crowd couldn’t follow. “Talk.”

“I am Voku. Wi are eh race noot in yur alliance. We ass, but noot allowd. We want…no, we ned to proov we can help. I am sint to proov or pilots are stong.”

While the alien spoke, Mark telepathically dug into its mood and memories, trying to piece together what it was after, quickly learning that it didn’t know the trade language or any other that Mark was familiar with, which made sense, given that it had come from a place outside Gamma Region and far down on the galactic plane…so far down, in fact, that its home was on the edge of the galaxy and well outside the range that Star Force mapping expeditions had gone.

Which was also why their request had been turned down.

“Why do you need to prove yourself to us?” Mark said, leaning back against one of the pods as the Voku stood tall in front of him.

“We are warrier. We are peece keeper. We are told by old ones to protect. We are told yu protect to. We are told to help yu.”

Suddenly a link clicked in Mark’s mind, remembering a file he’d read on their race. He hadn’t remembered them looking like this, but then again there were so many out there that it was hard to remember them all. What struck him was the mention of the old ones telling them to join with Star Force, because he had wondered at the time how their elders had found out about them, and just how far word of Star Force had travelled…and were they in danger even now of accidentally tipping off the V’kit’no’sat to their existence simply by word of mouth.

But now Mark knew that wasn’t the case at all. Reading the Voku’s mind he got an image of the ‘old ones,’ with a prickly sense of foreboding going along with it. Whoever had received the Voku request before apparently hadn’t been very strong in Ikrid skills, or maybe hadn’t been an Archon at all. Then again, the request could have come in through comm channels rather than face to face, because Mark knew that none of the trailblazers would have missed this connection, and a lot of the more skilled second gen wouldn’t have either.

The ‘old ones’ were linked to an image in the alien’s mind, a recent image, of a recording made and kept secret amongst the Voku leadership. An alien from another race, one that the Voku revered deeply, had visited them and given them the directive before disappearing again, insisting that they keep its knowledge a secret…a secret that now Mark had pulled from this one’s mind, and he sensed that letting him know would cause a heap of trouble for the alien, so he decided to play it cool.

“You’re a pilot?”

“Yis.”

“Are there other Voku here or just you?”

“I am one on tis plant. But others are in obit.”

“Did you bring your fighters with you?”

“Yis.”

Mark nodded. “I will give you a chance to impress me. Since you’re not familiar with the simulator controls, I will give clearance for you to bring your craft down to the planet and we will see what you can do in the atmosphere.”

The Voku bowed deeply. “Thenk yu. Yu wil noot be sorrie.”

“We’ll see,” Mark said, heading for the door and pushing his way through the crowd outside.

When Mark got back to his temporary quarters later he sat down at the communications terminal and went through the somewhat lengthy process of logging into his own account, given that it had extra layers of protection since it saw multiple users. What he’d just learned was that Star Force had made a mistake…a big mistake in turning down the Voku, something that he was about to fix in a hurry, sending out a message to the other trailblazers and Davis, detailing the extent to which the Voku could help them.

For starters they were excellent pilots. The one they’d sent to find him was almost as good as Mark, as were the others that had joined him in the air for maneuvers. Their technology was also superior to what Star Force was using, as far as the fighters were concerned, and after a quick visit to their ship in orbit he saw that it wasn’t a fluke. Their technology was well beyond what the Alliance had, and about equivalent to some of the upgrades Star Force was only beginning to employ…but tooled in a very different direction.

The V’kit’no’sat database had thousands of weapon systems from various races, not all of which matched up with the way they liked to fight. The Voku likewise held a very different combat philosophy from Star Force, but one that wasn’t totally incompatible. In the description he was about to write out, he was considering going with the metaphor of ‘transformers’ but was still working to find a better word. Everything the Voku used was manned, no drones of any kind, though heavily armored and protected, but they were all built…from fighters to warships to aquatics…to be components.

And by components he meant that they fit together to form larger ships. Two fighters combined to form a heavy fighter, four formed a gunship and so on, and the same was true of their warships. They had basic units equivalent to a Star Force light cruiser, which then combined all the way up into Death Star-sized conglomerations with equally terrifying firepower…for each component piece was identical, with small segments of machinery that wasn’t useable on a small scale and only came together in large numbers, literally having the pieces transform rather than just ‘Lego’ themselves together.

The Voku, based on the information they’d given him, were stronger than both the lizards and Skarrons combined, and dominated their region of the galaxy in a diameter of approximately 800 lightyears. They’d already met the Skarrons in battle, briefly, and had repulsed them easily, with their common enemy not having tried again…or at least delaying such an effort until they had more favorable terms.

The Voku weren’t interested in colonizing the ADZ, they wanted to ally themselves directly with Star Force, and given that they saw that Star Force was the controlling factor within the ADZ they had approached them in that regard, having their emissaries even learn enough English to communicate…and somehow it had all gotten mixed up between the two races to the point that Star Force thought they wanted to join the Alliance and turned them down because of their distance from them…a distance that Star Force couldn’t monitor.

Now Mark was very glad that the Voku had shoved him in the hallway…and even more glad he hadn’t kicked his ass on the spot for doing it. Their communication capability was still limited, with Mark pulling a lot telepathically to try and gain context, but he was about to assign a Star Force linguistics and tech team to the new project at once, getting them up to speed with the Voku language and computer systems, so at least they could get a translation program up and running…because they were going to need it, badly.

Mark had spent some 3 hours onboard the Voku ship, during which they attempted to give him as much information as they could, including star maps of areas that had been beyond the V’kit’no’sat survey. They contained several black hole links that the Voku had used to get here, with him identifying the ‘highways’ that would link the two races together across a considerable chasm of territory inhabited by many other races, some of which were powerful and none too friendly…as seemed to be the case across the galaxy.

The Voku were peacekeepers in their region, harboring and protecting hundreds of other races. They didn’t form an alliance with them, but looked after them more like pets or children, keeping the predators at bay…all because they had been told to do so long ago by a parent race known to them as the Fa’gon’stek, which Mark would have bet a million credits translated as ‘Keeper.’

The old one that had visited the Voku and told them to aid Star Force, the one that the Voku had in its mind and was sworn never to reveal, had been a Zak’de’ron. The same one, he believed, that they’d encountered on Daka. It had given Kara some advice when she’d interacted with it, advice that had proven to be true regarding the Calavari, then it said that their battle against the V’kit’no’sat was hopeless and that they’d never see the dragon again…and they hadn’t, for it had disappeared, ostensibly out towards the rim, after coming to Earth to unlock the database in exchange for a glimpse at the ‘updated’ records.

But it seemed that for some reason the dragon still favored them, and above that it wasn’t just hiding out in the rim either, but rather pulling invisible strings that Mark had fortuitously stumbled upon, thanks to his psionics…for he knew from the Voku’s state of mind that it would never have given him that information.

What the dragon was playing at Mark couldn’t be sure. The Voku didn’t stand a chance against the V’kit’no’sat either. Maybe it saw the threat of the lizards and Skarrons and didn’t think the Humans were strong enough yet to defend themselves against both threats…which would mean it had kept an eye on the region, which, with its insanely advanced technology wouldn’t be hard to do undetected, making Mark wonder if there were any dragons wandering around the ADZ right now, keeping tabs on them.

Mark had a lot to tell the others, plus he needed to get the ball rolling with the Voku, who had gone to long lengths to contact Star Force, and then continue to push the issue after having been stupidly rebuffed. The full dynamics of their relationship to come Mark couldn’t be sure, for he needed the others to weigh in and develop the possibilities, but he had a few ideas bouncing around his head already that he wanted to send out to the others through the relay grid as soon as possible, along with his report.

When he logged into his personal comm account he stopped short, seeing that a new message from Randy had come in since he’d last checked. It was a text message, one line only, but was marked as urgent so he pulled it up before starting writing.

The Dvapp have engaged the Borg.

10

One week earlier…

The oceanic world of Tetteras sat in the midst of 12 large moons, all of which rotated around it in erratic orbits, dismissing any notion of an orbital plane as some moved in polar, equatorial, and elliptical orbits. As it was, in recent history a 13th moon had crashed into the planet’s surface, puncturing the crust and melding with the interior, triggering cataclysmic changes across the planet and creating a hemispherical clump of matter that stuck out from what had otherwise been a sphere.

But that was in the past, and mathematical projection had the other moons’ orbits ‘stable’ for the next hundred years or so, more than enough time for the Dvapp to chorale them into more preferable orbits as they grew their colony on the 8th one, with splinter settlements heading down to regions of Tetteras to harvest raw materials and construct shipyards while their population resided safely on the moon as its infrastructure continued to grow, literally, from shipments of materials coming in from the planet.

The multi-colored cities were grown from a crystal tech, covering a wide range of functions including orbital defense. Their surface batteries had the range to reach orbit, foregoing the need for defense platforms to reinforce their fleet of warships in low altitude around the moon, which were the only spaceborne assets the Dvapp had in play. Their cargo ships were gone elsewhere, being used to ferry more survivors from their original homeland across the war zone to the ADZ, leaving only a handful here to carry resources from the planet up to the moon, though more were being grown in their surface yards to fill the void.

It was those yards that saw the first strike from the Skarrons, with their fleet of warships escorting transports down to low orbit where they proceeded to land troops within a few kilometers of the land-based settlements, taking fire from a scattering of weapons emplacements on station. Those small beams burned into their shields, but didn’t puncture those on the transports before they released their Type-3 and Type-4 walkers, at multiple sites, with following drops delivering infantry.

With the walkers taking the lead, they picked off the defensive batteries and proceeded into the crystalline settlements, heading for the shipyards and what were other key facilities that they had determined from reconnaissance in this system and others prior to launching a three pronged ‘shark bump’ attack, of which this was the first of the nearly simultaneous system assaults.

The Dvapp fleet around the moon responded instantly, dispatching ships towards the Skarron fleet and meeting them head on, despite their numerical disadvantage. The Skarrons had brought some 231 warships, with the Dvapp having 173 on hand. The Skarron vessels also outmassed the Dvapp, who also didn’t have anything of scale to contend with the juggernaut the enemy had leading its fleet. What the Dvapp had were mostly uniform cruisers and an integrated command system that let them maneuver and fight their ships as if they were one massive vessel separated into autonomous components.

As the Dvapp approached they began firing en mass before they even came within the enemy’s heavy lachar range…but they didn’t slow their approach, instead pulling right up in front of the Skarrons’ bigger warships and engaging them at pointblank range, already having taken down a good number of their shields with their equally uniform weaponsfire, all of which was topaz energy beams coming from their green, glowing warships.

The beams were not plasma, but a type of energy known as Sa’mo’shtat to the V’kit’no’sat, which was a derivative of mauler energy, save this form was less powerful and able to hold cohesion, for its repulsive nature had been stripped away. That allowed it to be delivered in beam format, but with an intensity and destructive capacity far greater than that of lachars, as well as better range.

Each of those beams were being targeted by a central control team that fed information out to all of the ships, giving them targets to hit and allowing the individual crews to pick which ones out of the possibilities given to them. As a result you saw multiple beams converging on precise points and persisting for upwards of 10 seconds before a recharge cycle. Each Dvapp ship had 12 such beam weapons, making the confrontation with the Skarron fleet look like a spider’s web of energy coming into contact with a rainfall of white plasma.

While that heavy battle got underway, for neither side blinked and redeployed, preferring instead to slug it out with their new enemies whose battle strength was untested on both sides, the ground attacks continued with none of the Dvapp ships making it down to the surface to assist, which they were more than capable of doing. Instead the Skarron walkers were free to shoot and pillage to their liking while their ground troops assembled behind them at makeshift landing zones, depositing Skarrons and Hobbits into the hot, humid, ashy environment that still hadn’t completely recovered from the moon’s impact.

The workers deployed there ran and hid inside structures, not having anything to defend themselves with aside from personal firearms and the defense turrets…which had already been smoked by the Skarrons. The ships in the bowl-like shipyards were not operational, leaving them sitting ducks for when the enemy got to them, having first to blast through the underside of the ‘bowls’ to get a clear shot at the ships. Huge plumes of liquid drained out onto the ground, covering the rocky surface with a blue/white sparkly soup that the needle-like legs of the walkers stood within as they opened up yet more holes, finally firing through them to hit the partially formed ships.

When the infantry finally caught up the liquid pools had been drained and spread out across the landscape, leaving nothing but puddles behind for them to trudge through enroute to the crystal buildings, whereupon the Hobbits entered first in search of the occupants while the Skarrons patrolled the streets, establishing a perimeter and laying claim to the structures.

When the first Hobbit team got to the buildings they couldn’t find the doors, or rather they couldn’t open them, for there were no switches or handles. Eventually they blasted through the crystalline structure with their plasma rifles and went inside single file, finding triangular hallways with the narrow peak up top, realizing there was no way their Skarron masters would be able to fit inside…but that wasn’t uncommon, for many of the races they conquered built equally ‘small’ infrastructure, which was the primary reason why the Skarrons had annexed the Aronsic into their empire.

The first of the Hobbits came through and stopped to the left, letting the next come in and join up beside him so they could form a 2-man wide column that slowly proceeded down the hallway and up to an intersection, passing by a door that was equally closed off, with some of the Hobbits in the back stopping to blast it open, knowing that they couldn’t leave any portion of the building unchecked.

When the first Hobbits moved into the intersection, the one on the right saw a giant white fist/glob swing around in front of it and smash into its face. It dented slightly as his face broke into a mess of blood and his body was knocked back into the group, bowling several others over in the process. The Hobbit beside him fired at the bipedal mass, blowing out tiny crystal shards as a plasma blast hit its midsection, making a small crater that disappeared as the thing took a heavy step towards him and punched it with the other handless arm, splattering it against the wall when the smaller alien got caught between the two.

More rifle barrels came up and opened fire, with the Dvapp screaming a high pitched sound and ducking off down the other side of the intersection and out of view. The Hobbits ran after it, turning the corner and firing as they saw it lean forward in the distance and dive onto its belly…only to melt into a long, snake-like pylon that whipped down the hall and turned the next corner, gripping the far wall and pulling the rest of its body out of firing range as quick as possible.

The Hobbits chased after it, with the third pair forward getting ambushed as a different Dvapp came out a side door that was closed until the first pair passed it, then the material melted and pulled aside, with another bipedal form stepping out and hammering both Hobbits with a massive jab that took its arm all the way across the hall and splashed its hand against the far wall…whereupon it melted and dropped to the ground in a splash, only to reach out two tentacles and wrap them around the nearest Hobbits.

With a crunch it constricted their thick chests, breaking ribs before tossing one each way to knock down the others as it took a few rifle shots. With the distractions it slithered towards the front few, of which only one was now standing, and tripped it up from underneath. The Dvapp caught the Hobbit as it fell, reforming its bipedal form underneath as it stood up, Hobbit in ‘hand,’ and threw the thing towards the others before running ahead and ducking out of sight around the next bend.

The remaining Hobbits held their ground and waited, calling for reinforcements that arrived a few minutes later. Then, as a more combined group squeezed three wide to get more rifles into play, they moved up over the bodies of their dead and down the hallways, making extra sure to shoot open any doors they came across to avoid another ambush. They got through an entire level of the building with no contacts, then came to an opening in the roof that was the Dvapp equivalent of stairs, with no way to get up…other than to stand on top of each other and lift.

The first Hobbit they sent up made it through and onto its feet on the second story, as did the second, but when the third went up the other two were missing…and suddenly it was grabbed and pulled up the rest of the way, disappearing through the hole and causing the Hobbits below to pull back, not wanting to get grabbed themselves.

They fired up into the next level, blasting out a bit of crystal around the edges and making the hole bigger, but there was nothing they could do but go up there and get taken out one by one so they pulled back out of the building and called for support…which came in the form of heavy plasma blasts hitting the building itself from a nearby Type-3 walker.

With the infantry clear the white rain fell, busting through the outer layers of the building and continuing to core into the interior without pause. There were so many plasma cannons on the Skarron walker that they continued in sequence, firing nonstop and pulverizing half the building until they finally readjusted their aim skyward as a topaz beam hit the machine.

That beam was followed by three others, all impacting on top where the anti-air cannon was blasting away at the warship descending from above. The walker’s shields went down quickly under the linked fire, with the lachar cannon getting slagged almost instantly as the glowing green warship descended out of the ash clouds at higher altitude and drew fire from numerous walkers…but other green spots appeared in the clouds, faint at first, then turning to bright crystal as they dropped down as well, crisscrossing their beam cannons, which the Archons referred to as ‘Sammies,’ and melted through the Skarron armor like a hot knife through butter.

Holes were cored into their interior in less than a minute, slagging and vaporizing internal components as the Dvapp probed their enemies, finding out where the vulnerable points were and taking out the walkers as their cruisers soaked up the enemy plasma storms with their potent shields.

The enemy infantry scattered, wanting to go back to their landing zone but it was also coming under attack, with the Skarron transports that had remained on the surface being targeted as well. Once destroyed, the Dvapp warships moved on to other targets, methodically and efficiency burning their enemies out with their sustained beams that put Star Trek phasers to shame.

When the walkers finally went down over one location, the other warships save for one moved off to hunt down other enemy groups, leaving a single cruiser behind to hit the infantry. To do that it came low to the ground, so low that the Hobbits almost felt like ducking as a number of much smaller beam weapons broke out, throwing hundreds of little streaks of yellow down to the ground and precisely targeting each enemy soldier, whether they be Skarron or Hobbit, though the Skarrons required more than one beam in most cases, especially the armored ones.

Having nowhere else to run, the Hobbits went into the remaining Dvapp structures, blasting through doors and trying to get away from the pointblank naval bombardment…but they didn’t last long inside, as the Dvapp workers stalked them throughout the buildings, killing them one or two at a time in a bloody game of cat and mouse, with only a handful of the denizens carrying their own weapons. Those looked more like a Star Trek phaser, firing a quick, continuous beam from a shard-like crystal weapon that the Dvapp carried around inside their bodies until they needed to use it, but it was quickly evident that they didn’t need it, for they were doing just fine slaughtering the Hobbits hand to hand.

Within a few hours the Skarron invasion of the planetary structures came to an abrupt halt, with their ground assault force unexpectedly annihilated and their naval force fleeing for their lives as the lesser number of Dvapp warships proved too lethal to survive. 23 Skarron vessels got away, not including transports, taking with them the combat recordings and news that this potential weak link in the ADZ was not so weak at all, and in fact was more lethal than the Protovic and Star Force had been prior to their Sentinels showing up.

But then again, there had been a reason the Bsidd had worked so hard to bring the Dvapp into the Alliance, and why the lizards had targeted them so aggressively once they had them at a disadvantage. They were a formidable race, and even given their egregious losses and having to rebuild in an entirely new environment, the Dvapp were more than capable of defending themselves against the Skarrons…and now that first blood had been drawn, the vendettive race was not going to sit back and wait for them to strike again.

The other two system assaults would end in similar failures for the Skarrons, which ultimately gave them what they wanted…an assessment of this new race showing up in droves to colonize the front lines of their widespread push throughout this galactic arm. Intelligence they’d gathered told them that the Dvapp were part of the Alliance, but little more than that. Now they knew, despite their hope they could have established a beachhead straight out.

