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That said, she continued to learn and train despite her misgivings, erasing the rebel over time and eventually given a means to work her way to freedom. By the time she earned her way to release the rebel was gone, as was the world the rebel had been fighting to protect. Ace left the prison and reintegrated into the world she had been monitoring via the newscasts, living in an apartment the same size and specifications of her prison cell and working in a factory doing tasks identical to those she’d been earning her way to release on.

  Her transition was so bizarre that she woke up for the next several days wondering if anything at all had changed…then seeing her door to the outside and the open button on the inside, something that had never been present in her cell. She opened it, half expecting to see the guide walls for days, but only found the exterior hallway that connected several of the local residential quarters together. The sight was an overwhelming joy each time she saw it. It was the taste of freedom, the one thing she’d been denied by the Humans in her pit of luxury, and it had finally been returned to her.

  Only it hadn’t. She’d had to earn it back. She was so relieved to be back into the world that she didn’t bother to hate the Humans any longer, though they still ruled her planet. No, she was back and loving every minute of it, with any ideas of rebellion long since vanished.

  She had to admit, though, that the Humans had succeeded in destroying her culture, just as the one had said they would do. And though it was all over now, it still rankled her a bit to know that the Humans hadn’t done it to her…they’d tricked her into changing herself.

  9

  December 26, 2384

  Iona System

  Kirit

  “The last report is in, Archon,” a Kiritak said, walking up to Tom and handing him a datapad.

  The trailblazer read through the summary of the transitional handover of sectors 4505-4608 to Randy’s reclamation team, then skimmed through some of the more detailed files attached. “I guess that’s it then.”

  “It’s been an honor,” the Kiritak said, bowing its head slightly.

  “Where are you being reassigned?”

  “Archon Daniella’s staff, overseeing region 18, personnel division.”

  “You’ve done good work here, Ika. Thank you.”

  “Thanks are not required. Kiritas owe you. Our service is but a small repayment. Is there anything else you require?”

  “Just make sure the command center gets decommissioned properly. I don’t want any equipment going missing in the transfer.”

  “I will remain for the duration. May I give the word?”

  “Pack it up,” Tom prompted, with the short alien turning about and scurrying out the door. The Archon flipped through a few more pages of the report, verifying that all was in order as the last of his planetary management team was turning over the last of Kirit’s unorganized territory. Everywhere else on the planet had been annexed by the reclamation forces, demolishing structures to make way for new infrastructure and Kiritak governing units.

  Most of the planet still lived in the old dwellings, but the key facilities had all been replaced with the new designs, giving Kirit a strong skeleton upon which to feed and retrain the population…which had been dramatically lowered to 1.4 trillion as the reproductive ban’s cumulative effect snowballed. With the older generations dying out of non-starvation causes and the limited breeding replacing them the planet was gaining some badly needed breathing room as they worked to build brand new cities in a scattering of locations to hold an entirely new, Star Force-trained Kiritak population.

  That was Randy’s turf, along with Clan Star Fox that had moved more than half its holdings into Iona. Randy’s Clan had even established an independent colony on another planet in the system, giving Star Force a claim to the region and allowing them to establish a permanent defense fleet along with the neophyte Kiritas version that they’d been building out of prototype stage over the past 5 years. That had been necessary, given the increasing number of trade ships coming through the system, in order to discourage the more unsavory elements from trying to take advantage of the primitive planet.

  Star Force had even gone so far as to build another Babylon station in the system, which was tagged Babylon 2, in order to facilitate trade between the planet and others and it was quickly growing into a commerce zone of its own, given that the Iona system was strategically placed along three separate trade routes used by neighboring races. Most of them usually passed through the system without giving Kirit a second thought, but as Star Force opened up the system to trade by outsiders the word spread and more and more ships began showing up, most of an independent nature.

  Whereas the original Babylon station was an embassy of sorts between civilizations, Babylon 2 morphed into a free trade zone where many individuals would come to skirt their own race’s legal code and taxes. Star Force maintained their own limited rules, keeping the venture from becoming a haven for criminality, but the Humans’ philosophy of economic freedom proved to be very loose by comparison with others, making the system a growing hot spot in the region.

  New races also began appearing, most peaceably once they saw the fleet that Star Force had in the system, which grew the Humans’ contacts well into the coreward regions out from Sol, but no mention of the V’kit’no’sat was ever come across. Apparently they’d pulled back from Sol’s region within the galaxy, which was a relief to the Archons, but it begged the question as to what happened to them and where were they now?

  Tom was leaving Kirit to join one of the mapping expeditions heading out anti-spinward from Sol, now that his mission here was finished. Randy and the others would be staying, though many had already cycled out to be replaced by others. Randy and Clan Star Fox were the regulars now, tackling the enormous task of restructuring the entire planet. Tom’s job had been to stabilize the chaos while Randy built and expanded, and now that starvation no longer choked Kirit it was time for him to leave the planet.

