Star Force: Ghostblade (SF67) (8 page)

An addendum as
far as the other Clans are concerned. I had considered moving Saber completely
in that direction, but Jason and I have come up with something better. Instead
of sacrificing our existing infrastructure in exchange for the transition,
we’re going to build a mutual third Clan that will be entirely mobile. No sedas
like Canderous. It’ll be all these new mobile structures and the
warfleets
they can build…and no one is going to know it
exists. Everything we do from here on out is going to be geared to one day
fighting the V’kit’no’sat, and if they can ever hack our computer systems this
Clan isn’t going to be in them to find.

Kara’s eyes widened.
Are you saying what I think you’re saying?

This new Clan is
going to start with nothing more than an idea and have to be built from
scratch. I’m overseeing it and working with Jason to develop the technology and
methodology necessary. It will be comprised of Sabers and Sangheili, and on all
records that will never change. This Clan doesn’t exist, and no one else will
know about it. Not the other trailblazers. Not even Davis. But while
me
and Jason will be building it, I want you to run it.

So you’re giving
a fake trailblazer a fake Clan?
Kara said, noting the irony.

But here’s the
good part. We’re not contributing resources to building this Clan, or
territory. It has to be mobile and exist in the shadows. Once we get the key
pieces built it’ll have to survive and grow on its own, pulling volunteer
personnel from both Clans as necessary, but all industry will have to be its
own and be fed by raiding the lizards for resources.

Hello.

Figured you’d
like that part. It’ll pretty much be you pulling solo missions to grab cargo
ships or hit small expansion colonies along the periphery of their territory,
probably taking you far away from the ADZ, but the more you steal the faster
the Clan will grow. You’ll be able to continue missions against them with a
direct impact on the Clan’s success, so no administrative duties. This would be
a private triumvirate, but you’d be the one in the field while Jason and
me
work to develop the Clan while we also rework Saber and
Sangheili. That is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Kara’s neutral face spread wide in a toothy grin.
You had me at ‘raiding the lizards.’

8

July 30, 2812

Solar System

Earth

Gavin walked in the conference room doors of the Clan
Metal Gear command tower in their territorial slot in Antarctica with his local
senior staff of Archons and a few administrators and techs already present.
He’d alerted them to gather as soon as he’d left Atlantis, but his Marquis and
other top Clan members were outside the system at present. He wasn’t going to
wait for them to get here before he got to work, though he’d sent out a summons
all the same with instructions to get their butts back to Earth ASAP.

“What’s up?” a striker asked as the trailblazer walked
over and slid onto one of the stools that surrounded the large flat worktable
that already had a few
holos
sprouting from it, but
when Gavin slid a
datachip
into a slot on the edge a
whole forest of glowing data arose within the perimeter of the faces of those
gathered.

“Star Force 2.0,” he said evenly. “Davis is reworking
just about everything and has an altered mandate for the Clans. While he
remakes Star Force with present day threats in mind, the Clans will focus on
preparing us for the V’kit’no’sat. He wants us to increase our standards and
cut the slackers out of the population by whatever means we want, but as of now
all maturias are going to be shut down and the younglings shifted to
Mainline
facilities. Inclusion in Clan Metal Gear will be by
invitation only.”

Another mage whistled, realizing just how big of a
shift that was.

“You have no idea what’s coming, and we have to get on
this sooner rather than later. All the other Clans are going to be scrambling
to grab up the talent pool in the rest of Star Force, so we’re going to have to
give them something unique to offer. One thing I’ve decided is that we’re going
to remain Human only and press that combat front. When the V’kit’no’sat come we
won’t be going hand to hand with Era’tran, we’ll have to take them with mechs,
so virtually all of the commando combat is going to be us vs. the Zen’zat, so
that’s what Metal Gear is going to focus on. How close are we to getting the
holo simulators?”

All eyes went to the level 5 tech. “Not very, if
you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking. The shield matrix is too
weak to accommodate blows of even average intensity. We might be able to work
up a useable training model for younglings, but not Archons. Our tech hasn’t
caught up enough to their standards for us to even remotely copy their
simulators.”

“What about the programs themselves?” Gavin asked.

“Copied and stored for future use. The processors will
be the size of a room to compensate, but we can run them. It’s the holographic
hardware that’s holding us back.”

“Put a team together to push that angle as a priority
1 project. We have to be able to train against opponents that fight like them,
and the only way we can do that is with their own procedures. We’re Archons,
not Zen’zat, and we need to get to know our enemy’s quirks so we can compensate
and exploit them.”

