Star Force: Perquisition (2 page)

“Natural or genetic engineering?”

“My credits say engineering. On a level that rivals
the V’kit’no’sat.”

Clark’s eyes widened.

“No, it’s not their handiwork. The coding is
significantly different, which is why it’s going to be next to impossible to
guess at what it does without a nearly complete ‘book.’ I honestly have no idea
what the genetic sequences are for.”

“Genetic memory?”

“Some of it, perhaps, but not all of it,” Vortison
said, bringing up another hologram. “You probably aren’t going to recognize any
of this, so I’ll point and you can pretend.”

“Thanks,” Clark said sarcastically.

“You’re welcome. Here is one place where the puzzle
pieces will connect with their existing genome. We may not know what the pieces
are, but we can make some assumptions about the connections because we have one
side of them. Part of them are mental, as in software, while at least 60% are
physical hardware. I can’t say which section of the body, but the idea that
they just have a massive store of information woven into their genome is
inaccurate. They might have it, but they have physical changes as well.”

“Upgrades?”

“I hardly think they’d be downgrades.”

“For what purpose?”

“It’s not breeding. I know that much. I have a
suspicion that it will take all 8 variants located in the same place at the
same time to put the puzzle pieces together.”

“Together how?”

“Humans create pheromones, viruses, and a few more
exotic means of biological communication between individuals, and that’s not
uncommon in about 85% of races. The Protovic have receptor slots for something
they’re not producing, which is very odd. It’s possible that some other
stimulus will cause the ‘messengers’ to be created, then when all 7 match up
with an individual the magic happens…and I have no idea what it will be.”

“If it is genetic programming our Protovic could be at
risk,” Clark said warily.

“The idea of a faction of Star Force going rogue and
becoming an enemy is a nightmare that has kept me up many nights trying to make
out what this coding is. Now that I have the third piece I should be closer to
an answer, but I’m not. I need more tissue samples to compare, and presently we
don’t know where the other 5 are, correct?”

“Until now I didn’t know there even were 5 others. The
Shanplenix said they have no knowledge of Protovic beyond their own borders,
past or present. They’re not exactly close to the Veliquesh
homeworlds
,
but it’s odd that they never heard of them pre-lizards.”

“Actually it’s not,” Vortison said, adjusting the
hologram to another set of genetic codes that Clark only vaguely understood. He
wasn’t a
newb
as far as genetics were concerned, but
Vortison was operating on a level far beyond him and they both knew it. Trouble
was there had to be V’kit’no’sat even more knowledgeable than Star Force’s top
staff, and they were constantly trying to close that gap given the outdated
records they possessed, which were still more than they could fully grasp at
their young age.

“Geographically speaking,” Clark clarified.

Vortison raised a finger. “Behaviorally speaking,
there is an impulse to explore buried in their coding, similar to the sensation
of thirst when you’re low on water, but much more subtle. It is, however,
superseded by a stronger impulse to turtle up. A type of survival instinct, I
believe.”

“No reckless expansion.”

“Such things affect individuals rather than control
them. You’re evidence of that, for the sexuality programming in Humans is quite
strong, yet you ignore it.”

“Such programming has a strong effect on the weak
minded, and I can assure you that we are not weak minded,” Clark said firmly,
though he knew the masses in Star Force, Humans and otherwise, unfortunately
were. Maturia training helped with that, giving people an opportunity to grow
stronger, but once they graduated they were on their own and if they didn’t
have the will to improve they would stagnate and their strength would wane,
making them more susceptible to genetic programming…a much weaker version than
what guided/controlled the lizards.

“Obviously,” Vortison echoed. “But when you’re dealing
with an entire race even the smallest nudge can have visible effects. I think
these variants were tasted to survive first, seek each other out second, so
that this genetic playbook could be assembled and implemented.”

“You think they did this themselves or someone did it
to them?”

“Unknown.”

Clark rubbed his forehead, imagining the variations of
disaster that this could turn into if it went south. “Is there a way to block
the puzzle pieces from coming together?”

