Star Force: Capitulation (Star Force Universe Book 73) Read online

  This would be his first accomplishment if it succeeded. Everything else he’d been doing was more shuffling and approvals than course corrections. He was glad he caught this random link, and for the first time since accepting the temporary position the Lord felt he might actually be able to keep his head above water long enough for Davis to return from whatever his ‘vacation’ actually was.

  Daegan stood in his workroom, which was the size of a hangar with project tables scattered all over with active lists, diagrams, maps, and whatever else he needed to work on. He found it more efficient to have them all up and active rather than have one table that he switched settings on. This way he could walk amongst them as he thought, fiddling with this or that and moving on as he visually scanned his workload.

  His Kingdom stuff was now split up and delegated down to the 4 Grand Dukes that oversaw Regions of Zavrex, and while that meant their territories overlapped with his, they rarely worked on the same projects. Problems that rose up through the ranks ended when someone solved the problem, so only the really tough ones made them up to the Lords…who were skilled enough to handle them when others couldn’t, in theory. Most of what he did was finding problems that others had missed, and the Director’s position was no exception.

  Overloaded as he was, he didn’t ignore that aspect of the position, so a few of the tables included stuff he’d searched for and found on his own, including a nasty traffic issue in a cluster of black holes annexed in the Core half of the empire. It had originally been controlled by the V’kit’no’sat, but since their annexation it had been managed by Star Force. As more systems converted over or linked their economies, traffic patterns changed, and Daegan recognized the escalating overlaps of jumplines and transitional lanes around the black holes themselves. He’d seen this happen before, but never this early.

  Apparently the local Monarchs hadn’t seen the problem developing yet, but he could. It technically didn’t exist this soon, but the precursors were all there to see, so he’d been fiddling with a radically different commerce system for all of those black holes and wasn’t finished with it, but every now and then a modification would pop into his mind and he’d walk over to that table and add it, then come back to what he was working on before.

  He wasn’t ready for this type of upgrade, but he was adapting as the days went on. His sleep was suffering for it, for he was having trouble turning his brain off with so much on his mind. He’d adjusted his training times to put them right before sleep sessions, but that had only half worked. He had so much new information before him that he couldn’t help but process it at all times. The Director’s access to the database and comm network was the best Christmas gift ever, but it was also a tiring one. He knew he had to pace himself, but the amount of work and potential before him made it difficult to do, so after another 9 hours of pacing around his lair, Lord Daegan finally made himself leave.

  He headed to a private cafeteria and sat down to eat, still thinking about various projects as he shoved the foodstuffs in his mouth and chewed, unable to let go of the immense reins that had just been given to him.

  “Stop,” he told himself, closing his eyes and focusing on his breathing as he tried to clear his mind. “You’re going to burn out.”

  But his subconscious didn’t listen. It was in such a high energy state it was what he assumed was the equivalent of Saiyan metabolism. It literally would not slow down and had to be working on something constantly.

  So if he couldn’t stop it, he’d have to redirect it onto something else.

  He turned to the display cases of foodstuffs along the left wall and telekinetically opened one of them, flying out a train of various cubes and put them into an intricate dance in the air above his head. They made little trains that moved on invisible tracts, with enough rotations and turns added in that Daegan’s mind had to focus on this and this alone or some would fall out of the air.

  This was random, and no more than an idea he’d had a moment ago, but it appeared to be working. He had a task before him and it was occupying his attention. Yet as he succeeded and got used to the patterns a bit of his mind was freed up to think about other stuff, but not in an obsessive way. Just some loose, casual imagination about many things that flowed like dreams, but most of his focus was on his little foodstuff trains as he would occasionally pick one car out of them and fly it into his mouth, for he was still hungry. Thinking didn’t use too many calories, but it did strain brain cells enough that they needed additional repair parts. Insufficient resources resulted in headaches, and he could feel one beginning to form before he’d gotten into the cafeteria, though it was already in the process of vanishing as his stomach processed the nutrients and sent them into his bloodstream.

  And as he continued to run his trains in new directions his mind finally relaxed. Not because it stopped, but because it switched to something less stressful, and an old bit of lore made its way into his mind, with one quote being quite pertinent.

  We can’t stop. We have to slow down first.

  It came from a movie called ‘Spaceballs’ that was part of the basic maturia training, and while ridiculous in many ways, it was highly quotable and useful for metaphors. Simple language was insufficient for many things, but the use of metaphors was based off a common experience…in this case, viewing a movie. If two people had both view it, and remembered it, then they could speak in a more detailed way than simple language would allow.

  Other stuff from that movie bounced around the free part of his mind, including Megamaid…

  Suddenly all the trains stopped moving, frozen in the air as Daegan laughed. The problem on Kaetaris 19 with the delicate minerals. They hadn’t tried sucking them out, and while it was probably inefficient, he already had some ideas of how to boost that inefficiency using hyper compressed atmosphere beyond what the planet naturally had after drilling sufficient access bores for adequate surface area interface.

