Star Force: Capitulation (SF95) (Star Force Origin Series) Page 6

  To others that might have sounded cold, but it was the only way Star Force could function out here. There was too much misery and suffering, and if one got fixated on it it’d drive you insane. He’d had several discussions with Greg on that matter and the Archon agreed, with both of them closely monitoring their people to know how far they could push them before they snapped.

  But here on Orrpwer, at least, there was a forming island of tranquility. It wasn’t fully rebuilt yet and would still be another few centuries of ‘make it up as you go’ work in order to assist other systems with exports as much as possible. They didn’t have the luxury of tearing down and rebuilding everything here just yet, but Davis wouldn’t let offworld concerns block progress, knowing that it was important to not just keep people alive but also nudge them forward. When one escaped a bad situation they often became stagnant in the ‘good’ zone they found themselves in without realizing that they were still damaged and needed to press on. They mistakenly thought that wanting more was ingratitude, and it was important that Davis led by example, which was why key regions of the planet were constantly under demolition and reconstruction with proper Tolsoi-designed Star Force infrastructure rising like growths on the world.

  Davis had administrators running most of that, and those ‘growths’ would gradually expand to consume the planet in time, but it wasn’t important work for someone like him. It was essential, but Davis’s efforts had to be zoned in on troubleshooting beyond the Tolsoi, whether that be outside their borders or into their own future, for despite the progress they’d made most of them weren’t up to Star Force standards yet and there were far too few maturias for what the population required, meaning that a lot of younglings being born were having to grow up the old school way.

  That annoyed Davis to no end, but he didn’t have a choice. Pouring all his resources into maturia construction would have been a huge mistake. It would have aided the Tolsoi greatly, but have left so many others in jeopardy that only someone willing to sacrifice them while playing a long term game would pursue that path, and Davis never would.

  As for the Tolsoi themselves, they were smart and loyal and didn’t argue with his orders. After bringing them back from the brink of destruction he’d earned their trust and effort, with them doing more work than required because they believed in the righteousness of what they were doing. That was something you couldn’t get from slaves or employees. It had to come from people wanting to engage, needing to engage in the fight against the darkness that was choking the Rim Region, and both the Tolsoi and others saw Star Force, and especially Davis, as the torchbearer for that while everyone else was pretty much in ‘cover your ass’ or ‘every man for yourself’ mode.

  As he ran, zigzagging across the small city but staying amongst the Star Force built structures, he passed by many people without noticing them, his thoughts elsewhere, but most of them noticed him. He wasn’t wearing armor and his face was Human, which was rare on the planet, but Davis’s was the most well-known amongst the Tolsoi, even more so than Greg’s given that he was almost always off planet. And while some of the Tolsoi had gotten used to having the Humans around and let him pass by without staring, most stood frozen as he passed or gibbered at each other pointing excitedly.

  Davis had gotten used to that long ago and tuned it out as well, but one thing that got picked up on his mental radar was a body heading towards him. He started to veer out of the way slightly, as was common when people didn’t see him coming, but this one picked up speed and tracked after him. When he turned to look with his eyes he saw one of the Tolsoi diving towards him with a weapon.

  Caught partially off guard, all Davis could do was get a hand up on the shorter, but jumping monkey as he spun away. The two rotated opposite each other, and in that split second Davis got the advantage and latched on, spinning him around an extra turn and throwing him into the nearest wall as the Human stumbled to catch his footing.

  With a grace native to their race, the Tolsoi bounced off the wall, hit the ground, then came jumping back up at him…at which point a single side handed punch caught the monkey in the face and sent him to the ground stunned. His weapon fell out of his hand and clattered on the ground a moment before flying up into Davis’s. He looked at it, seeing that it wasn’t unusual other than the fact that the knife had been sharpened to a very high degree. Too sharp, in fact.

  His nose picked up an odd scent and he realized it was coming from a thin sheen on the blade as the Tolsoi started to clear his head. Davis kicked him back over against the wall then walked up and put a foot on his back, smashing him to the ground as he used his telepathy to search his thoughts. It took him a while to dig out what he needed, but the surface thoughts weren’t hard to follow. When he finished he had Tolsoi in Star Force security uniforms standing behind him waiting along with a large crowd of assorted personnel and passersby.

  “An assassin,” Davis said loudly enough all nearby could hear. “Hired to kill whatever Humans he could get to with a poisoned blade. His contact is on the planet,” he said, taking a step back and pointing to the wriggling Tolsoi that tried to run when released, but the others were even faster and had him face planted again within seconds, then hauled up in a choke hold to get him moving while others cleared the street ahead.

  “Are you injured?” one of them asked Davis.

  “Almost. Have there been other attacks on Star Force personnel, Human or Tolsoi?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Neither was I. Put out an alert and get this one to an Archon with a higher telepathy rating than I have.”

  “May I?” another one asked, pointing to the knife that Davis carefully passed over to him. “This isn’t local. The shape is right, but the materials are different.”

  “Infiltrators?” another one asked.

