Star Force: Shame (SF59)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  It wasn’t until several years later that the Benoid started to hear rumors of some races putting up a fight and living to tell about it. Searching out those rumors with a passion they later learned of the ADZ…a sanctuary where many races had fled where the Li’vorkrachnika could not go. That sanctuary was protected by an empire called Star Force, a name that would soon be spreading to many races around the Benoid.

  It wasn’t until Star Force had set up a distant outpost specifically to block the Li’vorkrachnika’s advance to the region where the Benoid was located did the Hevmaj even consider trying to contact them, but with more and more reports of worlds falling despite the protected regions that Star Force was patrolling the Benoid looked to be on the eventual hit list regardless of how long they were delayed.

  The Hevmaj and the other races in the Benoid boasted a very high population and did not have the option of evacuating, nor did they have anywhere to go, so a solution had to be devised locally. With it becoming clear that they couldn’t protect themselves they sought contact with their more distant neighbors…from whom they learned that some of them were entering into an Alliance with Star Force. Others were outright abandoning their homes to relocate to their ADZ, and still a few denied the threat existed and chose to do nothing.

  The Benoid couldn’t evacuate and they weren’t stupid enough to let themselves become deluded to the point where they could think they were safe, so the Hevmaj took their fastest jumpship and loaded it up with supplies and their finest diplomatic delegation, then shot it off towards the location of the distant Star Force outpost in the hopes of securing some form of help.

  Now they were here, sitting in orbit around an unknown planet next to one of the Star Force’s giant metal worlds…and they were not alone. There were ships from many races here, all of whom were welcomed as visitors. The Hevmaj were no different and granted movement privileges the moment they entered the system, with the traffic controllers being a bit surprised when the Hevmaj answered their multi-lingual hail in their native English, for the Hevmaj had acquired knowledge of the language from traders and spent the majority of their year-long trip studying it intently, along with whatever other information they had gathered about the Star Force previously.

  Securing a diplomatic contact wasn’t difficult either, for it seemed that this location served as an embassy to the local region. The Hevmaj had several discussions over the comms during the following weeks until finally one of the Star Force representatives asked to meet with them in person. Unfortunately the Hevmaj could not live within the oxygen atmosphere on the artificial world, but the Star Force agreed to send their representative over to their jumpship instead.

  The short, fury Hevmaj waited in the landing bay during the atmospheric cycling, with the big heavy doors keeping the ship’s atmosphere in while the outer ones closed and the new atmosphere flooded in around the Star Force ship. Once all was balanced out the inner doors opened and the Hevmaj trotted out on their stubby legs, getting halfway across the bay when the boarding ramp on the Star Force ship opened up and a tall alien walked down it, passing through a shimmering barrier and onto their deck.

  They couldn’t see what it looked like, for it was covered head to toe in armor. That wasn’t unexpected, given that it couldn’t breathe the Hevmaj’s atmosphere either, but it still left the little aliens curious and all the more intimidated by the giant’s presence.

  “I am told you speak English?” it asked through an external speaker on the helmet.

  “Wee du,” one of them responded.

  “I am Brendan-JK804-78 of Canderous, a subsect of Star Force given possession of and the duty to defend this system. I will be your diplomatic liaison.”

  “Wee wulcum yu tu ar sheep,” the Hevmaj said with their odd but understandable dialect. “Wee ar heer tu ahk yur hellp.”

  “Help in what way?” the Canderian asked, holding their first conversation right there on the hangar deck of the primitive jumpship as he gazed down on the little fury aliens that looked like they couldn’t stand up to a stiff breeze.

  “Wee spec fur ta Benoid. Tin raices in tutal. Wee ahk tu jun yur impir.”

  “Quiet as always,” Davis commented as Greg walked up the staircase and into his office while the Director had his back to him and was standing staring out his panoramic window at the early morning sunrise over Atlantis.

  “Archons don’t like to make noise,” the trailblazer answered as he walked up to him. Davis turned around and sat down, so Greg did likewise opposite him as the slightly older man pulled up a holographic display of statistics.

  “I need your advice. These are the latest batch of diplomatic requests coming in from outside the ADZ. As always there are races asking for territorial slots or outright amnesty, but there’s a new trend developing,” he said, pointing to a specific part of the hologram.

  Greg looked it over, seeing a host of races he wasn’t familiar with along with a few names he’d come across before. “I didn’t realize there were so many.”

  “I haven’t given any of them a decision yet, though some have been waiting several years with the communications lag and all. Your thoughts?”

  Greg rubbed his hairless chin, studying the list but with his mind wandering elsewhere. “Tricky. We know we can’t stick to our existing borders for it will allow the lizards to grow too large, but we also can’t expand far enough to stop them,” he said, telekinetically tapping a few buttons on Davis’s desk and bringing up a map that had the various locations of the requests highlighted. Most were coming in from beyond Epsilon and Gamma Regions, putting them on the far side of the ADZ where the lizards hadn’t gotten to yet, but a few were above beyond Delta Region and one was even in the gap between Beta and the Voku at Achkor.

  “An endless mental back and forth for me. I was hoping you could offer another angle before you head out again.”

