Star Force: Revision (SF78) Page 4

  Aphat System (Bsidd Region)

  Nym

  Brad was running through population figures for his Protovic faction in his office when he sensed a familiar presence a few steps before he entered the open doorway opposite his desk. He looked up from the holograms as Greg walked in, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to put you back on schedule,” the trailblazer said, crossing his arms over his chest with a stern look on his face.

  “Schedule?”

  “Your men are not working as fast as they can. Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.”

  Brad finally realized he was speaking in quotes and decided to respond in kind. “I promise you, this station will be operational as planned.”

  “The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.”

  “But he asks the impossible. I need more men,” Brad said, belatedly realizing the truth in his own statement. His Protovic faction did need more population.

  “Then perhaps you can tell him when he arrives.”

  “The Emperor is coming here?” Brad answered, continuing to play along.

  “No,” a voice said from outside as another person walked up to his office entryway. “He’s already here,” Davis said as he came into view.

  Brad leaned back in his chair, glancing at Greg who had a slight smile on his face. “You bastard.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to execute you,” the Star Force Director said as he pulled up a chair and sat down as Kip followed him into the room.

  “How the hell did you get here without my knowing?”

  “Caught you on a training cycle,” Davis said as the other two Archons sat down and looked out the windows at the Protovic city behind Brad.

  “I arranged the rest after that,” Kip admitted.

  “Oh really?” Brad said in protest, glaring at him.

  “I like to make an entrance when I can,” Davis admitted.

  “You succeeded,” Brad said, turning his attention back to the matter at hand. “What’s so important that it brings you out from Sol?”

  “I didn’t want to have this conversation in bits and pieces via relays, plus Vortison is already here and I have some additional questions for him.”

  “Go on.”

  “Let’s start with where your head is at,” Greg deflected. “Then we’ll start picking it apart.”

  “On which subject?”

  “Your recent field trip.”

  “Two possible discussions there. I’m guessing that you’ve found something on the brutes?”

  “I have,” Davis answered. “The Nexus finally admitted their existence once I directly inquired. They’re called the Urunneg, and are one of their dirty little secrets they like to keep swept under the carpet.”

  “Wait, there hasn’t been enough time to get a courier out to them and back again.”

  “No, there hasn’t. I got this information from The Nexus ambassador.”

  “We have an ambassador?”

  “Given our alliance with the Preema they feel we merit that small contact now. We’ve had one for the past 6 years.”

  “We’ve been fighting with the Preema far longer than that,” Kip pointed out.

  “I’ve been making some further inroads with the H’kar and other members of The Nexus, enough that we’re starting to get popular and exert a bit of influence. By recognizing us they legitimize the contacts rather than having us working as an outside force.”

  “Face saving gesture?” Brad asked.

  “I think they’re worried about the H’kar leaving and inspiring a few others to do likewise. Their recent efforts against the lizards have done little more than stall their advance into Nexus territory and the H’kar have noticed. They’re not interested in winning the war or reclaiming the H’kar’s lost worlds, but we are and we’re getting it done, slowly, but we’re eventually going to end up on The Nexus’s doorstep. A very undervalued doorstep, but our good will with the H’kar is at such a high level that if I asked them to join Star Force they’d probably accept and that would cause all kinds of havoc within The Nexus.”

  “They’re not used to people leaving?” Brad guessed.

  “No one has. Ever. Not without having all the advancements given to them stripped from their civilization, which would essentially destroy them. That fear has kept them all together, but the H’kar are small enough that they could get away with it and come directly over to us. This means The Nexus has some competition now, and other member states are in a position to start analyzing the advantages and disadvantages in their membership, as well as the threats of destruction if they’d left. It was never on the table before, but there are discussions happening now. A diplomatic push is on, and in order to start using politics to squash the seeds of rebellion they have established a line of contact with us. Their ambassador supplied the information on the Urunneg.”

  “Why if it’s a secret?”

  “The Urunneg are one of the many enemies The Nexus has, and they’ve been fighting them in one form or another for nearly a millennia. They could win a proper war against them, but they’re so spread out fighting multiple opponents that they can’t devote the resources to one area without crippling another. Their ambassador wasn’t so forthcoming in that regard, but I’ve acquired enough data from other sources to put the pieces together. The Urunneg control chunks of The Nexus’s domain, unofficially, and are left to roam and plunder so long as they don’t hit a high valued world or cause too much of a ruckus.”

  “And that brings you out here why?”

  “What do you plan to do with the Pinks?”

  “The four here or the others?”

  “Both.”

  “We,” Brad said, looking at Kip, “hadn’t decided yet.”

  “What have you decided?”

  “I get the feeling that everything is up in the air now. Why don’t you just save some time and tell me what you want done.”

  Davis smirked. “We need to figure out what to do and move forward on this quickly. This is not just a Protovic issue, but one for the entire empire. Starting with their telepathy.”

