Star Force: Empire (SF58) Read online

  He had to stay Star Force in order to bring the Lacvamat into it. It wasn’t a trade off or merger, they had to come fully in with Larry not budging an inch. That was the only way they would truly become part of the empire, and it was the only way to keep the Administrators and other personnel on planet from being corrupted, for like it or not, those you spent time with had an effect on you, and the weaker minds would often begin to emulate their environment.

  Larry’s mind wasn’t weak, but he also wasn’t an Archon. That said, a little recharge like today was enough to keep him on track and come tomorrow morning he’d be ready to go at it again and bring the Lacvamat one more baby step closer to truly being a part of Star Force.

  2

  April 28, 2652

  Sului System (Beta Region)

  Favrrcor

  Gam’len’wex ran through the small stream, kicking up water as the Scionate bounded across in only eight footfalls, with the latter two sinking into the mud on the bank and slowing him as he ran up the short incline and back onto the trail he was following. The quadruped wore no armor nor shoes, clothed only in a thin torso vest that had holes for his neck, legs, and tail…the Scionate equivalent of a body suit.

  Behind him others followed, staggered a few seconds apart, with two on ahead of Gam’len’wex as the group crossed through the still wild regions of the planet that Star Force was rebuilding for them. They owed the great empire a debt they felt they could never repay, and had been working hard the past 6 years to prove their worth after hearing the stories of how their forbearers had so dishonored themselves.

  Gam’len’wex had not been born at that time, but he’d learned from others what had truly transpired. The records Star Force had available to the maturias were incomplete, and it wasn’t until Gam’len’wex had graduated and met others who had lived through that era that he’d learned the truth.

  The Scionate had never been a united people, with constant dissention and battling amongst themselves over various matters. When the war to fight the attack by the Lacvamat began they were united in the obvious sentiment to defend themselves, but how they did so and the subsequent counterattacks they made were not universally supported. By the end of the war those frustrated and ignored Scionate that had argued for a saner course of action had an opportunity presented to them when Star Force and the other major powers punished the Scionate for their actions by taking a number of systems from them.

  The fools had fought back, which cost them further, reducing the Scionate’s holdings down to only two systems, each of which had a Star Force presence in it acting like a leash to monitor the behavior of the dishonorable. The Lacvamat had lost all of their systems due to their actions, but given that the Scionate acted mostly in self-defense their autonomy was not stripped from them. They did, however, have to relocate their populations from the confiscated worlds into those they retained, with anyone staying behind falling under Star Force jurisdiction.

  Many of the original bloodlines that did not need to evacuate because they were based in the capitol system sought out Star Force and asked to arrange a deal in which they would be allowed to come over to the Star Force worlds regardless of how many Scionate decided to stay behind, for they were sick of the way Scionate society operated and felt that, in addition to a form of penance for the bad decisions their kin had made, their sense of honor could be better satisfied as part of the Humans’ empire.

  Ironically those bloodlines were one of the first things to be disbanded by the Star Force conversion, with Gam’len’wex having been born to parents that were unknown to him. He’d been raised in a maturia and had no idea what former bloodline he belonged to, nor did he care, for the new Scionate, the Star Force Scionate, did not think in such terms. They were a united people who, regardless of whether they were new born or converted, were committed to growing their small race into a military force capable of assisting the rest of Star Force and earning their keep.

  Gam’len’wex had also learned that the conversion of the originals did not go smoothly, for Star Force had to break them of many bad habits…but they had been willing to try, and that willingness had set them apart from other races, they’d been told, with the Scionate taking to the Star Force ways far more quickly than others once they got past the first few transitional bumps. They were adapting so rapidly, it was said that they were being fast tracked towards higher status within the empire, even more so than the Scionate within Axius.

  Therein lie part of their success, he was told, for Scionate maturia already existed within Axius and did not have to be constructed from scratch. The same was true of military equipment designed for the Scionate, though they’d taken it up a notch as they designed modifications along with the Star Force Archons and techs. Right now there were 3 large Scionate units dispatched to field work, with a fourth being formed that Gam’len’wex hoped to join.

  Two of those units were holding defensive positions on the border, freeing up other more veteran Star Force troops to move into actual combat theatres, though if attacked the Scionate would have more than enough action to sate them. They were not safe by any means, but they were holding guard over valuable sites and facilities, something that Star Force hadn’t been willing to trust to others. There were many races within Star Force that had military capability, but most were not permitted placements on the front, even those that had been in the empire for several hundred years.

  That made the defensive placements quite an honor, especially for a race so new to Star Force, but there was one unit, their most elite, that was operating beyond the borders of the ADZ and assisting Star Force in taking worlds from the lizards. That fascinated Gam’len’wex more than anything, and he desperately hoped that in time he would be able to join that unit or another, which was why he and the others were working so hard in the advanced training group that was blessed with an Archon as trainer.

