Star Force: Resurrection (SF84) (Star Force Origin Series) (5 page)

“Yes,” Paul said, telepathically trying to calm her
teetering nerves. “We are allied with some of your kin, while others are part
of our empire. We would have brought them with us, but we did not know you were
here.”

“What is happening outside?”

“We are taking this star system from the lizards.”

“Star system?”

Paul looked at her, suddenly realizing how little
these Elarioni knew. Whatever they’d been taught had to be passed down from one
to another, so they were probably very naïve…not to mention traumatized.

“There are many planets located around the nearest
star. The lizards own them and we are taking them away from them, as we have
been doing around all their other stars. There are many more that we have yet
to conquer, but this place is their capitol and contains their homeworld. Where
you are right now is inside a small planet further out from their main ones. It
is a prison. Do you understand what a prison is?”

“A place to keep people.”

“The lizards defeated a part of your race in battle
and took some of the survivors as prisoners, brought them here, and you were
descended from them. They claim you as their property, and we are here to take
you from them.”

“What will you do with us?” she said, worrying about a
number of things but also eager to and afraid to go someplace beyond these
walls. They were all she had ever known, but a part of her did not want to be
here and those conflicting thoughts were fighting inside her right now.

“We will take you away from here and let you live with
your kin. What happens to you after that will be your choice. You are not our
prisoners or our property. You will be free.”

“Free?”

“Free,” Paul said pointedly. “You may not fully
understand what that means, but no one will control you and you will be able to
go where you want when you want.”

Another Elarioni swam up near him, but stayed a little
bit behind the other one. “Are there others here?”

Paul searched her mind quickly, finding the reference
that he needed.

“There are other prisons like this within the planet.
Some have other races, a few have Elarioni like you. You have had no contact
with them?”

“A few of us have been moved and they tell stories.”

“You are the first that I have found here, but I know
where the others are. I will leave and go tell them what is happening, but it
will be some time before I can get you out of here. Most of this place is air.”

Paul felt that word ripple through all of the Elarioni
here. ‘Air’ to them meant toxic and death, for they were purely water
breathers. “We will move you in water when we are able, but until then you must
wait here while we make preparations and remove the lizards from this place.
How much food do you have?”

“Very little. They give us additional pellets daily.
If they are not here we will not have enough food to live…” she said,
hesitating as she glanced at the others, summoning up as much courage as she
had. “We have hid a bit more over the years, so we are not in immediate need,
but it will not last long. How soon can you take us from this place?”

“Not soon enough. We’ll find what the lizards were
feeding you and make sure you have enough to survive until we can get you some
real food. We can make it on our ships, though I’m not sure how much will be
needed. Do you have a way of measuring time?”

“Feeding cycles.”

“Are any of your people injured?”

He could sense she didn’t want to answer that, fearing
for them, but he dosed her up heavily with trusting feelings and insulated her
from the subconscious telepathy that the Elarioni used.

“Yes. Four are hurt. They are hidden.”

“Take me to them…so that I can help them,” he added
when her fear spiked out of control. “I don’t want any of you to die before we
can take you from this place.”

It took some more finagling but eventually Paul as
taken to a place on the floor of the facility where there were decent
approximations of rock and plants that would be in a natural lake. Stuffed into
a crevice were several Elarioni that showed visible signs of experimental
surgeries, with one in particular that was barely hanging onto life.

Paul swam down beside her and triggered his right
glove to retract. His wrist sealed around it so no water got into the rest of
his armor, but he needed physical contact to make his Haemra work. Talking the
Elarioni down took some time and he didn’t want to force this, but eventually
he got her permission and gently placed his alien hand on her thick tail that
replaced for what a Human would have been legs. He held the contact, numbing up
her body so she couldn’t feel the pain any longer, nor could she move, but he
let her retain her ability to talk to the others.

