Star Force: Quenar (SF88) (Star Force Origin Series) (9 page)

“Possible,” Nefron considered. “Their minds were
blank. Does that mean you had access to them and they were empty or that there
was no presence to locate?”

“The latter,” Jason confirmed.

“Robots?” Paul asked.

“I don’t think so,” Nefron said, “but I can’t rule it
out. They did have some genetic material at least.”

“Though that could be camouflage as well,” Riley
noted.

“Whatever their abilities are, they are invisible to
Pefbar, Rentar has no effect, and they can pass through our shields. I didn’t
try bioshields at the time, but right now we need to figure out how they’re
doing this.”

“Scans of the room detected nothing,” Davis said,
having confirmed as much as soon as he got back to a terminal.

“We’re in a bit over our head here,” Riley said
regretfully.

“Which means our first order of business is to catch
our breath and start learning,” Davis said as calmly as possible. “If they want
to negotiate I can handle that. The rest of you work on learning what you can
and implement as many security procedures as necessary on the
Zeus
to keep them from sneaking onboard.

“Already working on that,” Riley assured them. “This
ship is going to become the Alamo so long as Nefron is onboard.”

“That didn’t really end well,” Paul reminded him.

“But they did do a lot of damage before they were
taken out, and that’s what they’re going to have to do to get to Nefron.”

“You follow up on that obsessively,” Davis ordered.
“Paul, Jason…short of picking a fight with them, work on the psionic and naval
angles for any tidbits of information you can gather. I don’t know how long it
will take them to assemble and transmit their historical records but…what?”

Paul and Jason were both smirking, but waved it off.
“You made a joke without trying to,” Paul told him. “Go on.”

“What did I say?”

“Historical records.”

Davis thought it through, with no bells ringing.
“And?”

“Old movie.”

“Send it to me later,” Davis said, curious to see what
was so hilarious. “In the meantime we play as nice as we can and stall. There
might be a beneficial arrangement to be hammered out with regards to the
security they offered. I’m not accepting that or anything else on a whim, but
with their cloaking technology no one would ever know how many of them were here
or not. That could be an invaluable deterrent against interlopers if word got
around.”

“Or are they just playing nice up until they get an in
to Nefron and try to either take control of the Uriti,” Riley warned, “or to
destroy them.”

“They should be able to do that if they’re half as
advanced as they seem,” Paul pointed out. “I think we could, if we really gave
it our all, and I’m not talking about using
Nefron’s
cheat. If they were really insistent about their Oath, whatever it actually is,
they’d be killing the Uriti one by one in order to keep them from falling into
the wrong hands. The fact that they watched this one while The Nine fought with
it indefinitely feels odd to me.”

“Maybe they are as understaffed as they suggested,”
Jason floated.

“And maybe they’re being honest,” Davis finished. “We
have too many questions and too little data to work off of. So long as nothing
is blowing up yet, let’s see if we can’t scrounge up some data or at least
confirmations of our own while I ask a few direct questions and see if they’ll
give us some freebees.”

9

January 23, 3258

Alamo System

Inner Zone

Davis sat in his quarters onboard the
Sanguine Blade
, sunk deep into a lounge
chair as he stared aching eyes at a datapad trying to get a little bit more
reading in before he went to bed. Per his request, the Knights of Quenar had
supplied him with historical records. They were very shallow on detail, barely
summaries of events, but there were over 6 million years’ worth of records and
Davis was having trouble getting through it all. He’d already spent a couple
weeks on it and was barely a third of the way through, but he was starting to
understand these Knights a bit better.

The records dated back to before their founding,
detailing the war against the Uriti from yet another perspective, as well as
giving insight into the chaos and barbarism that occurred afterwards in the
power vacuum. Those very dark times were what had initially forged the Knights
of Quenar and part of their Oath was to never forget lest they allow such
unbearable events to occur again. They felt, and rightly so, that what had
happened to the galaxy in the aftermath of the Chixzon’s defeat was
worse
than anything their enemy had
done. That was saying a lot, but seeing the pillars of galactic stability go
down by the hands of those that had helped hold them up during the war was
bound to make anyone start questioning reality.

The
Traelix
had lost contact
with the other prime members of the Ancients after the war, but the KoQ had
sought out their remains much later and were able to piece together the varying
means of their demise. A few had survived, but none intact. All were weakened
or destroyed to the point that the galactic landscape essentially lay barren as
thousands of scavengers tore over it trying to gobble up what scraps remained,
and then fought each other over those scraps.

Anything that shown the light of civilization was hit,
as if there was a mob mentality that was targeting stability and order.
Destruction was the appetite of the lesser races that backstabbed the greater
ones, and after time passed there were so few building that the destroyers
eventually bled themselves dry and the ruins of the galaxy finally knew a
sickly peace as the barbarism was confined to local areas and a few bastions of
sanity were allowed to survive through anonymity.

