Star Force: Capitulation (Star Force Universe Book 73) Read online

“We will not.”

  “Hmmm, that is not what I would call wisdom, but I suppose it is a measure of progress. I am about to transport you to the Temple. You will not be able to return to your ship for a long period of time. Make what arrangements are necessary with them now. I do not want to answer their inquiries as to your status later.”

  “None will occur. They are to wait as long as necessary for our return.”

  “That will be measures in years,” the Neofan warned. “You have much to learn.”

  The three Zak’de’ron exchanged glances, then the blue one silently made contact with the ship and updated them as to the situation.

  “We are prepared now.”

  “May fortune exceed your naivety,” the Neofan said, waving a hand theatrically as everything went dark and Bi’noen found himself alone and floating in 0g. He couldn’t sense the other two Zak’de’ron, but when he engaged his Essence senses his vision returned…and he could see the bubble he was encased within. It was thick and slowly decaying, with the wisps of the shells flaking off and disappearing back into the Essence realm as a tiny dot in the distance slowly grew.

  Before long he could see that it was not a single dot, but a myriad of glowing structures intertwining into a roughly circular silhouette. This must have been the Temple spoken of by Star Force, but they had not mentioned this type of Essence travel. Bi’noen had no control whatsoever, and if he was right, he was flying free through the void of space and bypassing matter by transiting through the Essence Realm itself. Should something go wrong he would be spat back out and marooned in deep space to die, and he did not like that he’d been thrust into this situation without explanation.

  But he was the inferior here, as distasteful as that thought was, and asserting dominance was not an option. The Neofan were one of the three masters of the Bond of Resistance, and conflict with them would be counterproductive. The Zak’de’ron were wise enough to know when and where to pick their fights, though the insults rendered struck their mark accurately. They had failed twice, and both failures had now risen farther than they had…but not to become part of the Bond of Resistance and access the technology and Essence wonders of that great alliance.

  The Zak’de’ron should be able to exceed Star Force given time, but they could not do it in this galaxy…and the Neofan knew it. Pointing it out was either a test of their nerve or a teaching method, for the Zak’de’ron could not fail a third time. This was their chance to redo all that had been done wrong with a fresh start, and Zeno’dor was taking no chances of error in negotiating it. He’d picked the three of them personally for this unannounced mission, and if the Neofan were about to share secrets with them, they would show what gratitude was required…even if it chaffed their pride to do so, for they had no intention of remaining lessers. In time they would rise, as was their manifest destiny, but they would need help to do it, and that required a different mindset to utilize.

  When the glowing filaments rushed to greater and greater size, Bi’noen suddenly hit and caught on one, then was dragged down the stem to the base where suddenly the bubble popped and he found himself being spat out a wall portal as the front half of the bubble peeled apart and the rear pushed him forward.

  Mental contact with his two kin returned instantly, for they were both walking out of additional portals nearby, all of which were underground, if the information Star Force had given them was correct.

  “Follow,” a floating drone spoke as it passed in front of them slowly, heading from left to right, and the three dragons with tucked wings walked on all fours in a line after it through several chambers until they came to a wide lift that could accommodate two of them at a time.

  “I will wait,” Vui said, sitting on his hind legs and flexing his green wings in rhythm.

  Bi’noen and Go’gien walked onboard along with the drone, then the platform raised quickly through a vertical chamber, sending them to the surface as they ended in a cave with natural light coming from the exit. They walked off the lift and it sank back down, but they did not wait for their companion, for the drone was already moving slowly towards the cave exit.

  They followed it out into the daylight, where both were overwhelmed with the sight before them. They had seen holograms of it before, but being here in person was an experience not easily duplicated. The sky was blue and hazy, but beyond it where there would have been stars was far distant land…and the horizon sloped upward in all directions, making them feel like they were sitting in the bottom of a massively large bowl. And at the center of it all was one fixed artificial star providing the light for the entire construct, with enough interior space to house every starship that the Zak’de’ron and Star Force possessed combined with room to spare.

  And Star Force possesses 2972 of these? Bi’noen asked telepathically to the blue-scaled dragon.

  None of which they built. The Bond of Resistance constructed them all, and many more in other galaxies. We have truly aligned ourselves with a superior power. Zeno’dor’s wisdom has returned with force.

  He senses a future of potential, Vui said, coming out of the cave behind them and seeing the same sights as they did as the drone continued to move slowly on, not waiting for them or speaking. The horrors of the past are being washed away, and we are all renewed by it. Take what you see before you as testament to the unwinnable fight we unwittingly chose with the Hadarak, for they have driven those that created this out of many galaxies with their endless swarms.

  An uncomfortable thought, Bi’noen noted as they continued walking and caught up to the slow drone with ease as it moved down a shallow slope covered in grass towards a river. But I cannot disagree. We have been caught up in a much larger war without knowing it. At least now we are no longer naïve to the powers that surround us.

  True, but if we are to survive this transition we must rely on others. And they are beyond our control, Go’gien said as he stretched out his wings and took to the air, slowly circling around the drone as it moved across the ground, and when he did so he got a better view of the near horizon, upon which there was a crystal-like city not too far off, though it was surrounded by trees and not visible from the ground.