What the lizards had been doing involved several
internal organs that had been damaged and altered in ways that were crude and
not part of Elarioni physiology. He guessed they were waiting to see how long
the alterations lasted before this one died, then would probably study the
corpse and gather data. He was committed to make sure that didn’t happen here,
but he wasn’t going to be able to trigger a regrow of her organs with the
mutilated ones still here, so he triggered flash growth of tiny areas, making
patches and temporary alterations to try and keep her alive long enough to get
her to the
Excalibur
. She wasn’t
going to last long enough to get an aquatics ship here, so the crew was going
to have to fashion a mobile tank to get her moved and up to a med bay.

One of the Archons with him turned around and swam
off, heading back immediately to get that in the works while Paul stayed here
healing her as much as he could then working on the others to buy them time.
What the lizards had done here was inexcusable, but he’d be damned if any more
of these people were lost now that they were in his custody.

5

July 3, 3202

Krachnika
System
(lizard capitol/homeworld)

Hemratik

Paul stood outside the glass looking in on another
preserve, with a mix of sadness and relief. There were still Archon and
Commando teams moving around the planetary facility hunting down the remaining
lizards and securing level after level to make sure none slipped by, but there
was no way for them to get reinforcements on or off with his fleet in orbit so
it was just a matter of time before they were all killed and the facility was
his.

Them
fighting to the death as usual wasn’t what he was sad about. It was the
occupants here. He’d been visiting a lot of the races, some he knew, a lot he
didn’t, and all of them had to stay put until he could get a large enough
relief fleet here to evacuate them. That meant civilian jumpships configured to
carry a wide range of races, including the rock-like aliens he was looking at
now. They weren’t moving around, just standing in place like statues in a very
small enclosure compared to the others built here. They had about a half mile
wide region that contained some 3,000 of them based off a quick glance, and
there were a few other identical facilities nearby.

In total there were about 12,000 survivors, and Paul
couldn’t tell by looking at them what their physical status was, but from their
minds he could draw a different kind of picture. These Kvash were in bad shape,
for the most part, but a few were younger, having been born here more recently,
and that youth meant less wear and tear on them from captivity, though their
minds were not the same as they should be. With each generation they’d lose
their identity, until after enough years they’d be completely institutionalized.
There wouldn’t be any trace of Kvash knowledge or culture remaining, save for
maybe their language, but he doubted that most of these Kvash could even read
or write by this point.

The other races here were no different, but here was
an old ally that Paul had thought was destroyed and he knew that no matter how
bad off these Kvash were he’d be able to save them and restart their race
within Star Force. They’d once had a population upwards of 50 trillion and were
arguably the strongest race within the original Alliance until the lizards had
eventually defeated them. They hadn’t evacuated to the ADZ with the others,
going their own way and fighting to the last in what was for all intents and
purposes an unwinnable fight, and only thanks to the Hycre did the Bsidd come
out of that to land in the ADZ, for they’d suffered the same fate.

There were Bsidd here too, though Paul hadn’t gotten
around to seeing them yet. He was going to rescue everyone here, but the Kvash
were a race that had predated Star Force’s rise to dominance. They’d worked
together in some small ways in the past, but they had always been the stronger
and a bit brusque with the Humans. They had no idea what Star Force would
become, and he was glad that they weren’t completely wiped out from the galaxy,
even if this had been the way they’d been forced to survive.

In some regards he wished they’d just died and didn’t
have to suffer like this, not even wanting to know what kind of experiments had
been done on them, but as long as they were alive he was going to seize the
opportunity and bring these guys back. The Calavari, Bsidd, and in a small way
the Nestafar had all found a place in Star Force. The Hycre were independent
but were still an ally and now a Protectorate in some respects. The Kvash were
the fifth piece of that old Alliance puzzle and it felt very good finding them
here.

He worked his way away from the glass and around to
the access point for the chamber. The lizards couldn’t go in there without
equipment, for the average temperature was 160 F, but that wasn’t something
that was going to bother Paul’s armor and he could breathe the air thanks to a
chilling function on his helmet. He didn’t expect any of these Kvash would
recognize his armor or even know what an Archon was, given the fact that it had
been some 700 years since their civilization had fallen and their ancestors had
been brought here as captives.

