Star Force: Quenar (SF88) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  The Sety needed a foothold in the growing Star Force markets, as well as affording them to contacts that existed outside of their own maps that made use of the Star Force transit and commerce systems. The basic idea was that the Sety, and several other Nexus members, could set up shop and not have to worry about security because it was in Star Force territory. They could build without having to devote ships to defend it, and the arrangement being considered by Davis had specified just that. They wanted to slowly cultivate an economic foothold while leaving Star Force to provide security in exchange for a number of other concessions, one of which was to allow some low key member states, such as the H’kar, the choice of leaving The Nexus to join Star Force without having to suffer the penalties that such a break with the others had been promised to entail.

  Davis had informed Riley via a message, now that he was back on Earth, that offloading a few minor members that couldn’t contribute to the greater whole of The Nexus was being seen as a blessing rather than an insult, though had their tenuous position not be verging on a major embarrassment they would not have considered such a concession. They weren’t desperate just yet, but a lot more things were being allowed on the table and they were finding a useful trading partner in Davis because he wasn’t just squeezing them to get anything and everything out of them that he could, he was negotiating deals that would benefit both parties.

  That was what had truly turned the Sety around, above and beyond the fact that the Uriti were now no longer their constant burden. There was even talk of moving all the others to the Preserve if this one proved successful, and as far as the Sety were concerned it was no longer a matter of pride, it was a responsibility that they were more than eager to pass on to someone else, and that was also a point of negotiation that Davis was using. If they were to get the Uriti that the Sety had possession of, Davis was going to get something in return for it, though that and many other deals were still only on the drawing board, the first of which was dependent on whether or not Bahamut could play nice with Nami and stay within the borders.

  With the first stage of the experiment a success, Riley and the others watched as the giant Uriti made its way to the jumppoint and then over to the star. The Knights of Quenar sent their ships ahead first, then the Zeus and its escorts followed Bahamut out of the system to begin the slow trek over to the Preserve that was fortunately much closer than the last time they did this. It’d still take months to get there, but it was just next door compared to some of the Uriti that the KoQ had identified almost half a galaxy away.

  The fleets that parted ways with the group traveled out on individual jumplines headed back to different home territories, but one system out the Sety ran into a waiting Yisv fleet of considerable size, informed them of the successful waking and removal of the Uriti, then continued on. The Yisv then traveled back to the now broken shell and landed their people on the surface to begin cleaning up the wreckage to insure that no one else happened along and collected the materials and technology of the Ancients. There were enough technologically advanced enemies for them to face as it was, and they didn’t need any more upgrading themselves by reverse engineering or salvaging the large sections of the shell facility that were below the blast radius.

  There were several ships here already there that fled upon their arrival, and one of which had recovered a party sent down to the surface. The Yisv didn’t know what they had gotten, if anything, but they insured there would be no coordinated excavation of the rubble other than their own, carefully collecting and cataloging each piece that they then spirited away on their ships back to their own territory. They’d never been a caretaker of a Uriti facility, for obvious reasons, and while others had been able to study the technology in detail they never had…until now.

  So their volunteering to clean up the site had been automatic and welcomed, for the rest of the races were ready to be done with the Uriti if at all possible, and were more than willing to tick this system off their ‘to protect’ list.

  When the Zeus returned to the Alamo System behind Bahamut it was just in time to see a massive burst of radiation hit his ship. From the sensors that he was linked into via the command nexus he knew it wasn’t damaging, but the origination point was obviously Bahamut. The burst was consistent with observed behavior of Nami after her release from confinement, only this wave was much smaller.

  Riley checked ship status reports for his escorts and a few others that were nearby, finding they were all still operational save for a few sensor arrays being blown out on automated sentry pylons set in low stellar orbit that allowed all blind spots around the stars to be monitored constantly. Before Riley could get bombarded with questions, Nami’s signature within the smaller star began a rapid rise, eventually coming up out of the stellar material aglow with recently stored energy that gradually faded as it moved further into the coldness of space…which was odd considering how much energy the Zeus’ shields were having to block to keep the hull plates from getting scorched.

  That was just another example of how foreign the Uriti were, literally existing in the same universe but in totally different pockets of it.

  When Nami came out and into the black she headed straight for Bahamut, who likewise headed towards her. Riley wondered if this was a battle challenge or a rush to say hello, but Nefron quickly put that question to rest with a quick play by play of their registered mental stats. They were not in contention at all, but were eager to see another version of themselves for the first time.

  When the two Uriti came together they almost hit each other, not able to slow down fast enough, then the two held within a couple miles of one another and just sat there basking in each other’s aura and having a very long conversation that Nefron was eavesdropping on as much as he could and gathering data with every passing second.

  Hopefully listening to them talk to each other would give Star Force a clue as to how to communicate with them someday, but for right now Riley was just glad they weren’t fighting, as well as being grateful to be able to facilitate this…well, it wasn’t a reunion if they’d never met before, but they’d obviously been built to have a pack mentality and now they were finally being able to put to use that part of their psyche.

  The orbit matching continued on for several hours until there was a cascade of yellow lightning that passed between the two of them in what looked like a storm that lasted for more than 10 minutes, after which nothing changed and they continued to hold close formation.

  “Nefron?”

  “It wasn’t an attack, but it wasn’t something the Chixzon engineered into them. Nor is it any behavior previously witnessed.”

  “They only had one captive,” Riley pointed out. “Please tell me that’s not a reproductive cycle.”

  “It’s not, I can promise you that much. The Uriti have been altered so they cannot reproduce, and the progenitor was asexual. Beyond that I can tell you nothing. I have no idea what just happened.”

  “Take notes,” Riley urged. “With two of them together I get the feeling we’re going to be finding out a lot more about them than the Chixzon ever knew.”

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