Star Force: Earth Evacuation Read online

  1

  April 17, 3602

  Solar System

  Earth

  “I got it!”

  Jenn Stuzi ran out of the second bedroom in their quarters with a relieved smile on her face when her roommate held up the box for her inspection. The Verratriss logo was emblazoned on it, identifying that it was legitimately from the exclusive Bsidd clothing artists.

  “How?” she asked as they both sat down on their couch and began opening the box.

  “New stock just arrived from outsystem today. Luckily they had one our size,” Sarah Stuzi explained as she pulled out the chain link dress that seemed to defy the color spectrum and held it up for her sister to see. “It cost 432 credits, but I think it’s worth it.”

  “How did you get 432?” Jenn asked, not taking her eyes off the glittering dress that had just the right mixture of material and holes to make it a semi-revealing jaw dropper…but one with cooling circuitry that would wick away body heat and keep you from sweating no matter how warm the room got, which was perfect for the party they were less than two hours away from.

  “What do you mean how? I had 437 in my account. We are splitting, right?”

  “For this? Hell yes.”

  “You get it tonight, no arguing,” Sarah said, referencing the fact that the two girls, despite not being biologically related, were practically the same body size and they’d gotten in the habit of sharing their clothing so they could buy more of it…and not that generic stuff that Star Force made available freely. That was good for down time and workouts, but not for parties when you wanted to stand out. Fortunately the two girls’ shared wardrobe included many specialty pieces that non-workers would never be able to afford, but this was by far the most expensive piece they’d added to date.

  “Agreed,” Jenn said, still looking over the slim, body hugging garment that went from neckline down to mid calve. “It’s still cleanser compatible, right?”

  “Of course. All Verratriss is cleanser safe. No special fields required. That’s part of why it’s so damn expensive. Don’t just sit here, get ready!”

  “Right,” Jenn said, standing up in a hurry and taking off to their shower room to get her body thoroughly spotless before she put on the dress that was guaranteed to show it off.

  Sarah let her go but kept the dress, marveling at it once again as she considered how many days of work it had cost them. Both girls had jobs, which in a Star Force city wasn’t required, but in order to afford luxuries you either had to go into some form of Star Force service to earn credit stipends or you could work for private organizations and get paid in lump sums. The downside to that was once the credits ran out you wouldn’t be getting anymore and the stipends were good forever, but both Sarah and Jenn had decided after they graduated from the maturia that they didn’t want to play the waiting game, so they’d put together a plan that had served them well for the past 73 years.

  Sarah stood up and walked over to a wall mirror, holding up the dress in front of her trim and youthful body. She was fitter now than when she’d graduated from the maturia at age 24 and had been working hard to stay that way. So had Jenn, for they’d both made a pact not to let either one of them lose their self-sufficiency as many other people did.

  Not the higher ups in Star Force, for the leaders of their interstellar empire were over a thousand years old, but for the common civilians that didn’t embrace nearly round the clock training and didn’t have access to the ambrosia that gave them an almost magical boost in performance, it was easy to just kick back and relax now that the basic maturia program was over. Everyone in Star Force had been born into it, and even Sarah’s two children had gone there as well.

  She didn’t know their names or where they were now, but Jenn had 6 and kept in loose contact with the 2nd one. The first hadn’t wanted contact, so none was ever made, and that’s the way it’d been with Sarah’s parents. When the time had come for her to learn who they were it had to be a choice that both she and them made, and her parents, whoever they were, hadn’t wanted to have contact so the records had been purged at her birth. Her name had been assigned to her and all of her 99 brothers and sisters in her maturia class, so there was no trace of a connection to her biological parents unless they wished there to be one.

  When it came time for Sarah to choose she’d belatedly agreed with her mystery parents. It was better to just let her children find their own way as she had, for there was no real need for a bond there. She’d helped two new people come into the galaxy and that’s what she’d intended to do, not wanting there to be a longer commitment than the 9 months for each it’d taken for the pregnancies.

  Jenn was a bit different. She’d opted for her identity to be revealed to the first two children when the time came. The first one hadn’t wanted contact, so she had no idea where he was. The second one did choose, and that girl was known as Ariel Neesham, now 42 years old and living in another star system entirely. Jenn kept in contact with her every now and then, sending messages back and forth, but it was more of a polite relationship. Without having spent any real time together two people couldn’t get close, but she and Sarah had spent every day of the first 23 years of their life together along with the rest of their 98 brothers and sisters.

  The bonds between them were still strong, even though most had moved to other parts of Earth or elsewhere in the Solar System. Only 18 of them had left for other parts of the empire, but Sarah and Jenn always kept track of where they were and how they were doing. They were their family and always would be, but their children weren’t, which was why she assumed Star Force didn’t mandate identities be known to either parent or child.

  When Jenn had her 3rd she opted not to reveal herself and had continued that practice for the next 3 and probably would for more going into the future. Sarah was done with giving birth, figuring she’d done her part and then some with 2, but Jenn figured things a little differently. Every guy she hooked up with she wanted to have a kid by, and so long as she didn’t start getting ‘crabby’ she’d still have that option going forward.

