Blood on the Stars

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “I don’t plan on it falling,” Davis said firmly. “But I would be remiss if I didn’t take precautions.”

  “Hamob is right. If we go down, they’ll all be targeted and terminated. Probably all the Knight races too. So you’re gambling on a few falling through the cracks.”

  “I also don’t want future generations watered down from our donors through slacker reproduction.”

  “I thought we’d just turn off their reproductive systems the same way we have with the Furyans?”

  “Not when we need a lot of them.”

  Wilson stared at Davis for a moment. “I know that look.”

  “Then don’t ask me until later. Much later. This is a puzzle piece I need to start growing. And maybe the Furyans will become another if Kent keeps working his magic.”

  “I thought they were a dead end?” Hamob asked.

  “For what we need, they are. But I get the feeling that youngling training is going to be something of a vacation for the trailblazers. Kent seems to rather like it, and they may very well start personally training an elite cadre for each of their Clans. That’s my suspicion, at least. I haven’t spoken to him about it and I’d prefer if none of you mention it. Call it a prediction on my part.”

  “We are ready, aside from the week or so for me to add the Legacy nodules so they are present even if not filled in the base form,” No’ru affirmed. “All we require is your permission to proceed.”

  “Do we have the surrogates here?” Davis asked Hamob.

  “I have several thousand volunteers on a waiting list along with the original 100 still present on this planet. They were expected to have more births by now, but I’ve kept them busy with other duties while we waited on this project.”

  “You kept Pages here and away from combat?” Davis asked.

  “They have been compensated by being able to train with the Golden Knights stationed here, though they will be leaving soon. I’m told there is to be one final battle with the Furyan younglings to settle the score before they leave.”

  “Kent’s idea?”

  “Mine,” Wilson admitted. “A little Black Knight role play on their way out the door. The Furyans need an enemy anyway, and it won’t work to be one of the trailblazers, for multiple reasons.”

  “How long until this happens?”

  “A few months, give or take.”

  “Sorry I won’t be around to see it live. Make sure you record it.”

  “You’re commissioning this project then?” Hamob asked.

  “Are there any final concerns?”

  “There are always concerns,” No’ru admitted, “but given that we are starting with genomes that are quite familiar to us, I do not see many initial problems. Only adjustments to be made to smooth out the genome when it is put into a maturia environment. Of course, if you are planning for a doomsday scenario, there will not be a maturia environment…”

  “That’s one thing we can’t plan for,” Davis relented. “Calibrate to the maturia as much as possible. If there are some scattered to the wind, they’ll have to figure out things along the way the same as we did. I just want to make sure they have some bread crumbs to follow.”

  “I am not familiar with that reference, though I believe I understand your meaning,” No’ru clarified. “The Legacy nodules will provide this, unless you want some limited elements present in the base form as well.”

  “I think we’ve covered that in the instinct coding sufficiently,” Wilson said, glancing at Davis for confirmation. “Too many bread crumbs and you end up with a map, and map’s don’t train troubleshooters.”

  “Well put. We keep the base form as it is,” Davis said, looking at a schematic of the new body before him as it slowly rotated in place. “What eggs are we using?”

  “Human,” No’ru answered. “The gene swapping is the least problematic and the growth rate should be nearly the same. Using Furyan eggs could cause unforeseen complications.”

  “How so?”

  “We still don’t know what triggers a Core to enter an embryo, and past experiments that have since been banned have shown not all races are capable of being implanted into other race’s eggs. I anticipate no problems, but Furyan eggs are structured to accommodate the faster growth rate, so we will not use them.”

  “I thought the eggs were nothing more than a shell with generic start-up components?”

  “Not entirely true. The start-up components are tailored to the body that will grow, and though they appear to be compatible enough to function, often they do not, for undiscovered reasons. So we must keep the eggs as close to the new code as possible. I do not foresee a problem with Human eggs. Furyan eggs would be an interesting gamble, but one I do not feel we should take for baseline purposes and for the sake of the individuals who will be born into the bodies. However, I could do some experiments with embryos prior to the development of brain tissue. That is the point when a Core becomes present…or so I am told by those with the ability to use Essence.”

  “Then why does the egg matter?” Davis wondered.

  “That is one mystery we never solved,” No’ru said. “The process is invisible, and what is invisible we cannot study except by inference.”

  “What happens to the body if no Core melds with it?”

  “No brain activity, and the rest of the systems degrade rapidly. Our bodies were meant to have a person in them, and cannot exist without one for extended periods of time.”

  “There’s probably a lot in the old V’kit’no’sat database concerning that that I would not want to look through?”

  “There is,” No’ru said apologetically. “It has been sealed for such reasons, per your previous order.”

