Star Force: Collaboration (SF90) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  A hologram of a lizard administrator appeared before him, but Mathew knew he wouldn’t have to bother with the translation equipment on this one.

  “The system is evacuated. You may begin landing operations. I’ll meet with you personally on the surface once the command center is completed.”

  “Specify a landing zone,” the lizard requested in a neutral tone, speaking more than passable English.

  “You may choose your own so long as it is within serviceable range of the command center.”

  “We will begin landing within 3 hours. Contact me when you wish me to report in person.”

  “Carry on,” Mathew said, ending the brief and admittedly weird conversation.

  Three days later the Archon took a dropship down to the prefabricated command center that doubled as a small city capable of housing some 2800 individuals, but for his purposes it was only housing 32, all of which were Human save for a pair of Kiritas that were well experienced with recycling missions. All were Clan Saber and would be living within the command center for the foreseeable future, but they wouldn’t be alone.

  When Mathew sent the signal a flurry of lizard Kirbies flew over and landed on the paved cargo pad, but no one came out save for one tall administrator that Mathew walked out to meet.

  “We are awaiting your orders,” it said amicably, but with a coolness that Mathew sensed was misinterpretation rather than emotion. Lizard speech was a bit odd, as was that of every other race, but this one’s emotions registered as nothing but eagerness and loyalty. He wanted to get to work and didn’t register the Archon or the Star Force personnel as threats.

  That’s exactly what Paul had told him should be the norm, but he hadn’t fully believed him given the enormous amount of combat experience he had against the lizards…but then again, this one wasn’t normal, made all the obvious by its blue skin that stood out in stark contrast to the standard green. Looking beyond the administrator, Mathew could see ranks of standard variant lizards waiting in the holds of the Kirbies, all of which were just as blue and hopefully so predisposed.

  “I’ll need an interface team along with yourself set up to give me oversite and necessary command and control, though I don’t anticipate much use for the latter if you perform as expected. I’ll need round the clock teams even if I’m not there to utilize them. You are free to roam the facilities and the planet as needed so long as I have someone who can contact you at a moment’s notice. Your people will be given empty quarters to reconfigure as needed while I retain some for our own purposes. Foodstuffs will be separate. I’m told you’ve brought everything you need to sustain yourselves?”

  “We have, and we can build any structures needed.”

  “I want the hatchery set up here and only here.”

  “That won’t be a problem initially, but this facility isn’t large enough to field the numbers that we will require in coming years.”

  “We can arrange an annex as needed. I need to be on hand to monitor the new population.”

  “You’re here to study us as well?”

  “Yes. I’m to oversee this mission as well as collect data on your effectiveness. That is not meant to suggest we think you incapable,” he added, sensing a shift in the lizard’s thoughts, “but your kind are so new we need as much data as we can get.”

  “We serve the Clan, and I will assist you in whatever manner is required.”

  “You can start with setting up operations here. Leave a quarter of the landing pad open for our uses, but you can pile as many ships and cargo on the rest as you want. Follow me and I’ll show you where to set up shop.”

  The administrator turned around and made a hand gesture, after which several dozen blue lizards ran out to catch up to him, forming into three lines that trailed in his wake as the lone Archon led them inside the facility with their blue skin making for a sharp contrast with the predominantly white architecture.

  He led them through the facility on a short tour with the administrator leaving a few lizards behind at various points. When Mathew and him eventually ended up at the command center where several other Humans were they made themselves acquainted, with the administrator being interested in learning each of the Humans’ duties and positions so he could better interface with them. As Mathew’s staff worked over operational details and procedures he noticed on the security monitors within the facility that there were lines of lizards moving to and fro carrying cargo and tools like a string of ants.

  Once the initial briefing was over he told the administrator to work uninterrupted and he did as instructed, leaving the Archon to wander around the complex observing the lizards as they were already beginning to construct their own architecture within the Star Force chambers and even their smaller quarters…and unlike their usual yellow/tan color scheme, which their orbital fleet fielded, the equipment and building materials being brought in were displaying a variation of blue that looked almost aquatic in nature. It was so vivid that it almost glowed, with Mathew noting that it gave the lizard tech a bit more elegance than normal while clearly marking it and the lizards as Clan Saber.

  Paul had told him new ships would be forthcoming, but apparently the rest of their apparatus had already gone through the necessary conversions, and by the look of it there was were subtle alterations to the standard lizard tech. Mathew hadn’t been told anything about that, but he could spot several differences.

  Whatever Paul was playing at here, he hoped he knew what he was doing.

  Riley was onboard the Zeus, back in the Preserve again, without him, Nefron, or anyone else getting a peep out of the Uriti. Part of him wanted to think that Kacie had just been punking him, but he knew she wouldn’t have done that…let alone dared to do it. The fact that the Uriti could have been communicating with them all along and had simply been choosing not to was both exciting and unbelievably frustrating. They were simply ignoring him while at the same time following every command given to them.

