Star Force: Ghostblade (SF67) (5 page)

“Do you want to play Director for a while? I kind of
want to stay Archon.”

“You never told them?”

Davis shook his head. “And they never suspected. I
didn’t think the alterations would work, but no one ever made the connection.”

“It’s the voice more than anything,” Wilson said,
referencing the genetic alterations made to Davis in the pyramid so he could
enter basic training anonymously. “Are you going to tell them now?”

“No, I don’t want to disrupt the transition process.
They’re splitting up, correct?”

“Probably. Some could end up together depending on
which Clan they land. They usually keep in touch afterwards, so they’re going
to want to know what’s up with you. I wouldn’t recommend lying.”

Davis frowned. “Never. Don’t take this personally, but
they’re closer to me now than you are.”

Wilson smirked. “That’s one of the main objectives of
the training.”

“I knew that going in, but experiencing it is
something altogether different.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Davis nodded. “And then some. Did the trailblazers
find out?”

“I had to tell Greg so he’d stop snooping around, but
no one else knows. He promised he’d keep your secret.”

“I know it’s going to be difficult, but I want them
all back here.”

“Very difficult. Why?”

“I’ve been living on the civilian side of Star Force
so long that I know it inside and out, but now that I’ve got a foot in the
Archon world I’m seeing flaws everywhere.”

“You suspected as much going in.”

Davis shook his head. “Not like this. It’s like I’ve
been blind my entire life and now I’m just opening my eyes. We’re going to have
to rebuild everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know for sure, that’s why I need them here,
in person, so we can figure this out. Doing it by message packet isn’t going to
cut it.”

“Spill old man, before I have to beat it out of you.”

Davis glanced up at Wilson, who was still several
inches taller than him and who no doubt could carry through on the threat if he
chose, Archon or not.

“We’ve been too soft, and I’m afraid our mindset has
been centered on the lizards for far too long. The ultimate enemy is the
V’kit’no’sat, and now that the ADZ is safe from the lizards we have to start
tooling to fight a superior opponent, not a large numbered inferior one. That,
and a lot of mistakes I’ve made with the civilian population. We have to have a
segmented society rather than a single large pool.”

“Skilled based?”

Davis nodded. “I’ve got some ideas, but to make this
work I need the trailblazers, you, and most of the senior personnel in on this.
I’ve only kept up on the basics. How soon can we get all of them here?”

“If they directly recall, six months…if they want to
leave their current combat assignments. Some are in pretty heavy actions along
the Calavari border, last I heard.”

“We’ll make it a year then. I’ve got some research to
do in the meantime.”

“After we get you fitted for your armor,” Wilson
insisted. “You
are
an Archon now, so
you need a custom set whether you plan to use it or not.”

“Lead on then.”

“Shower first.”

“Do I smell that bad?”

“You guys always do coming out of the Final
Challenge.”

Davis smiled unguardedly. “It’s going to take a while
to get used to that, but I like it already.”

“You earned it. I made sure of that. I’m just sorry
you had to hold back. That’s not something we want the trainees to do.”

“Psionics would have been cheating, so there was no
choice. Like you said, I needed to earn it.”

“Well you can kick that bad habit now, and I suggest
you do. Adept rank or no, there’s no point in hiding the fact that you have
them. And you’re not the first either.”

“I’m still staying Sean as far as the Archon ranks are
concerned. The public isn’t going to know the Director is also an Archon, and I
want it to stay that way.”

“Not a problem. Security was sound for your inclusion,
so you can keep on as is with no problems so long as word doesn’t get around on
its own.”

“Good.”

“You. Shower. Now. Talk later,” Wilson said, pointing
down the hall. “I’ll take you to the fitting station afterwards.”

Davis bristled a bit at his tone, but brushed it off
with a smile and a silent salute before jogging off down the hallway in typical
Archon fashion.

5

July 19, 2812

Solar System

Earth

Davis walked into the amphitheater seeing the 100
trailblazers sitting in the first few rows almost identical to the way they had
been centuries ago when he’d first met them all. The only difference was the
blue stripe on their uniforms was darker and their bodies were razor fit…plus
an assortment of oddly colored hair and genetic tattoos they’d been
experimenting with. Those minor details aside, this was the first time in
forever that they’d all been together in the same place at the same time, and
as he walked up onto the stage and headed for the podium he felt a burning
nostalgia that he quickly squashed.

Abandoning the podium he turned around and sat on the
edge of the elevated platform, legs dangling over the edge as he looked out at
them in a very Archon fashion. None of them said a word, merely waiting to see
what they’d been recalled for and sensing a definitive moment coming.

“A long time ago I brought you all here, to this very
room, to tell you of the V’kit’no’sat threat and how you would build and lead a
Star Force military in defense of Earth. Fortunately that threat hasn’t shown
itself yet, for while we’ve grown far more than I’d ever expected, we’re still
no match for them. We’ve rightly focused on the lizards and Skarrons, for they
were the ones knocking on our door trying to actively kill us and our allies,
but during that time you all have been working towards the day when we
eventually have to face our race’s past and fight the V’kit’no’sat.”

