The Powers That Be Read online

  Where can I assist Star Force the most?

  Highest priority recruitment notice is from Ariel’s team. She is one of the Elarioni’s Matriarchs, and is older than Star Force itself. She has been given a rare aquatic system that is raw and dangerous, but has the potential for 48 oceanic worlds of a minimum 85% water to land ratio.

  48 aquatic worlds in the same system?

  Many are toxic, and all are undesirable in some way, which is why they have never been colonized, but there is potential if suitable resources are applied to the terraforming. Several have indigenous races of low intellect and high predatory nature. For security reasons, Joor’nak are highly preferred to patrol the untamed depths and bring some sanity to the savage currents.

  As hunters?

  As bastions of sanity. If we wanted them killed that would be easy to do. Taming them is far harder, but all sour oceans have the potential harmony within them. Crafting it anew is a daunting task that will take millennia to even partially achieve.

  And this aquatic system is going to house refugees?

  I do not know. If it does not, those going to it will free up slots for refugees on other worlds. Either way, the habitation created will assist the evacuation efforts considerably given the size of the oceans in play, some of which are hundreds of miles deep.

  Hundreds of miles deep. Bio’bo had dreamed of such worlds, but had never been allowed on one. He had only inhabited 4 in his lifetime, all of which were shallow.

  I will answer your Matriarch’s call. Send me to this system.

  The Elarioni smiled. I had hoped you’d say that. There is a transport filling for departure within the week. You will find it this way…

  3

  May 4, 128885

  Neverending Seas System (Zutarri Kingdom)

  Prime 3

  Ariel swam without armor through the slowly improving waters of Scaravo Trench, a place no one else was allowed to go without armed escort, but she needed none. Nor did she need armor encapsulating her against the waters she was tasked with calming. She needed to feel them against her bioluminescent skin and see the light the patches and her glowing eyes produced reflecting off the otherwise dark depths.

  But she could see far more than that. None of the creatures here could sneak up on her when she was on guard, for she could feel their Cores even when hidden behind solid rock. Ariel’s Essence abilities separated her from the rest of the Elarioni and allowed her the freedom to explore and troubleshoot on a world too raw and dangerous for others to inhabit at the moment.

  ‘Prime 3’ was the name she had given it, for it was one of the largest planets with the most water. All those within this system were given the ‘Prime’ designation and had no landmasses rising above the waves at all…though she was creating a few artificial ones to facilitate transport from one water world to another. Aquatic ships were not built for such things, though the larger ones could manage the hop from planet to planet when necessary, yet to build an integrated aquatic system rather than have vastly different civilizations on each world yet right beside one another, you must have communication and transit.

  The air bastions would create this, as well as give the air breathers a place comfortable enough to work with the water breathers. The amphibians would not like it here, due to the depths, so the ‘Shore’ worlds would be built for them, but the Primes were for the truest swimmers, and this world was not uninhabited.

  As she swam she could feel the little fish around her, swimming frantically back and forth as they tried to avoid the larger predators. On other days she was down here hunting them…but not to kill. They required genetic alteration to change their nature from predator to defender, though specific templates had to be established for each race before such modification. Also, food ‘Splooshes’ had to be devised for them, which were like little balloons designed not to disintegrate in the water like most Star Force air breather food did.

  Little machines would one day coat the seat floor drawing in resources from the depths and fabricating the Splooshes much like plants did, though these could operate without sunlight or other stimulus, for they operated on power cores that had to be refilled by carriers…and one day the little fish around her now would become some of those carriers. Carefully, piece by piece, she would alter the darkside ecosystem here that had one race only surviving on the carnage of another, and in its place would be waters of harmony…but that was a monstrous task Star Force had only achieved in 18 other worlds across their entire empire…and she had 193 planetoids here that were going to be terraformed into at least partial aquatic worlds.

  It was so much work Ariel knew she would not be leaving perhaps for the rest of her life…but that thrilled her rather than depressed, for the work was what she desired. Fighting nature itself to free those born into horrible situations crafted beyond their choice. The ‘Lifesprings’ spoken of by the Founders were of great interest to her…yet they only seemed interested in the preservation of races, not individuals, and had crafted some to exist solely off the death of others.

  Ariel knew that if she ended the killing here, overpopulation would cause a different kind of carnage as there became too many mouths to feed, for they would reproduce by instinct rather than wisdom. Those genetic instructions also had to be altered, and there was so many ways that a project like this could go wrong that Director Davis had not authorized such intervention except on rare occasions…but as an air dweller he had a different perspective from stepping on the little ones without even realizing it.

  But in the water there were no steps, all floated, and as such the vast throngs of life could coexist in close quarters if they chose to…or were instructed to, and Ariel had convinced him to let her try on another world with a small ocean.

  Her success there had given her his trust, and when he requested that she terraform this system into a massive aquatic civilization, Davis had left the details entirely up to her. She knew he was concerned about the lesser ones being accidentally harmed, but he also saw the potential benefit and had decided to withdraw himself from the matter in this rare case and let her take the lead.

