Star Force: Intellect (SF85) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  That was the only way their sanctuary would be maintained, and once that order was given the entire planet was of a single mind. Those in orbit were still their enemy, but they would not fire on them. Rather they would work long and hard to carry out the mastermind’s orders and trust that he knew what he was doing…which was evident to all since he had somehow found a way to stop the enemy from conquering this world.

  And when the decree later came to prepare for many more arrivals, that too only made sense, and the construction of new facilities followed the demolition and conversion of others. Weapons batteries were not rebuilt, nor were shield generators. Every available resource was poured into the recycling industry and foodstuff production. A massive building surge was underway, and inherent within those orders was the understanding that this world could not defend itself militarily, hence they were not going to waste resources trying. The mission was construction, pure and simple, and though they did not understand the greater context of the situation they were fully committed to the tasks given to them.

  For it was normal for them not to understand. It wasn’t their place to understand. So long as their organization structure was in place and they had a task before them, all was well and right, and they’d aid their civilization’s rise in whatever manner was required of them.

  3

  December 11, 3223

  Gorignak System (Calavari Region)

  Grimm

  “It is time.”

  Brendan Niles turned to look at the Kvash that had just walked into the medical chamber they’d built to facilitate the 13,829 survivors they’d pulled out of the lizard prison planet. Sadly, some 1,833 of them were no longer alive, having expired over the past 2 decades due to a variety of causes, most of which was due to ignorance. As much as Star Force was trying to teach them, these people had lived as trophies in a display case their entire lives and that was a huge disadvantage for them to overcome, but there was a staff of over 20,000 Humans and others here to give them every chance possible to pull out of that deficit.

  As it was, most of them hadn’t learned enough English to communicate effectively with, so for medical issues Brendan always used the translational software in his soft envirosuit, which was the only thing allowing him to function in the 165F temperature inside the Kvash facility.

  “Come over here,” the medtech said, gesturing the walking pile of rocks towards a low table.

  It walked over and sat down on the edge and Brendan walked around the other side and reached across to the bulge on its back.

  “Ready when you are,” the Human said, seeing the exoskeleton split apart over the hump revealing several small rocks inside. When the air hit them they vibrated…a Kvash shiver in the ‘cold’ air compared to the internal temperatures they sported, and within a few seconds one of them detached and fell into Brendan’s ready hands.

  He took the lumpy rock and set it into a nearby bin that held a nutrient bath that halfway covered it, as well as having heat lamps around the perimeter to increase the temperature even further. Quickly he returned to catch the next two, then finished off with the last two, making five little rocks in total all sitting in individual nutrient baths.

  “You had five,” he told the Kvash. “They’re out now.”

  The exoskeleton sealed back up, adjusting its shape in a way that true rock never could, and reforming to the Kvash’s normal dimensions.

  “Are they well?”

  Brendan glanced at the status displays over each rock, seeing that the infant Kvash were reading within standard variations.

  “They are well. Thank you.”

  “Make sure they live free,” the Kvash insisted, looking up at the medtech with its two red, jewel-like eyes.

  “They will, and I haven’t given up on you yet.”

  “My time grows short. I can feel it. But I have no regrets. I have lived to taste freedom.”

  “That’s quitter talk,” Brendan said, handing it a nutrient patch. “You’re still here, so keep trying.”

  “I will, but I am losing ground,” the Kvash said, applying the patch to its skin, which was how it absorbed all things, given that it had no mouth or air passages.

  “You have given us five more Kvash. You have accomplished that goal. Now turn your full attention on your training.”

  “As you wish. My back hurts now.”

  The medtech nodded. “The splitting of the exoskeleton has bothered others. It should pass within a few days. The supplement I gave you also has a numbing effect, so the pain should subside soon.”

  “I never knew I could open it. I never knew I had it before I chose to spawn.”

  “Apparently it’s a selective muscle control. When it’s not needed the control pathways from your mind are severed so you cannot open it and a sealant is applied to keep it firm. Only recently has your body begun producing an anti-sealant to loosen it. You should start returning to normal now.”

  The Kvash walked around the table to look at the young Kvash, barely more than a single mass with no arms, head, or legs yet formed. “They do not look like me.”

  “The contact with the air will trigger a transformation. You wouldn’t want them growing arms and legs while still inside you. It’ll take about a month and a half, then they’ll be walking around.”

  “Is there anything else required of me?”

  “No. You’re all done. Thank you.”

  “It was the only thing I could do to repay you. I have no other skills.”

  “Yet.”

  “I will try,” it promised, then turned around and walked off, now considerably lighter.

  Brendan turned his attention back to the younglings, checking the sensor monitors again to make sure they were acclimatizing well enough. There hadn’t been a lot of Kvash spawned in Star Force to learn from, but they’d been getting a steady trickle in over the last 16 years and thankfully they usually came in bunches between 3 and 9. The Kvash were asexual, meaning they didn’t require a partner to procreate, and could do so whenever various internal conditions were met.

