Star Force: Revelation (SF79) Page 6

  “No, you’re right,” Brad agreed. “If we have to kill them it’ll be in battle. We’re not going to starve them to death. So your point is Radonon did us a big favor?”

  “Yes.”

  “With booby traps?”

  “The knowledge is so advanced I’d be lucky to find them if there are any. What I’ve read through so far appears genuine, and even if it’s not there’s enough revelations in it to advance our understanding considerably. He actually helped us, and in a big way.”

  “You’re wondering if this is Nefron coming back?”

  “You tell me, you’re the one that’s in his head every other day.”

  “He’s playing along, and he knows I know it. We can’t trust him, but at the same time I think it’s also giving him an excuse to explore possibilities that his mind was restructured to ignore. The crack we preserved in his mind is allowing him to learn and augment the Chixzon programming, not undo it. Luckily Star Force isn’t based on a lie, so as he goes through the logical progression of subjects he’s essentially changing himself into our model. He’s never going to be Protovic again, but he’s starting to become a Star Force Chixzon in the smallest of ways.”

  “You said he was playing along?”

  “He has no choice, and it allows his internal priorities to be satiated as he works things through. If he just sat and did nothing he’d go crazy. The genetic imperatives are very strong within him, and despite our prodding it’s to his own credit that he’s been able to create some wiggle room. That takes a very strong will.”

  “But it’s not enough?” Vortison asked, sensing something in his tone.

  “Enough for what?”

  “To break free of the Chixzon programming.”

  “Too early to tell. Right now it’s a matter of whether he wants to or not. Or more specifically, if he has a reason to. The more holes we can poke in their culture the more opportunities we give him to make a choice. The problem is their empire isn’t based on lies as much as it is self-interest. As you’ve already noted, they have a great deal of knowledge and that doesn’t occur with delusional people. We’ve got to show him a better way, and so far he’s allowing himself the leeway to consider alternatives. The Chixzon are supposed to be superior, which means verification isn’t avoided.”

  “It’s been a year. How long do you think this process will take?”

  “It’s not a process, it’s him charting his own course. The Chixzon already have him on one, one that we’re all but denying him. The overlap is something Kip and I are monitoring closely to give him the necessary ‘permission’ to learn while furthering his imperatives. Basically we’re improvising day to day and seeing progress, but he’s nowhere close to earning our trust, let alone his freedom.”

  “I know this may sound cold considering what’s happened, but what he just did is probably more valuable to Star Force than the sum total of his entire life as a Protovic.”

  “Doesn’t make up for the mistake we made.”

  “That I made.”

  “We,” Brad emphasized. “But your point is taken.”

  Vortison reached into the desk and pulled the data chip out, with the holographic display disappearing. He turned to walk out then hesitated, twisting halfway back.

  “If this is still the Chixzon in him, why would he give us something so valuable?”

  “Does it help us fight them?”

  “It advances our own genetics capability considerably…at least once we absorb the lessons from it.”

  “But they’re still far superior?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the answer is no. It doesn’t help us defeat them.”

  “But why help us at all?”

  “Information.”

  “How so?”

  “He gets to see how we react, and is cagey enough to use it to ferret information out of us, sometimes when we don’t even realize it.”

  Vortison considered that. “Then it’s probably best that I don’t speak with him concerning this?”

  “Do you need to?”

  “Not if it could be used against us, no. I can figure this out with time.”

  “But a conversation could advance your timetable?”

  “That was my thinking.”

  “I agree. Don’t speak with him. We can’t let him know about the V’kit’no’sat or our connection to them, and he’s already deduced some of it.”

  “Hello there,” a new voice said as another masked mental presence walked through the entryway into Radonon’s fortress of solitude.

  The Chixzon looked up from the isolated computer console that he was using to further study the data on current events that Star Force had provided him and saw another Archon, another trailblazer, but it was not Kip or Brad.

  “Are you here in response to my previous request or for another reason?”

  “Bit of both,” Paul said as he walked inside and the airlock doors closed behind him, severing his telepathic link with the outside world for the entire chamber was insulated from it, though he could still see the guards outside with his Pefbar. “I was on my way back from the front and figured I’d stop in and say hi.”

  Radonon extended a black arm towards a nearby chair designed for the Humans. “Sit…and ask your questions.”

  “Do you get bored in here?” Paul said, looking around the spacious quarters that had been redesigned per Radonon’s requests…to a limit. They weren’t going to allow Chixzon cultural alterations, but given his tail some alterations had been made.

  “Quite. I believe it’s incentive to do workouts.”

  “You would anyway.”

  “The body must be maintained.”

  “Just maintained? You’ve forgotten much.”

  “My priorities lie elsewhere.”

  “Lifespan?”

  “Unlimited while maintained.”

  “But you don’t press training to gain advantages, you engineer weak tissue.”

