Star Force: Perquisition (7 page)

“Whoa…that one was…close. I’m…getting…worried now,” he
mocked, and continued to do so for more than 20 minutes. Over and over he
evaded them, never once using his psionics and relying only on his speed,
agility, endurance, and strength, showing up all the Protovic no matter how
hard they tried. During the sparring match he kept getting glimpses of their
thoughts and emotions, letting him judge when and where to push his taunts.
When he felt them finally coming around to the mindset of a proper beatdown he
gave it another minute or two then switched tactics…going from evasion to
offense and knocking them down with blows so strong that they literally took
the wind out of the Protovic.

And he was hitting them on their exoskeletal patches
every damn time, jarring them considerably without damaging them, but giving
them the knowledge and fear of what would happen to their bodies should he miss
and hit a ‘soft’ section. He never did, and before they realized what was
happening they were looking at each other on the ground as the Human was
prancing around the ring above them knocking down the last few so hard they had
to catch their wind before getting back up again.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he declared with disdain,
standing still and raising his arms above his head in an obvious stretch. “As
for me, it’s time to get my workouts started. Thanks for the warmup.”

The Protovic…Orange, Red, and Purple…sat there gasping
from the impacts and their fatigue as the trailblazer hop, skipped, and jumped
his way out of the ring over their downed bodies and left them there,
disappearing out a side door whistling as he went.

The Oranges sat there looking around at each other and
the Reds and Purples, feeling a newfound kinship centered
around
anger at the Archon. The disrespect hadn’t been faked, nor had it been
sarcastic. He had insulted all of them over and over again, with them being
completely unable to lay more than a fleeting hand on him.

Eventually they all picked themselves up and went
their separate ways, but even the veterans harbored a mild disdain for him
following that day. Where they had been teammates before, now there was a bit
of adversarialism present, and not from the sparring. That was just a part of
being Star Force and one could get beat badly and just walk it off as a
training exercise. This was different, because the taunts were personal and
obviously meant to be that way. The Archon had shown a side of himself that the
Protovic didn’t like, and though that didn’t mean they didn’t respect him
anymore, it did mean they weren’t going to be so amicable going forward.

Before now he had been more of a wise mentor teaching
them things they needed to know. Now he was that, but also a bit of a jerk,
with that putting some iciness in their demeanor any time he was mentioned or
they saw him in person.

But what they didn’t realize was that in the process
of him becoming an adversary, all those that had gotten insulted and beat up
were now on the same side rather than being rivals. The Human had become an
overarching rival, so much so that the lesser divisions between them were
gradually forgotten…which was exactly what Brad had intended.
Makron
understood that, having been around the trailblazer
more than others, but some of those verbal stings didn’t fade away even for him

He put that down to the Archon’s skill in taunting,
amongst other things. He had a knack for making the insults stick, and going
forward a little wink or gesture here and there would bring that resentment
back for all those who had been involved in that fight, like a healing wound
that got a knife blade jammed back into it just as the pain was about to fade
away.

Brad kept the wounds fresh, becoming the rival they
needed in order for them to gel and stop focusing on besting each other. A few
more sparring sessions with other Protovic and some ‘in your face’ spectacles
of skill were enough to eventually solve the Orange’s ego problem. When being
logical, honest, and friendly didn’t create common ground to bond people
together, sometimes you need an enemy to rally around, with your common ground
being your pain, insults, and inability to defeat them.

The trailblazers had learned that lesson well from the
Black Knight, and Brad was more than happy to whip out that technique whenever
necessary to help his Protovic…though the insults were more of an Archon flare
that he’d added on. Vermaire was more the ‘silent and break your bones’ type.

7

January 31, 3011

Deeran
System
(Benoid)

Wexfa

Jarod-896331 slid to the right half a step to allow a
Nevvan
past him, for the lumbering quadruped could barely
fit through the walkways on the Star Force station without bowling people over
as it was. The waystation was on the interstellar link between the ADZ and Voku
home territory that had become a huge economic boon, not only to the two
empires but everyone else along the way. In fact there were far more non-Star
Force races passing through than one would think with an occasional, but not
too rare, Voku adding to the widespread mix of faces and limbs that the Archon
cohabitated with on a daily basis.

Jarod was a level 96 acolyte assigned as security to
this massive pancake-shaped commerce station in orbit of
Wexfa
,
one of the member worlds in the Benoid, which was a miniaturized version of the
ADZ situated between that huge bulk of worlds and the distant Voku territories.
It was situated out in the middle of nowhere and the main watering hole on the
trade route between the two and other branches heading off into the surrounding
regions giving Star Force at least a small presence out among the mostly
overlooked stretches of this galactic arm that had not yet encountered the
lizards or the Skarrons.