“I wish there was a possibility of that never coming
to pass, but so long as we are here and they are out there a confrontation is
bound to occur. Even if they don’t come searching this part of the galaxy and
are consumed with interior matters I still don’t feel safe, and I don’t think
any of you do either. My mistake in all this was my ignorance, for I’ve been
blind to the magnitude of the threat. That sounds ironic, since I was the one
to bring it to your attention, but as at least one of you knows I’ve been
having subordinates take over most of my duties the past few years, up until
recently.”

“As of now, thanks to carefully crafted duplicity and
some genetic alterations that I’ve since abandoned, I am now Sean-939221. I
completed Archon basic training about a year ago, and ever since I’ve been
working on a new plan now that my eyes have been opened to certain realities.”

“Whoa...wait a second,” Jason interrupted him. “You’re
an adept?”

Davis smirked. “Yes I am. A level 2, actually, as of
last week.”

Morgan leaned forward, eyes wide. “When did this
happen?”

“I wanted to keep it a secret, and even my classmates
didn’t know who I was. I needed to earn it, same as you did.”

“Psionics?” Steve asked.

Davis nodded. “I had to refrain from using them. Which
wasn’t easy when the Black Knight was busting my skull…even if it wasn’t
Vermaire.”

“Holy shit,” Kerrie said with a laugh. “I didn’t see
that coming.”

“It was something I needed to do for myself,” Davis
explained, “but also because I knew I wasn’t seeing things clearly…all the way
back to when Oni came to me asking permission to relocate her Clan outside of
Sol. She made her case well, but I never fully understood her reasons.
Abandoning that much infrastructure to start over from scratch made no
logistical sense, but as always you guys operate on a level that I do not, and
vice versa, so I trusted her judgement. How would you say it’s gone thus far?”

Oni blew out a slow breath, trying to pick the right
words. “Mixed results to date, but the future looks promising. We’re going to
be able to do more going forward than the limited territory here would have
allowed us. That said, the transitional curve isn’t any less steep than I’d
imagined.”

“Her Clan’s scores have gone up noticeably,” Paul
pointed out.

“Not much,” Oni countered.

“But enough that I noticed as well,” Davis added. “You
don’t have nearly the same level of training facilities that you did here, but
your people have gotten markedly better. Why?”

“Isolation has its advantages.”

Davis pointed at her. “That’s something I didn’t fully
appreciate until I became an Archon, along with many other things. What exactly
is the isolation offering you?”

“Focus,” Oni said without hesitation. “While I still
keep a sizeable team here for the Trials, everyone else is either off fighting
or exclusively training, and I’ve tightened the requirements a bit to
compensate. My people have adjusted to a higher level benchmark and our overall
skill set has improved faster than a few other Clans in certain areas, though
we’re still bottom of the barrel in most cases.”

“Paul?”

“I’d add that they have a greater sense of purpose
now, given the all-or-nothing course she’s set her Clan on. We instituted the Trials
so the Archons would have a chance to gain combat experience outside of a war,
but also to stave off boredom. We need to have mission objectives, and
rebooting her Clan seems to have added an element of fervor to the Snowstorms
that the rest of the Clans lack, giving them at least a temporary advantage.”

“Not enough to catch the Sabers,” Oni commented.

“Who can?” Paul scoffed, but his merriment was cut
short as Sara jabbed him in the ribs.

“I follow all of the Clans very closely, and have done
so even more the past year,” Davis said, crossing his arms over his chest and
leaning back slightly as he swung one leg freely. “What you’ve done with the Trials
and expanding them out beyond the Archons and into every facet of Clan
civilization is beyond impressive. It’s something that I could never have
conceived of, but I have found a flaw in it.”

“Do tell,” Greg prompted.

“It’s all for the lower levels. You don’t have a
program for the elites. I know you’ll say that most of your time is spent
fighting the lizards or pulling duties with Mainline, but the strikers,
padawans, and especially mages don’t really have any internal system in place
to test and hone your skills. What you’ve done with the advanced training group
shows how fast you guys can really improve if you go all-in on it, but you
don’t as a matter of course. Its bits and pieces here and there when you can.
You need to do better.”

“What would you suggest?” Liam asked.

“I’ve been asking myself that question for a while
now, and I don’t have a full answer. You’ll have to figure it out, but I do
want to lighten your burden, as far as the Clans go.”

“Wait,” Megan stopped him. “If you’re suggesting we
abandon the Clans…
uhuh
. We’ve put way too much work
into them to turn them over to subordinates or administrators.”

Davis smiled. “I had thought about that, then nixed
the idea for the same reason. No, when I say I want to lighten your burden I
mean to take the younglings off your hands. I’ve learned well that the company
you keep has an effect on you. That’s why you created the sanctuaries early on
to train in without having
newbs
and what not slowing
you down. I think the same principle needs to be applied to the entirety of
Star Force, with the Clans remaining as the highest tier, one that you can
further sculpt into a more efficient and effective civilization.”

“You want merit standards for citizenship,” Rex
guessed, “rather than people simply being born into the Clans.”

