Star Force: Baron (Star Force Universe Book 43) Read online

  The wranglers used their telepathy to help guide those heading their way on out into the grasslands when they flinched and tried to recoil. That kept the leading edge moving, and the others followed as Trigger kept those in the rear motivated. He had to move around to the various nooks in the wide facility, making sure to get every one of the Nioti moving, for some were hiding in corners or still laying down and sleeping. He rounded them all up, then was the last one out the door as the Protovic lowered it again.

  Another group of Nioti would be coming here later, with this group being rotated to another facility some 27 miles away. It would take them four days to get there, and they’d be camping outdoors on the way with foodstuffs already laid out at the waypoints.

  Well done, Kena congratulated Trigger privately. Keep an eye on the west edge. I don’t want them getting too close to the river. They don’t know not to drink it.

  I keep them away, he thought, knowing that she was listening to his mind, as he darted off to the left and shooed a few meandering off back into line with just his presence, knowing to save his barks for those that didn’t take the hint the first time.

  Later that day they arrived at the first waypoint where there were a few Star Force tents set up for the wranglers to sleep in along with crates of supplies that included force field fencing. Kena laid out the basic perimeter that she wanted and the Protovic went out and put the pole-like pylons down into the soft ground. When activated they produced a semi-invisible barrier that would stop the Nioti from moving through it or anything else from coming in.

  All the wranglers wore a bracelet on their right forearm that allowed them to walk through the barrier, and Trigger had one that he wore as a collar that functioned the same way. They also contained an emergency personal shield generator should they experience trouble with the Nioti or any of the other sanctuary races.

  Tired from the ‘long’ 7 mile walk, the Nioti laid down immediately upon stopping with only a few curious stragglers attempting to wonder off. Keena saw that as a good sign, but she couldn’t let them get separated so she had Trigger nudge them back towards the group until the fencing was set up. After that the wranglers broke out the foodstuffs and water, with the smell of it prompting the Nioti up off the ground without any direction. They gulped down the water through their short, flexible snouts then ate with a ravenous appetite.

  Their metabolism was very misaligned for activity, so even short, easy walks put them into a state of fuel emergency. The more of these walks they endured the more they would adapt, but it was a long process that these Nioti were just starting. This was their 8th cross country trek, but she could still feel their fear of the surroundings and the lack of food and water. They’d been given so much previously, in order to make them as fat as possible, that they would gorge themselves if allowed to. That meant the wranglers had to lay out the foodstuffs in specific patterns that had a certain amount for each, and when they ate it they were moved into a subsection of the shield fencing so they couldn’t eat twice.

  There was a lot of pushing and bumping going on, as expected, with Kena using her Ikrid override a few times to knock down the worst of it, but once they all had a full meal and were sent back into the sleeping area, the Nioti went back to their sedate habits and laid down…with most immediately going to sleep, fatigued as they were from the day of walking.

  Kena stayed and watched them for a while with Trigger beside her as some of the Protovic got to sleep. They’d take shifts over the night, so someone was watching over the Nioti constantly, but it didn’t take more than an hour before one of the Nioti got up and walked over to Kena…shying a bit as Trigger looked at him from the ground where he was laying, but the Nioti was brave enough to creep forward and laid down a meter away from her chair.

  It looked up at her and Kena connected to its mind, having a very basic conversation…not in words, but in thoughts and feelings and memories. This one had spoken to her before, and it wanted to again, with her recognizing it as one of the few Nioti that were truly different from the others. It wasn’t genetic, or cultural, but the person that was in this Nioti body was a curious one. Curious people, of any race, wanted to explore and learn, and this Nioti was no different.

  We’ve got another one for the prime herd, she told Trigger. He can’t be held back here.

  We move him now?

  No, we’ll finish this hike then I’ll have him moved. He likes it out here.

  Rain comes.

  Kena’s eyes looked up to the horizon then she spun her head a quarter turn until she could see the storm clouds on the horizon as the sun was setting a little further to the north.

  You’re right. I’ll turn the shield on.

  Kena mentally interfaced with her bracelet and linked to the large object in the center of the sleeping area. It held some water troughs so the Nioti could get a drink over the night if they needed, but the bulk of the thing was a large shield generator that activated on Kena’s command. It stretched up some 30 meters then spread out like a giant umbrella coming down all the way to the shield fence and melding with it, making an invisible tent that would cover both the Nioti and the wrangler’s tents.

  By the time the rain started to reach the camp area and impact the energy shield with tiny little ‘bleep’ sounds, one of the Protovic wranglers walked up behind Kena and Trigger, glowing brightly in the dark as his skin made her a living glowlamp that had prompted the original Protovic to never having created the Star Force equivalent of a flashlight.

  “Get some sleep,” he said, putting a hand on Keena’s shoulder.

  “You’re early.”

  “I didn’t get to run today, so I’m not very tired. You awake Trigger?”

  “I am.”

  “You staying out here or going with her?”

  “Do you need me?”

