Star Force: Essence (Star Force Universe Book 51) Read online

  He obeyed, and while they could read his mind at will and know his thoughts, he no longer spoke of it with them. Part of him hoped that war would break out with the V’kit’no’sat and they’d invade Voku territory just so he would have something to do, but such thoughts did him discredit. He had a valuable mission here that he was accomplishing. He was just accomplishing it too easily and he sought the constant challenges that Paul lived and breathed.

  And therein was the problem. Cal-com was alive but he wasn’t living, and like many other older warriors who had left the military after having been passed over by the Elders for recruitment time and again, he was feeling old and worn out from the constant stagnation and uselessness.

  Cal-com was in his private chambers reviewing intelligence data on what Star Force was accomplishing when the summons came. It was a ping in his mind, delivered through his implants, and it instructed him to come to the Elder in the Recluse of the Hall of Majesty.

  The Dafchor went immediately, traveling across two cities in a private aerial craft, then landing in the Hall of Majesty where most of the secret duties of the capitol took place. Cal-com had once lived here, but the lack of activity had turned the location bittersweet, so he had built his personal retreat elsewhere on the planet but not so far away that he couldn’t return quickly if need be, and today, apparently, was one such day.

  Cal-com passed through an array of guards before being granted access to an unguarded door many times his height that opened on his approach and closed again when he stepped inside the large audience chamber. He walked across it to the traditional position of one granted an audience and stopped on the elaborate markings on the floor as a giant blue dragon crawled into view from behind a low wall that blocked Cal-com’s view of the rear portion of the chamber and wherever the passages behind it led.

  “What do you require of me?” Cal-com asked.

  “Devotion, which you are seriously lacking,” the Elder admonished as he fully came into view with his tail slithering over the wall. He stood five times Cal-com’s height, large enough to fit the Voku fully in his mouth if he chose to, but he had never seen nor heard of any of the Elders ever once doing such a barbaric thing.

  “I wish to do more in service,” Cal-com admitted. “Do I not have skills sufficient for a greater purpose?”

  “You have outgrown your position, and it is time for another to take your place. The Voku will need multiple Dafchors, and you are correct in that your skills are now complete.”

  “What is my next assignment?”

  “To wait, which is a task I feel you are no longer able to do.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For the time you are needed. You no longer have any responsibilities other than to maintain yourself for future need, but your longing for adventure will not allow that, will it?”

  “I do not understand, Elder. I wish to serve, and to do so utilizing my full abilities. Am I wrong for wishing this?”

  “No, Cal-com, you are loyal to your duty…but your former duty is not your present duty. We are not in a time of war, and you are a Dafchor built for one. Now we must groom a Dafchor for a time of preparation, and while the new Dafchor learns you will wait without assignment. Are you unable to do this?”

  Cal-com was silent for a moment, then just blurted out the honesty that was required when one was already in your mind.

  “No, I am not.”

  The Elder nodded. “Thus you are no longer fit to be a Dafchor, for one must do what is required of his duty, and duties change over time.”

  “If waiting is required for something, then let me know what that something is and I will adjust to the task at hand, but having no task is not something I can tolerate. My entire life has been based on purpose. Do not strip it from me now.”

  “There is always purpose, Cal-com, even if you cannot see it. I offer you a choice. Remain as Dafchor with the mission to wait as long as is required until you are needed, or choose to leave the Voku behind and seek your adventure across the galaxy.”

  “Leave?”

  “You cannot remain as you have been. Another Dafchor will take on your duties and grow from the position. You cannot grow any further in it, and if you are unable to master the art of waiting, then you must seek your advancement elsewhere. You are loyal and have guided the Voku admirably through difficult situations. For this I am rewarding you with this choice. You can remain and wait, or I can relieve you of all responsibilities and duties and set you free on the galaxy to do what you like, but with no position or rank within the Voku. If you remain with your race, you must wait. If you leave to seek adventure, you cannot return.”

  “If I choose to go, will you have missions for me beyond our borders?”

  “No, little Voku. There will be no missions. If you go, you will be dead to me, but you will have your freedom to do what you wish. Continued service requires you to master the art of waiting. It is something we learned long ago, and now it is your opportunity to advance beyond Dafchor, if you can master it. I leave you no status quo to cling to. You must change, and I offer you two paths to do so.”

  Cal-com couldn’t speak. He couldn’t comprehend not serving the Elders, but the idea of waiting with nothing to do at all was a horror he could not embrace.

  “It is not disloyal,” the Elder told him, sensing his thoughts. “You can leave with my blessing. The time of the Voku being at war is far in the past and far in the future. This is an era I do not think you are suited for. Thus you must wait until you are needed again, or you must leave. And you know you do not have the superiority necessary to embrace the art of waiting.”

  “I do not,” Cal-com admitted.

  “So I offer you another path as reward for your unflinching service,” the Elder said, with just a hint of sarcasm at the term ‘unflinching’ so that Cal-com would know it was an indication of his failure to live up to expectations. “But you must make the choice. I cannot do so for you.”

  “I wish to serve…but I do not know how to do so waiting.”