  The trains went back to their stations, save for three cubes that diverted into the Protovic’s mouth as he got up from his chair and headed not to his quarters to sleep, but back to his lair.

  Sleep would have to wait for now. He may have just solved a mystery that even Davis hadn’t figured out yet, and if that was the case, then this temporary assignment might end up being more than a babysitting operation until the real Director got back. Daegan might actually be able to tick one of the unsolved items off the list for him.

  And if that was possible, he could sleep-in a few hours in the morning in compensation…or not.

  Probably not.

  8

  March 29, 154929

  Solar System (Home One Kingdom)

  Earth

  Sean Davis had seen Archons fight nearly his entire life. He’d seen them in training, he’s seen them in combat, and he’d seen them from the inside as he trained to be an Archon as well. But the trailblazers were something else entirely, and fighting with and alongside them was far more intense and humorous than he’d ever believed possible.

  Wilson had conspired with them to set up challenges that included Davis in a way that he wouldn’t be totally left behind, and today was no exception. They were in a wooded park in Atlantis made specifically for multiple team battles, currently in a 10 vs 10 scenario while the others were in other challenges hammering it out against each other. Davis’s team was a mix of others teams when he was included, but mostly they were set in their original teams from basic training on a daily basis.

  Davis couldn’t keep up with that schedule, so he was down to two or three bouts a day while they were going at it almost every hour with their enhanced Saiyan metabolisms. And they took special care when Davis was involved to hit him hard. There were no kid gloves involved, because he had weaponry and armor and they did not…and they liked not having to hold back on him.

  He didn’t like it so much, but the Director was starting to become less of a liability and more of an asset in these matches…and he did like that. The armor they’d made for hi
m had both Petricite and some psionic blocking countermeasures in it, basically making him a mobile turret with a variety of stun weapons. If one of the trailblazers on the other team made a mistake, he could render them unconscious in less than a second.

  But they rarely made mistakes…unless his team forced them to.

  And that’s what was happening. His 9 teammates were trying to maneuver the fighting into certain areas where Davis could be used as an advantage, but even without their hair going blonde they were still far faster than him. Without his Sav-enhanced mind all he would have seen were blurs, but he could actually track their movements, punches, kicks, and dodges up until they did kick in their Saiyan modes and began to draw heavily on their ambrosia stores inside their body.

  That was their Achilles heel. In long matches they’d use it up and couldn’t go into that super-fast mode, so you’d see them going blonde and back again in the blink of an eye when they needed to. Davis had no such limitation, for his stun weapons essentially had unlimited ammo, yet Wilson hadn’t given him any AOE other than for perimeter defense, citing it wouldn’t have been fair.

  Yeah, it might not have been fair, but it would have been much more fun in the early days rather than getting his ass handed to him every 5 seconds.

  But that wasn’t happening today. He was running alongside a creek with Sara and Greg as they headed towards an automated turret that was powered down on the enemy side of the battlefield. If they could get to it and activate it, it would come alive and work on their behalf…but the opposing team wasn’t going to let that happen, and before they got there four of them came out of the bushes so fast Davis almost missed it, for they were all in at least Saiyan 1 mode to close the gap as fast as possible.

  Davis raised his forearm weapons and fired ring-like blasts that expanded slightly as they went, but only gave him a few degrees of firing arc. He missed all his shots, but they did force the attackers to dodge in certain ways…and that let Greg snare one with an Essence or psionic attack and reel Rafa into close range…only to have him drop his Ubven and freeze everything up as he turned and punched Greg in the face before dancing away as Davis lit up the area he had been standing with stun shots…barely missing Greg in the process.

  Then Sara’s body came flying towards Davis, but he was quick enough to deactivate his perimeter defenses that would stun anyone that touched his armor. He half caught her body and she tried to fly herself into a stop, but then Jason came in out of nowhere and jabbed Davis in the back and knocked him face-first into the ground with him landing on Sara’s leg and pinning her in place for half a second, during which a sword tip slashed down and caught her in the head.

  Swords? Where did they get a sword? Davis thought as he rolled off her, but it was too late. She was already unconscious and would be until she was revived or woke up on her own.

  He rolled off her and up onto his feet, seeing Jason backtracking quickly as Davis tried to pepper him with stun blasts. Greg was nearby…and down as well. With his now five attackers all ringing him while moving erratically. In the past he’d made the mistake of thinking they were mocking him, but what they were really doing was looking for a moment of opportunity to exploit as well as keeping him where they wanted him.

  Which was away from the turret.

  Davis wasn’t going to play that game, and took off running towards Oni…who moved out of the way as he fired ahead to clear his path. He felt with his Pefbar them moving up behind him and made sure to turn his point defenses back on. They wouldn’t be able to physically touch him…except with the sword. Why had Wilson put one of those in this challenge? Davis was having enough trouble as it was.

  He was halfway to the turret when they finally struck, throwing Kyp towards him like a missile. Davis managed to get one shot into him before he landed, but his body impacted his armor and knocked both of them to the ground, though Kyp was now unconscious.

