by Aer-ki Jyr
Both of those political entities didn’t submit, taking to hiding in various locations to keep the country alive even as Star Force brought in millions of personnel to take control over infrastructure and begin setting up the transitional government that would oversee the total deconstruction and transformation of the nation into a proper Star Force territory.
2
January 1, 2454
Solar System
Earth
Jessica Avril stepped out of the side exit of the Star Force mantis that had flown her out to Atlantis, walking down an extendable ramp until she hit the dry tarmac with her elevated heels clicking on the surface as she walked over to the security detachment waiting for her, but her eyes were drawn upward into the Atlantis sky where the rain was falling hard and slicking the top of the defense shield covering the city. The water ran down the dome as if it were glass, depositing off the sides into the turbulent ocean as the storm she’d just flown through raged on…yet here on the city’s surface the air was calm and dry, something she appreciated, not wanting to have to walk through the rain to get to the nearby terminal.
As her escorts took her indoors she wondered just how much power Star Force was wasting to keep the rain out, but she didn’t criticize the existence of the shields, whose presence made her feel as if she were standing on the safest place on Earth. Little did she know how wrong she was, for the safest locations lie in secret beneath the oceans, but as for surface cities she was correct, though she didn’t understand the full depth of defenses the Star Force capitol contained…nor did anyone else outside of Star Force.
Jessica wore a trim skirt and matching top, one of the uniform variants New Zealand governmental staff sported, but the heels were her own addition. They were illogical and detrimental to walking…but they were so attractive she couldn’t stand not to wear them, so she clicked her way inside the terminal and all the way across the magnificent city to her temporary quarters where she was given a few hours before she was due to appear for a ‘verification’ meeting on behalf of her home country.
Ever since the 6 nations that had formed the criminal organization known as The Word had been eliminated from the political map and annexed into Star Force territory with no identity or autonomy remaining, for which the Americans and Chinese fought them over, to no avail, the rest of the nations on Earth had undergone a severe amount of scrutiny. Star Force security had established a presence in each country to deal with the riots and other malcontents, though there had been none in New Zealand and a few other more enlightened nations, but the security presence had come to them as well.
Other logistical outposts were established where Star Force spaceports didn’t already exist, tying each nation to Star Force in a way that had once been unconscionable, but after seeing how easily Star Force took down the Americans most people took the cue to back down and submit, with the Chinese being the only government to actively rebel, but even knowing that Star Force would be coming for them didn’t stop the Archons from cutting up China into bits and pieces over the course of a year and a half, eventually squeezing the governmental sectors out of power as they took the rest of the massive country literally out from under its former rulers.
Oddly most of the Chinese people favored Star Force’s takeover, as did a majority of the Americans, but it had been made clear that their favorable opinion didn’t matter in the slightest to Director Davis, who seemed intent on claiming the entire planet for himself. Jessica knew there was more going on than that, for New Zealand had always had close ties to Star Force and in the past he’d respected their sovereignty…up until now. Star Force was positioning itself for a takeover of her homeland, but what she didn’t understand was why they were balking when it was clear they had enough military might to take whatever they wanted.
No, as much as people wanted to think this was some imperialistic takeover, Jessica and the New Zealand government knew that wasn’t the case. Star Force personnel had been analyzing every facet of their country, insisting it was for the purposes of the ‘verification’ that Davis had announced a few years back would be occurring for every nation on Earth, and those that didn’t measure up to the needs of their people would lose their sovereignty as the price for their failure. New Zealand wasn’t in danger of that, so Jessica and her country weren’t overly worried about the outcome of the verification, just curious as to where all of this was going.
Given that she only had a few hours downtime, Jessica took off her glorious heels and uniform, kicking back on the couch in her underwear as she flipped on the wall-mounted vid screen. The flight out from New Zealand hadn’t been overly long, but she’d been awake a good 6 hours before that and in the same set of clothes the entire time and she didn’t want them to get any more ‘lived in’ than they already were. Her assignment had come with instructions not to pack, so she guessed she wouldn’t be staying here long, otherwise she would have brought along a personal bundle with a change of clothes, but for now she was just going to have to make do.
