Star Force: Liberation (SF56) (9 page)

But that was all part of the plan, which Davis was
continually working no matter whether events occurred in his favor or not. He
was always there, behind the scenes or out in front of them guiding the ADZ and
working with the Protovic and Hycre to maintain their good relations and firm
leadership, which he knew was critical to keeping all the various races in some
semblance of order. Should their triad crumble Star Force didn’t have the
strength to hold everything together…and the Hycre and Protovic knew that
without Star Force backing them with tech and infrastructure, most notably the
Sentinels standing watch over most of their systems, they wouldn’t be able to
survive either of the insanely large threats on their borders.

The silent partner in all of this was the Voku, which
Davis had little contact with. They preferred to deal with the Archons, warrior
to warrior, with Paul being their number one go to contact. He and their
commander got along well and Davis didn’t try to impose himself there, but he
was keenly interested in studying their newest ally and had asked Paul to dig
up whatever he could on them.

They were maintaining their hold on
Achkor
but expanding no further, strengthening and growing
the system as part of their empire and set well outside the ADZ. They didn’t
care to involve themselves with the other races, only Star Force, and Davis
knew the real silent partner wasn’t the Voku…it was the Zak’de’ron.

Davis didn’t have much info to work with, but he got
the feeling that the dragons were using Star Force to achieve their own goals,
whatever they might be. If not for the Voku involving themselves in the Skarron
war it was possible that Star Force might be defending their core worlds with the
rest of the ADZ smashed beyond repair. Not only had the Voku come to their aid,
they’d come to their aid before they were truly needed, which meant the dragons
were very aware of the course of events in this part of the galaxy and had
tagged Star Force as important enough to be preserved.

And that fact chilled him to the bone, for it made the
true threat resonate even more so. The V’kit’no’sat were still out there, and
he knew they were the
Zak’de’ron’s
focal point. If
they were involving themselves with Star Force then they knew something was
coming, perhaps far into the future for right now Earth couldn’t stand up to
even a small invasion force given their limited tech, but something was coming,
he could feel it, and the dragons were like the wind sock turning with the
first breeze of an approaching hurricane.

They wanted Star Force to be a player, and that meant
the game was afoot…with the Skarrons and lizards being a mere sideshow.

And that thought truly scared him.

9

May 9, 2631

Zerus
System (Alpha
Region)

Char

“I still say it’s too soon,” Ben-30118 commented as he
was walking with Larissa to the spaceport.

“It will always be too soon,” she countered, “but
they’ve got to learn from practical experience and that means stretching them a
bit. We can’t hold their appendages forever. Not enough hands anyway,” she
joked, but the sarcasm was laced with a secondary meeting that the other Archon
understood.

“We still need oversight.”

“And we have it.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“You’ll just have to keep a close eye on them, but
don’t interfere unless there’s a problem.”

“I still have a bad feeling about this.”

“If there’s going to be a catastrophe better it be now
than down the road when there are more of them.”

Ben laughed. “Nice of you to point out the doomsday scenario
to make the less than appealing one look beneficial.”

“You’re welcome,” she said as they entered a sky
bridge and began crossing between two of the very high towers in the Star Force
Bsidd capitol city, leaving what had been her home for more than 50 years and
heading into the adjacent building where they’d hop a lift that would take them
down to the surface and to the small spaceport nearby. As they walked out into
the clear tunnel the first rays of the morning sunlight were beginning to break
over the horizon and filter in between distant spires and other shorter, but
wider buildings that held the Bsidd population.

This city contained some 370+ million, but the entire
planet now held a population of 3.4 billion and was growing as fast as the
infrastructure would allow, which in turn was growing as more and more Bsidd
became available to harvest resources and construct new facilities. The
snowball was off and running, with Larissa’s on site control no longer being
needed. She’d continue to monitor and adjust the Star Force Bsidd civilization
as it grew, but she’d do it from afar and leave others like Ben in charge of
the day to day duties on this planet and the second planet they were expanding
to.

That was the source of the discussion, with the Bsidd
being given instructions to colonize it and Larissa wanting them to use only
local workers to do it. The Archons and others would monitor, but the Bsidd
badly needed the experience given that most of them were less than 30 years
old. Usually colony construction was reserved for experienced engineers at
least 100 years old, but no Bsidd was going to get that experience and they
needed them to start fielding their own personnel for the bigger tasks, hence
the need to practice.

