Star Force: Starchaser (SF69) (2 page)

One of those items was going to be a subsurface
comm
grid that would allow fighters to be flown remotely
the same way that naval flew drones, allowing them to be used as disposable
assets in various circumstances. Mark had already decreed that they weren’t
going to use actual drones, with every craft having a pilot’s seat just in case
you needed to manually fly it, but now his pilots would be able to sit inside a
city and fight the battles anywhere on the planet from relative safety.

That was, assuming you got a grid to cover the entire
planet. He wasn’t going to trust orbital transmissions, plus the lag effect
would always give an actual pilot in the seat a slight advantage, but he saw
value to this new concept and was going to use
Daka
as a planetary test bed for it, then it’d be evaluated and used on other worlds
if deemed advantageous.

But setting up relays across an entire planet was no
small feat, nor was building the cities that would eventually cover the planet.
Decades would not be enough. This was going to be a centuries long endeavor
trying to rise to a level of Epsilon Eridani or even Sol, though with every
year that passed those systems were growing stronger and larger themselves.

But you had to start somewhere, and this planet’s
return to allied hands was that start, bloody as it had been. Mark would be
basing here for the foreseeable future but he’d let the engineers handle most
of the construction after he gave them the basic plans. While they did the
tedious work he’d be leading
warfleets
doing the
harder, more dangerous work of cleansing and claiming additional worlds. Some
of those they’d keep, others they’d leave bare yet monitored. As it was Star
Force had more worlds in its technical possession than they could fill, and
that was becoming a big political rub with a number of races that wanted to
colonize them.

Twice already Star Force had to forcibly evict
squatters, and Mark was glad he wasn’t having to deal with that task. It was
insulting to have to waste time and resources with so-called ‘allies’ when
every world Star Force took from the lizards could mean that another one out
there beyond their reach could be sparred, for while the lizard empire was vast
it was not infinite, and even they had supply limits.

The stupidity of those in the ADZ was not something to
underestimate, but here on
Daka
he wouldn’t have to
deal with that. Not from general citizenry, and definitely not from any
non-aligned race that they were graciously babysitting. Everyone coming to
Daka
would be here for a purpose, and that was the kind of
atmosphere that he and others could genuinely think of as home…or so he hoped,
if he did his job right and built the planet up into the aerial mecca he hoped
for.

Mark took off his helmet, holding it in his hands as
he breathed in the toxic air. It had the necessary oxygen he needed, but a lot
of other stuff that didn’t agree with his lungs so much. It’d been a long time
since he’d tasted this air and wondered how much his advanced physique would be
affected, hence this little test.

His lungs didn’t detect any problem in his first few
breaths, but that wasn’t abnormal. It usually took a little time before they
started burning, but the feel of the air was the same as when he’d first come
to
Daka
. As the minutes passed he continued to look
around at the horizon, seeing the junked lizard cities and their smoke plumes,
then turning around to see the mountains behind him that had a fair number of
concealed hideaways within them, but from here it looked all natural.

The burning sensation started to manifest itself
again, and after only a few minutes. Mark sighed and put his helmet back on,
cycling the air out to clear it completely and return the internal composition
to the desired setting of oxygen and nitrogen.

“So much for being fitter,” he chastised himself with
a bit of chagrin. “I guess some things don’t change with time, short of
terraforming.”

Nostalgia or no, the air was going to have to change,
with giant scrubbers on the to-build list a number of decades down the line. This
was a Star Force planet now and the atmosphere was going to have to agree with
Human lungs eventually, no matter how much of a hassle it was going to be to
filter out all the noxious stuff.

They had time, after all, and Mark was going to see
that this world was built right…and as fast as possible without compromising
that first tenet. Patience was a learned trait for Archons, for faster was
always better, no matter what you were doing.

2

May 17, 2825

Shaleth System
(Voku territory)

Inova

Cal-com sat on an elevated platform in his private oracle,
reserved only for the Dafchor and select staff as he saw fit to permit entry,
though to date that list held 0 names. This was his personal sanctuary from
which he oversaw most of the operations within the local annex of the Voku
empire
. On occasion he would lead a mission personally, but
most of those days were now behind him since the other 8 races had been reached
and moderately secured on the far side of lizard territory.

Shaleth sat in the middle of it, cutting across the
narrowest region in what was now shaped like an hourglass, for the core lizard
worlds sat on one side in an ever-expanding sphere of systems and the conquered
Skarron systems sat on the other, with that region expanding even faster and
further as the lizards seemed to be devoting most of their resources there
against the biggest threat they faced.

It might have been the biggest threat, but it was not
the most dangerous. The Voku were that, with Star Force coming in a close
second and eating away at the middle of lizard territory and bringing them
closer and closer to Shaleth as he and Paul had planned. That day would not be
in the near future for a lot of lizard territory remained, but the advent of
some new technologies for the Humans had increased their pace of conquest,
along with a population surge from their servant Bsidd giving them the raw
numbers of soldiers and workers they had previously lacked.