  Our destination? he asked.

  Perhaps. Patience will answer, Bi’noen said as he and Vui continued to walk, though his flight instincts urged him to take to the air as well, but something told him he needed to stay very confined for the moment, though he had no reason to request it of Go’gien.

  The drone eventually led them to the river itself, out of which rose a platform spilling water off the sides, and onto it the drone went, plugging in to a slot near the ‘front’ of the perfectly smooth and featureless rectangle.

  “All three must board and remain in contact with the platform,” the drone said, with the blue dragon quickly landing next to his two kin, and as soon as he did a shield dome formed over them and the platform raced up into the sky so fast little traces of fire were visible from the friction with the air, but they soon disappeared as they entered the void of ‘space’ beyond the atmosphere, yet it was technically still within the massive structure of the Temple.

  Once clear of the atmosphere they began moving laterally at such high speed the surface features of the temple became a blur, and only by looking far ahead could you see the rolling of the city barrier lines passing underneath them. They traveled this way for more than an hour, then with no warning the platform slowed and descended again, but not near any of the surface cities or features. They descended into what looked like a volcano, but with plants growing on the inside of the crater as if it were dormant.

  Once the platform came down past the rim the Zak’de’ron could see the numerous holes in the surrounding walls, and Bi’noen knew this had to be a Neofan settlement, for they were said to be cave dwellers and not liking the direct sunlight. When the platform tracked across the trees below and slid into one of the openings, they finally were able to see multiple Neofan moving around in the nude, though they had no visibl
e genitalia. Just pale bodies with spindly wings that were not capable of flight arching off their upper backs.

  The Zak’de’ron were equally nude, save for the jewelry they wore, but they had hard scales for natural protection, yet these Neofan did not, and they did not seem to care about the presence of the much larger dragons. Were they really that powerful to not even register the Zak’de’ron as a potential threat?

  The drone detached from the platform and indicated that they should continue to follow it, and the trio did as they moved deeper and deeper into the Neofan catacombs before arriving in a large chamber that still required them to duck a bit, for if they stood tall with their necks raised they were a good three times the height of the Neofan.

  Inside that chamber there were 6 of the superior race, each of which wore bits and pieces of golden armor, but most of their bodies were still showing their soft and vulnerable skin.

  “Welcome, Zak’de’ron,” one of the 6 said, raising both hands in a friendly gesture. “We are always glad to add a worthy race to the Bond of Resistance, and though your history is long and fraught with pain, you have survived where many others have not against the Hadarak. You have risen to a level of killing their larger monstrosities, and have broken the barrier to explore the mysteries of Essence. You have earned your place amongst us, so do not mistake my next words as insulting, but you must understand how inferior you are amongst us if we are to properly train you in what you need to learn.”

  “We have come with open minds,” Bi’noen said flatly.

  “It is not your minds that need to open,” another Neofan said. “But your Cores.”

  Suddenly the wings on three of the Neofan flexed out into rigidity and Bi’noen lost all control of himself. His self-restraint was gone and his emotions ran wild, as if he was a hatchling again, stumbling in place as he fought to remain standing. His mind was awash in a torrent he could not fathom, let alone stand against, and by the end of it he was left blinking as he looked down at his front legs as if seeing them anew for the first time, while still possessing all memories of the past that should have made the view exceedingly normal.

  “What have you done?” he asked, looking down slightly into the faces of the Neofan.

  “We removed the dust that has accumulated on your Core. Essence is meant to flow, and when it does not in sufficiency a form of stagnation occurs that blinds the mind into rigidity as an unnatural barrier forms between the two, insulating one from another. We have washed those barriers away so you can see clearly once again, as you did when your lives first began.”

  “What…are we to do here?” he said, having a hard time concentrating as all his senses seemed to be screaming at him in a volume he had been deaf to before.

  “You are to open yourselves to the infinite possibilities of the universe, and once you put aside all preconceived notions of superiority, you can begin the long process of gaining true power. Power you will need to survive, and to help other members of the Bond of Resistance to survive. Our survival is linked, and together we will persist in the shadow of the Hadarak menace that seeks to consume all it touches. Only its fear of the Pafdreng keeps it from totally consuming galaxies, and in the gaps we operate until we can find the critical weaknesses to exploit. Those weaknesses center around Essence, and how the Hadarak do not truly know how to use it. We do, and we will show you, but we will also show you how to truly fight as a team. For without each other, none in the Bond of Resistance would have survived to reach today. We are our only hope, and it is time you learned what it is you are joining, and what we are truly up against…”

  7

  March 17, 154929

  Shangri-La System (Zavrex Kingdom)

  Titon

  Lord Daegan already oversaw millions of worlds in the Zavrex Kingdom, and had become accustomed to the immense responsibility that he held while knowing that most of the work was not done by him, but by others more local to the systems and planets. His job was to ‘oversee’ them, and that word was not self-explanatory. It was very complicated, and rather than some system or routine that could be predictable, oversight was more about dealing with the unexpected and predicting problems before they occurred.

