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

  Which was probably why lizards in the past fought in pack tactics. Losing them was almost meaningless when you could spam produce more of them at will. Mathew knew Paul wasn’t going to go for anything like that, but where construction was concerned he almost wished there was a downloadable memory packet that Humans could use. It would save a lot of time if you could just plug in the knowledge, or perhaps even be born with it. Humans already had some genetic knowledge, such as knowing how to swallow or breath, but the lizards had taken it to a whole other level and given the usefulness of it being displayed here, he didn’t know why such a method wasn’t being used for other applications.

  And maybe that’s exactly what Paul was looking into, using these lizards for study in addition to the reclamation of this planet. When they finished here eventually the planet would have no structures on it whatsoever. Those built for the project would be removed and the system would stay empty until otherwise assigned a purpose. Where these lizards would go he didn’t know, and by the time they finished there were going to be millions of them here.

  Mathew passed through the residential buildings, flying over the heads of workers changing shifts, then turned to the east, passing over some empty regions that saw nothing but traffic and a few construction sites up to the bioharvest facilities. Unlike the original lizards, there was no meat production here nor were there any traditional lizard foods. Everything here was Star Force designed but produced with lizard tech. The food was edible by Humans and others but tailored specifically to the lizards. There was no ambrosia for them yet, but Mathew had a feeling it would be forthcoming if for no other reason than to see how the lizards’ work rate increased with it.

  The Archon landed on top of one of the buildings and found an entry hatch next to the landing pad where a few dropships were sitting while being loaded up with cargo crates. They weren’t Star Force dropships but a new design built by the lizards that was somewhere between a Kirby and a fat rock. They were not aerodynamic, but they did hold a lot of cargo and had decent armor and shields. For now they were being used to take the raw produce and haul it over to foodstuff production factories instead of utilizing a rail line or other permanent construction.

  Mathew had inquired about that and the administrators, of which there were several now, told him it was because the ‘droplets’ could be taken out of the system and used for other tasks both there and here, whereas a rail line would have to be destroyed along with the rest of the construction here. The less they had to deconstruct the better, and they’d been instructed to make as much of the infrastructure as they could mobile.

  That meant Paul had more plans for these guys than just this project. Maybe they’d be sent to another system to do the exact same thing, but Mathew had a suspicion that Paul was up to something far more ambitious.

  When the Archon went down inside the massive building he roamed the levels that had fields of plants growing inside sealed chambers. No one was allowed inside due to the altered atmospheres that prodded the plants to grow faster and larger than normal while also giving greater yields. Most of those in this building were either corn or jupitla, both of which were grain crops. The corn stalks were barely shoulder height on him, but each one had between 3 and 5 ears of corn on it, each of which was thick and long.

  Genetic modification of plants was an easy thing, and whereas corn crops used to be getting bigger and bigger before Star Force created the bioharvest facilities, they were now shorter so that they could stack more fields inside the same building, thought the jupitla was a far better fit, barely rising 18 inches in height and producing a series of beans on the ramrod straight stalks. Mathew passed by banks of fields, three of which were pancaked on top of each other and equal to his height.

  When he passed into another section of the facility he saw one set of jupitla fields being harvested. It was third down the stack with the upper two already being empty and pushed up near the ceiling on this level, with the ‘open’ one having its atmosphere still self-contained but the height of the clear chamber being increased enough for a harvester machine to move through it. The debris from the stalks was then sent out one tube-like shoot while the beans were sent to another.

  Mathew watched as the field was quickly harvested, then the machine was extracted through an airlock and the field height was diminished again. It was then elevated up with the others and the field below it grew its glass-like box in height as the harvester entered and began to repeat the process.

  Mathew followed the tubes into an adjacent facility where the grain was filtered to remove excess material and then deposited into the crates that were being shipped up to the rooftop to be loaded onto the droplets, whose name had come from directly from Paul. It fit, so he didn’t mind, but it was also a bit of a joke. The main point was to make the ships their own Saber version rather than using the old style Kirbies, and in that regard they had succeeded along with the rest of the lizard equipment and facilities here. All built by them but styled to fit Paul’s Clan without giving them any advanced tech.

  Then again there wasn’t a lot required here. Harvesting of grain plants was pretty basic stuff, and even the recycling process wasn’t overly complicated. Mathew walked through the area where the excess plant material was collected and a portion of it was harvested for additional uses beyond food, then the rest was sent to an incinerator where the resultant ash was sent to the teams prepping new fields. It’d be combined with the thin soil base along with other supplements to replace the material the crops had sucked out of it, then seeds would be added with planting machines and the atmosphere would be jacked up in pressure, CO2, and humidity creating an environment in which the plants thrived, along with as much light as they required, all produced internally so there was no reliance on natural sunlight.

  It was all standard tech that Star Force had been using for centuries, now modified to produce what the lizards needed, and as Mathew walked through the facility he got the feeling that it was both lizard and Star Force despite being around nothing but the aqua-colored infrastructure and the blue lizard workers.

