Star Force: Ice Queen Read online

  ViLord Connor-1381923 was out on the ice plains at the northern pole of the planet wearing nothing but a T-shirt and shorts as he was running across several inches of snow while getting pelted with incoming fire from his left. The Archon took a few hits, then used his own bioshield to block the other snowballs coming at him from the group of Ice Elves who’d been hiding behind a snow bank. He hadn’t seen or sensed them there due to the Ikrid jammer in place on the training field and his promise not to use his Pefbar to cheat, and he was proud they’d gotten a few hits in on him…but they were still going to pay for it.

  He slid to a stop, dropping to a knee as his left foot went out from under him in a skid, then with a theatrical wave of his hand the snow around him rose up into the air and condensed into several dozen orbs…that he began firing off one at a time with lethal accuracy, pegging some of the Ice Elves with straight shots while having to telekinetically arc the others to hit when they otherwise would have successfully dodged to the side. Most of them managed to stay on their feet, but two of the youngest ones actually ran into each other and went spinning to the ground on impact.

  “Gotta pay attention newbs!” he yelled before pulling up more snow and throwing it over them like a tsunami as the Archon ran past and headed for one of their fort outposts. When one of the Elves stood up out of the snow he’d just blanketed them with, Connor used his telekinesis while still in range and smashed the Elves’ head back down into the snow face first…then issued the most taunting laugh he could as he ran away.

  He was having fun…there was no denying that…but he also wanted to make the Elves mad if he could and really show them how bad things could get when they didn’t focus. Forcing them to operate as a team without their telepathy was making this all too easy for Connor, despite the basketball-sized snowball that came flying at him from the outpost cannon. He dodged it and the next two, then skidded to a halt and punched the next one out of the air just for fun as he heard light footsteps approaching him from behind.

  He didn’t cheat and look with his Pefbar, so he knelt a bit as he spun, seeing a trio of females running at him. They weren’t carrying any snowballs, but one of them was sporting the white hair signifying a ranger. That one leapt towards him, using her agility upgrade from Kex to become a flying weapon that tried to grab hold of him.

  He obliged, holding on long enough for her to tackle him to the ground…then he rolled over and used her momentum plus his own physical strength to toss her the other way. He added a bit of a Lachka push and his telekinesis succeeded in getting her all the way over to their fort outpost where she bodily hit the snow-packed brick wall…with her feet.

  The Ice Elf ranger landed in a controlled fashion and jumped off the wall before she could fall, flipping over acrobatically and landing on her feet at a run heading back towards him.

  Connor picked up some more snow telekinetically and planted a couple of tightly packed orbs in his hands, then he went hand to hand with the other two female Elves that were trying to tackle him. They ended up with face-fulls of snow as he tossed them to the ground, then one of the cannon balls hit him from the side.

  He half fell to a knee, then rolled away before another one could hit him, but not before a cascade of long range snowballs came over the snow bank to the west…except these weren’t orbs, but rather snow arrows. They peppered the ground around him and he caught those that were going to hit in a telekinetic grip…then sent them back so hard they flew through the snow bank and he heard one satisfying grunt as he hit someone on the other side.

  The next thing he knew there was someone jumping down on him from above, and as he turned to parry the attack he got hit with a weak Jumat blast that knocked him to the side.

  “Stop!” his Padawan yelled, holding up her hands so he and the Elves could see. “Everyone stop now!”

  The Elves obeyed instantly, and Connor could now see the speeder she’d flown in on hovering above them a few dozen meters.

  “You’re needed, now,” Carrie-1621197 said, her tone indicating trouble.

  Connor couldn’t ask her telepathically what was going on with the jammers in place, but he could tell from the way her eyes were squeezed slightly that she was angry.

  “Spit it out.”

  “Three factories just got hit by massive ‘malfunctions.’ Too many and too severe to be an accident. I think we’re under attack, but there are no orbital or other contacts.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Many. Most will survive, but we’ve already lost 4 Kiritak and two Humans.”

  A distant snowball shot towards them and Carrie angrily knocked it out of the sky with another Jumat blast…a psionic Connor had shared with her early and that she was still learning to use, but at least her aim was spot on.

  “Tell the others to stand down and turn the jammer off,” Connor told the nearest Elves, signaling with his hand for them to run off and make it so. Several did, but Carrie just waited for what her Master decided to do…though there was only one choice.

  “Let’s go,” he said, with her immediately signaling the speeder to lower via the dark brown armor that she wore helmetless. Before the small bike got all the way down Connor jumped up to it, with Carrie following a moment later and opening the rear hatch while hanging onto the side.

  “Hold up,” she said, pulling out an approximate cube of silver/pink material.

  Connor took the compact armor without saying a word, getting the clear impression that his Padawan thought he was in danger out here, and as he activated it and had the material fold around him body and encase him in his ViLord Archon armor he felt the Ikrid jammer cut out, allowing him to telepathically communicate with the Elves again.

  We have a possible security threat. Cancel all training activities and assume defensive positions. I don’t know what’s going on, but do not let yourself get caught off guard.

