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

  And they were here now, standing behind the ranks of soldiers in a crowd that stretched for miles. The bipeds were packed tight, with most unable to see the landing zone, but all of them could see the two Star Force warships overhead and the arrival of the dropships. When they disappeared down into the city vid screens allowed the crowds to see what was happening, playing all over the metropolis, planet, and system…with copies to go out to every other system in Tolsoi territory. This was the biggest moment in their history since joining The Nexus, and while that had gained them much, they hoped this allegiance would permanently solve their security issues along with a number of other still lingering problems. No one knew for sure what was going to happen, but they were all watching and waiting for a glimmer that their hopes weren’t in vain, for they could see the news reports about what was happening elsewhere in The Nexus and they knew they were in danger.

  The Tolsoi were the pillar in this region and it had been their responsibility, with exterior backing, to maintain this sector. They had failed for the most part due to too few resources that had continuously been pulled away to more pressing matters. The Tolsoi fleet was considerable, but not well outfitted for protecting more than its own borders, and even that was difficult enough to maintain. Intimidation had allowed them to scare down many local problems, but now that The Nexus was visibly losing fights that intimidation factor was significantly threatened.

  Star Force, on the other hand, was winning a very long war against the Li’vorkrachnika and adding territory to its domain…not losing it. Their reputation alone could solve some problems, but they’d have to back it up with action else the chaotic fervor running through the Rim Region would continue to escalate into unknown proportions.

  The Tolsoi were not only in a position of failing to defend their neighbors, but also facing the very real chance of a major power moving to challenge them, most notably the not too distant Zargor, whom they’d fought four different wars with prior to joining The Nexus when it expanded into this region.

  Now The Nexus was leaving and the Zargor were already reported to have struck at several of their former holdings.

  The insanely powerful alliance that had once been the Tolsoi’s salvation was now crumbling, with ‘less important’ regions being abandoned to preserve the valuable ones, else the founding members might be in danger of falling as well. The Tolsoi understood what was happening and did not fault The Nexus for doing what it had to in order to keep some of itself intact, but such a measure broke the promise made long ago and even if they somehow made a miraculous comeback the breach had already occurred. The Tolsoi’s faith in The Nexus was gone, but their hope for surviving this unfolding nightmare now lay in Star Force and what they’d be able to accomplish with the Tolsoi adding their strength and resources to the Archons’ command.

  There was literally no one in Tolsoi territory that did not, or would not, see this arrival unless they deliberately chose not to. For in the coming days it would be the single data point that they would all be focused on, and as the Star Force dropships cracked open their boarding ramps Greg could feel the anticipation in the alien crowd even before he saw them.

  “Packed house,” he commented to Davis who stood beside him as the ramp lowered and slowly gave them visibility on the sea of monkey-like bipeds that were the newest addition to their empire. “Can you feel that?”

  “Hard not to,” Davis said as the ramp finally touched the ground and the pair walked off with a number of others following. They were soldiers and techs and administrators that would be necessary to interface with the Tolsoi leaders in every capacity, but the pair were the only Archons onboard this dropship. There were a few more scattered throughout the others but they all offloaded behind his, allowing the Director and trailblazer to lead the procession out, which followed them a few paces back in a narrow line that headed for the gauntlet of Tolsoi ahead.

  Greg wore his ViLord armor while Davis wore his ranger green, but they both had their ID markers visible to the Tolsoi comm network so they knew who they were. The telepathic surge Davis was getting from the crowd was overwhelming, but it spiked when the pair of them became visible on the monitors as they walked with a quick rhythm into the start of the long, narrow strip that would eventually lead them to the headquarters they would be using in the foreseeable future, but the Tolsoi leaders had obviously wanted this long promenade walk, for there were no waiting vehicles to carry them.

  That was fine with Davis, for he was an Archon and this little hike wasn’t a big deal. Even the techs behind him wouldn’t find it too much of a problem, but when their presence finally filtered through the mostly silent crowd a noise began somewhere in the back. He couldn’t make out what it was, but suddenly his telepathy spiked so much he had to block it out as the chant reached them.

  “Yarmeblo! Yarmeblo! Yarmeblo!” they repeated with such fervor that it gave Davis goosebumps. His helmet translator told him the word meant ‘ass kicker’ or ‘slayer’ or ‘warlord.’

  “Guess that’s for you,” Davis commented as they continued walking side by side with only a couple of meters separating them from the perfectly aligned Tolsoi on either flank that stood about even with the Humans’ shoulders.

  “For us,” Greg corrected. “I’m the field commander, but you’re the guy in charge of it all. They want someone that can win wars to lead them, and we’re a team. They know that, as well as the fact that there are 100 of me, but only one of you.”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” Davis mocked as the crowd continued to chant without end. Even those closest to the Star Force procession were whispering the words while maintaining their rigid pose. “This is a nice change from having to fight our way in.”