Davis could appreciate that, for it was such anonymity
that had allowed Earth to survive to this day, but the KoQ hadn’t been one of
them. While they did build, it was in the form of a roaming fleet that could
not be targeted by the scavengers. Their resources were low, but they preserved
and managed them wisely to set themselves up with a mobile base from which to
begin striking back at those who had all but destroyed the
Traelix
in conjunction with the main spur of their civilization. Once the major
fighting was over they split, continuing to seek vengeance where the other
Traelix
did not.

One group, the larger of the two, sought seclusion in
order to begin rebuilding in the smallest of ways, hoping to create a new life
for themselves and accepting the reality that their great civilization was gone
and that they would have to become something else in order to survive.

The KoQ were the smaller group that did not let go the
past, but likewise transformed into an elite unit that would never forget their
heritage while at the same time not trying to rebuild it. They were the last of
the true
Traelix
, and they would remain true,
carrying out their Oaths and insuring that, among many things, the Uriti would
not be released or threatened for release in order to leverage others.

Over the millennia that followed they fought one
battle after another, usually small, precise strikes, assassinations when need.
The killing aside, they essentially became Batman in that they were a
planetless
force that could not be pinned down that came
out of nowhere to strike the unscrupulous and created more stability through
sheer intimidation than they did through actual combat.

There was honor in that, but not in some of their
chosen methods…and the fact that they didn’t even hide them away in their
records showed that their primary motive was in accomplishing the mission
rather than a sense of right and wrong. Maybe that was something that
originated from their race or was a side effect of the cataclysm that befell
them post-war, but it was twisting what otherwise seemed to be an honorable
group into savages when the situation merited it.

Then again, Davis had only got through a third of the
records, so maybe the more recent ones showed a change in behavior. Right now
he was just beginning to get to the part about them finding the need to augment
themselves in order to balance the odds when in engagements where they were
vastly outnumbered. Their population was small and they did not reproduce fast,
though Davis thought that was more out of cultural bias than biology.

The KoQ housed their non-Knights in various
facilities, some of which provided industrial support while others were in
training to earn their status as Knights. Davis got the sense that there was a
stigma associated with the non-Knights and for that reason that part of their
pocket civilization was not developed further. After 6 million years they could
have regrown to the size of their previous
Traelix
civilization but they hadn’t, rather focusing on advancement rather than
repopulation.

And it seemed that the other surviving
Traelix
had so abandoned their past that they were now nothing
more than a shadow of their former selves, fitting in with the other races of
the galaxy and not possessing the technological or cultural heritage that the
KoQ carried on…though heavily modified as the Knights pushed to make
improvements and changes that ultimately led to the fulfillment of Oaths that
seemed to have no end in sight.

There was a knock on his door, with Davis reaching out
his limited telepathy to discover who was on the other side. He telekinetically
flicked the open button and the narrow door slide aside to let Paul enter.

Davis sighed and tossed the datapad onto a side table.
“I could say they swamped us with data, but in truth there’s very little here
other than an overview. Please tell me you’ve got something.”

Paul pulled the chair from Davis’s
comm
station over to him and sat down on it in the reverse position, lounging his
arms on the backrest. “I’ve been talking with one of them, remotely, concerning
their naval abilities with regards to protecting the Preserve. They were
considerate but careful not to give too much away, but I’ve got a nagging
suspicion that they don’t fight much.”

Davis raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I don’t think those are warships. I think they’re
mobile field bases.”

“All of them?”

“They can fight if needed, and I’d guess they’re
heavily armed. I did get out of them that they do have capture weaponry so it
wouldn’t be necessary to kill everyone that came into the Preserve without a
ticket, but the way this one talked was more like, and I hate to misuse the
term here, but that they operated more like Jedi.”

“I can vouch for the Force choke part.”

Paul frowned. “Did they touch your body or your
armor?”

“Actually,” he said, trying to remember, “I think it
was my armor, but it got past my shields.”

“Could be intentional or a limitation,” Paul
speculated, but moved on. “Their ships are powerful and when grouped together
like this can really hurt you, but I think they’re used more for intimation and
carrying around their Knight teams. More transports than anything. I think most
of their operations are infantry, with a good portion of them being diplomatic.
They’ll reason first, apply pressure second, and fight navally last. I don’t
think they’re used to having to go to that third option, and I don’t think
they’re set up to replace losses. Have you found a size for their operations in
all of that?”

“Nothing specific. I figured you had already gone
through it,
Sav
and all.”

“I skimmed, but didn’t find anything too useful. Most
of it is boring as hell.”

