Star Force: Intellect (SF85) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  He couldn’t produce any live ones to check for sure, but the genetic pattern woven into them was a very deliberate one and he didn’t have the necessary skills to be able to pick and choose which pieces to remove or blend together. As it was he couldn’t alter the coding one iota without encountering problems, leaving him with the existing tools to work with and the inability of crafting any new ones.

  His own genetic blocks worried him most. He’d been digging into those and training himself to see past the ones he found, but analyzing oneself was much more difficult than another, for you did not have perspective. He kept constantly checking and rechecking himself on tasks that he’d never considered complicated before and most of the time it was needless worry…but on occasion he could stumble across a fragment of a divergent thought that would be swept away from his mind almost immediately.

  That was when he knew he was onto something, and given enough time he could track it down, but how many other things where there and being pulled away from his conscious mind without him realizing it? That thought scared him the most, for things he couldn’t see he couldn’t fight against and they could leave him blindsided against his enemies…or even his superiors.

  He wondered now if the templars feared his breed and put safeguards in place for their ever disobeying. It seemed ridiculous considering how loyalty was what the Li’vorkrachnika lived and breathed, yet the genetic blocks were there for a reason. What was it? What could it be?

  He still didn’t have answers, and the small systems that he was evacuating back to Michra didn’t have any databases that could help illuminate that question in the slightest. They were all backwater outposts or supplementary worlds while the big ones were falling to Star Force year by year and off limits to him due to the fact that other masterminds were there to block any attempt he could make on data recovery…let alone conscripting their minions to his own service.

  That didn’t stop Paul from sending him some of them anyway. On occasion they’d be able to capture those on a shipyard ring before contrary markers could be flooded into the troops, but doing so on the ground was virtually impossible. Still, Star Force was stunning some of their opponents into a passive oblivion and then wiping the memories of battle from their mind, but because of the genetic locks on them they were programmed to interpret an unknown situation as enemy duplicity.

  Many of those memory wiped would kill themselves within minutes of waking again and finding themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, even if they were Li’vorkrachnika buildings or ships. The paranoid made sense in that you didn’t want the enemy gaining any use from captives, but without knowing of an enemy and being compelled to kill yourself by the genetic programming could be a huge vulnerability if the enemy could find a way to weaponize the memory wipe process.

  Toss a biological weapon onto a planet that would spread and take away a few days of memories and your entire population could start killing themselves due to the memory gap. This was something that he should have known existed in order to make sure it never happened, but the templars hadn’t included it in his genetic knowledge, databases, or even quietly told him about it in person.

  And that begged the question as to how much more was lurking in their genetic coding that he didn’t know about.

  A few standard variant soldiers spread out around him to take up scouting positions in the rubble, but he knew there was nothing on this planet to harm him and everything in orbit could obliterate what he was building here with ease. There now orbited two of the Star Force defense stations they called ‘Sentinels’ and they had the range to strike whatever targets on the surface they wanted. All it would take was a littler orbital redirection and they’d float over the desired area and blast it into rubble…again.

  There was also a decent sized warfleet up there, though most of the ships that had conquered this system had left, moving on to other invasions no doubt, but what was left here was more than he could hope to defeat even if he was of a mind to do so.

  Eventually a Star Force dropship came down and an armored Archon came out alone, though the mastermind could see a few other personnel inside the ship as the hatch lowered. He walked over to meet the Human halfway, looking into a blank faceplate that suddenly retracted to reveal the smaller biped’s head.

  “As strong as you are, why do you still feel the need to wear your armor?”

  “Never know when you might need it,” Paul said pithily.

  “You fear an ambush?”

  “No, I just like having it for unexpected situations. It’s a long climb back up to orbit to grab it if something does happen. Why don’t you wear armor?”

  “We never developed a need for it.”

  “I’ve seen some of your troops wearing body suits.”

  “Thermal mostly, and occasionally an armored patch covering their torsos, but your weaponry can shoot right through it. As for me, I’m not supposed to engage in combat.”

  “Then why did they make you so large?”

  “You never know when you might need the advantage,” he replied in echo. “Is there something specific you want to inform me of, or is this simply the routine check to see if I’m betraying you?”

  “Both,” Paul said bluntly as he pointed to the dropship and a small lizard walked out as its mind was being controlled by an Archon within. “We recently hit the Dragoya System, middle-sized industrial base, four planets, and there was a group of about 60,000 of these guys,” he said, referencing the lizard that had four arms, a boney head and spine, and very thick and powerful stubby legs.

  “We know they’re diggers,” Paul continued, “but I thought this variant had been deemed obsolete given your improvements in mining technology. I’ve searched his mind but he knows nothing obvious. I need you to assert command so he doesn’t kill himself when he wakes up.”

  The mastermind looked down at the odd lizard, for he had never seen one in person for just the reason that Paul had stated. “Withdraw from view.”