  On his way back up to the roof he sensed a Human mind approaching, not expecting anyone else to be here. When he focused on it he knew it wasn’t anyone he was familiar with and for a moment thought it was Paul, but it didn’t feel quite like him. The individual made contact and gave him a ‘come to me’ thought, with Mathew redirecting towards the Human.

  When the two finally entered the same hallway Mathew was taken aback, seeing not Paul but another trailblazer.

  “Mathew,” Jason-025 said as if he’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t be, “what exactly is Paul up to here?”

  Paul was back in the Krachnika System by the time Jason’s command ship caught up to his, with his friend simply saying they needed to have a talk face to face. He expected it could be a number of things when he transferred over to the Sanguine Blade and met his best friend/twin in his personal quarters, oddly enough, instead of the hangar bay.

  Jason let the door close before he spoke, raising an eyebrow at him. “What the hell are you doing with the lizards?”

  Paul sighed. “Busted, huh?”

  “Blue Saber lizards working as a recycling team?”

  “Oh,” Paul said, cheering up slightly. “You haven’t found any of the good stuff then.”

  Jason did a doubletake, then couldn’t help but snicker a bit. “Alright, time to come clean. What are you up to?”

  “Working a new angle,” he said, jumping over an armrest and landing in a big comfy chair as Jason sat on the edge of his bed.

  “I thought we weren’t going to annex the lizards.”

  Paul raised a cautionary finger. “We’re not. Doing that would be a mistake, I think. Have you kept up on the Uriti reports?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Far more powerful when working together, as well as displaying a herd mentality that the Chixzon never bothered to discover.”

  “You think lizard individuali
ty is a bad thing?”

  “I think if we go individual first, like we have with every other race we’ve annexed, it’s going to be a detrimental factor.”

  “The Lacvamat,” Jason pointed out.

  Paul shook his head. “Still individual based in a group setting. What I’m working here is the idea of treating the group as an individual.”

  Jason readjusted his butt on the edge of the bed as his mind chewed on that. “Dog pack?”

  “That doesn’t even come close. This is something new, I think, and I’ve been working with Thrawn on modifying their genetic structure. The blue lizards you found are the experimental version we’ve developed for Clan Saber. There are others that he is working with.”

  “You’re letting them reproduce en mass again?”

  “Somewhat, but the focus is still on bringing in existing populations. I don’t want to just keep them as prisoners, and that’s what will happen if we don’t create a future for them. They can’t join Axius. Their temperament resists the individual nature of Star Force. I’m trying to modify the existing lizard civilization into something tolerable.”

  “While getting your own batch?”

  “They’re being useful.”

  “Obviously,” Jason said with a disbelieving smirk. “I saw your production stats. They’re working like Kiritas.”

  “Better, actually, when you factor in the reproduction rates. They’re growing the workers locally rather than shipping them in.”

  “No maturias?”

  “Nope. Skipping that entirely.”

  “Just for recycling and construction?”

  “We’re not working the combat angle,” Paul said, guessing as to his concern. “I’m not trusting them with our level of tech, just helping them modify what they’ve got now. And there’s no way I’m sending someone into combat underequipped.”

  “For a while I thought you were going to show them the ways of the Force, then send them past the border line to fight their kin.”

  “Thrawn would have liked that,” Paul admitted, “but he sees the bigger picture now.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “The V’kit’no’sat…and don’t give me that look. He can be trusted.”

  “Not to rat us out to the other lizards?” Jason said with an elevated voice, then he held up a hand in apology. “I know you’re not stupid, I’m just not up to speed. Please explain how this isn’t reckless.”

  “Sure…as soon as you let me in on your little project.”

  “Which one?” he scoffed.

  “The one I can’t seem to get any data on.”

  Jason smiled. “Fair enough. I was going to let you know anyway once I got a good prototype. Been using the Uriti files to try and modify the star forge tech for a number of applications. I’m pretty sure they get stronger inside a star and that the V’kit’no’sat chased some Hadarak inside one. The files don’t say that, but I think that’s why they know they can’t go there. I think they got their asses kicked because of a combination of speed limitations and enhanced abilities due to either the energy or the gravity.”

  “And you’re using this speculation to do what?”

  “For starters, making a very hot Hoth.”

  7

  Paul’s eyes widened. “And you accused me of being reckless.”

  Jason held up a hand. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds.”

  “It’s a star. You go in it, it kills you.”

  “Not if you’re a Uriti. We just have to figure out how to mimic their biology.”

  “Alright,” Paul said, crossing his hands over his chest as he lounged in the big chair. “Impress me.”

  “Where better to hide something than a star? Say you have a keepsake, a big bucket of credits, some experimental tech…whatever. Put it in a pod and lower it into a star. You lose most sensor contact with it unless there is a tether link, like the shield columns the star forges use. They maintain communications and what not while whatever you have down there isn’t visible to the outside world. If you want to build a badass warship without anyone seeing it, why not construct it inside a star?”