  What he did nobody else knew about. The things he monitored, the orders he gave…most were not public, rather directed to the specific individuals who needed to hear them, and almost every time it happened they were shocked that the Lord of the Kingdom even knew they existed, let alone knew the details of what they were working on.

  Daegan had been proud of rising to the very rare position of Monarch Lord, and while his job was technically impossible…for he couldn’t monitor even a fraction of what he needed to…he had maintained a good hold on their territory while always aware that he could be doing better. Star Force populations were well trained to do their jobs, but there were always ways to make improvements or adjustments, and finding those that others could not find was his responsibility.

  Every second of every day he was at work, whether behind an array of holograms or in conferences with specialists. Personally investigating rarities or rifling through intelligence reports from remote areas where Star Force had no official presence. Even when he ‘relaxed’ or trained, his mind was still elsewhere, thinking about the puzzles he was working on constantly, meaning he never had a day off, nor a minute. He was Lord not just in title, but in fact, and no matter where he went his work went with him.

  The Protovic’s blue/yellow skin glowed almost as bright as the holograms he was studying now, and was a testament to how far he had progressed within the Protovic faction as far as his individual skills. Blue/orange and blue/green where the two higher skill levels that he had never achieved, for they took an immense amount of training and focus above and beyond what he had had to go through to achieve the first rank above ‘final form,’ which for a Protovic was when they received their final psionics and achieved their pink coloration.

  Daegan’s yellow indicated that he had risen above that, and few Protovic did, but his not having reached for orange had always bothered him. He hadn’t made a mistake, but being a Monarch required so much time and effort in other matters that physical training had to be limited to only a few hours a day, and that wasn’t enough for him to develop his physical skills to the level needed for another color upgrade.

  There were no genetic modifications for Monarch ranks, and no other race in Star Force had applicable body transformations for such promotions. The Protovic were unique in their nearly full body glow, and wearing your status rank in your light made it clear within their Faction of who outranked who…but Daegan had gone far past his own Faction. He was Lord of the entire Zavrex Kingdom and all the races and Factions within it. Only other Lords could comprehend how large a job he had, and the never-ending nature of it.

  But in recent weeks he’d had an epiphany as to what true power and responsibility were when Director Davis asked him to temporarily take over his duties for the entire Empire. He hadn’t relocated to Earth, but instead was running Star Force out of his command palace in Shangri-La with now full access to the Star Force data network. He’d thought he’d had full access before, but he was woefully wrong.

  The Director made him look like a youngling given the mass of projects and watch-lists he was monitoring. He didn’t know how the Human handled it, for he couldn’t. Not as fast, at least, and Daegan knew from the beginning he was in over his head, but his time as a Lord had partially prepared him for this. He knew how to handle it…he also knew there was too much for him to handle, so he was getting behind already as he scrambled to figure out what the Director had been doing and, more importantly, how he’d been doing it.

  He had notes…lots and lots of notes, and it looked like Davis had simply copied his own private records and given them to Daegan to work off of. The unfamiliarity there would diminish with time, but he now had a much greater respect…no…awe for the Director’s abilities. His mind was far superior to Daegan’s, in a way that the Prot
ovic had not even thought was possible.

  And he knew he was going to screw this up, though not by making mistakes. He was going to screw this up by not getting to everything fast enough, and according to the notes he was still trying to assimilate, Davis made it clear that even he wasn’t able to get to all of Star Force’s problems fast enough for his liking.

  But it wasn’t just problems. It was upgrades. Lots and lots of conceptual upgrades, a lot of which were junk and filed as such, but with useful aspects that might be of value later, so they were saved. And one of those junk files had caught Daegan’s eye when he found it in a link to an active file on Kaetaris 19.

  It was a large moon, unowned, in a system that Star Force only had a small outpost in for traffic monitoring purposes. On that moon there were odd deposits of minerals whose origin was unknown, some of which were highly valuable but delicate, and traditional mining operations would destroy them before they could be retrieved. Several nanite versions of mining tendrils had been tried, but all failed to some degree and had been shelved.

  He had a project in his Kingdom in need of delicate ore extractors, but he’d never seen these before…and that was because they were failed prototypes ordered by Davis himself. They hadn’t been shared because they hadn’t worked, or at least they weren’t included in the Star Force product ‘catalog.’ They may well have been accessible through other means, but Daegan had been looking for something to use on the ice moons of Regor’nath and two of these failed prototypes might just work on the ice, given that it was more applicable to mining than rock due to the fact that it could be micro-melted rather than removed through abrasion or magnetic locking…both of which disrupted adjacent molecules in a potentially destructive fashion if the material was delicate.

  Daegan copied the schematics then assigned one of Star Force’s special research teams to the task of adapting them to Regor’nath’s needs, confident that at least one would work. It wasn’t on Davis’s list of to-dos, but he’d made it clear during their brief transitional discussion that there was no limit to the Director’s duties and that everything fell under his jurisdiction. So he was encouraged to poke his nose in wherever he smelled trouble or potential upgrades.