  “I think they’re just going to sleep, so go ahead and get in tents. You’ve done the most running of any of us. Rest up.”

  “Ok,” he said, standing up and trotting off to the tents and nosing the ‘open’ button so the door slid to the left and let him inside.

  Keen stood up and stretched. “Thanks. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s tired and tries not to fall asleep out here.”

  “He had to run down a lot more strays than usual. Some of the Nioti are breaking out of their shell.”

  “It still takes too damn long,” she said irritably.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The Preema are stalling us. They don’t want to devote the necessary ships to get the Nioti all here in a hurry, so they’re making multiple trips. That means more like these are still stuck in fake food pens.”

  “Are they still being killed?”

  “We have no way of knowing, but we’re told no. I still hate that we’re working with people that would do this.”

  “If we weren’t, we never would have rescued these Nioti. The Preema might have just killed them if they no longer served a purpose.”

  “A race that powerful doesn’t need to resort to barbarism. There’s no excuse for that.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest there was, but this is nothing new.”

  Kena sighed. “It feels like we make no progress. I know that’s not true, but when we keep getting new ones in we have to start all over again. It’s disheartening.”

  “Do you need a break?”

  “No. I just don’t like it, and we’re scheduled to get a lot more new races from the Rim.”

  “Isn’t that why the Sanctuaries exist?”

  “I prefer to solve problems, not perpetually babysit them.”

  “We are. Trigger is living proof of that.”

  “It took them so long to get to even this level, I…” she said, stopping suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Maybe I do need a break.”

  “You can start by getting some sleep.”

  Keena cracked a tired smile. “Point,” she admitted, then turned and walked over to the tents.

&nbs
p; She went inside the same one Trigger was in and grabbed a sleeping sleeve, laying it out next to his own heated bed circle and sliding inside. She was still frustrated, but seeing the Kayna there was a reminder of what the Sanctuaries were all about. She just wished it didn’t take them such a long time to get them to this point.

  Though compared to ‘natural’ advancement, they were still moving at lightspeed.

  8

  January 29, 4877

  Titagra System (Paladin Zone)

  4th planet

  Megan-026 wasn’t doing much fighting, unlike her fellow trailblazers. In fact she wasn’t doing any at all in recent years. Rather she was the spider at the center of the growing Paladin web while Supreme Viceroy Thrawn was roaming their now vast territory dealing with problems that arose. Right now they had no control over that territory, with just a sprinkling of systems here and there, but they were establishing a logistical chain and growing their new colonies at a rapid pace, though there was no way to fast track infrastructure growth to the level they truly needed.

  Megan had taken part in a few military operations soon after arriving out here to knock down some of the biggest bad guys…or at least to give them a bloody nose and deter them from excessive predation, but the Paladin were not in a position yet to lock down the region they’d been assigned and Megan was playing the part of master organizer from a system at the approximate center of the Paladin Zone.

  Communication relays were extending out from the Titagra System and courier ships were filling in the gaps elsewhere, leaving a lot of lag and fog of war to deal with, but that was why Thrawn was out roaming. Having them both in the same place would have been a waste, and the same went for the other Viceroys she’d brought with her. They weren’t quite as good as Thrawn, but they were close and the former lizard Masterminds especially were quite good at work like this, so she was coordinating while watching the star map grow constantly.

  But there was so much territory in their zone, with so many native races and native threats, that if they started to try and police it they’d wipe out their own forces in the effort. It was annoying, but they had to turtle up and build for several decades, for the supply convoys running nonstop out through the frontier region could only supply them with a trickle of the resources they needed. It was enough to get them up and running comfortably, but only if they weren’t engaged in active fighting that would add an attrition factor to their growth.

  Bottom line was they had to build just about everything they needed out here, which was what Megan was focused on. The Paladin were tasked with establishing and defending the ‘western’ wall, which was on the spinward side of the galactic swirl. Beyond it was the Chamra, which were friendly, and a lot of other non-Nexus races. Megan was essentially assuming their old western border and then some, blocking off access to the cesspool that The Nexus’s territory had become while helping the few remaining shreds of The Nexus races that were in her assigned region.

  That help had come far too late, and aside from three tiny clumps of systems that had weathered the storm with better than 50% losses, all the rest were slivers of population that had mostly degenerated into chaos and savagery. Some individuals had been plucked out of those areas and given refuge with the Paladin, but their planets were essentially lost and Megan didn’t have the resources to spend on saving what was left when there were intact planets out there that were in more need.

  She hated sitting by and doing basically nothing, but the Paladin had to snowball to truly be effective, so she plucked a few remaining allies out of the fire while waiting to do more as the Paladin worlds were under a furious construction schedule.

  Megan had small fleets backing up those three clusters of systems that held what had been minor members of The Nexus that had been abandoned early on. They were the Deok, Srct, and Banniwom, and they were just trying to hold on to what they had left. The Paladin military umbrella was invaluable to them, but they also were having trouble with internal production and undergoing rampant rationing to try and keep everyone alive, for these worlds were mostly overcrowded because of the evacuation of other worlds that had previously fallen.