But that wasn’t too significant, for there were lots of empty systems out there to set up shop in, despite the Alliance’s constant patrols that kept detecting them and responding with swift attacks to keep them from building up a forward base inside the ADZ. Two such attempts had been made in earnest, and repelled with hard fought campaigns, while more than a hundred smaller ‘sneak’ attempts had been made and easily driven off, prompting the Skarrons to try even more systems further out from the Protovic worlds, attempting to flank the enemy patrols.

With this latest attempt failing so spectacularly, the Skarron regional commanders called a halt to major combat operations against the Alliance while keeping up probing skirmishes, searching for weaknesses and harassing them as much as possible to gain intelligence and do what damage they could. Without having been able to secure Protovic territory and the mounting losses, the Skarrons now wanted time to reassess their enemy’s strength, for they’d been upping their attack forces in what they’d thought were conservative numbers to overcome what had previously been defeats…only to have the Alliance do the same, most notably with the deployment of the Sentinels.

With confusion over how many ships and troops would be required to secure a foothold against the Alliance, the Skarrons reverted back into planning mode, not having given up their attacks at all, just retooling their strategies as they let their reinforcements pool to significantly larger numbers.

Star Force took this as a good sign, for it gave them more time to build ships and Sentinels, and the Protovic agreed…but the Dvapp were of another mind and struck back at the nearest Skarron-held worlds with a vengeance, putting them on the defensive for a change and giving the ADZ its first good breather since the Skarron front first opened up some seven decades ago, as well as inspiring a new wave of confidence for those races who had fled to the ADZ ahead of the Skarron advance.

No longer was it a fools gambit, for now the Alliance had proven teeth, which word of mouth quickly spread through the surrounding regions as the Dvapp made no efforts to be sneaky in their attacks, preferring smash mouth tactics that just annihilated the weaker Skarron outposts then left their rubble behind for all to see as they moved onto other targets, eventually retreating back to the ADZ.

That alone upped their credibility, which invited a whole new slew of races seeking to join ranks with them or flee behind their defensive lines…as well as making other rimward races rethink the Alliance’s odds of holding out against the lizard juggernaut as it made its way inevitably forward.

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VERCIOUS

1

February 27, 2534

Retari System (Alpha Region)

Atlantica

Kyler woke the moment he heard the alarm, bolting out of bed and finding his shoes before running off through Manaan. He brushed his way past a few people in the hallway, none of who had heard the alarm for it was his private link to the command center and their way of summoning him in an instant when he was on a sleep cycle. Had it been less urgent they would have used a different tone and he’d have checked in on the comm, but the dragonzord flute call meant it was a top priority and that he needed to get his ass there as quickly as possible.

When he turned out of the residential area and into the more crowded hallways within the underwater city he telepathically shouted out to everyone to make room, simultaneously giving them the location in the center of the hall where they should NOT be. It took a few seconds, but suddenly a path opened up and Kyler sprinted through, bumping into a handful of shoulders and even knocking one woman down who was so light that even a slight brush toppled her.

He couldn’t wait to see who he hit, he just had to get through the city as fast as he could and after several minutes of reckless running through the crowds that more or less heeded his call to move aside, he entered the city’s command center and saw the gigantic hologram in the center depicting the orbital traffic with a large fleet of hostiles tagged.

Kyler didn’t even pause to inquire what was going on, rather running across the command center and into the nexus.

“Out,” he said, relieving the lower ranking Archon that was already on station, who graciously stepped aside and moved back out onto the main floor as Kyler touched the control sphere and mentally linked into the equipment and brought up a slew of status displays in addition to the main one that was already circling him in holo.

A fleet of lizard cruisers was already engaging the orbital defenses, with three Sentinels chewing them up at range and a hoard of drones headed their way. Some of the enemy ships were making attack runs on the drones that had already gotten to them, but they weren’t closing on any of the Sentinels, making it impossible for the lizards to do any damage to them. Instead, they were just sitting out approximately 100 miles from the nearest one and shooting any Star Force orbital infrastructure near them, including one of the storage/repair yards that was giving them hell with its perimeter defenses.

“This isn’t right,” Kyler whispered, keying for a few additional ship movements. “What are you guys up to?”

Twenty two seconds later he got his answer as the lizard ship formation suddenly became the lead escorts for a gigantic assault pillar that decelerated directly behind them, with additional cruisers and battleships coming in in its wake to create a protective ring around it.

“Shit,” Kyler said, retasking the Sentinels to exclusively target it. The assault pillar was one weapon that Star Force knew they possessed but had never encountered. It was by far the lizards’ largest vessel, measuring in at 93 kilometers and shaped like a huge needle, for at its thickest point it measured only 8.2 km wide. It was ungainly and far less maneuverable than even an invoker, but the two types of warships were killers none the less, and where the invoker came in for close-range fleet kills the assault pillar did the opposite and hit targets at range.

But its range didn’t exceed that of the Sentinels, who started hitting it with multiple cleansing beams, including their heavy versions…but its shields held up against the incredibly powerful weapons long enough for it to swivel its nose about a few degrees and the escort fleet to break apart to give it a firing line as they actually positioned themselves around it to try and take some of the cleansing beam hits.

With the closest Sentinel targeted the assault pillar spat out a single projectile towards it at amazing speed. Kyler watched its progress across the holo and the 100 mile gap in between until it smashed into the Sentinel’s shields…which also held.

A side-mounted display of that Sentinel flashed with shield damage, and Kyler could see that it had lost more than 62% shield strength. Also, the detailed sensor analysis concluded that it had been a kinetic impact equivalent to a kamikaze corvette. Kyler could see the superheated metal spray off the intact shields like a slush-filled water balloon, glowing with radiant intensity that didn’t fade quickly. The pieces of the now shredded projectile hit several drone warships and a jumpship nearby, adding extra damage to the attack that Kyler quickly countered by creating a no-go zone around that particular Sentinel, with his fleet responding accordingly as another projectile was fired.

It shot out of the assault pillar a moment before the cleansing beams got through the enemy shields and started tearing into the hull, but there they encountered dense hull armor, melting it off in globs but unable to get full penetration and slice the ship in half like Kyler hoped they could. A moment later the next projectile hit and breached the shields, with the partial splatter of superheated metal blowing right into the armor of the defense platform like a shotgun blast.

Damage statistics flared up, and Kyler noticed that the impact had occurred in virtually the same place as the first, meaning the assault pillar was hurling rail gun slugs the size of warships at a 100 mile range and managing to hit an area the size of a football field. That was insanely precise, and was probably the source of the elongated design, with longer barrels leading to greater accuracy, so long as you could position them with enough delicacy.

The third shot that came wasn’t another super-sized, super-fast slug. Instead the assault pillar began shooting out tiny ones at ‘slow’ speed, and Kyler’s gut sank even as he aligned his drones for a flanking attack against the escort fleet, using every second he had wisely as he watched the new projectiles eek their way across the holo like a dotted line extending out to touch the Sentinel.

The first one hit renewed shields and splattered, with it taking the third to bring them back down again. The fourth got hit by a well-aimed mauler blast and melted into fragments before it hit the hull, but by the time the fifth got within 100 meters of impact a bright flash occurred way back at the assault pillar and Kyler watched a chain of erratic energy arcs work its way up the line, jumping from one projectile to the other and extending out across the gap with ominous intent, not making it to the Sentinel until the 28th projectile impacted.

When it did the colored lightning that the invoker was so famous for slammed into the Sentinel with explosive results. The hull armor vaporized and the flickering crackle of energy dug into the gigantic defense platform even as its cleansing beams continued to reach out and cut into the enemy vessel, along with its two sister stations in close orbit. Kyler wished the others were within range to assist but they weren’t, spaced around orbit as they were in small clusters like this that had overlapping firing ranges.

Two of the cleansing beams on the Sentinel cut out, with the internal arrangements quickly altering to bring one of them back online with a power reroute, but the other weapon had been hit in the backflow of energy and damaged. That reduced the Sentinel down to 9 large and 1 extra large cleansing beam, with the energy being reallocated to those in order to increase firing rates.

The pale white beams continued to streak out across the 100 mile gap and tear into the enemy ship, with smaller skirmishes happening around the perimeter as Star Force drones tried to get at the gigantic vessel and the swarm of enemy cruisers moving out far enough to engagement them and provide cover. Soon another one of those beams cut out as the never ending flow of rainbow lightning continued to claw into the side of the Sentinel until one of the other two stations got a lucky hit inside the ‘barrel’ and knocked out an emitter pylon…with the lightning suddenly shutting down.

The last bit of it traveled through the relay, then only the small projectiles were hitting the charred hole in the Sentinel that now reached halfway through the massive defense platform. The projectiles coming in were doing more damage, small as it was, then the last two were actually hit before they could get to their target as a much faster large projectile came up from behind and knocked them aside before slamming into the hole.

Kyler watched as several more were fired and slammed into the Sentinel, which he already had rotating around to try and take the damaged region out of the firing line. With the shields now non-existent and unable to redeploy over the wounded area, intact shields on the back half slowly rotated around and took one of the hits…then fell on the next, buying some small amount of time, though with a new projectile coming in every 2.4 seconds there wasn’t much of a breather to be had, with the station getting hammered and Kyler trying to maneuver it out of the way on its internal drives.

It moved slowly, but succeeded in throwing off the aim of the assault pillar a handful of times for clear misses as the trailblazer assumed priority control from its previous pilots and maneuvered it over towards the nearest other Sentinel which was also repositioning towards it. Kyler got it within 20 miles before he lost all gravity drive control, with the station now beginning to list with each additional hit.

The other Sentinel continued to gain speed and crossed the gap as quickly as it could without overshooting and deposited itself in front of the now critically wounded platform, taking the incoming hits on its shields and then suffering through the hull damage as it and its intact twin continued to unload on the assault pillar. That exchange lasted several more minutes before the huge weapon ceased firing and reversed course, making a jump ‘backwards’ without spinning about, and getting away from the cleansing beams.

The lizard battleships went with it, then the cruisers followed shortly thereafter with the whole mass of them making staggered jumps out as the two Sentinels refocused their attacks on the ‘tiny’ vessels and killed more than 2 dozen of them before the enemy could fully retreat.

Kyler stayed in the command nexus, repositioning all manner of ships from drones to jumpships in preparation for another attack while he monitored the sensor stations spread across the system, trying to get a feel for where the enemy fleet was going and where they were going to hit them next…but to his surprise they reappeared near to the star, with the escorts loading back up onto jumpships that had somehow escaped detection upon arrival…either that or someone had decided to let him sleep in.

He reviewed the telemetry replay and saw that it was a combination of the two. The enemy jumpships had arrived from an odd jumpline, coming in where their sensor stations had the weakest coverage…something they probably knew from earlier scouting runs/attacks. That had delayed their detection a bit, but when they repositioned around the star for the jump to Atlantica Star Force should have had enough time to get better set up.

But the lizards didn’t have to position far, for they didn’t take a direct line to Atlantica…instead they made a jump to another planet that sat on almost the identical line that they arrived into the system on. That allowed them to reposition their forward elements quickly, literally allowing their cruisers to make the microjump as soon as they unloaded, then from there they made two more ping ponging jumps that required little repositioning and had allowed them to get into planetary orbit far faster than normal, with the sensor lag covering their arrival by a handful of minutes.

After that there had apparently been a delay in calling him, for the enemy cruisers had been clustering in orbit around Atlantica for several minutes prior to the first salvo being fired and well outside of Sentinel firing range. They’d then moved in en mass, hitting a few stations but not really appearing to want to do much damage. After they got far enough inside range and were taking egregious hits from the weapon platforms the assault pillar had come in behind them…and that told Kyler that this whole attack had been designed to get at one of the Sentinels.

It wasn’t the first lizard attack against one, but it was the first to succeed. All across this region of the ADZ border Sentinels were going up and adding extra toughness to the front, as well as those systems further in so the enemy couldn’t just bypass the defenses and hit ‘soft’ targets inside the ADZ. That said, those closest to the lizards were in the most jeopardy and had been reinforced heavily with fleets and new colonies nearby, creating a web of reinforcement potential and an ever growing thorn in the lizards’ side as they pushed their territory forward, with it now seeming to wrap itself around the ADZ as the Alliance defenses held firm and the surrounding systems did not.

There were no Protovic or Hycre here. It was all Star Force, with a few other races deciding to chip in and help out on this part of the border so long as they had Sentinels overhead. The addition of the extra fleets backing them up was useful, but that still left the bulk of the defensive effort to Star Force in those systems.

The Irondel were the most helpful, with most of the others just placing a few assets this far out for pride’s sake. The Reen had recently offered to help in exchange for a significant chunk of territory amounting to half a planet, with more requests starting to make their way out to Kyler, who now held primary responsibility for this line of defense now that Paul had moved on to other assignments. The aquatics specialist had elected to stay on Atlantica and organize the warfront from here rather than moving to Namek, given that this entire world had pretty much become his home and he’d been responsible for every structure and ship built here.

And it was also closer to the lizard lines than Namek was, especially given the expansions that had been made since their first days out here. Namek was almost an interior world now, with many formerly lizard systems now in Star Force possession and undergoing heavy construction, protected by both Star Force and Hycre fleets, the latter of which had become rovers, moving about to attack or defend where needed, leaving the lizards guessing as to where they were and in what numbers.

Kyler knew that some of those worlds only had a single Sentinel set up, with more coming down the pipe from Earth, and even if the lizards wanted to avoid the Hycre fleets, hitting Atlantica wasn’t exactly an easy feat. The fleet Kyler had here was more than capable of handling the escort fleet the lizards had brought with the assault pillar, and even with it there was no way they were going to take down all three Sentinels, though Kyler was pretty sure they could have gotten at least one more if they’d truly wanted to.

A lot of the planet’s drone defense fleet had been spaced out around orbit, unable to get to the enemy fast enough to do anything…which Kyler felt had been their plan as he ran back through the battle records again. They knew the position of the Sentinels, the planetary alignment, and the approximate location of the defense fleets…and not from any recon on this trip. They’d come here through a backdoor jumpline in order to set up the rapid arrival at Atlantica, which would avoid the bulk of the defense fleet for a short period of time and give them an isolated run against the Sentinels…and Sentinels as in plural. If they’d wanted to hit just one they could have picked another system, but three was the minimum number in the defense clusters here, of which had at least 50 miles of separation between each station.

That looked like nothing on the replays that Kyler was watching, for each of the Sentinels was 16 miles long and the lizard assault pillar, while 100 miles away, measured more than half that distance in length, making the battle look like a close up brawl from a distant observer, underscoring just how gigantic the chess pieces were that either side was fielding, with the cruisers and drones looking like lethargic insect swarms moving about around them.

Kyler ran through the sensor records of all monitoring stations within the system, making sure the lizards hadn’t deposited any ships on planet, then had his command crew do a headcount to ensure that all the enemy ships had left and they hadn’t dropped off a few out of sight…which they had. Kyler sent out several hundred drones and a handful of warships after them, which resulted in 3 kills and 4 escapes, though those escapes were slow affairs, with the cruisers having to make jumps on their own, meaning a very long trip between stars without a jumpship.

Those ships Kyler was sure were simply an afterthought, trying to gain some extra intel and not the focus of the attack. The Sentinels were Star Force’s major defensive piece in the ADZ puzzle, and a major deterrent to any race that wanted to attack them. Star Force had held the lizards at bay in this region for so long because they had been persistent and the lizards had been focused in other areas. Now that wasn’t so much the case, but the increased defenses were still holding them back.

Now, it seemed, their enemy was ready to flex some more muscle, here and on the Calavari border which had its own Sentinels set up and was warding off some light lizard attacks…probes, Kyler knew, sizing them up for the hammer blow to come.

This wasn’t it. Not by far. The fact that they’d left the system as quickly as they arrived said one thing and one thing only…they needed to test the strength of a Sentinel cluster, and this attack had been designed exactly to do that. They didn’t want to lose the assault pillar, but they had succeeded in trashing one Sentinel and damaging another, and based off the battle data he was reviewing, Kyler guessed that the assault pillar would be back to full offensive capability with only a light refit. The barrel shot they’d scored had been fortuitous, and he expected the lizards to back off the range a bit more to decrease the odds of it happening again.

Yes, Star Force had just driven off an assault pillar and its escort fleet, but the lizards had just proven to themselves that they could still hammer Star Force if they wanted to, and it wouldn’t require sacrificing hundreds of thousands of cruisers to get the job done. They’d wanted to test their big weapon and that test had been well executed and invaluable in determining what strength was necessary to make a serious attempt at breaching the ADZ defenses.

Kyler didn’t know how many assault pillars they had back in their home systems, but he got the feeling they would be making a whole lot more in the coming decades, for now they knew that their boomsticks could get the job done, and Kyler suspected that the stronger Star Force and the ADZ became, the more attention they were going to draw.

And from the look of things, the lizards weren’t considering them to be a minor threat anymore.

2

April 2, 2534

Solar System

Earth

Scrolling down through the list of battles, Paul mentally chose the one he wanted and the V’kit’no’sat hologram shifted to the file in less than a hundredth of a second, giving him the post-mission statistics, sensor records, and analysis of the Hjar’at’s assault on the world of Daspoelna. It was one of thousands of high level battles that the pyramid database had logged inside of it, with Paul growing more intrigued with those records as the years passed. Star Force’s technology wasn’t close to catching up with the V’kit’no’sat’s yet, but the more they advanced the more relevant these records became, and he needed to understand their ultimate nemesis long before they encountered them face to face.

The Hjar’at were the most militant of the V’kit’no’sat races…and that was saying something. All were highly skilled and aggressive, but the Hjar’at more so than the rest with a biology to match. Their Saroto’kanse’vam were not natural to their bodies, rather a genetic upgrade that gave them the powerful plate/spikes that ran from their necks down their back and all the way to their tail tip. They’d been given permission for the upgrade by the other races because of their affinity for hand to hand combat, and the transformation had suited them perfectly.

They were deadly on the ground, combining their body armor with the Saroto’kanse’vam into a living, breathing mech that was far more agile than anything Star Force had constructed. Most of the time they ran around dominating their foes with discharge attacks or used the weaponry built into their armor, allowing them to act as a mobile turret while their Zen’zat handled the smaller threats. It wasn’t until they faced a truly dangerous foe did their full range of skills become evident, even above and beyond what Paul had seen in their training vids.

The battle records he was looking through now contained one such instance, dated some 439,826 years ago, that occurred in the densely populated core of the galaxy. The star systems there were so packed together that a region a few lightyears in diameter would hold more systems than Star Force’s Core Region did, which made navigation far more tricky, often requiring a lot of short jumps to get through an area. Only once you got further out into the galaxy did the spacelanes open up and you could make longer jumps.

The V’kit’no’sat had such good navigational capabilities that they would actually surf the gravitational eddies and travel on curved jumplines when they moved through the core, which required very precise charts and a level of technical skill that Star Force didn’t currently possess. This allowed them to have a much greater freedom of movement through the core than other races did, meaning where others hid away from the galaxy the V’kit’no’sat had an easier time finding…though there were so many systems and races in the core that it made the rest of the galaxy seem sparsely populated in comparison.

It was that densely packed population that the V’kit’no’sat dominated over, and Paul could see why they spent their time there and not expanding out towards the rim. There was so much density that there was no reason for them to look outside of it…save for they’re being the badasses that they were. That also explained why the V’kit’no’sat were only interested in colonizing worlds with a very specific set of qualities, which in Earth’s case included the water to land ratio along with other concerns. The water dwelling races held considerable sway over the V’kit’no’sat and when they colonized new worlds it was usually a shared endeavor, so landlocked worlds were out of the question.

