Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (21-24) Read online

The other Archon followed him through, finding his quarry a few more meters distant than he’d expected, but he dug down deep and sprinted evenly, catching up centimeter by centimeter down the long hallway and eventually pulling even with Mark. No more elbows were thrown, as the trailblazer was moving at maximum speed and a delighted Boen found that he had just a little bit more left in the tank. He pressed himself up to maximum sprint and pulled ahead, smiling as much as his straining body would allow.

  He flashed by the elevator entrance a good two meters ahead of Mark, then gradually decelerated in a long, triumphant runoff, circling around and jogging back to where his friend was bent over and breathing heavily.

  Before he could gloat Mark stood up straight and touched his earpiece, apparently getting a message.

  “Go ahead,” he said heavily, still trying to catch his breath.

  “Are you ok?” Sandra asked.

  “Running…what’s up?”

  “Hycre fleet just arrived in orbit. Warships and a jumpship ferry for us.”

  “Good,” Mark said, relieved. “Tell them we’ll be ready to go within 24 hours.”

  “Copy that.”

  Mark deactivated his earpiece and looked up at Boen. “When I get back, I am so gonna kick your ass.”

  “Promises, promises,” the second gen Archon mocked. “Until then this victory stands. So please…take your time. Assuming that was a call about the Hycre arriving and not just you going to get a snack?”

  Mark nodded. “Warships and jumpship just arrived.”

  “I hope some of them are sticking around.”

  “I would imagine so. This facility is too important to lose.”

  “What are you coming back with?”

  “As much as I can,” Mark said, starting to walk over to the elevator. “And another thousand pilots, at least.”

  “How many are rotating out?”

  “Just six, and those are special cases.”

  “Including Kara?”

  “Yeah, I hate to lose her, but she wants a more in-depth analysis of her trinket. Can’t say I blame her.”

  Boen and Mark walked into the elevator as the doors opened. “I’ve got final packing to do. Send someone down to tell the dragon the ETA is 6 months.”

  “How’s he going to fit?”

  “We’ll have to do some remodeling over the entrance shaft,” Mark commented as the elevator whisked them down into the Star Force complex.

  Paul kicked hard, using the prosthesis linking his legs together into a mechanical tail to propel him through one of the underwater hoops with his arms pointed over his head to break the water. As soon as he passed through he tore his hands apart from one another and used them to anchor him in place as he rotated around and dove straight down, kicking hard until he reached the bottom of the lake and tagged the finish pedestal. A holographic number appeared in the water next to him, indicating his time was a multiple of 2.3 of Ariel’s recent course run…meaning she won, again.

  His goal was always to pull inside of twice her speed, but today she had done remarkably well, improving her best time by more than 2 seconds and leaving him with even more ground to futilely try to catch up with.

  “A decent attempt,” the Elarioni said as she swam up beside him, seemingly effortlessly, as he floated at the bottom of the lake holding onto the pedestal for orientation, “but you are still rigid.”

  Paul responded through his mask, which both gave him air to breath and acted as a translator for the mermaid’s native language. “That’s because my back doesn’t bend like yours does.”

  She stared back at him with her glowing gold eyes, made all the more intimidating in the near darkness so far away from the sunlight. “Stretching…now,” she insisted.

  “Ugh…I had to open my mouth, didn’t I?” he said, using his arms to ratchet his body around into a plank position horizontal to the lake bed while he held onto the pedestal with his hands. Ariel swam up and pressed her forearm down on the small of his back while prying up on his knees. Paul felt a joint pop, then the all too familiar tension as his body was forced to contort in a manner it didn’t like.

  She seemed to like doing it to him, however, because he often caught her smiling as she did so. He figured it was payback from all the workouts he had her doing to maintain her self-sufficiency, though she had previously said it was interesting to get her hands on such an awkward and rigid swimmer and that she just felt compelled to loosen him up a bit.

  Paul had concluded that she’d picked up a bit of his sarcasm over the years, because she often made fun of him for being so awkward in the water. She, on the other hand, was a virtual gumby. One day she’d had him perform the same flexibility drill on her and he was dismayed when he literally was able to wrap her body up in a ball, with her just looking back and smiling at him as he did so. Then again, having cartilage instead of bones did give her a decided advantage.

  “Ow,” Paul moaned as she pushed a little farther than his back wanted.

  “Now kick,” she instructed, loosening up slightly on her prying. He managed a weak flicker of his bound legs and she pushed in on a precise spot of his back with two stiff fingers. “Quicker now.”

  Paul felt something pop, then his legs loosened up considerably and his micro-kick became fluid and regular.

  “There, that’s better,” she said, holding him in place. “Practice the small motions correctly and they will build into the larger ones.”

  “You know I’m never going to be able to swim like you, right?”

  “Just as I knew I would never live this long,” she countered. “Now kick, a thousand reps. I will keep count, just focus on maintaining the proper movement.”

  “Kill joy,” he mumbled, but she only smiled at the complaint while maintaining a firm grip on his waist and upper legs, limiting his range of movement while using her tail to maintain her attitude in the water. He worked through the exercise diligently, trying to keep his movements within necessary rhythm though Ariel had to pry him back into alignment several times. Eventually he reached the 1000 mark, after which she released his legs and pulled him upright.