  And his workouts did not disappoint, which heavily focused on running…the one major advantage the Scionate had over the Humans, for they were far faster than most of them. That was a basic fundamental of quadruped motion, at least those with flexible joints. Even the small quadruped races were faster than their bipedal counterparts, on average, and the Archon wanted the ‘full sized’ Scionate to amp up their speed as much as possible so they could be a new asset for Star Force to utilize rather than just a redundant replication of other races’ capabilities.

  That was why Gam’len’wex and the others were running without armor, for this training exercise was all about speed and endurance sustained over rough, unpredictable terrain. The trail was one he’d ran before, but it was so long that there was no way he was going to be able to memorize it after only a few runs, leaving nearly every twist and turn as a surprise, not to mention changes in the forest that occurred naturally.

  They were covering ground quickly, with his legs already burning after just 20 kilometers. That was due to their pace and the climbing they were forced to do. The trail took them up and over every little hill there was to be found, almost as if it had been cut out in such a way to maximize difficulty, but that hadn’t been the case. Rather it was a run from one training base to another, with the lay of the geography running perpendicular to the path, resulting in the up and down rollercoaster of a trail run that Gam’len’wex found incredibly challenging.

  But then again what wasn’t here? He’d been told specifically that this group was designed to give the worthy few a short cut to combat assignments, and that they’d have to endure a lot of stress in order to prove their readiness whereas the normal progression path would be more gradual, taking decades at minimum, with many Humans taking more than 100 years before they got posted to the front.

  There was a need for more troops, as many as they could get, but Star Force wasn’t going to let anyone go who would be a liability, forcing individuals and races to prove themselves time and again before they would be trusted not to get themselves killed and give the enemy an opportunity to poke its way into th
e ADZ. The fact that the Archons were even giving the Scionate this opportunity for a fast track was a great honor, and Gam’len’wex had quickly realized that great honor came with great responsibility within Star Force, and this training group did not disappoint.

  More than half of the original group that was here when Gam’len’wex arrived had washed out, by their own choice, for they couldn’t handle the intensity. None of them had quit, but rather went back to the standard training programs and the ‘slow’ track. Those that remained were supplemented with new recruits every now and then, but those weren’t put with Gam’len’wex on his workouts. Those few Scionate with him now were half of the most experienced ones, but even they were still several years away from the benchmarks set down by the Archon.

  Those called for running skills far beyond what Gam’len’wex had now, and what blew his mind was that those numbers came from the fastest of the Archons. The Scionate had to prove they were faster, amongst other things, and there was no way he could ever see a biped moving as fast as he was now, let alone faster.

  Their Archon was fast enough, and had come with them on some of their early runs when they were still slow, after which he’d teased them about getting beat by a biped. That had aggravated Gam’len’wex more than the others and he’d worked a little bit harder in response, but even today there were still Humans out there faster than him, though not on this planet.

  The Archon was monitoring their progress from afar, with a tiny ear clip on each of the Scionate that doubled as an emergency comm device. It tracked their location for they were moving across terrain where there was still hazardous wildlife and all types of potential dangers from rocks and trees and who knew what else. This wasn’t a typical training session in a controlled environment, this was a cross country run, literally, so there needed to be some type of backup in case something bad happened.

  But that was just typical Star Force procedure, looking out for the odd ball situation. Right now the only threat to the Scionate was the physical fatigue they were suffering from as they came up to their next check point.

  It was little more than a tracking archway, but when Gam’len’wex came up to it he saw the colored energy shield that he was meant to run through shining a pale green almost to the point of being clear. That meant he was just ahead of schedule, for the darker the green the bigger the lead he had. If it shifted over to yellow then he would have been slightly behind pace, with red indicating that he was slower than the minimum requirement, which would end in a challenge fail if he didn’t speed up.

  Pale green was a relief, for he wasn’t sure how much he’d slowed over the past kilometer. He could judge his pace off the others, but if the leader was slow then the rest would be and he hadn’t felt like they’d been dragging him along as fast as they should. Tired as he was, he realized he’d been doing better than he’d thought.

  Just on the other side of the archway he saw Hef’met’ka standing beside the trail taking a breather. It wouldn’t last long, for his turn keeping pace was over and now Gam’len’wex was second in line. Hef’met’ka would wait to fall into last position and just try to stay with the group while the new leader set and tried to maintain the desired pace, allowing others to just focus on the moment and the sound of the footfalls ahead of them.

  It made a difference, not having to worry about how fast you were going and just keeping with the guy ahead of you, but one more kilometer up the trail and it would be Gam’len’wex’s turn to lead, and then he would have to worry, for there was no way to measure speed other than by feel, and with the terrain being so erratic you had to make constant adjustments, keeping the long, boring run anything but.