The world that Paul was looking at now was the reverse of Earth, with more land than water, but still sizeable oceans that the V’kit’no’sat had wanted…trouble was it was inhabited, meaning they were going to have to conquer the indigenous races in order to claim it. Normally that wasn’t a problem and the V’kit’no’sat got what they wanted, but in this case they had to fight exceptionally hard to claim it.

There were many races on Daspoelna, such as on Earth, but only two that were advanced enough to cause the V’kit’no’sat any concern. They had no names in the records, for they were not a spacefaring race with relationships in the surrounding area…and the V’kit’no’sat had wiped them out before learning their language or even what they called themselves. Normally any race worthy of the V’kit’no’sat’s attention garnered an evaluation team that would investigate, learn, and catalog information about their subjects, which was why the pyramid database was so massive, containing files on 1.2 million different races…and those were only the ones that had drawn their interest.

The core was full of races that the V’kit’no’sat simply didn’t wish to conquer and they ignored them up until they had reason not to. Daspoelna had been one such world, but when the light assault team comprised of Rit’ko’sor and Zen’zat they’d sent to the planet subsequently got massacred on the ground, that drew a very serious response, for the V’kit’no’sat were not accustomed to losing…at all.

Paul found it odd that they hadn’t used their fleet, which sat in orbit and simply monitored the ground war. At first he thought that was out of pride and that the V’kit’no’sat wanted to beat the enemy on the ground rather than admit they were inferior and just blast away from orbit…but then later on in the battle record he saw that the natives had some incredibly powerful anti-orbital ‘guns’ that shot down some of the V’kit’no’sat transports as they tried to land too close to a particularly sensitive region of the planet.

That really perplexed Paul, but as he dug through the records…which were not indexed well…he discovered a surprising fact. Whereas the V’kit’no’sat were a technologically advanced race with genetic engineering, these two races on Daspoelna were biologically advanced races that accomplished everything they needed without what would traditionally be considered technology, right down to the beefy ‘lightning’ weapon that was throwing up what the V’kit’no’sat had tagged as Icara’moson energy.

It was a very high end weapon, and one that the V’kit’no’sat couldn’t fully defend against with their smaller craft, for it seemed to have a shield penetrating capability. A side note in the records indicated the necessary shield matrix to defend against it, which had been added as a post-battle entry after the remains of the natives were studied and cataloged.

It appeared that the two races on the planet had not colonized space by choice rather than lack of means, and were more than capable of defending themselves against the V’kit’no’sat. Why they didn’t fire on the ships in orbit he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was their pride working against them as well, but whatever the case there was one continent on the planet that had to be approached by land, otherwise whatever came into it would get toasted by mountain-sized turrets that dotted the landscape, which forced the V’kit’no’sat to ground their troops on the far side and work their way around in a major ground campaign.

Which is what the Rit’ko’sor had done after losing transports on a direct approach, then when they encountered the natives they were beaten handily by the giants, which were the size of a 2-story building and bigger for the land race, with the swimmers being even more monstrous.

Paul ran through several more reports, trying to piece together some sort of summary that the records lacked. It seemed an enormous amount of data had been cataloged, but was then never organized afterward, like a stack of papers on a messy desk. Everything was there, but if you hadn’t been the one doing the writing then you were going to have to piece together everything on your own…which was typical V’kit’no’sat thinking. If you needed the data then you’d understand it already…and if you didn’t, then you’d have to suffer through the learning curve as penance.

Which Star Force and the trailblazers in particular had already been going through. The way the database was ‘organized’ was less odd now than it had been in the beginning, but there was still a lot of searching that had to be done, without any ‘google’ function to use. But being self-sufficient had its advantages, one being an abundant amount of time to do some digging, which eventually led Paul to realize that of all the various races on Daspoelna, none were wild. They were all biological constructs or hybridizations created by the natives to serve a particular function.

That hadn’t occurred to the V’kit’no’sat until the later days of the brief war, when the forests and oceans suddenly seemed to come to the aid of the two races with the lesser ones going kamikaze and throwing themselves at the V’kit’no’sat, sometimes just latching on to slow them down while the combat-capable ones made the kill.

The entire planet of beings belonged to the nameless races, which resulted in a second major defeat for the V’kit’no’sat, and one of the few in the Hjar’at’s personal history.

That didn’t stand, as more reinforcements were called in and a huge offensive began, both on the land and in the water, with the water war seeming to be the more savage, improbable as that was. The natives didn’t wear armor like the V’kit’no’sat did, but instead they grew it on their bodies, both the water race and the land race, with the later having very thick, rock-like plates that reminded Paul of dragon scales a bit, though they were much larger.

But despite their bulk the giants were faster than the Hjar’at…which was what prompted the V’kit’no’sat race to show their full power in order to try and counter them.

Paul didn’t believe what he was seeing at first, then began to reconcile a few facts as he went along. The Hjar’at were jumpers, and impossible ones at that, which he guessed, no, he knew had to be due to the anti-grav properties within their armor. The Zen’zat armor that had been left in the pyramid had the same design for drifting and dropping applications rather than flight, but Paul had been able to use it to jump really far when he and the others had messed around with it initially. Their Archon armor was still wholly inferior to it, but they were steadily closing the gap with every revision that they made.

That said, the Hjar’at had to be doing a lot of the jumping off of muscle in order for the armor to amplify it such. He had seen training videos of the Hjar’at outside their armor, moving, running, and jumping, but nothing to this extent. Now he wasn’t sure if they’d just been taking it easy in the training vids or they really needed their armor to escalate their battle abilities…and he was starting to think it was the former, for all of the other Hjar’at battle records he’d studied had them in armor as well, and none of them showed the huge dinosaurs to be moving with this much agility.

There were different sizes of Hjar’at, just like there were different sizes of Human, but those deployed into battle were not young ones, meaning they all had sufficient size…equal to a small house…yet they moved with reflexes that more befitted a cat. And still the giants were faster than them, and capable of throwing off energy attacks of their own from some of their armor plating, or what looked like it, with Paul identifying the places on their arms, chest, and head where they could release their various bioweapons from.

The fighting got intense even before the ‘wildlife’ came to the giants’ aid, with the giants having a slight advantage…and Paul was keenly interested in the fact that the giants were bipedal and not quadrupeds like the Hjar’at. As he studied their interactions he had the feeling, or more accurately was hoping for the feeling, that bipedal combat was somewhat frustrating to them, for that was what Star Force mechs were patterned on, and if they were ever to go hand to hand with the Hjar’at in the future it would be in a bipedal mech, for there was little chance of doing it in their Archon armor…though he knew Morgan would argue that point.

Though it was hard to believe, the Hjar’at could run faster than they could, and their maneuvering capabilities in close range were astounding. Paul thought he could dance around one with effort, but with their ability to simply shoot him with their armor’s cannons or their Saroto’kanse’vam he didn’t think they’d last long unless they gained access to the higher level psionics…and even then it’d be dicey.

The trailblazer was still in awe at how easily they moved. It seemed one of their favorite attacks against the giants was a blindsided run-up, with their target’s attention elsewhere so it couldn’t evade, whereupon the Hjar’at would sprint forward and transition into a bit of a hopping gait, then plant its face into the ground just short of the giant and use it as a pivot point as it brought its Saroto’kanse’vam to life with a neon blue glow, then flipped over onto its back into a lightning fast roll. The first few back spines imbedded into the ground, with the larger ones in the center of its back cutting the giant and sticking into it as the Hjar’at’s tail came up and did the same.

With the Saroto’kanse’vam melting through the bioarmor and digging in deep, the Hjar’at would either knock it down from the impact or twist it down from its new grip points, then flip over and right itself with several very damaging thrashes that would leave the giant either dead or heavily wounded. Paul saw the Hjar’at try this multiple times, but with the giants’ speed they had to catch them off guard or they’d evade easily and catch the Hjar’at with its belly exposed. Paul saw several get pinned to the ground that way as a giant dodged to the side then moved back in as the Hjar’at flipped, landing an arm on its armored underside to pin it to the ground with its primary offensive capability  dug into the dirt and unable to fire.

Several Hjar’at died from such a maneuver, but the rest didn’t seem to hesitate to try when they thought they had a chance at it, for it was a very quick kill if they executed it properly, and they could recover and get back up on their feet literally as fast as a cat or dog could, making Paul reassess Star Force’s limited hope of battling them with mechs. The V’kit’no’sat word for the technology was ‘Kelzat,’ which loosely translated meant ‘strong war,’ but oddly enough they never used the technology themselves, though many other races did…and now Paul knew why.

The Hjar’at, when in armor, were far superior to any mech and made the neo look like a plodding rock in comparison…underscoring just how far Star Force had to go to find a viable counter, aside from orbital bombardment, which Paul still favored when there weren’t bystanders or his own troops to get hit.

Paul spent several hours going over that one battle record, seeing that the V’kit’no’sat eventually overwhelmed the natives with a combination of greater numbers and the addition of three other races to the assault force…as well as a handful of Hjar’at ultras. Those literally were walking buildings, far larger and stronger than their smaller kin, enhanced to massive size by V’kit’no’sat growth enhancements so they could drop the hammer on the bigger races, and this situation definitely qualified.

Still, they didn’t dominate, and had to fight a very long and hard effort to beat their way into the central zone of the native civilization and end their land-based resistance while a group of V’kit’no’sat swimmer races did the same in the oceans. Both assault groups came out of the attack with heavy casualties, but above all else the V’kit’no’sat ego had to be satisfied and they finished off their opponents hand to hand without resorting to any sort of naval activity other than shipping in more troops and ensuring that none of the natives fled into space…though none actually tried, preferring to slug it out on the ground to the last man.

Which is exactly what happened. The V’kit’no’sat were not interested in taking prisoners and went about exterminating every living thing on the planet that moved, then burning the vegetation and everything else off the land and introducing a biological ‘destroyer’ to the oceans that likewise purged them over the course of several months as the microbe multiplied and erased everything from the waters.

After the planet had been thoroughly cleansed, the V’kit’no’sat terraformed it to their liking and moved in, claiming their prize after eradicating one of the strongest races in the galaxy…and who knew how many more of them were out there, spread across the galactic arms or buried deep in the core with too many systems to count.

Checking the time on his watch, Paul bookmarked that particular battle record for later review, then headed over to the training areas in the pyramid, needing to meet up with Ben-044 and Wes-049 at 4:30 for a challenge run.

3

April 4, 2534

Sevvna System (beyond the ADZ)

Outer Asteroid Belt

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” a Regular commando said softly, walking in on Bri-921 as she held a splits suspended with her feet on small padded blocks so she could get a few degrees past 180.

The Archon ranger looked up at him, holding her stretch. “It’s alright. You have news?”

The commando nodded. “Scout just came back. We’ve got a probable location.”

“Good,” Bri said deeply, her voice laced with a bit of lingering anger. “Tell them to get my ship ready. I’ve got a workout to finish, then I’ll be up to command.”

“As you wish, Archon,” he said with an abbreviated bow, then turned to walk back out the open doorway he’d entered through.

“Don’t say it like that,” Bri complained, prompting the man to turn back around. “You make me sound like Vader.”

“Who?”

“Never mind,” she said, rolling her eyes and waving him off with her left hand, careful not to throw off her precarious balance.  Her hand came back down and rested on her leg as the commando left, with Bri’s eyes glancing at the clock on the wall. It read 4:21 and was counting up, meaning she had another 39 seconds to hold this stretch before switching to another.

Back in the day she’d been accused of being inflexible and never being able to change that, then when she’d gotten to Archon basic training Wilson had taught them how they could customize their bodies however they wanted with time and proper training. Since then she’d proven her former naysayers wrong and had become quite flexible, gradually extending her range of movement as she lightly pressed her current limits and caused her body to add additional material to her ligaments, lengthening them and other tissue. She’d had to build her flexibility whereas others had been born with it, though now she surpassed the people she’d gone to school with that had been deemed with ‘natural’ talent.

Unfortunately they weren’t around to gloat over, and not because Bri wasn’t on Earth. Everyone she’d known growing up, friends and family included, were all dead now, failing to reach self-sufficiency and dying from attrition damage. Bri couldn’t imagine doing that, after all, how could one just sit on their ass and let their body fall apart?

Then again, how could one think someone was permanently inflexible? Bri realized there had been a lot of ridiculous ideas on Earth back in the day that seemed to be common sense, and even though her friends and family hadn’t lived to see the changes to the planet she was glad that most of those stupid ideas had been burned away by Star Force, with the Archons being the prime example of what one could do with proper training…not in theory, but in practice.

It galled her even more to think that people once thought that sugar was bad for you. It and the ambrosia flowing through her veins was what gave her the energy to train at such a high level, and she’d remembered Wilson’s words on that too. ‘Sugar is rocket fuel. If you’re not a rocket you probably shouldn’t eat it.’

Simple wisdom like that was ahead of its time, and she was very grateful to have been selected for Archon training and being able to learn from men like Wilson and Davis. They’d shown the light on so many lies that they’d basically given Earth a sunbath, cleansing it of most societal stupidity after a long, hard fight…and now that fight continued in the ADZ and beyond, with Bri heading up one of Davis’s many swords that he was using to hack down the forest of stupidity that most of the galaxy sat within.

But in this case she and her team, designated Gamma 6, were dealing with more than stupidity. They were dealing with bad people doing bad things, and whom were trying to hide their actions from Star Force, knowing well how Davis’s clandestine teams and the trailblazers had dealt with their previous violations of ADZ rules.

The wall clock hit 5:00 and switched over to a 10 second interim before starting another 5 minute segment, allowing Bri time to lift up on her hands and out of her side splits, only to rotate her torso around and ease back down into a forward splits with her right leg forward. She adjusted her position a few times, getting a good feel for the support blocks, then lowered down until she felt sufficient tension, settling in for another good, long stretch.

She went through three more, finishing with a handstand set of pushups before hitting the showers and heading up to the command center. The base she was currently residing in wasn’t on a planet, but a planetoid-sized chunk of rock that most likely had been part of one. It was surrounded by a swarm of other asteroids that had stretched out into a 1/3rd orbital arc around the system’s star and far outside the only planet in the system, which was a blue gas giant in very low orbit, making it far too hot for Hycre tastes and virtually unusable to anyone else.

The asteroid field held plenty of resources, but it was virtually impossible to get to with differential gravity drives. There was literally nothing to brake against save for several large chunks like this one, but to do so meant you’d have to fly through the other, smaller asteroids, practically insuring that you’d kill yourself in the process.

One could make their way out on thrust engines, but given that the system was uninhabited there was little chance that someone would go to that much effort, giving Star Force a resource base to draw off of without anyone else’s knowledge that they were then using to expand the hidden base that was one of some 7 currently built in the Clan Neon Squirrel circuit. Liam’s Clan had three bases within the ADZ and four outside it reaching into what had once been Calavari territory and below it, putting this system far beyond Protovic space and out of the way of anyone’s attention.

What Bri was using it for was a way station, allowing her ships to refuel and otherwise resupply without having to return to the ADZ and an official Star Force colony. The scout ship the commando had mentioned was one of 18 tiny jumpships designed as a personnel transport. They couldn’t carry anything other than passengers and some small amount of cargo, but they were the fastest ships that Star Force had and Bri’s fleet was out scouting nearby systems trying to track down activity that some of the ADZ members were conducting out here in the ‘wilderness.’

And there was a lot of activity going on, not all of which was coming out of the ADZ. The region of space they were currently in was sort of a no man’s land in between the lizards, Nestafar, and Skarrons, with no controlling faction and a very lawless, panicky environment. Bri didn’t land on planets regularly, nor did her scouts, but what they were observing from orbit or deep surveillance points in the systems they scouted was disturbing. There was a lot of nastiness going on that she didn’t have the power to stop, and a good amount of it had ties to the ADZ.

The trick of it was, with so many star systems, literally in the hundreds of thousands around the perimeter of the ADZ within easy access, there was no way to monitor it all and the ADZ members knew it. They might behave themselves inside Star Force’s domain, but beyond it they reverted back to their bad habits, some of which Star Force wasn’t going to stand for.

Others chose the more clandestine route, using intermediaries to do what they wanted that couldn’t directly be attributed to them. As such, a lot of smugglers, mercenaries, and other forms of pirate were working for some of the ADZ races outside the ‘safe’ zone, with most of them based out of Scionate space.

Though not an outright defiant member of the ADZ, the Scionate clung to their independence and allowed their systems with no Star Force presence to act as bastions of unmonitored activity. Bri and the others still had transit rights through their systems, meaning they could drop in and take a look, but they didn’t have any Star Force infrastructure there, making those systems the inroad for the people that Gamma-6 and others needed to monitor.

That actually worked to their advantage, because the smugglers would use predictable routes, allowing scout ships with good pilots and a bit of luck to track them through interstellar jumps, though they rarely were able to follow them through more than one before losing track of them. You had to be right on their heels to remain in contact and get a good jump measurement to know where they were going, and then get yourself aligned and off at a precise speed, otherwise you’d fall behind or overshoot your target.

Bri’s pilots knew what they were doing and had been tracking a number of ships and plotting their preferred routes. The ones less frequented were harder to find, with this latest attempt apparently paying off as her ships had been visiting every star system within 10 light years of the last known jump point.

When Bri got into the command center and pulled up the recent reconnaissance data she concurred with the assessment. Distant scans showed considerable infrastructure on a planet that was supposed to be uninhabited, as far as the charts that Star Force had compiled from a number of sources said. The scout ship had also captured sensor data for one known ship interacting with the surface via a slew of dropships, either unloading or taking on cargo. It wasn’t broadcasting an IDF so they didn’t have conclusive evidence of what ship it was, buy they’d pulled enough of a sensor profile off it to identify it as a Lemickas-made transport.

It was a design that they didn’t use themselves, but manufactured exclusively for sale. The stubby little race of bipeds were rather industrious as well as unscrupulous, not caring who they sold their ships and other products to and not looking beyond their own borders to see what they are used for. That wasn’t a problem with Star Force, for the Lemickas were just doing business, but it wasn’t uncommon to see their transports used by private enterprises that were trying to avert Star Force’s notice.

One noteworthy feature of the design was that it doubled as a slow jumpship, meaning that those who couldn’t afford to purchase a convention one could buy their own interstellar transportation for relatively low price…if you didn’t mind the long haul between systems. Privateers and independent shippers swore by the craft, and a number of the ships that Bri’s fleet had been monitoring were of this design.

Bri contacted her warship, stationed on the dark side of the base so it wouldn’t be visible on sensors to any ships passing through the system who happened to look in their direction. They’d have to be looking very closely to notice anyway, but since the base was intended to remain a secret they weren’t taking any chances. She checked in on their status and informed the captain that they’d be leaving the next morning, then she headed off elsewhere in the base that housed some 50,000+ personnel, most of whom were not under her direct command.

They were a mix of Clan Neon Squirrel personnel and a few other Clans plus mainline troops, techs, and other useful individuals. There were no true civilians in the base, with everyone being here for a purpose. As it was, most of them were engaged in other circuit activities, scouting missions and construction, while Bri’s fleet had just made the base its temporary home, same as Beta-4 had done two months ago.

