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  The amount of foodstuffs her ship was loading up was sufficient to feed a population of 5 billion Humans for a full year if stretched, though they weren’t yet processed. Each of the cargo cubes being brought aboard contained pure grain, most of which had been crushed in order to diminish the wasted airspace between kernels. The inventory for this shipment had 37 different types of grain, with the bulk being wheat, corn, and kepper…the latter of which was a Star Force favorite that didn’t originate on Earth.

  Where exactly her shipment would end up Sorvela didn’t know, but she did know that Star Force fed more than just Humans, Calavari, and Kiritas. Before she’d joined the naval division, Erica had worked as a ‘herder’ on one of Star Force’s biological preserves, which they referred to as a ‘sanctuary.’ They weren’t accessible to the public, and because of that most people didn’t know they existed, but Star Force had thousands of them spread across its territory, most of which were in Sol.

  Each sanctuary was a location where less intelligent races were contained and cared for, given that Star Force didn’t allow for individual ownership of ‘pets.’ There were sanctuaries for dogs, cats, horses, cows, birds, squirrels, and almost every other ‘animal’ that used to either be owned as pets, used as food, or lived in the wild. Star Force principle held that you didn’t stomp out one race in favor of another, nor did you let one starve to death. Survival of the fittest was not a philosophy Star Force looked kindly on, so they’d established the sanctuaries as places they could send ‘refugees’ whenever they encountered them.

  Those refugees required foodstuffs as well, but fortunately Star force was smart about how many mouths they had to feed. Population control was in effect in the sanctuaries, but not in any surgical or damaging way…they simply kept the males separate from the females, and in doing so could control how many offspring were produced, more or less. The purpose of the sanctuaries was to preserve, learn about, and uplift the lesser races…which Sorvela had been involved heavily with on the communication front.

  She’d been a dog person from the get go, having grown up in the United States were pets were still permissible. When she learned that Star Force accepted, and in fact wanted, any strays picked up or dogs that people had abandoned for whatever reason, she’d sought out employment with them…only to learn that the dogs in the sanctuaries were not like the ones she’d owned as a child. These could actually speak.

  Not English, but Star Force had created a rudimentary language to use with them that had a decent sized vocabulary. Even the refugee dogs being brought in picked up some of it, just by being around the others that had been born and trained in the sanctuary. And when she said training she meant Star Force training, meaning the dogs were going through daily workouts and drills as if they were people.

  In the beginning she thought Star Force was overdoing it, giving them more credibility than they deserved…until one day when one of the dogs she was working with grabbed the cuff of her pants in its teeth and pulled her back from a tree as she started to sit down next to it. The dog had pulled so hard she fell down, then it let go, walked around her and looked her in the eye…then spoke the dog word for ‘danger’ and pointed with its paw down into the grass.

  When she looked she saw some sharp bits of splintered wood in the grass. That had been her moment of epiphany, with it finally clicking in her mind what Star Force had been telling the public for ages. Different races were at different levels of ability, but all were people. It was then that she’d been able to look the dog in the eyes and see a person there…not a Human, but a person, after which her outlook on society changed drastically.

  The ‘animals’ she’d once thought were property and, to be honest, expendable, were people like her who needed things…and the idea of just turning them loose in the wild suddenly didn’t seem so fitting when she imagined it being done to her. How long would she last in the wilderness if she had to fend for herself? What would she eat? What would she wear? Where would she live?

  The natural wilderness that had seemed so tranquil and pristine before now looked to her like a nightmare, and she suddenly understood why Star Force had created the sanctuaries. It was to defy the chaos of nature and utterly destroy the concept of the food chain, for all the foodstuffs that both the Humans and the other races ate came from plants and chemical synthesis. No meat was required, for it meant that you had to kill one person to feed another, and that was totally reprehensible within Star Force philosophy.

  Realizing just how much her dog herds, and by extension her Human herds, relied on foodstuffs being produced by Star Force, she eventually changed vocations and ventured into the supply chain, ultimately landing in naval cargo transfer. To rise to the rank of Captain she had to branch out into military applications, because Star Force knew, as she now did, that the cargo must flow and continue to flow else billions would suffer and/or die.

  Because of that simply fact Sorvela’s mundane cargo transfer responsibilities were among the most important within Star Force. It might be a simple thing to move cargo from one place to another, but it had to happen else tragedy would ensue. Her job was to make sure it didn’t, and it was a duty that she never took lightly, as well as being one that she took great pride and care in.

  Which was why she personally observed all of the loading, being directly on hand should a problem arise.

  “Captain,” a non-Human voice said from behind her.

  Sorvela turned around from the railing and looked down at the Kiritak staring up at her.

  “Yes.”

  “From Gerardi,” it said, holding up a datapad for her.

  “Thank you,” Erica said, taking the device. Only a third of her crew were Human, with the rest being made up of Kiritak, given how many jumpships were being pressed into service. Archon Randy had wanted Beta Region to be as self-sufficient as possible, and to avoid a major personnel drain on the rest of Star Force he had Kiritak manning as many posts related to their resource production colonies as possible, including the cargo transfer to and from.