  “Back when I was born, we were told such ‘research’ was necessary, and it was the only way to figure out the truth. I’m glad we’ve put that lie to rest, but if this empire falls such lies and mythology will take over again. I’ve been looking through as much history as I can find in the Maty and from elsewhere, and the cycle has become clear. Civilizations rise, then inevitably fall back to the same tinder on which they first took flame. Nothing is accomplished and kept, and even the genomes degrade. Everything resets back to the ‘basic survival at any cost’ nature of the universe. We have to do better than that. Our story cannot be a one and done. It has to be a permanent change, and this new race will be the first piece of it…as long as they live. Yes, they could be wiped out, but if they aren’t, they won’t reset as far back as Humans, Era’tran, and Oso’lon will. They will hold their genetic ground.”

  “I like the elegance in that statement,” Hamob offered. “And the victory inherent in it.”

  “Not victory yet,” Davis cautioned. “We still have to do it. You have my permission to proceed.”

  “We still need a name,” Wilson reminded him.

  Davis looked up at Hamob’s T-rex head with sharp teeth and eyes that could see you even if you stood perfectly still. Jurassic Park had got that one oh so wrong. “Ground it is then. This is Project Terra. And they will be known as the Terrans. Let’s hope this one works, because if it doesn’t I’m out of ideas…”

  8

  June 1, 154975

  Itaru System (Novunu Region)

  Wendigama

  Kent came out of his private training sanctum holding his head as the doors parted and one of the Furyans was waiting for him there.

  “What?” he asked.

  Samira frowned. “What did you do to your head?”

  “Training drone got in a lucky hit.”

  “I thought we had super strong skeletons?”

  “There are muscles and skin on top of them that get damaged. You want something or just here to stare at my abs?”

  Samira smirked. “Does that mean you’re taking your shirt off again?”

  “What, youngling?” Kent demanded as he began to slowly walk down the hall.

  “Sorry. I’m having trouble figuring out my class, but I think I’ve narrowed it down.”

/>   “Go on,” Kent said, rubbing his forehead a few times before finally letting go.

  “I know I’m not like you. I’m not a warrior. I can see that now. Your instincts are strong in me, but they don’t quite fit.”

  “What does fit?”

  “I can’t sit still. That’s as much me as it is you.”

  “Well that’s progress. Anything else?”

  “I want to do something that matters. Be active. Just not punching people.”

  “Warriors do more than punch people, Samira. We figure out how to fight in order to accomplish something that needs done. That’s called a troubleshooter.”

  “Can you tell me more about that Class?”

  “It’s not a Class. It’s a Skill. You go into situations where you don’t have instructions, and you figure out what is going on and what needs to be done. Scientists are troubleshooters because they work with the unknown. Scouts are troubleshooters because they explore the unknown. Are you drawn more to the unknown or want to work with what is already known?”

  “I want to learn from somebody who has already figured it out.”

  “Sorry, but when it comes to figuring yourself out nobody can do that except you. But as for learning from others, that’s what Techs do. They study a manual, memorize and familiarize themselves with it, then they do as instructed. Better techs also learn to understand it rather than just blindly obey, but as long as you have good troubleshooting leaders you can accomplish a lot by following orders and protocols. Or is that too mundane for you?”

  “Yeah, sounds like it. What else is there in between?”

  “Security.”

  Samira double stepped to pick up distance as Kent was suddenly walking faster than she was comfortable with, despite them being about the same height. “What do they do?”

  “When people leave the maturia they are free to live as they wish in our cities. There are rules to follow, but as long as you don’t mess with other people you can pretty much do what you want. When you do mess with other people or break the rules, the Security Force are the ones who have to deal with it. There’s some combat involved, but most is keeping an eye out for trouble and responding when something happens.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad…do they ever go out into the galaxy?”

  “No. They stay in place and guard that place. You want something that roams?”

  “I want to see what’s out there.”

  “Permanently, or just a one-time thing?”

  “I guess what I want is adventure. Is there a class for that?”

  “Yes. It’s called Adventurer,” Kent said deadpan sarcastic.

  “Well, what exactly do they do?”

  “They never know ahead of time. Anything routine or scripted annoys them so they keep moving around in search of adventure.”

  “Is that a position in Star Force? Or a civilian thing?”

  “It’s something I and most Archons also are, Samira. We like to see new things, new challenges, and go where the danger is. While we use the safety of the Empire to regroup, heal, and rest, we don’t like living in the protective bubble for too long. We feel we need to ‘breathe,’ and to do that we have to get out where there is no backup. No Security Force. Just us and the raw galaxy, where we have to survive by our wits, our strength, our skill, and sometimes just our luck.”

  “What’s luck?”

  “It’s a term we use when something happens and we don’t know how or why. Some people survive things they shouldn’t, and that’s called good luck. Sometimes people die from things they shouldn’t, and that’s called bad luck, but it also applies to non-lethal stuff. Odd stuff that doesn’t appear to make sense.”

  “Is Luck a Class?”

  Kent laughed. “No, and it’s not a super power either.”

  “What are super powers? Are those different from psionics?”

  “Just another term for them.”

  “What’s a regular power then?”

  “Punching,” Kent said as he finally got to a nearby shower facility and stopped outside. “Last question, unless you want to go in with me?”