“I’ve got a lot left to go through, but I think I’m
starting to get a feel for them. They’re used to getting their way and being
the intelligent one amongst a galaxy of trolls, so if you consider that with
regards to their meeting with us what does that tell you?”

“They don’t like wasting time.”

“I picked up on that too in conjunction with the
‘patience’ suggestion. It’s like they know the proper course of action and will
allow us some measure of time to come to that conclusion. If we don’t they
force the issue. Standard protocol, and not too dissimilar to the way you
operate at times.”

“You don’t get out much then,” Paul lightly
reprimanded him. “I got the vibe that it was a ‘do as you’re told or suffer the
consequences’ theme rather than a ‘you can’t touch this’ one.”

“Is that what you use?”

“It varies, but I do agree that at least the big one
was impatient…until we showed that we weren’t pushovers.”

“I think that altered events here considerably, and
not just for diplomacy sake. They may be afraid of what you can do because they
don’t understand it either, and even if they’re confident of this situation we
have an empire that could hold similar skills. I think they’re treading
carefully until they get a better grasp of who they’re dealing with.”

“And then?”

“It depends on whether or not they welcome additions
to the elite class or are threatened by them. Their dismissal of the issue of
Uriti control is curious though.”

“If the Chixzon come back they can make more of them,
as far as they know. Stopping that is the greater priority.”

“I think it’s more than that,” Davis said as a thought
hit him. “What if they’ve gotten bored?”

Paul looked at him for a moment then caught on. “And
our revelation of an ancient Chixzon plan to rebuild suddenly makes them
relevant again. Those born after those times are loyal to something they can
never touch, but now it’s real, the threat is real, and they’re…eager?”

“Patience,” Davis reiterated. “In that light it makes
a great deal more sense.”

“Watching the sleeping dogs isn’t all that fun.”

“More to their Oath. Have you read it?”

“Yes. Pretty standard stuff.”

“But it’s all in the past. There’s nothing to look
forward to. They’re maintenance keeping the floors clean and patrolling in
front of the locked safe not knowing if there’s even anyone capable of cracking
it. Now they know they’ve been dupes all this time and their great enemy was
not truly defeated. The war isn’t over like they thought, so now their Oaths
have considerably more meaning.”

Paul held up a finger. “They never rebuilt.”

“Exactly. Their heads are still in the war, trying to
cling to the conflict and their race’s former glory rather than starting anew.
The conflict with the Chixzon was not a short one. It literally defined the
Traelix
and the other Ancients. It made them
defacto
rulers over the other alliance members and placed
upon them a great burden of responsibility as well as glory. They have clung to
that glory, and rebuilding would put the emphasis on current events requiring
them to let go of the past.”

“And now they hear from us that the war isn’t over.
Round 2 may be about to start.”

“I think so,” Davis said, mentally sifting through
permutations. “I think we can use that.”

Three days later Davis walked up to the shallow wall
in the middle of the arena and stood face to face with only one Knight of
Quenar. It was the one that had been middle of the row on the first occasion,
but today he was alone and so was Davis…aside from a fully armored Paul that
stood beside him. The Director wore no armor, but the shield was up and
separating them from the get-go this time, offering an invisible barrier of
protection against a lot of threats, but not against the
KoQ’s
Force-like ability.

That was why Paul was still here, as backup, but
otherwise Davis wanted this meeting as low key as possible.

“Thank you for speaking with me personally again,” the
Knight said agreeable. “I do not believe we introduced ourselves before. My
name is
Keez
.”

“I have been reading your historical records,
Keez
, and I trust you’ve done considerably more research on
us by this point?”

“We have made inquiries. Your Star Force makes a great
deal of information public, though certain aspects of your skillset have
remained well hidden,” he said with a glance at Paul’s opaque helmet.

“We’re fair and open, but we like to keep some of our
strength hidden. Telling a potential enemy all your assets is an invitation for
them to counter you.”

“Despite the actions of my fellow Knight, we did not
come here as enemies,”
Keez
apologized again. “He
misunderstood your hesitancy as one of obstinacy rather than calculation. Am I
right to assume you have asked me here to negotiate?”

“You are. Your ultimate goal is to prevent the Chixzon
from returning?”

“If we are so fortunate, yes. If they are already here
we must locate and destroy them in their infancy.”

“If I told you what race holds their genetic legacy,
how would you proceed?”

“We would eradicate that legacy wherever we found it.”

“By committing mass murder?”

“As a last resort. If the Chixzon are allowed to
return they would kill far more.”

“Unacceptable,” Davis said firmly. “Defeating the
enemy is pointless if you become one yourself. Tagging the Chixzon as the enemy
is foolishness if you do not have a reason for doing so.”