  “Ah,” Brad said, sensing the underlying issue…or at least one of them that had brought Davis out here. “Well, you should know that as of a few days ago Vortison assured me that they don’t have the hardware to do motor control hacks, no matter what their skill level. They can influence, distract, and distort, but they can’t play puppets with anyone.”

  Davis inclined his head slightly. “As of now?”

  “As of now,” Brad confirmed. “What the special package contains is still up in the air. Vortison has his hands full there, even with all 8 variant samples to work with.”

  “You’re keeping them separate, correct?”

  “Just in case, yes. Only 2 are unlocked, but on the offhand chance that proximity might change that we’re not letting them comingle. Our Pink guests are in isolation and still undergoing light interrogation. The rebel is talking freely, while the others require mind melds to get useful information out of them.”

  “Do you plan on keeping them here?”

  “I don’t have a problem with it. You want them sent back?”

  “Are you planning on going back?”

  “That’s something we’ve been discussing,” Brad said, referring to Kip. “But the larger question of the telepathy needs to be answered first.”

  “Now that I have it I can understand the implications of the trouble it could cause in an otherwise vulnerable civilian population, beyond the mere hysteria of ignorance,” Davis commented warily. “The trouble is there are a few races out there that already have telepathy, so we’re going to have to deal with it one way or another at some point. Do we exclude those that have it or…well, I don’t see a good ‘or’ at the moment.”

  “Fearing power isn’t something Star Force does,” Greg pointed out. “No matter how weak someone is, they ca
n always hurt others if they’re committed to doing it. Bringing telepaths into Star Force would change our internal dynamic, but I don’t see it being overly dangerous. Just something new.”

  “Them not having remote control capability changes things,” Kip added. “But for the sake of argument, what if another race out there does?”

  “We have the helmet inhibitors,” Greg reminded them. “So our security forces will be unaffected if it comes to that, but we don’t want to let that tech get out into the open or we’ll lose our primary advantage.”

  “Agreed,” Davis said quickly. “Immunizing the population against Ikrid, technologically or biologically isn’t on the table, though I’ve been told before that the biological route isn’t available to us, and that’s one thing I want to take up with Vortison again. And it appears that’s also why the Urunneg tried to capture you.”

  “Making yourself immune to telepaths is a far more powerful thing than people realize,” Greg added. “And that only escalates where the V’kit’no’sat are involved. Them giving it to Zen’zat and no one else is beyond huge, for it strips them of most of their power over us. Giving it to everyone out there would even the playing field, but I agree that’s not a good solution even if we were able to do it.”

  “So what’s the worst case scenario if we brought the Pinks back and plugged them into Axius?” Davis asked.

  “They start messing with others,” Kip answered. “Pulling tricks, cons, invading memories and stealing secrets. Convincing someone to jump off a balcony.”

  “All of which can be done through other means,” Greg pointed out.

  “But we have no way to trace where the influence comes from,” Brad argued. “If a Calavari picks someone up and tosses them over a balcony to their death we see him do it on surveillance vids. We can’t trace the telepathic signals.”

  “But we still have range issues to consider, as well as the ability to mentally check all individuals seen within that radius at the time. So long as a telepath doesn’t get so strong they can block us out, we can still theoretically track down the assailant, correct?”

  “Unless they figure out how to wipe each other’s memories,” Kip theorized. “One guy does the deed, then someone else wipes the memory of it from him before we can search his mind. Evidence gone bye bye.”

  “What are we going to do now if a telepath from another races enters the ADZ and starts living among us?” Davis floated. “Kick them out because of their potential?”

  “Like I said, we don’t fear power,” Greg reminded them. “We can’t take that route.”

  “There are so many opportunities to misbehave when you have it,” Brad reminded them.

  “Can we rule out mixed maturias then?” Greg asked. “If we do have telepaths from birth and not earned skills, we keep them segregated while they’re younglings so everyone is on an even playing field while they develop. That’s when people tend to be the most mischievous simply because they’re feeling out their capabilities.”

  Davis glanced at each of the three trailblazers in turn. “I think we’re in agreement there.”

  “We can’t make a rule saying no mental invasion,” Kip continued. “One, because we can’t enforce it, and two, because we do it all the time and it isn’t something wrong. Prying yes, but sometimes you need to pry.”

  “Can we train people to defend themselves against it?” Greg wondered.

  “Not well,” Brad answered. “Short of having telepathy yourself, there’s no way to stop someone skilled enough from getting in without an active blocking mechanism. You can’t teach people to develop one without the ability to sense when someone is pushing in.”

  “So what, we’re just going to have a segment of the population that can play mental havoc with the others and there’s nothing they can do to defend themselves?” Kip floated. “I don’t like that scenario when I put myself in their shoes.”

  “Yet this is the reality of the galaxy,” Davis pointed out. “We’ve been immune to it for a while due to geography, but that won’t last forever, regardless of what we do with the Pinks. We need to establish a policy now before we need it rather than scrambling to try and assemble one later.”