The planetoid chunk was still being expanded into, keeping the surface features ‘natural’ and all the infrastructure interior. Likewise the mining ships roaming the asteroid field were drilling into other large chunks and hollowing them out, both to keep their activities all but invisible, as well as to build structures inside. Right now only the main base was inhabited, with the few others that had been constructed to date being used primarily for storage.

One of those held a fuel reserve that had topped off Bri’s warship immediately upon arrival in the system, meaning that they wouldn’t have to worry about doing it now when they needed to leave in a hurry. There were still some other supplies that needed to be transferred over, but those would be finished within a few hours. It was Bri’s crew that was currently in the base that she had to get over to the ship.

Most were techs and pilots, which would be recalled via the comm system, leaving only a handful of Archons that Bri needed to track down, knowing that most of them would probably be in the sanctum and off comms. She managed to contact 3 of them remotely, then headed over to the base’s sanctum and interrupted them during the workouts, knowing that some would need a few hours to deal with side projects before they left.

Bri politely butted into several intense sessions, waiting on a few to finish and just telepathically telling the others while they were in action rather than stopping them to deliver the message. The last two she found in one of the small sparring rooms, sitting crosslegged on the pads facing each other and levitating a weight between them.

The ranger reached out telekinetically and grabbed the weight, suspending it herself and grabbing both of their attention…which apparently had been so focused on the task at hand that they hadn’t detected her approach.

“What?” Karen asked, glancing over at her in sync with Travis.

“Ready for some action?”

“Please,” her brother answered.

“We got a hit. I need you both back onboard, we leave in the morning.”

“What’s morning?” Karen asked.

“3 am.”

“Morning morning,” Travis clarified.

“Yep,” Bri said, floating their weight over to her and grabbing it in her hand. “You guys can lift this?”

“Battlemeld Nemsa. We can’t do it stacking.”

“Not even close,” Travis agreed regretfully.

Bri raised an eyebrow. “Not bad. Wish I knew how to do that,” she said, floating it back out between them and letting the two acolytes get hold of it again. “Carry on.”

About time, Travis told his sister after Bri had left.

What do you think they found?

I say base of operations.

My money’s on a meat farm.

Yuck…I hope there are at least some mercenaries. I want a challenge for a change. Smugglers are too easy.

We’re not there to have fun, Karen corrected him. That’s just bonus.

You want to finish here?

No, might as well switch sanctums before we get into the heavy stuff.

Right, Travis said, using their battlemeld link to pull the weight over to where he could reach it, though technically they were both moving it in sync, only he didn’t have to ask his sister to help him. She was in his head and him in hers, with movements like this occurring without conscious thought or request.

The level 67 acolyte carried the weight with him as they left the room, then deposited it in the nearby lifting chamber where he’d grabbed it from. After that they both headed over to their temporary quarters in the base, which were situated next door to one another, and packed a light duffle with their personal belongings. A few minutes later they met each other outside and headed over to the hangar bay, tagging a dropship pilot to haul them over to the GameRay.

The Mk. 26 warship was one of the newest in service, with an enhanced gravity drive that gave the ship quicker jumps and more range, letting them be the hare to the smugglers’ tortoise. It was as fast as a Hycre jumpship, which was still too slow for Karen, considering how much unused tech they had waiting in the pyramid to unlock. She didn’t see what was taking so long, but was glad they hadn’t been assigned one of the clunkers for this mission…and very glad that they weren’t stuck with training or ‘residential’ assignments.

These intercept missions might be easy with a lot of downtime in between, but they were live combat, which was what both of the twins wanted. They would have preferred a front line post fighting lizards, but that hadn’t been an option, though the trailblazers had saw fit to allow them to stick together. Splitting them up would have been downright stupid, and even though they didn’t get along with one another she was glad that they’d respected them enough to keep her and her brother together as a pair…sort of a super Archon, for most typical assignments were all individual, save for a few exceptions.

After getting off the dropship and letting it return to the base to wait for other passengers, Karen and Travis dumped their duffles off in their normal quarters and headed over to the ship’s sanctum, grabbing an open sparring chamber and proceeding to enter into a game of ‘twister’ wherein they helped each other stretch out in two person holds, both to increase flexibility and warm themselves up for the agility challenge they were about to get into before Bri had arrived.

Downtime or not, the twins were leveling up faster than any other acolytes and they intended to keep it that way, knowing that they’d have to get much higher in rank before they got to start choosing their own assignments, as well as stay ahead of the other Archons coming out of basic training, let alone catch up to those ahead of them. Paul and Jason had accused them of being lazy numerous times, and both Karen and Travis still felt the burn from that, with them deciding to work their asses off that much harder in order to prove them wrong, and to date they were catching up to and passing Archons older than them by the droves.

4

April 18, 2534

Xaxe System (beyond the ADZ)

Unnamed Planet

The GameRay came into a high orbit, braking heavily so it could avoid the normal parking lanes. As the sensors caught up to the transition Bri had 4 ships pop up on orbital scans…all cargo ships based on the designs and no threat to her warship, though what was on the other side of the planet was unclear. It could hold more ships in orbit, which was why she’d wanted a high observational position, allowing the jumpship to sit and watch to see what came around. While it was possible to hover on anti-grav, doing so was simply too much of a fuel burner, which meant ships would sit in orbit and coast around a circular or elliptical path, eventually revealing themselves to a fixed position.

The GameRay was slowly falling into the planet rather than putting itself into an orbit, but being so far out it wasn’t a concern. The surface infrastructure that the scout ship had detected was currently out of the line of sight, and Bri was going to wait until it rotated around before sending anyone down…which would occur in 36 minutes, according to the mapping data that the scout ship had brought back to update their records with.

The infrastructure the scout ship had detected from range had been little more than material readings differentiating from grass and dirt in geometric patterns. That basic outline had told them where it was on the planet but not what it was. Now that they were much closer than the scout ship had been, that weak schematic began to fill in as the planet rotated beneath them and exposed the construction to a more revealing scan.

Bri watched as a far greater region was detailed, with small structures and what looked like walls outlining large tracks of land around the heavy infrastructure…at which point she immediately knew what they had here, based on her previous knowledge of Earth before the ‘golden age’ had begun. These were farms, and even though the sensors couldn’t pick out life forms from this distance, she was sure they weren’t growing plants down there, save for maybe foodstuffs for their ‘livestock.’

Whoever they were had a meat farm set up out here, risking attack from the lizards, Nestafar, pirates, or any of the other threats in the area in order to get outside the ADZ’s legal restrictions…then to smuggle the meat back inside, probably through the Scionate worlds, or maybe even selling to them directly.

Bri flipped her earpiece on with a telekinetic button press and cycled through the various options until she got the pair of IDs she wanted to contact.

“Meet me in the hangar, full gear, scout protocol, stun weapons. We’re going down for a closer look.”

Ready sis?

Always, Karen replied, standing in the rear of the dropship that was descending into the atmosphere over the western side of the surface complex in a none too subtle nose dive. Bri was standing in front of them as they looked out the rear hatch into the sky, seeing a few stars hanging onto view as the atmosphere thickened under the morning sun, into which she ran out, jumping the last step in the artificial gravity to get some separation speed.

She shot off out the back, but didn’t fall ‘down’ given that the dropship was technically below here. Karen and Travis followed her out, passing through the inertial dampening field and into freefall as the dropship seemed to be heavier than them and continued to fall faster. That was an illusion, for in fact it was simply holding its line while the three Archons were caught up in the atmospheric friction and pulled backwards, though they too were still falling at a high rate of speed.

The two specs of silver armor adjusted their fall rate and angle by altering their body positions, using their arms and legs like rudders and flew after the green spec that was Bri, coming up behind her in a wide-spaced triangle formation as the dropship began to pull up out of its dive and shoot farther north, leaving them behind.

The atmosphere on this world was thick, thicker than Earth’s anyway, and they’d come out at significant altitude, giving them a long way to fall. Their armor blocked the wind from their eyes, with them seeing through the faceplate and on the HUD where they were headed to, with the Twins following Bri’s course corrections as they descended over one of the many hexagonal fields below.

They had detected a single anti-air turret on the trip down, hence the off-center drop. They estimated the range of the weapon to be about 2 kilometers, maybe 4, given that it was a plasma design and the atmosphere was going to mess with the trajectory. The Archon armor could take a hit on its shields if it was just spit, meaning they were good to drop so long as they didn’t get too close.

The fields below stretched out for some 30 kilometers to the west, and once the trio descended down to 5 km Bri gave them a telepathic heads up, then angled her body and started to bring herself out of the fall, using her momentum and the friction of the air to start creating lateral speed towards the complex. As she did she monitored her altitude closely, adding a bit of anti-grav from her jump pack later on to further stall the fall.

By the time the Archons reached 500 meters they were moving almost full lateral and hung onto it with a combination of aerodynamics and jump pack until they came down to within a handful of meters of the grassy fields and moving at well over 100 miles per hour. Bri adjusted her body line out of ‘bullet’ shape and feathered her arms and legs while pulsing the jump pack, forcing her up into the air again in a skid that slowed her down and regained some altitude…but hopefully low enough not to attract the attention of the turret which they were still outside the prime range of.

“Bri, how are we supposed to stop?” Travis said as they mimicked her maneuver, trailing some 20 meters back and losing speed, but still traveling quite fast.

“Run or roll rookies,” Bri said, finally dropping to the ground when her jump pack capacitor exhausted itself. She managed to come down feet first, with the trickle of recharge energy being fed into the anti-grav to cushion the drop. Her first foot strike she managed to turn into a jump. The second hit and stuck, flipping her over but she managed to jump it into an aerial flip and land on her feet again at a sprint as the twins flew past her overhead.

Her long, awkward strides smoothed out as she slowed down to an easy 30 miles per hour and had to start working to maintain the speed rather than just peg legging it to keep up with the terrain. The ranger continued to slow down, settling in at 20 miles per hour and huffing it across the grasses as she followed the others, watching them come down in a similar manner some 300 meters ahead of her, except that they weren’t fast enough on their feet to match their landing speed…with both of them tripping into falls.

Bri saw them tumble violently, flipping heads over heels until the combination of armor and ground finally bled off their speed. She continued to run forward, letting her run continue to slow until she finally came up to them at a 10 mph jog.

“You guys alright?” she asked over the comm.

Karen looked up at Bri from her sitting position, seeing that the green armor didn’t have any dirt/mud marks on it, whereas hers and her brother’s were covered in abrasion grime. “You didn’t fall?”

“Almost, but I stuck the landing and ran it out.”

“Wish I’d been able to do that,” Travis complained as he stood up and felt around his back rack. “I lost something.”

Bri pointed ahead of him.

“Thanks,” he said, walking over and picking up the stun pistol that had dislodged when he’d hit. Apparently it had better aerodynamics than he did, for it had traveled further on impact.

Karen also retrieved of a couple pieces of gear that had got knocked off their attachments and stretched her neck, feeling a bit of a crimp from when she hit her head, but her armor had protected her from snapping it or anything else by not mechanically allowing any abnormal bends.

“You guys need a minute?” Bri asked.

“We running?” Travis asked.

“Yep.”

“How about a minute or two of jogging?”

“Deal,” the ranger agreed, taking the lead at a very slow pace with the twins dropping in behind her and moving a bit awkwardly for the first few steps. She gave them some time to get the wind back in their lungs then accelerated up to a decent pace that she thought they could handle over the slightly rolling terrain. There was nothing but grass around them, all of which was knee high and flowering with tiny seeds that broke off as they ran through. It wasn’t until more than a mile later that they came up on one of the captive herds.

Bri avoided the thickset quadrupeds that looked like they couldn’t run if their life depended on it. They had narrow heads and a huge chest that tapered back to narrower hips and no tail.

“Bernen,” she identified as they swung around the herd of 200 or so that was chewing on the grass in a small hollow that also had a tiny pond at the center.

“Never heard of them,” Karen commented as they ran past.

“They’re not very intelligent, but they are strong. They’re also burrowers.”

“Those things go underground?” Travis asked, looking to his left at the hippo-sized creatures.

“Hence the leg strength,” Bri added as they passed them by, with two more herds visible within a kilometer, the furthest one clustered up against one of the boundary fence/walls. “They’re a favorite foodstuff of several races.”

“Let me guess,” Karen said. “Kitty food?”

“There are Scionate here,” Bri confirmed.

Travis frowned inside his helmet. “How do you know that?”

“Ikrid. These bernen have seen them.”

“You pulled a mental download on the run?”

“Not hard when you go to what they fear the most. Spread out for the jump and let me go first. I’ll let you know what’s on the other side,” Bri said as they came up to an empty area of fence. It was a solid wall of synthetic construction with a flat top some three meters high with periodic spikes spaced out several hundred meters.

“Are those cameras?”

“Maybe,” Bri said, knowing that meant the owners were going to be able to keep track of them as they ran across the fields. “Can’t be helped,” she said, motioning for the three of them to split up.

Bri kept running on a straight line, ready to activate her jump pack but taking a moment to look at the wall with her Pefbar from range. As it turned out it was quite thick, actually wider than it was tall. Then in the last few steps she pushed her Pefbar ‘cone’ down through the ground and saw that the wall extended into the ground further than she could see, possibly built to keep the bernen from burrowing out rather than a concern about them going over top.

The ranger released the effort when she jumped, sailing up easily to the top and choosing to land on the wall for a single foot hop with a second floating jump bringing her across and down to the other side.

“Clear,” she told the others, seeing a herd nearby but not close enough to give them landing problems. The two acolytes came over a few seconds later, one to either side, then they sprinted to catch up to Bri as she continued to run on, diverting to her right about 15 degrees as she headed them towards the buildings that were barely visible in the distance over the next wall…still multiple kilometers away.

“Company,” Travis said, seeing a hover vehicle whipping across one of the walls ahead of them and dropping back down to about a meter above the grass as a huge fan blade on the back encased in a ring provided propulsion, signifying that the anti-grav was probably basic and not able to do more than provide vertical lift.

“I see it,” Bri said, slowing down just a hair so the twins could regain some strength. “Time for meet and greet.”

“Orders?” Karen asked.

“I’ll disable it. You stun everything in sight.”

“It’s armed,” she pointed out.

“I know,” Bri said, launching into a sprint at the top of a small rise and surging out ahead of the twins as the vehicle redirected its line and came to a halt with its side facing her. On top of it she saw two small tripod-mounted guns swivel towards her as the armored bipeds behind them took aim.

The next thing she knew they were firing some form of bullets at her, not the traditional plasma that almost everyone seemed to use.

Bri caught a round on her leg, which deflected off her shields and caused her to trip. She landed face first on the ground but managed a somersault roll and came back up on her feet and resumed her run at a much slower pace. She took three steps then juked left, with a spray of bullets passing by her with only two hits to her torso. Those didn’t take her down but they did drop her shields under 50% and she was still well outside her Ikrid range.

Knowing that she sprinted hard, attempting a few Fornax blasts and missing badly, then got clipped again by a three round buzz saw on her left shoulder that flipped her around and took her to the ground again. This time she rolled out of it to the side, staying low to the ground for an extra turn before getting her knees under her and sprinting out again…now at an angle so the gunners would have a harder time shooting what had previously been a more or less stationary target from their point of view.

A few seconds later she saw the right-side gunner twitch when she threw a Fornax blast at him, meaning she was getting close…but then the vehicle accelerated slightly, allowing it to move and shoot and keep some distance between her and them as they quickly saw that she wasn’t going down like they’d expected.

A telepathic message from the twins told her that they were moving the opposite way, so Bri continued to sprint forward, feeling the strain in her muscles as she fought her armor to get up over 35 mph. She could go faster than that on the track for short periods of time, but the footing here was crap and the grass was slowing her down too…whereas the hover truck was gliding along easily, with her only gaining a handful of meters on it.

She caused the gunner to twitch again, throwing off his aim, and she started throwing out Fornax blasts at where she felt the driver was sitting inside a concealed cockpit. It didn’t seem to help, but the vehicle wasn’t getting away either, making her think it was just going to play with them and keep its guns out of her range while they chewed her up.

Bri adjusted her line, seeing the vehicle likewise adjust its, then she took another hit and her shields dropped to under 20%. She slowed her run as she came to a downhill section that would cause her to temporarily disappear from view in a small hollow. When she hit the bottom she went back into full sprint, climbing up the far side and coming out the top with greater speed, catching the vehicle off guard and allowing her to get some 20 meters closer before it adjusted.

She hit the gunner with another Fornax blast and saw his hands slip off the tripod as he pitched forward onto it. The ranger hit him again and again, taking him down and keeping him on the deck of the vehicle until the range increased and she lost her ability to keep him there. He got back up, clearly shaken, and reclaimed his weapon…only to have the vehicle lurch to the side violently, knocking both gunners off their feet as it turned towards Bri’s left.

She continued her sprint, now closing distance on it as she saw the twins much closer. Apparently they’d gotten to the driver, and as Bri got within range she reached out to the mind in the cockpit and linked in to it, unable to do little more than cause it some grief at this range, but a few more steps closer and she was able to freeze it in place, with the vehicle drifting lazily across the grass.

Bri held that mental link, ignoring the gunners and trusting the twins to get to them…which they did soon after, knocking down both with Fornax blasts before they jumped up onto the flatbed section of the vehicle and shot them unconscious with pink energy blasts at pointblank range. Karen disappeared from view for a moment, then Bri felt the driver’s mind drop out of her vision.

She released her attempts to reacquire the connection and scanned the rest of the vehicle as she approached, finding no other minds there and only barely picking up the three unconscious ones. When she got up to the vehicle and took a jump pack-assisted hop up on top, Karen had already pulled out the driver, also a biped, who wore a hodgepodge assortment of armor and trinkets similar to the other two but not identical.

Travis pulled the helmet off of one of the gunners, revealing a glowing purple/green face.

“Protovic,” he said, pulling a pistol and a bandoleer of ammunition off the man and tossing it to the side.

“This one’s Gnar, I think,” Karen said, lightly kicking the stubby driver, but knowing better than trying to remove its breather mask.

Bri knelt down and pulled the helmet and scarf off the other gunner, seeing that it was a race that wasn’t part of the ADZ.

“Drepwen,” she said, recognizing the race notorious for generating pirates.

“More where these came from, I assume?” Travis asked.

“Give me a moment and I’ll find out,” Bri said, pulling her green armored glove off her left hand and pressing her smooth, lightly colored fingers up against the burnt red of the Drepwen’s neck and hacking into its nervous system directly to increase her Ikrid efficiency as she searched its recent memories, made all the more difficult by the fact that it was unconscious.

That said, this wasn’t her first unconscious interrogation. It would take time, but she’d learn what they needed to know.

“Keep watch,” she told them, focusing all her attention on the task at hand.

5

Bri tapped her jump pack, getting a small boost to her leap and sailing up over a stack of compressed cargo pallets. She landed knee first on the other side on the back of a Scionate, knocking him to the ground as she pumped two rounds from her stun pistol into the thin shirt covering the quadruped’s back. The pink energy soaked through it with ease, saturating his body and causing it to go numb a moment before he blacked out.

Bri rolled off his body as it collapsed and ducked to the side as a pair of plasma orbs came her way…one red, one orange, and coming from two different shooters. They were both Critel wearing partial armor and firing at her with beefy rifles that were spitting out plasma rapidly…along with several other shooters spaced around the bay trying to keep her from getting to the transport that was about to take off with the bulk of the compound’s key personnel on it, or at least the leadership, for most of the ‘farmers’ were spread out elsewhere as Bri cut to the heart of their operation.