  “You’re bouncing around a bit.”

  “You liked that idea though.”

  “It’s still crazy.”

  “Not if we can get the shielding set up properly. The Uriti both absorb and reflect the radiation, while the pressure and gravity feed them…that’s my theory anyway, and it’s based on a lot of speculation, but for our needs we don’t even need to know for sure. We simply have to build a bottle that can survive inside a star and feed off the energy to sustain itself.”

  “The fishing line kind of gives away whatever you’re hiding.”

  “Unless you cut the line. Communications go out both ways, no sensors, no nothing. Like an old school submarine only without the sonar. You poke your head out and someone could be waiting to chop it off, but they can’t come in after you.”

  “Depth charges?”

  “If you’re shallow sure, but that’s easy enough to work around. The trick is using a clock. Tell whoever is down there, or even if it’s purely automation, to rise back to the surface at a specific time and date…”

  “…and pick up your bottle of goodies,” Paul finished. “And if we sensor stealth it right, even V’kit’no’sat sensors won’t be able to pick it up in that maelstrom. Dangerous, but potentially useful so long as a glitch doesn’t get you all fried.”

  “There’s more. How about using relay buoys to do the matter sorting of a star forge then transmitting the useful stuff via slingshot out to a higher central facility.”

  “Thought of that. There’s no point when the star forge can put out multiple tendrils simultaneously.”

  “I’m thinking of something a lot lower, something that can essentially hide in the upper levels of a star and peek out into orbit, throwing material to a collection station or…” Jason said, letting that possibility hang in the air.

  Paul’s eyebrows raised. “A fire hose.”

  “It’d be tough to aim at a target, but I think it might have a chance against a Uriti or any ship dumb enough to stand their ground nearby.”

  The Saber leader frowned. “Uriti bathe in stars, how is throwing a little of that water on them going to hurt them?”

  “Not from the energy in the matter, but from the matter itself. Like a sandblaster railgun. If we can accelerate it to sufficient levels I think it would damage them. They may have pressure to deal with in a star, but they don’t have collisions with material anywhere near railgun speed.”

  “I wouldn’t put any credits on that. Besides, we already know how to kill them if we have to.”

  “Won’t work on the Hadarak, but that’s not my main point. Think fire hose again, sitting just inside the star and able to send a solar flare-caliber shot of star stuff out at any target within range. Not very useful to go hunting with, but if you need a strong point to retreat to, the surrounding stellar haze is going to act as very effective shielding.”

  “And?”

  “And,” Jason continued, “what if the fire hose becomes a squirt gun? A mobile squirt gun.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Think it through.”

  Paul did just that, using his Sav-enhanced mind with all its tactical experience to sort out whether this was a good idea or bad.

  “Fireflies,” he finally said, giving it a partial stamp of approval. “Limited use, but very effective in select mission profiles. Not sure about the mining aspects though.”

  “Lower altitude allows for deeper penetration.”

  Paul looked at him quizzically. “How many have you built?”

  “36…with two collection stations.”

  “And?”

  “The ability to reposition the drone collectors to various locations is allowing for hot spot hunting. Collection numbers are somewhere in the 300% to 1200% range.”

  Paul whistled.

  “You want one, I know,” Jason said with a smile. “Now, back to
your project. Be forthcoming and I’ll share.”

  “Ask.”

  “What’s your endgame?”

  “For the independents…to give them a purpose and a new identity without incorporating them into the empire. For the Saber lizards…to turn their pack mentality away from barbarism and into a useful tool.”

  “People aren’t tools.”

  “Voluntary tools. With the option to opt out of the unit structure whenever they wish.”

  “Ring the bell?”

  “Something like that. The ones I’ve got now live to serve the Clan and the dissenters aren’t being overlooked or killed anymore. Those I’m funneling out into other programs, but eventually they’ll have a path to full freedom.”

  “Into Star Force?”

  “Are we going to turn away one now?”

  Jason chewed on his lip as he thought. “It’s never occurred to me that one would come asking for asylum.”

  “And for good reason. But are we ever going to turn away someone simply because of their race?”

  “If they’re legit, no. These guys can’t reproduce on their own either, so there wouldn’t be a need for lizard maturias in Axius.”

  “I plan to keep them in Saber if at all possible, but as you said, they’re people, not tools, but if they feel more comfortable playing the role of a tool where they don’t have to think, only obey, I can use that focus to our advantage.”

  “Like how?”

  “Non-combat applications for now. Instead of assigning an individual to a mission I can assign a team of lizards, whether it be recycling, construction, mining, fabrication…whatever. The unit is an individual quantity and the people in it are parts, not a whole. With anyone else it would probably be limiting, but the lizards seem to thrive in that kind of environment.”

  “And you want your Clan to end up like that?”

  “An addition to the rest, but yes.”