  “He was hired,” Davis added. “And they were Tolsoi.”

  “Traitors…”

  “I’ll get this analyzed?”

  “Go ahead,” Davis said. “I’ve got a run to finish.”

  The security forces didn’t say anything else, breaking up and going their separate ways as they knew the idea of their protecting an Archon was laughable. Even though Davis was the head of the entire Star Force empire he was also a ranger and could take care of himself.

  That said, the dirty little monkey almost was able to stab him. Even if he had the poison…well, he didn’t know what it was yet, but whoever arranged this obviously had no knowledge of a regenerator. Even if it killed Davis, he’d be back in the land of the living within minutes, and there were so many medical personnel around here that it was all around stupid to try an assassination short of blowing someone up.

  But Star Force’s enemies didn’t know a lot of about them, meaning they thought this was probably a good idea. Send a lone disposable hire in to stupidly attack a Human, hoping to kill them with the poison so long as one good thrust was registered…with a sharpened blade to make sure it dug in deep.

  Davis turned and started running again, keeping his Pefbar on just in case a second try was made, but this was his city on his planet in his empire and he was an Archon…he wasn’t going to not finish his workout.

  But there were Human techs here less able to defend themselves and he was sure this Tolsoi hadn’t been targeting him specifically. If you wanted to find Humans this was the place to be and there weren’t any major security checkpoints set up to keep people out. The Tolsoi had been so supportive since Star Force got here there had never been a problem. That didn’t mean security forces weren’t deployed all over, but people who didn’t work in this city were still able to pass through and look around.

  He wasn’t going to change that, but he was going to get to the bottom of this even if there wasn’t a trail to follow back. Whoever did this hiring should have covered their tracks if they had even heard the vaguest of rumors concerning Humans’ ability to read minds, he just didn’t know how careful they’d gotten. Never the less, there were other ways
of finding people who didn’t belong here, even if they were hiding amongst the non-converted populations on the most secured planet in the Rim Region.

  As he ran he considered what that meant. Were they just trying to hit the most easily accessible Humans or were they trying to dent Star Force’s ego by striking here? He didn’t know and the assassin most certainly didn’t either, for he was just a crazed dupe recruited as a tool who didn’t realize as much. He thought he’d actually get away even if he managed to kill Davis, though the stupidity of that showed that he wasn’t from around here, otherwise he would have known where the security stations were and have seen the roaming patrols. There was nowhere to run to that the cameras covering the streets couldn’t follow, and he was sure that was public knowledge by now.

  Davis mentally sighed. He’d assign the appropriate people to follow up on this but there wasn’t anything else for him to do. Any deviation from his routine could mean a planet or two got wasted, and there was no way he was going to let himself get distracted. If there was a larger plan in play here that was uncovered he’d deal with it, but right now he had limited resources to divvy up and not enough winning solutions in play…which meant he had to create more, and the only way he could do that was by working the various problems and leaving everything else to his subordinates.

  Train, eat, work, and sleep…often with number 3 overlapping with 1 and 2, and that was the way things were going to stay until the Rim Region was out of danger and he had enough fleets and resources to rescue all those who needed it. Davis knew that meant centuries more, if not another millennia, but as the ADZ and especially the occupation zone grew they’d be importing more support and his job would get easier, though no less frantic. He literally held the fate of billions in his spare time, which was why he could afford none. He wasn’t going to leave anyone hanging while he played videogames or…did whatever normal people did. Odd how he’d forgotten already after only a century.

  “Nice try bastards,” he whispered as he turned another corner and weaved through a group of civilian Tolsoi, then kept clear of the feet of a passing construction mech by cutting across to the other side, “but I’m not that easy to kill…or distract.”

  7

  March 29, 3546

  Jec System (Rim Region/Zargor territory)

  Nwox

  Brad was the last man off the fourth world that the Protovic had just finished raiding, flying up into orbit onboard a dropship at the tail end of a scattered line of others returning to the jumpships with the ground troops. Below them were columns of smoke rising from numerous locations on the planet marking the facilities that had been destroyed…all of which had been used to facilitate the Zargor war campaigns, but they wouldn’t be aiding any raiding fleet soon, nor building others. Every shipyard and factory that supplied them had been wrecked while leaving the rest of the planets intact, and now it was time to leave.

  Star Force didn’t have the resources to deal with a captured population out here, so this was the best option. Yes, the Zargor would remain in possession of this system but they’d have to rebuild all their cool toys and that would take time…all the while knowing that Brad’s Protovic could return at any point to take them out again. In some ways leaving the system in their possession was a psychological advantage, for if it had been taken from them it could be a rallying cry for vengeance. Now it stood as a testament to the Zargor’s inability to stop Star Force, and that sentiment could be hammered in as many times as necessary if and when they started to rebuild.

  When Brad returned to his command ship he had the fleet begin recovering their deployed drone warships and lining up to make the microjump back to the star as he sent the Zargor a final message detailing his intention to return and destroy the various defensive and offensive installations if they were rebuilt, but bothered to mention that if they just turned their efforts to sustaining their current population they’d be left alone.