  Paul walked off, leaving the little lizard facing the mastermind until it suddenly twitched back to consciousness and the first thing it saw was the behemoth standing before it.

  “Be still,” the mastermind ordered, taking one of his two, four-fingered hands and rubbing it across the lizard’s arm. The genetic programming within the digger recognized the gesture, knowing that he’d be receiving new memories within minutes. “Tell me what your last assigned task was before being transported to me,” he said carefully, with his words eliciting the right sense of control to keep the digger from worrying about the memory gap and accepting the situation for what it was.

  “I have not been assigned a task. I was awaiting transport.”

  “Were you told where you were going?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember how you got here?”

  “I do not.”

  “Be still and observe,” the mastermind said, waving Paul forward. “We are on a world that is safe from Star Force because we have an agreement, so when you see one of their people do not try to attack or flee, simply proceed with assigned tasks.”

  To his credit the little digger did not move when Paul walked up beside him, giving him a few meters of clearance.

  “There is a lot of rubble on this world that needs to be reclaimed. Access shafts have been cut off. You will assist the digging teams by creating auxiliary routes to the subsurface areas.”

  “As you command,” the digger said, staring in Paul’s direction.

  “Wait inside my ship, then you will be taken to your assignment.”

  The shorter lizard walked off into the transport and disappeared from view as the mastermind looked back at Paul. “He is conscripted. Where did you find them?”

  “In a facility near to where they were grown, apparently awaiting transport offworld. I want to know why.”

  “Excavation,” he said without hesitation. “Our machines are far more efficient at removal of bulk material. The only possible purpose for this breed is
delicate work that the machines cannot manage.”

  “What sort of excavations?”

  “They are retrieving something or building around something they do not want damaged…or something dangerous. And it is located on a world where they do not have the necessary infrastructure to grow them locally.”

  Paul thought for a moment. “What do you know of the Keepers?”

  “An ancient race rumored to have superior technology. We have found a few remnants, but nothing of significant value.”

  “Did you use diggers for that?”

  “It was not I, so I cannot answer that question. My guess would be yes.”

  “Isn’t 60,000 too many for a single site?”

  “There may have been far more than that if this was not the first shipment. If the object is small that many could be procured for a quick withdrawal, but it makes no sense to produce that number from afar when a smaller amount would be able to do the task. I believe this is a large scale effort, though there is nothing in my memory to suggest what it could be. Most likely it is either information withheld from me or something new.”

  “How far away would they bother growing them?”

  “Not far. I suggest you search within a radius of 200 lightyears unless you suspect they would have known you to be watching them. If that is the case their production and transport may have been lengthened in order to hide the destination. Do you have a map?”

  Paul activated his armor’s hologram, creating a starmap of Star Force holdings in between the two of them that he mentally adjusted to zoom in on Dragoya and the surrounding region. The mastermind pointed to a core world not that far off.

  “They did not use Chederson, assuming this was the only planet producing the diggers. I believe they assumed you would be monitoring the larger system and chose to use a smaller one to avoid detection. Why did you assault it before these others?” he asked, pointing to several worlds on the new border that had been skipped over.

  “We don’t like to be too predictable. Plus if others don’t know it’s fallen, we can pick up fleeing ships from others passing through. You’ve gotten a decent number of your jumpships from that tactic.”

  “How did you prevent them from sending a transmission?”

  “We put blocks up prior to the invasion. It requires some sneaking to get them into the system beforehand, but with one such as this there isn’t that much security in the outer regions. Wait for the planetary alignment to be right and you can slide in unnoticed even with a huge ship.”

  “So they had no way of knowing you were coming, and assumed this system would not be hit for at least a year or more?”

  “Several years, actually. We chose it because this region had been passed up many times for an assault.”

  “Then there is something nearby that they do not want you to find…and it is not on a world they currently inhabit. I find this highly curious. This region of Li’vorkrachnika territory has been heavily explored and cataloged. If something new was found buried beneath the surface of a planet, what cause did they have to go looking for it? Something must have risen to their knowledge, though by what source I cannot speculate. I highly doubt they managed to conquer one of the remaining besieged races.”

  “Not to our knowledge, no, but we have little reconnaissance of their remaining territories. We’re only scouting in off the border far enough to size up targets.”

  “Have you surveilled the other system with the at least partial ring shipyard?”

  “No we haven’t. It’s too far away to hit now, and there’s no point in rushing to take it down. If they want to suck up resources from surrounding systems to build it, better that than warships. We’ll just take it from them eventually anyway.”

  “I am surprised.”

  “There are a lot of systems out there, and setting up slow jumps from enemy-held systems isn’t easy when you’re trying to sneak around.”

  “So you are relying on Li’vorkrachnika maps?”

  “And those of races along your borders, yes.”

  “And what if those maps have been falsified?”

  Paul looked at him with a frown. “You’ve found something?”

  “More duplicity. I am questioning everything I cannot verify myself. I would suggest you do the same with your maps and scout every system whether you are quiet about it or not. There may be more going on out there than you know.”

