Star Force: Zen'zat (SF14) Read online

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  July 12, 2112

  Along with the runways crisscrossing Atlantis there were hundreds of landing pads for Star Force’s Earth-based air fleet, which consisted primarily of variants of the Mantis-class transport. The VTOL craft were constantly coming to and fro, delivering supplies and personnel across the globe to various spaceports, but over the past two years more than half of all Mantis traffic had been directed to the south, with a never ending circuit of flights delivering supplies down to Antarctica to supplement the naval shipping that carried the bulk of the heavier construction materials.

  Mixed into that stream of air traffic today were four medium-sized Mantises that lifted off from Star Force’s capitol in formation and anonymously joined into the flocks of similar craft headed for the southern continent. These four, however, did not carry supplies or technical personnel…they carried the core of Star Force itself.

  Paul studied the datapad in his lap that had tracking data for their flight, along with a host of other options that would keep him preoccupied during the trip, but today boredom wasn’t going to be a concern because all around him sat the other 2s, along with the 0s and 1s. The rest of the trailblazers were flying nearby in the other 3 Mantises, plus Davis, who was riding with Greg and the 7s. This was the first time since the 1st Lunar War that they’d been all together, and as was expected they had a great deal to talk about.

  The chatter had been nonstop since yesterday, when the offworld Archons had begun to arrive back in Atlantis. Paul was among the first to return, with those stationed out in Jupiter orbit having the greatest distance to travel. Efficient as always, they’d timed all their trips back so that their arrivals coincide on the same day, and after getting in a thorough, post-landing workout they all retreated back to their original quarters block, hitting the lounge as if they hadn’t spent more than a few days away. Easily slipping back into old habits, they broke out the now ancient videogames along with a few newer versions towards the end of the night.

  Earlier this morning they’d all gotten in their core workouts, ate breakfast, then boarded the transports for their flight down to Antarctica…and with nothing to do but seat time the catching up escalated to a furious pace, now that they could communicate without the intolerable time lag that interplanetary signals suffered from.

  The chatter was all business, as usual. Not one of the Archons had anything even resembling a social life, nor did they want one. Ever since they’d been brought to Atlantis that first day to hear Davis’s speech about the V’kit’no’sat and the threat they posed, the trailblazers had been on a mission and never looked back. Now all in their 80s or 90s, they looked far more fit and younger than they had when they’d first tested into the A7 program, not to mention their energy levels had gone through the roof.

  Their former peers wouldn’t have recognized them, having made the transition into ‘old age’ and the lifestyle that went with it. They’d lived the social life, and now had kids, grandkids, and even great grandkids, played golf, watched TV, and patiently waited around to die while the inevitable forward momentum of time swept them from the face of the Earth. As it was, half of their former peers had already died, with many more to come in the following years. Soon they’d be the last of their generation, survivors of the societal life, so to speak.

  Dating had seemed like such a priority to Paul when he was back in high school, almost too long ago to remember. Now it seemed pathetically naïve. Training was everything. Dating, partying, and other forms of social interaction were meaningless…literally. Thinking back, he couldn’t find a single purpose to it all, whereas now everything he did had a purpose.

  Reproduction was the only viable angle he could identify, and that wasn’t on the trailblazers’ to do list. The population explosion on Earth was supplying sufficient numbers for the future, and while there was some speculation amongst Star Force’s geneticists as to what advancements might occur if two Archons were to produce offspring, they didn’t care to find out. To them, all that they had become was due to their training, and anything that interfered with training wasn’t going to be tolerated.

  Most of the other Archons had come to reflect this point of view as well, though there were a few isolated rebellions. To date, only 3 Archons had quit and returned to ‘civilian’ life. Two of them said they couldn’t handle the nonstop training any further…or more pointedly, they didn’t wish to continue it. Both of them stepped down to other positions within Star Force, while the third left the corporation entirely, got married, and retired to obscurity.

  All three of them were traitors in the mind of the trailblazers. All Archons had been given information about the V’kit’no’sat during their basic training and updated as new research provided additional insights. They all knew what Earth was up against and how outmatched they were. To abandon that challenge was inconceivable, as far as Paul and the others were concerned, and to this day they still carried significant animosity towards those three. Archons didn’t quit, under any circumstances, yet they had…which made the trailblazers wonder how the hell they’d ever managed to get through basic training in the first place.

  Though they’d all had previous life experience before joining Star Force, the trailblazers all had developed a keen distaste for civilians. Not so much those that worked as part of the corporation, but the do-nothing, party-hardy, love-making, out of shape excuses for Humans aimlessly roaming their way through life. It had even gotten to the point where visiting the A7 trainees got to be annoying. This was one of the top things they had been talking about ever since reuniting yesterday, and they’d come to three inevitable conclusions.

