Star Force: Collaboration (SF90) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  That business was ad hock, everything from shipping to manufacturing to mercenary work. She was one of the rare few Humans that hadn’t grown up in Star Force, rather she’d been born in space onboard a freighter and had spent her childhood working along with her parents in the family business that stretched over 19 ships and 174 members. No one outside the family was trusted, and the more new blood they could get in the larger they could grow…hence getting the women pregnant was a major priority.

  It was one that she didn’t share, which had drawn her some ire, but her skills had proven good enough that she was pretty much left alone to attend to business. Eileen had learned everything on the job, picking up naturally what older family members had learned from their parents all the way back to their originators. Hank Donovan and Lena Burgan had both been in the same maturia class on a Star Force world called Neytosan, then worked in the huge megacorporation/empire for several decades while developing and maintaining their self-sufficiency before eventually acquiring enough credits to go it on their own.

  When they chose to have children they kept their existence a secret from Star Force, living on ships and moving from place to place without any real home. Those children had then had children of their own and the family business had grown out to 6 generations now, of which she was the oldest in the newer generation, soon to be surpassed by the start of the 7th as her brother’s mate was about to give birth in a few months.

  If absolutely necessary Eileen could do so as well, finding some guy to hook up with and adding a member to the Donovan ranks, but she was more interested in finding new trade deals and establishing relations with the powerful new races that had begun to enter Star Force territory and set up shop on empty worlds reclaimed from the lizards. The one before her now was a possession of the Sety, rulers of a distant empire that for some reason felt they wanted a foothold in the Star Force realm. They’d been sending out feelers through the community that they were open for business and Eileen wasn’t one to sit and let others take advantage of opportunities, prompting her to divert a shipping run to come out here and chase down some leads.

  Technically this was still a Star Force system, but despite the single seda in high planetary orbit everything else being built here was independent. The Sety were busy developing numerous contracts and one of those was the establishment of a facility on the surface that was operated by outsiders. Not Star Force, but by the merchant community to which the Donovans belonged. Deals were to be made, or so the rumors went, and Eileen intended to find out what there was here that they could get involved with and hopefully make a tidy profit…for fuel didn’t generate itself, and despite the efficiency of the Star Force gravity drives this jumpship still ate up a lot of the stuff.

  Following the tracking grid as directed, Eileen parked the jumpship in a prescribed orbital slot then took one of 12 smaller ships attached to it in surface nooks that the shields would cover during transport and headed down to the surface of Meer, a world covered in a mix of grasslands and forest. Her destination was in one of the largest grasslands, with the makeshift city visible from orbit as she descended into the thick atmosphere heading to the marked spaceport.

  Her craft was half dropship and half aerial fighter, equipped with weapons and most definitely not a Star Force design. The craftsmanship suffered a bit because of that, but they didn’t have any choice. Star Force didn’t sell weapons, and if the Donovans wanted to operate outside of Star Force territory from time to time they had to protect themselves. Even here there were Star Force drones in orbit sitting silent and intimidating everyone that even thought about misbehaving and disrupting the lax flow of traffic, but Eileen knew that the only way to be sure about your security was to have the ability to blow away anyone who tried to come after you, whether or not Star Force would intervene on your behalf.

  And her ship certainly could do that. It was a Reen interceptor, build for speed, modest cargo capacity, and carried enough armor and plasma weaponry to discourage anyone from thinking the ship was a mark. The engines were underpowered for straight line travel but its agility more than made up for that, giving her the ability to fly loops around most of the competition, blow them away, then continue on at whatever pace she liked.

  That had only happened once to her, out beyond Star Force territory in Epsilon Region, and she’d been very glad for her family’s prudence. Now she took the light gunship everywhere with her, even when one of the shuttles would have been more appropriate given their larger cargo holds.

  Querying the spaceport she got a berth assigned to her, which she then paid for on landing. It was a small fee, but necessary to keep the port in operation. Star Force didn’t charge for such things, but independent operators had to keep the credits flowing else they’d shut down and it seemed this city was indeed operating off of those protocols despite their very powerful and rich benefactors that were busy building in other regions of the planet.

  Eileen took two cousins with her, both of which were armed with hip lachar holsters while she carried a larger plasma rifle slung across her back in a light harness that she could reach into rather easily. It was an overpowered weapon that gave her a lot of credibility on sight, but her cousins were much better marksman with their weapons. If a door needed to go down though, she’d be the one to do it.

  The first order of business on a world like this was to be seen and mingle, to which end they found a rare bar and claimed a booth, ordering drinks that they couldn’t get in Star Force. Alcohol was labeled as contraband for them, though drinking it wasn’t penalized. If you were caught with it they’d take it and any production equipment that people had the ingenuity to cook up out of spare parts, making it sort of game that some people played with security. They could drink it themselves and give it out to others so long as they didn’t get caught, and when they often did they’d have to start over again. The only penalties that would incur were if you tried to sell it…then that was a business violation, which Star Force cracked down hard on.

