Star Force: Perquisition (4 page)

He kept his hand on her wrist as he woke her up, then
felt her jerk physically and mentally when she saw his gold helmet beside her.
She tried to run but he held her firm, all the while sending the telepathic
calming urges that did little to quiet her paranoia. After a few seconds of her
flailing around and finding her vocal chords weren’t working, he went ahead and
froze her body in place too, only allowing her head to operate under her own
power while he had a lock on the rest of her.

“
Viron
, take your helmet
off. I can’t calm her down.”

The commando took a step forward and knelt before
where she was sitting on the ground, then he hit the release on his helmet that
had it pull back from his face to a knot on the back of his neck, revealing his
purple/green glowing Protovic face.

“I doubt anything I say will matter,” the commando
said, looking straight at her and smiling, but talking to Trey.

“Just let her hear your voice. I can use that.”

“Alright then. Relax sweetheart, we’re not going to
hurt you.”

“I didn’t say hit on her.”

“Why not if it’ll calm her down?” he answered dryly.
“I hope you’re watching the surrounding area. I’m surprised she hasn’t screamed
yet.”

“I’m stopping her from talking, and only somewhat
watching. This is taking a lot of brain power.”

“You holding her body too?”

“Have to.”

“Release a bit if you want her to calm down,” he said,
holding steady and just looking at her scared face as he talked.

“I’ll try to keep her to a whisper, but I’m not sure
how well this is going to work,” Trey said, loosening her speaking ability
enough that she began babbling rapidly, but quietly.
Viron
talked to her, though neither understood the other, but Trey began to pick up
on a few connections that allowed him to send thoughts into her mind that she
recognized. Concepts, not words, and after more than an hour she relaxed enough
that he was able to release his hold on her.

That was a mistake, for when he did she saw his hand
and freaked out again when she realized he was an alien. Trey mentally froze
her and glanced at the commando. “This is going to take forever.”

“Not my fault you’re ugly,” he said with a smirk. “Can
she still see and hear me?”

“Not right now, I’ve got her in popsicle mode.”

“Let her see me again…after you do a quick check of
the perimeter.”

Trey pushed out his Ikrid while maintaining his hold
on her, looking for other nearby minds.

“No one has left the village yet. I think I better
keep my helmet on though,” he said, with the woman suddenly back awake and
babbling like she’d never stopped.

Viron
waved a hand in front
of her in a calming gesture, then stood up and took a step back. His armor peeled
apart and he walked out of it, knelt down again, and took her other hand in his
own, raised it to his lips and kissed it.

“Oh brother,” Trey commented.

“Work with me on this,”
Viron
insisted, lowering her hand but maintaining a grip on it as her eyes flicked
from him to the alien and back again rapidly. “Do you need to hold onto her?”

“It increases my ability.”

“Can you let go for a few minutes? And just keep her
voice in a whisper, let go of everything else.”

“Alright, we’ll try it your way. If I have to I can
knock her out again remotely.”

“Do it,”
Viron
said, with
the woman suddenly getting control of her body back as the alien released her.
She scrambled away from him but
Viron
still had hold
of her hand and pulled her over to him, dragging her onto her feet and away
from the Human where he held her in a firm, but polite embrace.

“Relax little beauty, you’re among friends.”

Trey rolled his eyes but went along with it, for some
reason it was working and starting to calm her down again.

4

November 11, 2969

System 39282

Planet 7
(Protovic Civilization)

Over the past month
Viron
had made quite the impression on the single village that the expedition team
had made contact with. He couldn’t speak their language, and vice versa, but
that didn’t diminish the effect his visage had on them. With the help of some
linguists that Trey had brought with him, and a whole lot of psionic influence,
they’d established some basic words but most communication occurred through the
Archon in the form of thoughts and feelings. He was being used as a translator
more than the translators as the villagers wondered who these magical visitors
were and word spread to the nearby settlements, with pilgrimages being made by their
neighbors to come see the rumored miracles.

The fear in the villagers was now gone, and that had
taken some doing. It wasn’t brainwashing technically, but a lot of emotional
correction on Trey’s part to get a few of these Protovic to the point of being
comfortable around him and especially
Viron
. Like a
snowball, once he got it rolling the sentiments spread and any new arrivals got
an education from the others in that there was nothing to fear, especially when
Trey was healing up a number of small injuries they had. Word of that was
beginning to spread as well, with a few badly injured individuals being brought
to him from surrounding villages in the hopes of him healing, or in some cases,
saving their lives.

He didn’t try to work on all of them, deferring to his
medtechs and letting them treat the Protovic with equipment from the dropships
and eventually, once they were trusted enough, they’d landed one of them right
in the middle of the village to use as a makeshift
medbay
.
The cultural exchange continued from there with his team moving around freely
taking samples and adding to their very limited linguistic database. Some of
the villagers helped out, but most were just watching in awe. Trey was now able
to remove his helmet without sparking fear in the Protovic, for now they saw
him as a great healer and asset rather than a threat.