  “Take the reward for past service, Cal-com. What lies ahead requires a level of skill that you are lacking…and I will not be forgiving of incompetence if you take on the assignment. Go now with honor at what you have accomplished and continue your life setting your own priorities. Very few in the galaxy have that luxury, and I bestow it upon you now. If you wish to take it, step forward. If you wish to embrace the art of waiting, leave the chamber and begin. The choice must be made now.”

  Cal-com was not ready for this. Not at all. And he felt the Elder had surprised him with it so he could not think about it…so he had to make an honest choice in the moment.

  The Voku searched his own feelings and thoughts, picking up the trend that the Elder must have seen for some time. His duty had become a burden to bear, while his heart desired more. He was in conflict with his duty, and it was making him unfit for service. He either had to become fit, or leave and allow someone else to replace him before he failed in his duty.

  He had wanted a challenge, but waiting was not it. And he knew now, looking up into the face of the Elder, that he did not have their patience in the face of no task, no timetable, no purpose. He could wait forever with a reason, but not without one.

  “I cannot embrace waiting,” he said, stepping forward with a huge wave of trepidation making his arms shake slightly.

  “Kneel,” the Elder said, with Cal-com complying as one of the large talons was brought forth to touch the Voku’s head just above his eye piece. “For years of faithful service I now release you from all duties and associations with the Voku. You are forever barred from returning to Voku territory, but in your exile you will gain a great gift on par with the Zak’de’ron,” the Elder said, for the first time ever using their true name to him. “You will be the master of your own future, and in this small sense will become our peer. Do not return, but go forth with our gratitude and shape your own destiny as we continue to shape the destiny of the galaxy.”
/>   Cal-com felt a mild burning as his implant was pulled out along with his eye piece, revealing his 3 very dark and tiny eyes to the chamber’s natural light…then in a wash of disorientation he passed out, waking a moment later somewhere else.

  Cal-com was wearing different clothes and the architecture of the buildings around him was not Voku. It was Star Force.

  The former Dafchor stood, feeling a wealth of information in his head underscoring the fact that he was no longer associated with the Voku or the Zak’de’ron, and that he could not return or do a long list of other things that would interfere with them, but beyond that he was the master of his own destiny and what he did with himself was no longer their concern.

  He heard footsteps coming down the hall, for he was inside a building, then a group of Trinx rounded the corner and looked at him oddly, but they just kept walking. Cal-com watched them pass then backtracked the way they had come, nearly bumping into a Gfatt as it walked by on its massive arms and thin single leg in tri-pod fashion as the Voku rounded a corner that led to a stub of a hallway that exited out onto a large promenade filled with hundreds of different Star Force races.

  Cal-com swallowed hard. He had been in the Elder’s chamber a moment ago, now it seemed he was in another system entirely…and he could never go back. His new memories made that clear, and as he reached a hand up to his face he felt for his visor, realizing there was none. Nor was there the input slots between his eyes that had been there his entire life. Now there was only smooth skin with no sign that there had ever been any mechanical alteration.

  A deep sadness spread throughout Cal-com. His entire life had been spent in the service of the Elders, and to be discarded in such a way dug deep…but at the same time there was a lesser feeling attached to it. It wasn’t enough to overcome what had just happened to him, but the sense of freedom was new to the Voku, and was actually something that none of his race had experienced within his lifetime.

  It was scary and exhilarating at the same time, but that did not overcome the sense of failure and abandonment racking him. What he was going to do now he did not know, but the fact that the Elders had put him here was an indication that they knew him better than he knew himself.

  This was a Star Force world. And his next mission, now self-assigned, was to find Paul…

  8

  November 19, 128440

  Ittinarello System (Vex Kingdom border)

  Stellar Orbit

  Paul had been inside V’kit’no’sat territory for several months and away from the Star Force relay grid, so when Rubi came back into it in the Ittinarello System his ship got a massive download of new data from across the empire as it transitioned around the central star towards its outgoing jumppoint. He was curious to pick up where he’d left off with a number of projects, namely Dina’s research into the mysterious Essence-sucking Orb.

  Paul and Virokor had not found much in their investigation, but they had confirmed a few things. First was the monster gashes in the planets. All were similar in scope, but not in number. Trident had 3, Berto’dor 4 and Scarret 4 and a half. The half was an extra scoop out of the southern pole that wasn’t elongated into a gash, and by comparing all three it appeared that the placement of the gouges were more or less consistent with planetary size. They weren’t removing everything on a planet’s surface, but rather 1/3rd of it.

  Virokor had suggested, and Paul agreed, that it looked more like a culling than a harvest, leaving enough lifeforms behind to regrow and enough land for them to exist on while the watershed on the planet would fill in the gashes and open up new land elsewhere.

  That made Paul revisit the memories he’d gained from his interaction with the Essence Orb. They were hazy, but he had seen water in them. He’d thought it had been within the ocean, but now he thought it had been in the shallows near a shore or perhaps a lake. It was definitely an aquatic race with a lot of bodies nearby…he could remember the feeling of swarms and a closeness of them, but when he went back and analyzed planetary dynamics he was able to loosely confirm that the gashes on Trident were not naturally into water.