  But this wasn’t a Star Force world, despite the system being under their protection. If the Sety wanted to allow alcohol then it was their problem, and Eileen put an order in for several cases after tasting the local brew, to be delivered to her ship the next day. The Donovans weren’t heavy drinkers, but onboard their ships Star Force had no say in the matter. They were independent and liked to do things their own way…though there were some things even they didn’t dare do, and looking at the food menu it seemed the Sety weren’t going to cross them on meat restrictions. Star Force was notorious for going after anyone who served, let alone produced meat, whether they were in their territory or not, and it seemed the Sety weren’t immune to that stipulation either.

  Eileen admitted there was some sense to that. Drinking alcohol didn’t harm anyone except yourself…unless you did something stupid while buzzed…but to eat meat someone had to die. She didn’t really care about the vermin that some backwater worlds they’d visited served up. They tasted good enough, though it was said that her great, great, great grandparents could never touch the stuff. An aftereffect of their maturia training, it was thought, but when outside Star Force territory the rest of the Donovans sampled some local meats, if only to hammer in their independence from the massive empire that supported freedom in many respects, but had so many restrictions in others it almost seemed to be an oxymoron.

  After about half an hour of mingling and sipping their drinks so not to get too tipsy, the trio was approached by an individual of a race she didn’t recognize, though it wasn’t a Sety. She knew what their tree-like profiles looked like, but this was something else entirely. At least it still spoke English though, which was the Star Force trade language that the Sety had apparently embraced here.

  “Am I right in assuming you are yet more entrepreneurs visiting Meer?” the high-necked biped asked.

  “You are,” Eileen said evenly.

  The alien bowed. “Then allow me to introduce myself. I am Keeshab, a local m
erchant interested in establishing a variety of trade contacts throughout the local region and Star Force territory in general.”

  “What race are you?” Harry asked, sitting across from Eileen while Mitt was on her right.

  “I am a Shaff. We are a mid-level race within The Nexus, but I am here operating independently of any official contracts.”

  “We like independents,” Eileen said with a touch of a smile. “What do you trade in?”

  “Rare goods. Properties that may be common here can be valued higher in The Nexus and vice versa.”

  “Are you a supplier or a buyer?”

  “Both.”

  “Contact info?”

  The Shaff slid two of its long fingers into a hip pocket and drew out a small bit of plastic and handed it to her. Eileen flipped it over, seeing that there were markings on both sides, but none of it was familiar to her.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the access log to the commerce system used here. I’m told it is a bit different from what Star Force uses, but inset that chip and it’ll direct you to my operations from any terminal on the planet.”

  “Even in the Sety cities?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not permitted there, nor are you, I presume?”

  “Haven’t asked.”

  “They’re keeping their construction under tight security, and if they operate similarly to what they’ve done in The Nexus they will keep a corner of this world to themselves while turning the rest of it into an economic center. I got here ahead of much of the competition and invested heavily to stake my claim. My instincts say this is going to become a hot spot. If not I’ll be the fool, but so far I haven’t seen anything to dissuade my prediction.”

  “Word is getting out,” Eileen confirmed, “and as to your item list, we…” she cut off as multiple heads in the bar were suddenly redirected to the main vid screen covering the wall opposite her booth.

  Keeshab turned as well, cursing in a language she couldn’t understand as the news vid was covering a breaking story from the Hamoriti Preserve. Vids were being shown of an attack by a large fleet against several Star Force ships and stations as a voice in English was narrating.

  “…damage was incurred but the assaults were quickly repulsed by both Star Force and a conglomeration of allied vessels. However no major combat broke out between the system defenders and the Revcor fleet. What you see here was a diversionary attack while the main body pushed past perimeter defenses and headed straight towards the Hamoriti herd where it was resting in stellar orbit…”

  Eileen watched with disbelief as the hundreds of ships actually attacked one of the Uriti, the smallest of the 7 present, with such a savage ferocity she was sure it was going to be destroyed despite the common knowledge that the giant space beasts simply couldn’t die. Small divots in its skin were vaporized, forming a debris cloud that mushroomed out from the continuous attacks, then suddenly the snake-like one burst through the cloud and the Revcor ships started exploding.

  She and the others watched entranced with horror as the massive energy discharges began firing off from multiple Uriti against the suicidal ships. Within 40 seconds every last one of them were annihilated…not just destroyed, but pulverized beyond any recognition down into rubble the size of gravel at best, leaving behind an expanding nebula to mark the battle site.

  “What were they thinking?” Mitt asked, breaking the silence.

  “We’ll never know now,” the Shaff said as a replay began to cycle with additional commentary being added. “There’s no one left to ask. I hope that doesn’t cause them to go on a rampage. We’re only 113 lightyears from the border.”

  As if in response to his statement the news announcer addressed that very matter.