Fortunately they didn’t know how much of a badass he
was, otherwise they never would have calmed down.

He’d dispatched other small teams across the planet
taking samples from uninhabited regions and doing the boring legwork of digging
up data for analysts to use later while he got to play Doctor Who with the
villagers, with his psionics working as well or better than psychic paper. He
just hated not being able to have a meaningful conversation with them…and the
fact that they were living in horrid conditions.

He’d seen worse, by far, but they were so primitive
and ignorant that it hurt, yet they were eager to learn despite the road bumps.
Cultural clashes were occurring every day, but after Trey got to the root of
the problem and literally jumped into their heads to wash away the resistance
they began to learn and learn fast…so much so that new arrivals began to turn
on the locals for violating their cultural protocol.

That was when Trey had to step in, pulling a Vader on
the first beating he observed and telekinetically grabbing and holding aloft
the outsider that was issuing the appropriate response based on their local
culture…or whatever other excuse you liked. It was still unacceptable, no
matter what the circumstances. When the locals saw the magic that the Archon
was capable of, above and beyond the healing, the obvious protests stopped but
he could still feel the searing looks of those that considered this whole
village to be heresy.

“Where have you been?” Trey asked
Viron
when he came back up into the dropship where the Archon was sitting chewing on
a snack bar while the crowd outside stayed a respectful 4 meters back beyond
the line he had drawn in the sand as he had instructed them to do. They were
not to come into the dropship or even touch it without permission, and so far
there hadn’t been too many violations of that edict.

“Impregnating some locals,” the Commando said deadpan,
walking in out of armor. Dangerous as that was it had become imperative that
the villagers interact with him on a more personal level than the hardened
battle plates allowed. “What’s up?”

“How do you feel about a camping trip?”

“Here or somewhere else on the planet?”

“Here. I want to bring down supplies and send the
Ma’kri back for support. We need a digging team and…a lot of other things.”

“And you don’t want to leave?”

“I’m worried about what will happen if we do. Take
away our protection and I get the feeling that some of the outsiders would
torch this place and everyone in it.”

“I have been getting some strange looks from them, but
I’m not in their heads like you are. You think a fight’s coming?”

“They’re too afraid with us here, me in particular.
But if we leave I’m not sure what will happen, but I fear something bad.”

“You want more time to work on the other villages
before we pack up for good?”

“Not exactly.”

“We can’t stay here forever. If a fight’s coming we
can only protect them to a point…unless you want to take these villagers with
us back to the ADZ.”

Trey tapped a finger on his own head. “Now you’re
thinking…but too small.”

Viron
looked at him for a
moment, then his glowing purple eyes widened. “The whole planet?”

“Why not? We can’t fit them on the Ma’kri, but after
processing 3 trillion Veliquesh the 428,000 on this planet will be a piece of
cake.”

“Just like that? We take them away from their homes
without even asking them if they want to
go?
”

“Annexing this planet is out of the question. Too far
away and we’d be dependent on The Nexus grid point system.”

“Not what I meant.”

Trey sighed and gestured out the open dropship hatch to
the villagers standing there watching them talk but unable to understand their
words. “Look at their living conditions. They’re dying from injuries and
illnesses that we can squash with a single
medpack
.
Their huts are sturdy, I’ll give them that, but they’re little more than crude
tents. Their food supply is partly meat, which is unacceptable, and pathetic
beyond that. Leaving them here would be cruel.”

“I can’t argue with that, but it is their world.
Shouldn’t we at least ask them?”

“Feel free to explain what Star Force and the ADZ are.
And even if you convince some of them to go, what about the rest that are too
scared or stubborn to come. More importantly, what of their children? Should
they have to live like this because of their parents? And what of those yet to
be born? We were lucky being born into Star Force. These people weren’t, but we
can fix that problem right now…or in a handful of months anyway.”

Viron
shook his head. “I
don’t think stunning them is the way to go about it.”

“For the grumpy ones it will be, but yeah the rest
will need to be handled differently. You’re their favorite, so…”

“I still can’t talk to them, so what do you want me to
do?”

“I’d like you to volunteer for a follow up
assignment…noncombat.”

“This isn’t exactly combat, you know. What do you have
in mind?”

“A friendly face to walk them through indoctrination.
Even if they want to go it’s going to be traumatic to them.”

“Do we have facilities to handle them?”

“If not they can be built quickly enough for this
small a number. The travel lag will afford that. I’m putting together a report
to be sent back with instructions. The return convoy won’t come until
everything is set in motion, though the digging crews will come immediately. I
want a look at those ruins before we pack up shop.”

“How do I babysit 400,000 people?”

“For those who want to come, personally. For all the
rest via recordings. Better to have you speaking their language than a Human or
even another Protovic. The more familiarity the better.”