The lizards could not expand in their direction and
were losing territory all along their borders. On the far side where the Voku
had reached the 8 races that Cal-com had been ordered to protect, he was taking
possession of every lizard system he could in an effort to link the various
locations in a spindly grid. The various servants of the Elders were not
geographically close to one another, but none the less Cal-com knew that he had
to pacify the entire region in order to truly protect them. Allow them to
become isolated and swallowed up in the expanding creep of lizard conquests and
they’d be perpetually at risk.

So the Voku were hacking out another chunk opposite
that of Star Force and diminishing the lizards’ ability to spread in that
direction, poaching their startup colonies before they could get established
and pinching their massive empire at the middle, with Shaleth sitting right in
the center of it in a gesture of defiance, for no matter how hard the lizards
tried they could not retake the system from the Voku and they’d lost hundreds
of thousands of ships trying. It was the link between the two regions and one
that Cal-com had to hold, so he’d poured resources into strengthening it years
ago, now giving him a fortress that the lizards could not touch even with their
steady flow of technological improvements that were making it harder for the
rest of the galaxy to cope with them.

Inside his oracle there were maps upon maps displayed
as if they were artwork above holographic pedestals along with numerous
worktables that had his personal plans laid out in the open. He had no fear of
a security breach here, so he never bothered to lock away his work when he left
the chamber. It had sentries at the entrance permanently, allowing him to let
go any concerns of the immediate area and fully sink himself into planning and
analysis sessions.

Right now he was combing over new
intel
reports that had made their way back to him. The 8 races that he had been
tasked with guarding were now taking orders directly from him and given the
mandate the Elders had placed upon him he was actively restructuring their
societies so that they could play a part in their own defense despite their
limited technology. What he was working on was creating an Alliance of sorts,
similar to what Paul had done with Star Force, to secure the vast region that
encompassed all 8 races and hold back lizard expansion into those areas beyond.
He could not do this with the Voku alone, so he had been weaving an intricate
industrial and economic base within the 8 races he commanded that was going to
accommodate the incorporation of other locals who were more than eager to ward
off the coming storm.

His intelligence reports were coming in from an army
of scouts that were probing far beyond the lizard borders, even some going
coreward of their furthest expansion. Cal-com knew Star Force would not go
there because of the distant threat that lurked in the shadows, but the Voku
didn’t fear it for the simple fact that the Elders hadn’t warned them off.
Cal-com needed to know what the lizards were doing and where, with one of his
maps detailing the chunk of territory that had been carved out of this portion
of the Skarron empire.

It was the same Skarron
empire
that his people had come into conflict with before, only near their home
territory. The Skarrons’ empire dwarfed that of the lizards, with it exceeding
all current and previous scouting missions, though from captured
intel
he knew that it extended over into the next galactic
arm, with its mass of holdings in this one merely being colonial expansions.
The lizards were effectively fighting and conquering them here, but Cal-com
figured it was just a matter of time before the real hammer blow fell on them.
When that would occur was the question, though if the Skarrons had other,
larger threats to deal with then the lizards might actually seem like a small
matter that they could deal with at their leisure.

Cal-com knew that was a mistake, for the lizards’
greatest strength was their ability to spread and spread rapidly. Everything
they were consuming within Skarron territory was just feeding their industrial
engine and from it they were reaching out into neighboring systems that even
the Skarrons hadn’t gotten around to conquering yet. It was those near his
wards that he had been scouting out heavily, with a long list of races ready to
join with the Voku and form the defense pact that he was painstakingly
crafting.

Like his wards, the other races mostly were
inefficient and primitive, with a handful that had or could defend themselves
against the lizards for a fair amount of time. The issue was always the numbers
and the ability of the lizards to keep sending replacements in without end.
Cal-com was going to counter this by using his own troops for most of the
fighting and defensive emplacements, creating little Voku colonies everywhere,
even sitting in the capitols of other races, to establish the backbone of this
pact while the other races supported them militarily where they could, but
largely through the collection and processing of raw materials that they would
then feed to the Voku.

Cal-com could build new ships quicker than the lizards
could
given
available resources and there was only so
much he could suck in from the home territories via cargo shipments, though
those were having a significant effect already. If he could get this pact
firmly established and funneling resources to him in the amounts he needed,
then he could begin placing more strongholds on the map to counter the lizard
advance.

That was the game he was playing every day. A huge
effort across thousands of star systems that saw his own hunting fleets
bouncing from location to location to eliminate the soft lizard worlds that his
scouts tagged and to hit and eliminate some not so small ones to keep the flow
of lizards ships away from certain areas. To the untrained eye it would have
seemed an easy assignment given their technological edge, but the galaxy was a
vast place and even this little corner of it was huge. There were only so many
places the Voku could go, with the lizards taking advantage of the fact that
they could go
everywhere
once their
numbers reached a certain point.