She’d gotten the location of the bay and the command wing from the interrogation of the captives that they’d dumped in the fields, then they’d taken the hover vehicle all the way up to the complex before splitting up, with Bri heading straight to the big wigs…who were now trying to flee after seeing the ranger tear through more than 20 heavily armed mercenaries with ease. These Critel and others were merely delaying tactics, meant to slow her down rather than stop her, and she knew she had to get to the transport within the next thirty seconds, for the bay roof was already opening up and the whine of inefficient anti-gravs was filling the air.

Bri sprinted forward a few steps, then ducked right before sprinting again, getting within her preferred range before releasing a Fornax sphere that caught both Critel and a couple of other shooters behind a barricade. All four dropped to the ground, momentarily incapacitated as she held the effort while running over them. She stunned both Critel with her pistol, but didn’t turn to get the others. When she released the effort they both got up, one of them clueless as to what had just happened and disoriented from it, with the other taking the opposite approach and seeming to forget it entirely, for he rose up and fired at Bri’s back, hitting her with one of five quick shots.

The plasma abated against her shields, draining them of more energy that her small power source tried to replenish as she ran. More incoming shots hit her, even as she moved about with random adjustments, throwing off additional plasma orbs and a few lances. The races and equipment here were all hodgepodge, coming from a variety of sources, but effective none the less and the Archon knew that these men had had some type of formal training, for they were maintaining cohesion well and forcing her to run the gauntlet in order to get to the transport…which fortunately her armor allowed her to do.

As her shields finally popped she tapped the charge button on her pistol and headed for the largest cluster of the mercenaries, having to make only a minor detour to her right. She hopped over another crate and landed in a dive roll, causing a salvo of shots to miss her high. When she rolled back up onto her feet she fired at the group of four bipeds nearest to her, sending out a conical blast that expanded to hit all of them plus several crates nearby. The intensity wasn’t enough to knock them out, but their return fire stopped momentarily, allowing her to run up on them and stun two with pointblank shots before launching herself up and over the crate wall behind them as the roof door finally locked itself open with a loud clank, fully exposing the sky.

“No you don’t,” Bri said, taking more hits and getting melty spots on her armor, some of which she could feel a little heat from as she sprinted underneath the transport as it began to rise up. There were no open hatches or doors for her to get in through, and trying to hang onto the landing gear was a bad idea, for she would be crunched the moment it retracted.

That left her one option.

Skidding to a halt she reached out with her mind, sensing those inside and guessing where the cockpit was before it was out of her range. Several plasma blasts hit her but she ignored them, focusing on sending blast after blast of Fornax energy into the large ship. Five seconds later she almost gave up the attempt, getting warning lights flashing in her HUD as her armor was taking serious damage, then the transport, now halfway up through the open doors, lurched to the side and hit the rim.

There was a loud groan as metal pressed against metal, but the small bump escalated into a full blown crash as the transport inexplicably accelerated into the contact, breaking through the roof like it was tearing a piece of paper and forcing the transport back down inside at an angle.

Bri sent out one last blast then ran out of the way as the right side of the ship hit the deck, forced down as the roof thickened, tipping the transport onto its side. She took the moment to shoot another of her attackers and diminish the plasma coming towards her as she ran behind the cover of some more crates, most of which were empty and compacted down into storage mode…dozens of which crunched loudly as the transport edge landed on them, sounding like a billion twigs snapping under a Dino foot.

Bri circled around and got closer to where she thought the bridge was and resumed throwing Fornax blasts inside, aware that her head was starting to protest the continuous effort. As she did she worked her way further around, trying to find a route inside while dodging the mercs still on the deck who had not given up their attempts to slow her, and probably now emboldened by all the surface damage her green armor was showing.

It was a sticky situation, but she wasn’t about to let the ringleaders get away if she could help it, and at the moment it was a draw. They couldn’t leave and she couldn’t get inside, with the Archon not knowing which direction the deadlock would break.

On the outskirts of the complex Travis and Karen hopped over several of the bernen that had been corralled and entered through the loading dock, wide enough for just one at a time, and came into a horrific scene. The line of ‘livestock’ were being separated into four chutes by a worker with a pain-inducing stick of some kind, where upon each bernen was separated from the others by two paddles…one in front and one in back that forced it to move slowly down the processing line.

At the end of that line there were shrieks of horror coming from the bernen as they were forced into a tight chamber smelling of the blood of the ones that had gone before. The high pitched squeals turned Karen’s stomach so much she almost hesitated, but thanks to the battlemeld link with her brother they kept each other steady and stunned the handler corralling them just as they’d done the ones outside, then both twins split up and launched themselves up and over the death chutes via jump pack.

They came down on the far side, seeing one of the corralled bernen trapped between the wall and a large mechanical hand that had more than a dozen arm-sized fingers wrapped around its thick chest. Those fingers were pinning it in place, then with a flash a blade jutted out and decapitated the creature, with a blood spill equivalent to a small tidal wave that fell into a grate while a second mechanical hand picked up the head and placed it on a conveyor that disappeared into the nearby wall.

The body followed, dropping into a chute that disappeared into the floor as the next panel came forward, with the bernen behind it freaking out after hearing and smelling what had just happened ahead of it. The mechanical hand came in and pinned it against the wall just as Karen got to the control nook, dropping in over the short wall and kicking the operator in the head.

She reached down and grabbed him by the throat and tossed the spindly Karsek off the elevated platform, pumping two stun rounds into it as it fell, then she jumped up to the top of the wall and leapt off it to the next station, coming down on the Critel there as Travis took care of the other two stations.

Karen wanted to snap the man’s neck, but orders for this mission were to take prisoners for interrogation, so she settled on a very hard kick to the ribs followed by a pair of stun shots. The acolyte pulled the man’s body off the platform and dumped him to the floor before hopping over to the nearest bernen in the kill slot, looking for a way to rip apart the machine and free it as Travis found what she needed.

Karen retreated over to the control platform and hit a specific button that her brother had discovered that retracted all of the paddles. The bernen were still in the chute but could see one another and, more importantly, could backtrack. It took a while to get them back out into the exterior corral, but Karen and Travis felt it necessary to get them away from the blades and the gore that had just been their living kin before moving further into the facility.

They locked the exterior doors so that the bernen couldn’t wander back in, not that any looked to be wanting to get near the building after they set them loose, and proceeded further inside, hunting down more personnel but finding only a handful. Some were fleeing ahead of them, but they managed to bag a few on the level below, cutting up the bernen corpses in a display that made Karen puke in her mouth…which caused Travis to do the same.

She held it in as they took care of them, then they left the gore behind and Travis covered for her as she removed her helmet and spat out the vile liquid. When she locked her helmet back in place they switched, allowing Travis to spit out what they fortunately had both held inside their mouths, otherwise the interior of their helmets would have been a mess. Once he’d resecured his helmet Karen followed him into the next section of the complex, still feeling an unsettled stomach.

Grotesque as it was, they were both Archons and knew how to steady their nerves from many high pressure situations before. Right now she forced the thoughts of the carnage aside and focused on eliminating targets…something that had been ingrained into every Archon since the beginning of basic training.

The twins proceeded to clear out the processing and packaging subset of the complex, finding only light resistance. Eventually they made their way to the residential areas that held a variety of chambers, some that looked like for sleeping and others for business. Karen and Travis were scouting out one of the ‘office’ complexes when Bri finally caught up to them, with Karen giving her the ‘wait’ finger as she entered.

A split second later Travis, some 10 meters ahead and around a corner, fired off a stun blast…followed by a struggle that had Karen running after it and disappearing around the corner. Bri followed her several paces behind, but got a sneak peak ahead with her Pefbar, looking through the walls and seeing Travis kicking the crap out of three people. When Karen got to him that number increased greatly, with more coming out from somewhere beyond her vision.

“Stand down!” she heard Travis yell in the trade language, then as she got around the corner and up to them the ranger saw dozens of people clustered together in the room, now kneeling on the ground with their hands in the air…save for those that were lying unconscious at the twins’ feet.

Bri reached out to the conscious ones with her Ikrid, quickly discovering that these weren’t combat trained. “Service personnel.”

“Service?” Travis asked.

“Cooks, whores, and whatnot,” she said, turning over one of the unconscious ones with her armored boot.

“Ouch,” Karen said, looking at Bri’s armor. “You get your ass kicked?”

“Necessary damage,” she said, looking at the fearful looks she was getting from the mostly female group three meters in front of her. “How many did you take down?”

“At least thirty,” Travis answered. “You?”

“126. Do you feel like babysitting these?”

“Not really,” Karen said, feeling Travis’s dread simultaneously.

“Then stun them.”

Karen shrugged. “Works for me.”

In sync the two twins raised their pistols and unloaded on the group, which was terrified, thinking they were about to be killed, but after a few seconds all of them dropped to the ground unconscious, though one Bivor hit its head on a countertop on the way down, proceeding to bleed heavily onto the floor.

“Damn it,” Travis said, seeing the wound.

“I’ll take care of it,” Bri said, glancing at Karen. “Call down a pair of dropships. We need commandos, techs, and medic. Enough to set up a makeshift prison. Techs will administer the farm until we decide what to do with it.”

“Copy that,” Karen said, using her HUD to link into the small ergonomically shaped cylinder located across her lower back. Using the comm booster she got a link to the GameRay and began organizing their support team.

Bri hadn’t carried one, preferring instead to carry extra weapons. One of her pistols had already run out of charge, but she’d brought four, plus some extra power packs, though she hadn’t changed any out yet.

The ranger pulled off her left glove and knelt down next to the Bivor, tipping him over onto his back and moving his tiny arms aside. She reached up and swiped away the blue blood, seeing how big the gash was, then she let it swell back up again and continue to run in a rivulet across his wide face and onto the floor as she looked down at her hand, with smoke rising up as the blood on her fingertips began to boil off.

Using her Rensiek, she gathered a great amount of heat on the surface of her fingers and contained it there, mostly, then carefully reached down and pushed them against the wound. When she lifted them back off the unconscious alien the blood flow had reduced to a trickle, with the skin over the wound having been cauterized.

“Ouch,” Travis commented. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Toasting marshmallows,” she said deadpan, switching over to one of the guards and pressing her now cool fingers against the Critel’s head. This one was a merc, apparently having been caught off guard getting a meal and deciding to take refuge here while the others fought…up until Travis had got to them and he’d decided to try to fight it out hand to hand with a fully armored opponent. Not the brightest move, but at least she appreciated the effort, for she would have done the same.

“Reinforcements dispatched,” Karen reported. “You looking for something specific?”

“Yes.”

“Mind sharing?”

“Kayate.”

Travis raised a mental eyebrow, with Karen returning the sentiment.

A moment later Bri released contact and stood up. “You guys talk too much…and splitting up the questions between the two of you doesn’t help. Hacking into the minds of races you’re unfamiliar with is hard enough for me without your distractions. So when the fingers come out,” she said, holding up her slender digits for emphasis, “your mouth closes.”

“As you wish,” Travis agreed.

Bri pointed her armored finger at him. “And don’t flirt with me,” she said, pulling her other glove back on. “This one was recruited in Scionate space. Same with two others I checked earlier. That’s where they’re shipping the meat.”

“To the Scionate or just through their territory?” Karen asked.

“Good question. Hopefully one of the others will know. I didn’t have time to check them all.”

“Flirting how?” Travis asked naively.

“Movie. Princess Bride. Watch it when you get back. Right now, we’ve got bodies to drag…or rather you guys do. I’ll take a couple, then I’m going to start mind scanning while you bring the others.”

“Where to?” Karen asked, not really interested in watching a chick flick now or ever.

“Cargo bay is a mess, so we’ll use one of the rooms on the other side. Not sure what it’s for, but it should be big enough.”

“What’s wrong with the cargo bay?” Travis asked.

“I broke their ship. You can check it out when you’re pulling the crew off, there’s at least 20 still in there,” Bri said, lifting the largest unconscious alien in the room up and over her shoulders. “Bring them all to me and I’ll put them in a deep sleep so we don’t have to keep wasting ammo. When the dropship arrives tell it to set down as close as it can.”

Karen nodded and let Bri walk out with her cargo before she knelt down and picked up one of her own, with Travis doing likewise.

Princess Bride?

Not watching it, Karen said, following Bri out underneath a very smelly alien.

6

May 12, 2534

Solar System

Earth

“You son of a bitch,” Alden-031 said in dismay. “Do that again.”

Paul smiled. “Happy to.”

Alden pulled an apple up out of the bag the trailblazers had brought with them then telekinetically sent it flying through the air towards Paul, who was standing in the middle of Balboa Lane, which the 6 trailblazers had commandeered for this little endeavor.

The apple sailed on a straight line towards Paul, who stepped a few inches to the side as he brought his right arm up and held his hand flat like a blade. As the apple got to him he chopped down on it, missing by half a meter.

None the less, the apple split in two, with Alden sailing both pieces on past him, whereupon he circled them around and back into his hands, staring at the cut Paul had just made as the trailblazer kicked the other pieces further away from where he stood.

Jack-020 walked over and looked at the apple slices with Alden. “Just like a knife.”

“That is scary,” Alden agreed, looking at the larger piece. Paul had sliced it in half, but he’d missed dead center by a hair.

Wes-049 yanked the smaller half out of Alden’s hand and flew it over to his own, studied it for a moment, then took a bite. “Alright…moving target,” he said as he chewed.

“Allow me,” Ben-044 offered, pulling out another apple from the bag with an invisible hold, but instead of shooting it straight at Paul he sent it in on a curve, then looped it around his fellow trailblazer out of reach before sending it in towards his back.

Paul spun around and missed again…but this time the apple didn’t cut in two, it juked up as Ben moved it just in time to miss Paul’s extended ‘hand.’

“Gotta be quicker than that,” Dina-077 teased. The six trailblazers on Earth were all in the pyramid for advanced training, and they’d taken an hour out of their time to see Paul’s new trick that he had been boasting about.

“Unless you want me grabbing it, get it back down here,” Paul warned as Ben floated it over his head.

“I thought you could hit it at range? Wes asked.

“Not when it’s moving,” Paul clarified.

Dina smiled as Paul’s back was turned to the group, his eyes chasing the apple above him. She telekinetically picked up another apple and shot it towards him, giving him two targets to hit as Ben simultaneously brought the high apple down towards his head.

Paul saw the second one coming on his Pefbar and extended his other hand into a flat pose, then whipped both arms around in slashing motions. It took 5 attempts over the timespan of 2.3 seconds, but he managed to hit both apples, though the upper one only got a small nub cut off. He telekinetically grabbed all four pieces and tossed them back to the group, a proud smirk on his face.

Jack shook his head. “I still can’t believe you’re doing that with shields.”

“Believe me, it’s harder than it looks. I have to concentrate an awful lot of power into a very small space, but I can get an impossibly sharp edge if I do it right.”

“How sharp?” Dina asked.

“I haven’t been able to cut metal yet, but only because I’m not strong enough.”

“Damn,” Wes said in a whisper. “We can’t even see the blades.”

“I can fix that,” Paul said, mentally making an adjustment with his invisible knife blades extending out beyond both hands’ fingertips suddenly becoming translucent with a blue tint, looking for all the world like short swords floating an inch beyond his fingers.

“Better,” Ben commented, pulling out another apple.

“Not if the Zen’zat keep them invisible,” Wes argued.

“He has a point,” Dina agreed, feeling her braided ponytail.

Paul raised an eyebrow. “Need a haircut?”

She eyed him firmly. “Don’t…you…dare.”

“Ok,” Jack said, picking up a few of the already cut pieces and floating them in front of him like a rack of ammunition. “Splatter time. Everybody get one.”

“Hey…” Paul complained as they all pulled apples out of the bag, with Alden taking two.

“Here’s how we’re doing this,” Jack explained. “You stay put, we throw at you in straight lines. No switchbacks except to recycle ammo,” he said, mentally telling the others to spread out. “And no blocking shields.”

“You’re going to get me so sticky,” Paul complained, setting himself with his arms going low and wide.

“I think that’s the point,” Dina said, shooting her apple at him far faster than the previous ones had flown.

Paul twisted his torso to the right and brought his left arm up, bisecting the apple but getting hit in the cheek by half of it, leaving a wet streak there. He didn’t have time to swipe it away as more apples and apple pieces came in at him. The full ones he managed to hit, but every time he made a cut they got smaller and kept recycling back around, with all five trailblazers eventually telekinetically juggling 5 or more pieces each.

Those Paul couldn’t cut well, because his siblings were peppering him with them far faster than he could handle and enjoying every moment of it. He knew he could have thrown up a defensive shield to cover his skin, but that would be cheating and they knew it, meaning he had to flail about trying to hit pieces or admit defeat.

Neither happened, with everyone eventually laughing as Paul kept getting clobbered by the little bits, many of which ended up on his clothes and in his hair.

“Guess this is what I get for bragging,” he commented, releasing his shield blades and having them dissipate into non-existence…then he concentrated for a moment and formed a shield along the skin of his head and hands. With a slight effort he pushed it out, straightening his hair as all the little pieces and liquid blew off, though his uniform was still covered.

“Quite the mess,” another voice said from the doorway. Paul had seen him come in a few moments ago, but the others had apparently missed it, having their backs to him.

Jack and the others turned around, shocked to see Davis standing there. “When the hell did you get here?”

“A few hours ago. I didn’t want to disrupt your workouts,” he said, walking up to the group as Paul likewise came forward to join them…stepping on apple bits half the way up.

“If you needed something why didn’t you call?” Dina asked.

“Same reason,” he said, standing eye to eye with the others and looking nearly identical to them, save for a less sculpted body and a different uniform, his being a plain black while the trailblazers all had on their white with black stripe striker versions.

“What’s up?” Paul asked as he stepped up beside Wes.

“Trouble that we have to deal with immediately. Gamma 6 found a meat farm outside the ADZ that has been making shipments into Scionate territory and distributing it from there. It’s a purely independent operation, comprised of a number of mercenaries and freelance shippers, but under Ikrid interrogation Bri discovered that they were commissioned by the Scionate in order to create plausible deniability.”

“Meat shipping in the ADZ is still illegal,” Ben pointed out. “We can nail them on that, regardless of whether it’s their territory or not.”

“We don’t need proof,” Davis said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We know they’re responsible, and they know it. I’m not playing any games with them, but if they want to shrug it off and dare us to make an issue of it, I need options.”

“Have you informed them?” Dina asked.

“No. We’ve confiscated the facility, taken the workers prisoner, and are in the process of sending ships to evacuate the herds. The Scionate don’t know anything yet, nor does anyone else.”

“What kind of a response are you wanting?” Paul asked.

Davis sighed. “I’m guessing that the Scionate will double down, expecting us to not be willing to start a war over this, which we can’t, I assume?”

“Well, we could…” Jack said halfheartedly.

“Their fleet is larger than ours and mostly deployed in defense of their own words,” Paul differed. “Our tech is better, so I wouldn’t count us out, but we’d have to pull our fleets in from other deployments and leave the frontier vulnerable. That’s something we cannot do, and if the Scionate know that then they probably think they’ve got us pinned to a rule we can’t enforce.”

“Which is why I need other options,” Davis concurred. “I can throw a host of economic trouble their way, but if they’re willing to violate the agreement we had, I wouldn’t consider them to care much what we do to them. They’ve got their worlds now, behind our defenses, and they, like many others are probably considering, might be thinking that they can just do as they please without regard to the colonization agreement that they entered into in exchange for those worlds.”

