Star Force Perseverance (SF81) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  into lizard territory were Bsidd.

  Humans had become the shock troops, going where the

  fighting was the toughest, but the Bsidd now made up the majority of Star

  Force’s overall combat troops. Morgan didn’t begrudge them that status…she just

  wanted the Ninja Monkeys to rise enough to even be in the discussion. Right now

  their role was small, guarding a bit of the coreward border and doing their own

  thing while hundreds of other agendas and missions were taking place across

  Star Force territory. There were 99 other Clans out there, not to mention

  dozens of factions larger than her personal holdings on the starmap.

  But she’d put her people up against any others head to

  head with equal numbers…that went for her combat troops down to her techs. Her

  Clan had no civilian population. Everyone here was working on something to

  better the Clan overall and that environment wasn’t unique to the Ninja

  Monkeys, but it was the strongest here. Many people had stated in various

  public records that they’d worked their asses off to qualify for Clan

  membership with the intent on coming here because they were sick of the

  ‘civilian’ atmosphere within the rest of Star Force and they wanted to be part

  of a united community. They wanted to be part of a team with a purpose.

  And no Clan had a more obvious purpose than Morgan’s

  Clan.

  Maybe Davis had seen something in Yivati that had

  warranted his inclusion here, but Morgan could vouch that Falconi had not been

  twiddling his thumbs bored and needing a greater challenge. In fact the system

  Davis had assigned him, while being larger and far older than Tor, was not as

  taxing a position as Ninja Monkey Marquis had been. He’d told Morgan that

  himself after the fact, making them both wonder why Davis had made the change.

  He’d helped her build this new chapter in her Clan’s

  history, and she missed his expertise badly right now. Yivati was not an

  adequate replacement at the moment. Not even close.

  But at the end of the day this was her Clan and was

  run her way. People moving in and out wasn’t uncommon in the Clans, though it

  was a bit odd at the higher ranks. That had changed once the new mandate had

  come out, with a lot of people spending time in the ‘pressure cookers’ to test

  and develop their higher end skills before transitioning back into Mainline or

  Axius to a more normal posting.

  Axius…that was another faction that Morgan was envious

  of. Their integrated racial units were something that she’d been studying for a

  long time, stealing what ideas she could in her military and civilian

  alignments. Culture wasn’t an issue here, for all Ninja Monkeys ended up with

  the same one given time. No, it was a matter of biologically fitting races

  together into the most efficient packages.

  Scionate worked well with Archons because they were

  just as fast, if not faster over ground. An Archon could run as fast as they

  liked and a Scionate unit could keep pace whereas Bsidd or Calavari were

  downright sloths. That said, when you needed to hold a position the Bsidd were

  very difficult to dislodge, and they themselves had different variants that

  could be reorganized into numerous configurations. They were an army within an

  army, and one that Morgan was still learning and experimenting with, for she

  had a small chunk of her Clan made up of Bsidd recruits.

  Then you had the fliers…Lacvamat, Hammid, and Triari

  on the military front, then throw in a dozen others that could be incorporated

  into tech or support roles. They were difficult to understand, in a tactical

  sense, with the book still being written and new tech developed to allow them

  to be efficient and effective rather than just tagalongs. Right now Morgan had

  a solid group of Hammids that she was using as battlefield scouts and couriers,

  and they too could keep up with an Archon on the run, but in a fight they did

  poorly in comparison.

  Then again a Human under water wasn’t all that

  effective either. Elarioni were far superior, save that they lacked the

  psionics that made Morgan a female version of Poseidon. Humans, and especially

  Archons, could do everything. They’d learned tricks and how to train for even

  the stuff they weren’t well built for, but Morgan knew that while that was a

  necessity she didn’t dare do the same with the other races. She had to incorporate

  their specialties while letting other Clans work on finding secondary

  applications for them.

  Morgan wasn’t going to have any fliers swimming, even

  though there was some progress on that front elsewhere. And there was no point

  whatsoever in having an Irondel trained as a Commando. They were the size of a

  football and just as easy to kick. On their scale they definitely could fight,

  but so many of the other races in the galaxy were larger than them that there

  was little point in her Clan employing them in that regard.

  What they were good at was fighting in mechs, or at

  least specialized mechs. Because of their smaller size an identical mech to

  what a Human piloted could be outfitted with stronger weapons, heavier armor,

  or whatever else the extra volume that wasn’t necessary for the pilot to exist

  within could be retasked for. That was one advantage she was exploring, though

  she also knew that making specialized mechs could be a problem. Better to make

  modifications to a Human mech to allow an Irondel to pilot it rather than make

  a mech that a Human could not fit into if needed.