But they could only practice by doing the real thing,
with this being the first real test for the newbie Bsidd engineers and
construction crews. Before long there would be too many of them to monitor with
Humans anyway, and Star Force needed trained and vetted Bsidd to build the
future growth of their race around. Larissa was convinced her top people could
handle it, despite their youth, but there was only one way to find out.

Her leaving aided the ‘greater responsibility’ mojo
beginning to go down within the Bsidd, but as it happened it was totally
unrelated. Her time here had been well spent, but she wasn’t going to remain a
permanent part of the Bsidd. She was an Archon and trailblazer, with there
being plenty of other things for her to do. She’d gotten the Bsidd civilization
up and running, tailored it to Star Force fashion, and done so without putting
a drain on offworld resources. Now the Bsidd were producing more than they used
and even exporting a bit, with most of the resources going into expanding their
infrastructure and accommodating an increased population…one that would
continue to grow to insane levels, they hoped, but in a controlled fashion.

The Bsidd here, now, were going to be the skeleton on
which that larger mass was going to align itself, and it was high time the
training wheels started to come off. They needed to know what they were doing
and confident in their own abilities before the mass of younglings were thrown
their way to lead and train. Already the maturias were mostly run by Bsidd,
with Human handlers occupying the highest ranks and ensuring everything went
smoothly. That would continue, but the more and more maturias that came online
would be staffed by other Bsidd, as would most positions within their
civilization.

The Humans would always be there as a safety mechanism
to ensure the Bsidd grew properly, and to offer advice, but now was the time to
start pulling back and letting them earn their way forward, with her
symbolically leaving only reinforcing that times were changing. Larissa looked
out to her left at the city that stretched to the edge of her vision. It was
typical Star Force but built with the Bsidd physiology in mind. The interiors
were larger, but the original convoluted designs had been replaced with the
straight grid-like patterns that Humans favored.

The exterior was also so gridded, making it instantly
recognizable as a Star Force city. Half a century ago this planet had been
barren, now it was filling up with similar cities spreading across its
surface…yet to Larissa it had taken forever to get built, given the intense
handling that had been required to goose along the construction as quickly as
possible. She’d taken several trips off planet to attend to other matters in
the ADZ, never for long and always returning here before things had a chance to
go wrong, but now she wasn’t worried. The Bsidd had done well and she was
convinced they’d continue to do so as long as they had a little nudge now and
then.

Overhead a few strands of flying traffic crossed
between the buildings, with others moving below the sky bridge in a
lackadaisical but orderly flow. Most of the transit was subsurface, but there
was plenty of activity in the air to make sightseeing a never-ending activity.
Up until now she’d never looked at it that way, but now that she was leaving
Larissa took a moment to gaze out the skybridge and really see the city for the
first time without wondering about one project or another. She’d already
mentally disconnected, with this walk allowing her a brief moment of tourism as
she returned to ‘normal’ Archon duties.

“Something wrong?” Ben asked as she slowed.

“No, just doing a bit of perspective transition. These
buildings are a lot taller than they seem.”

“How so?”

“I’ve always measured them by floors, but Bsidd floors
are larger than Human ones.”

“And you’re realizing this now?” Ben commented with a
chuckle.

“Guess it just never sunk in. My mind’s always been on
other things and I’ve never just looked at the city before.”

“Getting nostalgic?”

“No, just disconnecting my mind from the collective.”

“Back to being a rogue?”

“Yep,” she said with a smile, increasing her pace back
to normal as she carried a duffle over her left shoulder…the only personal
belongings she would need, for Archons traveled and lived light. An Archon
packrat was truly an oxymoron.

“You
are
going
to read my reports, I assume?”

“Rogues keep aware of their surroundings.”

“Just disconnected from them?”

“You really shouldn’t have to ask,” she said, glancing
at him.

“I don’t know. I’m the one stuck with playing
administrator now,” he said jokingly. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good
combat mission.”

“I’m not heading for combat, not yet anyway.”

“I think that counts.”

“No,” Larissa said with a smirk, “
it’s
way harder.”

“I’d say I could imagine…but I can’t. Having all those
psionics alone.”

“Yeah, I’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Where do you figure you’ll end up after training?”

“Not a clue,” she said as they came to the end of the skybridge
and entered the neighboring building, heading for the nearest lift. “Rogues go
where needed when needed. In the meantime we play videogames and eat donuts.”

“And manage to run a Clan at the same time?”

“Archons can multitask,” she reminded him. “If you
haven’t learned that by now I need to replace you before I leave.”

“You do a bit more than the rest of us,” he said,
ignoring her jab. “And don’t say it’s because you’re older.”