  “Weak?”

  “Undeveloped through experiential adaptation. Your telepathy, for example.”

  “Yours is obviously stronger by default.”

  “And enhanced via training…a great deal.”

  “So I’m learning.”

  Paul finally sat down, with Radonon pivoting slightly on his stool to face him. “Relearning.”

  “Actually no. What I learned from Star Force previously was…inadequate. Now that I have a proper mind I am seeing it for the first time again.”

  “Again,” Paul noted. “And what are your second impressions?”

  “You have no philosophical mandate. You simply look for what works.”

  “Restricted by...?”

  “An abundance of caution.”

  “It works for us.”

  “That it does.”

  “But?”

  “You are intolerant.”

  “Of?”

  “What you refer to as the ‘darkside.’”

  “What I know of your history makes that comment hypocritical.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of the Chixzon, only Star Force.”

  “Yet you infer that tolerance is preferable.”

  “It is necessary for coexistence.”

  “You still don’t want us destroyed, but rather coopted?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “You are not a threat in the conventional sense. You seek to protect rather than destroy, and your conquests are geared towards eliminating threats. We hold a similar philosophy, though we take it to its logical extrapolations.”

  “You’re sloppy,” Paul said flatly. “You judge a race to be unfit and do not take into account the individual.”

  “Rather than risk our security, yes. Chixzon lives take priority.”

  “We don’t prioritize, save for whom we may save first.”

  “You don’t embrace sacrifice, and I admire that in you. It is shortsighted and restricts your capabilities, but it also gives you focus and within your restrictions yo
u are…professional.”

  “You would have us pacify a region for you,” Paul said, reading his thoughts.

  “That is one possibility. We do not seek to possess all star systems. Such an endeavor is folly. The galaxy is too large.”

  “Understatement of the millennia. What was your specific interest in me?”

  “Your naval skill is unmatched.”

  “Liam and Roger would contest that.”

  “You have an edge on them. I’ve seen it in your battle records.”

  “Elaborate.”

  “You can read your opponents well, and make use of inferior forces to overcome dominant ones. You alone are more valuable than entire fleets.”

  “It’s not the size that matters, but how you use it.”

  “Innuendo?”

  “You remember.”

  “Yet accurate. Our own dominance does not come through a direct approach, but rather creating and exploiting opportunities. You can enter a disadvantageous fight and find a way to come out victorious. We are envious of this.”

  “We?”

  “The Chixzon have always wanted to afford a direct approach. Logic dictated that we avoid them.”

  “And the Uriti?”

  “Our first endeavor, though it was not our own forces. Had we wielded them better I do not believe we would have fallen. Can I assume you have read the information I have given the others?”

  “Some of it.”

  “The recounts of naval battles.”

  “Lacking without actual data, but I thumbed through them.”

  “I wanted to ask you a question.”

  “Could you have won?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could have survived by deploying the Uriti defensively, but in order to utilize them as you wished you had to expose them to the thickest of your enemies, and so to the sedative. You should have preserved them, rather you spent them as disposable resources.”

  “They are not destroyed.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Nearly.”

  “Could you find them now?”

  “I could, but I will not help you do so.”

  “Why?”

  “You might be able to destroy them.”

  Paul leaned back an inch in his chair. “You think we’re superior to your previous enemies?”

  “Post culling, yes. I would say that’s a fair bet, though only in certain elements. Across the board you are not.”

  “And you think we would kill the Uriti?”

  “If released, you would have no choice.”

  “I make a habit of finding choices where others see none.”

  “You cannot communicate them. Our kind are outside their realm of influence.”

  “Then how did you direct them?”

  “We engineered an avenue, but we never truly controlled them.”

  “Control isn’t the issue. Are you saying they are too primitive to communicate?”

  “Quite the opposite. They are too advanced. Not in intellect, but in sheer magnitude. Their minds dwarf our own, and as such their perspective is different. We inhabit the same galaxy but view it from different angles. Communication must utilize common ground.”

  “Did you ever try?”

  “Their telepathic presence is too dangerous for direct connection. The slightest shift could kill us with feedback.”

  “So you build transmitters to insulate you?”

  “More like a prod to get them to respond in a predictable method. We imprinted those responses into their coding. Communicating with the Klamensh is impossible.”

  “Perhaps you were never interested in doing so.”

  “You know a way?”

  “We have never encountered one to try.”

  “I would recommend against it.”

  “Therein lies your problem. You ask me to tell you if you could have won, but you do not understand your own weapons. I’m not talking about the Uriti, but your techniques. The darkside is not a fictional element, nor a metaphor. It is a set of tactics and strategies that have some advantages, as you well know since you utilize them…but they also have disadvantages. The lightside is the same. You say we are restricted, and that is true when your objective is to kill someone. Ours is not to simply kill, but do the right thing. In that there is no restriction. And when one holds to the lightside, to doing the right thing, there are unique techniques afforded to us that darkside users cannot possess. Given our lightside advantages, I could easily have found a way for the Chixzon to not only survive, but prosper.”

