Star Force: Phoenix (Star Force Universe Book 62) Read online

  1

  March 31, 128554

  Jepiker System (Home Two Kingdom)

  Forge

  Ever since the Elders had deemed him unworthy, Cal-com had been lost. He knew now, or at least suspected, what their true reasons had been, but it still didn’t take the sting away in his exile. Paul’s acceptance of him into the Star Force Empire had given him somewhere to go, but he was still Voku, and he was still banned from his home.

  But was it home any longer? He had done everything asked of him, faithfully following the will of the Elders…he still couldn’t think of them as Zak’de’ron, though he knew that was their true name…and in doing so he had risen to the top of his race. But with that vantage point he had begun to see things that the Elders did not want him to see. His success had pulled him away from the blind loyalty they demanded, and like all other aspects of Elder service, once he stopped being useful he was discarded.

  Yet that wasn’t the way the Elders he had followed operated. Everything they had done, leaving behind instructions for the Voku in their absence, had focused on strengthening those that were strong so that they could shield those who were not. Cal-com was the wisest of the Voku, and the ‘strongest’ in will, if not in body. He had been hardened over millennia of wartime service and even more in stagnant times where a much harder fight had to be made to expand and grow his race so they could better serve the Elders.

  Once the Elders had returned, his faith in them had been justified. They had chosen him for an even greater duty, one that had never before existed within the Voku. That of Dafchor. Their wisdom had been his to respectfully ply, an honor no living Voku had ever obtained before him, and when his race had faced extinction in the Last Skarron Crusade the Elders had intervened with their awesome might to shield their servants when they could not do so themselves.

  But later…much later…he began to see the cracks in their wisdom. Before he could put too much together they had relegated him to limited duty, then when he inquired as to why, they had offered him a choice. Wait patiently for when they would require his services again, or seek exile. Either way, his position as leader of the Voku was gone, and to his continual shame he did not follow the Elders’ orders.

  He had chosen exile.

  Cal-com had made the correct choice, and he understood that far better now than then, but it was also the wrong choice. It was treason, based on everything that the Voku were built on, and he still felt shame for not being strong enough to wait as long as the Elders demanded.

  That shame would never go away, for it wasn’t of his own making. The Elders had used him and the Voku, lied to them in very clever ways. If he went back and tried to tell his people what happened, they would not believe him. The lies were so good the other Voku would not be able to find them, and in their doubt their loyalty would prevent them from growing too curious.

  Curiosity had always been considered a shaped weapon for the Voku. It was taught that one must embrace curiosity in order to accomplish the mission and guard it against unforeseen threats…but curiosity of the mission itself was banned. It wasn’t even thought of enough to be officially banned. That was how deep the cleverness of the Elders ran, and only he had risen high enough to begin to sense it.

  And they knew. They had removed him before he could awaken any further. And they’d made him betray his long held oaths to do so. Though in truth, if he had accepted their orders, they probably would have just kept him waiting forever…effectively as neutralized as exile would have been. There was no way to hold to his previous ideals and loyalties. They had stripped them from him, and he would carry that wound for the rest of his life, though in recent years it had become more of a scar than an active pain.

  He had been truly lost when he left the Voku, and Paul had sensed it. His friend had set Cal-com out on a journey he did not originally understand, but it had eventually led him here to Forge, the heart of the Star Force Empire, though few knew it. It was a forbidden system to the public, like many others scattered throughout their empire, and a day didn’t go by that he didn’t consider when the Vargemma would show up in orbit to obliterate all life on this planet and the others in the system that was the cradle of the Archons and Mavericks.

  Jepiker had not been evacuated, and now there were 4 Avenger-class warships patrolling it. If the Vargemma arrived, then those ships would move to destroy any Olopar before they could fire their Essence weapons…but there was never a guarantee as to where or when they would show up, so this star system was not safe, nor were any inside the Empire, though the number of attacks had lessened by almost a third since the Temple Wars began.

  Information from them was slow in coming, and Cal-com was afforded more of it than was made available to the public, but everyone knew of the Temples now and how the Vargemma were hiding in them and striking at Star Force. Much damage had been done to the Empire, and the Hula Hoop alone, which was responsible for most long route trade in the galaxy, now had 17 gaps in it. Another 29 gaps were located in the splintering arms coming off it and extending out further into the Rim, and in every gap was a damaged or destroyed Grid Point construct, taken out by Vargemma sneak attacks.

  Less of those were being launched, as several Temples were now under Star Force control and many others were in various stages of combat, but there were so many hidden throughout the galaxy that this war would not be over anytime soon…and rather than negotiate a surrender the Vargemma continued their attacks beyond the Temples, almost as if they knew they had no chance of defeating Star Force within them. Perhaps they sought vengeance before they were conquered. Perhaps they were in fact working for someone else who had ordered it. Cal-com did not know what the truth was, but he and the others on Forge were still in danger and would continue to be until this war was over or until Star Force could figure out how to develop a planetary Essence shield.