  Her eyes widened. “Can I?”

  “No.”

  She frowned. “That was a set-up, wasn’t it?”

  “Now you’re learning. Last question,” he said, opening the door but not walking through yet.

  “How will I know for sure what my Class is when I find it?”

  “It’ll fit like clothes matching your body.”

  “I’ve never had clothes that don’t match my body.”

  “The Classes that don’t fit you will feel wrong. The ones that do will feel right. So stop searching for the right ones, and start eliminating the wrong ones,” Kent said, then walked in and closed the door behind him as Samira thought about it.

  “Why can’t I go in there with you?” she whispered, stomping her foot once and walking off to find the others.

  Two hours later…

  “How we doing?” Kent asked Wilson as he walked into his office finding him studying training numbers, as was usual.

  “No hive mind, but beyond that it’s hard to say with 3 year olds. They are a bit more focused than regular Humans, and they take to the training easily. The defiance of the Furyans isn’t there at all.”

  “Shouldn’t be since you haven’t included our genetics yet. We picked a good name, didn’t we?”

  “Very good,” Wilson growled. “I still don’t understand their defiance of me.”

  “You don’t smell right.”

  “Actual smell or telepathic?”

  “I know better than they ever will, but our bodies changed more than it looks. There’s something subtly different, and it’s hard to remember until we’re around the 2nd gen. They seem like kids now, but they haven’t changed. We have. You don’t have the ascended vibe, despite being able to kick these younglings’ ass easily.”

  “I thought that would have generated some respect.”

  “Rather the opposite. They instinctively know they should be better, and it frustrates them when you outdo them.”

  “Really? I hadn’t picked up on that in their emotions.”

  “I’m afraid that’s probably a side effect of us being so competitive. We were expected to be the best, and when we weren’t it didn’t leave us happy. That’s how I can see it, even if it’s not obvious to them, let alone you. I can see a couple puzzle pieces and figure out the entire puzzle, because it’s similar to mine. You can’t, but then again you probably know these Clones better than I ever will.”

  “The Terrans haven’t disappointed yet, but it’s too early to declare success. Genetically there are no problems, with is one worry eliminated, but I don’t want to start a second class yet.”

  “How much more time do you need?”

  “Give me another two years. That should let me chart the deviations enough to ballpark their latter years. If they stay in the zone they are now, I can handle any unforeseen complications. Your younglings are Tasmanian Devils from the get go.”

  Kent smiled. “And somehow I’m proud of that.”

  “I don’t like having someone I can’t train,” Wilson admitted. “It vexes me to no end.”

  “About that…” Kent hesitated. “I don’t think we should abandon Project Furya.”

  “Oh?” Wilson said, leaning back in his slightly padded chair.

  “They’re not going to be the glue we need in the Empire. That’s clear now. And they also can’t intermix with the other races. They’re too volatile. Where the Oso’lon are too big and might squash an Urik’kadel by accident, the Furyans could do the same with temperament. But if we isolate them the way we have the Knight races, we might be able to groom some heavy hitters with a higher volume than there are Archons or Mavericks.”

  “Not if I can’t find a way to train them.”

  “I’m working on that. I’m getting to see from their point of view what it is to be me without all the experience, and I’m learning fast. I think we
can do more than just help these 100.”

  “You know I’m always game, but if they instinctively won’t listen to me, how do we get around that other than permanently assigning one of you to instructor duty?”

  “I’ll figure it out, then let you refine it. I haven’t got the smell worked out yet, but they know there are things they can only get from me, and what you had them trying to do was for people less advanced. There’s an undercurrent for them that must be present, otherwise it’s a waste of time.”

  “Any general ideas what it is?”

  “Purpose. You gave them training, without telling them what for. We always knew what for. What had the threat of the V’kit’no’sat…” Kent said, cutting off as Wilson smacked his hand into his face.

  “I am so stupid,” he said, standing up and beginning to pace around the room. “I was assuming they’d be versions of you now, not the Human yous from the past. If they are wired more to match the people than the body, then I know where I screwed up. But how do we give them a new V’kit’no’sat? How do we give them an empire to build?”

  Kent’s head twitched. “By giving them an empire to build.”

  Wilson locked eyes with him. “Go on.”

  “We built Star Force as Humans. These Furyans know nothing but what we teach them. So what would happen if we gave them a planet and told them to build their own version to help us in the battles to come? Make them do it from near scratch?”

  “That depends how much like you they really are.”

  “If they come up with even one thing new we haven’t already figured out, it’ll be worth the investment. And they might come up with several new angles.”

  “A fresh start,” Wilson mused.

  “And an adventure,” Kent added. “That’s what training here doesn’t give them.”

  “But how do we replicate that for millions more?”

  “By replicating it,” Kent said with a devious smile. “Empire building will be their collective training, or more precisely, colony training. We isolate them until they succeed, then they join the larger Furyan empire all with a little trailblazing experience as default.”