Star Force: Quenar (SF88) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  “I expect there will be a lot more in coming years,” Duke Pryon added as he looked out at the floating masses of ships while a small portion of them were moving about and active while the Uriti was lounging inside the star’s outer levels and barely visible on sensors.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long,” Davis corrected from his work station at the center of the chamber while the two Dukes and three trailblazers were lounging around and looking out the ‘windows’ or at the holos while the Director was looking up a variety of things in the ship’s database. “Assuming word got out fairly quick, there are probably others enroute as we speak. Hopefully not any warfleets, but that all depends on the reason why they’re coming.”

  “They’re not getting Nefron,” Riley said firmly. “And even if they do he’ll be more trouble than he’s worth. The Chixzon in him doesn’t take well to fools.”

  “Just because we claim only he can operate the equipment isn’t convincing to the skeptics,” Paul added, sitting on a console and lazily swinging one leg hanging in the air. “The Trinx obviously thought they could make it work without him, or with him under coercion, and I doubt we’re going to convince others of the futility of that even if we do a meet and greet session with him. People are going to see what they want to see.”

  “And they’re going to see a badass fleet guarding this system,” Jason added, referencing all the ships they’d scrounged from across the ADZ with more on the way as they became available.

  “Their definition of badass might differ from yours,” Duke Yetti said as she sat next to Paul in a slightly more rigid pose, but still informally on top of a work table, “if they’re operating on a high tech level. A lot of these races probably know the others, and aside from our ability to control the Uriti they might see us as inferiors.”

  “Not the cool kids, huh?” Jason summed up.

  “It’s our job to make them understand,” Davis said distractedly as he thumbed through more files. “I trust you guys know how to show off enough to get the job done.”

  “I’m questioning your Archon credentials just for asking that,” Paul reprimanded the acolyte.

  Davis smirked, but continued his search in silence.

  “How certain are you that the Uriti won’t attack us?” Pryon asked Riley.

  The trailblazer shrugged. “She seems to ignore us unless we use the magic word. As long as we don’t get in her way or shoot her I’d guess we’ll be fine. If someone else does that, well, we might get caught up in the ruckus, but we can easily outrun her.”

  “I’m more concerned about the facilities we’re building here.”

  “She can wreck them if she wants,” Riley said plainly, “but with the safeguards in place I think we’ll be alright.”

  “I hope you’re not overestimating her speed…or temperament.”

  “Don’t worry,” Paul said with an ease that partially reassured the Duke. “We’re putting enough engine capacity into the facilities that you can avoid her so long as you get a head start, and she’s not exactly hard to see coming.”

  “If moving counters the Uriti’s abilities, then why is it so feared?”

  “Ignorance,” Riley answered. “Well, that and them getting their asses kicked when they were stupid enough to engage them. The Uriti are very good, specialists really, at busting up heavily fortified worlds that were never meant to be breached. A lot of races think like that, and when you have populations that you can’t move out of the way fast enough, the Uriti is an unstoppable wrecking machine. Don’t build static facilities and keep your population far, far away from them and you’ve got a workable situation.”

  “If we were in the ADZ, then I’d assume we’d have a problem?”

  “Not a problem, just a cause for concern. It’ll take Nami a long time to get there from here, so we’d have time to take…some countermeasures.”

  “Other than the kill switch?”

  “Not really,” Paul admitted. “If we knew which system she was going to then we could evacuate, but with so many options in the ADZ we could never get everyone out of her potential path. As long as we keep her out here in the empty zone she’s not a threat, and I hope everyone else starts to realize that as well. Get her close to inhabited systems and then we’ve got a problem. She sneezes in the wrong place and you lose 50 million people.”

  “Are you certain she’ll not start creating minions unless directed?”

  “Pretty sure,” Riley answered, “but even if she does, Nefron should be able to control them as well. In fact, experimenting with that is on our to-do list.”

  Jason raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Just a few, so we know what they’re really like.”

  “And to confirm that they’re biological machines rather than people?”

  “That and some other stuff.”

  “Won’t that freak out the guys in the cheap seats?” Yetti asked.

  “Might,” Riley admitted, “but I don’t care. They’re not calling the shots, and the sooner we establish that the better.”

  “I agree,” Jason chimed in.

  “Here it is,” Davis said, with everyone turning to look at him as he pulled up a record and displayed it in holo for them to read in three different locations around the large room. “I knew I’d come across it before.”

  Paul looked at what was labeled as The Nexus records regarding various cataloged races, specifically those that were documented to have existed outside their expansive territory. There was a bit of history attached to each, detailing the circumstances of the contacts made, and one very powerful race in particular was noted as having made contact on a survey mission. They had made contact and stated a request for any knowledge of race known as the Iggarat and had provided technology samples for comparison.

  Those tech samples were now visible, and Paul saw that Davis had linked them with some aspects of Ancient technology. Most of it was different but the key pieces matched up, but it was the ship profile that matched those of four such vessels sitting within view of the Sanguine Blade’s sensors that confirmed the link.