  He assumed it was due to the way in which the two forms of communication were occurring. The orders probably seemed like Uriti business and his other attempts to be nothing more than inconsequential chatter. There was something about that to be admired, but it was making his return here completely useless…without even another attack for him to smash.

  So it was completely out of left field when he was woken in the middle of the night as the gauntlet he wore sent a telepathic communication to him from one of the Uriti.

  It wasn’t a word, but the meaning was clear.

  Why?

  Greg was stunned by the intensity of the mind on the other end, not knowing which one it was as he hurriedly tried to ascertain the subject matter. He quickly got out of bed and over to his personal terminal, getting an update of system affairs within a few seconds and seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

  Not wanting to lose the opportunity when he had it, he responded with a question of his own asking for context. What was the Uriti referring to?

  Images flashed into his mind and he realized they were the vantage point from the Uriti as they ran through the various training exercises. That was something Riley could easily explain.

  The not using words part was both a hindrance and helpful, but Riley was able to get the message across that it was to improve and strengthen the Uriti, but the question came back to him again.

  Why?

  Answering that question could come in many forms…some potentially dangerous if it involved the Chixzon and what had happened to them. Tell the Uriti of their origin from Hadarak and would they try to get back to the core to find them? Better to not give up that fact just yet.

  As he tried to mentally construct an answer before transmitting it he was able to figure out who was talking to him. It was Elise, referred to by the Chixzon as Kekran, and the third additional Uriti in The Nine’s set. It had been unknown and unguarded, thus high on the priority list to retrieve. It had been much further away than two found in lizard space, but it had been the 6th to enter the Pres
erve and was still somewhat a newcomer to the current herd of 7.

  Elise had gone through a decent amount of training, but he guessed she was wondering why the others were doing this so fervently. Sometimes for Humans, or other Star Force races, it took a while before the training bug bit you and you really started to feel the fitness and advancements taking shape. If that’s what was going on here he needed to frame his response in a different way.

  Without going into specifics, he got the point across that there were enemies that wanted to kill the Uriti and that Star Force wanted to make them as strong as possible so when they came to kill them they would be able to fight back and survive…hoping that was something the Uriti would be able to comprehend.

  Suddenly there was a pounding in his head as another Uriti added its telepathic link and demanded an answer.

  Who are they? Where can we find and kill them?

  “Oh shit,” Riley said, looking at the ceiling of his quarters as he belatedly identified the second Uriti as Bahamut.

  He sent a response of ‘many’ along with the idea that the Preserve was a place for the Uriti to train and grow stronger and that going out to the enemy now would be to their advantage. Then he added in the fact that there were other Uriti out there that Star Force was finding and bringing here, going a stretch further to suggest that the more of them there were together the more powerful they would be.

  Riley was knocked off his feet and fell into a half standing position with two feet and one hand on the floor as he was bent over with now all seven Uriti in his head wanting to know where the others were. The sense of anger, longing, and loyalty was so powerful Riley found himself shaking as the emotions flowed through him. He wanted to disconnect but told himself to weather the storm for he didn’t know if or when they’d communicate with him again.

  He sent back the limited idea of their previous capture and them being hidden across the galaxy, then added Star Force’s search and transportation of them to the Preserve, along with the speed component of how slow the Uriti were compared to their own ships and that they could get the Uriti here far faster than if they traveled on their own, hoping that would help to discourage them from going looking for them on their own.

  Again, the question came back to him from two or three of them…there were so many minds talking to him that it was hard to differentiate.

  Why?

  This time it was directed at Star Force’s search. Why were they collecting the lost and imprisoned Uriti?

  The answer to that came so simply that Riley didn’t even think about how to structure it. With what was the telepathic equivalent of a beam of light, everything that defined Star Force flowed from him to them in a spark of confidence and brashness.

  Because we’re the good guys.

  Following that there was a wave of gratitude coming from all seven, then just as suddenly as they appeared in his mind they were all gone, leaving Riley breathing hard as he stood up and tried to steady his frayed nerves.

  On an impulse he took off his gauntlet and tossed it on his bed, taking an extra few steps away from it as if it was poison as he sat down at his terminal and opened a comm. There was no answer for several minutes, with Riley waiting on it as he cradled his head in his hands trying to get himself back under full control.

  Eventually a holograph of Nefron appeared, looking down on him from above the terminal.

  “What’s wrong?” the Chixzon asked.

  “I found a flaw in your gauntlet design,” Riley said, looking up at him with the unsteadiness in his eyes evident.

  “You made contact with one of the Uriti…direct contact?”

  “No. One of them made contact with me, and the subject matter got the others interested and they all started talking at once.”

  Nefron’s eyes narrowed. “Are you damaged?”

  “I’m not well, but I’m recovering. If we get more Uriti here…”

  “We need limited channels. More than one if tolerable, or maybe a limitation on data transfer. What did they want?”