  “…all reports indicate that after the attack the Hamoriti remained on station. They are not, repeat, not taking any action that would suggest they are now hostile. Namishta, the one that suffered the brunt of the attack, is showing slight surface damage. It too is remaining on station and is not appearing hostile. There are no reports yet if it or the others are responding to Star Force orders, but as of now no other ship or facility within the system has come to harm. Survivors from the handful of ships that engaged the system guardians are being recovered, so hopefully some answers as to this tragic attack will be revealed…”

  “Those things are far too dangerous to keep around,” Eileen commented, with her words obviously directed at Star Force in the negative.

  “The one that was attacked,” Keeshab said, pointing at the screen to the little blue one, “was loose and on the rampage in Li’vorkrachnika territory for hundreds of years without The Nexus ever being told about it until after the fact. If it had wandered into our territory untold numbers of people would have been killed. Who knows how many Li’vorkrachnika died. Those numbers were never made public, if anyone knows, but we were given some images from those days when the decision to remove the Hamoriti from the Sety homeworld was announced. We didn’t even know there was the beast buried beneath the surface, potentially endangering so many people. Having them in the Preserve, dangerous as it may be, is far more preferable to any other known alternative.”

  “So they say,” Eileen commented neutrally. “That may change if Namishta takes offense at getting shot up.”

  “If it does rampage again nothing has been lost, only with a respite between damage gained.”

  “I don’t think anyone around here would agree if it starts smashing up nearby systems.”

  “Perhaps not, but when viewing the greater perspective much has been gained by that Preserve, dangerous as it may be. And as far as the Sety go, they are no fools. If they have invested resources in this planet knowing how close they are to the Hamoriti, then they are confident that Star Force can contain them there.”

  “Wisdom or hope?” Eileen asked.

  “I think this should prove a decent test.”

  “I still don’t get why those people just committed suicide,” Mitt insisted. “Not to mention wasting all those ships.”

  “It makes me sick to watch,” Harry said gravely.

  “I’m afraid such news will be repeated endlessly,” the Shaff almost apologized. “Our contact is made. If you would like to inquire as to any business arrangements, I am at your convenience, but for now I will leave you to your current business.”

  Eileen waved casually as he departed for the far corner of the bar where he joined, or rejoined, a table of other varied races as another individual was looking like it was about to approach them given the recent departure.

  “Looks like I was right.”

  “About?”

  “This being a hot spot.”

  “If one of those things gets here it’ll get really hot,” Mitt warned.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll keep clear of those beasts easy enough. It’s the people that live on planets that have to worry.”

  “Promise me we’re never going into that Preserve,” Harry almost pleaded.

  “I promise,” Eileen said as the short alien had finally given up his ploy of ordering another drink and was walking directly towards them. “We’re keeping clear of it no matter what opportunities we might be passing up. I prefer lucrative and safe to lucrative and dead any day of the week.”

  3

  March 21, 3329

  Solar System

  Earth

  Riley braced himself behind a bioshield as Rio unleashed a torrent of plasma from his palm, sending it into the fellow trailblazer like a burning firehose that quickly ate through Riley’s defenses. The rest of the white-hot plasma passed through, impacting the technological shield that was covering his chest just before the attack stopped. With a wince Riley stood up, shaking off the fried feeling he got from the feedback every time his bioshields were breached and shook his head.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  “Tuned it,” Rio said, holding his place inside the training chamber build specifically for him, given that he was the only Arc
hon that had achieved Choratrik, or any of the elusive tier 4s, for which he was still searching his dreams for with no luck. “The more I use it the better my sense of the controls. There are ways to adjust the stream besides intensity. I was able to tweak it to get through bioshields better.”

  “I assume there’s a way to tweak the bioshields to stop your tweak?”

  “That’s the theory, but I’m not all that good with the Nakane…aside from throwing up the barriers. Riona has been doing some work on it though.”

  “That’s far more potent than our rifles.”

  “I know,” Rio said, grinning. “And I’m getting more powerful. Tissue analysis says my organs are adapting to the training. They’re not just a one size fits all psionic after all.”

  “How low on juice are you?”

  “That took a lot. I’d guess about a fifth of my reserves,” he said, taking the moment to pull a small vial out of a box that sat beyond the line marking the perimeter of the shield walls that would protect the chamber from any errant plasma blasts. Rio undid the lid and gulped down the contents, cringing at the cherry taste.

  “Gotta get a different flavor,” he said, wiping a drop off his mouth and tossing the vial back outside the line where it neatly slid into his pack with a telekinetic assist.

  “Not ambrosia?”

  Rio shook his head. “No, but it does draw on some of it too. Most of this is the physical component of the plasma plus some power crystals that allow for the rapid heating. My body forms them naturally over time, but with the supplements I have about a 10 minute turnaround. Not very useful in a quick fight, but it gives me some longevity in the field,” he said, waving Riley forward.