“You’re right about this, but it’s still going to be a
punch in the gut that I hate to give these people. They don’t deserve that…some
of them anyway. A few I wouldn’t mind punching the old fashioned way.”

“Do you know a better way?”

“Other than claiming this planet and upgrading them
here, no. How much would it cost to do it that way, as a transition, with us
abandoning this world eventually after they adjusted?”

“Time.”

“Time?”

“No matter how we handle this there are going to be
transitional pains. Do we let the newborns of the next month be raised in these
conditions or do we send them straight back to the ADZ or a twin maturia built
here? Either way their parents are going to throw a fit. If we camp out here
and do it the slow way we’re holding back the next generation in favor of
easing the transition of those that are already here. If someone has to take
the hit, better it be the adults.”

“True, but something about this still sucks.”

“We didn’t put these people in this situation, and
they’ve done well to just survive whoever attacked them here. If you get a
thorn jammed into your foot it needs to come out, but pulling it out is more painful
whereas leaving it in is less so.”

“Healing doesn’t always feel good,”
Viron
agreed, “but it has to happen regardless.”

“There are so few Protovic here that we can evacuate
them all straight back to the ADZ. In this case, their primitive state is to
their advantage, because we can’t do this with the Shanplenix or other more
advanced Protovic civilizations.”

“Because they’d shoot us if we tried?”

“Pretty much. And on that point, when the day comes,
I’d put your armor on. Those arrows they use aren’t plasma rifles, but they can
still do damage.”

“Ok, bigger question…what about our workouts?”

Trey cringed. “Makeshift setup here. Lots of running,
sparring, and making do until the Ma’kri gets back.”

“You’re willing to put up with that?”

“To bring these people back with us? Yes.”

“Alright then. Consider me volunteered.”

“I figured you would…if only to spend more time with
your girlfriends.”

Viron
glanced outside. “I
will admit, I’ve never been this popular before.”

“And you’re going to get a whole lot more popular when
the rest of the planet gets to know you.”

“Yeah, but then they’ll be integrated into Star Force
and realize there are a lot more handsome Protovic out there.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Trey said, finishing his
snack with a swig of water from a bottle.

“So ordered,”
Viron
said
with a smirk as he headed back out of the dropship to mingle with the natives
and continue adding to Star Force’s limited database of their language and
culture. They were going to need all they could get if they were really going
to try and create an indoctrination program for these people in a matter of
months. He knew there were experts for that sort of thing, but mastering their
language was going to take time no matter how many Archons they had to help
them with their psionics. Telling someone to do something was totally different
than explaining concepts, and to do that you needed to understand the finer
details of the way these people communicated.

It was those finer details that were totally lost on
Viron
now, but he’d been teaching these Protovic some of
his own words and gestures. That wouldn’t work for the entire planet’s
population, so whoever Trey called for was going to have their work cut out for
them. If they wanted him to be their mouthpiece so be it. He’d do what he
could, if only to make the transition a little less traumatic on his new
friends.

“Got a package for you,” a junior tech said, walking
into
Vortison’s
research chamber. It was a private
room with more displays than actual experiments, but there were numerous racks
of canisters containing tissue samples from every race in Star Force, the ADZ,
and as many outside it as they had collected to date, including the more recent
ones from the Shanplenix.

“Oh?” the geneticist said, turning away from his
holograms and looking at the box she was carrying with both hands.

“Number 4,” the medtech said with eagerness as she set
it down on a nearby table and let him open it.

When Vortison pulled the lid open he saw dozens of
smaller canisters that held tissue samples, along with data chips stacked in
racks beside them.

“Where did this come from?”

“An expedition into The Nexus.”

“Which variant?” he asked as he pulled out several
canisters and took them over to an empty rack on the wall.

“Protovic Orange, I’m told.”

“Orange? Do we have a map location?”

“I assume it’s on the chips.”

“Begin downloading them and find it for me. Have
Jenson and
Melly
help you. I want it prepped to our
purposes as soon as possible.”

“On it,” she said, scooping up the data chips and
heading to another room in the lab.

“Alright, Orange,” Vortison said, holding up one of
the tiny canisters in front of him and looking in through the clear cube at the
spec in the center. “Let’s see what secrets you hold.”

“Wait, say that again?” Clark insisted, holding up a
finger in front of him for emphasis.

Vortison cringed. “I…was…wrong.”

“See, that’s what I thought I heard. But that can’t be
true, you guys never make mistakes.”

The medtech sighed. “Not so much as a mistake than I
was looking in the wrong places and making unwarranted assumptions. Label it as
you like, but I’ve learned that the 8 variants are not identical copies with different
easter
egg puzzle pieces.
The physical attributes of the Orange variant are too high for gravity alone to
account for. Once I realized that I began reassessing previous data on the
others and found some minor, but significant differences.”