  Which meant success or failure was on her fragile shoulders…as was the fate of all ocean dwellers here and on the other worlds. She had to make this work, for she couldn’t stand to build cities while letting the carnage of the deep ocean continue. All deserved to live, but in order to give them a chance she had to fight nature itself…and as daunting a task that might be, she intended to win.

  As Ariel swam a swift moving predator raced up towards her from the niche in the rocks to her right, but her telepathy enhanced by psionic upgrades and Essence allowed her to take control of its mind and cause it to relax enough for her to swim up alongside it and press a hand just behind its cluster of 18 eyes.

  Follow the path, she said, having to use other means than words to insert her instructions into its mind…then when she finished it swam off and upwards, away from its hunting grounds in search of the promised location she had given it where there would be enough food that it would never go hungry again.

  It wasn’t a hollow promise, for Ariel had set up feeding machines in a variety of places out here for different races. Sending predator and prey to the same location would be horrific, but isolate them and it would subdue the carnage until reprogramers could construct the necessary templates…approved by Ariel…and then begin to collect individuals and free them from the darkside shackles of nature imprinted into their genetic memory.

  Ariel continued on, swimming a couple hundred meters off the seafloor as she searched for one of the larger ocean dwellers on this planet. They didn’t have a name yet, but she used the placeholder ‘ublu’ which came from her people’s original language and meant a ‘very friendly big guy.’

  Except these ublu weren’t all that friendly. They weren’t predators, but kept to themselves for the most part aside from mating once every 12 years. They were also known to have chunks of their bodies missing from predators coming
up and chewing on them, for they couldn’t outswim them, but due to their large size they wouldn’t easily be killed either.

  Because of that they tended to go where most of the predators weren’t, and that typically was in the Jo’bi fields that would kill most predators on contact with their electrically charged spines that rose off the seafloor like grass…except they were the size of trees.

  The ublu could withstand the strikes, whether by their composition or mass Ariel did not know, but they didn’t always stay in there and sometimes they would come out into the upper levels of the trench to feed on ‘sun saplings’ that were drifting down from the surface. They were native plants that grew until the bulbs on them became so heavy they detached and sank like slow little bombs all the way to the seafloor…except they rarely made it that far before being snatched up as free food by many different races, including some that couldn’t eat them, for which the sun saplings became toys until they tired of carrying them around in their mouths or tentacles.

  Ariel hadn’t found an ublu yet today, but just as she detected a large presence on the horizon of her senses she got a comm via her narrow crown that was holding the forward part of her green hair from drifting down into her face.

  The Elarioni immediately spun upward, heading straight to the surface as fast as her tail could take her as she summoned an aqua-pod to her location, with the water-filled anti-grav ‘egg’ craft popping up out of the water above the nearest underwater tower and cheat traveling through the air to cover the hundreds of miles of distance far faster than one could underwater.

  It was waiting for her by the time she reached the surface, hovering a meter over the water until she called it down and slithered inside, rubbing her tail over the edge of the hatch that quick sealed up again, leaving her in a small booth large enough to hold four Elarioni or something larger, but to her it still felt incredibly confined…especially when it left the ocean waters for the air…which for a water breather was a toxic environment.

  Fortunately she didn’t have to travel through it for long as the ‘egg’ took her to one of the settlements in this cluster where new arrivals were constantly coming in near a submerged shipyard that was building both aquatic and naval warships for her use here and across the star system.

  Ariel had the egg drop her in the water just outside the settlement, then she swam in through one of the numerous entry points on her own, navigating the ‘safe’ zone that was surrounded by shield walls to keep the predators and other native beings out of the Star Force city. She eventually came to a receiving area where many dropships were floating and offloading passengers from the aquatic transports in orbit that were not designed to land themselves on a planet.

  And out of one of those dropships had come a single V’kit’no’sat that was waiting patiently on the floor, curled up three times into a coil as his triple tail flicked in a slow rhythm that Ariel sensed was eagerness.

  The Elarioni swam over to the Joor’nak with a smile on her face.

  Hello there. My name is Ariel. I was told you were coming. I’m glad they finally sent one of you. I am in great need of your help.

  Are you, little one? Bio’bo said suspiciously. What do you require of me that your empire does not already have in ample amounts?

  Size. Most like you have gone to combat. Building has been left to the smaller races.

  There were many Elarioni that came to the war to rescue me.

  I didn’t say the small ones only built, but when combat calls a single Joor’nak is far more capable than a single Elarioni. We become dangerous in numbers, and numbers have a habit of thinning in war. Star Force does not like to fight in this way, so the bigger you are, the better suited you are for fighting the Hadarak in the contested oceans. How is it that I have the fortune of claiming you?

  I was told this is where I could help the most, so I chose it, Bio’bo said, loosening his coil a bit as his head raised up even to where Ariel floated. You are the ancient Matriarch I was told about?

