Star Force: Liberation (SF56) (3 page)

The ranger came back to Davis in the security station
with a smile on her face. “Easy
peasy
.”

“Thank you,” he said as she handed him the small vial
that contained the genetic sample she’d had the medics take off the Bsidd while
he was disoriented.

“Anything else?”

“Always something else to do…but not for you.”

“Call if you need me,” she said, retreating out of the
station and back to whatever she had been doing which, judging by the casual
tank top and shorts she was wearing had been a training session.

Davis let her go and looked at the genetic sample in
his hand, or rather the container, for the actual sample was microscopic and
something the Bsidd wouldn’t notice missing. Their files on their race hadn’t
included a full sample, and were so sketchy that a lot of the data was little more
than rumor, one of which was how they reproduced. It was said that all Bsidd
originated from a small number of queens, but unlike some other known races
they weren’t directly birthed or hatched. They came from
subqueens
in various forms.

The exact details were lost, however, for the Bsidd didn’t
share such secrets with outsiders. With analysis hopefully the medtechs would
be able to shed some light on the truth of their reproductive systems, which
was important if Davis was going to assimilate them. He’d been skeptical about
their inclusion into the ADZ from the beginning when the Hycre had requested
it, but this meeting made it clear that the Bsidd had a one track mind and if
he let them develop, or redevelop, with their current disposition then they
were only going to be trouble going forward…and the ADZ had enough of that with
the ongoing civil war that now included 6 races.

He would have just broken them up by individuals and
incorporated them into Axius, scattering them far and wide and essentially
ending their civilization right from the beginning, but if they could only
reproduce through queens that gave those queens a firm hold over their society,
and anywhere they went they could start to rebuild their numbers and that
wouldn’t work with the Axius maturia setup…and he didn’t want the Bsidd
reproducing off the grid and causing havoc that way.

Which was why he needed to know exactly how they
reproduced. If the Bsidd were going to be a problem then it was one he was
going to deal with from the get go rather than let it grow. If Axius wasn’t
feasible for the Bsidd then Star Force could incorporate them as a ward of the
empire, but only if they had full control of their race. If the ‘minions’
couldn’t reproduce on their own and only the queens could, he couldn’t separate
biology from culture the way he had with others and that lingering taint could
cause problems, though it would fade over time.

He didn’t want to take that risk and hoped there would
be a way to annex the Bsidd without them becoming more trouble than they were
worth. If not…then he’d have to keep them contained and under his thumb while
he tried alternative ways to influence them. That wasn’t something he wanted to
do, especially given all the bad examples floating around the ADZ for them to
pattern off of. He needed to isolate and teach their offspring in order to cut
the cultural cord…but queens was something new.

He wasn’t sure how to deal with them and hoped his
genetic experts would have some answers for him now that he had something more
than rumor for them to analyze.

3

December 22, 2555

Solar System

Earth

Davis flew in a mantis across the landscape of
Antarctica, now devoid of snow given that it was the summer. Most of what was
below him, visible through the datapad that he was browsing on during the
flight, was cityscape with large, almost mountain-sized buildings rather than
the smaller versions seen in warmer climates. There were roads and rail lines
crisscrossing everywhere, but most of the infrastructure was subsurface with
the ‘ground’ being comprised of rooftops and other artificial constructions
that didn’t collect and hold the native snow well.

During the winter the cityscape would be covered
regularly, but for now the once white continent was just a chilly cityscape
basking in partially cloudy skies.

The continent held a considerable population, in
excess of 12 billion, with the rest of Earth being similarly choked with
people, though Davis had seen to it through restructuring that the heavy
population was no longer suffocating. The planet might be crowded, but there
was still ease of movement given sufficient and proper infrastructure…not to
mention huge buildings like those seen below that could pack in more population
per square mile when they themselves were more than a mile high.

Extensive subsurface infrastructure actually made the
buildings even taller from an interior standpoint, and Star Force was
continuing to expand on those, digging down deeper and deeper into the crust to
build more habitats and facilities. They were also continuing to expand the
colonization of the oceans, which held both surface and subsurface cities, but
eventually those would fill up too and Davis would be faced with either having
to start shuffling off the native population in far greater numbers than he was
already doing or begin rebuilding again with even larger infrastructure.

He hated tearing down functional structures in order
to replace them with larger ones, but sometimes it was necessary. Earth’s
current population of 153 billion was continuing to grow rapidly, even with the
mass exodus traveling out to the stars. Some didn’t go far, for the Solar
System had already passed the half trillion mark and made up approximately one
quarter of the Human population in Star Force, making it by far the most
valuable system in the ADZ.

