by Aer-ki Jyr
This could not stand. Their civilization, little that he knew about it, was clearly an abomination that had to be removed. If you put a Jedi and a Sith into the same room only one would walk out alive, and the same was true in reality. The lightside and the darkside could not coexist, which Kip knew meant that Star Force was going back there at some point to deal with this, and the fact that three of the others were already working on the problem showed they understood how significant this was.
You didn’t leave the darkside alone to fester and grow, no matter whether it attacked you or not. It had to be destroyed, and in this case that meant this Protovic civilization had to be destroyed in some way, shape, or form, which is no doubt what Jason, Greg, and Rafa were already working on while they gathered information from the prisoners.
Kip keyed his terminal for a commlink to the bridge, given that he wasn’t wearing any armor.
“Captain, I want an immediate course correction. Inform the Admiral that he’ll proceed with the rest of the fleet as planned, but we’re heading directly for Sol…and goose the speed as much as you can. I need to get there as soon as possible.”
10
July 2, 2826
Solar System
Mars
“Thought you’d come,” Jason said as Kip walked down off the dropship in the reclusive spaceport that sat in the center of one of Star Force’s cities that was off the public grid. Most of the planet was civilian in some measure, but this was one of several that were reserved specifically for Star Force use and operated in a manner similar to the tier 3 cities save for the fact that there was no public access for visitors.
“How bad is it?”
“Very,” Jason said as he fell in step with his fellow 2 walking across the large internal hangar deck towards an elevator shaft in the far wall. “We’ve established enough of a base language to be able to ask questions and get answers, but the context is real screwy. Heavy use of metaphors we think, but we’ve been able to get a basic layout of the Protovic civilization.”
“How about a name?”
“Veliquesh. And they have more than one system. Five in total, though the one we visited was their largest.”
“Population?”
“Somewhere in the vicinity of 3 trillion, though losses to the lizards may have taken a chunk out of that number.”
“Are our guests cooperating?”
“That’s where it gets interesting. It seems our arrival was foretold in a prophesy, and that they’ve been fighting the lizards for more than 1000 years waiting for the day we’d come to save them.”
“Yet they went after Mike pretty hard,” Kip pointed out.
“There’s the thing, they may believe we were preordained to save them, but go up higher on the religious pecking order and they abandon the lower levels quite fast. Their burnt sacrifices are at the center of their culture and occur with every major event. A victory, a remembrance, a holiday. The Protovic that Mike saw burnt alive was one specifically raised to adulthood in a reclusive sanctuary designed to keep them pure of various imaginary stuff. They’re raised specifically to be sacrificed when the occasion merits it. That’s their place in the Veliquesh civilization, though there are other sacrifices made to gain favor, atone for an injustice, etc.”
“Peachy. Why were the lizards involved?”
“Part of their magic. They believe in a, and I hate to use the analogy, a living force that drives all life in the universe and that by conducting these sacrificial rituals they can alter their place in it. They believe that doing so all this time has allowed them to hold out against the lizards while everyone else they’ve known of in the region has fallen. They alone lasted, and continue to make sacrifices to preserve their ‘grace’ within the force. They call their force Nash’garmat’ecklima, so we’ve just shortened it to ‘Nash.’ And like all things fraudulent, it takes a high level of delusion to keep their beliefs in check. The six we have here are so disconnected from the concept of the truth it makes their minds a muddled mess I haven’t seen the likes of before.”
“Regimented?”
“That’s putting it mildly. This makes fascism look sane. If you even whisper anything contrary to their beliefs you’re executed, which then leaves no one but the crazies around. They figure they’ve got plenty of population, so they focus on the ‘purity’ of their race which involves some nasty Hunger Games-like stuff to weed out the younglings who are worthy and who are not. If you’re not drinking their kool aid you don’t get a chance to grow up. The ones we’ve got are a mix of loyalty, crazy, and skill. Normally a civilization like this would implode on itself, but it’s survived against the lizards due to this weird mix of comprehension and delusion they’ve got going for a cultural hive mind. They adapt to fight the lizards, reworking their tenets as needed to survive, but always drift back towards crazy when they have a chance.”
“You’re saying the lizards have actually driven a bit of sense into these barbarians?” Kip asked as they reached the elevator doors and Jason telekinetically hit the call button.
“Sad to say, but yes. These guys want to be darkside, but necessity has somewhat brought them to their senses. Like they’re sitting shallow in the ocean but never breaking the surface. They can see the light and orient off of it, but are never allowed to breathe the free air. There’s a twisted nobility in them that’s giving us unfettered access. They want to help us learn, thinking we’re their saviors from prophecy, and they’re also very keen to get to know our Protovic.”
“Have you brought any of them in on this?” Kip asked as the doors opened and they stepped inside, with Jason keying their destination within the city.