Paul passed through an energy shield once the doors
opened, walking into the oven that was ‘mild’ temperature for the Kvash. When
he approached one of the short, standing rock piles they didn’t move. None of
them did. Rather than scatter it seemed they were just impassive, though he
could still sense their fear. They had nowhere to run, so these prisoners had
taken to a sedate existence. That was a true pity, for it meant their lives
would be even shorter without even accidental training effect from moving
around in a panic.

Then again, in a place like this, a shorter life might
be a good thing…save for the fact that there were less of them here to save
now.

Let’s see if
these guys still know how to talk
, Paul thought, activating the translation
program for the Kvash language rather than the trade language the Alliance had
used. He doubted these Kvash would have learned two here, so he was guessing
they would have preserved their default, though it could have altered over all
these years without any standards in place to keep it rigid and ward against
linguistic evolution.

Paul walked up less than a meter in front of one and
looked down on the
Kvash’s
flat head. Its eyes not
staring back, and it having no other features on its face save for some small
slits in the rock-like exoskeletal skin that it used to produce sounds.

“You do not remember me, but I am an ally of your
ancestors that were brought here as prisoners when your civilization was
conquered. We have come here to destroy the Cajdital. You are no longer
prisoners.”

A few rocky heads that resembled tabletops shifted,
but a far cry from what was triggering in their minds that Paul could sense.
Each race behaved differently, but there were some similarities. Hope, relief,
disbelief…they were all there, but in different forms. The Kvash thought
quickly, and if it hadn’t been for their stagnation here they could also move
fairly
quick
despite their sluggish appearance.

“What are you?” one of them asked, but not the one
directly in front of him.

“I am Human. There was once an Alliance between the
Kvash, the Hycre, the Nestafar, the Calavari, and the Bsidd. We were an
associate of the Hycre and joined the Alliance as a junior member. We have
grown to dominance over the Hycre and all others, and are now finishing the
fight that the Alliance began and reclaiming the worlds that the Cajdital took
from you. The Hycre are our allies and the Calavari, Nestafar, and Bsidd are
now part of our empire. We thought you were totally wiped out, and though I do
not pretend that your living conditions here are anything but deplorable, I am
very relieved to find some of you alive.”

“Show us your face. Prove you are not a Cajdital,” one
of them said from further off as it slowly walked towards him.

“The heat is not good for us, but I can stand it for a
brief time,” he said, forming a bioshield over his head and extending it out a
bit to catch some air when his helmet retracted. His face blushed with heat
from the spill through, but he was alright. He looked at the Kvash, twisting
his head back and forth, then resealed his helmet before he ran out of air.

“I am not one of your tormentors,” he promised. “They
are being killed as we speak and you will not be seeing them again. You will
have to remain in this chamber until we get a properly equipped ship and
transport equipment from our
homeworlds
to move you.
We did not know you were here otherwise we would have brought it with us. We
will provide you with food and supplies during the transition, but you will no
longer have to fear the Cajdital. Their time here is over and all of their
prisoners are being freed.”

“What others?”

“There are many captured races here, including some
other Kvash. The lizards were keeping you as trophies. Whenever they conquered
a race they kept a few alive and brought them here. I have a lot of people to
rescue, so I ask that you remain patient until we are able to remove you from
this place.”

“What will happen to us?” the one in front of him
said, finally rising up a bit to its full height. Despite the naivety he sensed
in these Kvash, they were remarkably even keeled. No doubt that was one reason
why they’d built their warfleet the way they had, with such huge ships and
starbases
that required patience and wisdom to operate and
was the polar opposite of the lizard’s expendable fleet philosophy.

“I will take you back with us and build up a planet
where you can live free,” Paul said, feeling the urge and opportunity in their
mindsets to go a bit further. “I know you know little of what you once were,
but I will help you reclaim what you have lost and rebuild your civilization.
If you do not want to have any part in that and just want to get away from here
then you may live with us without responsibility. You will be our guests for
the remainder of your lives, but your offspring will be able to reclaim the
lost past and I will show them and any of you that are willing the way. The
same goes for every other race held captive here, but you will have a special
place with us.”