  “Do they understand what joining Star Force means?”

  “Most do, the others I’m having educated. So far only one has canceled their request.”

  “Switched over to a territorial slot?”

  Davis smiled. “Yes. They along with a lot of others think that having a colony in the ADZ to fall back to when the lizards get to them is the smart play, and that’s also beginning to become a trend.”

  “What would you prefer to do?”

  “I want to play it safe and creep out our borders, but I also don’t want to turn down requests for help…and races wanted to join us rather than just freeload I’m eager to incorporate.”

  “You’re worried they’re too far away and we don’t have the resources to incorporate them all as quickly as needed?”

  “And we can’t spare any trailblazers to oversee the conversion,” Davis added.

  “There are enough others that can fill that void now,” Greg said dismissively. “Are any of these guys big enough to warrant one of us?”

  “No. They’re small, primitive, and pretty much helpless. A few exceptions, but nothing beyond the Lacvamat.”

  “And moving them in isn’t an option?”

  “They want to retain their current worlds if possible, and we don’t have the resources to throw around to create brand new ones for them here. We need to utilize their existing infrastructure if this is going to be a possibility.”

  “And that takes us far beyond the Sentinel line.”

  “That is my concern.”

  “We’ve been having similar discussions,” Greg said, leaning back in his chair. “Without another major ally there’s only one way to stop the lizard advance in this region,” he said, pointing to the lower part of the galactic plane that held neither lizard nor Skarron territory. “And that’s to expand drastically.”

  “Logistically that isn’t feasible in the short term,” Davis reminded him.

  “And the larger we push our borders the more vulnerable we are,” Greg added.

  “And the more visible.”

  The trailblazer sighed. “I know, but it looks l
ike we’re all that’s standing in the lizards’ way. Sooner or later we’re going to have to make a choice. Turtle up and survive or take on a larger role in the expanded region.”

  “And become the Nexus?”

  “The similarity is worth noting, given that we can’t put the density of colonies into that vast of an area like we’ve done here. The ADZ is huge enough, trying to assert control over an area dozens of times larger is going to be…well, this is why we haven’t made any recommendations yet.”

  “For the sake of argument, suppose we asserted domain over this region,” Davis said, using a combination of telekinesis and his fingers to highlight virtually all of the territory between the ADZ and the Voku, plus a huge chunk laterally around Epsilon Region. “That won’t contain the lizards. They’ve got too many other directions to expand into. The only way I can see to stop them is to kill them all, which we’re nowhere even close to being able to do.”

  “No we’re not,” Greg said with regret.

  “So if we can’t beat them, we’d be expanding for what purpose?”

  “To slow them down and to save worlds.”

  “I sense a catch somewhere in there.”

  “No matter how far we expand there will always be somebody a little further away that the lizards are going to get. We can’t save them all, so the question is how far do we push.”

  “I hate those questions.”

  “As do we.”

  “And if we overextend we risk those under our current protection.”

  “That is the current dilemma,” Greg agreed.

  Davis shook his head. “Sometimes I find I have to keep reminding myself that we have an endgame here, because it looks like we’re already beaten.”

  “Not beaten, just not capable of winning. There’s a difference.”

  “It sickens me to see how there are so many places in the galaxy that are just helpless to defend themselves. Against the lizards, Skarrons, and whatever other dominant powers are out there. It’s like they’re just sitting there waiting to be eaten.”

  “When you’re at the top the view is a lot more scary.”

  “I wish we had someone to turn to, and briefly I had hoped the Nexus would be that someone, but we lie outside their domain and they’re suffering from the same problem we are…the galaxy is just too damn big.”

  “That’s why we do what we can and try to not let the fate of the others drive us insane…to that end, I’d give the go ahead on this one,” Greg said, pointing to the small dot between the ADZ and Achkor. “I know our original no-go line was the edge of Beta, but we’ve privately revised that to reach out to the Voku. They’ve built up that planet so much that we don’t want to leave them hanging, so we’re going to creep the border out there eventually. You might as well bring that race, whoever they are, into the fold now because we’re going to expand around them anyway down the road.”

  “Is that going to be our permanent line or is it going to keep creeping closer to the core?”

  “As much as we don’t like turning a blind eye to anyone, we’re not setting up any colonies past Achkor. Whether or not we make raids or put a few clandestine outposts out there is still up for debate, but those would only reach so far. The mass of Skarron territory is beyond our reach and will stay that way regardless of how strong we get. That’s a choice we’ve made and we’re going to stick to it.”

  “That gives us one permanent border to work with then…once we creep out to it.”

  “And it gives our enemies worlds that they’re safe on, meaning we can never fully defeat the Skarrons.”

  “I hate even hearing that,” Davis said with a sigh, “but unfortunately that’s the galaxy we live in. We’ve done well to survive and grow to the size we have, given everything concerned.”

  “And now that the lizards are pushing further into the core, we can’t go after them there either.”

  “You think the Skarrons will let them stay?”

  “Not willingly, but I have no idea what their priorities are or what other opponents they’re tangling with. Most of the intel data we’ve gotten has been local only. We still haven’t recovered a comprehensive map of their territory.”