“Better?”

“No, just realizing you have to have a lot of really
good help and that I’m going to have to carry for you here.”

Larissa raised an eyebrow. “More truth in that than
you know.”

Both Archons moved over close to the wall as a group
of Bsidd betas crossed paths with them. The ‘soldier’ variants no longer held
that role, with them being assigned
to
many different
tasks that they qualified for. The same was true of the other variants, and
while some types tended to choose similar assignments there was a hodgepodge
nature to the Star Force Bsidd civilization that made it totally unrecognizable
from the original one. Individuals chose where they wanted to go and do, rather
than being born into a role.

Larissa dragged her duffle along the wall until they
got past the knot of heavy traffic, then moved back out on Ben’s left as they
headed on through the enormous building, eventually coming to a lift terminal
and grabbing one of the waiting elevator cars and descending down the spire to
a subsurface nexus that connected directly with the trams that ran underground,
one line of which ran to the spaceport Larissa would be leaving from.

The two Archons continued to chitchat on the way over,
covering some business matters and some personal. Ben had been her right hand
on the planet for the past 27 years and was going to be her replacement leading
the Bsidd, with him taking the training wheels off bit by bit as she directed
from afar, meaning the two were still going to be in regular contact but
probably not seeing each other again for years to come.

That was another aspect of Archon life. You were
always around people but those faces were constantly changing. Every Archon was
a rogue, or had to be able to be given the situation, but given that they were
trained to be masters of all areas it was good to rotate around and keep things
fresh, although long term assignments like the one she was just finishing were
necessary from time to time. Randy’s logs had helped her a lot in the
beginning, and she’d filed her own for use by the others if/when they had to go
through a similar assignment.

They all shared information, knowledge, skills, and
even now psionics where they were able, but in the end each Archon had their
own path to walk and needed to be enough of a free spirit to embrace that…which
was why Larissa was already able to start mentally walking away from Char even
before she’d made it to the spaceport.

When she finally boarded the dropship she dropped her
duffle into the passenger seat beside her, feeling the heavy weight of her
armor bundle inside bounce a bit on the cushions, and sat down blowing out a
deep breath that felt like she’d been holding it for the past 5 decades. Other
than a few tweaks here and there the Bsidd were no longer her responsibility.
They were growing into their own and becoming part of Star Force…and a
self-sufficient part, capable of contributing rather than needing attention
given to them.

True, they were still a long way from being on the
level of the Calavari, but the ball was rolling in that direction and Larissa
had no doubt they’d get there eventually. It was just a matter of getting the
necessary experience, and she didn’t need to be there for that. Her task was
done and now she was back to just being Larissa, one person with one life
rather than having billions to worry about.

A little tingle of energy shot through her as the
dropship lifted off, which surprised her. She was actually excited to leave
where she had expected it to just be a normal trip. Larissa had left before and
never felt this way, and with a decent amount of self-analysis during the
flight up to orbit she realized it was because of the disconnect occurring and
how, despite the need for it, she really didn’t care for administrative duties.

The trailblazer didn’t regret the Bsidd assignment,
nor hold any ill will against them or Davis, for it had been at his request
she’d taken it on. No, it wasn’t that. She was just ready to move on and get back
to being, like Ben had been discussing with her, a rogue and ready to jump at
whatever problem showed up next.

Fortunately most of the big problems were relegated to
the past. The interior of the ADZ was more or less quiet, though there was
always something going on. The big problems were outside their borders and
battling each other in what had once been Nestafar territory, with the conflict
spreading out as more and more of the lizard and Skarron expansions ran into
one another. The ADZ was soon to become encompassed by both, with talks ongoing
with the Voku about how to possibly counter that.

Given the 3D nature of the
starmap
they lived on there wasn’t a specific line that could be drawn against the
enemy, and the lizards tended to hold more systems above the galactic middle
line than below, giving the ADZ with many borders where they and the Skarrons
didn’t yet threaten. Star Force didn’t want to get to the point where the ADZ
was swallowed up on all sides, so they were working with the Voku for extremely
long term contingencies, given that they were already fighting the Skarrons in
their own territory and it wasn’t impossible that the lizards might work their
way down to them as well someday.

But for the moment the two big powers were so consumed
with countering each other they weren’t paying a lot of attention to the ADZ,
and probably because they’d taken up a defensive mindset rather than an
aggressive expansion. Star Force, the Protovic, and the Hycre weren’t taking
Skarron worlds from them, so they probably saw the pesky ADZ as something they
could deal with later at their leisure.