Star Force: Divergent (SF74) Read online

  1

  July 3, 2896

  Epsilon Eridani System

  Corneria

  Jyra Hemman stood in the hold of a Mantis-class aerial transport, fully geared up as the rear hatched opened. She watched as the door transitioned into a ramp as a gust of wind entered, but she didn’t feel the ship’s rapid deceleration due to the IDF, though she could see the snow-covered trees below whipping by. Those trees gradually slowed and the mantis came to hover over a small hillside with an unnatural clearing on top.

  Jyra walked out onto the ramp and stepped off, with the Commando dropping a few meters and landing in the six inch deep snow. She dropped into a crouch and her knee hit the ground as her foot slipped, but she otherwise held her form as the mantis gained altitude and slowly accelerated away with her catching a glimpse of its ramp closing before the surrounding trees blocked her view.

  “Well then,” she said to herself from inside her helmet as her breath created a small cloud beneath her exhaust ports on her chin. The temperature was frigid, but not as bad as she’d experienced on Vandermen. That mission against the lizards had her unit fighting through snowdrifts taller than they were and a temperature so cold that her faceplate had iced up numerous times. This was a vacation in comparison, so long as she had her armor to keep herself warm.

  Jyra set the internal controls to station keeping, meaning they’d use power drawn from her movement to operate a combination of heating and cooling units. Her body had gotten used to wearing the armor so much that it felt like a second skin to her now and as a result her body’s internal temperature regulation didn’t fight it much, but she’d usually end up with a slightly sweaty sheen underneath the internal padding.

  She took a look around, seeing nothing but a square cut out of the forest the size of a basketball court. That had been created intentionally, for the rest of the forest had no natural gaps, but there was nothing else here. No technology or biology. The entire planet was devoid of animal life, leaving her alone with the trees and snow hundreds of miles away from civilization. Huge tracts of the planet had been colonized, but there were still chunks of it that had been preserved in its natural form for training and other purposes, with this clearing where she’d been dropped off being the start point for her next challenge.

  Jyra stood up and started walking, carrying a very full pack with only a pistol for weaponry. That was for emergency purposes, for most of her equipment was supplies. This wasn’t a combat mission, nor was it a training skirmish. This was to be a survival test, with only a small beacon in her pack as a backup in case something went wrong. Other than that she was on her own and not under surveillance of any kind. That had been impressed on her during her briefing four hours ago, for if she wanted to become an Arc Commando it would require long missions away from the rest of the army and she had to not only be able to move and survive alone, but to flourish in that type of environment.

  When Jyra passed by the nearest of the trees she extended an armored hand out and touched the bark, seeing her white armor matching the snow plastered on the outer side. It was colored for camouflage rather than the standard Commando colors, as was most of their equipment. She was meant to be as much of a ghost as possible, and even a little thing as altering the armor from dirty white to pure white could make a difference in an environment such as this.

  Like the pistol, the rest of her equipment was outfitted for multiple scenarios despite there being no threats here. Corneria was the second most populated planet next to Earth and just as secure. Jyra was here to learn rather than fight, and had spent the previous 3 years doing so after getting the very exclusive invite to train to become an Arc Commando.

  At the time she hadn’t even known there were Arc Commandos, aside from rumors. There was no official listing of them in the public databases, and even in the military records that she had previous access to there was no such rank or class mentioned. The same was true of the Arc Knights, but they’d been seen by many Commandos assisting them on the battlefield. Arc Commandos were never seen and many Commandos believed they were either a myth or misunderstanding, and now that she was in their training program the veteran knew why.

  When Jyra had been approached by the Archons it had been due to her service record. 189 missions in 26 campaigns over the past 340 years and a level 203 Commando rating put her in the upper 10% of the Mainline army, but at present there were only 600 Arc Commandos in existence, meaning that a lot of other Commandos that rated higher than her had been passed over in the selection process. The Archons had explained that some didn’t want the different duties when offered, but that most were not fit for the special combat units that they were building and they thought that she might be.

  They were elite units, she’d been told, and that was enough for Jyra. When she’d signed on she had immediately been removed from combat duty and sent to Corneria only to be subjected to an entirely different brand of training than she was used to, with this solo expedition being yet another example.

  As Jyra walked under the trees and got herself acclimated to her surroundings she checked her HUD. In it she had only access to a simple map, for the traditional battlemap of the planet had been blocked. She could reactivate it if necessary, another emergency contingency, but if she did it would disqualify her from this mission and that was something she would never do. The very fact that she had the option, including the pistol and other non-essential gear for this mission, underscored the mandate of the Arc Commandos.