“We have to drop the hammer,” Dina said without hesitation.

“Short of using the fleet,” Wes added.

“To what end?” Ben asked. “Are we bluffing or ready to take them out if we have to?”

“That,” Davis said, holding up a hand, “is what we need to impart to them. Killing for food isn’t something that we don’t like seeing, it’s something that we won’t tolerate in the ADZ even if we have to fight every single one of the races here to stop it. I’d prefer not having to fight a war to prove it, but I fear talk at this point isn’t going to be effective unless they know it’s backed up with power. I don’t want to involve the Hycre or Protovic in this, this is our edict that they’ve broken and it’s our place to enforce it. Tell me how we can do that.”

“Go in and trash their meat distribution network,” Dina suggested. “Did Gamma 6 backtrack it?”

“They uncovered some leads that Beta 3, 4, and 8 are following up, but I won’t know for more than a month.”

“I agree,” Jack said, crossing his arms over his chest as he thought out loud. “Target their illicit activities and tear the crap out of them…and do it under the radar. That way they’ll know we know and that we’re pissed, as well as shutting them down.”

“And if they have more than one of these shell suppliers?” Wes floated.

“We have to track down them all,” Paul said firmly.

“That means trashing their stuff and sticking around long enough to ask questions,” Alden continued the train of thought.

“What if they’re smuggling more than meat?” Dina asked. “What if we find farms inside Scionate territory?”

“We’d have to confiscate and evacuate the herds,” Paul said offhand.

“Easier said than done…plus that leaves us just cleaning up their messes. If they do it again we confiscate again and the cycle continues. This isn’t contraband we’re talking about, it’s lives. We have to take care of this now, and permanently.”

“Permanently is unlikely to happen,” Paul disagreed, “but if we are going to have chance of it we have to hit them hard, and in a way that is going to make them remember...plus anyone else who learns of it.”

“Without the fleet not sure how we do that,” Wes said, hoping the others would have suggestions.

“We need a beat down,” Alden said, his eyes closed to near slits.

“That’s what the fleet is for,” Wes reminded him.

“No, we need to make it personal. Find the meat network and smash it, but also find the Scionate leaders and beat the crap out of them, in person, fist to claw. I think that will send the message we need.”

Davis considered that. “How difficult would that be?”

“Very,” Ben emphasized. “We’d have to get past their defense fleet to get to the surface, avoid any anti-air defenses they might have set up, go by foot through the city, find the bastards, say hi, then get back out again.”

“So what’s the hard part?” Paul asked.

“Sounds like you’re volunteering,” Dina said, glancing at him.

“If you guys can handle the network trashing, I’ll play meet and greet with their leaders…along with an assistant or two.”

“Don’t look at me,” Jack said, putting his hands up in front of him as if to ward off the selection finger. “Fighting a few dozen kitties is fine, but bringing an entire planet full down on your head…a bit out of my league, and yours, by the way.”

“We’ll make it work, and I wasn’t referring to any of you here. I do think extraction will be the hardest part, for both missions, especially if they have smuggled herds to their worlds. We’d almost definitely have to use the fleet to get them out.”

“Unless you made their leaders say uncle,” Dina pointed out.

“Perhaps you should hit their meat network first,” Davis suggested. “That way you know what to talk about when you say hi later.”

Ben thumbed towards Davis as he looked at the others. “Someone been giving him sarcasm lessons?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Davis said genuinely. “And whatever you arrange, I need to know the timetable so I can coordinate diplomatic elements from my end. I’m going to make sure everyone else knows what’s happening, even if the Scionate try and cover it up.”

“And if they get pissed and feel like attacking us?” Wes asked.

“Then they’re going to incur the wrath of the ADZ…as well as our new allies.”

Paul locked eyes with Davis. “That’s our ace in the hole?”

“Even if it wasn’t we’re not going to tolerate a meat market, even if we have to wage all-out war with our former allies. Make sure they understand we’ll escalate as far as necessary to stop this.”

“I’ll deliver the message,” Paul promised.

“I trust you all will handle the rest and keep me informed,” Davis said, looking at each in turn then focusing on the bag behind their feet and telekinetically bringing up his own apple from the few intact ones that remained. He grabbed it out of the air and held it up in his hand for emphasis. “But before you get at it, explain to me what you were doing with this…and how.”

Three weeks later…

Morgan’s warship jumped into a system just inside the ADZ border that held 6 planets, all uninhabited and uninviting. With scans of the system being clear, as far as their limited sensors could determine, she ordered her ship out to the 4th planet, then over to its 18th moon. The tiny pebble of a planetoid was only 300 miles wide and covered in water and moss beneath an unusually thick atmosphere for such a small gravity well…yet it was still too thin to breathe, meaning that Randy’s base hidden there had to be completely self-contained.

It was one on another of the clandestine networks, this one running throughout Beta Region, and Morgan’s drop off point for the Aronsic passengers she’d been collecting from behind enemy lines. Sam and Mark were doing likewise, with their expeditions using one of the three drop off points that Morgan had available to her. Neither of their ships were here, for such drops occurred only rarely. It wouldn’t do to advertise the location of the base, plus it was hard finding enough of the Hobbits willing to switch sides to fill a jumpship.

That said, it was getting easier now that they knew where to look, and Morgan quite liked plucking new allies out from under the enemy’s nose. The Hobbits she would be dropping off here would eventually make their way back through the circuit via cargo ships until they reached a Nexus world where they’d be making their new home under Star Force training and control, with the Skarrons not knowing what had happened to them.

When Morgan’s ship established contact with the base they exchanged message packets, passing along whatever updates either party had come across last, and in this case Morgan had a message from Paul waiting for her. After overseeing that the transfer of her guests got underway without incident, she retreated to her quarters and began going through her mail and status updates, pulling up Paul’s message first.

After reading it she contacted the Captain and gave him new orders. They wouldn’t be returning to enemy space, nor any of their Beta Region colonies. She was needed for a much more important mission and the warship was going with her, it being the fastest means possible for her to return back to the Core Region and rendezvous with the others. It seemed there was a bit of a trailblazer reunion going on, and given the party itinerary she didn’t want to be late.

7

July 17, 2534

Corvio System (Scionate/Star Force territory)

Admat

Morgan was sitting quietly on the couch in her quarters, legs folded up into a crosslegged pose doing some light psionic drills meant to increase her Ikrid sensitivity as well as probe for new abilities when she felt Paul arrive outside. Without a word she telekinetically pressed the open button on her door and let him in, slowly opening her eyes and ending the drill.

Her fellow trailblazer walked in, his eyes a bit more intense than usual, and stopped a couple of meters in front of her. “Just got word.”

“And?”

“They busted up the hub and exposed a huge network. They’re going after the other pieces, but there are no interior farms, so we’re good to go.”

“I’ll meet you two in the hangar,” Morgan said with a nod as she stretched out her legs. Paul nodded and walked out, closing the door behind him as Morgan walked over to the spot on the floor where she’d left her clothes and pulled them back on, then made a quick stop in the restroom before opening her closet. She brought out her striker armor and stepped into it, fastening the various clasps starting at her slender legs and working up to her neck before finally sliding the helmet in place and hearing it click into its atmospheric seal.

She breathed normally through the mask/grate, open to the outside air as it was, and left her quarters enroute to the hangar with a quick stop off at the local armory. The Star Force colony wasn’t her normal home, but as per protocol all of them had Archon supplies on hand should they be needed, which in this case was a jump pack that she attached to her armor. The harness-like device was neutral gray, clashing with her black motif but that didn’t matter. On top of the jump pack she attached an equipment rack that snugged up to the new outline perfectly, and on top of that she added various weapons, all of which were stun.

Morgan also swapped out her armor’s power core with a fresh fuel rod, one of three that the striker armor ran on, opposed to the normal two that the other variants used. It was rechargeable, both in the field and in the colony, but she needed to go in with full power and not have to worry about how much juice she had, for the gloves she’d brought with her were stun equipped as well, and would draw off the armor’s power source rather than an energy clip like her weapons did.

Once fully geared up she left the armory enroute to the colony’s hangar bays, heading for a small, private one reserved for their exclusive use. When she got there she passed through a pair of Knights guarding the entrance so that no one could get inside and sneak a peek at their ride.

It had been Paul’s idea, and she’d agreed, breaking standard protocol but given the situation it was a good call. The star system they currently were in held 1 Star Force planet and 6 Scionate ones, including their new capitol. Some people had been surprised that they’d located it in a system that had an outside presence, but all of the other Scionate systems held 2 inhabited planets at best, with those here being amongst the most preferable…which was also why Star Force had claimed one for themselves in order to put down roots for the ADZ transit grid, making this not only a major system for the Scionate but a link for them to the rest of the ADZ through Star Force if they chose to use it.

And they did, somewhat, but there was far more traffic here coming from other races, making Corvio an economic hotspot, but oddly enough not the meat market entry point. Apparently the Scionate hadn’t been stupid enough to put it right under Star Force’s nose, but she was sure some of it was getting here through other means, undoubtedly being smuggled on other vessels not originating from outside the ADZ.

Getting over to the Scionate capitol wasn’t going to be hard…getting down to the surface undetected was, and while Star Force had a measure of stealth technology, getting through a cluttered orbit and into the ruling city would have been damn hard to do unnoticed, and Morgan knew the key to this mission was surprise. Paul had given them a 50/50 chance of pulling it off before suggesting an alternative…which sat off to the side in the hangar bay, outside of which Paul was waiting fully armored.

Morgan walked over to him and the V’kit’no’sat gunship just as the third person in their little raiding party came into the hangar behind her, running to catch up.

“Sorry I’m late,” Kara offered, wearing nothing but her standard uniform whose cuff draped down over her wrist, partially covering her clear Vorch’nas.

“You’re not,” Paul said as he turned and walked into the side access door.

“Still going with the faceplate?” Morgan asked, following him in as Kara brought up the rear.

“It’s what I’m used to.”

“Not going to get used to the new one unless you use it,” she pointed out.

“I’ll wait for the new armor before I make the change,” he said, hanging a left and walking down between the two rows of seats and over to the lower cockpit.

Kara closed the door with a thought and followed the other two up to the cockpit, but rather than sitting down in one of the three seats she climbed the small ladder up to the command post. It was a single seat with a ring of holographic controls, all of which were instantaneously familiar to her. She pulled up several specific diagrams, one detailing sensor beam intensity/reflection, knowing that even with the sensor stealthing that all V’kit’no’sat craft seemed to have they were going to have to be sneaky…which was her responsibility while Paul flew the ship.

“Ready up here.”

“Did you bring them?” Morgan asked, suddenly remembering one important item that she didn’t have with her.

Paul stood up and reached into the pack on his back, pulling out a small sack with a flip-lid mouth. “Didn’t think you’d want one until we got there.”

“I don’t, I just wanted to make sure you brought them. What’s the dosage?”

“Each bean is 200.”

“Ouch,” Kara said from above. “That’s one hell of a headache.”

“You’d be surprised how much the shields eat up,” Paul said, activating the gunship’s anti-grav…which like all other advanced versions was silent. “Anything we need to do prior to leaving the bay?”

“Just come out slow so I can get a reading.”

“Slow sounds bad,” Morgan commented, sitting in the seat to Paul’s left and looking at her own holographic displays along with a handful of physical buttons.

“I just need to see how this responds to the local sensors. I don’t need altitude, just stick our nose out.”

“Will do,” Paul said, activating his helmet comm and linking in to the colony bay control. “Open the door, we’re ready to leave.”

“Doors opening,” the controller replied.

Paul waited while the ceiling door irised open, revealing blue sky and open air. He flew the ship over to the center of the hole and raised it up evenly, stopping once it cleared the roof by a meter or two.

“I’m good,” Kara said, shunting a course plot over to him that she would update enroute. “Let’s go.”

Paul zipped the ship up about 100 meters then pointed the nose at an angle and accelerated hard…harder than any Star Force fighter could move, with barely any drop in shield power when they auto-activated to cut the wind when reaching a certain speed.

“Easy,” Morgan said calmly.

“Less time visible the better,” Paul replied in kind.

“That’s not why you’re rushing.”

“Don’t worry. You can fly on the way back if you want.”

Morgan whisper laughed, but intended to hold him to that on the return trip.

Paul accelerated the gunship up at an angle, following a wavy course plot that was wagging like a dogs tail on the far end as Kara made adjustments based on the position of orbital ships and Star Force’s own sensor beacons, trying to keep them in the least intense sensor ‘beams,’ which was a misnomer because most of them were transmitting in a spherical, or at least hemispherical radius.

The hull of the dropship registered the hits, including the visible light coming from the star, and dampened them, meaning that very little reflection occurred that also cut off any possibility of a sunlight glare coming off the hull for anyone looking up at the sky to see as the tiny ship left the hangar. Portions of the colony were open air, but like most Star Force colonies the bulk of the infrastructure was indoors, leaving only a scattering of people on the surface of the buildings to see the gunship rise up and disappear in the distance…whereas several dropships coming and going from the various spaceports could be seen like tiny stars, brightly shining from the reflected sunlight.

Kara led them on a very loopy course up to orbit and around to a non-standard jumpline to get away from the traffic, then Paul made a high power jump pulling/pushing against 6 different gravity wells in order to get the proper line to set them into the coast phase over to the 8th planet in the system that the Scionate had located their capitol on.

The gunship wasn’t designed for inter-planetary trips, used primarily as orbit to surface transport akin to a dropship, but the gravity drives were more than powerful enough to do so, making the craft very useful for such travel…but lacking that oh so important restroom that starships required.

That wasn’t going to be a problem, for with the V’kit’no’sat gravity drive it was a short trip, with Paul decelerating them on another non-standard jumppoint and having to yank on multiple gravity wells to get them decelerated out in a fairly high orbit, whereupon Kara started to work her magic plotting them a course down inside the Scionate sensor grid.

That grid amounted to stations in orbit that were monitoring the traffic, most of which was not Scionate, but visitors to the system conducting a variety of business. No Star Force vessels were here, requiring individuals who wanted to access the transit grid to come over to Admat, as well as for market activity. That gave the Scionate the privacy they wanted while allowing them the linkage to Star Force, though there was no official restriction on Star Force ships entering orbit or even coming down to the planet. It was simply a matter of respect, which left thousands of alien ships traversing orbit around Vaadsip that Kara had to plot their way through.

Fortunately a planet was huge and there were plenty of gaps to shoot through, the trick was avoiding the sensors, meaning she had to pick areas where they were weaker, with Paul taking a cautious pace forward that had them spending more time in orbit than they had been in making the jump between the two planets.

With Kara monitoring the sensor reflectivity and keeping it within ‘ghost’ levels that wouldn’t return enough signal for them to be detected, Paul followed her directions and they got down into the atmosphere, further shielding them from sensors but also creating physical disturbances that could be tracked, requiring that Paul keep it slow and not produce a fireball upon reentry.

The last hurdle was the city sensors. The planet was a large grassland with multiple cities, the largest of which was the ruling city, which like the others had sensors to detect and monitor ships on approach…meaning they couldn’t come right down on top of them and into the infrastructure, though there was some debate about that, given how well the gunship’s hull was holding up against the ‘crappy’ Scionate technology. Funny thing was, from the V’kit’no’sat’s point of view, this wasn’t a stealth craft at all, nor were most of their ships, which their sensors could detect just fine.

To play it safe Paul brought them down well outside the city, all but landing on the surface and allowing Kara to determine the minimum height of the sensors…which came in at 34 meters. She had Paul fly about side to side around the colony giving her a slice of the radial pie, allowing her to map out the differing heights and create a basic map that would allow them to come in under the sensor beams.

She picked out a sweet spot where one of their buildings had raised the ceiling to 56 meters and Paul flew well under that all the way up to the perimeter defenses and stopping far enough out to give Kara time to plot a course in. They waited there some 20 minutes before Paul accelerated the ship ahead in a flash, visible to anyone that was looking as a blur that crossed into the city structures and decelerated so rapidly that it would have looked to collide with the buildings.

Paul took it to a spot that Kara had found for them and parked it in a nook that gave them partial visual cover from above and no windows around the immediate area…and to top it off there was a shadow forming that covered half the gunship as it hovered in place four inches above the rooftop.

“Any activity?” Paul asked up the short ladder to where Kara sat as he abandoned the pilot’s seat.

“If they saw us I see no immediate sign of it. We can wait and watch or deploy now and deal with problems as they arise.”

“I vote for option 2,” Morgan said, standing up and stepping ahead of Paul out into the walkway between the rows of seats that were two stories deep, making for four rows with a catwalk over her head to service the top two.

“Ditto. Keep us updated with any activity, but stay low unless we need you.”

“I admit I have mixed feelings about that,” Kara said, dropping down the ladder and following Paul and Morgan over to the door.

“Says the girl who’s used to going on one man missions behind enemy lines,” Morgan lightly complained.

“Is that a touch of jealousy I hear?”

“Yes,” Morgan said honestly, opening the door and dropping down to the rooftop with a muted clank.

“Same here,” Paul agreed, hesitating a moment. “Hopefully we won’t need you to go all badass on them, but if we do remember this is a zero casualty mission. Don’t get carried away, because we still like these guys…mostly.”

“Understood.”

Paul stepped out and dropped down, already seeing Morgan on the edge of the nook and looking out, plotting their first leg. He walked over to the other side of the ship and checked the opposite way as Kara followed him out and stepped down, her red scales covering her foot a moment before her toes hit the roof. She reached back towards the ship with her mind and mentally closed and locked the door, leaving the ship essentially sitting out in the open and counting on the manic nature of the city to cover their presence.

She set up a link with the ship, with her being able to monitor its sensors via her Vorch’nas so she would know if indeed it was discovered and be able to return to deal with it promptly. The shadow creeping across it would help obscure the view from above, which had numerous dropships flying high overhead at a regular pace, but none of the hovering vehicles were passing over this location, constricted to specific routes throughout the city.

When Kara stepped out of the shadow a piece of it went with her, the red scales on her body now appearing like a dull spot that seemed to defy shape…less of a blackness than a lack of light, with her body more fading from prominence than standing out against the lightly colored buildings.

That spot took off, running across the rooftop then dropping over the edge and disappearing from sight as she began scouting out a route for the pair of top ranked trailblazers who were now tied at striker level 93.

How’s it look? Paul asked Morgan as he circled back around the ship through the shadow and came up behind her.

A lot of jumping…not a lot of windows. I think if we keep moving we’ll be alright even if we’re spotted, no waiting on Kara for directions. We just take what she can offer us on the fly.

Agreed, Paul said, seeing the distant waypoint on his HUD that was their eventual destination…the central den of the Scionate race. After you.

Morgan ran forward two steps and leaned forward, jumping off the edge and shooting herself on a more or less flat trajectory over to the next building some 25 meters away with the help of her jump pack. Paul followed two seconds later, giving her plenty of a head start so he could just match her pace and leave her room to navigate without him running up on her backside.

Per typical Morgan, she took off and didn’t let up, making Paul work to keep pace and the two of them on a quick transit across the city, two black specs jumping like fleas from building to building enroute to a diplomatic session that would be long remembered throughout Scionate history.