  “Totally,” Greg agreed as he scanned the faces and minds of those on his left. All of them had brown hair covering their petite bodies, but there were subtle variations. Their minds, however, were a wide mix of shock, awe, pride, hope, fear, anxiety, and just about any emotion other than despair. They knew this wasn’t the end. They weren’t safe. But a change was happening and they’d have to see it through to know how it would turn out, and these beside him were getting a front row seat for this portion of it.

  “I’m surprised by the sudden change. The Tolsoi never contacted us prior to this deal. Unless they had secretly wanted to join and didn’t want to risk causing trouble with The Nexus, this adoration seems out of place.”

  “You’ve been on Earth too much. When your back is to the wall and someone comes to your rescue, you can make lifelong friends very fast.”

  “Are you sure that’s what we have here?”

  “Just feel it,” Greg urged him.

  “It’s a little too much for me. I’m having to block a lot of it out.”

  “Don’t try to draw from the group then. Focus on one or two minds in the front row as we go by.”

  “I’m trying, but can’t seem to manage it. The sound is deafening.”

  “You’re stuck in a loop. You need to disengage. These guys aren’t telepathic, so they’re not transmitting to you. You’re drawing it from them and it’s hitchhiking on your other senses.”

  “I figured that much, but knowing it does no good. All I can do is numb most of it out.”

  Greg sighed. “Well, you are just a ranger.”

  “I’ll add it to my ‘to work on’ list. Just tell me if this sentiment is genuine or mob inspired.”

  “Mob enhanced, but it’s genuine. They’re not looking at us as contract workers, they’re looking at us as superiors they want to welcome as well as impress. That’s why they’re holding ranks so tightly.”

  “My sense is they’ll do whatever we ask?”

  “Spot on. So long as whatever it is works. They’re eager to get into the grind, and I can sense an instinctual drive similar to the Kiritas. These guys don’t like to sit on the sidelines and watch. They want to be in the action, even if it’s in the smallest of ways.”

  “Action? What do you think t
heir response would be if we sped up?”

  Greg smiled beneath his helmet. “Just you and me?”

  “Yeah. They can get a close up look at them. Let’s remind them that we’re warriors and all.”

  Greg hesitated a second before replying as he relayed the order to the others behind them. “Done. Set the pace and I’ll match.”

  “Nothing too fast,” Davis said as he leaned forward slightly and accelerated up into a light run. Greg matched him precisely, keeping their shoulders aligned with one another as the Tolsoi around them flinched as the pair zoomed forward, but within a few seconds the chant changed. It was a garbled mix until they all got in sync, then it became not so much a word as a song they were singing…or more accurately shouting at the top of their lungs.

  “Any idea what that is about?” Davis said as they ran forward, with Greg even mimicking his strides so they stepped in sync.

  “We lead from the front,” the trailblazer summarized. “But if you want an analogy, here’s one for you.”

  A moment later a song of his own began to play across Greg’s private comm channel, with Davis recognizing the Rocky training montage from the recommended Archon playlist.

  “Appropriate,” he deemed as they continued to run on towards the stairs in the distance that led up to the giant doors where the Tolsoi leaders were waiting for them. The pair gradually picked up the pace as the music kept playing in their helmets and the pounding of the alien version lit up the planet outside as they took in the moment and continued running in sync.

  10

  May 30, 3435

  Delorean System (Zeta Region)

  Flux

  Torgon walked off the dropship with his duffle of personal items wedged between his right two arms along with a mix of other Axius troops returning home from the lizard front. He was the only Calavari in this load but many more dropships were emptying the jumpships in orbit that had been their home for longer than he could remember. The warfleet was still partially deployed to the region keeping an eye on the recently surrendered systems, but there was no longer a need for massive amounts of ground troops so they were cycling back to the ADZ for training assignments…or in Torgon’s case, some badly needed time off.

  He wasn’t quitting, per se, but the commando had designated himself as ‘inactive’ once they arrived back. That meant he wouldn’t be assigned another mission and would be free to train individually as needed, but in his case he just needed to get away for a while. Fighting and killing lizards had been his life ever since Star Force had pulled him off his original homeworld back before his race had joined the empire. He’d owed them a debt and had been in the first batch of Calavari trained by Star Force and sent back out to fight the lizards as they were still tearing down the old Calavari civilization. But now half of those lizards were on their side while the other half towards the core were still bitter enemies.

  Star Force had made it clear that they weren’t pursuing the lizards past that line and had made a point of marking it clearly and extending outposts all the way up and down to the edges of the galactic plane. The lizards could spread so fast they could be chasing them forever if they kept going after them, but Torgon had mixed feelings about that. They all needed to die, but he was glad that the war had finally come to an end. The lizard capitol and core worlds had been conquered, every last bit of their original territory was now in Star Force hands, the Calavari had all their worlds back and then some. He’d done what he’d originally set out to do, and if the lizards wanted to rebuild from scratch elsewhere then part of him said just let them go while another part said the fight still wasn’t finished.