  “You are inferring that our darkside techniques restricted us, channeled us into a no-win scenario?”

  “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario, but yes, I think your successes with darkside techniques made you additional enemies. Star Force has many enemies, but far fewer because outsiders see us and judge us by our actions over time. The come to realize that we are honorable and trustworthy…predictable. They know what is required to avoid our wrath, and most usually do rather than fear us. Were we to give them reason to hate us our enemies would multiply greatly and our powerbase would weaken. Do not underestimate the power of the lightside. It is often the indirect methods that it works through, while the darkside takes the easy and obvious direct path to achieving short term goals that sacrifice longevity.”

  “Intriguing perspective. I’ve never heard it put that way before.”

  “For your situation, I would say that true superiority doesn’t come from killing your rivals, but in growing beyond their ability to harm you.”

  “Unfortunately we do not always have that luxury.”

  “It is not about luxury. Darkside users are easily enemies of one another, but with the lightside there is a commonality even between those who have never met. By holding to the lightside you are joining a universal team, whereas darkside leaves you with temporary and deceitful alliances at best. Defending yourself is not dishonorable, how you go about doing it can be. Sometimes if you are worthy of saving a stranger will bail you out…if you’re lightside. Not always, and sometimes you do find yourself in untenable situations, but you have to ask yourself what is the utmost priority. Staying alive, or something else…”

  “Something else?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Another test of my intellect?”

  “This isn’t something you deduce logically. You have to also feel it out. Trusting in the conscience that genetics do not create.”

  “What you call the core?”

  “What do you call it?”

  “We do not have a name for it since we cannot identify it. We know it exists through inference, not observation. It is simply the individual, or person.”

  “Life for the sake of life is not the priority, but the means to continue working towards the priority. You can’t win the game if you’re not in it, but throwing the game in order to prolong it is illogical.”

  “Which begets the practice of sacrifice.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It’s totally different.”

  “I fail to see how.”

  “Yes, you fail…”

  Radonon’s eyes glowed for a brief moment, barely a dull flash, but it was obvious when the black orbs altered. “You really want me to believe that we were defeated because we were not lightside?”

  “I don’t fight using darkside techniques. I fight against opponents who use them, therefore I’m familiar with them and their effectiveness, but I don’t use them. Star Force doesn’t use them. With the skillset we have, and your aforementioned technology, it would not have been overly difficult for the Chixzon to survive, but to exert dominance over the galaxy. Klamensh included.”

  Radonon looked at him warily. “I suspect you are lying, yet I know your kind do not without purpose…and I am failing to derive a purpose.”

  “I’m not lying. Using the darkside came back to bite you. The short term gains you made with it sacrificed your long term survival.”

  “Star Force seeks to chall
enge the Klamensh?”

  “If it comes to that. We don’t back down from a challenge.”

  “Then you are ignorant to their true power.”

  “Feel free to enlighten me, but from everything we’ve learned from you and others, they are a powerful opponent, not an unbeatable one. You are proof of this.”

  “We defeated a single one that mistakenly isolated itself. We would have had no chance at surviving three of them, no matter if we had our full galactic fleet at our disposal.”

  “As you have noted, I make a habit of turning what looks like unwinnable fights into victories.”

  Radonon slightly smiled in what Paul mentally recognized as a smirk. “I was hoping you would say that.”

  “My knowledge will do you little good so long as you utilize darkside methods…and you can’t change back and forth at will.

  “Relations aside, I fail to see why not.”

  “And that’s why you have much to learn. Darkside techniques are not just different from lightside, they’re also easier because they’re lower level. Mastering lightside requires true superiority…something the Chixzon apparently never even approached.”

  “If there is any truth in that, I wish to know. Thus far you have not been hesitant to teach.”

  “I just got here.”

  “I meant ‘you’ in the plural.”

  “You should have said ‘us.’ We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you also weren’t Star Force.”

  “Was,” Radonon corrected halfheartedly.

  “Once you learn the truth, you don’t unlearn it. And as you said, we’re built on the truth. You’ve just had your memories messed with, leaving you with incomplete pieces.”

  “So all of you seem to believe.”

  “Like you said, we focus on what works. You’re Nefron with a different name. Different body, altered mind, but same core.”

  “If you had been born a Chixzon, your core wouldn’t have mattered. You’d be Chixzon.”

  “Perhaps. Would I still have my naval skill? It’s not genetic. They checked.”

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “I can.”

  “And?”

  Paul smiled. “I’m a badass, no matter what race I was born into. I just got a sweet deal landing as a Human in Star Force. You…kind of went the other way.”