Davis had kept it exclusively
Human
,
with very few travel permits allowed for outsiders. Occasionally you would see
a few ships passing through for trade purposes, but otherwise it was a closed
system to the rest of the ADZ while the other Star Force systems were open and
would always remain so. Davis preferred it that way, and while he liked having
a Human-only zone part of the time it wasn’t by choice. Sol was as much of a
liability as it was an asset, and he’d never been able to structure it as he’d
liked. Chasing the population curve always kept him making adjustments, but
never with a fresh start like he had in other systems.

Antarctica had been a fresh start because no one had
been living here when Star Force took possession of the continent, but it was
still facilitating the rest of the planet by being the evacuation point for all
those looking to move out to the colonies. Davis was never going to restrict
reproduction, such would be a major privacy invasion, which left him always
feeling a little bit behind the curve with Earth, but like the Archons he rose
to meet challenges.

And yet, while Earth was in continual population
increase it wasn’t enough to fuel the expansion he wanted throughout the ADZ.
Humanity was still only a tiny fraction of the overall population that now
exceeded 900 trillion. Other races were growing faster than the Humans, based
on their biology, and if it weren’t for the Kiritak Star Force would have been
relegated to a shrinking minority unable to produce the natural resources
necessary to wield the power that it now did in the ADZ.

The Kiritak/Kiritas now numbered over 70 trillion and
were continuing to grow as fast as resources would allow, with those greater
numbers
then
being deployed to various worlds to
harvest more resources. They were the key to Star Force’s growth, but Davis
needed more Humans to form the core of the organization.

The greater the population pool the better the chance
of individuals testing out to become Archons. As it was Star Force was
averaging 10-15 classes per year, which meant 1000 to 1500 new Archons with
every calendar change. Out of a population of 900 trillion that was a
pathetically small number, and going forward Davis knew that the Archons’ low
numbers could become a liability if they started dying off in considerable
numbers, for they were damn hard to replace.

But they were more than worth it. Even without
psionics they were dominant on the battlefield and in a myriad of other
applications. Trick of it was, only Humans could become Archons because only
Humans had the potential for the psionics. He wasn’t going to explain that to
the ADZ, because the source of the Archons’ powers was still a tightly guarded
secret, but it was a sticking point with regards to the Star Force military
because Davis knew that with Humanity’s limited reproduction rate they’d never
grow to the size needed…at least not until far into the future, and the need
for a much larger military was already on their doorstep.

The Calavari outnumbered the Humans 3 to 1 now, with
their reproduction rate being about the same and their efforts tied up in
defending their portion of the ADZ from the lizards. They were holding the line
well and even taking back a handful of worlds from what had formerly been their
territory, but their once impressive population figures were gone, and like the
Humans it would take them a long time to get them back.

The Kiritas were an altogether different story. Their
reproduction had to be continually kept in check else it’d scale out of
proportion. They reproduced via eggs, which the females pumped out regularly.
The males then had to fertilize them, and it was that fertilization rate that
had to be regulated. If not, a pair of Kiritas could reproduce at a rate of 120/1
compared to Human reproduction.

Star Force was fortunate to have both the Kiritas
nation as part of the empire and the Kiritak, which now outnumbered their
semi-independent kin 7 to 1. There were many Kiritak trained and equipped as
security forces, but their smaller physiology didn’t make them well suited to
combat…at least not Star Force-style combat. If you were willing to lose huge
swaths of the Kiritak in battle they could be a formidable force the same way
the lizards were when they simply swarmed you with numbers.

But Star Force wouldn’t fight that way, meaning the
Kiritak and the Kiritas military were defensive only, guarding the back door
for anything that might slip through the mainline troops. Those were comprised
almost entirely of Humans…hence the population rate problem.

Axius had been changing that, and now that it numbered
better than 20 trillion and continued to rise limited only by the rate at which
Star Force could build new cities Davis had a source of good troops that
weren’t tied to Humanity. They weren’t mainline per se, but sort of a
quasi-branch. Trouble was most of the Axius population wasn’t interested in
fighting, limiting their available numbers. Their mixed race makeup made for
some potent fighting combinations and the fact that they came almost
exclusively from non-Human populations helped greatly, but it still wasn’t
providing Star Force with the numbers it needed.

There were a number of races that were wards of the
Empire that had better than Human population growth rates, and in time some of
them might be able to assist in a military manner, but none that had a proven
combat record similar to the Bsidd.

Their race was more suited to combat than the Kiritas,
though less so than Humans or Calavari. The Bsidd came in several variants,
much like the lizards, but most were taller than Humans and could cover ground
rapidly on their
bipedalish
frames. The Bsidd had
multiple appendages, with two main ones for walking but the others could be
used as additional legs or arms as needed. They had no center of mass, for they
looked like a pile of sticks and moved like it, but in combat they had proven
themselves more than capable, though mostly through the use of swarm tactics
and high tech walkers.