  He’d become fond of the Kiritas and their world, but he didn’t want to get rooted here like Randy had. His moving a portion of Clan Star Fox here allowed him to keep a foot in both worlds, but Tom needed a change of venue, so he’d chosen one as different from his planetary post as he could…which was deep space exploration.

  Others had been running Clan Skystrike in his absence, as most of the Clans now were, given the communications difficulties between systems, but Tom had been out of formal contact ever since he’d come to Kirit, only getting periodic, yet detailed reports from the rest of the Clan and issuing the occasional order when needed, which would take weeks to make it back to the nearest Star Force system.

  Iona was still well outside their borders, an island in the stars so to speak that Randy was claiming for them. Only one other system had been annexed in his time here, given the amount of resources needed to sustain Kirit as well as those being consumed by the continuing war being fought against the lizards. Star Force’s jumpship fleet had expanded exponentially, but the large ships were still hard to come by and had to be reserved for specific uses, not allowing the wildfire-like expansion into the galaxy that you’d read about in scifi stories.

  The systems that they did have they were constantly fortifying, not just against the lizards but against the growing number of races the Humans were coming into contact with. Anonymity had been a powerful defense in the past, but that was no longer a luxury as word of the Humans spread, meaning that everywhere they had a presence Star Force was likely to attract attention at some point. It was standing policy to make all of their colonies known to their allies and others, clearly establishing their territory while offering free pass-through privileges to interstellar traffic…with the one exception being Sol.

  Star Force didn’t want anyone else going there, but by opening up the surrounding spacelanes to traffic most races obliged and kept clear of the Human homeworld. That policy of free travel also meant that whatever visible infrastructure or fleets Star Force had in a system was likely to be monitored by
the passing traffic, meaning that the Archons couldn’t afford to have any weak systems that might invite predation.

  The lizards were by far their primary enemy, but there were also a handful of other races that were either disinclined to have any relations with Star Force whatsoever or were actively hostile. There were no ongoing wars with them as there was with the lizards, but there had been a number of incidents in neutral systems that had made those races’ political alliances crystal clear.

  The Zatoma were the primary minor threat, not in overall military might, but in the way of piracy. They had no known homeworld but their ships could be seen traveling the spacelanes all across this part of the galaxy and they’d been at odds with the Humans from the start after they jumped a mapping expedition early on and were barely fought off. After that the Zatoma avoided Star Force whenever they could, unless they thought they had the advantage. That was rarely the case and more often than not Star Force would intervene when the Zatoma would hit someone else.

  As a result, they’d begun to sniff out weak areas in Star Force’s publically outlined territory. Finding none they kept their distance, but they were always on the periphery looking in, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  Tom left his command center for the last time and headed over to the neighboring block in the small Star Force annex within one of Randy’s rebuilt cities. This one was well away from the metropolises he was building and had been completely leveled early on in order to build a Kiritak facility for Tom to work out of. Starting with the Star Force buildings, including a small sanctum for the Archons to use, the city had expanded outward ring by ring over the years until Tom had a fully functioning Kiritak infrastructure to work out of as he managed the surrounding ‘lawless’ territories, as well as those spread across the planet.

  He’d nicknamed the city ‘Solitude’ after Superman’s ‘fortress of solitude’ up in the wasteland of the north pole, and in a similar motif Solitude sat in the wastes of Kirit while both Star Force and Kiritak infrastructure projects were focused elsewhere. Tom had essentially ruled a shrinking planet for several long decades, and he was happy to turn over the final piece, his mission completed and mostly successful. Still, those billions that had died in the early years that he couldn’t save kept him from labeling it a total success.

  Tom returned to his private quarters and packed up his gear, then hit the sanctum one last time for a solid workout before having a dropship run him up to orbit where a jumpship was waiting. It had offloaded its cargo and accepted return passengers three days ago, but had been held over for Tom to finish up the handover on the planet before leaving. As soon as he was aboard it adjusted its orbit until it hit on the jumpline that led to the system’s central star and made a microjump into the inner zone. From there it maneuvered onto an interstellar jumpline to leave the system and head back towards Star Force territory.

  Eight months later and Tom would be outbound again, commanding an expeditionary jumpship on a mapping mission and settling in to his new assignment with ease. Archons were adaptable and multitaskers, and above all else they craved a challenge. The change of mission profile and lifestyle fell into that category and Tom took it in stride, satisfied with the completion of his mission on Kirit but with no qualms about leaving the planet and the Kiritas behind.

  Randy was in the opposite position. His chosen mission was to stay on Kirit and help advance their race…a huge challenge and one worthy of an Archon, but he had to be careful not to get too settled into the local atmosphere, for as much as he needed to set an example for the natives he couldn’t let himself start thinking like them. He was the instrument of their change, not the other way around.

  Him bringing in Clan Star Fox had eliminated that problem. Not only did he have more Archons with which to interact and train with, he had Star Force duties to attend to simultaneous with Kiritas ones because he intended to make the Iona system a firm part of Star Force territory. He’d chosen one of the rocky inner planets to set up shop on, an airless world much akin to Mars but larger. It had gravity slightly less than Earth and ample mineral resources, as well as a surface covered in sand and dust and made for a moderate building challenge, but nothing that his Clan hadn’t encountered before.