  Fortunately the little buggers were loyal and hardworking, if a bit naïve…though that was probably due to their youth, for most of their race had yet to achieve self-sufficiency despite Star Force’s efforts to provide them with their own version of ambrosia as a boost. Still, every year that passed her Kiritak crewers grew more capable, and she figured she’d just gotten used to having experienced personnel around her, given that none of the young Humans just joining Star Force would be assigned to a starship, no matter what its class.

  The days of 20 years olds ruling the world was gone. Now if you weren’t at least 100 you were still considered to be ‘green’ unless your skill level merited otherwise.

  The Kiritak crewer hopped off while Erica opened the file on the datapad and saw the inventory list that her Chief Mechanic had compiled upon her request. It wasn’t overly long, but contained 48 types of items and the quantity of which he needed to fully restock the ship’s spare parts stores. Sorvela wanted to get that taken care of before they left the planet, and had put Gerardi through a hurry up assessment of all ship’s systems and replacing worn, if not yet broken, components.

  She ran an eye down through the list, seeing most of it was standard equipment with a few exceptions…but nothing that the Kiritak colony depot wouldn’t have on hand. Her jumpship didn’t carry a fleet of its own dropships in order to maximize hangar/cargo space, relying on the local planetary fleets to handle all loading/offloading, but there was one small bay reserved specifically for transit use that contained several ships that belonged to the jumpship. Guessing they would be sufficient to handle the supplies she needed, Sorvela activated her comm earpiece and got her crew moving, arranging for the pilots to head down to the planet in three Falcon-class dropships while she directly contacted the Kiritak colony, all while continuing to oversee the grain loading.

  It took another 7 days before the jumpship was full up, during which Sorvela got the spare parts she needed aboard
, cataloged, and stocked in the appropriate places. With all final checks made on the cargo she ordered the bay doors shut and hard locked, then the very heavy jumpship eased up out of planetary orbit on its gravity drives, bypassing the hundreds of orbital facilities, many of which were still under construction, and getting to a clear jumpline out to the star, from which Sorvela ordered a microjump starting them on the first leg of their trip all the way back to the Core Systems.

  When the jumpship decelerated against the star, it had to reposition around the perimeter to find the exiting jumpline, and while working through that navigational delay the ship’s sensors picked up a fleet coming in on a different jumpline. That wasn’t uncommon, for a lot of jumpships operated in convoys, but as she observed the system map update as the newcomers slowed to speeds where the system tracking network could identify them, she noted with a bit of apprehension that they weren’t Human nor Kiritas ships…nor were they from the Alliance.

  “Who are they?” she asked her bridge crew, staring at the holographic map and wondering if she wasn’t going to have to order an emergency microjump elsewhere in the system, but she didn’t let her crew in on those thoughts.

  It took a few moments for the crew to pull up a match from the ship’s database, due in part to the fact that only a few of the incoming ships matched a profile they had on file, but eventually they found her their answer.

  “Mssot,” one of the crew relayed to her along with the racial profile, which was sent to her command chair’s built-in screen.

  Sorvela chewed on the inside of her lip as she watched more ships coming into the system on a wide stagger, with 7 already present and descending closer to the star to make way for the others in order to avoid a collision.

  “Are they in our way?”

  The navigation officer shook his head in the negative.

  “Remain on course,” she ordered, thumbing through their file. They were a race that had little contact with Star Force, but were an associate of the Calavari with their territory sitting within the larger empire, though with the 3D placement of star systems and the immense voids between them, ‘within’ was really a misnomer. Even Star Force had other races ‘within’ its territory in Beta Region, given the cherry-picking of worlds that had taken place.

  The diplomatic file read that the Mssot had 3 systems under their control, but they were located multiple jumps away, near to the Nestafar ‘border,’ which meant their presence all the way out in Beta Region was as unusual as Sorvela had though it to be.

  She wanted to open a comm channel and ask what they were doing here, though it wasn’t uncommon to have ships passing through Star Force territory enroute to other locations, but she knew others would be handling the inquiry and it wouldn’t do much good to have multiple Star Force personnel contacting the Mssot all at once.

  No warning flags arose from system command as her jumpship reached its jumpline, nor was there any news about the Mssot, whose total fleet count rounded out at 22, so despite her curiosity Erica left it alone and ordered the system exit jump after she confirmed with navigation that there were no incoming ship pings on that line.

  In the blink of an eye the grain hauler accelerated its extreme mass, red-shifting the camera views behind until they went totally black, as did the aft sensors. Relying on memory coupled with gravitational effects, the system map updated as the jumpship accelerated through the inner, middle, and high zones, eventually cutting its drives somewhere in the outer zone on the edge of the system as the gravity from the star was waned. From there it coasted on its hundreds time lightspeed momentum, nudging aside from the jumpline using conventional thrust engines to ensure no mid jump collisions occurred, while broadcasting a signal ahead to warn others of their approach and position relative to the jumpline.

