Star Force: Capitulation (Star Force Universe Book 73)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “Welcome back,” Davis said, glancing up as Paul climbed the stairs and into view, but he didn’t stand up.

  “Are you and Wilson in cahoots on this?”

  “My recall had nothing to do with Wilson. Did you run into him already?”

  “Yeah, we had a chat. What’s so important that you couldn’t put it into a message?”

  “Time changes things, Paul. Yet time doesn’t actually exist. There is no past and no future, only the present. Some things change, yet others stay the same. I find myself wishing, every now and then, to be back the way things were before. Back when I wasn’t so well trained and the galaxy was full of endless potential. Is that odd?”

  “Depends on the reason,” Paul said as he sat down in a chair opposite the Director.

  “It’s not that I regret the path we’ve taken. Just that I miss the work that we did. Success has robbed us of it, hasn’t it?”

  “I know what you mean. But the galaxy is a far better place for it.”

  “True. I just find now that I have more responsibility than potential. Past projects to maintain rather than create. An empire to manage rather than one to build. Do you ever feel that way?”

  “I wish I could build more starships, but we’ve kind of exhausted all design applications until we get new tech.”

  Davis pointed a finger at him. “Exactly. And I keep wondering if this is the way victory is supposed to feel, or if I’m missing something I’m supposed to keep working on. I didn’t have an answer for that. Not until recently. Then the universe taught me another lesson.”

  “About what?”

  “That I still can’t predict it. I’ve had a very private discussion with the Zak’de’ron. One that only a handful of people know about. I haven’t told any of the other Archons yet. You’re the first.”

  “Why the secrecy?”

  “We’ve struck a bargain.”

  Paul raised an eyebrow. “Something involving me?”

  “Not exactly. I just wanted you here for a number of things, plus you needed a break from warzone duty even if you won’t admit it. You’ve been showing up Liam and Roger too much in the longevity department. I needed to level the playing field a bit.”

  “A day ago I would have argued that point. What’s this bargain?”

  “They’re leaving.”

  Paul frowned. “To where?”

  “Another galaxy. Krackel to be precise. They’ve negotiated a deal to join the Bond of Resistance and have secured permission to travel on the intergalactic network and set up camp in one of the quiet Hadarak galaxies. They’ll be back to where they were when they started the V’kit’no’sat and hunting Hadarak was a much simpler endeavor. They’re going to play it safe and rebuild, and we’re going to provide them the Essence for the journey in exchange for them playing nice on exit. We’re getting all their slave races and assets. They’re only taking their own race. They want a clean break and restart away from us, the V’kit’no’sat, and their repeated failures in this galaxy.”

  “Paradigm shift indeed,” Paul said, leaning back in his chair as he thought fast. “That leaves us…just us.”

  “Indeed,” Davis echoed. “We’re the Vorlons now. And I need your skills out here helping to annex their baggage rather than doing the naval thing with the Hadarak. Others can handle that, even if the Lurkers return. But we’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands, even if the Zak’de’ron live up to their promise of a smooth transition.”

  “What kind of mess?”

  Davis activated a hologram of the galaxy with several side charts, all of which detailed the Zak’de’ron holdings…and there was more than triple of what Star Force had previously known they possessed after the reunification war resulted in them absorbing virtually all of the V’kit’no’sat that didn’t want to join Star Force, though the rouge Zen’zat had never submitted and some were still out there fighting the Zak’de’ron when and where they could.

  “I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I keep underestimating those bastards,” Davis admitted.

  “That’s a third of what we have now,” Paul guestimated. “How could they have that many feelers into so many systems?”

  “We’ve been doing all the hard work, so they’ve had time to be manipulative. When we didn’t conquer every single system we left more territory out there than we took, and they’ve been using that against us. Problem is without their machinations a lot of those systems are going to crumble from within…”

  “Oh shit,” Paul said, seeing what he meant. “Power vacuum.”

  “To put it mildly. We just got handed the majority of the galaxy, in the biggest and easiest negotiation ever, but we’re holding the bag and a lot of people are going to pay the price for it before we can clean it up sufficiently. Your thoughts?”

  “We’ve been putting so much effort into the Hadarak we’ve not been monitoring our neighbors all that closely, have we?” he asked, not knowing for sure about such things, for the Monarchs handled a lot of it so they didn’t have to.

  “Not nearly enough. Plus we’ve still got chunks of the galaxy unexplored…though some of the Zak’de’ron disclosure fills in some data on the map. I’m afraid we’re the parents in the room now, and part of me just wants to be a kid again kicking ass and having fun. Responsibility sucks.”

  Paul smiled, knowing what he meant, as well as the fact that Davis wasn’t overlooking the huge potential here anymore than he was. “The Excalibur needs to stay in the fight. As do the other Borg vessels. The Grand Border isn’t as secure as everyone thinks it is.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “The Hadarak are playing games with us, I just haven’t been able to figure out what they’re up to. It has me worried, to be blunt. That’s why I haven’t left until now.”

  “Short term?”

  “I’ve had the feeling it could be any day for the past 12,000 years.”