  “Compartmentalization?”

  “That’s been another long, on-going discussion. Current theory is they’ve got fiefdoms that operate independent from one another to counteract the lag times given the distance, but who knows.”

  “So even if we grew strong enough overnight to defeat the lizards, they’ve crossed a line into a region where we will not follow?”

  “Sounds like something out of the Lord of the Rings, but yeah.”

  “Which leaves our victory rooted in staying alive and saving as many others as we can?”

  “If you’re asking can we militarily expand…the answer is yes. The question is how much, when, and where.”

  “I know a border stretch is impossible, which will leave us with colonization blips similar to what Canderous is doing, correct?”

  “We’ll need to establish strongholds with Sentinel emplacements, yes.”

  “Which leaves reinforcement the issue?”

  “I sense a suggestion coming,” Greg said keenly.

  “One of the requests,” Davis said, zooming in on a portion of the map, “comes from a cluster of systems with 10 different races. They’re practically located on top of each other.”

  “I like this,” Greg said immediately after glancing at the map. “Their proximity would allow a mini version of the ADZ to be built, though it’d have to be self-supporting and that would take a lot of time…but it is far enough away from the lizards to potentially have that time.”

  “It’d have to be off the grid,” Davis pointed out.

  “It’s doable. Not sure if it’s the best use of our resources, but if you want it we can make it happen.”

  “And the others?”

  Greg bit his lip. “Hate to say it, but without a link into the ADZ transit network it’d be a bit of an overreach at this point.”

  “Which brings up another item I wanted to discuss with you. How difficult would it be to establish trade routes beyond the ADZ to link us to the surrounding regions?” Davis said, bringing up a premade map of what he was thinking, with numerous finger-like lines reaching out like the branches on a plant…including one that ran all the way down to Voku territory.”

  “You are a bold one,” Greg said, giving Davis credit for an idea that even the trailblazers hadn’t thought of…at least not to this extent. “These lines will be vulnerable initially and we’ll have to devote considerable military presence until they get fortified locally. This isn’t something we can setup all at once. You’d have to grow these routes out over time.”

  “I assumed as much. Once we get them set up?”

  “As far as our scouts have gone we haven’t found anyone that can challenge us at our current tech level. That’s not saying much, considering a lot of these routes go beyond our current maps, but so long as they stay away from the lizards I’d say it’s also doable.”

  “Too much?”

  “Depends on our long term plans.”

  “Which are still in flux.”

  “To be honest, we’re going to annex all this region anyway. We’re just being cautious and not wanting to overextend ourselves,” Greg said bluntly. “No one else is strong enough to step up to the plate and we’re not just going to sit back and watch the lizards run rampant.”

  “If I’m hearing you correctly, we’re going to settle on a fixed coreward border to keep from inviting discovery by the V’kit’no’sat, but we’re going to have to stop worrying about drawing attention to ourselves out here in the mid rim?”

  Greg closed his eyes. “That’s what I do not want to say.”

  “Because there’s no way of knowing what could tip them off,” Davis said, his thoughts running down a similar path, yet he’d come to a conclusion about 30 seconds ago that he’d been working towards for centuries. “The fixed inner bord
er is a necessary decision that I support, but we can’t let people die that we can save on the possibility of our actions drawing the V’kit’no’sat here. If we’re truly going to hide then we need to start evacuating to the rim now and go far beyond the lizards.”

  Greg smiled deviously. “You know we’re not going to walk away from a fight.”

  “Agreed, so let’s just admit to the fact that we’re going to be ourselves and not be handcuffed by what might happen. We’re a long way from the current V’kit’no’sat border with the Skarrons sitting in between, and while we can always take one more precaution I say we stop now and get to work. The inner border will have to be it.”

  Greg blew out a slow breath. “I can’t disagree with that. I wonder if the V’kit’no’sat know the Nexus is out here and don’t care or just don’t have a clue. The lack of maps suggest the latter, but it still feels like a gamble.”

  “We have an unknowable variable that will remain unknown until they drop in on our heads. The question is, how are we going to deal with it.”

  “I hate to say it but my gut is still uneasy on this one. We’ve made so much noise already I’m half surprised they haven’t found us. The size of the galaxy is our greatest advantage, and the bigger we grow the harder it will be to remain unnoticed.”

  “Now this is odd. I find myself more gung ho than an Archon,” Davis said with some amusement.

  “Very odd,” Greg agreed.

  The merriment left the Director’s face as he looked the trailblazer in the eye. “We can’t leave these people to die,” he said slowly.

  Greg returned his stare. “No…we can’t.”

  4

  March 7, 2658

  Gangon System (lizard territory)

  Sevvba

  Greg sat on an elevated pillar in the command nexus, having been on station for several hours as he watched the surface assault of the lizard world with care. None of his ships were down in the atmosphere, but the H’kar under his command were. Their Destar Conduits were far more efficient at wrecking unarmored infrastructure than anything Star Force had, and now that the defense shields were breached on several lizard colonies he’d sent his allies down to target key facilities to cripple the lizards’ regrowth rather than trying for wholesale slaughter.