  “Arms,” she ordered, with him putting his wrists back over his head for her to grab with one hand while still holding onto his waist with the other, then she pressed her chest into his back and pulled with both arms, bending him out like a bow, during which he felt another couple joints pop. “You are so inflexible.”

  “Not…built…for the…water,” he reminded her amidst the strain.

  “That’s no excuse. Taryn is much more flexible. In fact, you’re the worst of all your brothers and sisters.”

  “You haven’t…met…all of them.”

  “They say you’re the worst, and I believe them.”

  “I think…Ian…is in competition…for that title.”

  “Would you agree with that?” Ariel asked.

  “Agree…with what…myself?”

  “No, Paul is by far the worst,” Mark said, swimming up to them skillfully. “He just doesn’t like the water for some reason.”

  “Who…is that?” Paul asked, unable to see from his position but vaguely recognizing the voice being transmitted through the commlink in their breath masks.

  “One of your brothers that I have not seen in a long time…and one of your better swimmers,” Ariel said, releasing Paul from the stretch and swimming over to embrace Mark. “It has been too long.”

  “Sorry I don’t visit more,” he said, feeling her slick hair brush over his neck as she pulled back.

  “What brings you back?” Paul asked, awkwardly swimming over to the pair as he massaged the small of his back with his left hand.

  “What’s the latest you’ve heard?”

  “About what?”

  Mark raised an eyebrow. “I thought the Hycre would have gotten word to you by now.”

  “The Bsidd are dragging their feet getting the relays built, so we’re still five links off the grid. What’s going on?”

  “The Nes
tafar have allied with the lizards and are attacking Alliance worlds, Daka included.”

  “What!?” Paul asked so fiercely that a few extra bubbles escaped his mask.

  “I’m told they’re specifically targeting the Calavari, and that when they’ve got them weak enough the lizards are going to come in for the kill, splitting the Alliance apart and taking the rest of us down piecemeal.”

  “How do you know that…wait, you said Daka was hit, how bad?”

  “Pretty bad, but we only had a few Star Force casualties. We did lose Vitor and Enrich though.”

  “Status of the system?”

  “In Alliance control. The Hycre brought in a defense fleet and the seda is still intact. The base was damaged but we held it just long enough to get some extraordinary help.”

  “What help?” Paul asked, swimming up within a meter of Mark and all but forgetting that Ariel was beside him listening in.

  Mark turned to the Elarioni. “I’m afraid I’m going to need to steal Paul away for a few months. We have to take a trip back home.”

  “If you must,” she acquiesced.

  “Just out with it,” Paul insisted.

  “Kara invited a dragon to the pyramid,” he answered bluntly.

  Paul looked at him through the water as if he had gone nuts. “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “We’ve learned a lot more about the V’kit’no’sat…from a dragon…that used to be part of them.”

  Ariel’s face contorted, hiding her usually bemused demeanor with a scowl of rage. “They are here?”

  “No, they’re not. And it’s a long story, but to summarize, the dragon we found…”

  “Found?”

  “Underneath the Alliance base,” Mark said offhand like Paul should already have known. “Was originally part of the V’kit’no’sat, a race called the Zak’de’ron…which, by the way, were transformed into the Les’i’kron, after they were defeated after the V’kit’no’sat backstabbed the Zak’de’ron, who was one of three races that originally formed the V’kit’no’sat as a defensive alliance against the Hadarak. Savvy?”

  “You’re having way too much fun with this,” Paul said, trying to comprehend what Mark was saying.

  “Kara is the one that got the information out of him, and she got a nice jewel stuck on her wrist as a thank you. Anyway, we’re meeting the dragon on Earth so we can let him into the pyramid because he wants to know what the V’kit’no’sat did to his race, because he’s been sleeping all this time in some form of doomsday egg cache…which is what was underneath the base that the Nestafar found and wanted bad enough to send a huge warfleet out to get, seeing as how they used to be a subservient race to the Zak’de’ron a long, long time ago, which they and most of our Alliance refer to as Keepers.”

  “Ok, just stop already,” Paul said, holding up a hand that twisted his floating body aside. “Let’s continue this on dry land.”

  “See,” Mark said to Ariel, “he doesn’t like the water.”

  “I know the name ‘Keeper’ from Elarioni history. They were a magical race that had many others serving them…then they vanished from the galaxy, leaving behind artifacts that were highly sought after. The Eulersol claimed to have been one of their former servants, but that assertion was doubted by many.”

  “You’ll have to tell me that story later,” Paul said, thinking hard. “Whose bright idea was it to give this dragon access to the pyramid?”

  “That would be Kara, but I agree with her reasoning and I’m hopping on the next jumpship headed that way. The Hycre just dropped me off here a few hours ago.”

  “What’s her reasoning?”

  “The dragon agreed to unlock the restricted portions of the database…if we agree to keep its presence a secret. Apparently our minds are shielded to its mind control, so it couldn’t wipe our memories. Instead of killing us, its trusting us to keep our mouths shut so the V’kit’no’sat don’t find out that it survived.”