  Depends on what you mean by ‘ancient.’ You are probably far older, are you not?

  I am half as old as Star Force. I am told you predate it?

  We began at nearly the same time, though I did not originate within it. I was rescued by Star Force and taught the ways of self-sufficiency, and have sought to repay that debt ever since. This system is my great repayment, and I need your assistance along with that of many others.

  Explain how I may help.

  The waters are savage. Beyond the safe zones carnage occurs on such a scale my people here cannot free swim in them…but you can. Nothing here can match your strength, nor will many try. In nature your biology holds supreme, and where you go the others will adjust to your presence…whereas they will attack me not knowing my strength. Your strength is obvious, and I need it for many tasks, but primarily so you can free swim where others cannot.

  What dangers are there here?

  Many threats lurk, few show themselves until revealed. The ocean is scared, even the predators, and I do not know why. If there is something greater here to scare them, I have not yet found it.

  Have you searched their minds?

  Yes, but I have found no encounters to justify it. The tenseness is not something I have encountered in other waters, but it is everywhere on this world and several of the others in the system, but not all. Not most. I cannot explain it.

  You wish me to solve this mystery for you?

  That is not why I asked for a Joor’nak, but I would be glad if you did.

  Show me the threats you have encountered, Bio’bo said, then he received a telepathic data dump far too complex and powerful for the tiny Elarioni to produce.

  How are your skills this advanced? The others of your race were not so powerful of the mind.

  I am unique, and have been enhanced by the Trailblazers themselves. I hold great honor in this, and they have bestowed upon me genetic upgrades knowing that I will return their generosity with results others would not achieve. I have your Ikrid, whereas the others of my race do not, though their natural ability has been enhanced greatly for those Elarioni that serve Star Force. The lesser number who do not are now an inferior bloodline that do not mix eggs with us. They have their own worlds, protected by Star Force’s dominion, but they do not seek to serve any but themselves.

  You sound displeased with them?

  There is lingering sadness, but most Elarioni have heard the call of the empire, and our race is now of Star Force. The others are little more than an afterthought.

  So it was those of the superior bloodline that rescued me?

  The others would not care to fight the Hadarak unless they appeared in their waters.

  I did not observe much, but your forces were efficient in fighting the Hadarak minions. I hope I can repay my debt here, in your service. The threats you have shown me I can handle. Do you wish me to explore the wilds?

  Not at the moment, but soon. I am told your race possesses great wisdom. Is this true of you?

  We are more intelligent than most, but not wise. Our race has been making foolish decisions throughout our history in the V’kit’no’sat, and we have been suppressed because of them. We never rose above it, and now stand scattered and with no worlds of our own. I could not even come to Star Force when your Trailblazers offered annexation. I was fortunate that combat brought your empire to me so I could join it.

  Nevertheless, I wish to use your outside perspective to my advantage. Those within Star Force tend to think alike due to identical origins. Yours is far different, and I hope you will see things I do not.

  What is it you wish to ask?

  Follow, Ariel said, slowly swimming away as the giant Joor’nak unfurled and swam behind her as she remembered to take the largest pathways out to open water, for he would not fit through most of the others.

  What we have built is but the seeds of the future, and I am still designing that future, she said as they swam through the corridors. I am tasked with making this syste
m a true aquatic one. Most worlds that have oceans regard them as a dumping ground for the air breathers or the refuse piles for the air-dumped waters to cleanse the land. Where civilizations have coexisted, it is the land that has gained the dominance and reached into space while we prefer to stay in our waters. Is it different in the V’kit’no’sat?

  Much different. The J’gar are of the founding Triad, and they represent aquatic dominance in the waters of the deep and the greater waters of the universe.

  You refer to the void as another water? Yet you cannot swim in it?

  Our vessels allow us to swim in it, and it is the greatest of oceans that encompasses all land. Land is tiny and rare, the great ocean is all-present, and in it those of the water, the land, and the air are equal in our inability to reside in it without our ships. Only the space dwellers can, and there are none in the V’kit’no’sat. Are there any in Star Force other than your Uriti?

  None that are more than wards, and those do not possess technology or civilization. They are embraced by the nature of the void, which I heard is mostly solitude with few predators.

  They remain a mystery to me, but they can live in the great ocean where few others can. Does Star Force have a bias against aquatics?

  No, but we are mostly separate from the air breathers, and all the leaders of Star Force are air breathers. They protect us, help us clean and protect the waters, and the Archons swim with us. They alone are the bridge between the water and the air, and they are few and gone to the war. There are none here, so the design of this system is mine to make, or mine to fail, and I wish to find a way to do more in the void…in the ‘great ocean’ than they expect of us. The Hadarak threaten the waters the same as the land, yet most of the defense of our empire comes from the air breathers. I do not like them carrying so much of this burden, but confining ourselves to starships is not in our nature.