Star Force: Reclamation (SF91) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  “And in return you get a crumbling region, small in scope to them, but massive potential gains for Star Force?”

  “A lot of the races in this region had already made inquiries regarding joining Star Force previously. The H’kar were but the first addition, others would have come in time.”

  “So they hasten the transfer in the hopes of stabilizing the link between The Nexus and Star Force.”

  “They will also be moving a grid point link here.”

  Thrawn frowned. “I am unaware of your reference.”

  “A very advanced transit system that utilizes a stabilized magnetic field to make jumps off of rather than gravity. It requires specialized drives, but has massive speed and range gains. It is the reason why The Nexus has grown so large. If they lose those links their empire falls. The one connecting to the Meintre will be withdrawn and shuffled to another position, with another being bumped over to us…and we can’t build one, not without wasting a lot of resources. These things are planet sized,” he said, sending a mental image to Thrawn.

  The lizard huffed in appreciation. “That answers some lingering questions our reconnaissance efforts never could.”

  “Saving The Nexus is more than we can do, and even their rebuilding efforts in our territory are not going to be enough on their own. They’re part of a very large plan that we’ve not been given all the details to. I hope they succeed, otherwise the rim is going to turn into a very ugly place. No matter what happens, we’re going to try and secure this new region and establish a firm border there against whatever else may come our way. We can’t annex these races like we want, so we’re going to have to utilize them as they are, and do better than they’re doing with less resources. Nexus roaming patrol fleets are going to be removed to fight elsewhere, leaving us with only the local races’ fleets and whatever we can send, which isn’t much.”

  “What of the current campaign?”

  “It will not be delayed. It is our first priority.”

  “What resources do you have left to send?”

  “Archons to take the helm of our new allies and a scattering of small fleets. We’re going to have to use our guile to keep them alive long enough to build them up to the point where they can hold the line.”

  “How dire is the situation?”

  “The region is so large it will not fall quickly, but decay is occurring with a lot of small threats internally. Threats that cannot be dealt with because larger ones are pulling military forces to them.”

  Thrawn looked at him silently for a moment, and Paul could feel the strategic wheels turning in his mind as he analyzed what little information the trailblazer had given him, but it didn’t take long for him to guess why Paul was here.

  “You have no other armies to call upon…save for us.”

  “We think we can stabilize chunks of the region without you. But to truly own it we need your help.”

  Thrawn drew himself up to his full height and flexed his muscles. “What exactly do you wish of us?”

  “The Clans will be taking the Paladin to the region, each being assigned a region to lay a seed in and grow into a peacekeeping force as they continue to make refinements in their technology, coding, etc. We know they’re not ready, at least not as much as we want them to be, but with regards to mainly being assigned defensive allotments and resource production they can serve a valuable purpose while other Clan resources take on the offensive operations, or lead them at least.”

  Thrawn balled his fists up then flexed his fingers out one at a time in rhythm as he bled off long suppressed frustration. “It is long overdue. You were right in your prediction. Fate has given us a worthy foe. We did not need to go looking for one.”

  “This isn’t the V’kit’no’sat we’re dealing with, but we are diving in over our heads. Normally we would be more prudent and chip away at the region gradually, but if we do that now most of it will be lost. We’re going all in to see how much of it we can save and turn to our own purposes.”

  “What do you require of me?”

  “Your efforts regarding the upgrading of the Paladin are hereby suspended. We may inquire occasionally, but the Clans will handle the remainder of the assimilation process. No, what I need from you is something more,” Paul said, with him feeling Thrawn’s anticipation at that promise. The Archon flipped over the holographic device in his hand, revealing that he had something else wedged underneath it.

  Paul pulled out the small datachip and handed it to him. “This is something we worked up a while back, but we decided not to use it for a number of reasons. Your loyalty being one of them. We also think it will only work once, otherwise we would have found an application for it by now.”

  “You were right to question my loyalty before. Now there is no need.”

  “I know, otherwise I would not be giving you this.”

  “What is it?”

  “A trump card. When we analyzed the mastermind markers we found a flaw, or rather a backdoor access that your geneticists probably didn’t have the technology to understand, or maybe it just never came to their attention because they didn’t have a reason to look. It’s easy enough to counter with a rewrite, but given the current coding of the Li’vorkrachnika, there’s a way built in to override a mastermind marker with your own. And I need you to use it in an upcoming operation.”

  Thrawn stared at the small device in the palm of his giant green hand, but his emotions were not what Paul expected them to be. Rather than seeing the obvious usefulness in the ongoing war against the lizards he felt sudden realization and growing dread, paralleled by a seeping anger that would never leave him.

  “This is no accident, Archon. This is the Templars doing. I am certain of it.”

  “We considered that, but the way the coding is it appears to be either an error or oversight.”