“Even if we get matrix strength up to snuff, we’re not
going to be able to simulate very many materials. It’ll be like punching glass,
stone, or rubber every time.”

“Never the less, I want us using their training
simulators as soon as we can, even if it is in a reduced capacity. In the
meantime we’re going to keep personnel in the pyramid continuously. As long as
we have the real deal we’re going to make use of it, then those individuals
will come back and use what they learn to teach others. Going forward I’m instituting
a split between training and field work. We have to have a section of the Clan
that is on permanent training duty pushing their limits while others are out
kicking the crap out of the lizards. Davis wants us to pull back in that area
so we can pursue other projects, but over my dead body are we letting Mainline
do all the fighting.”

“Percentages?” another mage asked.

“We’re going 30 field, 70 training and will hold to
approximately that number through
swapouts
, but I
want a core of at least 20% that are permanently training like our advanced
training group here. We can’t have everyone taking turns. We need some to lead
the way, and as much as I hate being a shut in, I’m volunteering myself for
that. I’m the best we have, and if we’re going to pull the rest of the Clan up
ahead of the others then I have to be the one kicking your asses to provide a
greater challenge.”

“You’re giving up field work?” Jen-475 asked, who
was the Clan’s third highest ranking Archon
.

“I am. I know that’s something the others won’t do, so
it’ll give Metal Gear an advantage. I’ll be training with the Clan mostly, and
jumping in with the advanced training group time to time to learn from them,
but eventually I want our core to be on par with that, if not better. Doing that
across the board will be almost impossible, so I want to skew our training
towards non-psionic hand to hand and press that hard. To that end, I also want
to build and recruit the strongest Knight core in the Clans and work on using
them in numbers rather than their typical unit support role. Zen’zat are going
to be their size, so we need to get used to fighting teams of them. There are
bound to be advantages we haven’t probed yet in that area, and I want us to
find them.”

“Arc Knights?” a Baron asked.

“No. Others will want them badly, but we’re focusing
on non-psionic combat. I want our Knight training core to be just that. Arc
Knights have to split their time like Archons do, and I want them with a
singular purpose. Get them strong and fast enough and the Archons will have to
work hard to catch up while multitasking. We have to apply as much motivational
pressure as we can to the training group, so much so that we’ll have people
leaving the Clan because they can’t handle the stress. They’ll go back to Mainline
and take the skills they’ve learned with us with them, so they won’t be
washouts and I never want to hear you refer to them as such. I want Metal Gear
to be tops in terms of commando intensity. That will help with our recruitment,
though it will lower our numbers greatly at the outset.”

“If we have no younglings of our own,” the Baron
asked, “we’re going to have to be recruiting our civilian population as well?”

“Yes, and though others are giving their current
populations immunity we’re not. We’re going to institute a transitional period
to give our current slackers and
retiries
a chance to
get back in shape, but if they can’t pass muster they’re going to Mainline with
everyone else. This is a train that
ain’t
stopping
for no one. You keep up or you fall off.”

Gavin raised a finger in caveat. “However, I want our
commando division to be the insanely hard one. The rest of our Clan will be
amped up, but not to such a level. I don’t want to weed out a large number of
our techs and reduce our industrial capability. We’re just going to get rid of
the freeloaders there without much of a boost in standards. We’ll tweak it a
bit, but I want that to be much more relaxed. Hand to hand is going to be our
pressure cooker.”

“And Naval?” Jen asked.

“Same as always,” he scoffed. “Look at what Paul,
Liam, and Roger are doing and see what we want to copy.”

When Morgan left Earth she took a warship directly to
the nearby Sirius System in the Core Region where Clan Ninja Monkey had located
its capitol, sharing the world of
Everlast
with a
Mainline
colony. Her Marquis was there, along with a handful
of other high ranking Ninja Monkey Archons, though most of her Clan was spread
out through numerous systems and deployed on active missions, whether they be
Clan business or overseeing Mainline or other fleets.

Morgan called those present together in Marquis
Falconi’s
office for an informal chit chat, during which
she began to give them a summary of what the trailblazers and Davis had decided
on Earth and how it was going to affect Star Force and their Clan in
particular.

“Also,” she continued, “all adepts and acolytes are
going to be
Clanless
and coming out of basic they’ll
be transitioning into a new program we’re developing, which we’re loosely
referring to as ‘Null Clan.’ It will function the same way ours do with regard
to the Archons, a lot of training and Trials mixed in with a bit of field work,
but will be overseen by appointments the same way we assign Archons to the
Mainline
fleet. The catch is, we don’t get to draft any of
them when they make ranger. We have to recruit them.”