  Combat could happen at any time, in any place, and Arc Commandos were selected for their ability to think outside the box. In truth all Commandos were, but Arc Commandos took it to the extreme. Her training since arriving here had not been combat oriented, for she already knew how to fight and had more experience doing so than a lot of Archons did. No, this training was centered around thinking and figuring things out when one didn’t have clear orders to follow or a clear path to attack the enemy. Normally Archons would adapt their orders to the situation, but as Star Force grew by leaps and bounds the Archon ranks were not keeping up in numbers.

  Jyra was being training to operate without Archon leadership, and to do that required that they learn to think like Archons…at least as far as ground combat was concerned, specifically small unit tasks. Archons were trained to lead all forms of armies, from large planet-spanning conflicts down to behind enemy lines missions amounting to only a handful of personnel. On top of that they were also masters of all 5 divisions, from naval to aquatics, and Jyra wasn’t going to be able to match them on that. Like the Knights, Commandos were the peers of the Archons, some would say, in their individual disciplines because she and others would train exclusively in one area while the Archons split their time between many…and not only were they warriors, they were builders and diplomats.

  Pretty much, they were masters at everything. And Jyra most definitely wasn’t.

  But what she was good at was solo missions, and that was why she’d been recruited. Her combat record against the lizards saw her posted to numerous scouting and special team operations, in which she excelled, but her training here had gone far beyond that.

  Checking her limited map she saw only a directional marker that pointed north and a distant waypoint that was her first destination on this cross country scavenger hunt. Jyra didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to get to the waypoint and figure things out from there. According to the waypoint numbers it was located some 129 miles away over slightly rolling terrain.

  “That’s one hell of a first leg,” she said, transitioning the waypoint to her HUD permanently but dismissing all other data before taking off at a jog through the inch-deep snow underneath the trees. Everything was covered by
it but the branches seemed to have collected most of it, allowing her a fairly easy time setting a pace. How to navigate the geography was something she was going to have to play by ear, for she didn’t have a topographical map to utilize, so she started by simply heading in a straight line until she found a reason to deviate from it.

  The ‘straight line’ was actually a weave between the tree trunks and scrub brush, for there were no trails nor anything in this region to make them. Thankfully the cold climate and dim lighting, thanks to the snow covered branches, had kept the undergrowth to a minimum, but that only emphasized the desolation of the place. No one lived here, let alone passed through. Aside from the small artificial clearing there was nothing here different from when Star Force had first arrived to colonize the planet and Jyra could feel the disconnect.

  That ‘disconnect’ was something she’d been trained to embrace and utilize, for most people, regardless of race, avoided it like the plague. People naturally operated with a hive mind, some more than others, and that left blind spots that could be exploited. It was in those blind spots that stealth was often achieved, and the more she could learn to think as a disconnected entity the easier it would be to identify them. That said, she’d always be able to connect with the army and Star Force. Her 3 centuries of service ensured that, so this training wasn’t designed to replace it, but rather enhance that bond of brotherhood by giving her a second mode to slip into…a mode that could be used to protect and attack as necessary, derived by her own judgement rather than orders.

  That new mode was active, for she could feel herself slipping into it now that she was off the grid. She’d been told that other training missions where commandos were sent out alone had always been secretly monitored in order for the trainers to be able to intervene if something went wrong. If the trainees knew about that they’d operate differently, so they had to keep it secret. This fact was entrusted to her and the handful of other Arc Commando trainees she was working through the program with because they would not be operating under similar procedures.

  None of them were rookies, for all were combat veterans at least 200 years old. They could take care of themselves, but there was always risk. Star Force didn’t want to lose them to an accident, which was why there were safety protocols in their equipment so they could break from the parameters of the mission if deemed necessary, but that choice was theirs rather than a trainer’s. If Jyra fell off a cliff and smacked herself unconscious there would be no help coming, for she wouldn’t be able to call for it.

  Risk was everywhere, and while Star Force couldn’t prevent it they could and did minimize it. Those minimizations were now lessened, but not removed, in order to give her a chance to get away from everyone and operate in the dark for a while. With so much population on Star Force worlds it was virtually unheard of not to see another Human, even if just walking from your quarters to the cafeteria. The same was true in the military, so her being here, surrounded by miles of uninhabited territory, was a rare thing that she’d been getting a lot of in her Arc Commando training.

  Enough that she was now comfortable with it, and in some ways preferred it. Not only was she being entrusted with this ‘alone time’ but she and the other trainees were also given special access codes to Star Force databases, allowing them almost free reign to move about through their cities wherever and whenever she wanted. Staying in the dark even when amongst the masses, it had been explained to her, and to that end on a previous mission she had been tasked with making her way through restricted areas under security’s nose. An Archon has been stationed with security to call them off if she was detected, so no misunderstandings could occur, but that hadn’t been necessary for Jyra had made it through in the shadows using a combination of guile and computer codes that security didn’t even know existed.