  “As an addendum to the maturia,” Kip offered, “let’s only train the civilian telepathic population to defend themselves and leave the ‘offensive’ capabilities to special advanced programs. That won’t prevent people from learning on their own, but it’ll keep the strongest telepaths in the ‘earned’ group.”

  Brad sighed, coming to a conclusion that he’d been nibbling at but now seemed obvious hearing a couple new voices state angles rather than him just running them through his head. “I guess it all comes down to where do you want to bite the bullet? Have possible telepathic trouble in our civilian population that will be hard to crack down on, or turn a blind eye to telepaths and exclude them from Star Force like they were a plague.”

  “As I said,” Greg reminded him, “we don’t fear power.”

  “So,” Davis continued after a brief moment of silence, “the issue isn’t whether or not to have telepaths in the civilian population, but in how to manage them in order to avoid major problems. We’ve already got two points on the board, let’s see how many more we can add and what the picture looks like then.”

  “Agreed,” Brad said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his desk as he looked at Davis. “Now will you tell me what you want done with the Pinks?”

  “These rebels you found. They are not in league with the Urunneg, and the others are only doing so because they are forced to under threat of death. That by no means excuses their actions, but if you remove the threat you remove most of the problem. I say we go in and evacuate them all back here, and if they don’t like that idea we take them anyway similar to the methods used to conquer the Veliquesh.”

  Brad’s eyes widened slightly. “Really?”

  “Orders of the Urunneg or not, they attacked Star Force. They don’t get to have an opinion anymore.”

  “That’s going to be very expensive utilizing the Nexus grid point system.”

  “Especially when we have to defend against a counterattack by the Urunneg,” Kip added. “Their tech level is formidable, so we’ll have to have a lot of warships on hand in addition to the transports.”

  “These are Protovic being used as slaves by the Urunneg. Freeing them and adding them to our empire is worth the cost, though under prisoner protocols for most of them. We can make some more amenable arrangements for the rebels, but they all have to go through your indoctrination programs. We’re not uprooting their civilization and replanting it here. They’re joining us on our terms.”

  “If that’s the way you want it…”

  “You disagree?” he asked Brad.

  “We’re still a little pissed at getting ambushed,” Kip answered for him.

  Davis smiled. “I didn’t say you had to go about it gently.”

  5

  July 19, 3061

  System 10746 (Nexus Domain)

  Yvartis

  Kip rode the dropship down to the planet seeing the smoke plumes rising from the surface targets that the Star Force fleet in orbit had just got finished destroying. They were all outside or on the dome covering the city, but they were not going to be giving the dropships any trouble on their way down or back up like they had the last time he’d left this place. Scores of Star Force skeets controlled the local airspace ensuring that the Jhar fighters couldn’t get to them while a number of Starscream-class mechs were standing on the dome and busy cutting through the entry doors.

  The way would be opened soon enough, with Kip’s dropship being one of the first to move through along with the leading elements of the invasion force. The Urunneg fleet that had been here before had been reduced down to a handful of ships and those fled when they saw the Star Force convoy begin arriving at the planet. They knew they couldn’t handle this fight, so they’d ran clean out of the system save for a single ship that was snooping aroun
d the outer planets, perhaps waiting to see what happened or hoping to pick up some of their surface personnel later. Either way, right now Star Force controlled orbit with a mass of warships and drones deployed in intercept positions ensuring that it wouldn’t be able to attack or recuse anyone on the planet without coming under fire.

  The same went for the Jhar ships, which had wisely backed down in the face of such overwhelming military might…though most of the Star Force ships were actually personnel transports and not well suited for combat. The Jhar didn’t know that and their bulk was terrifying on its own, but even without that added effect one warship would have been enough to make them cower down into the lower orbits after having seen their threat level displayed in grandiose fashion on the last visit here.

  The remaining Jhar warships were now clustered up and being held at gunpoint with orders not to move. Kip intended to keep them there until the recovery efforts began, hoping that they wouldn’t have to board and stun each individual to get them into Star Force custody. He’d come prepared for that while leaving Brad back in Star Force territory to make preparations for the Pinks’ arrival, but he hadn’t come alone.

  Beside him in the dropship was Octaviak, one of the four captured Jhar that they’d taken back with them and interrogated. She’d been the one rebel among them, actually firing on the other Pinks to try and help them escape when she’d been taken captive as well. Since then the other three had been remanded to the prison facilities and set on their isolated indoctrination programs, giving them a chance to earn their eventual freedom but being treated as full prisoners given the fact that they’d been shooting at Kip and Brad when they’d been captured.

  Octaviak was wearing her fully body armor, showing no sign of her bioluminescence as she waited with the Archon in the rear bay along with a contingent of Commandos and a couple of Knights. All were seasoned veterans who had taken part in the conquest of the Veliquesh so they knew the score and how to handle a population recovery effort like this if things went south, but Kip was hoping Octaviak could help them convince at least part of the Jhar population to come with them willingly.