“Yes, and we had to almost restrain them at times from beating the crap out of our guests. They find their whole civilization repulsive, and their red coloration is getting under their skin…no pun intended.”
“Why?”
“They’ve never known of any red-skinned Protovic, and the mystery behind where these came from is something that is going to throw the purple-skins into a fit once they find out. Those we have here have agreed to keep things quiet while we get the information we need, but their government is already sending additional staff to help us with the interrogations. They want to know who these bastards are in a big way.”
“Have they been of any help yet?”
“Their presence gives us legitimacy, but without psionics we’re having to teach them the Veliquesh language as we learn it, so there hasn’t been much opportunity for them to do much questioning other than what they’ve fed through us. In that they’ve been helpful, and seem to know what psychological buttons to press and when.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“Outside of Star Force only the Protovic, and they’re limited to a few dozen individuals. The Protovic Chancellor is personally on his way here and should be arriving within a couple of weeks. He said he wanted to keep this quiet until they got a grasp on what was happening.”
“If these were Ter’nat I’d do the same,” Kip agreed. “What does Davis have to say about it?”
“Just that he wants information. He’s letting us take the lead on this.”
“Does he realize there’s only one solution to this?”
Jason nodded. “It’s the details that are in question…and right now there are a lot of unknowns. I’ve been taking 2 hours a day out of my training schedule to work with these guys. Adding another shift in will be a lot of help.”
“Why not call in a dozen mages?”
“Quality over quantity. Most of the mages haven’t been inside non-Human minds that much, and I don’t want to be dealing with their learning curve while we try and bridge the language gap. You’ve probably had more exposure to Protovic minds than anyone, I’d guess.”
“Haven’t dealt with them in a while, but probably.”
“Then you tell me how they feel before I bias you any further. Any objections to getting started now?”
“Nope. I’ll sett
le in later.”
Jason nodded and the pair rode the next few minutes in the elevator in silence before it opened up into a residential section of the city, which prompted an eyebrow raise from Kip.
“We’re treating them as guests rather than prisoners. We’ve emptied this complex save for them and they have the run of the place, but aren’t permitted to leave. We’re handling all interrogations here.”
“How many people did you have to boot out?” he asked as they began walking down a nearly empty corridor towards a checkpoint that had a pair of security officers standing guard in front of the main entrance to an upscale residential complex that contained quarters larger than the base units that all civilians were given coming straight out of the maturia. This region would have housed those individuals who had earned considerable upgrades that included multi-room quarters and a lot of other living space luxuries.
“About 200. There were enough nearby facilities that we were able to relocate them all into higher level complexes temporarily in exchange for the inconvenience. How long that will be is still in question, and I don’t think they mind if we take our time with giving them back their original quarters.”
“Archons,” one of the guards said respectfully as the pair walked by, with Kip and Jason nodding in return as they entered the promenade of the little city inside a city that was this residential block. It led into a bit of a park with potted trees and curving stairways that led up to the higher levels that included a cafeteria, some basic entertainment facilities, and a lot more quarters. Pretty much all standard stuff, with most of the denizens traveling a bit further into the city for specialized needs but allowing for midnight snacks and such within easy walking distance.
“And there we are,” Jason said softly as they approached an individual sitting on his knees in the park area. “They pray to synergize themselves with the Nash multiple times per day. They think it upgrades their karma.”
“Any truth in it? Psionic or other stuff.”
Jason shook his head. “Nope. Just pure, unadulterated bull shit.”
“Is he going to get ticked if I interrupt him?”
“Walk up in front of him, and if he feels like talking he’ll acknowledge you. If not he’ll just ignore your presence.”
“The damn red even makes them look like Sith,” Kip said, accelerating his pace until he passed between two low hanging trees and came up in front of the bench where the Veliquesh held his meditative pose murmuring something that sounded unintelligible. The trailblazer stood directly in front of his glowing red/green face, seeing that he wore Star Force clothing, ostensibly because he’d been taken off his destroyed ship without having a chance to pack.
The man didn’t move, nor open his eyes, leaving both trailblazers standing there looking down at his elevated sitting position as Kip reached out and began eavesdropping on his surface thoughts. Almost immediately he sensed a considerable deviation from what he knew to be a normal Protovic mind, which sent him on a hacking hunt as he poked around every facet of his mental structure without the man having any clue that he was inside his head.
You’re right. He is different.
How? Jason asked.
Culturally and structurally. It’s almost as if he’s more advanced, yet broken at the same time. Pieces of his mental structure are strong and efficient, yet there are just as many sections that are degenerate.
We think it’s the equivalent of crack babies. Their parents were so screwed up that a bit of their mental damage got codified into their genetics and passed onto their offspring. Factor in that only the ‘damaged’ ones would pass their sick upbringing and you get a snowball effect. That’s our current theory anyway.