Davis knew from his work building Axius how various
races had both advantages and disadvantages when faced with combat, and many
races that had previously been deemed
unuseful
, such
as the
Irondel
, had found a niche and were proving
themselves valuable. Davis wasn’t sure, but his gut told him the Bsidd would be
more than useful once integrated into a Star Force system, though the dynamics
of that would be worked out by Archons and others with far more military savvy
than he wielded.

A preliminary report on the tissue sample and an
analysis of its genetic code had informed Davis that the Bsidd had the
potential to reproduce even faster than the Kiritas, which could make them
valuable allies indeed if Davis could bring them into the fold…which was why he
was traveling to Antarctica, for Star Force didn’t have the necessary
technology as of yet to do as in depth an analysis of the sample as needed.

The mantis eventually brought the Director to the
foodstuff factory that sat atop the V’kit’no’sat pyramid, with him heading
below and down to the main doors. Every time he visited here the sight of the
green/black stone filled him with a sense of wonder and dread, reinforcing the
fact that Sol’s high population was little more than a target rich environment
should their real enemy come back, no matter how many Sentinels they spammed
the system with.

He walked through the massive doors and found a nearby
mongoose that he mounted and rode up into the higher levels until he came to
the
Zen’zat
floors where he found one of his chief
medtechs working on the Bsidd sample.

“Director,” Manfred
Trell
said in greeting, throwing a quick glance towards him as he continued to work a
series of holographic controls that were floating midair.

“Show me what you’ve got,” Davis said, walking up
beside his right shoulder.

“Just a moment, need to finish this,” the geneticist
said, doing something with the displays that Davis couldn’t mentally or
visually track. He was punching solid holographic buttons so fast and
manipulating the jumbled image in a way that completely escaped Davis until the
medtech zoomed out and a bit of structure returned that he recognized as the
cell codes that
Trell
had been instructing him on via
messages.

“There…now, I still have a lot to dig through, but how
we proceed is going to largely depend on you. I was just getting some
cataloging done while I waited. These…” he said, tapping and highlighting
several orb-like structures within a Bsidd cell, “are the code modules I was
telling you about. I’ve identified 17 so far and there may be more here, but only
2 are currently active…and by active I mean that they have a component that the
others are missing.”

The medtech adjusted the view and brought up a side by
side comparison, highlighting the surface region of one that looked like it had
a chunk bitten out of it.

“I believe this area is a receptacle for a code key,
both to unlock the modules as well as to deliver additional data…and by data
I’m referring to genetic knowledge. It’s hard to say so soon, but I’m guessing
it’s more than skills and actually has to do with temperament and potentially
even memories or commands. If you want to coopt the Bsidd this is the kicker.
With it the queens control the others.”

“Define control.”

“Predisposition. There’s no telepathic structures that
we can determine. One of the code modules that’s dormant is actually for a
queen, so we’ve got a copy of their genetics as well, minus their code key.
They don’t appear to have any psionic tissue, nor chemical transfers…nothing obvious
anyway. It’ll take a few months to sift through it all, even with these
machines and a staff of 50.”

“Pull a staff of 500 if you need, this takes
priority,” Davis said dismissively.

“If you wish. I can tell you that every egg a queen
lays has the code modules for all the variants…that’s a guess, anyway, and that
the code keys activate them. How many variants I’m not sure of at this point,
because it seems the code modules interlink with one another. This one has two
active to create its version, and without more samples it’s going to be some
time before I can tell you about the other ones.”

“Focus on the keys. Are they required information?”

“You’re wondering if it’s just an ‘on’
switch?
Possibly, with the extra influence added.”

“It’s important.”

Trell
rubbed his chin. “I
can only guess at this point, but biologically speaking everything this one has
physically is coded within the module, not the key. How much of its intellect
comes from the key…is something I can’t say as yet.”

“Are they born with the minds of adults?”

Trell
tapped one of the
holographic modules, enlarging it and bringing up some addition data that Davis
couldn’t read given that it was the V’kit’no’sat medical shorthand symbols.
“Possibly. If that’s the case the Bsidd could develop the old fashioned way
without the keys…or it’s possible that the keys are necessary. I’m sorry, I
just don’t know yet. There’s too much to go through without you giving me a
direct line of inquiry.”

“Is it similar to the lizard problem?”

“No,”
Trell
said
immediately. “Their genetic coding is hardwired in, so to speak. This is
completely modular. I think the queens can customize keys based on the
situation. The lizards operate off of a single societal drive program that we
can’t strip away without something to replace it, and every simulation that
I’ve ran has failed. I keep trying occasionally, but there’s no way to
deprogram them that I can see.”