  “We can’t wait on them to make their move,” Davis cautioned. “We have to make ours, and now is the time. Ownership and protection of the entire galaxy outside the Deep Core. We’re not ready for that scale, but a chunk of it has just been thrown in our lap and we’re going to have to play hot potato with it until we get a handle on what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Standard protocol won’t work?” Paul asked.

  Davis shook his head. “It’s tolerable, but I feel we need better. Any thoughts on how we upgrade the empire as a whole?”

  “What’s the mission objective?”

  “Breathing room without apathy. Unification without too many rules. And just more badass to the point where we don’t have to whistle through the graveyard anymore.”

  “We’re missing something,” Paul admitted. “It’s like a word on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t figure it out. It’s been bugging me for years. Something is not how it should be.”

  Davis steepled his fingers in front of him while resting his elbows on his desk. “Elaborate.”

  “Thrawn. The original in the books. I can’t figure out his endgame. I can track it only so far, but what is the ultimate goal of conquering the galaxy? It’s not a fantasy, there’s something there. Or a void where something should be. But I can’t see it. The fog is too heavy.”

  “Thrawn?” Davis mewed. “His primary focus was on ending the rebellion and returning order to a chaotic galaxy. Putting out fires. No grand plan other than…”

  “Than what?”

  “Bringing people together to fight a common enemy. I always thought what he did was out of fear or something deeper and darker in the unexplored regions of the galaxy than Palpatine’s Empire was. The threat was what drove him…darkside tactics aside…but I always thought there was a positive agenda mired in bad execution. He was going for the quick and easy fixes rather than the long term lightside ones.”

  “But nothing other than that threat?” Paul asked.

  “Are we ever clear of it?” Davis challenged. “Nature itself is the threat, and no matter how powerful we become
it’s still there, ready and able to chew us up and replace us with a new generation of newbs. We are protecting the experienced and allowing them to grow to greater and greater power levels than Nature would normally allow. Every day is a progression rather than maintenance…at least that’s what I tell myself when I’m faced with dealing with newbs for the billionth time over the same damn issues regardless of what race it is.”

  An epiphany hit Paul so hard he bolted out of his seat so fast he made Davis flinch. The trailblazer was standing and looking out the window behind Davis, but his eyes didn’t match his mind’s position. He was elsewhere for a long time before he heard the Director’s voice again.

  “Paul? What is it?”

  “Pockets of peace,” he finally said. “Damn I’ve been blind.”

  “About what?”

  “Victory conditions. I’ve been so focused on player versus player somehow I forgot about player versus environment. We’ve been doing so well I forgot the nature of the game.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one we were most accustomed to when the V’kit’no’sat were razing world after world and we couldn’t stop them. That’s when you felt the most…you, wasn’t it?”

  “You’re not wrong, but I don’t fully track.”

  “Survival instinct. When it’s active, we feel the most pertinent.”

  “That’s also why you stayed in the warzone for so long?”

  “Possibly, but it wasn’t working. With the Lurkers gone it was too easy…or it seemed that way.”

  “We’re victims of our own success? Lulled into a false sense of security? No. A false sense of having achieved victory when the game never ends?”

  “We’re not playing towards a final victory. We’re playing a game of how long can we survive before the universe finally takes us out,” Paul said, with the words chilling him. “We’re not the game writers, we’re the players, but we’ve started to trick ourselves into thinking otherwise.”

  “Ariel?”

  “What she’s done is important, but not for the reasons she thinks. There can’t be a peaceful universe. It’s not a matter of fixing problems that exist. We have to…” Paul said, trying to find the right words.

  “The lightside isn’t ever going to be standard,” Davis said, having an epiphany of his own. “It’s always going to be a rebellion against the universe. And when we fall, the galaxy reverts back to the default darkside inclination, and it can’t be rewritten.”

  “If the stories of the lifesprings are accurate, any genetic reworks we do are just for those that get them. If and when they’re destroyed, they’ll be replaced by new standard lifeforms.”

  “So we can’t ever fully win…”

  “I don’t want to,” Paul said, finally realizing what had been messing with his mojo. “To be lightside is to be a rebel, and if we win we stop being rebels and start becoming the establishment. I though our empire was the lightside version of establishment, but I was wrong. We’re just a well-organized rebellion.”

  “A well-organized rebellion,” Davis repeated, with him now standing up and walking next to Paul as they both looked out the window at the distant ocean. “What’s the point of a rebellion if we can’t win?”

  “We win by being true to ourselves. By being lightside. The universe will try and drag us back into its standard grind of a program. Every day we resist is a victory.”

  “But it gets tiring, doesn’t it? Always fighting without an additional objective once you’ve figured out who you are?”

  “I don’t feel right if not in danger,” Paul admitted. “Rest only gets you so far. I’m not meant for peace. I don’t think anyone is. Peace is a luxury for training and crafting powers to be used in the next fight. We’re all going to die at some point, and each day that goes by we add to our gamer score.”

  “With the objective of getting it as high as possible before the game ends? What’s the purpose of the game then?”