  Her Archon instructors had explained the duplicity to her as an invisible layer of protection. Rather than playing games with their own people, she was learning how to back them up off the grid where potential enemies couldn’t look. While Star Force computer and comm systems were difficult to hack, there was always the possibility of it happening. If it did, an enemy could use their own systems against Star Force, hence they needed another layer of defense…and in this case, that second layer was trust.

  The Archons had their own brotherhood that they held to fiercely, and through it all they trusted one another to do the right thing. For the Commandos it was less so. They hoped they would do the right thing, but kept an eye on them just in case. The same was true for the other 4 military divisions, and in most cases that oversight was unnecessary. Where the Archons led the soldiers followed, and so long as the good guys were in charge there wasn’t going to be any fertile ground for misbehavior within the ranks. Jyra knew this from her time serving as a Commando, but she’d only recently come to realize that most of her fellow soldiers were going along with the flow rather than thinking for themselves.

  With the knowledge Star Force gave their people through training, going with the flow was a shortcut to understanding how the universe worked. Once a person made it to that point they were unlikely to forget, but they were only learning the knowledge that was passed onto them. The Archons wanted the Arc Commandos to be more than that, and therefore they were recruiting individuals who showed an aptitude to take what they’d learned and expand upon it by thinking outside of what they’d been taught and making new connections…essentially doing what the Archons had done to create that database of knowledge.

  Above and beyond that, they wanted individuals that they could trust to use their instincts and ferret out injustice, inconsistencies, anything that might be amiss. Simply following orders wasn’t enough. They had to act on their own volition and not rely on orders. With the responsibilities, equipment, and knowledge that the Archons were giving to Jyra and the others, the most impressive and humbling gift being given to them was that of trust. Trust to act without oversight and to do what the Archons would do.

  Except the Arc Commandos were being trained in a very narrow slice of Archon responsibilities, namely the solo and small group combat missions, traveling behind enemy lines and, if the worst came to pass, able to disappear within Star Force if it was ever compromised. The Arc Commandos, in their limited focus, were now another spear tip, with no one to follow. They led the way, not for others to follow, but to aid them by taking out targets and accomplishing missions that most would never know occurred.

  That’s why Arc Commandos were not publically recognized and that the military itself didn’t know of their existence beyond rumor…and that level of trust and secrecy was why Jyra had fully committed herself to this extreme training. It was difficult physically, as was all Star Force training, but what made this secret program so extreme was that it required her to become an Arc Commando completely, from her red hair down to the tips of her toes. This wasn’t a job or profession, it was to become her identity.

  And that was something she wanted, more than anything in her life. She’d always wanted to be an Archon, but her testing hadn’t warranted it. She’d retaken the tests multiple times throughout her life, each of which was different, but she’d never passed. This new role, which held equal status to the Archons in terms of independence and responsibility was equal to, no, actually better than becoming an Archon.

  Naval, aquatic, aerial, and mech combat were interesting but never truly appealed to her, nor were administrative duties and empire construction. Jyra was a fighter who belonged on the battlefield, not a builder, so Arc Commando was a perfect match for her and she was extremely grateful for the wisdom of the Archons in seeing that in her. That vision was one thing that she lacked, but now that she’d found her niche she never wanted to do anything else again. She still had about another year to go in her training, she guessed, and she still had to earn that position, but Jyra had no doubts as to whether it would happen.

  There was a way to accomplish it, and if there was a way she’d find it. She was fully committed to beco
ming an Arc Commando and nothing they’d thrown at her yet, training wise, had been more than she could handle.

  This long distance solitary mission was something new, but she suspected it was more of a confirmation ordeal rather than a grueling endurance test. There was no time limit involved, at least not on this stage of it. She simply had to get from point to point across the snow-covered forest and could take as much time as she needed or wanted. That said, with her objective location known she didn’t feel like delaying and set a fairly aggressive pace, tempered by the fact that she knew she’d been running for at least 10 hours before she settled down for the ‘night,’ though with her nightvision tech the time of day didn’t matter, rather it was whenever she became exhausted that she’d stop, and she’d already decided to play it safe and cut off before that happened.

  While this leg of her mission might be simple, she had no way of knowing what the next one would entail…and she didn’t want to head into possible difficulty at a disadvantage. So she set a pace that would double as the workouts she was unable to do out here in the middle of nowhere and got to work covering ground, not knowing what was ahead of her other than the tiny triangular dot emblazoned on her HUD marking her target location’s direction.

  2

  The terrain seemed endless, with forest over rolling hills that was always different yet remarkably the same. If it wasn’t for her HUD and the distant waypoint Jyra would have been thoroughly lost in this wilderness but that one bit of information was all she needed to navigate, with the significance of that razor edge not being lost on her. More so than ever before Jyra was coming to grips with the fact that the galaxy was a wild and dangerous place with no safety nets other than what you created yourself. Star Force had done so well in that regard that most people didn’t realize what it was like outside their cities.