  With that Connor sat down on the speeder with Carrie behind him and they zipped off across the snowy plains as he commed for a dropship to come and meet them enroute.

  “Best guess?” he asked her after they had things set in motion.

  “Sabotage, but there’s no sign of it yet. I don’t think 3 massive malfunctions would happen simultaneously. Theoretically one shouldn’t even be able to happen.”

  “What kind of malfunctions?”

  “The kind where molten material goes places it’s not supposed to and safety shields do not engage.”

  “Shit…”

  “Exactly. And the Duke is still AWOL. Zander is going after her.”

  “There’s nothing she can do right now. This is our job.”

  “He’s worried about her being a target.”

  Connor mentally frowned, sending the telepathic impulse to his Apprentice. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “It’s early, but some of the sabotage is suspected to be hacking. And how many people can hack our systems?”

  “Quite a few, actually.”

  “And how many of them would dare blow stuff up at the same time?”

  “You have a point.”

  “We only have three Archons on the planet. If there are Zen’zat infiltrators here…”

  “That’s why we have Regulars, Carrie. They’re not helpless.”

  “I’ve still got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Just work the problem,” he said, with them staying silent for the remainder of the time before the dropship finally got to them. It didn’t bother landing, rather just flew out ahead of the speeder and opened the rear hatch. The Archons flew inside, then the dropship rocketed off taking them back towards the equatorial cities far faster than the speeder ever could…and the sooner the Archons could get on scene the better.

  Especially if there were Zen’zat here that they’d have to hunt down. He almost wished it was internal sabotage, but knew the Star Force crews here were too good for that. This had to be an exterior attack, and if that was the case his Padawan was probably right about it being the V’kit’no
’sat.

  And if they were all the way out here, it wasn’t by accident. It was because of the work they were doing with the Elves…meaning they were all in considerable danger and totally unprepared for what might be coming their way.

  6

  February 25, 4827

  Tauriel System (Seon Region)

  Eoxion

  Jessica was laid out on top of a warm rock ledge with the nearest sun high in the sky, bathing the dry, barren landscape with a windless heat as she and 9 Stone Elves soaked up the warmth. The Duke had already started to tan heavily over the week she’d been here, having gotten far more sunlight than she had in centuries. In fact she couldn’t remember being this dark since her early days back in New Zealand long before the V’kit’no’sat had ripped that island chain to shreds.

  Her home at that time had been Epsilon Eridani, but even there she was indoors constantly. There was plenty of light indoors…with Star Force having a ‘light’ theme to its architecture. There were strips, beams, orbs, and little bits of light added everywhere to the rooms, corridors, and chambers inside Star Force cities. So much so they ended up not having very many windows to the natural environment outside.

  That kept tanning almost non-existent. With genetic alterations people could customize their skin to whatever shade or color they wanted, but the natural tanning procedure was almost an afterthought now. During her time in her first home she and others would use artificial tanning beds to get darker, for New Zealand wasn’t exactly near the equator where you got more direct sunlight, but now there were literally no tanning beds available in Star Force. There was no market for it and no reason, for the Human body tanned as a countermeasure to too much sunlight and the old cities on Earth had people walking outdoors to get from building to building.

  Now that wasn’t the case, with undercities that allowed you to go everywhere without setting one foot on the surface, making a city literally one gigantic building with many, many rooms. Gone also was the country living, the farms, the single houses…even the suburbs. No one owned property anymore, merely leasing buildings from Star Force as they designed all cities. That was one of the primary jobs of Monarchs, designing the infrastructure for each planet to make the most out of what they had, and all private citizens and businesses operated off of that cityscape.

  Sure, they might rebuild the inside of a factory, but the factory frame wasn’t theirs to change and was leased from Star Force. That meant every factory shell, at least, was built and maintained by the empire. Same went for all land. There was no private ownership, so everyone lived in cities or outposts as Star Force wished, close to security and safety personnel and beneath the protection of energy shields and armor plating on the city exterior.

  Those cities also protected from varying levels of sunlight at different latitudes and in systems with different types of stars. That kept everyone inside adapting to the same levels, rather than old Earth where you had Humans with a variety of different tanning levels that were passed in some part to their offspring. That’s why those populations living near the equator had ‘black’ skin and those living further toward the poles had ‘white’ skin. It was the accumulation of tanning, or lack thereof, over the generations.

  When Earth developed to the point where people weren’t confined to within 100 miles of where they were born and could move across the planet at will, all the tanning levels got mixed up and you had dark skinned people living near the poles and light skinned people moving to the equator. They didn’t change their base tan, because that came with their inherited genetics, but they did adapt to where they were living and then passed that adaptation along with their base genetics on to their offspring.

  Add to that the better living conditions that kept people indoors more and out of the sun less and you had the pseudorace mythology thrown on its head even before Star Force took over and reworked the planet with proper infrastructure…but now it was a moot point entirely. Everyone knew Jessica’s race was Human, and ‘white’ was just a color.