There were no major powers out here, but a lot of
lesser races that were using the Star Force infrastructure to strengthen
themselves and their economies. This commerce station sat next to the original
that had been built in this system and was now woefully inadequate. Dozens of
others had also been built in orbit, but this was the largest and the primary,
linked to a number of starports that would facilitate any travel down to the
planet, but most people weren’t here to land on the surface, merely passing
through or conducting business on the station.

It had become the economic watering hole for many
nearby races and a stop off for travelers passing through, so it wasn’t unusual
for Jarod to see new races popping up now and again. Whenever he did he made a
note to check the database with his helmet cam recordings or, when he was
without his armor, pulling up the hallway monitors so he could familiarize
himself with everyone who was visiting his station. He was chief of security,
in fact if not in name, and he wanted to be kept aware of what all their
visitors were capable of just in case he had to take action.

Normally that wasn’t necessary, but now and then you’d
get people here who weren’t familiar with Star Force and their protocols and
he’d have to break up a fight or stop someone from killing someone else. That
was one of the hazards of dealing with the masses coming in from the wilderness
to get a taste of civilization and why this station was here…to screen out
people who didn’t belong from accessing the planet or other orbital
installations, making this the hotbed of activity and warranting a pair of
Archons onboard in addition to Star Force security.

After letting the bulky quadruped pass, Jarod stepped
back into the traffic and made his way out onto one of the main promenades that
circled the station’s center like concentric rings. These were much wider and
had hundreds of people passing each other every second, coming in and out of
kiosks and making for a chaotic, yet mostly tranquil intermixing of races.
Jarod was making a patrol, just out walking the grounds to let his armor be
seen and to get a feel for what was going on while security manned all the
checkpoints and monitoring stations. Jarod was backup, but could take the lead
whenever he wanted while his partner was busy training, soon to switch
positions in a few hours.

As he walked through the crowd scanning them visually
and with his Ikrid, he sensed so many minds so fast that his first days here
had given him headaches, though his skill had increased so much in response
that his Ikrid levels were now well beyond the rest of his marks. He wanted to
make ranger bad, though was one of the slower developing Archons. He prided
himself on the fact that his Ikrid was all the way up to ranger level 77, for
before coming here it had been one of his weaker areas.

Walking through the crowd he picked up a mind that was
unusual, given that he didn’t see many of them out here. There was a Protovic
somewhere in the crowd that he couldn’t see, and he made a point of heading in
that direction and easing through the traffic to get a look and pull a tighter
mental scan. He could just be a lone individual on private business, but Jarod
wanted to know if he was Star Force or maybe from the independent Protovic
nation, for so far they’d had no business correspondence this far out on the
other side of the ADZ from their territory.

Seeing his mind before his clothing, Jarod soon
realized that he didn’t think in English. That was a telltale sign that he
wasn’t Star Force. Expecting to see an independent Protovic he was surprised
when he spotted a robbed figure where the mind was coming from. Rather than a
dark interior beneath the hood there was the glow of light typical of their
race. Many preferred to wear fully body armor so as not to attract attention,
and this one wearing robes made sense. It also wore gloves, leaving only a
narrow slit between the dark red cloth to see through,
but
the light coming out made Jarod frown. The telltale green was there, but
something wasn’t right.

Casually walking towards him but seeming to be going
about his business, the Archon got in front of him and tried to look within the
folds, having to use a little telekinetic tug to get them to part enough that
he could see his face.

When he did an alarm bell immediately went off, for
this Protovic was not from the independent nation nor any of the other colonies
that Star Force had discovered in past years. He let the man pass him by as
they walked separate directions, then he turned off into a kiosk where he
paused, getting on his
comm
and contacting security
so they could begin to set up a quiet trace on the individual.

They needed to know where he had come from and where
he was going, preferably without stopping him and asking, though that was next
on Jarod’s to-do list if they couldn’t scrounge the information via other
means. He’d obviously arrived here by ship, so they just had to track down
which one it was before he left and begin following the breadcrumb trail from
there. If he didn’t speak English it might be difficult to interrogate him
directly, though if he was here he probably spoke something that some of the
locals did.

Jarod didn’t know many of the native languages out
here aside from a few phrases and a decent amount of
Vi’tol
,
but there were linguists he could recruit to the task if need be. Right now he
just needed to get the ball rolling and not let this Protovic slip away, to
which end he circled around after his
comm
call and
began working his way through the crowd until he picked up the mind again with
a little direction from the monitor watchers in the control room giving him
directions.

He stuck with that mental signature and quietly tailed
him, for he knew Star Force was looking for more Protovic out in the uncharted
regions and he was pretty damn sure that none found to date had blue skin.

It took another three years for an expedition to be
mounted and for the results to make their way back to Brad on
Nym
, for this Protovic civilization was located within
Skarron territory. Fortunately they hadn’t been targeted for conquest, as a lot
of systems within their domain were likewise spared/ignored, and this one had
been riding out anonymously within a pocket of a massive nebula that only allowed
two jumplanes in, one of which was too long for most starships to make
accurately.