“Yes, but to do it properly and not some butcher job,
I’d need to rewrite the Protovic genetic code to remove their section of the
playbook entirely. A stopgap would be to rewrite a smaller portion to block the
combination. Both would require skills that I am not confident in yet. The
V’kit’no’sat could do it on their lunch break, but I haven’t had the experience
needed and there’s no one with greater experience to ask for help. I’m
confident I can do it eventually, but right now I’m wise enough to know not to
try, else I’d risk messing them up, which I won’t do.”

“Let us know when you think you can. Make removal of
their playbook a priority.”

“As an option or a goal? If the changes are beneficial
we won’t want to strip them out…and putting them back in is far harder to do.”

“As our primary option. We’re going to find out what’s
going on, and when we do get all 8 pieces we’re going to put them together and
see what happens, either in a lab or with volunteers. If it goes badly, I want
the ability to inoculate our population in short order.”

“I understand,” Vortison said gravely. “Do you know
where to look for the others?”

“Not a clue. We’re going to have to go on a scavenger
hunt.”

“I have no idea how you would even begin to do that on
a galactic scale.”

“These three variants weren’t that far apart,” Clark
pointed out.

“As far as genetic diversity and insuring that all
puzzle pieces survive,” Vortison added, “I would assume there would be multiple
civilizations of the same variant, else this entire project, whatever it is,
could fail if one was wiped out. You might just find
redundants
nearby.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy.”

“What is?”

“We’ve both got our challenges then,” Clark cemented.
“Keep us notified of your progress and we’ll see what we can do about getting
you some more variant samples.”

2

July 19, 2969

Nexus Grid
Point 146

Parking Orbit

Trey-555 sat in the command chair onboard his
Ma’kri
-class warship as he looked at the
visual and tactical displays of the ship traffic around them. Most of the
thousands of ships were parked as they were, but there was a steady flow of incoming
and outgoing traffic on the single jumpline used to get to the neighboring star
system from the grid point, for its gravity was too weak to make an
interstellar jump from.

That said, it was the biggest space station Trey had
ever seen by far. Looking like a pair of sunglasses with two huge discs connected
by a thick stalk in the middle, the overall length of the construct was 4 times
the width of Earth, but it was very flat and didn’t have half its mass. It was
enough to make slow jumps off of if you knew where to look for it, with most
non-Nexus traffic wandering about the galaxy never stumbling upon its location.

Which was odd, given the traffic involved. This was
very much a public place, though one for only those in the know. There was
nothing here for anyone who didn’t belong, no planets, moons, or even
asteroids…just a massive construct and a flotilla of ships and other craft
nearby it. Some of those craft were stations supplying fuel and other services
to customers, some were defense stations, but most of the dots on the
holographic map were ships waiting for their turn to ride the ferry to the
other end of the line and deep into Nexus territory.

And to think this was only a ‘small’ grid point.
Others had more than 1 station, for each link operated like
stargates
,
save these were always activated. They made for one massive highway running in
a straight line, with bigger hubs having multiple ones coming in and out
requiring multiple constructs to generate the insanely large but stable
magnetic fields that the specially designed Nexus jumpships could use to
accelerate and decelerate far faster than gravity would ever allow. This was
the first time Trey had ever been to this location, and only the 4th time Star
Force had sent a ship. Typically involvement with The Nexus was facilitated by
the H’kar, but Trey’s mission was going to take him far beyond their borders.

Information digging within The Nexus was dicey, but
Star Force had made several inroads previously thanks to Director Davis’s
efforts that had allowed them to do a racial search throughout their massive
territory. The source admitted that The Nexus’s records were incomplete and
that they had not fully cataloged every star system within their domain, but it
had also noted that the database available to Star Force was not the full one
that The Nexus used for internal matters. It was enough, however, to give Trey
a location in which to seek out more wayward Protovic.

He wasn’t the only one on this chase, with Archons
pursuing leads across the ADZ and beyond, rifling through historical records
and stories trying to hunt down any mention of the Protovic and their variants.
As it turned out there were many breadcrumbs to follow, with Trey being
informed of 3 locations suspected of having Protovic. His was the furthest,
being located in the Perseus galactic arm and far beyond where Star Force had
eeked
its own quiet Tether out to. It was now beyond the
Orion arm in which the ADZ and lizards, Voku, and Preema domains existed,
having passed through the less dense star clusters separating the galactic swirls
and branched out quietly into systems within The Nexus dominion without making
any waves.