We’ve seen bits of that in other races, Kip agreed, thinking specifically to the Lacvamat and how many generations it took to undo that excessive group mentality. It wasn’t gone now, just modified to be less burdensome, but the Archons knew well that genetic inheritance could be a blessing or a curse, yet always just a starting point. Though for those weak willed it stacked the odds against them righting themselves over the course of time. It was always easier to go with what was default and not think about what you were doing, but no sane person could live life without at least some curiosity prompting one to poke around a bit inside their own head.
If you had to fight your own programming things got bad, not so much because it was impossible, but rather because one didn’t know what to do and was learning everything as they went along. This Protovic was probably partly crazy when he was born, then willfully chose to feed into the instability rather than fight and counter it. No matter how messed up someone was there was always a path into the light through training, but someone like this who figuratively had been born with the crazy already in him would have to fight a long, hard battle just to get to ‘normal,’ and in Kip’s experience he knew that most people were not up to that kind of a fight, especially as younglings, and just acclimatized to their current situation…which in this case, given their cultural counterpart, was to willfully go darkside.
As disturbing as that is, it’s the more advanced parts that interest me. Why are these Protovic ahead of the others? Kip wondered.
We haven’t gotten into a lot of their lore yet, both due to time and the fact that we only have a limited vocabulary. They may know of a split that our Protovic don’t.
This one doesn’t know about what Mike did?
None of them do. They were in orbit at the time and we cut off comms before anyone could tell them.
Good move there. Don’t want them clamming up and making this harder than it already is. What kind of schedule do you have them on?
We keep them busy. Four hours in the morning, four in the evening. He’s on his midday break.
Do they train?
They have cleansing rituals that amount to some light cardio and flexibility work. Maintenance stuff, really. From what we’ve learned they have fairly short lifespans, sacrifices aside. They also have a forced reproduction edict, given the turnover of ‘failures’ in their younglings. They’re working off of default strengths more than anything. Our Protovic would kick their asses handily.
So how are they holding back the lizards?
That’s a question I’ve been asking since I got here. Their tech level has a lot to do with it. Beyond that we’re not sure yet.
Kip knelt down until he sat on his ankles and stared up into the glowing face, daring him to look back but he wouldn’t. He just sat there mumbling, either unaware of Kip being inches away or deliberately avoiding acknowledgement.
Well, as long as he’s sitting here I will too, Kip said as he stood up and walked to the opposite bench and had a seat. I’m going to have a thorough look around his head, then meet up with you guys for the next interrogation session. You up or someone else?
Mike is. His psionics aren’t that good, but he’s got a personal stake in this. We’ve also got a couple of Ikrid specialists to help out. I had my shift this morning. Greg will take the last of the day.
You heading for a workout?
I was going to get you up to speed first.
Go ahead. I’ll find my own way from here.
A bit of advice, Jason warned. Don’t do anything to tick them off, no matter what kind of memories you stumble across.
That bad?
Sick is the word. I don’t like digging through that crap, but we need intel. Don’t let them see you get angry. They still think we’re here to save them.
Understood.
Jason walked off and left the two of them alone, still with no reaction from the Protovic, as Kip began a memory search. The different mental structure took him a while to adjust to, but after that it was no different than the memory searches he’d made of ADZ Protovic in past years. That familiarity let him dig deeply right off the bat, though without a language translation a lot of the man’s thoughts were a mucky mess.
Some of the first memories he went to were of the sacrifices, wondering what this one
thought about them. Kip saw him observing many from his place in a crowd, and the feelings that accompanied them turned the Archon’s stomach. He was actually convinced that the horrific pain and agony of their deaths was a good thing, upping the Veliquesh’s standing in the Nash, and that the more resistance an individual gave, the more intense their destruction, resulted in a greater reward.
This Protovic actually relished in the agony and betrayal of those he witnessed being sacrificed, all the time knowing that it could happen to him to at some point. Rather than see that as a problem this one ignored it. He was one of the people benefiting from their demise, and it was almost a joke to him. The people he was seeing sacrificed had thought it would never happen to them, and now it was, with that horrific response all the more savory. He actually relished their screams and the scent of their incinerated blood and flesh, for what was a person had now been taken and consumed like fuel…and that visceral trade that he knew by nature was not supposed to happen, that was fundamentally wrong, would be compensated by a blessing in the Nash.
A wrong had to be done in order to receive the counterbalance, and the more wrong they could heap on the sacrificial slaughter the sweeter the recompense.
Kip realized that the ones groomed from birth to be the purest of sacrifices were not told of their purpose, so that when it did come the outrage and defiance would be intact and they’d go to their deaths in the utmost betrayal in order to fuel their position in the Nash with the greatest compensation.
Jason was right in that Kip wanted to Vader choke this bastard right here and now, but the Archon steadied himself and forced his emotions within the barrier of his skin, not letting anything show on the outside as he continued to dig into the man’s memories until he could stomach no more and had to take a break.