  The Scionate never had the ability to just settle in and relax, with the trail forcing them to be agile and evasive nonstop as they made their way across the countryside, passing from one checkpoint to another until they finally reached their destination and the forest ended, giving them a sprint across level ground to the final archway set inside the training base.

  All the Scionate grouped up within a few seconds and hammered the last bit three wide, getting up to the final marker that was showing yellow. Their time didn’t record until the last of them made it across, but when he did the final result was tolerable and did count for points, though they were only 22 seconds away from failure.

  Gam’len’wex sagged heavily, wanting to lay down but knowing he shouldn’t or he’d get an earful from one of the non-Archon trainers who were waiting for them. His perseverance was rewarded with a light tap on his right shoulder by one of the tall Humans, a small sign of respect as the muddy, water-drenched cats walked their way indoors and to the equipment room where they showered and got dressed in a fresh set of clothes, including the small shoes that felt very good on his now raw foot pads.

  But there was no time to rest, or at least sleep, for after a quick stop by the cafeteria Gam’len’wex was sent into a study session, allowing his body to rest while his mind had to soak up yet more data regarding Star Force protocol and tactics, with today’s lesson covering aerial tactics. The Scionate fought off the sleepiness and devoured everything they showed him, knowing he needed to know how each part of the empire’s military forces worked for when/if he would end up fighting alongside them in combat.

  After an hour of rest/study he was sent to do some light agility drills then sparring practice, first against the Humans then against other Scionate on loan from Axius. The Humans were tricky, but he did have some advantages he could use and managed to get the best of them a few times, but the Axius Scionate he literally couldn’t touch. They were so fast and experienced that they owned him each attempt unless they deliberately held back to teach him something, which they did most of the time.

  Hand to hand was a weakness of quadrupeds, but what they did have was first strike potential given their running speed and pouncing range. Once engaged they didn’t have the leverage that a Human did, with their trainers trying to teach them how to hit and run, then circle back and hit again rather than trying to lock onto an opponent. It was difficult to learn, but with the Axius Scionate there to show them what the Humans were trying to explain helped greatly, though some of the movements required him to think like a biped and that was a transition that he hadn’t fully made yet.

  He didn’t want to raise up and expose his belly, for one, and his trainers made him pay for that multiple times with overtop attacks and today was no exception. He knew what he had to do but was still hesitant. Mentally marking that as a place for future improvement he did his best during the rest of the day’s training then eventually retreated back to the cafeteria for a very large last meal, before walking off to his personal den and falling asleep almost immediately.

  The next day he would rise and repeat, for that was what was required on the fast track to a combat assignment, with only those wanting it bad enough being able to keep themselves going, and so far Gam’len’wex was hanging in there, taking it one day, one moment at a time, and finding himself growing stronger and faster than he had ever imagined…yet with so far yet to go that it was almost comical.

  He’d long ago set aside his concern and trusted in Star Force, for if they could get the Axius Scionate ready then they could do the same for him. With that worry gone he focused on doing his workouts, leaving the big picture to his trainers and thus far that approach had been working well.

  Only time would tell how far he got and if he’d have to tap out and take the slow route like many of the others, but for now he was holding par and that’s all that mattered.

  3

  May 23, 2652

  Maxzet System (Epsilon Region)

  Mazicc

  Admiral Laver watched from his jumpship as the previous intel reports were updated with realtime telemetry. The six locations on the planet’s surface that had been tagged as containing pirate hideouts were indeed registering infrastructure as well as some surface activity at one site. A liftoff was taking place, with the cargo ship in question eve
n now beginning to rise up through the atmosphere to make a run for orbit and, ostensibly, out of the system.

  It took a moment for the Australians’ sensors to identify the type of ship, marking it as a Lemickas insystem commerce model, meaning it didn’t have interstellar jump capability. Laver ordered it tracked and followed, but not intercepted. Unless it met up with a jumpship it wasn’t going anywhere and they could deal with it later.

  Their mission was to take out the pirate bases on what was otherwise an independent system within the ADZ. The planet was home to a primitive civilization that hadn’t yet achieved space travel and one that had wished to be left alone. Star Force had tagged it as a transit only system, meaning that only passerthroughs were permitted and that the planet itself was off limits, as was the rest of the system.

  There were many other systems in the same situation, having fallen within the boundaries of the ADZ and not wanting to have anything to do with the Alliance or the war. Star Force counted them as lucky and left them alone, making sure that others did as well, but those systems in question were regularly targeted as places to get off the Star Force grid and attracted a lot of illicit attention.

  The six pirate bases that the Australians had been sent to get rid of had been identified by Star Force security previously, but they hadn’t sent their own team to eradicate them. Often they did, but with so many needs to attend to in the growing ADZ population that was approaching a quadrillion, they often farmed out such duties to other parts of the empire, with the Australians finally being able to step up to the plate and contribute in a significant way.