“Oh hell no,” Gary-933 said, knowing exactly what that
was going to mean.

Morgan held up a hand to stall the coming complaints.
“The entire Clan system, from Archon down to accountant, is going to be
recruitment based. Already the others are developing angles to attract key
personnel and gaming their internal standards to either amp up the difficulty
or keep it low and spread out to attract higher numbers that they hope to
develop over time in exchange for the younglings they no longer have. We’re not
playing that game, and are going to continue on the same way we have been.”

“How?”
Falconi
asked. “If
Davis wants us prepping for a V’kit’no’sat invasion we’ll have to make
alterations, and the lack of younglings is going to necessitate a variety of
changes.”

“Not really,” Morgan said dismissively. “We all know
that if the V’kit’no’sat come back now we’re toast, and that’s not going to
change much going forward. The key to being able to fight them is and always has
been the technology difference. Until that catches up we’ve got nothing more
than our ingenuity to work with. Others are working that angle now and with
luck with come up with a few tricks we can use, but the really effective stuff
will have to be built down the road when we’ve got the tech we need, so the
Ninja Monkey’s aren’t going to waste time with wishful planning.”

“What we are going to do is keep advancing, in all
areas. Our commando strength is going to diminish in comparison to some of the
other Clans based on what they’ve hinted at, and we’re just going to ignore
that as best we can and focus on improving our marks rather than getting hung
up on the comparisons. We need to be a well-rounded Clan, as we’ve already been
working toward, and will continue to press that agenda even if we slip in the
ranks in the interim. We won’t go down to the bottom of the barrel, for the
specialists will end up there in their off categories, but I’m afraid our
stature is going to take a hit going forward. Please feel free to surprise me
with the contrary.”

“Why are you so sure we’re going to get our asses
kicked?” Gary asked.

“Two reasons. First, several of the Clans are going to
be instituting heavy training programs to the point of isolation, mimicking the
advanced training program we’ve got going on Earth for Archons. They’re going
to sink a percentage of their people into those to the exclusion of all else,
hoping to make up ground lost and advance their core strength up to levels that
will better be suited to fight the Zen’zat. They plan to lose a lot of people
in the process, with them washing out and going into Mainline for the
non-Archons, and risking Clan transfers for those who don’t like the
intensity.”

“Second reason is they’re also going to be devoting
the higher ranking Archons to the new Trials…and we’re not going to do that.
Mainline and the other factions may have stepped up their military presence
through numbers, especially the Bsidd, but we’re not abandoning the war front
in exchange for Trials wins. I’m personally not going to be involved in many of
the Trials but the others will be, and they’ll be bringing along scores of
mages and padawans with them. We’re going to go heavy at the first trial that
is scheduled to occur in two years, but after that we’re pulling our elites
down to a handful and using rangers and strikers to fill out the balance.”

“We’re starting upper level Trials?” another mage
asked.

Morgan nodded. “It’s been pointed out that we’ve been
slacking off in that department by going out on field work too much. I
disagree. We’ve got the advanced training program that is far more effective at
amping
up our workouts than Trials alone will do.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m practically watering at the mouth as far as what this
new system is going to be, because Wilson is designing all of it and I’m diving
in along with the rest of the others. But after we get a good taste of it,
we’re going back to field work…and that’s what the identity of our Clan is
going to shift into.”

“As well as being our recruitment tool?”
Falconi
guessed.

“Exactly. A lot of people don’t like training
non-stop. I can do it, and like doing it, but not when there is fighting going
on out there. I can’t just sit on the sidelines when I know I could be making a
big difference in the never-ending wars we’re plagued with. Some people need to
take a break and train, but that’s not true of me or this Clan. We know how to
train on the go and not fall behind, so we’re not making the internal
alterations that the others are. We’re sticking with the program and adjusting
for the lack of younglings and lazy personnel, which will boost the Clan in
terms of professionalism. That will advance us enough on its own that we won’t
need really hard standards for inclusion.”

“Where do our current ‘slackers’ go?”

“Mainline. We’ll give all our people a chance to stick
around, but if they’re intent on going on permanent vacation there won’t be an
opportunity to do that here anymore. That’s what Mainline is good for, and
rather than drastically rebuilding our Clan like a lot of the others we’re just
going to streamline it.”