  Unfortunately some of their brothers and sisters were getting ‘crabby’ despite their continual urgings to fight it, with the term referring to when a person’s body went into a stagnant, decaying trend. Star Force medics tried to fight it as much as they could, but if you didn’t train and didn’t really master your own body there wasn’t anything they could do in the long run. Some people had the medtechs revitalize their bodies with a regenerator…another magic piece of technology that healed all the damage done to you. People would go in crabby and come out looking young again, but there was a cost.

  The regenerator caused your body to grow new tissue hyper fast, like in seconds, but that new tissue wasn’t as strong as the rest of your body. That was why when someone got hurt they really didn’t want to use the regenerator if they didn’t have to, because it’d weaken them. Over time and with proper training they’d regain their strength, and if the injury was bad enough it was definitely worth it. The regenerators could even bring people back to life if they hadn’t been dead for too long, but as the maturia handlers had drilled into their brains during basic, if you didn’t train then you would eventually grow crabby and no matter how many regenerator treatments you had you would still eventually die, because your body would get so weak one day your heart or lungs would just break from the stress of nothing more than standing up out of a chair.

  If you got that weak Star Force wouldn’t give up on you. They’d revive you if possible then tell you the exact amount of microtraining needed to start pulling yourself back from the brink, for no matter how bad off you were there was always a route to recover by, even if it was a monumental task. The more crab
by you got the harder it became to recover, but they’d told Sarah so many times now that she could never forget…the key was to stay ahead and train when you were strong, for the weaker you got the harder it was to make a comeback.

  The sad thing was a lot of people didn’t even want to try, so despite the fact that Humans and every other race within Star Force could theoretically live forever a lot of people didn’t. They just gave up trying and slowly decayed into crabbiness. When that happened to the girls they lost their ability to have children, and Jenn was using that as kind of a measuring stick to make sure she didn’t start to get crabby without realizing it.

  For Sarah she had other ways to keep herself on track, and both girls had agreed long ago to never let the other quit and this new dress they’d gotten would definitely help with that, for there was enough skin showing through it that if you were out of shape you wouldn’t dare wear it.

  Actually, that was pretty much the way both of them lived their lives. The quarters they were in were level 5, meaning they had to pay 550 credits per year to have the upgrade, which was technically Jenn’s. Everyone in Star Force had a level 1 quarters assigned to them permanently that cost no credits. If you wanted to veg out after graduating from the maturia you could, doing nothing at all and slowly getting crabby. That’s not the way Jenn and Sarah wanted it, so they’d both gotten jobs and were earning enough credits to share this much larger living space while Sarah’s level 1 quarters were still technically assigned to her elsewhere in the city, but she never used them.

  They split the payments between them and that had allowed them to get a level 3 quarters soon after Sarah graduated. Jenn had passed her graduation trials a year before, and that year spent apart had been the hardest on her. Actually leaving the maturia had been hard on everyone, for going from 99 brothers and sisters with you day in and day out down to 1 was not a pleasant transition. How Jenn had handled going without anyone for a year was something Sarah didn’t care to ever experience, but many people did. Sticking together after graduation was actually rare for this many years given how big Star Force was and how many options there were out there.

  Earth alone had 337 billion people on it and Sol had upwards of trillion with all the planets and moons combined. Add in all the other star systems and Star Force’s total population was measured in the quadrillions. Knowing that, it was shocking that anyone could keep track of each other in that mass of people, but maturia classmates still did. They just didn’t tend to live right next door to each other, though there were a few others known to share quarters, classmates or not, to get access to higher level units with more space and luxuries by sharing the upgrade bill.

  Some even cohabitated with their romantic partners, but that wasn’t for Sarah and Jenn. They both liked their men, but liked them best when they were around part of the time, not 24/7. If you spent that much time with someone you’d either lose some of the fireworks or even grow to despise them. Sarah definitely liked her boyfriends on a date-only basis, though Jenn was a little more possessive than that, but not enough to break up their sisterly pact no matter who she hooked up with.

  There wasn’t even the slimmest of chances that would never happen, and even the ex-Commando she had somehow snared wasn’t going to come between the two of them.

  That was the reason for the party, actually. Jenn and Brad had been together on enough short term relationship runs that they now qualified for the maximum 5 year extension. It wasn’t mandatory, for they could choose another 6 month, year, or 2 year if they wanted, but today they were going to seal for the next 5 years…which was risky. The two of them got along good, very good actually, but Brad was a completely different type of person, being a 432 year old former Commando that had fought for over 200 years in the lizard war.

  And to be perfectly honest, he was out of Jenn’s league. Sarah would never discourage her from going after him, and more power to her for actually getting his attention, but if this 5 year seal went bad they’d either have to stick it out or break it, and while the Star Force relationship network didn’t have any penalties for broken relationships there would be a mark put on someone’s file so that anyone interested in them in the future would be aware that there might be an issue with commitments.