  Sorvela breathed a sigh of relief, now safely underway, and wondered if the Mssot were just passing through or if they had business to conduct with the Kiritak colony.

  7

  July 21, 2449

  Ghanis System

  Ettiana

  “Anything new?” Randy asked as Eric-9377 met him at the foot of the dropship. The trailblazer had just pulled a quick trip out from Kirit after getting the Archon’s message about the Mssot convoy showing up and asking for help and/or trade, given that they’d just fled the invasion of their territory by the Nestafar.

  “I’ve ordered a steady stream of foodstuffs and a touch of fuel distributed to them until you arrived. Their supplies are running low,” the lead Archon in charge of the Kiritak colony on Ettiana noted as the pair started walking out of the spaceport hangar and into the city, enroute to where the Mssot representative for their refugee fleet had been waiting for Randy’s arrival.

  “Good call.”

  “Yeah, well, I figured you didn’t want them to starve to death before you had a chance to talk with them. They’re not the easiest to understand, but they do speak the trade language. They do not know what happened to the world they fled, but they’re not expecting any survivors. They’re just glad to have gotten out when they did…now they’re nearly out of fuel and supplies after having been turned down by others. I almost granted them sanctuary on the spot, but figured you might get huffy if I went over your head.”

  “Only if you made a bad decision,” Randy said as they stepped out of the hangar and into a nearby elevator cab that descended them into the subsurface levels where they eventually would come to a tram station. “Have any more ships arrived?”

  “No, and they’re not expecting any more.”

  “Any battle recordings?”

  “The data is sketchy, but shows a small Nestafar fleet kicking the crap out of their defenses while the convoy ran. It looks like less than 10% of them made it out. The Nestafar were gunning the others down like it was target practice. The Mssot’s tech is low grade with add-ons they’ve purchased from other races, including their gravity drives. A good chunk of that is Calavari tech.”

  “Anything more on the relationship there?”

  “The Mssot operated their own defense fleet, but were augmented by a treaty with the Calavari. As busted up as they are now, the Mssot were left without support and the Nestafar pounced on them…and others, as far as rumors go. They think they were targeted specifically because of their link to the Calavari, though they admit to never having good relations with the buggers in the first place.”

  “What rumors?”

  “A lot of nastiness happening in the territories adjacent to the Nestafar/Calavari border. Extremely lawless, now that the two major players are fully occupied elsewhere. We’ve got no verifiable intel on file, but they say more than just the Nestafar are on the prowl, and given how few ships they hit the Mssot with I’m inclined to agree that they’re not the only culprits. My gut says Skarrons.”

  Randy cringed. “That’s what I was afraid of. Who else are the Mssot saying were hit?”

  “About 20 or so smaller races than them, most of which are one system civilizations that either had ties with the Nestafar or Calavari. The Mssot didn’t encounter any hostiles directly, but on their exodus out here they stopped in at a number of high population systems seeking aid and crossed paths with other refugees from the fighting, which is where the majority of the rumors are coming from. I’d guess that we’re going to have more coming knocking on the door before too long.”

  “Did you find out why they came here?” Randy asked as they claimed a tram car for themselves ahead of the Humans and Kiritak waiting in line and sped off through the city’s understructure.

  “Closest Star Force system they were aware of. The Critel advised them to come to us after they turned them down.”

  “Why am I not surprised,” Randy muttered. The Critel were a friendly, low military, high econ race with territory set below the Hycre and Calavari on the galactic plane, with their systems stretched widely apart from one another. One tendril of the lizard advance was headed in their general direction, but the Hycre had been battling it, and in d
oing so protecting a region that contained many races that were pinched between the Nestafar and lizards. The only ‘open’ area was Beta Region and further down on the galactic plane that eventually ended with the galactic barrier…a region Star Force had not yet been able to venture to, given its distance.

  The Critel were close to the lizards, close to the Nestafar, and were intermixed within the general area the Hycre marked as their territory, but they hadn’t been drawn into the fighting as of yet. They were regular customers at the Star Force interstellar exchanges, both buying and selling goods, as well as diplomatically hob knobbing around and boosting their rep as deal makers and information brokers.

  More often than not they’d referred new races to Star Force, most of which turned into advantageous business transactions, but from which the Critel gained influence for the introduction while Star Force did all the leg work. For that they were savvy diplomats, but Randy had gotten tired of them being eager to suggest solutions and extremely reluctant to take part in them, and he wasn’t surprised in the least to hear they’d denied the Mssot help then sent them Star Force’s way.

  “I’m surprised they came here,” Eric added. “Rotunna and Brenns are considerably closer.”

  Randy shook his head. “They’re newer, so the Critel might not have added them to their maps yet. Ettiana is well established, and with all the visitors you get coming to take a look at what we’re doing here it makes sense.”