  The latter was not going to happen, for the simple fact that they could not be fueled. The Uriti were a huge boon to Star Force, but their donations of Essence were being used to fuel the transit through the Temples for the Star Force fleets, and it was taking a humongous amount to do so. Getting them back out again would likewise, though they hoped to have figured out the key to getting through the Temples’ defense shield and directly back into galaxy, which would be far less Essence expensive.

  But no such breakthrough had been made yet, though grav jump and mag jump bridges were being created out to the various Temples from the nearest systems. The Vargemma technique of building outposts would be far better, but that would require each ship to come equipped with an Essence drive, while the portals did not have that requirement. How the Caretaker technology managed that was still unknown, for even the Vargemma had not replicated the Caretaker’s ability to move through the Essence realm without using Essence themself.

  When these wars were over, assuming all went well, the fleets would have to come back out to engage the Hadarak. There were too many ships to simply build new ones to replace them, and while the drones were much easier to deal with in that regard, the control ships were not. Without the Uriti they would be trapped inside the Temples, so the idea of fueling even one planetary shield with Uriti Essence was laughable. And the denizens of that planet couldn’t begin to donate enough to do it on their own. In that, at least, the Vargemma were far ahead of Star Force.

  Cal-com kept appraised on the Temple Wars, but his mind never left the Hadarak, and especially what snippets of information they had on the Elders’ effort there. He did not feel right about them honorably battling the Hadarak without him, nor did he think their agreement with Star Force would hold. The old Cal-com would have, b
ut now that he had experienced their betrayal he was constantly on the lookout for it again, and something about their battles did not feel right. There was no objective, just constant bloodshed, and he knew they would never operate without an objective.

  Immediate survival was always important, but they could easily have hidden in the Rim for millennia before the Hadarak got this far out. No, they were up to something, and Cal-com wanted to figure out what it might be before Star Force suffered for it. They had given him so much that he felt highly in their debt, and wished to find a way to repay them. That was why he was here, learning from the best trainers their empire had, and from the single individual responsible for crafting the trailblazers.

  Master Trainer Wilson.

  When Paul had sent him here, Wilson had met Cal-com on arrival and had a multi-day conversation with him about a wide range of subjects…after which the testing began. Cal-com had never known so many different methods could be crafted, and he had even undergone the same tests that the Archons did to determine their worthiness…and he’d failed miserably. He was not Maverick material, and Wilson put that squarely on the Zak’de’ron. What it took to be an Archon would have meant any such individuals that had it would be purged from the Voku ranks before they could ever seriously question the Elders’ authority, as Cal-com ever so slightly had, though it had taken him a lifetime to accomplish what the Archons did by nature beginning in their youth.

  He had been disappointed at first, hoping to obtain peerdom with his benefactors, but then Wilson surprised him when he said he already had. That was why Paul had sent him here for Wilson to individually deal with, because Cal-com had no peer within Star Force and he needed specialized training because of his advanced state.

  The trailblazers had built an empire together. Cal-com had grown and led the Voku single-handedly following the limited orders from the Elders. Within Star Force there was no equivalent to that, and their Empire wanted to incorporate him and his unique skills as is, not overwrite them and try to make him into something lesser.

  The Temple Wars were now already into year 14, if you counted from the first invasion of Alpha Temple by the Paladin. It had been 3 years since the fleet had gained access to the overall Temple network and begun their war of conquest, and far longer than that since Cal-com had last seen Paul. Messages had been sent frequently back and forth between them up until he had disappeared into the Temple network. Now he only rarely got a comm from him.

  Cal-com knew that was because of how busy he was with the war, and the Voku envied him that. He wanted to help, but he was only one, and there were many others more capable than him at leading Star Force fleets. Without other Voku to lead he was redundant here, thus he spent his time in Jepiker being sculpted into something new by Master Trainer Wilson. What he would end up Cal-com didn’t know, and Wilson would not indulge any such questions. All that mattered was the next training session and that he continued making progress. Wilson had promised he’d take care of everything else.

  Cal-com knew how to follow orders, and something about not knowing everything that was going on was natural to him. He suspected it was because of his experience with the Elders and the way they had crafted the Voku. He trusted Paul, and trusting the trainer that had trained his best, and only true friend seemed a natural extension of that bond. He had no trouble putting his faith in Wilson…though a part of him would never fully trust anyone again.

  When he had confided that in Wilson the Human had actually smiled, then said he was finally learning. That trust wasn’t about blindness, it was about having faith in the outcome. And if you didn’t check occasionally, how could you really have faith in something?

  Cal-com had never considered that before. In fact, there were many things Wilson said that he had never considered before. The training that he had undergone since coming here was far more complicated than anything he had received elsewhere in Star Force, and that statement alone seemed impossible. Training was the lifeblood of the Empire and encoded into every planet and starship they possessed. The opportunity to learn and grow was everywhere, but here it was something far more powerful. Wilson was crafting the training specifically for him, and somehow that made it a totally different experience.