8

Dor’wan looked up from his sentry position outside the main entrance to the ruling bloodline’s den, hearing a disturbance in the crowds of Scionate that were, as usual, wandering the open ring-shaped plaza surrounding the habitat and administrative complex of their leaders. This wasn’t the first time there had been a ruckus, with the moving of all Scionate to the ADZ having caused considerable dissent, but the ruling bloodline hadn’t been overthrown and in recent years such disturbances had been relegated to a few discontented skirmishes, which is what he assumed this to be.

Dor’wan sat in his ceremonial combat armor, looking out through the crowd but unable to see what was happening, though he quickly perked up as the din escalated. There was genuine alarm in the thousands of Scionate milling around the den, and soon he finally saw why when the crowds nervously parted as two black-clad bipeds walked through them up towards the main doors. They were a considerable distance away, but behind them he could see several Scionate laying on the ground, indicating that some sort of combat had occurred.

The other guards rose to their feet with Dor’wan, knowing full well that outsiders were not allowed in the city, meaning whoever these two were they had come here either by secrecy or combat…with the bodies in the crowd behind them attesting to the latter.

Then one of the unarmored Scionate in the crowd ran out towards the pair and executed a well-formed lunge jump towards the one on the right…but was inexplicably repulsed by a raised hand. Dor’wan didn’t even see the Scionate make physical contact, nor did the biped even turn towards the attack. It just raised its hand and the Scionate bounced backwards, landing hard on the ground and not getting up for several seconds.

Dor’wan mouthed the controls in his helmet and popped out his armor’s weaponry, as did the other 15 as they came off their ceremonial pedestals and onto the hard, jeweled surface that surrounded the den. It had been polished to perfect smoothness, with each stone matching up seamlessly with the others, and was not meant for any footfalls other than Scionate.

The leader of the guard trotted out towards the bipeds as Dor’wan moved to the left to flank them, with more security assembling inside the den and coming to the doors at their request, which he monitored via the comm chatter. How these two had gotten here no one knew, and the security footage of their walk across the ring was causing those monitoring from inside to declare these invaders extremely dangerous.

Dor’wan already knew that much, but what weapons they were using was another matter…though he could clearly see handheld firearms held in slots on the back of their armor as the lead guard and one other approached the pair.

“Whoever you are, stand down…now,” he growled in the trade language through the speakers in his armor. “Or we will make you.”

“You’ll try…” Morgan said, raising a hand in front of her and unleashing a wave of concussive energy that knocked both Scionate off their feet and back through the air several meters. Before they landed both Humans split, taking a hit each to their shields from the plasma weapons the Scionate had in the head section of their armor as they ran towards the closest guard and engaged them in hand to hand combat.

Morgan punched one so hard it flew backwards into another, knocking both down and partially stunning the first, while Paul wrestled with his and got a hold on one of its paws…after which he spun around and threw it across the plaza, jumping into an attack on another before it even hit the ground.

Dor’wan backed up immediately, firing off shots whenever he could without hitting the other guards or the crowd behind that was thankfully running away rapidly. Still, he had to get low to the ground so in effect he was firing upwards to avoid hitting Scionate in the background. He made several hits on one of the attackers before his head suddenly got dizzy and he lost all bodily control.

Next thing he knew one of the black intruders was over top of him and he felt a hit to his ribs, after which he was tossed into the air before a massive blow sent him to the ground. The impact didn’t do more than jar him, given the armor he wore, but a moment later he blacked out none the less.

“That was easy,” Morgan said as she casually walked over to the center of their little skirmish and met up with Paul as they continued past the guards to the main doors that were locked tight.

“More where those came from,” Paul said, sensing a host of minds on the other side of the doors.

“Guys, heads up,” Kara said over the comm. “Valeries are headed your way, not to mention a lot of guards coming from everywhere in ones and twos. Some armored, some not. I think you’ve hit their fanatical sweet spot.”

“We’re not even warmed up yet,” Paul replied, knowing that they had to get inside before the fighters got here. The infantry they could handle easily enough.

“Want to knock first?” Morgan asked sarcastically.

“Happy to,” Paul said as he walked up to the control panel as she bit down on the two senzu beans that she’d cheeked just before they’d dropped down from the rooftops onto the plaza. Each contained 200 doses of ambrosia, with her currently daily intake at 94. Any more than that and she’d overload from saturation headaches, meaning she was going to have one monster one coming her way that would potentially cause her to black out, but since it took a few minutes to get into the blood stream she had a window of opportunity…and by the time that happened, her body was going to be screaming for more ambrosia.

Using Pefbar, Paul saw the internal components of the door locking mechanism and how they were configured within the wall, then made quick work of the control panel…tearing it out and disconnecting the physical locks so that the massive doors would move on their tracks when pulled. That said, they had no power and the seam between them was non-existent, leaving a six inch wall between the Archons and the interior of the den that had to be gotten through.

Pull stepped back, tossing aside a few components that he’d ripped out with his armored hand. “All yours.”

Morgan summoned up a continuous wave of tingles, bringing the energy up and out into her arms and then passing it through her armor into a holding aura where it manifested into the concussive energy. She dragged more and more of it out and condensed it down into an invisible ball that she held cradled in both hands beside her…then she launched it forward towards the seam in the doors in a Kamehameha motion.

The impact made a very loud boom, but other than slightly denting the doors it did no good, leaving the heavy barriers in place.

“Nice,” Paul said, walking up to the now visible crack where the two met and digging his fingers into the gap. He activated the powered movement that his armor was capable of and pulled hard on his narrow grip point, moving the door another inch that let him get his fingers in all the way. Once he did he was able to slowly walk the right-side half of the door open as the Scionate on the other side froze in place thanks to Morgan’s Ikrid.

She held them inert until Paul had widened the gap enough for one of them to go through, then Morgan ran up and mentally released them a moment before releasing another concussive wave through the opening and blowing aside those standing closest to it. Paul followed her in and the two cut loose on the 50+ guards, with Morgan doing the heavy lifting and Paul cleaning up after her. The Jumat ability that she was using was fueled using ambrosia…or more accurately could be refueled using ambrosia, and with each blast she fired the saturation level in her bloodstream diminished.

The senzu beans were going to make up for that, but she had to keep launching attacks or risk an overdose, so Paul let her take the lead and blast aside whoever she wanted, with him taking the rest hand to hand and stunning them, either by Ikrid suppression when he had the opportunity or by using the stun rifle he had brought in on his back. The Archons no longer used stingers, having left those to the security forces and general populace as they’d upgraded to pure energy weapons, now that they’d developed a decently sized clip and a bolt of energy that could travel more than a few meters.

That bolt, looking like a condensed marble of pink energy, soaked through the Scionate armor once their shields were breached…and a lot of the guards didn’t have armor with shields. With Paul blacking out those who Morgan knocked down, the pair proceeded through the outer area of the den complex, coming up against more and more Scionate that were unarmed and unarmored, literally throwing themselves at the Humans to try and stop, or at least delay them as they fought their way inside towards the central chambers where the royal blood made their home.

The den was huge, but Star Force already had a blueprint on file so Paul and Morgan knew where they were going and didn’t bother making any detours to find Scionate ass to kick. They all seemed to be coming their way anyway, and the trailblazers knew they had to get to the leadership before they could evacuate, prompting a run and gun assault that the Scionate simply could not stop. Whenever they massed plasma fire on the Archons they’d absorb a few hits with their shields before the Scionate would either get knocked down by invisible energy blasts or drop to the ground unable to make their own bodies function.

Halfway into the main chambers an elite guard unit caught up to them, wearing full armor that they’d only just now put on. They didn’t bother trying to shoot at the invaders from range, but ran and jumped at them, intending to subdue the smaller Humans in hand to hand.

Paul, now linked to Morgan via battlemeld, stepped in front of her and raised a forearm…then the two Scionate midair rammed into an invisible wall and bounced off, with Morgan coming forward a moment later and throwing back the next three with a concussive blast. Those that went down didn’t stay down, and both Archons silently agreed not to hit these guys with Ikrid. They were clearly better trained and equipped than the others, and since they were here to make a statement they decided to take the 9 of them hand to hand.

Without using Bioshields or Jumat again, Paul and Morgan jumped after the Scionate closest to them and proceeded to beat the crap out of the quadrupeds without even having to use their powered armor. Their opponents were good and got a few hits in…even managing to take down Paul’s shields as three of them pinned him down momentarily, but the Human was simply too fast and skilled for them to subdue, with him punching them into a haze before pulling out a stun pistol and finishing them off.

Morgan did likewise, only using her stun gloves, finishing off her fifth a moment after Paul returned his pistol to its slot on his back rack, sensing more Scionate lurking around the corners, both ahead and behind them. He stretched out his Ikrid to its maximum range, getting a feel for how many there were and where they were, picking up on a large group moving through another area of the den. As Morgan joined him he isolated one of those minds and was able to pick up a flicker of emotion…fear and haste, meaning this wasn’t a combat-oriented mind.

Paul pointed out the location through their battlemeld and they both took off running, with Morgan knocking the next two armor-less Scionate into the wall with a wave of her hand as they jumped them at the next corner. Six more after that and they had a clear hallway that the pair sprinted down, not bothering to render the two behind them that got back up unconscious.

Morgan continued to battle those they came across as Paul tracked the ‘civilians’ as they were moved about trying to get them to an auxiliary entrance, of which there were 13 possibilities, none of which was a hangar. Despite encountering fanatical and extremely pissed Scionate throwing themselves at the Archons at every turn, the pair was rapidly closing on the closest group of evacuees. When they did get up to them Paul had already identified who they were, so as Morgan took care of the guards accompanying them he pulled out his rifle and stunned the younglings, not letting any get away but doing no physical damage to them.

The trailblazers moved on in a flash, darting here and there inside the massive den and laying waste to all those who challenged them…but they still hadn’t found the ones they were after, prompting Paul and Morgan to split up, with him going out to the auxiliary entrances and Morgan staying more in the center, given how little real opposition was being thrown up against them.

Paul got to one of the entrances and engaged a dozen Scionate coming in from the outside, none of which were armored, jumping into the center of them and emitting a Fornax field. He held the effort long enough to stun them all then ran on. He had a senzu bean in his cheek too, holding it back for when he needed a recharge, though Fornax didn’t eat ambrosia, so he had to be careful not to drain his mental power reserve there, and same with his Ikrid. Neither would completely extinguish, but it’d get to a point where they’d be laboriously hard to use.

That wasn’t going to happen for a while, given how advanced both he and Morgan were and how much time and training had gone into developing their skills and increasing their mental reserves, but his bioshields were a different matter. They did eat ambrosia, but unlike Morgan he wasn’t pre-dosing, instead monitoring his current levels by feel with the senzu bean there to start replenishing his saturation level when needed.

That moment came a few minutes later when he ran up against a group of Scionate armed with heavy plasma weapons. He put up a bioshield over his armor’s shields that were still recharging in order to avoid taking damage, and the invisible wall blocked the plasma easily, allowing him to close with and disable the Scionate hand to hand, but getting there had taken an enormous toll on his shield. He’d learned how to continuously recharge it, or nearly so, meaning that the longer he held it the more ambrosia flowed into his biological emitters.

If enough plasma hit it the bioshield would breach, but it had avoided that fate this time by a narrow margin. As he knocked down and stunned the last of the group, Paul felt the first twinges of ambrosia depletion, prompting him to chomp down on the senzu beam as he ran off down the far hallway. It wouldn’t work as fast as a DBZ senzu bean, but he knew from training that it wouldn’t take long for the first of it to hit his blood stream…after which he was going to have an overload if he didn’t keep using the bioshield, which was less handy than Morgan’s Jumat, for she could just fire it off as many times as needed to keep from overdosing.

A minute later and another 37 Scionate down Paul sensed Kara entering the building, with her explaining why a moment later as he came up on another group of 5 unarmed Scionate.

“These guys just don’t quit,” he whispered to himself just before he punched the first one so hard he actually lifted it up towards the ceiling. He felt/heard ribs crack, but he was fairly sure that it wasn’t a lethal blow.

“Paul, I’ve found the leaders,” Kara said over the comm. “They were heading for an exit and I just turned them back. Looks like they’re heading for the audience chamber.”

“Thanks. What’s it…look like outside?” he answered as he took down the last Scionate with a kick that launched it into the wall.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Sounds like fun,” Paul said, heading towards the waypoint that Kara sent him and Morgan.

“Where do you want me?”

“Can you give us a few minutes alone?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t cover all the angles simultaneously.”

“I know, just slow them down,” Paul said, ducking under a running paw slap and coming up with a reverse right elbow into another Scionate’s back as it tried to reverse course and nail him from behind. That dropped it to the ground then Paul ran on, coming across 8 more in three separate hallways before he finally got to the audience chamber, which had a single entrance that he saw Morgan knock down with her Jumat as he approached.

The small double doors flew inward, both of them dislodged from the doorjamb and trailing electrical wires as they hit the ground and skidded a few meters towards the 18 Scionate assembled inside the large chamber. Two of them rushed the Archons, with Morgan letting Paul take both guards down hand to hand as she looked at the others, searching their minds and confirming that they were in fact the Scionate leadership…or rather 16 of the 21 on their ruling council, with the other 5 having been outside the city at the time being, but these would do just fine.

“Who are you?” one of them asked, a mix of anger and fear as Morgan and Paul casually walked towards the group as they retreated back towards the ornate pedestals on which they normally sat during official sessions.

Linked together as they were in the battlemeld, the trailblazers combined their Lachka and lifted the Scionate that had spoken up into the air and held him there as the others recoiled in sheer terror. Paul walked up underneath him and removed his helmet.

“Human…” the Scionate growled, unable to move aside from flailing its paws.

Paul reached into his pack and pulled out the bag of senzu beans and tossed another one to Morgan, knowing she was getting low again, then he turned and lightly punched the Scionate in the underbelly before letting it unceremoniously drop out of the air as Morgan turned back towards the doors to deal with another pair coming in at them.

9

As she ran back Paul moved forward and emitted a Fornax field that took the others to the ground, holding them there for several seconds before letting them up and running forward three steps into a light jump kick that sent one of the younger Scionate leaders toppling several meters across the floor. Paul then proceeded to work his way around the group, hitting or kicking them all at least once while Morgan caught the few that tried to make their way to the doors.

Like Paul, she kept them conscious and with light injuries, considering that some of them were very old and decrepit… though they were all younger than the pair of Archons calendar wise.

Paul finished off with a punch to one, then he picked it up by the front two paws and spun it around him in a circle before throwing it through the air towards the middle of the audience chamber where it smashed into another that Morgan threw at the same time. The two collided with a ricocheting thump and dropped to the ground, one of which managed to land on its feet.

“Do we have your attention now?” Paul growled as both he and Morgan came to a standstill, with her still blocking the door and staring down several nearby Scionate that wisely backed away towards the others that were taking cover amongst each other behind the lounging pedestals, most of whom were showing teeth and other gestures of anger and pain.

“If not we can continue with the lesson?” Morgan added when none of them spoke.

“Why are you here?” one of the old ones finally said, walking forward with a limp. He was both angry and curious, as to how they had managed to make it this far and how they were doing what they were doing with these invisible powers.

“We are here because you violated the terms of colonization,” Paul said, pointing a finger at the Scionate and seeing him reflexively flinch backwards. “You’re killing for food and running an underground meat market…which we are in the process of dismantling,” he said, pulling his helmet through the air with a gesture and landing it back in his hand, sending yet another shock through the Scionate.

“Not only is it a violation of your word, it is behavior that Star Force will not tolerate in the ADZ or anywhere else,” he said loudly, with considerable steel in his voice. “You thought you could hide your meat farms outside the ADZ and smuggle it in through dummy organizations and get away with it. Well, you’re wrong. And if you think that because your entire race is already set up in the ADZ that you’re too numerous or powerful to remove…you’re also wrong. I don’t care how many ships you have or how it’ll weaken the front, we will not allow this to continue, and we will do whatever has to be done to stop it, even if it means destroying your empire.”

“But it won’t come to that,” Morgan said, walking up to join him and pulling off her helmet so they could see her face…as well as the recording devices in the chamber. “Because you’re going to stop, now and forever. Isn’t that right?”

“We don’t take orders from Humans,” one of the Scionate in the back half whispered.

“But you will honor the agreement you signed,” Paul responded. “Else you will be punished…and when I say ‘you’ I mean those of you right here, plus the few that are elsewhere. You are the leaders of your race and responsible for its actions…and by responsible, I mean responsible. We can show up on your doorstep with a war fleet if necessary, but like Morgan said, it’s not going to go down like that, because we know where you live, and now you know that we know.”

Paul let that sink in for a moment.

“We haven’t killed any of you,” Morgan continued, “and let that be a lesson. Star Force doesn’t kill unless necessary, and it is not necessary to maintain a food supply. It is dishonorable and downright sick. I don’t care if you personally knew it was happening or not…you are responsible, and let your current injuries be a reminder of that. This ends, now…or we’re coming back and removing you,” she said, pointing in one long arc to include them all, “from power. I’m sure there are other bloodlines that could do a better job of running your empire, so I doubt Star Force would have to actually take full control, but that’s still an option.”

Paul abandoned Morgan and walked up to the Scionate group, with those closest dropping to the floor in a preemptive crouch ready to defend themselves…but it was no use as the pair of Archons telekinetically pulled the one Paul wanted up off the ground and over to him.

The trailblazer punched him in the side of the head, spinning him around as he landed on the floor.

“No you will not,” Paul said coldly, having read his thoughts just a moment ago. “You will not hide this from us again, and you will not be able to negotiate your way around it. The terms of the original agreement are firm, and if you doubted out willingness or ability to enforce them, I can beat you as many times as necessary to get the point across.”

Paul flipped a hand in his direction and telekinetically pushed him back across the floor to the others.

“Note that we’re being far kinder to you than you were to the bernen we rescued from your farms. You’re fortunate you didn’t set up any on your worlds, else our fleet would be over your heads pounding the crap out of your defenses in order to rescue them. You do not and will not subjugate another race, no matter how ‘inferior’ you deem them…which is fortunate for you, because as you can see, I’m far superior to you.”

Another Fornax field went up and knocked them all to the ground, with Paul flinching slightly as he felt the effects from Morgan as well. Once she released it he walked up to one that was starting to stand up and took it back down with a second Fornax blast, then held its head down with a telekinetic hold unaugmented by Morgan.

“This is how Archons file a diplomatic protest,” he said, focusing on the one individual with the others bare meters away staring him down with looks more of anger than fear now that it appeared the Humans weren’t going to kill them. “Which means this is also your warning. Break the terms of colonization again and we’ll be forced to take action, because we would not allow you to colonize here otherwise, and now that you are here going back on that agreement is not an option. You will acquit yourselves with honor or you will be removed, one way or another. There is no middle ground.”

Paul pushed the Scionate’s head back down into the floor with a pop of its jaw before releasing it and walking through the others, daring them to strike him, and he could tell that some were eyeing his helmetless head for such an attack, but they wisely backed down and retreated a few steps to give him room.

“You can tell your associates in the meat market that we will deal with them in the same manner. What you have been doing is an abomination and we will not permit it in any form. If you go outside the ADZ and keep the meat out there…we may stop you. If you bring it in here, we will stop you. If you kill for food you are an enemy of Star Force. This we explained clearly before, if you did not listen that is your problem. We will not permit this…not now…not ever.”