  That said she was still looking into the possibility

  of making stronger mechs for the smaller pilots, along with some other

  applications that turned the little squirrel-like race into an advantage for

  her Clan rather than baggage they had to carry.

  That was one founding principle that she had set down

  long ago. No one was carried here. If they couldn’t keep up they’d be washed

  out, not in a mean way, because they’d go back into some other part of Star

  Force that they were more suited for. They’d even have a chance to come back

  later if they improved their skills, so Ninja Monkey culture hadn’t become a

  nail biting endeavor with people worried about washing out. No, Morgan had specifically

  seen to it that everyone knew and understood that this was a test of their

  current abilities, not their potential. If someone wanted to be here badly

  enough all they had to do was devote the years necessary to prep work, and even

  if they failed in their first opportunity they’d be able to keep improving

  until they were good enough to remain here under the increased standards and

  schedule.

  Her people were the best and not because they were

  vicious with each other. They were supportive of one another, but they would

  not cheat to keep someone here that didn’t belong. They’d expose weaknesses as

  Morgan had asked them to, with those weak links being given a set of standards

  to train to with an automatic return ticket if they completed that personal mission

  elsewhere within the empire.

  And Morgan wasn
’t one to talk without doing, which was

  why she was always in motion, even when resting, as she was now. Fighting on

  the front didn’t allow for her to carry out all the administrative duties

  required of her and she had a lot of catching up to do. She get through a few

  hours of it here and now before she finally got some food and sleep, then in

  the morning she’d be back here after her first round of workouts.

  There was no one here to distract her, so even ten

  minutes snagged from her demanding schedule could be of use. To that end she

  worked now, planning out the development of one of her colonies’ cities that

  had only just begun to establish a spaceport. Her plans for it were years in

  the future, but she wanted them in place in case the fighting heated up and she

  didn’t have a chance to get back to it later. Administrators could design and

  build cities independently, but Morgan wasn’t going to leave anything to chance

  within her territory.

  Every bit of it was going to be by her design, and her

  new Marquis and existing staff were here to assist her in fleshing out the Clan

  as she liked, not doing it for her. Every unit, every building, every ship that

  the Ninja Monkeys had determined how much territory she could take from the

  lizards and hold, and Morgan was insistent on squeezing any and all advantages

  out of the limited resources and personnel that she had.

  Her Clan was badly outmatched by the V’kit’no’sat, and

  she couldn’t stand to see the Ninja Monkeys progress slower than they were

  capable of. They’d been very fortunate to go unnoticed thus far, and there were

  no promises for tomorrow. She had to get her Clan to the point where it could

  at least hold its own in a fight, and they were far from that now…against the

  V’kit’no’sat anyway.

  The lizards were another story, and truthfully she was

  using them to hone her Clan for the real war to come. That was the only way

  Morgan could stand to see the wall of lizard systems in front of her and not go

  after them all. She had to keep the big picture in mind as much as that galled

  her…and she was grateful that Davis had given her permission to take down as

  many of them as she could, so she didn’t actually have to hold back with

  regards to her Clan.

  But she was a trailblazer, and all it would take was

  one call and she’d have a fleet of Mainline or Bsidd on her doorstep and she

  could gut punch the lizard empire before her that was growing stronger and more

  bold by the day. Her Clan wasn’t holding back, but she still was, as was Star

  Force on the whole. She wished that wasn’t necessary, but Morgan knew they

  couldn’t chase the lizards much further toward the galactic core. If they

  tipped the V’kit’no’sat off to their presence now it’d be over before the

  fighting even began.

  They weren’t ready, and damn it all, the lizards had to be ignored on the other side of

  the line, but that didn’t meant she couldn’t use them as target practice for

  her Clan. Every one of them they killed diminished their strength and could

  potentially save some system out of their reach, so Morgan didn’t have any

  qualms about poking them in systems that she couldn’t take just yet.

  And the lizards were obligingly poking back, giving

  her people the challenge needed to continue the transformation process into a

  Clan that could one day stand against the V’kit’no’sat.

  Sadly, that day was far away and Morgan could feel

  their vulnerability as if it were an illness they were all stricken with…which

  was why she worked constantly to combat and kill that illness. No one in Clan

  Ninja Monkey worked harder or longer hours than Morgan did, and her people knew

  it. She didn’t do it for them, but leading by example did have its benefits.

  She just hoped that one of those would include her

  Marquis living up to her example, and doing so sooner rather than later.