Davis nodded. “I know that differs from your current
mandate, but when we first created the Clans we never intended for them to
become anything like this. You wanted them as competitive teams and I added the
civilian side to things, both to see what tweaks you’d make and to train high
level administrators with the autonomy they afforded. We’re past that now, and
a single Mainline system is more complex an operation than running one of the
original Clans. Some are even more complex than running one of them now. Clan Dark
Knight has the highest population of 2.2 billion, and there are 29
Mainline
systems with populations greater than that.”

“Yet yours are interstellar civilizations, for the
most part, which is a different situation entirely. And they are the home to
all Archons, save for a few neutrals, such as myself. No, I’m not taking a Clan
affiliation or participating in the Trials. My training will continue in
isolation as a private side project, and though I’m tempted to go full Archon I
know my place is still being Director, though I did appreciate the vacation.”

“Just do both you slacker,” Larissa quipped. “We do
already.”

“Granted, but I’m nowhere near your league. There’s
also a much larger problem looming on the horizon that I have to tackle, and
reworking the Clans is only a part of it. Star Force is growing so large that
our previous methods are becoming strained. There are successes across the board
to be proud of, but one thing that going through Archon training has done for
me is that it erased the past. With everything that we have done over the
years, we’re the oldest Humans in existence…V’kit’no’
sat
aside. We remember what it was like before Star Force, and a part of me was
always comparing the now to the then and seeing what a huge leap forward it has
been.”

“I think that was because I was never a part of Star
Force. I created it, guided it, molded it, but I was always the teacher, never
the student. You all have been the guiding force behind the military and many
other facets, but you began as cadets, in this very room, with me telling you
what was coming. I’ve always been the leader, having to come up with new ideas
and then pass them on to the benefit of others.”

“But when I went into basic I had none of that. I was
the
newb
learning from the efforts of others. It was
like finding a stack of presents under the Christmas tree and opening them as
fast as I could, learning things I could never have figured out on my own. For
the first time I felt what it was to be a part of Star Force, and having to
earn my way into it. No one knew my identity, so I was literally a clean slate.
That washed away the past from my mind, and good riddance. Now that it’s gone
I’m seeing cracks and flaws everywhere within our structure that I had been
blind to before. My standards were set too low because they were being dragged
down with the memories of the past, but no longer.”

“Problem number 1 is Axius. There is a core group
there that is holding all the rest together, but the balance of their
population is nothing but slackers. This cannot continue, for the simple reason
that people who are on the fence about what to do going forward often look to
those around them for cues, and if they see laziness and apathy they are
probably going to reciprocate it. We can’t, and never will, force someone to
work. People have to have the freedom to do nothing without repercussions, but
they need to earn their place in society. To date, Axius has just been a big
party that people born there don’t have to earn their way in to above and
beyond their maturia training.”

“I don’t think the maturia training needs to alter.
We’ve got that pegged down pretty well for the early years. Canderous has
pushed that about as far as it can go without negative effects. Anyone know
otherwise?”

“I think the Human maturias are pretty solid,” Aaron
answered. “The others not so much. We still need to dial in what the different
races are capable of rather than just copy and paste off of our profiles. We’ve
done that to a point, but there still needs to be a lot more improvement
there.”

“A valid point, but is there anything new that is
required, or just calibration?”

Aaron whistled softly. “I would say calibration, but
I’m not the one to ask,” he said, looking towards Larissa.

“We still haven’t tapped the
Bsidd’s
full potential, but we’ve been allowing them to make adjustments on their own
since we don’t have their bodies to experiment with.”

“That’s a mistake we have to correct,” Davis said
firmly, to nearly everyone’s surprise. “We have to probe what they’re capable
of and use our experience to troubleshoot. Anything they can add from their
perspective is wanted, but we can’t waste time letting them tread the same
ground we did. We have to use our experience to their immediate benefit. Same
goes for the other races, right down to the wards. Axius is the worst, because
they have so many races that are not part of Star Force, and the individual
maturia programs are lacking.”

“I can see that now because I’m an Archon. I can do
things that my old self never considered possible. I was a
civie
,
pure and simple, and didn’t have what it took to be an Archon. That was stupid
thinking. Everyone has the potential to do everything, it’s just a matter of
each person finding their way there. Most won’t, because they don’t care or
aren’t intuitive enough, but the potential is still there. We need to lay out a
path for them to follow if they choose, whether or not we think they’re
capable. Civilian life should not be the norm in Star Force society. It should
be the B-team.”

Jason nodded. “And you want to strip the B-team
elements out of the Clans.”

“More than that, but yes, for starters. I also suggest
that all adepts and acolytes not be assigned to a Clan.”

“Make them earn their way in too?” Paul asked.

“I’m not sure about a lot of these things, so just
treat them as works in progress, but I think we need the Clans to be the super
elite, and not just in Archons. Military personnel down to techs. Everyone has
to be operating at an insane level of skill and output just to keep their
position. If they can’t handle the workload they may only be in a Clan for a
year or so, then transition over to Mainline and bring the skills and experience
from the Clans with them, further enhancing
Mainline
.
But the Clans will have to operate like your advanced training group, only on a
much larger level.”