Paul looked around at all the Kvash, some of which
were moving towards him. “It will take time. A lot of time. But now time is
your ally rather than your enemy. You are prisoners no longer. You are simply
waiting here for your ride out, and from there you will begin a journey
into…things you can’t even imagine,” Paul admitted. “The dark days are over
now, and you need not fear any longer. It will take time for you to adjust to
freedom, but you have a future now. Welcome back, my friends.”

Several Kvash who had come close looked at each other,
conversing in their own language with Paul picking up bits and pieces of it.
The translation software was severely outdated, given that there hadn’t been
any Kvash alive and it’d been relegated to a dead language.

“We do not know of what you speak. We only know of
here.”

“Then let me show you,” Paul said, forgoing the
limited holoprojector that his armor held and accessing their minds directly.
“I have mind powers, and I will show you some of your history.”

The Archon sat down on the ground casually in his
armor, not noticing the scorching temperatures, and began sending them memories
of his own and visual recordings of battles the Kvash had fought in that he was
actively pulling from the battlemap link they’d run up to the surface and using
to access the fleet databases.

He was watching it on his HUD and mentally
transmitting what he saw to them, and decided to take a decent amount of time
with them before he headed off to meet and greet some of the other races here.

Several weeks later, when the facility had been
confirmed cleansed of lizard presence thanks to a widespread and exhaustive
search using Archon telepathy, Paul returned to the
Excalibur
and got in some decent workouts, not having had much
available to him other than some long runs down within the planet based out of
the mobile facilities that they’d set up camp in. After starting to feel a
little better with the workout burn saturating his body, he returned to the
command nexus on the bridge and took stock of his fleet’s positioning and made
a few tweaks while watching the live status update from the others as they
continued to engage lizard orbital assets but not having tried punching down to
a major planet or assaulting a shipyard ring yet.

He’d been keeping in the loop from his armor link, but
that was primitive compared to what he could do in a proper nexus. After
getting his space footing again he went into a side task, detailing a report
for Davis that he was going to send out with a courier within a few minutes.
One had already been sent back requesting the relief fleet in order to get it
here as fast as possible, but he wanted Davis to get to work on what was going
to be a small, but major shift within Star Force. The population of the
prisoners wasn’t large, but there were so many races here that had otherwise
been eradicated it was going to take a lot of work to keep them from expiring
now that the lizards weren’t forcing them to reproduce via sometimes horrific
means.

Paul activated the holo-recorder rather than sending a
text transmission, for he expected this to be a very long message.

“Davis, I’ve got a lot to put on your plate this time.
As you’ve already been told there are a lot of prisoners from races that have
been thought extinct or nearly so that need to be rescued, but we need to do
more than just take them in as refugees. The lizards didn’t pick these races
because they were collecting samples. Each one represents a significant
opponent that they had to overcome, meaning there is a lot of potential in
these guys. The Kvash especially, but there are others here who, I’m guessing,
could hold even more assets for Star Force down the road.”

“If we treat them as refugees and put them into Axius
we’re going to lose them through attrition. We need to insure that we get
access to younglings and create programs to rebuild these races as a part of
Star Force. Ward status for a lot of them, but with the Kvash and others we
need to fast track them beyond that. I personally want to oversee the Kvash
program, not so much as in spending every waking day with them, but I want to
design it and run it from afar. I think I can turn these guys into a naval powerhouse
once again, but there are only around 12,000 of them left so we have to hit the
ground running with this.”

“I need a program set up for them to get into
immediately upon arrival in the ADZ or wherever you think is suitable to plant
them. It will take centuries before their population even hits nominal levels,
but this is an investment we need to make. Forget their history, these guys
have potential with us based off of what they are now. I haven’t had a chance
to sense a Kvash mind before, but even broken as these are they are impressive
as hell.”