  February 9, 3106

  Solar System

  Mars

  Po-1003886 came back from his workout fresh and lively

  even though the newly minted ranger was dead tired. He’d leveled up to the

  third tier of Archons four days ago and had been on a high ever since then,

  proudly cleaning out his wardrobe of the acolyte silver stripes and replacing

  his uniforms with the ones that bore the ranger green. He put on one of those

  after a quick shower, then stopped by the cafeteria for all of two minutes to

  grab a quick bite and a couple of sugar sticks to take with him as he headed

  for the meeting he’d been anticipating.

  His dead legs didn’t bother him, aching from a very

  long run that he’d probably pushed a little too far. He had a habit of doing

  that, but it was the only way he learned his current limits. He’d adjust now

  that he had data to work with and find a way to approach higher level workouts

  without tanking, as he always did. Right now though his future as an Archon was

  about to be determined in a big way, and he wasn’t the only one. Several others

  that had also just made ranger were gathering here as well, and when he walked

  into the amphitheater he saw several dozen of them already sitting in the seats

  while a few people were waiting up on the stage.

  Po took a seat and chewed on his last sugar stick,

  feeling his adrenaline spiking more than it did in combat. Ever since becoming

  an Archon he’d been working out of this facility on Mars, as a base at least.

  He’d had some field assignments, including one all the way down in Gamma

  Region, but he’d always cycled back here same as the other adepts and acolytes

  did, for this was Clan Null’s headquarters…with the name being a joke more than

  anything, but the trailblazers seemed to like doing that sort of thing with

  labeling.

  All adepts and acolytes belonged to the Nulls, with

  had their headquarters here on Mars and a super-sized sanctum to accommodate

  them all. A good portion of those Archons were here in training and

  participating in the internal trials…which were beyond intense, far more so

  than anything he’d gone through in basic as a trainee. He knew the more

  advanced Archon trials were mind boggling, but to date he hadn’t been able to

  participate and get his butt kicked in any of them given the fact that he

  wasn’t part of a Clan yet.

  Today that would change, for him and the other new

  rangers still coming into the chamber. While a Clan placement wasn’t permanent

  most Archons never switched teams, unless there was a good reason to do so. Po

  had heard that there was a fair amount of rangers moving from one Clan to

  another, but with strikers and on up they were pretty much set. Each Clan had

  taken a different development route, had different membership standards and

  focuses, and was in itself unique…with the competition between them being

  fierce.

  “That looks like all of you,” Terry-201118 said as the

  last person walked in. The Archon mage remotely closed the door and walked out

  from behind the control pedestal, looking at all of the new rangers from the
<
br />   edge of the stage. “You know why you’re here. Time to choose a Clan and

  transition to the next stage. The kid gloves are coming off and your inclusion

  in the Nulls is now over. If on the odd chance that someone does not wish to

  join a Clan, or are unable to do so, the training facility on Earth for

  neutrals will become your new home. This facility no longer is. This is your

  second graduation, and now it’s time to step up and play with the big dogs.”

  The mage gestured and another person on stage, a

  handler of some sort, took up position behind the pedestal and began operating

  the amphitheater’s controls. All 100 symbols of the various Clans appeared in

  hologram behind Terry and moved out to both sides, eventually ringing the

  circular chamber up near the ceiling and enlarging until they created a halo

  that crowned the entire room.

  “Membership requirements vary for each Clan, and on

  the information before you, you will see those which are open to you joining

  them at your current skill levels. Some look for overall marks, others want

  specialists,” he said as an individual holographic panel lit up in front of Po,

  as well as every other person in the chamber. It had his data on it, and he

  wondered how they knew what seat he was sitting in…then again, there weren’t

  that many of them here, so maybe the assistant just matched up faces.

  “On occasion a Clan will make a specific bid for an

  individual they feel is noteworthy. If they want you badly enough they’ll leave

  a message, otherwise they’re looking for recruits that meet their entry

  standards…and be aware, you have to maintain those standards to stay in the

  Clan. Keep that in mind when you’re choosing, for you don’t want to join one

  then wash out within the year. Your schedules are going to alter, so if you’re

  locked into a specific training pattern you might be forced to change it, and

  that could created a plateau or even a backslide until you adjust.”

  “The Clans are a pressure cooker for all their

  personnel, from Archons down to techs. You’ve got to keep up with whatever

  training pace they want, and most of you will be in over your heads from day

  one. Make sure the Clan is a good fit for you, because you don’t want to waste

  months or years on a bad match. Those of you with options, study them