  It was also the color of all Humans, now that they didn’t live outdoors and the various tanning levels that had been baked in over the generations had gradually diminished. Now all Humans being born were white…at least until they decided to get some genetic alteration to make them darker, blue, spotted, stripped, bioluminescent, or whatever else they wanted...and those did not pass on through reproduction.

  That left natural tanning an obscure thing that only those born long ago even knew about, and Jessica was glad that the Stone Elves had brought it back. She had to make sure not to get burnt with them, for they literally couldn’t burn as their grey-skinned bodies soaked up the energy from the sun and other sources thanks to their tier 3 Beynat psionic that was linked to their Nakane…otherwise known as ‘bioshield.’ Jessica had that one, but not Beynat, which allowed the Stone Elves and the Archons that had it to funnel the energy into recharging their bioshield, meaning that when someone shot them with an energy weapon it would partly recharge their bioshield at the same time.

  The Stone Elves differentiated themselves from the other Clans, in addition to their grey skin, with the Mebvat psionic that made their bones so hard they rarely broke. The old adage about jaw bones winning out against knuckles didn’t apply with the Stone Elves, for their tiny hand bones could break jaws when enough force was applied.

  But Jessica didn’t care about that, for she wasn’t going to be getting into a fist fight with any of them. They liked coming topside from their subsurface, dwarf-like cities to sip on the energy from the sun, especially when all 3 were in the sky, because they like preferred carrying a little extra charge around in their bodies just in case…as well as using the time laying out as a form of meditation, with all the Elves here not reaching out to the others’ minds as a courtesy.

  Jessica’s couldn’t be accessed anyway, and she wasn’t in a prying mood so she just laid out with them…her skin redding far sooner than she liked and causing her to head back down far before the Stone Elves did. Their grey skin didn’t tan at all unless their Beynat failed or was full, so they really didn’t have a time limit out here and would spend several hours once or twice a week to refill their Beynat, only to see it gradually bleed off even if they didn’t use it to boost their bioshields…which operated off a different internal supply.

  The Duke’s ring, setting beside her left leg so it didn’t shade her finger and give her a tan line, pinged when its timer expired. Jessica was laying on her chest and slowly rolled over, making sure not to scrape her soft skin on the rocks as she flipped over, turning her warm half downward and exposing her semi-cool front to the sky as her ring automatically reset to give her another tanning cycle without her having to worry about the time, allowing her mind to roam wherever it liked.

  And no matter how much she allowed herself to be momentarily distracted, her thoughts would eventually circle back to the Zezdi. While Jessica was feeling immensely better and her mental haze had been bled away by the Elves’ persistent hammering on her to loosen up, her Monarch mind couldn’t get away from work for too long. But at least here she would work on the problem while relaxing, rather than figuratively banging her head against a wall until she came up with something.

  This half of today’s tanning session didn’t last long, for a telepathic impulse hit her and the Elves, signaling there was some concern as a ship was incoming. A few of the Elves sat up, but Jessica didn’t. They’d told her she needed to react less and see more, so she used her telepathy to mix with theirs and see through their eyes while she continued tanning evenly.

  Eventually the Star Force speeder landed on another flat rock shelf nearby and an Archon jumped out, heading over to the Elves who all stood and padded over the rocks on bare feet to meet him.

  Jessica stayed put, seeing that he was obviously coming to her, and choosing to remain as relaxed as possible. He might be here to pull her away on business, but more than likely he had just tracked her down to make fun of her for takin
g so much time off…or something. Either way, she was going to continue her vacation until she had a reason not to, which right now meant soaking up more sun.

  Zander-1538834 walked over to her as the Elves happily surrounded him, then the Mage’s showed crossed over her bare chest as she squinted up at him.

  “You’re in my sun.”

  “I thought you were the Ice Queen? Why haven’t you melted?”

  “If I stay out too long I will. Feel free to strip down and join us.”

  “Not why I’m here. We have to go…now,” he said, far too firmly.

  Jessica frowned and sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Not totally sure, but best guess is V’kit’no’sat sabotage teams. Three factories have been hit and people are dead, but there’s no sight of who did it. They have to be wearing stealth suits, meaning they could be anywhere on the planet and could very well be coming after you.”

  “Nobody knows I’m here,” she said, standing up to face him.

  “I know. Took a while to find you, but I can’t take the chance of one of them getting you. You’re coming with me and the rest of you,” he said, glancing at the nude Elves, “are going into high surveillance and defense mode. It’s possible that you will come under attack too, so get ready. The Duke is coming with me, the rest of you get inside. Orders will follow.”

  The Stone Elves were suddenly a buzz of telepathic chatter, with it extending down into the city and exploding there, but they didn’t delay in carrying out the Archon’s instruction and quickly began grabbing their clothes from the neat piles they’d made of them on the stone, then ran over to the subsurface entrances before even pulling them on.

  Within seconds they were gone, leaving Zander and a naked Jessica by themselves on a landscape that was without a single living thing…tree, bush, or even insect…other than the two of them.