  First, they weren’t being overly critical. When people are first born they mature mostly on auto-pilot, ‘growing up’ in predictable stages, most of which are unbearably annoying. That was unavoidable, and while they weren’t going to tolerate being around such types, they didn’t hold it against them. They were just newbs, and like the trailblazers had once been, they had to progress through those stages on their own, leveling up as they go.

  It was the ones that, upon reaching adulthood, chose not to advance that deserved their scorn. Training was everything, and those who abhorred training were, in the trailblazers’ opinion, Human flunkies. The design of the Human body and mind was predicated on advancement, and those who did not want to advance were betraying their own design. So no, they weren’t being overly critical. Those who tried and failed could be taught how to succeed given sufficient time and training. Those who chose not to try, well, they deserved the short lives that were coming to them.

  Second, they and the other Archons were the tip of the spear, meaning they were supposed to be better than everyone else, and the trailblazers even more so than the other Archons. If they couldn’t hack something then they couldn’t expect anyone else to either, so it was in their nature to push the boundaries while others were more content to learn from their lead.

  This was touted as a lack of character, but a workable relationship given that the trailblazers expected to be superior, but a part of them still looked down on others for not being as eager to explore their capabilities. One who trusted blindly could not be trusted, and more often than not the narrow, box-like thought patterns within Star Force had to be broken up by those of them imaginative enough to see further and question why things were the way they were.

  Vision is what most people lacked. All the Archons had it, otherwise they never would have passed the A7 testing, let alone graduated and become Adepts. Still, the trailblazers were a notch above most of the others, and they decided this was in part due to their being the first class to come through with no benchmarks to measure against. It was a matter of perception that had become cu
lture for them…which meant that others could adapt and pick up that culture as well, as many of the more talented second gen Archons already had.

  That meant the problem was fixable with, as always, proper training.

  Fortunately there were ‘civies’ that had vision as well. Davis first and foremost among them, but many of his people, handpicked for this reason no doubt, had even gone so far as to grasp the basics of physical training enough for them to achieve self-sufficiency while they focused on their tech specialties. Though seriously inferior to the Archons, they did tip their hats to these visionaries, acknowledging them as if they were kid brothers. But still, given enough time, kid brothers will become unbearably annoying.

  Which brought them to their third conclusion. In order for the trailblazers to be themselves, they had to stay away from most people. Not in reclusion, for they worked well within Star Force and with those from other nations they interacted with on missions, but they couldn’t form any sort of relationships with them.

  This had been the key point in their discussions, because it seemed that forming a relationship allowed two people to share each other’s knowledge and strengths, which normally would have been an asset. The relationships between the trailblazers had never been anything but beneficial, and they were carefully examining the correlation between the two with some difficulty.

  That difficulty lay in the fact that the trailblazers had developed a curious ability to bond with each other while maintaining their individuality, while the civilian population tended to bond in a constricting fashion, making solid bonds that linked two into a pair, in most cases, and that pair operated with a bit of a hive mind.

  The Human hive mind, they knew, was a real thing. Wilson had taught them that much long ago, but it had never been a hindrance to the trailblazers. Their love of challenge seemed to bleed through it, enhancing the effect on each other. One person’s success or failure spurred the others on, and their combined energy level was always higher than it was when they were training solo, which was why they liked to pair up for workouts whenever they could…unless they were training solo specifically in an attempt to stress load themselves, where any outside ‘help’ would have been counterproductive.

  Everything worked well between them. Efficient, purposeful, logical. The bonds of civilians, however, did not remotely match up. It was considered that maybe what they were seeing was the result of incorrect bond formation. After all, everyone out there was really a newb compared to the Archons, and they’d had the benefit of some of the best trainers on the planet to give them a solid foundation to work from. The people in the general populace didn’t have that. What they did have was other newbs to learn from, and if they were passing bad information along through the hive mind, it was no wonder why things were spiraling out of control.

  On their trip down to Antarctica, Paul and the others in his Mantis held a prolonged conversation about the various types of ‘bad bonding,’ beginning with romantic attachment. All of them, it seemed, had suffered from it at some point in their early lives, with heartbreak being one of the stronger emotions they could remember. As they discussed it, they began to lay down some parameters for analysis and quickly came to several conclusions.

  The most obvious of which was that romantic/sexual attraction was an idiot switch designed to spur reproduction. By ‘idiot switch’ they meant that it was something that didn’t happen due to excessive thought, it was purely incentive based. An overwhelming sense of pleasure would push all other thoughts aside and the act of reproduction would occur…often leaving one wondering what the hell had just happened afterwards.

  There were other idiot switches inherent in Human biological programming. The urge to scratch, or flinch, which happened so quickly it was pure reaction. Touching something hot or cold and pulling back. Stubbing your toe and cussing up a storm…which was actually a distractionary tactic to keep your mind away from the pain as it bled off.