Those Tether systems were not all a secret, for some
had connections with the local star systems, but most were a private line of
colonization that Star Force was not making public back in the ADZ, nor were
most of the maps updated with their locations. If the V’kit’no’sat returned and
blew apart the ADZ, then Star Force needed somewhere to fall back to and
announcing the locations of your secret bases wasn’t a good idea, making the
few maps that the higher level Archons and Monarchs had at their disposal
closely guarded secrets.

Trey had access to one such monster map back in the
ADZ, but there wasn’t one onboard this Ma’kri and he hadn’t felt the need to
bring a personal copy with him. Still, he knew that where they were going on
this mission was far beyond the current tip of the Tether on the order of 8,000
light years. The galaxy on the whole was approximately 100,000 light years in
diameter, meaning this little field trip was taking Trey and his Ma’kri 1/6th
of the distance from galactic core to outer rim, which was only possible thanks
to The Nexus allowing them to use their grid point transit system…for a fee.

And it was no small price, but through the H’kar Star
Force had acquired access to The Nexus’s currency in lieu of bartering precious
resources and getting scammed in the process. The Nexus wasn’t totally insular,
allowing commerce with outsiders on a regular basis, but they often price
gouged them as a way of favoring member states rather than giving them a break.
Everyone had to pay for their ride on the interstellar ferry, just some paid
more than others.

Star Force had been given access to the grid point
system a while back but rarely had cause to use it. It connected far flung
regions of The Nexus and unless you had business assets there it was far too
costly to use just for sightseeing. This mission had been given enough of a
priority for Davis to fund it, with Trey being given enough currency to move
about The Nexus at will rather than trying to huff it on gravity drives alone,
which would have taken years to make the trip rather than a couple months.

Though that estimate might be stretched further if the
waiting lines were this long. The Nexus had a lot of
Tilars
, their name for the magnetic driven jumpships, each of which
was a spec compared to the construct but of whom some were so large they could
have carried a Star Force command ship. The one that Trey’s Ma’kri was assigned
was considerably smaller, and cheaper, with many of this model coming and
going, barely sticking around long enough to refuel before heading back out
again. They’d enter, braking against one giant disc, then launch off the other
to avoid collisions, and as Trey watched there were routinely tilars easing
into the center of the giant slingshot before disappearing with no fanfare.

He’d been told that their turn was next, but he’d been
sitting on the bridge for the past 2 hours and was getting ready to say screw
it and head back to training when they finally got their go ahead. He had helm
follow the navigational prompts out of their parking orbit to avoid hitting the
other waiting ships then watched as they approached the massive tilar. They
weren’t all the same make, nor design, with this one being painted bright blue
and shaped like a crustacean with huge pincers that wrapped around the region
where the Ma’kri and other ships would be berthed.

Other tilars were fully enclosed, some looking like
sails, and enough oddity of design to suggest that there was more than one race
responsible for their construction. When the Ma’kri docked inside the assigned
tilar it didn’t interconnect with the ship itself, rather settling into
position within the IDF field and being gently nudged into a fixed state by
several soft tractor beams. They couldn’t stop it from moving if they engaged
their engines, which the Ma’kri had very little of aside from gravity drives
that wouldn’t work in the IDF anyway, but it would stop them from drifting into
each other or out of the docking perimeter through the gaps between the
pinchers.
 

The loading took a remarkably short time, with Trey
thinking that while they made all their customers wait in the parking orbits
they weren’t going to delay the tilars one minute if they could avoid it, so
before long the Archon was watching the view through the gaps in the
tilar’s
arms as they and the other 14 ships were carried
out over the massive disc and into the directional magnetic field. As soon as
they hit the center of it the construct blinked out, with blackness replacing
the dull white hull plates.

“Easy
peasy
,” Trey
commented, seeing nothing outside the ship now that it had accelerated up to
such a speed that the
tilar’s
shields were blocking
any radiation from hitting its precious cargo and melting through the hull
plates.

“I guess the expense is the hardest part,” the Ma’kri
Captain commented.

The Archon smiled. “Mind the store, buddy. I’m heading
back to my workouts. Let me know if the neighbors get fussy.”

“Before or after I shoot them?” he said deadpan.