  The gashes themselves had not gone all the way down into the magma in most places, just skimming the top layer of crust in a way that seemed too precise for a Hadarak’s clumsy surface penetrations. If he had to bet, they were targeted at population centers and oceans were not well suited for such things save for shore-bound aquatic cities.

  Paul and Virokor didn’t have much to work on, but they’d been speculating a lot and there was no apparent reason not to scoop up the entire surface. Only taking a third seemed intentional, as was the spacing between the gouges, and the similarities between the three planets were undeniable. That said, the width of the gouges was not uniform, as if the scoops were of different sizes.

  That meant they were either able to adjust it for their target, or this damage was done by different sized Super Hadarak, which Paul had now decided to refer to as ‘Unicrons’ based off the fictitious planet-sized Transformer. The problem was, looking through both V’kit’no’sat and Star Force records, they could only find the three planets that had the very noticeable trenches. He and Virokor had gone through various permutations about how they could alter over time, but so far they hadn’t come up with anything.

  That said, there were many star systems out there that neither empire had explored, especially in the Deep Core, but the lack of a true ‘feeding ground’ didn’t make sense to either of them and Paul was interested to see what Dina’s team had come up with when he accessed the updates…but a priority personal message for him caught his eye first.

  Virokor, Paul asked telepathically across the ship to the Hjar’at’s modular quarters that were not too far from his own where Paul had just gotten out of the shower after a long workout session, do you mind if we take a detour?

  A detour where?

  The leader of the Voku is in Star Force territory and looking specifically for me. I need to get to him soon.

  Is there a threat present?

  I think it has to do with the Zak’de’ron. The message doesn’t say, but I know he wasn’t supposed to leave Voku territory. I always had to come to him. Whatever this is, it’s important and he mysteriously showed up on one of our worlds. No one knows how he got there and he has no escort or ship. The list of races capable of bypassing our security is slim.

  But the Zak’de’ron can?

  I doubt they can in our secure regions, but the public ones, yes, I believe they can.

  But not the Voku?

  I doubt it.

  Let us find out.

  Thank you. Diverting now. It will take 2 months and 16 days to arrive at his current location.

  Well worth the wait if we gain information on the Zak’de’ron’s actions.

  This is very unusual. I think we’ll find something, but it will delay your return considerably.

  My mission is now mobile. I do not need to be on a Hjar’at world, and I would very much like to hear what this Voku has to say. He is a friend of yours, is he not?

  Yes he is.

  Fighting the Voku, if the Zak’de’ron order them to attack us, would put you in an uncomfortable confrontation, wouldn’t it?

  That’s not a fight I look forward to, but I expect it to come at some point. The Voku have been heavily fortifying their territory.

  I am aware of this. I have studied them closely, as I have the other 37 known servant races of the Zak’de’ron. I note that you have also fortified the surrounding systems in preparation for a Voku attack?

  We have, and the surrounding systems of the others within our domain.

  Are you convinced they will strike the V’kit’no’sat first?

  I think they will do something we do not expect, but I do not think they will strike us and allow the V’kit’no’sat the warning and time to prepare.

  Unless they know the V’kit’no’sat already know.

  The V’kit’no’sat people do not know. If they did there would be a call to war
and away from the Hadarak border. Do you disagree?

  Only with your understatement. Every world would gear up for war production. That has not happened in the obvious fashion, though Mak’to’ran has been quietly layering on the empire’s defenses. He is no fool, but more cannot be done without telling people why. I think you are correct in that the Zak’de’ron would not want to give him that time, and if he did so now, on his own volition, the Zak’de’ron might strike in response. If they do strike the V’kit’no’sat, will you assist them or wait until the Zak’de’ron worlds can be located?

  We’ll make it up as we go, but we cannot let the V’kit’no’sat be eliminated and the Zak’de’ron to consolidate power in the aftermath only to come after us later. If and when they strike, we have to fight them together or in parallel.

  I concur. I am pleased you and Mak’to’ran think alike. We may actually stand a chance.

  You sound worried?

  They never showed us their true power, and what pieces of it we witnessed during the war were horrifying. They will not fight in the open, strength against strength, the way they instructed us to fight. And if they now have time to prepare and pick the opportune moment, I believe we will see a power far beyond what we witnessed when we caught them unaware.

  I’m not disagreeing with that, but we have a few secret powers you’re not aware of as well.

  It is a war I and the Hjar’at will be pleased to fight alongside you.

  It’s one that has me worried because I’m not totally sure how to prepare for it. They also have at least one Uriti.

  And you are convinced they did not acquire all the Protovic strands before they were neutralized?

  Relatively sure, but it’s not impossible that they found a way to do what the Chixzon did initially and create their own. Especially if they have a Uriti to work with rather than a captured Hadarak.

  A war of Uriti versus Uriti would be cataclysmic.

  That I know how to fight. It’s the unknown that concerns me and how many losses we will take before we realize the nature of the battlefield the Zak’de’ron choose.