  “I can’t explain it, but I can feel it again. I’d lost that feeling for a long time, now it’s visceral. Earth is the safest place I can imagine other than some anonymous rock nobody could find, but I feel the danger here. The roof could collapse, the star could supernova, the air could disappear into vacuum. I’m not safe despite my abilities. And when I feel the danger…”

  “You feel the purpose of life, hidden amongst it, and when things calm down you lose it.”

  Paul turned to look at Davis. “Exactly.”

  “So we pursue the purpose that we can’t fully identify. Chasing it however long it takes?”

  “And building an empire is a tool of doing so, not the final objective.”

  Davis finally turned to look at Paul. “I think you’re right.”

  “So the question of how to level up Star Force isn’t about building a grand utopia…”

  “It’s about how to build a more robust rebellion,” the Director said with an air of steel in his voice. “We’ve been thinking we were the big fish in the pond, but we’re not. We’re the little fish in the ocean and always will be. It seems I’ve been more blind than I realized too.”

  “Makes things pretty obvious now, doesn’t it?”

  “Indeed it does. We need to craft Star Force to fight nature itself, not the Hadarak or even the Apocalypse Monsters. And the universe had just allowed us a massive opening to do so on a level we haven’t had the luxury of before.”

  “Recall the others,” Paul said firmly. “All of them.”

  Davis hesitated a moment as his eyes dropped to the floor, then he raised them again. “Done.”

  5

  November 22, 154928

  Solar System (Home One Kingdom)

  Earth

  The call for the trailblazers to return to Earth went out across the galaxy, and due to the distances involved many did not receive it for more than a month. After that they returned as quickly as they could, all 100 of them including Kara, and joined Paul and Davis in Atlantis…but neither of them would tell the others what this was about. Rather they had Wilson doing a lot of testing and specialized training with them until the last of them, Oni-081, arrived, at which point they were all summoned into a small amphitheater identical in location and design to the one they’d first all met in at the beginning of their Archon basic training.

  That didn’t go unnoticed, and as the 101 of them sat in the seats surrounding the slightly elevated platform hearing Davis explain the deal he’d struck with the Zak’de’ron, many of the trailblazers sensed something bigger involved, and many times they would throw glances towards Paul sitting beside them, none of which he returned.

  “News of this has been kept tight, and it will stay that way,” Davis continued. “We want as smooth a transition as possible, so it’s going to be the Zak’de’ron incorporating us into their command structure and making the introductions before they actually leave. The details of this are not worked out yet, but we both think that simply giving an order to their servants would not be wise. They have been bred, in many cases, to serve the Zak’de’ron, and we already ruled out lying to them and saying we’re working on their orders. This is not going to be easy for them to take, and the Zak’de’ron have agreed to take it as slow as we need. Until we get a firm grip on the situation, the public is not going to be made aware, nor our upper ranks. This has to be kept secret,” Davis said, adjusting his gaze to his left. “Paul?”

  The Admiral stood up out of his seat and joined Davis on the platform, with the Director stepping aside so Paul could use the dais, but he politely scoffed at that and just leaned on the side of it with one arm.

  “Alright, you know the score. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but with it comes an opportunity that Davis and I have been discussing at length before you all got here. Ever since we met in this room a long time ago in this galaxy, we’ve been fighting to keep up, catch up, and try to roll with the losses. That came to define who and what we were, but now we’re more or less victorious, even before this deal was struck
, but now it really hits home. We’re uncontested in this galaxy now, other than the Hadarak. Aside from the work we have to do, we’re done. And by that I mean our trailblazing duties. We don’t have to adapt anymore, and I was having a hard time understanding this.”

  “Your Kenobi-like isolation?” Jason-025 asked.

  “Partially. I still think the Hadarak haven’t hit us with everything, but as someone pointed out we can’t just sit and wait for it. It will come when it comes. Until then we need to do what we need to do, but it seemed like that was nothing, and my mojo was suffering enough that Wilson noticed it immediately. That’s not the sole reason for some of his tests, and there’s a bit he refuses to tell me, but the crux of the matter is what do we do now? Does the empire even need us? Do we need to change to fit in with it? Or do we just need a swift kick in the ass? Greg, put your hand down.”

  The other trailblazer frowned and lowered his hand, his sarcasm snuffed out before it had a chance to form.

  “We’ve always worked from a sense of purpose, but that’s kind of been lost on us as the challenges before us were beaten. We’re not built for peace, we’re built for rising higher and adapting to the gauntlet before us. So what do we do when the gauntlet ends?”

  “You said something about an opportunity?” Sara-012 noted.

  “I’m getting there, but stay with me on this. There will always be threats and challenges to face, but the other Archons can mow that grass without us. We’re the ones who tackle the big challenges the others can’t handle. So what do we do when we run out of them? Our psionic tissues are all at saturation point, and while Essence appears to be unlimited the training for it is…not enough. It also feels like a cheat, especially with some of the downloading techniques we’ve gotten from the Neofan. Have any of you noticed something missing too? A show of hands please.”

  About 3/4ths of the individuals in the room raised their hands, with a few latecomers being added, and Paul focused on those that were excluded. “Kiran. What’s our purpose now?”