“Your call.”

29 days later…

When the Ma’kri arrived at their final destination
point on the network they were in the
rimward
half of
The Nexus and still had a few weeks of travel left to go, via the ‘slow’
gravity drives and bouncing from system to system. Using maps obtained from The
Nexus early, Trey ordered them to get underway immediately after easing through
the congestion around the grid point, though it wasn’t nearly as robust as two
of their previous stops. This location only had 1 construct, but it was more
congested with traffic than their starting point had been, underscoring how
remote The Nexus territory was within the edge of the Orion arm that it creeped
into…meaning Star Force and the ADZ were the sticks beyond the sticks as far as
they were concerned.

But once they made a slow jump to a nearby star system
it was back to solitary traveling. There was a bit of traffic around the
system’s star, but there was no inhabitation within the system. Bouncing across
new spacelanes and eating up fuel with every stop and acceleration, the Ma’kri
made its way out into territory that was considered to be unimportant to The
Nexus but technically within their domain. Some records of it were kept, but
very little interaction was facilitated other than by a few ‘connected’ races.
Most were simply denizens on The Nexus’s lawn and probably didn’t even know the
huge conglomerate even existed.

The system they were headed for had no name, just an
identification number. It had one populated planet, but nothing of interest for
The Nexus or anyone else to bother with. The natives matched the description of
the Protovic, and unlike the other two hits Star Force had gotten, these were
not purple skinned variants. These were said to be orange skinned, set against
the standard green streaks and black exoskeletal patches. Fortunately they
weren’t working off of rumor alone, with a few images having been filed that
seemed to confirm that they were Protovic.

The thing of it was, the pictures indicated that these
Protovic were technologically primitive, making Trey wonder what their starting
conditions were like. Did all the variants have access to the same tech and
knowledge, then expanded on/lost it over the course of time? There were so many
questions lingering that he agreed that this mission was worth the expenditure
just to get a little more data to work with, for right now they didn’t have
much to go on.

The Shanplenix had no records of their history prior
to their homeworld, and the same was true for the original Protovic. The
Veliquesh records, which Star Force obtained during the deconstruction of their
worlds after their removal, did have mentions to grandiose origins in the form
of myths and legends, but nothing concrete. It was said that they had been the
devolved form of their predecessors, split up into 7 variants to avoid a
horrific fate, only to one day in the future recombine and reclaim their
dominance over the galaxy.

Originally that seemed farfetched, and the ‘galaxy’
reference was probably hyperbole, yet here Trey was looking for Protovic in
another galactic arm, so he granted there might be a bit more to the legends
than they originally thought. That said, the Veliquesh had been crazy, so their
records had to be viewed with a skeptical eye.

All records were, in truth, for people had a tendency
to lie. Star Force records were the anomaly in that they were accurate, as far
as the recorder was concerned, though they might still have misunderstood or
mischaracterized something unintentionally. That was why it was always better
to view the subject matter first hand, and Trey didn’t know for sure what he
was going to find when they arrived, if anything. If this had been a wild goose
chase he was going to be ticked, then again these Protovic could also have been
wiped out since the records had been made.

There was no way of knowing until they arrived, and
when they did they found an empty system, as far as starship traffic was
concerned. They transited to the planet in question easily enough, then sat in
orbit taking scans of the entirety of the surface on multiple laps gathering
data on what was a
very
primitive
civilization.

Like mud huts primitive. There were no EM signatures
whatsoever, meaning these guys hadn’t even developed radio or TV, scary as that
thought was. Trey’s life would have been considerably different if he’d never
been exposed to The Simpsons, and he felt for these poor bastards in ways that
he couldn’t even comprehend.

Scanning a planet wasn’t a simple point and click
procedure, so when they didn’t pick up any EM in the initial laps Trey ordered
a more detailed scan, region by region, trying to pick up any signs of real
technology, even if it just be a metal roof. As the bridge crew worked through
those orders Trey familiarized himself with the population distribution
patterns. There were settlements on several continents, with yellow seas
separating them. They were toxic, as far as Humans were concerned, but the
clouds in the atmosphere were water-based and raining pure down on several
sites, making for what looked like a wet planet aside from a few ‘burnt’
patches that were filled with sand dunes.