  At present Randy had more than 2 million Clan Star Fox colonists on the world that he’d named ‘Horizon,’ due to their location on the edge of Star Force’s map. Though he didn’t live there, the trailblazer ran the colony along with all other Star Fox assets within the system from their enclave on Kirit that held another 100,000 Clan colonists.

  It was the one location on the world that the Kiritas didn’t inhabit or co-inhabit, and Randy spent about half his time there and the other half moving about the planet from one facility to another dealing with problems and guiding the massive reconstruction effort while Emily ran the Kiritak training facilities, now numbering in the thousands, each of which was larger than a university back on Earth. It was here that eggs were brought to be fertilized, and like the Canderians the Kiritas offspring were born into the training programs and guided by older Kiritak through largely automated teaching systems.

  More than a third of those systems were interactive recordings of Emily and other Archons explaining essential concepts while the rest was data oriented. There were very few recordings of Kiritas to teach Kiritas, so revered had the Humans become within their society. To them, Star Force was the bringer of knowledge, unity, strength, and hope…to Emily and the others involved in the training of the Kiritak they just wanted to make sure the proper instruction was given and found it was easier to do it themselves rather than to train an ‘actor’ for the role.

  As such, every generation of Kiritak born entered into a world that was a mix of Kiritas and Star Force, and as the years passed and there were less and less original Kiritas left alive and more and more Kiritak entering the population a major shift occurred, in which ambitions began to rise for their society as a whole. They were not merely content to follow the orders of the Archons…they wanted to prove themselves worthy to the Humans, both by remaking the entire surface of their planet to wash away the scars of the past, meaning removal and replacement of all old infrastructure, and by expanding out into the stars.

  To that end the Kiritas leaders, now all Kiritak, requested a ‘trial of advancement’ from Star Force, which both surprised and pleased Randy. He and Emily accepted their request and began creating a tiered achievement system that would have the Kiritas creating technology on their own, but having to meet prerequisite standards set by Star Force as they did so in a sort of quality control system that allowed the Archons to direct their advancement down a specified path.

  For example, the first step they set them on was an improvement in their aircraft, followed by the creation of dropships, then starports, starships, shipyards, etc. Each had to fit within parameters defined by the Humans and had to be proven ad nauseam before they were allowed to progress to the next level. In this way it insured a mastery of the technology rather than the copying of tech bequeathed to them for use on the surface and retooled for orbital use.

  The ongoing Trial of Advancement eventually resulted in the creation of the Kiritas’ limited naval fleet, then limited orbital habitats, given that most of their production resources were still being used to remake the planet. They built a few habitat stations, a few factories, warehouses, shipyards, and whatever else Star Force wanted them to learn how to build on their own, slowly grooming them into a space-based civilization while continuing to teach them how to maintain their enormous population.

  It was a long, deliberate process that Randy was guiding them down, one that would found the basis for an alliance closer than any other the Humans would forge, for all the time and resources Star Force spent to save the Kiritas and teach them how to live, the diminutive aliens would never forget the debt they owed, and would forever be seeking ways to impress and aid their Human allies, some of which would be crucial to Star Force’s survival in the distant
future.

  10

  July 29, 2389

  Katerne System

  Oel

  The Hycre jumpship released the Star Force light battleship from its hold once it reached orbit of Oel, a world on the border of Bsidd space where the Hycre had been invited to attend an anti-lizard summit. Five of the most powerful races that were both enemies and victims of the lizards were gathering to discuss the mutual threat, of which the Hycre were one. Star Force’s ally had requested that the Humans attend as part of their delegation and had arranged for appropriate transportation to the distant summit.

  Unable to travel on the Hycre ships due to their lack of environmental conditions suitable to Humans, Star Force had sent their smallest manned warship along as a diplomatic vessel, which the Hycre had then carried more than 650 light years around the periphery of lizard territory along with a small warfleet of their own.

  As the Tenacity left the confines of the Hycre jump bay along with their own warships, Greg got his first good look at the planet beneath them, easily identifying the scattering of gigantic cities across the green surface. As the Hycre information had stated, the Bsidd kept a very strict line between urban and natural areas on their worlds, with their perfectly circular cities appearing as dots in the otherwise wild regions of the planet below. Greg could see three such locations in the world-spanning forest as the Tenacity and Hycre ships orbited around towards the night side, along with the glowing markings of another just appearing on the horizon.

  The summit, however, would not be held on the surface. The course the Hycre transmitted over to the Star Force ship had them moving to rendezvous with a massive station in extremely low orbit, barely kilometers above the atmosphere. Why they kept it so close Greg didn’t know, but the technology used to create it was glossy to the extreme. He couldn’t visually identify a single edge to the construct, which looked like an octopus with its arms loosely wrapped around its main body.