  But Star Force had made the call and that had settled that. He’d expected to be fighting at least another hundred years to purge the rimward half of lizard territory, but the sudden surrender of all the remaining systems had put a quick end to that. Furthermore, it was said that they’d not only surrendered, but been commanded to by a lizard mastermind who had been working with Star Force for some time now, and if that was true it was ironic beyond all reasoning.

  The treacherous little bastards who would fight to the death rather than surrender had just surrendered en mass because they’d been ordered to do it. At least a thousand systems, all up and surrendered before Torgon and his fellow Axius ground troops could get at them. The Calavari hadn’t been expecting that, but now that it was suddenly over he felt himself in a far greater need of rest than he’d previously thought.

  So when he got off the dropship he headed for the civilian part of the city and found his newly assigned quarters. They were larger than his last set, with four different rooms and plenty of space for one person. Yet another upgrade that he’d earned through his long years of service.

  He laid his personal bundle down on the bed and looked around, getting himself acquainted with what would be home for a while and sensing a bit of anxiety. He walked back to the door and locked it, then went back into the bedroom and sat down. The bed didn’t feel right, so he slid off it and sat on the floor wedged between it and the wall and pushed his back up against the other wall and pinned himself in the little nook there.

  There had been so many lizards on the worlds they’d invaded that he’d just tuned it all out, and now, back in Axius, there were so many people around him…but in these quarters he couldn’t see them, or hear them, or smell them. It was as if he was completely alone on the planet, and that emptiness was doing a number on his head. It was like he had been holding onto and suppressing a lot of old wounds that were now finally being released to breathe.

  So much killing. Endless killing. Torgon was a warrior even before being rescued by Star Force, and killing had never bothered him so long as it was justified, and with the lizards it most certainly was, but there was so many of them and it never ended. Kill a million and they’d just grow more to replace them.

  Victories had not been in kill counts, but in territory taken. Conquer a system and they couldn’t repopulate it. Take a continent, a city, a building…it was all the same, and paid for in a very high price of blood on the enemy’s part, along with some painful losses of their own. He’d known several commandos who’d died after coming through hundreds of missions unscathed, then would get blindsided by bad luck compounded with a circumstances or a scenario where they couldn’t get them back to a medbay to be revived.

  It didn’t seem fair, and it wasn’t. Dying because you made a mistake was one thing, but dying because of bad luck…it still didn’t sit right with Torgon, but he’d made it through and the war that he’d devoted his life to was now done and over with. Unless of course the coreward lizards got stupid and tried to breach ‘The Line’ as it’d come to be called. If they did that he’d be right there again as needed, but he didn’t think that was going to happen. Especially not with a couple of Clans poking the lizards in the gut and drawing attacks against them while claiming a new system here and there just to remind the lizards that they weren’t cozy neighbors.

  He’d thought about requesting transfer to either the Ninja Monkeys or the RaSeru, but after thinking it through he realized there wasn’t a need. The war he’d been fighting nearly his entire life was over, and he and Star Force had been victorious. The unbeatable lizards had been kicked out of their own territory and those who would never surrender just had…and were now working for the Archons, apparently. He didn’t question the arrangements they’d make, for their wisdom and loyalty had been proven time and again. Whatever they did with the surrendered lizards, the lizards had no chance of manipulating them, so he knew that front was a done deal.

  The previous lizard territory now belonged to Star Force, and both he and the Calavari had escaped annihilation only to be reborn within the Humans’ empire and were now prospering beyond even what they’d achieved prior to the first scaly green head appearing on the frontier.

  Which was why, he thought, that he was feeling things now that he hadn’t before. As if the emotional toll was now racking up and he was having t
o decompress. He felt like hiding, and his little nook on the bedroom floor seemed like a good place to ride this out. No one was going to bother him here, for no one knew he was here. Axius was so huge you could see strangers day in and day out without ever getting to know them, and everyone gave each other enough breathing space to cohabitate in such huge numbers with ease.

  He was alone and anonymous, and for the first time in years he began to cry. No sobs, no noise of any kind, just a stream of tears as a pit deep down in the core of his being finally woke and took in a breath of fresh air, with his recognizing it as the Calavari he’d been before the lizards had invaded. The emotions and memories came back as if he’d been holding them in check the entire time since then, until the enemy was gone and he and his people were safe.

  Well, it’d finally happened, and instead of celebrating he was sitting on the floor crying. What kind of a warrior was he?

  But Torgon wasn’t angry at himself. It felt good to purge the old, bad emotions, and after a long time on the floor he pulled himself onto the bed and fell into the deepest sleep he’d managed since joining Star Force. He didn’t have to subconsciously watch his back here. The war was over, they’d won, his fallen brothers were avenged…and now he could finally rest.