Their world was called
Knalll
,
and while they had spacecraft they hadn’t spread beyond a pair of small
colonies on the planet’s moons. These Protovic were essentially hermits,
participating in trade with a few of their neighbors but otherwise remaining in
place and doing…nothing. As Brad read through a summary of their history it
seemed that there was a great catastrophe in the past that had essentially
scared them into a status quo state where they were extremely reluctant to
experiment or expand. He hadn’t dug into the ample material that had been sent
back to him far enough to find out what it was yet, but the notes suggested
that a minority on the planet did not take to the seclusion and chose to leave
on their own merits to explore the galaxy.

Brad saw both genetic imperatives at work there, woven
into the Protovic how long ago he wondered? And this was yet another example of
what was probably a more advanced colony suffering a degrade. How many Protovic
civilizations had been seeded out there? And how many had been wiped off the
map over the years?

There had to be a lot if this long term plan had been
thought through carefully. To date they’d found some 14 different Purple
colonies out there, along with 2 Reds and 3 Yellows. Only one Orange so far,
and this made the first Blue. He wondered what the distribution pattern had
originally been and how much spreading had occurred after that point. Also, who
had done the seeding? Were they still out there and the 8th variant that the
Veliquesh hadn’t known about? There were a lot of questions popping into his
mind that he still didn’t have answers for, but with this new find came
something else of importance…another origin story.

This one didn’t specify how many variants there were,
but it was said that the Protovic had been split apart long ago and destined to
be reunited. The
Knalllie
had read that to mean all
they had to do was wait and survive until they were found rather than trying to
make it happen on their own. In fact, as Brad read through the notes further,
that was the driving reason behind their world. To simply exist until that day,
fearing that anything more would be wasted in that it might not match their destiny
when it was revealed.

Tissue samples had been recovered, he saw, and were
being brought back to Sol via a separate route than the…observers.

Brad read further in the notes, compiled by the second
gen titan that had been dispatched to handle the first contact situation. It
seemed the Blues were eager for the reunion to take place and had actually
requested to send representatives to the communal Protovic world. Allysa-527
had agreed and was bringing/sending 72 of them here. Apparently that was a lucky
number for them, and Brad should be expecting them within 3 or 4 months.

The Archon sat back in his chair and blew out a slow
breath. This wasn’t the first tour he’d given to Protovic civilizations, but
typically they only sent a handful, 6 or 7 at best. Sending 72 of them was
overkill, not to mention it was a long journey for them to make. He expected
they’d want to stay a while, though others had not. They’d been here to look
and then go, but from the continued summary
Allysa
had sent it seemed they were not only interested, but hell bent on making this
connection.

That could be a problem, because Brad wasn’t going to
incorporate them into his faction as is. If they wanted to join up he’d take
them, but they’d have to go through indoctrination and that wasn’t a friendly
process from an outsider’s point of view, for it didn’t hold them to be equals
until they earned that status. If these Protovic wanted to be included in the
community it wasn’t going to happen their way, and the more he read through
both her notes and the historical files he got the sense that they held a
certain amount of disdain for non-Protovic and were planning on using Star
Force as little more than a conference room while they negotiated with the
other variants of their race here.

Allysa
made a point to
mention that they were referring to the Humans as ‘intermediaries’ and Brad
could see the writing on the wall. Another reason for sending 72 of them was so
they could maintain their pack mentality and not be absorbed into their new
surroundings. Safety in numbers, so to speak, and it also suggested that they
weren’t here just to look around but to make their presence known.

Going through their historical records over the next
month, he also got the feeling that their ambition and dive hadn’t been eradicated
by what had been a biological disaster on their world. They’d been
experimenting with viral research and had accidentally wiped out 83% of their
population. Since that day they’d instituted the ‘good enough’ protocol,
keeping their civilization stable and intact without the risks inherent in
attempted advancement. But that genetic imperative, in addition to any
ambitions they had of their own, was lurking underneath and now had an avenue
for release.

Brad got the feeling these 72 planned on doing a lot
more than just observing, and he made a note to keep them away from the other
long term observers here. There were 17 of them from 12 different
civilizations, all of which had not wished a reunification at the drop of the
hat. Some, Brad knew, were looking to develop closer ties with the Star Force
Protovic without going so far to join them, while others were here to learn and
report back, something that Brad allowed freely so long as they obeyed certain
rules regarding their conduct. They basically couldn’t do anything other than
look and listen, while having to put in at least a tiny workout each day to
earn their right to remain here.

He’d argued that to understand Star Force, and this
faction of Protovic, you had to understand training. So sampling it was a
non-negotiable requirement for a long term observer post, which for some had
already stretched into multiple decades with them becoming sort of ambassadors
to the Protovic here rather than maintaining diplomatic connections with Star
Force overall.