  That was why Sarah would never seal with someone for longer than 6 months. In fact most of her seals were for only a single month and sex-only. There was a lot of variation in the types of seals you could get, but the idea of having a guy that couldn’t even kiss someone else without violating the seal seemed stupid to her. There was no way she could ever police that, so what was the point? Her sealing meant she wouldn’t have sex with anyone else during that seal period and that was easy enough to honor. But the kinds with no romantic contact with others and the cohabitation seals were just stupid in her opinion.

  Nothing was ever permanent within Star Force, but 5 years was a long time and she’d had many discussions with Jenn about this. It didn’t make sense to Sarah, but if Jenn could get an ex-Commando and seal him in for 5 years she wasn’t going to argue that point. She just didn’t want Jenn to get stuck in a null relationship where both didn’t interact but had to wait out their seals until they expired.

  But whatever. Jenn and Brad were making it work and today they were going to officially sanction the 5 year seal at the party. It was Jenn’s decision, and Sarah certainly didn’t mind having Brad hanging around. How Jenn had got him she still couldn’t fathom.

  “Dress!” Jenn said, walking out of the shower room naked but fully dry.

  “Rock it, girl,” Sarah said, handing it off as her sister zipped by to the room they’d transformed into a huge walk-in closet where they held their hard earned specialty clothing. When Jenn came out later they switched and both got ready in a hurry, then headed out of their quarters into the public corridor outside. Jenn in her new eye popping dress and Sarah in a pair of shorts and tube top that were similar to Star Force issue but with enough alterations and adornments for people to be able to spot the difference.

  It was questionable as to who was showing more skin, inch for inch, but as they walked through the residential section and then took a lift car down and into the very active undercity all eyes were on Jenn. Sarah felt a little underdressed and underappreciated, but that was ok. She’d get the dress later and today was all about Jenn.

  They went on a small parade through a couple shopping sections then an entertainment complex before coming to the train station that would take them over the channel and into Britain where most of their friends lived. Not their brothers and sisters, but the people they’d come to know and associate with after graduation, including Brad whose quarters were also on that side of the channel.

  Fortunately the train was fast as always and the two girls were quickly taken across in clear cars that gave them a good view of the water while everyone else had a good view of Jenn with Sarah suppressing a smile.

  That dress was worth every damn credit.

  6 hours later…

  Jenn, Sarah, and Brad all came back to the sisters’ quarters afterward with the newly sealed pair locking themselves in Jenn’s bedroom. As per protocol, when either one of them brought guys in for sex the other girl would head out, so Sarah got changed into less eye catching clothing but still not Star Force garb. Rather, she put on her dainty Sharpcorp uniform and headed off to find another liftcar that took her the other way through the mainland colony to where she worked at a candy company.

  She’d been there for 23 years and had worked her way up to one of the receptionists at their largest store in Europe…a position that required she look as delicious as the candy that, in order to compete against Star Force, had to be the best available to get people to actually spend credits on it. Their #1 seller was a choco sugar stick that arguably was the best in the empire and in addition to the 2.3 credits per day that she got paid, Sarah also occasionally got a free supply of the sugar sticks, each of which normally cost between .05 and .25 credits.

&n
bsp; Sarah came back with four of them and tossed the two foot long bundle to Brad who was sitting on the couch with Jenn under his arm watching the vid screen.

  “Don’t get fat on me,” she said with a smile as he opened one and started nibbling on the end, alternating bites with Jenn. Sarah walked around behind them and pulled off her shoes, dropping them, her socks, then the rest of her clothes on the floor in a trail that left her naked a few steps before she got to the shower room.

  Brad didn’t turn around, his and Jenn’s attention still on the vid screen, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She and Jenn had agreed long ago that this was their quarters and they weren’t going to act any differently than normal if they had guests. In the case of Brad that just meant he occasionally got to see two naked women for the price of one.

  That wasn’t a big deal, having grown up with 48 brothers that had seen her naked quite a bit, so Sarah didn’t even think about it after a long 4 hour shift. Her job wasn’t overly difficult most days, but it was non-stop interaction with customers seeing how popular a brand she worked for. Personally, Sarah and Jenn would rather save their credits for more clothes and other permanent things, but some people just really liked the novelty foods.

  Problem was, most of them didn’t do the training that required the higher calories and the Archons didn’t visit the store that often, though when they did she was always surprised by how they could chomp the sugar sticks and other products that normal people had to nibble on to avoid getting a sugar overload. Even Brad couldn’t take very big bites, but then again he wasn’t doing the kind of insane training anymore that he’d told them Commandos did on a daily basis and that the Archons easily exceeded.

  Sarah was submerged up to her waist in the vertical shower tube as it slowly filled with water streaming down over her blonde hair in the beginnings of what would be a long, relaxing soak when the alarm sounded. That shocked her more than being seen naked ever could and Sarah jerked in reflex, bouncing her arm off the clear, circular tube. She grabbed her wrist and rubbed it as the unfamiliar alarm continued to blare.