Star Force: Resurrection (SF84) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  It took several more weeks before he got a full report back from the scientists, who had been delayed by lack of necessary equipment to do the tests. The engineers had either repaired broken pieces or fabricated new ones out of varied components, after which the tests didn’t take long at all.

  When he accepted the results from them he saw at a glance the summary.

  The standard variants matched perfectly. The other two did not.

  The mastermind dug through the minutia of the results, seeing which regions had differences, then asked the scientists many questions regarding those areas before eventually dismissing them back to their original tasks…which in their case were not many given the current state of the planet.

  He immediately tasked the librarians to send a runner to one of the intact databases and do a thorough search looking for genetic template updates and the dates to which they occurred and to see if the current samples from himself and the engineers matched any, during which time he had to abandon his command center and relocate to another trashed area to avoid detection from approaching troops.

  He traveled almost exclusively below ground where there was a sensor interfering layer built into the lizard infrastructure. The invading ships could scan the surface buildings, but not what lay beneath them until they breached that barrier…in theory. He had been assured it would interfere with their sensors, but without having access to Star Force technology he had no way of knowing for sure how effective it was.

  But aside from his admittedly accidental capture, he had always been able to stay at least one step ahead of his enemies, though the available areas to run to were gradually diminishing on this planet and it wasn’t going to be long before he had to make do with much more limited options.

  He had many thoughts running through his head, most of which had to do with troop placements, available resources, foodstuff and ordinance factories, and everything else required of his supreme intellect to keep this planet in the fight and hurt the enemy as much as possible, but there was a bit of his mind that kept running through possibilities regarding the genetic programming. Almost like a low priority task, he kept occasionally analyzing it from all possible angles up until he got back the results from the librarians.

  There were no positive matches regarding any genetic template, for his variant or the engineers.

  Following that discovery, he gave the order for all existing variants to be sampled and compared to templates in the database.

  Mage Trevor-153992 was in a forward firebase along with the Bsidd army he was assigned to as they geared up for another assault. He wasn’t in his armor yet, nor were most of the other Archons assigned to him, but the Bsidd mechs were already out and about, some patrolling the distant front perimeter where they had finished busting up two cities the previous week. They were going after another one today on the far side, though the borderlines between cities was almost an arbitrary measurement when the cityscape blanketed the entire planet.

  Usually they measured their centers at the anti-orbital guns or other major infrastructure, but in truth the entire subsurface levels made such distinctions nearly pointless. None the less that was how Star Force tended to chop up the planet with regards to purge and hold operations, with Trevor’s army only concerned with the surface and a few subsurface levels. Anything deep would be physically sealed off and another unit would come through later more suited to that deep probing action. His task was to keep any lizard units that deep from coming to the surface and flanking them while they swept the surface ‘cities.’

  As was standard before any operation of this size, the commander would signal the lizards offering a surrender. One could argue that it was giving away their intention to attack, but the lizards knew they were coming anyway so it didn’t really matter.

  Trevor had his comm officer send a recorded message of his own voice then paid no further attention to it, moving on to other prep tasks as more supplies were being moved in from other locations on the planet and orbit. His Bsidd were burning through a lot of plasma rounds, grenades, and armor, all of which had to be continually resupplied or their conquering march across this planet would grind to a halt real quick.

  His troops already had what they needed for this next assault, but the Archons had learned to plan well ahead so as to not get caught with shortages by unexpected turn of events…like dropships suddenly being unable to land.

  “Trevor,” the comm officer said, his face with a weird expression despite his alien visage. “We’ve received a reply.”

  “To what?” the Archon asked, wondering which request to the fleet he was referring to.

  “From the lizards,” the Bsidd Alpha said, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth. “They’re asking what are our terms for surrender.”

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