  He doubted the arrogant bastards would listen, but the trailblazer was going to make it clear what was going down. They weren’t here to murder all Zargor in the system, but rather to clip their ability to fight and conquer other worlds…and there were four planets full of witnesses to testify to what had happened, though those four were seeing significantly reduced populations given how many citizens had come out to fight and die along with the soldiers. Hopefully those that remained were a touch wiser, for even with all the deaths, the Zargor had too many people and not enough resources to feed them all given the destruction caused, for Brad had made certain to evacuate and destroy the meat production facilities on the planet.

  And now packed into the Star Force jumpships were the herds that they’d rescued, some of which had already been moved out of the system to a sanctuary hastily established. Fortunately this system only used the meat production as a supplementary food supply and Brad’s fleet was large enough to move the various races away without having to call in additional help, but it was also fortunate because the Zargor weren’t denied their only source of foodstuffs. They had grain production, but not enough. They’d have to go on reduced rations while building up that resource, but if they chose to instead rebuild their planetary defense shields and weapons batteries then that was on them if people starved to death.

  Brad had left their honorable food production facilities intact, along with their power stations, insystem communications, etc, so there wasn’t a great amount of damage to the planets. It just hurt where it was supposed to…the war effort and their ego.

  With the Protovic’s job done, his fleet jumped out from the star and left the system behind enroute to the sanctuary world to deposit the rest of the rescues, and then after that back to the nearest Star Force base large enough to resupply his fleet for their next attack against Zargor territory.

  17 months later…

  A Vedran stood on its rail perch looking at the Star Force hologram of the system as ships came and went. This outpost was the only construction within this system built by the new masters, and they were lucky to have it. It wasn’t more than a defensive overwatch station but it had sensors far superior to what the Vedran had. It was able to monitor traffic and stay out of sight itself while having the capability to send signals from system to system, keeping the single world here connected with the others far faster than the Vedran relays could.

  The defense forces here were all Vedran as well, but not a single individual had come from the maturia that were training the next Vedran…those that were pure Star Force. This system was small and unimportant and there hadn’t been any construction here save for the outpost, and it stood as a reminder that while the major worlds were being reworked and heavily defended by Star Force, they hadn’t forgotten about Mecbio.

  As the Vedran monitored the incoming traffic he suddenly realized someone else hadn’t forgotten about them either, for there was a large convoy coming out of a jump in very near to the star. It didn’t take long for the Star Force sensors to pick out ship silhouettes and match them to Zargor ships, but the sheer number of them was staggering. Far too many for what would have been needed to conquer Mecbio and at first the avian thought they might be passing through enroute to Jaagron, but their transit around the star was limited to getting over to the planetary jumpline.

  They gathered there then began microjumping en mass headed for a world that was totally unable to defend itself against a force even a tenth that size…but as the outpost watched from afar the Zargor ships entered orbit and just sat there. No combat broke out and eventually a message was sent from Mecbio to the outpost for them to send on to Star Force.

  The Zargor wanted to talk, and they wanted to talk here.

  9 weeks later…

  The Excalibur entered orbit around Mecbio alone, no support fleet, no drones, not even a Ma’kri with it. It coasted in towards a fleet of 3209 Zargor ships totally outmatched…yet with the confidence that it could come and go as it pleased. The Zargor ships had no technology to pin it in place, and with the combinati
on of advanced shields and engines the only way they could defeat it was if Paul stood his command ship in one place and slugged it out. That would be a sure loss, but even an Archon adept wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake, let alone ‘The Admiral.’

  So he just strolled into the system and sent a quick message to the pitifully small Vedran defense fleet sitting in a much lower orbit telling them to stay away and if combat occurred to run like hell, for standing and fighting wouldn’t accomplish anything, and if they didn’t have orders to the contrary they would follow existing ones and die uselessly. The standing orders had come from Paul, but ‘defending the system’ was something too complex to be able to be written out specifically, movement for movement.

  Tell the Vedran to run away when outmatched and they’d turn tail when the enemy had one more ship, or even one more weapon. Using strategy and tactics to outmatch your opponent was something that was beyond them, so they were told to fight until they received a certain amount of damage to their ships, then to withdraw from combat. Problem was, against a fleet this size, they’d be blown up before they could retreat after that line was passed so Paul just told them flat out to run in order to avoid stupid adherence to protocol. Had these been maturia trained Vedran it wouldn’t be an issue, but there were too many worlds that had yet to be indoctrinated and this was one of them.

  Paul stood in the command nexus when the Zargor soon made contact. The image of a trio of wolf-like heads and torsos appeared before him in holo with computer translation lagging slightly behind the native spoken words that were significantly reduced in volume to avoid overlap problems.

  “Archon,” the Zargor greeted with obvious animosity but a note of forced respect, a sign that he didn’t want to be talking. “We have come to discuss the terms of a ceasefire.”