  So day in and day out Cal-com committed himself to this rebirth. He had thought he would always be Voku. Always be a servant of the Elders, if only in his memories, but as time went on he realized he was wrong. He didn’t know when it had happened, for he had lost all track of time once he dove into the training. Wilson didn’t let him have a moment of free time as others had. But that wasn’t unusual, for every minute of a Voku’s life was one of service, yet this was far more intense than anything the Elders had ever asked of him.

  Cal-com could sense the change, though not fully catalog it. Wilson had encouraged him not to. He wanted him to live in the moment and not dwell on the future or past, for neither existed, and if one fixated on fiction then their real senses would be dulled. That had felt treasonous, for everything that had happened was not fiction…but then again it wasn’t here now. And if it was, it would be present, not past.

  The Elders still existed, in the present. His colleagues, at least those still surviving the war against the Hadarak, were still out there in the present. And those that were not were somewhere else. Not in body, but beyond. Not knowing where or what or how was frustrating, and made one want to keep the memories of the past as present, but it was a weakness that he had shed…not willingly…thanks to Wilson’s training.

  He had expected war training, but there was very little of that. His skills were being honed, but not in ways he had expected. He was in the simulator a fair amount, but it was causing him to face unexpected situations in combat and forcing him to face them. Hard choices. Bad choices. Easy choices. Wilson had a unique spin on them all, and Cal-com felt as if he was being better prepared for naval combat from Wilson despite the fact that he had not learned a single new tactic since coming here. It was all the same as the rest of the Star Force naval warfare catalog Paul had given him day one to absorb. Wilson was simply using it to train Cal-com in something else far more valuable, for he had been badly lacking it.

  Cal-com couldn’t put a name to it, though he had tried many times in the past while eating, which was his only real opportunity to think. When he slept he hibernated in a vertical tube, and by ‘hibernation’ it wasn’t a long period, only hours, but his mind was shut down to minimal status rather than being active enough to dream. It was more restful this way, though he wondered what he was lacking, for Paul had told him of the dream tests the Elders had placed in the Zen’zat genome, making him feel that the Voku had not been deemed worthy enough to be allowed dreams.

  But for Wilson it was a way to keep Cal-com busy constantly without downtime to think about anything other than what Wilson had assigned him to. Meals were his only exception, and they didn’t take more than a handful of minutes. Still, he had accomplished much thought in those small breaks, and his reflection back on his original self was showing a drastic change. He didn’t understand it, but he had the satisfied feeling that it was both good and long overdue.

  When he revived from his hibernation cycle he woke to see Wilson standing before him. The Master Trainer didn’t often do that, but he was glad for the occasion. It always meant something even more impressive was going to occur.

  “Cal-com,” the Human said, looking up at the Voku somewhat, for Humans were, without augmentation, the smaller of the two races. “You will never stop training. You will never stop growing, if you are smart and do not waste your life. I wish I could keep you here longer. I also wish I could keep the trailblazers here so that I could push them to even further heights. When the wars are over, if we survive, they will come back and allow me to do so occasionally. And you will as well. But your time here is over. You have learned what you needed to learn. You have become an individual. And you have become one of us. Now we need you, and your skills. Training is a luxury, and right
now duty calls.”

  “What is required of me?” Cal-com asked in English, which was now as natural to him as his native Voku.

  “You have graduated from the training you were sent here to receive. Paul has been waiting until you did. I am not rushing you. In fact I may have delayed you a bit longer than needed, but I had to make sure you were on solid footing. I am confident that is now the case. You are ready.”

  “Thank you for saying so,” he said with a short bow as he stood naked a step out of his hibernation tube, though Voku had no genitalia or any other biological weaknesses to worry about that clothing would conceal, much like the Paladin and other races that reproduced via genetic cloning and growth pods. “What is it that I am ready for?”

  “Paul never told me. He just said to work my magic on you the way I did with them. But he sent orders two years ago to wait for when you graduated. Today is that day. I have not seen them. They are for you and you alone,” Wilson said, holding up a tiny data chip. “Take it, and may the Force be with you wherever you go.”

  “Your training will be with me, Master,” he said, fully aware of what the term ‘Force’ referred to, as well as many other Star Force cultural terminologies. “But do I leave as Padawan or a Jedi Knight?”

  “You were never a Padawan. That path wasn’t afforded to you because you were born beyond Star Force. Your path has led you straight to Knight, and a stronger one, I think, because of it. Before you leave, let me know what title they gave you. I’m curious,” Wilson said as he spun around and abruptly left.

  Cal-com hadn’t been expecting that. Was there no ritual when one graduated? He wasn’t even fully awake yet, but the surge of excitement overrode the confusion. His orders were on the chip he now had in his hand.

  The Voku gently cradled it in his fingers, careful not to smash what he knew was a very robust crystalline hexagonal tube, yet he felt like squeezing with all his might around the visible symbol of his success…though as he thought about it he realized the transformation was the true success, and that had happened before now. The chip was the key to the future, not a trophy the past.