  “I think these guys were searching for another of the Ancient races’ remains in order to locate hidden Uriti and the Sety didn’t pick up on it. They may have quietly put out feelers into their territory later, which wouldn’t be all that difficult considering how overstretched they are, and probably, if my guess is right, laid down a network to gather any tips on any information about the Uriti or the Ancients that might surface. When Nami got loose they couldn’t do anything about it, but they watched from afar. When they saw that we could control them that sent the spark out to who knows how many races in the Uriti preservation club that are now on their way here.”

  “What’s the end game?” Paul asked. “I doubt all of these races are simply being prudent guardians of sleeping monsters.”

  “Leverage would be my guess,” the Director said, leaning back in his chair. “You find the giant Easter Egg and lay claim to it, you then possess the ability to release an unstoppable plague on the galaxy. Even if people figured you were bluffing they’d probably regard you as worthy of respect…or fear trying to conquer you. Last resort might be releasing the Uriti so it could destroy the invaders or perhaps just a ‘screw you’ last measure as they were wiped out. There are a lot of possibilities, but I think the bottom line is that if you control a Uriti site it bumps you up into a very elite status.”

  “And we just outdid them all,” Pryon noted.

  Davis nodded. “They’re either coming to suck up, or because they’re ticked that they’re no longer top dog and want to try and find a way to reassert themselves, either through bluffing or taking action. I think we’re exposing a very secret society that extends well beyond The Nine. It may be that these other so-called guardians were in contact with one another rather than acting in seclusion. In which case we could be getting visitors from the other side of the galactic core.”

  Jason whistled. “I hope they don’t take a
short cut through the middle.”

  “We need more firepower,” Paul said, realizing just how outclassed they might be in short order.

  “We need control,” Davis corrected. “Part of that is firepower, but the greater part is they’re seeing that there is a purpose in this system and that we’re driving it. We have to be doing things with the Uriti rather than just sitting on it. We’ve already established that we’re making this system an embassy for these various races to permanently inhabit if they wish, which will make us the arbiters and hosts, but we need more than that. Experimenting with the minions is a double-edged sword. It could scare some, but entice others that also want to study them. Those races that play nice we’ll let observe, but control stays with us. They can make suggestions, but they never give orders. That’s one optional activity, but we need more than that.”

  “It depends on what they want from them,” Yetti summed up. “Are there any material gains that can be had?”

  “Observational data of a waking one,” Riley offered. “Beyond that, unless you want a lot of holes in a planet for some reason, there’s nothing beneficial from them.”

  “Unless they want you to use one to bust up their rivals,” Pryon suggested.

  “We’re not going to do that,” Davis said firmly, “and we need to make them understand it from the get go. We’re not utilizing their combat capability in any way, but if we are ever invaded that restriction could be rescinded. We’re not actually going to do that, but we are going to offer the promise of containment and hold to it firmly in order to gain credibility over time. The threat of us having cause to rescind that promise, legitimately, is our leverage point. We’re not going to use it to make gains, however, and that should also send a message. It’s going to be defensive leverage.”

  “Over the long term,” Paul clarified.

  “Yes,” Davis said with regret. “Such things take time to develop. The most dicey timeframe is now, so what else can we do to be driving events?”

  “Visible construction will send the signal that we’re active,” Yetti noted, “but if we rotate the Uriti between a couple, or maybe 3 or 4 systems periodically will demonstrate that we do have it under our control.”

  “A preserve,” Riley amended with a smile as he looked at Paul, “and we can see if we can get her speed up a bit.”

  Pryon looked confused. “Why would we want to increase her capabilities?”

  “Walking the dog,” Davis said with a satisfied nod. “I like it.”

  “Explain please,” Yetti asked, also confused.

  “Something before your time,” Davis said as he stood up and began pacing around the perimeter of the ‘windows’ as he thought. “Dogs used to be kept as pets, and the pet owners often did nothing with them. Treated them like furniture that just sat around and looked good, maybe did a few tricks. They died rather fast from the stagnation, not to mention developed many disorders prior to that. It was found that what they called ‘exercise’ was beneficial to both the longevity and temperament of the dogs, so their owners would take them out into public areas to walk them, partly as a status symbol but also to maintain their pets in what they thought was the responsible manner.”

  “What exactly is a pet?” Pryon asked.

  “A term from the dark ages,” Davis said with mild disgust. “It can mean one’s property, a keepsake, a pampered individual, or a piece of living art. It comes from a time when Humans looked into the eyes of another and deemed them not to be people, and from that a lot of bad things came. Pets weren’t immune to that, but they tended to fair better than those labeled ‘cattle.’ Eating pets was taboo, but aside from some that were well cared for, most pets were left to stagnate and suffer in ways their owners did not understand.”

  “I’m glad I missed that,” the Duke said, catching onto the point. “You want to train the Uriti?”

  Davis looked to Riley. “What are you estimates on reworking the transmitter?”

  “No clue. The power levels are high enough, I think, but our syntax is wrong or we just smell bad. I don’t know. We could stumble onto the right settings tomorrow or a thousand years from now.”