  “So now you want us to defeat the templars?”

  “I want information and I know you will share what you learn. Are there anymore diggers left alive?”

  “We rounded up 329 more and they’re on a transport in orbit. I didn’t have the crew to manage more than that, and a lot of them died in the fighting, but I didn’t want to bring back just one.”

  “And the rest of my envoys?”

  “Busy on other worlds. There were none on Dragoya.”

  “Do they have a marker?”

  “Yes, but it’s not barring yours. There was a mastermind present though.”

  “They may be obsolete, but digging through debris is one task they are good at. Send them down and I will add them to my workforce.”

  Paul sent a quick signal to orbit and had the transport begin its descent.

  “You still wish you could save them all?” the mastermind asked.

  “I could save more if I wished, it’s simply a matter of resources, time, and willingness. If I want to take the population of an entire world captive I can, but I must have a huge staff of handlers ready to receive and maintain them in an unconscious state to keep them from decaying or waking and killing themselves. We cannot mount many invasion of that nature, and if we delay in order to do so the Li’vorkrachnika grow stronger and continue to spread, making our efforts more difficult.”

  “Yet you still find time to save some of them in this fashion?”

  “On special occasions.”

  “And the killing bothers you, so you find special occasions if none present themselves so to put your mind more at ease?”

  “I kill them because they won’t surrender and have to be stopped. I could stop them via other means but do not have the time. That does bother me, but I won’t let others die because I took my time.”

  “I feel no such restrictions, and I am beginning to wonder if that is because I do not have them or because they are being repressed.”

  “The fact that you’re even wondering that is a sign that you’re overcoming your blocks.”

  “Not fast enough, and I may never know if I’ve found them all…”

  9

  May 31, 3247

  Krachnika System (occupation zone)

  Michra

  The mastermind stood before the birthing pod in one of the deactivated hatcheries, watching one of seven Li’vorkrachnika awakening to their new reality and not taking kindly to it. The standard variant thrashed about wildly as others moved in to restrain him. It took a moment for him to settle, then the typical tantrum wore off and he blinked his eyes against the harsh light as he heard orders being issued to him and his genetic imperatives found him inclined to obey.

  He moved off with the handlers as the second of the new standard variants was removed from his pod, the process being the same but them handling it one at a time. This facility had never been fully shut down, producing a handful of Li’vorkrachnika variants that the mastermind needed when recruits weren’t sufficient, but this was the first time it had produced standard variants since the invasion and he doubted Paul would object given the fact that these were special cases.

  After years of research he’d finally permitted the scientists to create a new genetic template…not a wholesale new Li’vorkrachnika, but a subtle alteration to the standard variants as a test. These seven were to be the first and last unless they were able to successfully integrate with the others. The genetic blocks within the originals had been removed and reworked, substituting an inclination towards obedience rather than a mandate, which would allow them to think and deci
de while their choice would be heavily urged in the desired direction.

  The danger was lack of order, and the mastermind had been hesitant at creating any unshackled Li’vorkrachnika because he didn’t know what they would do, but the potential advantage was in making them smarter and more adaptable than before. He’d been studying Paul’s methods closely, and the more he found and circumvented his own mental blocks the more he was beginning to see the wisdom in them. Star Force methods would not work on the Li’vorkrachnika without seriously altering them, and if he risked that he could lose his foothold here on Michra via rebellion or internecine.

  So he went for making modifications, taking what was useful in the Li’vorkrachnika and preserving it while allowing for adjustments to incorporate Star Force strengths when possible. He had nothing to counter the Archons so he didn’t try. Simply wanting to make his standard tools more effective and knowing that new ones could be fashioned later, though often with centuries of research and fine tuning needing to be done. Normally they’d just kill or find some auxiliary purpose for the ‘failed’ experiments, but not only did he now see that was wasteful given his limited resources, he also felt uneasy about it.

  His Li’vorkrachnika couldn’t become hesitant or that would destroy them. When the enemy outmatched you, you had to fight as if you had nothing to lose. Fearing death would only inhibit you, but there were many non-combat situations where death should be avoided. Why hadn’t he seen that before?

  He assumed two reasons. One was because he had been used to growing whatever population he needed and now he couldn’t, with Paul mandating he use the recruits and nothing else for his masses of workers. Two, he was now fairly sure that the templars had restricted any sense of attachment or concern for those Li’vorkrachnika that he commanded. They didn’t want him hesitating to send them to their deaths if needed.

  And that wasn’t going to be a problem. If needed he’d still do it, but looking back on his own history and that of many others that he had found in the databases he was discovering that ‘if needed’ had included many circumstances where it truly wasn’t. Had their blocks caused them to get sloppy with their own personnel? He’d never wasted resources before, not the material ones, but in reanalyzing past actions and running numbers supplied to him by the librarians who had a penchant for cataloging every little detail, he was seeing his own actions in a new light. One that he had been unable to see before.