  “No,” Thrawn said firmly. “They have some technology that they do not share. I’ve seen evidence of this before. If they wanted this to go undiscovered they would hide it in a way my scientists could not find. Just as they restricted our minds while telling us otherwise as a measure of control. I am certain that this is a way to circumvent our command if they should ever have the need. All orders flow through us, and if we wished we could betray them easily enough. I never even considered doing so, and I would highly doubt any other Li’vorkrachnika did, at any level. Obedience is bred into us. But I know the Templars did not think it absolute, else they would not have lied to me. This override is their doing, I am certain of it.”

  Paul was silent a moment, rethinking that point. “It fits,” he conceded, “though the coding involved is by form if this isn’t accidental, and if they can do that intricate of genetic alteration then there are other concerns to consider. I’ll pass along a warning to our medtechs, but for our purpose it doesn’t matter if you’re right or not. They will find a way to undercut it once used, so we can only be sure of using it once.”

  “Do you have a target?”

  “All of them,” Paul said evenly, but he felt Thrawn twitch even though the lizard didn’t show it externally. “We’ll need more masterminds to take up control, but I intend to deliver your vassals to every single remaining lizard system rimward of the boundary line simultaneously. Any system that doesn’t fall under your control we’ll sweep up the conventional way, but we’ll no longer have to work our way around the existing masterminds. With this override we’ll take control of their minions on the planets under their feet, if I understand it correctly. Perhaps even them, because…”

  “…we’re not immune it to,” Thrawn finished, with a fresh sense of betrayal bubbling up in him.

  “I don’t know how well it’ll work on one of you, so I’m not assuming we’ll be able to turn the other masterminds. If we can capture them inert we’ll give them a chance to think it through, but honestly we don’t know how this will affect them.”

  “What about the minions?”

  “It causes your marker to trump any existing one, no more
than that. It’s the interface with your specific coding that is new.”

  “Can you eliminate this weakness within me?”

  Paul smirked. “Also on that datacard, along with all our research into it…that you can understand. Our genetics technology exceeded yours a while back.”

  “Of that I have no doubt,” Thrawn said, grateful. He really didn’t like the idea of someone being able to pull his strings, including Star Force. Paul’s alliance with him was based on openness, and he could feel the relief of the lizard’s trust being rewarded, for he knew that Paul could have used this on him long ago to ensure his compliance, or on the other masterminds, and he had not. “This will theoretically end this war and allow us to move on to the bigger threat, if even marginally successful. How soon can we be ready?”

  “Two, maybe three years. I’ve already got our scouts pushing hard to get a full list of Li’vorkrachnika systems and it’ll take time to get everyone in position. Plus we don’t have enough masterminds yet and I don’t want to use any that haven’t passed indoctrination tests.”

  “Then we will keep the worlds and turn them into supply factories for the Clans?”

  “No,” Paul said, shaking his head slowly. “The Paladins are already assuming control of several worlds and we will be cycling the original Li’vorkrachnika here. They’ll be providing their own resources while the current infrastructure that we will hopefully be claiming intact will be put to a much more immediate purpose.”

  Thrawn considered that for a moment, then snarled as he thought he deduced the purpose. “We are going after the templars…beyond the border where you cannot.”

  Paul held up an apologetic hand. “No, I’m sorry my friend. That is not what I meant. I want to go after them, and I’d like to see how you kick their ass, but fighting your kind with similar tech would be a bloodbath. I will not waste your lives like that.”

  Thrawn’s mind jumped to the only other conclusion, but he didn’t state it out of uncertainty.

  Paul nodded. “Yes. You and the others are going to be given a chance to fight on the rim. If you’re willing.”

  “In what form?”

  “What you know best. The Paladin are the future of the Li’vorkrachnika, but they are incomplete and untested. You and your kin are not. You are battle hardened. I need that strength and experience now. Not the dishonorable tactics, but you are not the same commander you once were. You are wiser now. Star Force troops will handle the major threats, take the hardest blows, but you and the others here, those that are about to be, with any luck, conscripted by your marker, and those yet to be grown under the older templates, will lock down the regions assigned to you and defend them against the small threats. I need your current strength and your capacity to multiply it far faster than the small number of Paladin can.”

  Thrawn’s tongue flicked out into the air briefly, a gesture he had never used before in Paul’s presence. “The enemy will come to us?”

  “The enemy will be everywhere. You will take the stars from them under my personal banner, and there will be losses. I am trusting in you to make sure they are not unnecessary ones as much as I am trusting in you to get the job done. I know there are many Li’vorkrachnika on this planet that were bred to fight and have been denied that. They are following orders outside their original task set, but they seek the chance to fight. I am supplying a worthy cause, and so long as you follow the tenets of honor, you and the rest will be able to do what you were born to do.”

  “We will need to reproduce others,” Thrawn said, noting the obvious catch.