  “Which means we need to pursue simultaneous courses of interaction,” Davis wisely said as the possibilities unfolded in his mind like pages of a book being speed read. “If the Uriti will respond to orders, we can train it even if it doesn’t understand why. And the more orders we get it to successfully follow, the greater the influence we will have over it. Perhaps more than even the Chixzon did. And while the Uriti seems to be immune to stagnation as far as death is concerned, my gut says that it is not immune to all of its effects?” he asked, looking to the trailblazers.

  “My credits say the same,” Paul agreed, with Jason nodding in sync.

  “We might get it liking us despite the genetic controls,” Riley added, “just by getting it into better shape.”

  “Them,” Yetti amended, drawing glances from them all. “If we’re going to solidify our position here we need to bring in more Uriti, perhaps not immediately, but there is one nearby that we have leverage to get released. Others are well guarded, but some races might not be protecting them to gain leverage, but rather to keep their own people safe. If we could prove that we could remove the threat safely and take it far away from their civilization, some of them might give them up freely. Hell, they might even pay us to take them off their hands.”

  Davis, on sudden impulse, stopped his pacing of the perimeter and headed for a work station, pulling up a map of the system and zooming out until 10 or so systems were visible. He then pulled it out again, seeing what was there within the nearest 100, then pulled back again to the nearest 1000 before spotting the first inhabited system…a Star Force colony that was relocating the Hedrock race to their homeworld, but doing so as a ward of the empire rather than an independent civilization, per their request.

  Davis remained silent as he worked, pulling up stellar data for the stars around the Alamo System and seeing how much of the necessary elements the Uriti needed and favored were there, finding several prime areas and a lot of adequate reserves. A secondary search of systems gave him a feel for the geography, then he began highlighting systems in a clump situated off Alamo. To that he added another section that ringed the inner area, then pointed at both.

  “My friends, welcome to Jurassic Park.”

  6

  August 29, 3256

  Alamo System

  Inner Zone

  “I assume everyone’s translation software is updated,” Yetti said as she looked out at the mass of holograms surrounding her on the observation deck. “If not, well, I think we’ll know soon enough.”

  She looked around, making eye contact with all the varied races, of which 7 of The Nine were present in addition to the representatives in the various ships in system observing the Uriti and the activity here. Some had refused this meeting, and thus were being kept out of the loop, but 53 of them were here, bringing the gallery of holograms to an even 60.

  “Save your questions for now and just listen. I am Star Force Duke Yetti, Uriti Preserve Inquisitor. I will be the point of contact for your empires. Information will flow from me to you and vice versa. Most of you have been sent here to observe and report, which is acceptable, but make no mistake when I say that you will not be permitted to interfere in our operations here. We are only now beginning construction of what will be a great many facilities in this system and others nearby in what we’re creating as the boundaries of the Preserve.”

  She hit a handheld control and the starmap of the region was set up before her and transmitted to each of the representatives’ ships.

  “These 34 star systems are what we are designating as the Uriti Preserve. They are off limits to all traffic save for this system where we will establish facilities for you and others to come and visit if you wish. You will do so on our terms, or our military will deal with you in one of various methods. We will likewise keep the Uriti here, rotating through th
ese systems and no others. We will keep them away from inhabited systems, and likewise keep outsiders away from them. At present we have one Uriti here and no infrastructure. Both facts will change over time as we seek out and offer to relocate any other Uriti found or within your care if you so wish it.”

  That announcement sent twitches and convulsions through a good portion of the representatives, including the Sety, but no one interrupted her and she continued on quickly to take advantage of the moment of confusion and keep the revelations coming.

  “Furthermore, several of you have already committed yourselves to the containment of this Uriti, pledging to do what is necessary to keep it from harming worlds. Star Force’s intent is to do more than that. We have no intention of sedating this one or any others we bring here. We intend to care for them, study them, and treat them with the respect that their creators did not share. The Uriti were created to be living weapons and thrust at enemy systems with orders to demolish them. They are quite good at that sort of thing, but we intend to never utilize that function unless as an act of last resort against anyone foolish enough to try and conquer us.”

  “I do not make this as a cavalier threat. I make it as a promise. If your relations with us are peaceful you need never fear a Uriti showing up in your system. We will keep them here, in this Preserve, and should we engage in a war of conquest against another, as we have done numerous times in our history, the Uriti will not be used. Those few of you that have studied our history, and I’m sure others will do so in coming years, will realize that we do not fight those who do not deserve it, and when we do fight we do not do so sloppily. Sending a Uriti to destroy a planet is extremely sloppy, and so long as we are not betrayed, we have no intention to ever use the Uriti as a weapon. They will stay here, within the Preserve, permanently.”

  “As to what we will do with them here…that remains to be determined. We are already attempting to find a secondary means of communication other than the controlling function encoded within them by the Chixzon, and how we proceed down the road will ultimately be determined by what level of communication we are able to achieve. You need not concern yourself with that if you do not wish it. You will be welcome to observe our efforts and we will make records available to you, but this is our Preserve, our Uriti, and our project. There may be opportunities for you to assist, but we will always maintain control.”