  But they never knew how many of their own young they were carrying until they detached, and often there wasn’t even much time to figure out given that they grew to size within a handful of weeks depending on available foodstuffs. Let them gorge themselves and some younglings would develop in a matter of days, which is what had occurred in this case. The Kvash had gone into a separate part of the facility where they did nothing but eat and sleep with a little maintenance movement thrown in.

  Unlike other races, their ‘birthing’ was quite simple and produced younglings that were essentially in egg form, only their bodies were the eggs rather than an exterior shell that would be shed.

  Brendan added a few supplements to the nutrient baths depending on what the exact readings were for each then sealed them into their transport pods and sent them through the wall on a railway-like track to a processing center in normal Human temperatures. There they were taken to a nearby pod car by two other medtechs that zipped out of the Kvash facility and into daylight on the massive world that had been given to them.

  Sporting a gravity of 2.1, Grimm had an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere but was devoid of all life, looking as rocky as the Kvash did save for the scattering of Star Force installations now sprinkling the surface. The pod car had artificial gravity, as did all the facilities, so as they continued to accelerate the landscape whipped by without them feeling the gravitational crunch. They traveled several hundred miles until they arrived at another Star Force facility separate from the one where the transitional Kvash were housed and being painstakingly cared for in order to maximize their chances of indoctrination into the empire, but it was common knowledge that most people did not think even a dozen of them would make it, though the staff wasn’t giving up on any of them.

  At the same time the Kvash race was being reborn via the younglings, and the small maturias where these five were going already had full grown Kvash that were about halfway through their
training. Star Force was having to learn what Kvash needed in terms of a maturia program, but it was a lot easier to adjust existing ones to them rather than try to write a fully original one. As each class progressed from one level to another tweaks would be made, some by the onsite staff, some by Paul who was overseeing the program from a distance, but they were making rapid progress and plans to build a full-fledged colony were already in the works and construction efforts had begun 2 years ago in order that they be ready when the first classes of younglings graduated.

  Because of their environmental needs the Kvash were not going to be able to integrate into Axius or other factions, though Paul had already developed a heat suit that would function to keep their internal temperatures up enough for them to work in Human-level temperatures. It wasn’t ideal, but if someone needed to go somewhere else they could, with effort, acclimate themselves to the much colder climates.

  That would be a pain in the ass, so it was assumed that most Kvash would be keeping to their own colonies and be more of a separate faction than any others to date, though Archons and others would live in small pockets of their own temperature within the Kvash facilities while they oversaw them…and their battle armor was much better equipped to allowing them to work in Kvash temperatures than the reverse.

  The five younglings being brought over by pod car were delivered to another set of handlers that brought them into a maturia chamber set aside for those born within a 4 month period to keep them all at about the same development level. There were currently 56 in this class, with another 3 weeks left to include others. If they had less or more than 100 they’d put them all into the same group because they didn’t want to have a class of 15 or so. When dealing with large populations they’d always hit that 100 number, but with so few being spawned now they usually didn’t have that luxury and had to fudge a bit to keep the groups together without having a few individuals being much older or younger than the others.

  And with less Kvash surviving there were less available to reproduce, so the problem wasn’t going to solve itself soon. In another 15-20 years the new ones would be able to start making up for that lack of numbers, if they chose, and so long as they were fit there were ways to goose the reproductive cycles along so they could pump out a lot of them…but it had already been decided that wasn’t going to be requested. These new Kvash needed to focus on their training and individual development rather than immediately becoming youngling factories, though they weren’t going to argue with any that decided they wanted to go that route to help grow the population.

  The five newest younglings were carried in their pods into another heated facility where they were transferred into slightly larger pens in which the liquid was only a few inches deep and would allow a part of their bodies to be exposed to the air so they didn’t suffocate. The more of the body was exposed the easier it was to breathe, but the Kvash could also store up large amounts of gasses internally to supplement their foodstuffs. That said, they did not actually respire, meaning that the intake of gasses through absorption was not required.

  They could utilize oxygen, but it was seen as a secondary and less appealing fuel. Their preferred atmosphere was argon/nitrogen, meaning that this planet was not the best choice for them if they were to go out into the open air, but argon/nitrogen mixes were rare finds and the size of this planet made it more valuable than looking for a strict atmospheric match.

  The air inside the Kvash facilities was argon/nitrogen but with some 20% oxygen added so that Archons and other staff could breathe without having to use tanks. Their armor would filter it through and chill it down to useable levels, and that was to become standard in all the new Kvash facilities. So long as they had their argon they’d be happy, with the oxygen added being only a mild ‘flavor’ difference.