  Megan had communication relays out to the Deok and Banniwom, with two more links needed to get to the Srct, and she was remotely helping them restructure using nothing more than her wisdom. She didn’t have supplies to spare and they actually had enough already, they were just misusing them. She was helping to alleviate that problem, for all three races were eager to join Star Force and obeyed any requests she made of them.

  She was glad she’d been able to incorporate them, but they weren’t going to be an asset in the region anytime soon. Just another salvage mission and a living testament to the failure of The Nexus.

  Now Megan was assuming their responsibilities and the task that they had abandoned on herself and the Paladin. She had to succeed where they had failed, and not biting off more than she could chew was the key. Megan wanted to be fighting nonstop, but building is what was going to save the most people…though that meant a lot had to be lost right now. She hated that, but in a bad situation she had to play it the best way possible, and when you couldn’t save everyone, you had to make choices. Everyone she took under her wing she had to protect, for unlike The Nexus, Megan wasn’t going to abandon anyone.

  That meant picking and choosing who to bring in and who not, and fortunately most worlds in the Paladin Zone didn’t even know Star Force was out here yet. That was a blessing for her sanity, for if she’d been getting requests for assistance nonstop and had to keep turning people down it would have driven her crazy.

  So right now the Paladin were secretly building in uninhabited systems save for a handful here and there with low populations that Megan and Thrawn had chosen to take mercy on and annex immediately, turning their worlds into Paladin ones and keeping the survivors around, although dispossessing them, with a steady food supply and housing. That might seem a cheap price to pay for a planet, but to those who were starving and roaming devastated worlds trying to stay alive another day, it was unmitigated salvation.

  Those small populations were now little more than hitchhikers on the Paladin train that was constructing cities at a rapid pace. Orbital defenses was nil right now, with Megan having to rely on the Paladin fleet for security, but if she chose to build anti-orbital batteries and planetary shields up front, that could cost her the more badly needed mines and shipyards. Even as the snowball rolled, she still didn’t have enough for every task and choices had to be made. The trailblazer was willing to gamble on the Paladin fleet being able to protect the growing worlds, so she’d put aside the hard defenses for construction much further into the future, and so far she hadn’t had reason to regret that choice.

  But the threats were definitely out here, and more so beyond the old Nexus border. They hadn’t taken notice of Star Force yet, which was another reason why the Paladin were keeping a low profile, at least as far as Star Force norms went, and Megan was immensely grateful for the tireless work ethic of the Paladin. No other race in Star Force could have been building this fast, as far as startups went, and the number of Paladin requesting to be transferred back to Star Force territory so they could enter Axius and the civilian sector were 3 to date. Three Paladin out of some 19 trillion she had under her command out here.

  That was damn impressive, and with that 19 trillion number growing quickly with new generations being ‘born’ into adulthood immediately and put to work within a few days’ time, she had the workforce she needed, but one that was also very dangerous. The idea of the Paladin going for maximum population was actually scary, for they could swarm over the galaxy if properly organized. Why Star Force hadn’t used them in that fashion was an ongoing debate topic in the civilian media, but the answer was pathetically simple…they weren’t going to grow them faster than they could produce new Archons to oversee them.

  For the biggest asset of the Paladin was also their biggest problem. It was their genetic memory. They wer
e very regimented and disciplined, which helped loads in an operation like this, but it also meant they were less likely to figure out the difference between right and wrong when it didn’t align with a code of conduct. The Paladin, even with all the Star Force memories woven into them, could go off the rails without the proper leadership, so without Archons to guide them, Paladin reproducing at maximum capacity was a dangerous thing.

  But these were dangerous times, and Davis had unleashed them out here with only Megan to oversee them. She was confident that her presence would be enough over the long term, but if any Paladin was left to their own solutions she expected they would end up becoming brutal, for failure was not in their genetic vocabulary. Archons offered solutions the Paladin would not think up on their own, and no matter how many contingencies they wove into their genetic code, the galaxy would always throw them something new. That’s why the Paladin needed Archons, and right now Megan and Davis needed the Paladin to explode their population and do what they did best.

  Megan had confidence in Thrawn, but that was due to his person experience, not his memories. Memories were useful, but they didn’t hold a candle to actual experience. The transformation Thrawn had gone through made him solid, and the same could be said of the other former Masterminds who had to learn what it meant to be Star Force rather than just inheriting that knowledge. They weren’t as good as Thrawn, but they were reliable and damn efficient. Problem was she didn’t have enough of them and she had no other Archons or Mavericks to help her.

  So it was just Megan and the old school Masterminds running this quickly growing empire within an empire, and for construction matters that was fine. When the heavy combat came, she was going to have to be on the battlefield making the quick calls. Same with Thrawn and the other elite Viceroys. That meant a limited number of operations that could be conducted simultaneously. At least until the newer Viceroys picked up enough experience of their own.