  All of these things affected the weak minded person the most, and as such a person could train themselves to become mentally stronger and not respond to idiot switches. The more one was in control of their body the less need there was for preprogrammed responses. It was akin to removing the training wheels from a bike, and as such, the trailblazers’ predilection to respond to idiot switches had long since been burnt out of them. It was a newb susceptibility, they determined, and from that perspective they were able to make several other observations.

  Newbs weren’t strong individuals, so a lot of the bad bonding that occurred tended to reinforce a weak area. Oftentimes people would date to achieve a sense of self worth or status elevation…which is why they fell to such emotional lows when that pillar of emotional stability was removed during a breakup. Had the person been a grounded individual beforehand, the heartbreak would never have occurred.

  What did that person typically do after a heartbreak? Find someone else to take their former lover’s place, putting in another pillar to shore themselves up when the true problem was a lack of individuality.

  Furthermore, the trailblazers discussed the problems that were inherently created in marriage, with the ‘two become one’ philosophy forming the crux of the quandary. Society was full of adages that no marriage is perfect or that fighting is just a normal and good part of the relationship…all of which dodged the real source of the problem.

  Romantic relationships were biologically designed to be temporary.

  The idiot switch elicited a brief period of intense passion…then it dissipated, perhaps to be rekindled again later, but it never lasted continuously. This was because the act of reproduction wasn’t a continuous one, all it took was a brief moment for conception to occur and the incentive was geared towards that end.

  While one might have considered such a conversation to be societally dangerous or awkward it was quite the opposite for the trailblazers, who occupied the entire passenger hold of the Mantis, for amongst them there were no romantic relationships. No marriages, no children, no dating…nothing. And while a few of them had hooked up initially during the basic training, that tendency went by the wayside as if it were just a childhood idiosyncrasy. The more they developed, physically and mentally, the more the idiot switches got overridden. As such, none of the trailblazers had sexual tendencies whirling about their minds nonstop as they had as teenagers, and that gave them a sense of clarity to self-analyze.

  They all retained the default sexual programming, but it didn’t assert itself anymore. This, they concluded, was one of the major reasons they had trouble thinking like the civies. With their reproductive programming running out of control and bleeding over into the rest of their thoughts, all logic would seem to disappear. The answer, they knew, was in those people becoming stronger minded and more knowledgeable about their own functions…something that took time and training, meaning that those who eschewed even the most basic of training were literally screwed.

  After the trailblazers got through sorting out the various permutations of a bad sexual bond, they progressed into non-romantic areas, from friendships to mentors to parents. Paul especially was interested in discussing the parent angle, as he had gradually fell out of touch with his own family, finding them to be more and more unreachable as time progressed. Both his parents had died years ago, but he had never returned to Earth for their funerals, having been politely exiled from the family beforehand.

  He had tried numerous times to pass on some of the things he’d learned from Star Force, but they either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand and continued their self destructive path without so much as lifting a finger to try to avoid it. That Paul couldn’t fathom, nor could he stand by and watch . After doing what he could to try and get them to do even the most basic training, and failing, he relinquished the pressure to maintain the family link and let them drift away to their own fates. A part of him still classified this as failure, because he instinctively didn’t give up on friends or family, but in truth those sitting around him now were h
is real family. Those he had been born to were just his entry point in a genetic lottery.

  The genetic lottery theory had been popping up on the Archon message boards a bit, which was yet another reason why none of them were interested in reproducing, for they figured that their offspring would be just a random person inserted into the universe rather than being inherently linked to the biological parents. It might have been true that they would share some physical or mental characteristics at inception, but as for who they were on the inside, that was lottery, and if Paul had a son or daughter the chances that they would be Archons some day was no greater than anyone else on the planet, so what was the point in having children of his own?

  In addition to that was the time spent caring for children. Paul and the others didn’t have time to spare, and they wondered about the logic of having parents raise their own offspring. In fact that discussion had been going through the ranks for some time and Project Canderous was taking a very different approach on the matter. The biological parents of the children had no dealings with their offspring, who were being ‘raised’ by professional handlers in larger groups that would become their ‘family,’ much like what Paul and the other trailblazers had experienced when going through their basic training together.

  Was there truly something to the parent-child relationship, or was it just another case of bad bonding? Some would say there definitely was, and point back to their own childhood as proof while others would point out the success of various orphans who didn’t have their biological parents around and perhaps were raised by adoptive parents or none at all. Normally, society saw such questions as taboo, but Star Force wasn’t society and the new colonies it was setting up gave them some leeway to try and correct some of the inherent flaws circulating throughout the hive mind. A few of the Archons had taken it upon themselves to help combat these societal flaws and had a heavy hand in the planning of several of Star Force’s civilization projects.