Paul walked out the far side of the knot of Scionate and pulled his helmet back on as he got a telepathic update from Kara, indicating that heavy ground troops were massing outside.

“Remember,” Morgan reiterated before putting her helmet back on as well, “we know where you live, and if we have to come back we’re coming for you first.”

Both Archons walked across the chamber, turning their backs on the Scionate but watching them with Pefbar just in case they were stupid enough to try and jump them…then when they moved through the doors and around the corner they took off running, with both of them pulling their helmets back off and Paul digging out the senzu beans again. He took and cheeked two of them, with Morgan wanting three, then he secured the pouch and his helmet before Kara caught up to them, with the three Archons skidding to a halt facing each other.

“I think they want us pretty bad,” she said, sending both Paul and Morgan a mental image of what was gathering outside. “They’re already in the building and sending more, but I think they’re waiting for us to come out.”

“Let’s not disappoint them,” Morgan said as she crunched down on one of the oblong spheres that felt and tasted like jelly beans, this one with a purple flavor.

“They’ve got tanks on the way too…and plenty of fighters in the air.”

“Hang back and go out a side entrance while we distract them,” Paul said, feeling multiple minds approaching from both directions in the building. “Get clear and get our ride. We’ll meet you part way.”

“You’re going to need my help,” Kara insisted.

“We’ve got this,” Morgan said confidently. “Go.”

Kara nodded, then disappeared into a shadow that held next to the wall as the first of the Scionate caught up to them from behind.

Morgan turned and knocked them back with a concussive wave, careful not to hit Kara, then she and Paul took off running the opposite direction and met up with three Scionate coming towards them, taking them hand to hand just enough to knock them down and get by, finishing them off with a Fornax blast each to keep them down long enough to get a few meters ahead of them.

The pair kept up the same tactic as they worked their way back towards the main doors, with almost as many Scionate trailing them as there were ahead. Morgan had to blast their way through a crowd of 30+ just to get through the doors, throwing off wave after wave to plow them aside…then they were through into open air, with hundreds of armored Scionate soldiers waiting for them.

Battlemeld linked, both Paul and Morgan knew they couldn’t stay put or the Scionate would overwhelm them with both plasma and muscle. As they came out the doors the yellow-armored Scionate fired a slew of plasma blasts at the Humans, with Paul stepping in front and forming a shield wall just small enough for the two of them to hide behind, then as he got a few steps away from the nearest of the quadrupeds he reached his right arm back and linked it to Morgan via a Repulsor conduit as she jumped forward up over his head.

Paul used it to wheel her over him, aided by a boost from her jump pack, with him throwing her through the air over the Scionate’s heads some 50 meters as he chewed up his pair of senzu beans, knowing he’d need the ambrosia overload soon.

Morgan landed in the midst of the Scionate, with 50+ around her falling to the ground as she emitted a Fornax field. She kept it up and reached a hand back towards Paul, throwing a concussion wave into the backs of the Scionate near to him and knocking them down enough for him to punch and kick his way through back to her, having to concentrate as he hopped over the downed Scionate while feeling the effects himself.

More plasma came in over the heads of the downed Scionate, with Morgan releasing the field so they could stand up and block the shots as Paul got to her. He put a bioshield around the both of them as their armor shields dropped low, literally feeling the ambrosia draining out of him as he fought to constantly replenish the shield. Linked as they were, Morgan could ‘see’ the shield aside from the impact points, with Paul forming small holes in it large enough for her to stick her hand through and release a concussion blast ahead, bowling down even more Scionate.

The pair ran together in sync, staying as close together as possible so Paul would have less surface area to protect, with Morgan blasting aside the yellow-armored cats, some of which they stepped on as they passed with her adding a Fornax blast to keep them down. The trailblazers held that formation all the way across the plaza and through the mass of soldiers…running right up against one of their tanks.

Both Morgan and Paul split up as a large plasma splash hit between them, each taking small plasma hits from anti-personnel turrets on the tank until Paul managed to freeze the minds inside, cutting off the return fire.

Morgan ran to the tank and slid underneath it, crawling through the gap between jeweled surface and tons of machine that could drop down on her at any moment, but Paul had the pilot’s mind firmly held, which Morgan could feel through the battlemeld, prompting her to take the unconventional route to the far side, eventually coming out next to Paul as the pair hopped up on top of the more or less rectangular vehicle and got to the top, then jumped from there via anti-grav to the nearest rooftop with Paul blocking for both of them with his bioshields as another two tanks targeted them with anti-personnel fire.

A moment later they were both out of the firing line, running across the building and hopping across to the next…which was when a Valerie swooped by overhead so low that it nearly hit their helmets. It didn’t fire on the first pass, wanting to intimidate them as well as watching where they went…which was nowhere in particular. Paul and Morgan had to put some distance between themselves and the den so Kara could pick them up more or less unnoticed.

That wasn’t here, for beyond that Valerie there were at least 5 more, each taking turns in buzzing them, with the third being the first to open fire.

Paul and Morgan didn’t try to evade, instead they both huddled down together making a small black dot on the roof underneath Paul’s shield as Morgan reached out to the mind of the pilot…not to freeze him, but to align herself for a Fornax blast that she let loose a moment later.

The scattering of shots that missed them both ended quickly, with the Valerie losing its line and dipping slightly before the pilot recovered and got more altitude, passing the two by as they got back on their feet and ran to the next gap between buildings…this time jumping down in between where the fighters would be hard pressed to find them.

More troops were there, apparently having been running at street level parallel to the Archons with the Valeries telling them where to go, for as soon as they hit the pavement they were in another battle against dozens of the Scionate. Yellow armor flew in all directions, with the trailblazers resuming their dual formation and pushing off to the right down the street before eventually hanging a left and getting further away from the den.

Trouble was, the Scionate troops were faster than them, with more and more closing up and choking off the streets. Before too long they were being cut off from ahead, forcing the Archon pair to head back up to the rooftops and deal with the fighters.

After the third pass and Paul’s shields getting hit again, this time badly, Morgan’s frustration won out and she summoned up a large Jumat blast and nailed the next fighter to come through on his lazy assault line. It hit on the top side, forcing the nose down as Morgan simultaneously reached out and froze it’s mind, resulting in it impaling the top of the building and sinking in a couple of meters.

Releasing contact she and Paul moved on, with more fighters circling around at a now greater height, unsure of what had just taken down the one.

“You guys ready for a lift?” Kara’s voice asked over the comm.

“Nah, I thought we’d stick around and play a while,” Paul said sarcastically. “Where are you?”

In response he got a waypoint on his HUD.

“On our way,” Paul said, ducking down and forming another shield as Morgan spotted a fighter on a quick attack line. The plasma hit him in two spots, the second one breaching and nailing his armor’s shield, sucking it down to 36% strength. On past them the fighter lost control and nearly rammed one of the buildings before pulling up and missing by 10 meters as it regained altitude, flying up over top the largest building in the area, with Paul and Morgan headed down to an even lower one, trying to get as much aerial cover as possible while staying off the streets.

Through their link Morgan knew Paul was going to take his helmet off before he even got his hand up to the neck, with her turning and becoming a psionic turret, throwing out Fornax blasts to every fighter nearby, even if she wasn’t sure she could affect them at that range. Quickly Paul slipped two more senzu beans into his mouth and got his helmet back on, then the two of them linked up an Ikrid attack on one of the fighters, giving them more range and control, and froze the pilot’s mind, making it continue in its straight course over top of them and unable to attack…leaving the pair an opening to sprint over to the next building on their right and hop across, with plasma coming up from below from the infantry still tracking them.

Two more buildings over and they came to their destination roof…which had multiple protrusions coming out of it. They ducked behind one as another Valerie passed by firing in their wake, then they ran around another blocky mount and dropped off an edge, falling through the door of the gunship as it floated on its side in the depression between two building segments.

Paul felt the gravity change as soon as he hit the threshold, with it slamming him down on his butt, only to have Morgan come crashing down on top of him as she followed through. Her legs pushed down on top of him, pinning his chest to the ground, then she was up and moving forward, leaving him to stand and get the door as the view outside spun around as Kara lifted them up out of the little artificial ravine and righted the gunship before accelerating away skimming the building tops enroute to the edge of the city and outpacing the Valeries with ease.

From there they disappeared out over the grasslands, getting out of Scionate sensor range and becoming ghosts once again…leaving the kitties furious.

10

July 17, 2534

Corvio System

Vaadsip

Chieftan Pra’nom looked up from the medical slab as one of his warriors came in, waving off the attendant who was taking an excessively long time wrapping his chest in a healing sleeve with a painful flick of his paw.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

The warrior held his head low, growling in disgust. “We do not know. They have disappeared.”

Pra’nom roared and stood up despite the broken ribs flaring in protest.

“The last we know,” the warrior continued, averting the leader’s gaze, “they were being pursued through the city. Eyewitness accounts state that they escaped via a small aerial craft they had hidden somewhere within the city, but we were unable to track it and our fighters could not pursue. What became of it is unknown. No orbital tracking has detected it.”

“Nor did on entry,” one of the other Chieftans said, walking up behind the warrior and gesturing at his peer with his chin. “I have just finished reviewing the sensor logs. They have come and gone undetected. Star Force has been rumored to have impressive technology withheld from the knowledge of the ADZ, and I would wager we have just seen an example of it.”

“And what of this invisible hand of theirs…” Pra’nom sneered, “is that technology too?”

“I do not know, but it is none the less impressive.”

Pra’nom growled so low that the warrior next to Tem’lan retreated a step. “This is not funny.”

“I never said it was,” the Scionate responded evenly, walking past Pra’nom and looking at one of the other injured Chieftans. “But I do admire their boldness.”

“Boldness? Have you lost your pride! We have been assaulted and you lay praise on our enemy.”

“If they were our enemy they would have killed us,” Tem’lan said, his own voice growing harsh. “I’m more interested in the accusation they made.”

The Scionate walked up nose to nose with Pra’nom. “Have we violated the terms?”

“It does not matter one way or another.”

Tem’lan moved a hair closer, so much so that he could feel Pra’nom’s breath. “Do you know of what they speak?”

“Yes,” Car’sem said, breaking the visual deadlock between the two. “We are no longer honoring their colonization terms, nor should we. We outnumber them and these worlds are no longer theirs. They are ours and we will do what we like with them.”

Tem’lan turned away from Pra’nom and walked over to the other Chieftan, limping slightly from the injury he’d sustained to his right rear leg, but it had been far less than the others had suffered…or so they said, for he felt many of them were simply too unaccustomed to pain.

“Then we have violated our word,” he growled angrily.

“We honored their pact for many years, more than enough to satisfy the bounds of honor. We will not be bound by it for all of time.”

“Where are these farms?”

“Outside the ADZ,” another Chieftan said, walking up beside him and shooing the medics away. “It is a private meat supply. Some goes to us, the rest is sold to generate funds to expand the farms. All is accomplished by outsiders so as not to link back to us. In this way we honor the pact made, though I agree with Car’sem that we are not bound to the Humans’ will permanently.”

“Enough!” Pra’nom said, fuming. “They are in the wrong, not us! Are you blind?”

“There will be an accounting,” Car’sem agreed.

“Later,” Tem’lan said dismissively. “I have issue with this deception. If we are not going to honor the terms then let us state so plainly. Hiding the action is that of a coward…and hiding it from me is a mistake that you will regret in the coming days, I can promise you that.”

“Do not make threats you cannot back up, young one.”

Tem’lan swatted Pra’nom, his senior, so fast that the old Scionate didn’t even see it coming.

“Tem’lan!” another voice shouted from behind. Tem’lan took a step back and turned to face Ura’bor as he joined the group, staring all the others down.

“He had that coming,” another Chieftan said as an impromptu assembly meeting formed. “I wasn’t informed of these farms either.”

“They are a side project,” Ura’bor said dismissively. “Whether or not we implement them with our own people and resources is a subject we’ve not yet broached, thus you did not know. That is immaterial. The Humans have gone too far, and they must learn their place.”

“And what of their abilities?” another Chieftan asked. “I saw what they did to our troops. If you have not you need to take a look at the recordings. Two of them blew through hundreds of highly trained, heavily armored warriors. These are not the Humans we are used to dealing with. Something is seriously amiss here.”

“That may be,” Ura’bor granted, “but we do not have time to investigate prior to a response. We must act before the deed grows cold.”

“Agreed,” Pra’nom huffed, as did several others.

“Agreed,” Tem’lan echoed, his voice turning icy. “Then we will discuss this farming matter.”

Ura’bor looked back and caught the eye of the warrior who was standing on the other side of the room. “Marshal the troops.”

The Scionate bowed respectfully, then loped off out of the chamber to carry out the order.

Paul, wake up.

The trailblazer blinked his eyes and sat up in bed, wondering if he’d really heard someone’s voice or not. He’d been asleep for a good…two hours after a long run with Kara, and he’d nodded off deeper than he’d expected. Maybe the aftereffects of so much ambrosia coursing through his body earlier.

Hey, sleepy, her telepathic voice clarified. You up?

I am now.

Planetary sensors are showing a Scionate convoy arriving in orbit, all warships and they don’t look too happy.

Paul frowned as he threw the covers off and slid out of bed. Why didn’t I get an alert?

You probably will in a minute or two. I’m tied into the live feeds.

Where are you at? Paul asked, getting changed out of his sleeping clothes and into a fresh uniform as fast as he could reliably manage.

In the shower. You’ll beat me there. Figure I have a few minutes at least to finish up so long as you’re in the nexus.

What…oh, Paul said, remembering her Vorch’nas as the sleep cleared from his mind. Didn’t know your toy could do that.

It can do a lot. I can’t find Morgan, so she must not be in her quarters.

Finish your shower, I’m on it, he said, pulling his shoes on and heading out the door. Kara was only three rooms down, but he wasn’t going to wait on her, knowing that he had to get to the command center as quickly as possible.

“Report,” he demanded, turning on his earpiece…with it taking a moment before anyone responded.

“How did…I was just about to call you,” the on duty Archon said, with his ID flashing up as Samli-8388. “We’ve got Scionate warships entering orbit, a lot of them.”

“Get the Sentinel powered up, the drones free of their berths, and all civilian traffic out of the way. Have they hit any ships?”

“No, they’re literally just getting here now. Staggered arrival coming in from Vaadsip.”

“Raise surface shields and prepare for ground assault.”

“They don’t have any transports.”

“Yet,” Paul said, jumping up and over a knot of people in the hallway when they didn’t move in time, capping it off with a full flip that nearly lost his earpiece. “Find Morgan and tell her to get her ass in gear. Kara already knows. I’ll be there inside of 5 minutes.”

“Copy that.”

Paul ended the conversation and made his way over to the city’s command center, it being the primary for the entire planet…which was why he had his quarters next to it. He always did, wherever he went, or at least some place with a command nexus nearby to access if need be.

He knew that it would take time for ships to assemble in orbit, but he wanted to get on station as quickly as possible and start tweaking their defenses. He hadn’t thought the Scionate would just tuck their tails and admit they were wrong, so he’d been expecting some type of reaction…though the speed of this one suggested they were really pissed.

When he got to the command center he didn’t bother asking any questions, going straight to the command nexus and linking in with Morgan arriving a few seconds behind him. Instead of going to one of the monitors or work stations out on the main floor she stepped up onto the pedestal with him, wrapping an arm around his waist for balance and reaching out to him mentally.

Paul felt and accepted the battlemeld prompt, allowing her to think as he did as well as accessing the same telepathic controls, essentially doubling up their mental processing power. It wasn’t something that he’d practiced with anyone before, but as soon as they both got to work on remotely controlling the planetary defenses he realized that had been a mistake, for together they could do a lot more, as well as troubleshoot each other as they went along.

Morgan smiled as Paul’s mind brought up an old term to coin the new skill…Fusion, which was apt enough even without the DBZ reference.

They both could ‘see’ all their assets in orbit and on the ground, even without the holographic displays. Mentally linked in as they were, Morgan could access information from any of them with a thought, though ‘reading’ it mentally was more difficult than pulling up a status hologram. She pulled up one on her left for the lone Sentinel in orbit, seeing that it was nearly ready for combat. Some operations within it were push to fire…while others needed a bit of prep time to cycle up, and given that this was ‘safe’ space the Sentinel had been in partial power conservation mode.

The Scionate fleet wasn’t anywhere near it, on purpose she assumed, because they knew what it could do. That meant the shipyards in orbit were also out of the fire, given that they were located relatively close to the defense station, as were several other installations placed at a distance so they didn’t crowd the firing lines and minimize the Sentinel’s coverage zone.

As Morgan checked on it and a few other smaller defense platforms, Paul was reorganizing their defense fleets, breaking them up into smaller groups and moving them around like chess pieces as the incoming Scionate fleet started showing transports mixed in with the warships.

“They’re going to ground,” Morgan said even though she knew Paul knew that she knew, but she felt like announcing it anyway. “Guess that means we hit the button we wanted,” she added as Kara walked in behind them.

“Getting kind of crowded in here,” she commented, staying a few steps back but joining in on the battlemeld, making it a three-way and getting up to speed with their plans quickly by drawing off the others’ thoughts. A moment later she broke contact and left, knowing what she needed to do.

Kara walked out of the nexus nook and jogged across the command deck, smelling fresh and clean and knowing that wasn’t going to last long. As soon as she got outside into the hallway she jumped up to the ceiling and flew over the heads of the people passing through, zigzagging and running on the walls as she hung from her left wrist. She kept that up until she eventually got to an exterior exit, then flew up into the open air above the city, but keeping under the hemi-spherical bubble shield now covering it.

She glanced to the west, seeing the gap near the surface where it didn’t touch the ground, and flew off over there, relishing the wind blowing through her wet hair until she got down to the barrier and ducked underneath, then she donned the red scales and shot up high into the sky like a missile, joining the skeets already coming out of their hangars and assembling in holding patterns.

Kara held there for some time, seeing the first of the mechs start to walk outside the shield barrier as well, then through the battlemap she saw the Scionate fleet descend to low orbit well outside the range of the Sentinel, but they did have to go through a smaller defense platform that had a single cleansing beam.

They sent several dozen warships after it, firing the first shots of the battle without hesitation. The defense station responded in kind, skewering one of the warships on the first shot, but unable to slice it in half before it had to recycle. Mauler cannons opened up at shorter range as the Scionate warships swarmed it, getting many of them killed before they managed to eliminate the platform and clear the sky for the transports that began heading to ground while the rest of the attacking fleet spread out to cover them and engage the Star Force drone warships that were now coming in from multiple angles…with the larger controlling jumpships not far behind.

Kara could see the approach the transports were making through the battlemap, and realizing it wasn’t near the city she was hovering over she took off, flying through the air slowly at first but gaining speed rapidly as she left the skeets and mechs behind, intent on getting to at least some of the transports before they made it to ground.

Back in the command nexus Morgan released Paul, physically and battlemeld, and headed out as well, knowing that he had the naval engagement well in hand and that the battle now was going to occur on the ground. The defense platform that the Scionate had destroyed had been unmanned, but the kid gloves were now coming off regardless. They were firing live weapons at them and there was no indication that they were here to do anything other than harm to Star Force and the Humans living on this planet.

With that thought foremost in her mind she headed off to grab her armor and some more senzu beans before catching a dropship out to wherever the fighting was about to go down.

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Table of Contents

- Star Force: Battlemeld
- Star Force: Excursion
- Star Force: Axius
- Star Force: Veracious