  The younglings were dunked into the liquid and left to sit under the watchful eyes of the sensor packages build into their containers, with them soaking in the nutrient mixes that literally had to be replenished at a regular rate else they’d soak them all up. Over the coming days some of the tiny nubs on the Kvash protoforms would began to lengthen and would become the stubs of arms and legs. Those would continue to develop to the point where they were sessile chunks of rock that slowly added a head.

  That head was actually internal material being raised up beyond the central ‘egg’ as new internal organs were added. The flat top of their head was actually the original surface that rose up with it, and once it reached full height the Kvash youngling would suddenly become mobile and start learning how to crawl around. They’d stand erect within another 7 hours then advance rapidly to the point where they were a good 10 inches tall and needed to be transferred to the next stage of their development.

  That took them about 20 meters down the hallway to communal pens that had handlers watching them round the clock. The Kvash younglings were able to bump into each other for a few hours each day then they were taken and individually ran through very basic drills, most of which was a very short obstacle course that would begin to ingrain a sense of repetition and completion. Teaching them to accomplish tasks before they could even speak.

  They’d be returned to a shallow individual pool to ‘sleep,’ then the days would repeat with them gradually growing larger and larger. After about 2 years they would reach their full height, with their heads coming up to about shoulder level on a Human, but it would take another year before they learned basic speech, which for them was accomplished via some narrow slits under the chin that allowed them to vibrate the air enough to speak without having any lungs or internal airways.

  When they did learn to speak the more typical maturia process would begin, alternating from study to training to eating…which for the Kvash was a very different thing. Their absorption rate was far slower than a Human eating a plate of food, meaning they had to soak in nutrient baths for several hours per day, which also doubled as their sleep period. That meant their food supply was totally different from what the rest of Star Force ate.

  The bioharvest facilities that were being created would be growing different types of plants to get the raw nutrients the Kvash required, then they’d be ground up, processed, and dissolved to be fed through absorption in their personal quarters…meaning there were no Kvash cafeterias.

  The five Kvash that entered that maturia would be there for some 20-30 years depending on their advancement rate, then would graduate into the new Kvash colony that was still in its infancy.

  The various divisions within the new faction were barely developing, but by the time these got there they’d already have a naval training program with a few dozen initiates being trained and tested for Paul to determine their strengths and weaknesses via endless simulations. It would be decades more before they produced their own warships, but the Kvash were not a ward or subfaction. They were granted full faction status, meaning they were going to have to develop everything, including aquatics, whereas a subfaction like the Elarioni could specialize where their natural talents lay.

  A faction had to do it all, and while the Kvash were going to be focusing heavily on naval they were going to have to have all military, civilian, and industrial aspects included. They had once been a massive civilization and it was going to take an enormously long time to even get back a sliver of what they’d once had, but these were going to be Star Force Kvash, meaning they’d be a lot more powerful than their forbearers, not to mention they’d have Archon leadership and the backing of the entire empire if so needed.

  Set apart from the rest of Star Force due to their temperature demands, they were not isolated. Paul made sure to keep lots of non-Kvash staff within the faction to work with them and keep the bonds between them strong. Unity was one of the key factors that Star Force operated on, and pushing the Kvash into a little corner of the empire and keeping them separate was the exact opposite of what was needed. They could travel anywhere within the empire if they wanted to suffer the hassle of the heat suits, and that option meant that those that
stayed within the tiny faction did so willingly.

  That meant pride and loyalty to their faction rather than resentment, and the presence of non-Kvash there also stated that this was not a secondary environment. Especially when Paul occasionally came to visit and spent a few minutes with them outside his armor. His odd body usually glowed with an energy that protected him, and those little moments overawed the Kvash more than anyone realized. The trailblazer might not be with them much, but those short contacts and his orders from afar told them that he was always looking after and guiding their progress. Much as the Kiritas gravitated to revering Randy for having saved them, the Kvash looked to Paul as the one responsible for building their faction.

  They were different circumstances, but the loyalty was the same, and in some ways ran deeper for the Kvash given how ostracized they were due to the temperature differences. Paul coming into their natural environment, even briefly, was something that no one else had done before without having that artificial armor between them.

  And when Paul asked for something, they answered…with him keeping them constantly training and building. He had a sneaking feeling of how powerful these guys could become in time and wanted to get them there as fast as possible given the centuries of growth the other factions had on them. The gap wouldn’t be closed quickly, but he wasn’t going to let the Kvash be satisfied with anything less than peerdom with the other factions…and that peerdom had to be earned.

  4

  July 29, 3229

  Krachnika System (lizard capitol/homeworld)

  Yamitar

  “Well, it’s done,” Greg said as he hopped over a fallen bit of wall and slid down a meter to a rubble strewn bit of ground inside what had been the templar complex on their homeworld.

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed, having arrived two years earlier with reinforcements to help out with the last bit of fighting in the lizards’ now former capitol system. “Doesn’t feel like it though.”