  “When the Paladin are secured, you can start growing their templates. Until then you will use the originals or the modified ones you’ve created, per your discretion. I am holding you accountable for their actions, so make what adjustments are necessary, but as of this second I am authorizing you to refire the hatcheries at maximum capacity and I am returning all unconverted ring shipyards in all the captured systems to your command. If and when we roll up the rest of the Li’vorkrachnika systems, you will divert their raw materials to the shipyards and build me a force to replace and exceed in numbers what The Nexus is pulling out. I trust you understand the full implications of this?” Paul added sarcastically as he felt Thrawn’s emotions about to bubble over.

  The mastermind threw back his head and roared, a combination of shriek and warble that Paul had never heard before, but it was lower in tone than the chirps the standard variants often used, and even if he couldn’t feel his emotions the sound alone would have been enough to get the point across.

  Lizards all around stopped what they were doing and took notice, with many walking a short distance to peer around building corners or pop their heads up over the edge of crates to see what was happening.

  When Thrawn’s head came back down he fixed Paul with a hard, but fiercely loyal stare.

  “You are my superior in both skill and cunning, and have rescued us from misguided servitude, taught us the ways of the lightside, and have now given us a chance not only to fight, but to regain our honor through combat worthy of our ancestors. You are all that we believed the templar to be, and have given us a reality to replace a lie. We are yours to command, Paul, and we will fight to the last if necessary to accomplish the mission you are laying before us, and we will do so gladly knowing it serves a noble purpose.”

  “Replace?” Paul asked with a smile. “I don’t seem to recall the templars ever fighting with you on the front lines?”

  Thrawn smiled back, but didn’t say anything. Nothing more needed to be said. Both strategic wizards shared a silent glance then backed away from one another. Paul heading to his dropship and up to orbit to get Clan Saber kicked into gear, and Thrawn through the lizard cityscape with the marker override and a very important address to make to all the lizards in the system. No longer would they be sitting here building and waiting, prisoners of fate. They were about to return to the stars and into the action…and quite possibly come up against enemies far more powerful than any they’d faced before, aside from Star Force.

  They might die in the years to come, but they would accomplish the missions Paul assigned them and gratefully so. The Li’vorkrachnika were built to fight and conquer, and now with an honorable and needed cause to do so, Thrawn was going to launch his small empire out into the galaxy once again and put to the test all that he’d learned from Paul and see for himself how it played out in practice rather than theory.

  And if even half of it was true, the Li’vorkrachnika Thrawn commanded would become more powerful than any the templars still held their manipulative control over. And that in itself was going to be a form of very sweet revenge.

  8

  February 19, 3434

  Jwen System (lizard territory)

  Kie

  The mastermind in charge of this system and four neighboring others was flying in an anonymous transport across the surface of the planet and passing over an uninhabited desert heading towards a cluster of suddenly rebellious colonies. They were claiming they had orders to stand down from sending offworld traffic, but he had sent no such order. After there was no resolution to be had via comm and the insubordinate minions would not budge, he suspected a larger problem at hand and was traveling there to deal with it in person when a flurry of thoughts swept through his mind.

  He didn’t realize what was happening at first, then realization dawned on him. Somehow he was receiving a marker packet of information. It must have been delivered to the planet previously, having spread through the rebellious colonies first, and only now was finally taking effect here…yet he was receiving the information as well? That was not supposed to happen, but the impetus in the knowledge was clear.

  No offworld traffic.

  His gut told him to follow the command and others that were seeping into his consciousness, but his intellect told him something was amiss. His kind didn’t take markers, they created them, and along with the markers came the identification of who the marker was from, bu
t he couldn’t feel any with this. It was a string of instructions, priorities, and eventually one that was for him specifically.

  He was certain of that, but how one would code an order for a mastermind into a mastermind marker was something that he was not aware of. None the less it was here, and it was ordering him to a set of coordinates.

  Was this the Templars’ doing? Did they finally find a way to pierce the divide between these systems and their coreward headquarters? And what did they need him to reposition on this planet for?

  The mastermind consulted with the pilots of the craft and determined the location of the coordinates…an uninhabited stretch of grassland in the northern hemisphere. Upon closer inspection he saw that there was a single ship registered in the tracking grid as having landed there a few days ago. It had done nothing in that time that was recordable, but it matched the coordinates pounding in his mind precisely.

  “Take us there,” he ordered, then retreated back to his empty cabin as he thought. This was a marker, but how his physiology was accepting it made no sense. He didn’t have the receptors for it, but all the data suggested that this was the culprit of the rebellious minions…yet that didn’t make sense unless the templars had a way of overriding his marker. Another mastermind could, simply substituting the new for the old, but the minions would acknowledge the change and identify their commander. His rebellious ones were claiming that he was still in command and had given them orders to the contrary. Orders through markers could not be overridden via comm, and as such he had to be careful when constructing marker orders so not to end up in a situation such as this, but he could always write a new marker to solve the problem…except this one seemed to be affecting him as well.