  “And here I thought you would be bored on some backwater world…” Paul mewed. “Ariel, can you get us back up there. We’ve got a lot to do and I don’t want to waste time.”

  “With me?” she finished, then smiled to let him know she was only joking. “Alright, but I want to know what’s going on as soon as you get the chance…before you leave.”

  “I promise,” Paul said a moment before she grabbed him by the back of his collar and dragged him up through the water at incredible speed…though lesser than normal because she had Mark in the other hand. As they angled up towards the surface they passed by several of the glowing hoops marking the obstacle course they had been working on earlier then they moved through an empty section of water until several small lights began to appear in the distance.

  Those lights eventually grew into the underwater architecture that Ariel had helped Star Force design and build. It functioned as both a prototype testing facility as well as underwater embassy and city for the lone Elarioni. Inside it she conversed with Star Force Archons and engineers, continually helping them to upgrade their aquatics division, in both military and civilian applications.

  She pulled both Archons up into the structure and through several tunnels before depositing them in a shallow pool with an underwater staircase leading up into the dry land segment of the small city. They eventually got their footing and climbed out after Paul disconnected the prosthetic from his legs. Ariel poked her head up out of the water and waved to them, which both Archons returned graciously before walking out of the room and up towards the surface pad where Mark had a mantis waiting.

  “Dragon?!” Paul asked/yelled after removing his mask.

  “Crazy, I know, but it’s true. It saved the Alliance from the Nestafar ground assault, mentally forcing some to retreat and killing the ones that wouldn’t. It also wiped all computer records of the battle, but a few people saw it first hand and, if that’s the kind of firepower the V’kit’no’sat have we don’t stand a chance in hell of even scratching them. It did say, though, that the Zak’de’ron were more powerful than the other races, but still, if they could defeat them then we’re sitting ducks. It also singlehandedly took out their warships and jumpships.”

  “How big of a dragon are we talking about?”

  “Big…like, dropship big.”

  “And where is it now?”

  “It said it would rendezvous with us at Earth, and we’ve only got a few months to get back there and set things up. We’re going to have to remodel the factory to let it in.”

  “It has a ship?”

  “It is a ship…don’t ask me how. Some sort of transformer-like armor add-on. Kara said it also had armor that extruded from rings on his claw/fingers.”

  “Did you talk to it?”

  “Never got the chance. After it kicked the crap out of the Nestafar it sealed itself away and no one on the base knew it had ever existed except for us. Really creepy knowing it can do that.”

  “Why are we shielded?”

  “Zen’zat.”

  “What else haven’t you told me? Did Kara come with you?” Paul asked as they walked up the boarding ramp and into the back of the waiting mantis.

  “Only to get her trinket examined. She’s not heading back to Earth.”

  “What trinket?” he asked, then realized that she was sitting in the back of the mantis waiting for them.

  Kara held up her left arm and pulled back the sleeve, revealing the diamond-like jewel inset there. “This one.”

  Many weeks later, back on Daka, the ground underneath the Alliance base began to shake with a steady and low hum that coincided with all the external sensors going offline simultaneously. Those Alliance pilots in the air at the time flew away from the western edge of the base and would have no recollection or sensor data afterwards to confirm what had happened, but a pair of skeets were in the air at the time and, though their sensor data also went ‘missing’ their eyes weren’t blocked from seeing a series of holes in the mountainside open up as worm-like
tendrils extruded themselves from the rock that then somehow reformed behind them, leaving the mountainside untouched save for a bit of displaced grass.

  On the surface the worms floated up into the air and coiled together into a long chain that then doubled back on itself and pulled together to form a donut, not unlike the original Star Force command ships, save for this one did have a small hole in the center. The massive construction floated above the surface for a moment before the dragon came up out of the ground from another disappearing tunnel, then he flew around the contraption as if inspecting it before flipping over and landing in the small center opening, whereupon the machine appeared to swallow it up with hull morphing to cover the previous hole.

  The catalyst then rocketed off into the sky, heading into space and leaving Daka for good. It traveled across the star system until it set on a distant jumpline that would head straight to the Solar System, then winked out of existence as it set off across the galaxy, leaving behind only a handful of individuals that had memories of ever setting eyes upon it.

  10

  August 4, 2400

  Solar System

  Earth

  Mark ducked under a left cross then exploded back up into the holographic opponent’s midsection, tossing the artificial Zen’zat to the ground while staggering to stay on his own feet. The taller opponent hit hard and rolled across its shoulder, spinning back onto its feet just as Mark kicked its legs back out from under it with a low roundhouse. He pulled out of his spin and leapt up into the air and came down on his opponents back with a stiffened elbow, feeling it give slightly, then the hologram disappeared and he smacked his elbow on the ground.

  He glanced up at the statistics floating above the control console, then was startled to no end when the dragon’s voice suddenly thrust into his mind. “I am here.”

  Mark jerked back, falling on his butt a meter back from where he had been laying before he realized what was happening.

  “Where’s here?” the trailblazer asked aloud.

  “In orbit. Have you made the necessary preparations?”