  “They want the other Uriti with them…and they want to fight their enemies.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I left the Chixzon out of it, but they’ve already been attacked once and I suggested that there were others far more powerful that want them dead and they need to stay here and train to get stronger.”

  “The empire in the core?”

  “Yeah. They’ll kill them if they find them…along with all of us.”

  “I can’t help if you don’t tell me who they are.”

  “You are helping. We need an outside viewpoint, and if we let you know what they are you’ll lose it.”

  “Logical. I’ll suppress my curiosity on the condition that you make use of my skills. I don’t want to be killed by someone I don’t even see coming.”

  “You know we’re not wasting you, so just shut up and get that inhibitor working…and warn the others. I’m going to crash for a while.”

  “Take your time. I’ll handle it.”

  “And remember your telepathy is weaker than ours, so don’t go chatting with them.”

  “Noted,” the Chixzon said with a touch of irreverence.

  6

  June 13, 3337

  Lethim System (occupation zone)

  Harsdre

  After completing his morning workouts Mathew took to his normal rounds, which at this point in the mission was little more than observing the lizards at work. After a quick check in at the command center he headed over to the hatchery and watched another small batch of standard variants draw their first breath. Rather than growing them in huge numbers at periodic times the administrator was having them staggered so new personnel would be added daily. That did help Mathew, in that he could observe all of them for anomalies, but today was just like any other day.

  A violent reaction when tasting the air for the first time, the others restraining them until they got their whereabouts, then they would be taken to a quality control facility where they’d undergo a few days of testing. That had been an addition Paul had made, whereas normally lizards could go into the field the same day they were ‘born’ given the genetic memory given to them and the physical maturity achieved while they were in the growth pods.

  So far there was a 93% success rate in the first testing, with the remaining 7% all passing through after no more than a week. It seemed some took a little longer to get their bearings, though all of them had exactly the same genetic code. In that way they were all clones, but individual differences were one of the main things Paul wanted to know about and Mathew was always keen to spot anything that differed from standard behaviors.

  During the testing phase the lizards were offered a choice as to whether or not they wanted to attend to their duties immediately or go through additional training. So far only 3 lizards out of some 308,000 had chosen training, with those 3 having become very special additions that Paul had sent out of the system to another facility, to do what exactly Mathew didn’t know. His task and knowledge centered around this operation…and while he didn’t have a lot to do he had been thoroughly blown away at the work being done here.

  Within Star Force it was commonly known that the Kiritas were the most prolific workers, capable of doing redundant tasks with ease and a speed that made them the fastest builders, miners, and cargo handlers by far. Whereas other races would grow bored with the repetitive tasks they never seemed to. It was like asking a runner if they got tired of taking steps, and that ability to churn out results so readily and reliably was what prompted the creation of the Kiritak…a different division within Star Force from the Kiritas faction that was focused solely on resource production and logistics.

  But these lizards were giving them a run for their money, and given the fact that most of the population here had been grown from genetic samples, this operation was far exceeding what the Kiritas could have done with an equal number of initial workers. The egg layers could produce alarmingly fast, but
their infants didn’t come ready and able to work. They had to go through the maturia process and that took time. They might be better than the lizards because of that, but the ability for these guys to be put to use almost immediately after leaving their pods was something that continued to impress Mathew.

  After his stint at the hatchery the Archon went outside and hopped on a speeder, riding the hovering bike out across the open spaces between facilities so he could view the ongoing work. There were lizard buildings everywhere, but set up in a distinctively Star Force pattern. Mathew rose up and flew over some of them, seeing lines of the blue lizards walking or running to and from the buildings in predictable patterns. They never deviated. Always stayed glued to their tasks. And it wasn’t due to a mindlessness, rather a pure loyalty to the mission.

  Mathew had assumed otherwise in the beginning, but after spending several years amongst the lizards he’d learned differently. They operated, thought, and just about breathed as a team. Not a typical Star Force team where the strength of the individual was the basic building blocks of a mutually beneficial alliance, but rather a necessary bond between them that had to be there, otherwise these lizards could not function.

  It was a glaring weakness, but so long as they were humming along as a unit it was also a staggering advantage. He hadn’t seen any of these in combat, so he wasn’t sure what alterations had been made in their coding for that, but as far as the recycling and construction work going on here, they all functioned as a cell in a giant organism. These lizards were a unit rather than a collection of individuals, and Mathew had finally grown to understand what Paul had meant by that when he’d first assigned him here.

  The Achilles heel of Star Force was the experience factor. It took time to mint an Archon, let alone a ViLord, and while they were wholly superior to just about everyone else, for work like this the lizards could be effective in this unit function while bypassing that experience requirement entirely. They had everything they needed for their assigned tasks in their genetic memory, and while they would grow better at what they did over time, there was no learning curve required.