What plans the Elders had for his ward races he did
not know, so Cal-com didn’t meddle with them much other than to eliminate
inefficiencies and get their civilizations geared up towards the resource race
that they’d be thrown at. Beyond that he left their internal development to the
Elders and their timetable, aside from several Voku cities built amongst their
own planets to safeguard them and provide an example of what potential they had
should the Elders find them worthy in the coming millennia.

Conscripting them into the Voku military was not an
option, nor was it one that the Voku had ever used before. Their forces were
comprised of one race and one race alone, unlike Star Force that had shown
Cal-com the benefits of a combined force. The Voku had and would fight
alongside Paul’s people in a similar manner when necessary, but the Voku would
not taint their own civilization by incorporating others. They’d come a long
way together, with the newest elevation of his race being seen as a
well-deserved reward for their loyalty during the long absence of the Elders.
Giving another race access to that would be a cheat that would diminish all the
gains they had made.

No, the Voku were on a path of their own from here to
infinity. They would help their friends and allies, fight and die alongside
them if necessary, but the Voku would always remain Voku and would never meld
with another race short of an order from the Elders to do so…and from
everything they had taught the Voku, Cal-com knew that was not the path they
wished them to take.

A keen interest to Cal-com also lay in the races
beyond the lizards, with a significant portion of his scouting fleets probing
what lay far beyond the new protected region and into areas where the lizards
had not even been mentioned. His forces had to go pretty far to find advanced
races that were not aware of the storm devouring everything in its path, but
they had found several new threats out there of their own accord, as well as
bastions of strength that he intended to make diplomatic contact with.

As he read through the recent reports he found that
one of them had come to him first, with a diplomatic envoy from an previously
unknown race wanting to have a direct discussion with the
Voku’s
leader…and a tech tree that was on par with his own, based off the limited
analysis his scouts had made of their small fleet that had sought them out.

Along with the message came their credentials in the
form of a territory map, linguistic database, and a sufficiently detailed
historical record. They were known as the Preema and their territory sat well
down the length of this galactic arm…with their numbers rivaling that of the
Skarrons. That combined with their level of technology immediately put Cal-com
on guard, and with that spike of trepidation his implants unlocked a new bit of
information the Elders had stored within them.

What followed a burst of knowledge that confused
Cal-com. The Preema were, per his new memories, an isolationistic race that
maintained a very tight hold on a limited region of space, dominating virtually
every system within their geographical boundaries as opposed to the Skarrons
that skipped over most to cheery pick the ones they wanted. Most races did the
same, but the Preema were able to pour so much population into a ‘small’ region
that what happened within it was virtually unknown to outsiders, for no transit
was allowed within or through, making it a gigantic black hole of information.

The Preema were benign as far as the Elders were
concerned, keeping to their own systems with little concern for others.
‘Private’ was the word that best described the avian race, which made this
unsolicited diplomatic contact far beyond their borders confusing…but also one
that Cal-com knew he had to follow up on. Currently the ships that had brought
the message were holding position at one of the Voku colonies that he’d
recently set up in the gaps between the ward races’ territories. That was where
they had made contact, and that was where they were awaiting a response.

Cal-com read through the whole of their data packet
before issuing any orders, finding buried within it all the records of a brief
conflict with The Nexus. For reasons not mentioned The Nexus had invaded their
territory and, after a war that lasted only a handful of years, given up the
task after being met with too firm of a response. The Preema had not pursued
them beyond their own borders, deciding to only defend their own rather than
try to conquer their attackers, but Cal-com found it interesting none the less.

The Elder had said The Nexus was reckless, and this
was the first evidence of that that Cal-com had seen. He’d been keeping an eye
on the distant empire that existed primarily in the next galactic arm out on
the rim, but had not tasked any scout fleets in that direction, save for their
nearest border with the lizards. He’d sent a few ships there to confirm the
reports Paul had been getting from the H’kar and to measure enemy strength
levels around the lizards’ core systems, but aside from a few delicate
information hacks into the ships passing through H’kar space his forces knew
little of The Nexus besides what was detailed in their public records.

The territory they watched over was larger than what
the Skarrons possessed, but as the Elder had said they were reckless in that
they did not own but a handful of systems within it. It was more a patrol zone
than owned territory, with them dictating to others rather than taking physical
possession or responsibility. They were almost always involved in some war
within their borders, so for them to travel outside them to invade a race that
seemed to keep to themselves on principle was a
datapoint
that he was not going to overlook. Something important had happened there, and
more importantly The Nexus had not scouted out the true strength of their
target, otherwise they would not have been so easily thwarted.