  Davis tried to push him off…but couldn’t. He must have weighed several tons, for even his armor’s powered mode couldn’t push him up.

  Then he realized that while their Lachka wouldn’t work on his armor, it would work on Kyp’s body, and they were holding Davis down using him as leverage. But his arms were still free, so he started firing at what angles he could, yet his captors quickly disappeared out of his firing lines.

  Then he saw Sara’s body floating past him all the way up to the turret, where Oni used her hand to activate the security pad…which only the opposing team could…then quickly claimed the override while within minimum safe distance as it began to spray shots out at the rest of them.

  The pressure on Davis lessened as they had to dodge, and he finally managed to push Kyp’s body off…which he stunned again for good measure…then the turret’s agro programming got switched to target his team, and it started to pour a torrent of stun shots into him.

  He just stood there and took it for a moment, for his armor soaked up stun shots, then he began running towards the turret so he could reprogram it as Jason’s sword flew through the air and shot between his legs, twisting and tripping him up before flying back into Jason’s hand.

  “All too easy,” he mocked, then dodged a return shot from Davis that missed by inches as the turret continued to futilely pour shots into his grey/white armor.

  The others disappeared, running off suddenly and leaving only Jason there to telekinetically fly his sword at Davis and delay him from getting to the turret controls…but this time he was able to get a hand on the sword, pinning it in place long enough to bring his other hand around and grab it on both ends, with the stun charge in it helplessly soaking into his armor.

  “You were saying?” he replied as his suit continued to get hit with turret shots, then his grip on the sword yanked him off his feet and dragged him across the ground as he refused to let it go all the way up to a few meters away from Jason. Then a wash of dirt flew up from the ground and covered his helmet enough to cut out his visuals, but he could still sense with his Pefbar as Jason made a mocking thumb to nose gesture as he waved his fingers.

  Davis got that a lot. Until he was able to keep up with them they would continue to hound him. It was their way of making sure his inclusion was for real and not generous, and for the life of him he didn’t know why he thought Jason couldn’t lift his entire body weight with his Lachka. And once again, he gave him the leverage to do it with a foreign object beyond his armor.

  So he let go of the sword and stood up as fast as he could, running towards the Archon and attempting to punch him, but Jason wouldn’t let him get anywhere close. In order to dodge his shots they needed some distance, and within a couple meters it would be hard for Davis to not hit them even without aiming.

  Then all of a sudden another blur appeared, and Jason turned to meet it with a flash of blonde to his hair. His movements were so fast now Davis’s eyes had trouble keeping up, but what he saw was two swords in play, with Paul having come in to engage him with one of his own.

  Davis almost wanted to stay there and watch, for this was the highest level of swordplay in all of Star Force, and Saiyan-enhanced, but he wasn’t an observer here, he was a player and he knew an opportunity when he saw it. So he raised both arms and unloaded stun shots wide to either side, meaning they had to stay between them or they would dodge into his shots.

  They didn’t move, other than to slash and parry each other, then Davis moved the shots closer and fired on both of them, with Jason trying to hide behind Paul but Paul was too quick and made sure both of them got hit.

  The pair fell to the ground in unison unconscious, then Davis ran up to them and used his right gauntlet to inject Paul with a destunning serum while taking the distant turret shots on his back.

  Paul blinked, then rolled a little more out of line as some of the blast wash was still hitting him. Davis gave him another shot to clear it, but left Jason laying where he was as Paul telekinetically pulled both swords to him.

  “Shield me to the turret,” he said, with Davis
turning and running towards it with his arms next to his sides to give Paul as much of a block as he could. It wasn’t enough, for Paul started to stumble and fall as bits of the AOE turret wash hit him, then he went down again.

  “Damn,” Davis said, turning and picking him up as they both got bathed in the stun blasts…then he ran him up within the minimum distance around the turret and destunned him again there.

  “Ow,” Paul said, feeling dizzy as Davis stood there and covered him, making sure nobody was moving towards them from either side or in front, with the turret blocking his back.

  “Get the turret,” he told him, his eyes flicking back and forth along with his Pefbar remaining constant, not knowing why none of them were coming to stop them. If they weren’t here, they must have been somewhere else doing something more important.

  “Done,” Paul said, with the turret now glowing blue to indicate that it was aligned with their team.

  “Now what?”

  “I’ve got Jason’s sword…” he said, seeing his fellow 2’s body having disappeared, along with Sara and Greg’s, meaning Davis couldn’t revive them. “They moved them.”

  “I didn’t even notice.”

  “Ok, option 2. You and me head for the nexus.”

  “Are they going to fall for that?”

  “Probably not, but you never know. At least we’ll force them to back and the others might use that to their advantage.”

  “Might? Aren’t you in battlemeld with them?”

  “Jammers went up earlier. Telepathic too. We’re blind to each other now.”

  “When did they get those?”

  “When I went to get my sword. We’ll make them pay for it though. Follow me and watch our flanks. I’ll worry about what’s ahead.”