Jessica bypassed the news feeds and pulled up a three year old movie that she had never gotten around to seeing and settled in, having been told not to leave her quarters. Apparently Atlantis was under guard to outsiders, a far cry from the old days when it was a major tourist center. As it was, she was probably one of the lucky few to gain access to the city nowadays, though it was never clear what Star Force was up to, given that they didn’t permit news vid crews in a lot of places, including Atlantis.
She was disappointed not to get to look around, but drowsy enough that when she caught herself nodding off during the movie she conceded that taking a tour of the place might not have been the best of ideas. Knowing that she needed to be on the top of her game for whatever Star Force had asked her here for, Jessica decided to wake herself up with a shower that the quarters thankfully had and lingered there for the better part of an hour before redressing in her original clothing and finishing up most of the movie before her escorts returned.
Slipping on her painful, yet beautiful heels, she followed the pair of guards through hallways full of Star Force personnel crisscrossing about in an almost chaotic fashion, but with a relaxed feel of people who knew what they were doing and going about a routine as opposed to normal pedestrian traffic. She wondered if a shift change had just occurred, because there were far more people moving about than there had been when she arrived, but then again they were taking her into a different section of the city, passing from one elevator car to another, leaving her completely unaware of her location.
Yet another reason why it was a good idea that she had escorts, otherwise she could have genuinely gotten lost.
As they walked she looked around at the faces passing her, not seeing a single old or fat person amongst them. In their identical uniforms they looked almost like clones, save for the color variations. While New Zealand uniforms were all based around the same color motif, with that being a checkered red/white, Star Force uniforms were solid colors denoting which branch of the mega corporation each individual belonged to, and the sea of people around her varied wildly with the most common color being red, which she knew to belong to their logistics division.
That would make sense, given that Atlantis was the hub of their economy, or perhaps she should say controlling hub, for as far as she knew it wasn’t a heavy cargo terminal. It was mostly administration, she’d been told, but by people outside of Star Force, so who knew what they were really up to nowadays.
It wasn’t the largest Star Force city, not by a long shot, but it was the most well-known and right now she felt conspicuously out of place amongst its people. Normally she walked the city streets of New Zealand, feeling an air of superiority due to her status as one of the few individuals within the government that had achieved self-sufficiency, with her 77 years of age putting her on nearly superstar status within the country, but here she felt tiny and almost embarrassed. These people she was passing were probably all older than her, some by more than a century
, and each of them had worked their way up through the years to warrant a position in Atlantis, making them the best and brightest Star Force had to offer.
Then there was her, walking with two escorts like a child who didn’t belong from a country that appeared as a mere spec against Star Force’s mass. It was a turnabout she hadn’t expected, and despite herself she could feel a bit of a blush on her face as she passed more and more people, all of which looked like fashion models but none of which were wearing heels. If she could have, Jessica would have flipped them off and walked barefoot, for now they felt stupid and she could see the eyes of those around her looking down at them, followed by an occasional laugh.
Star Force valued functionality in clothing, and her heels were the exact opposite of that…not to mention noisy.
When they came to another elevator Jessica and her two guards boarded it alone and zipped off across another section of city, with her in the back of the car standing behind them. She glanced at the back of their heads, then dipped down and slipped off her shoes, picking them up and scrunching down the elegant straps into as compact of a wad as she could, which she held in her right hand against her side as they walked out.
Both guards turned back when they didn’t hear the telltale clicks of her heels, but after a quick glance down at her feet, then her hand, they ignored the now shorter woman and continued to lead her through the traffic, with Jessica grinding her teeth together trying to suppress the awkwardness of the moment, but she received no more looks from passersby at her feet, which she was grateful for.
After two more elevator hops and a lot more walking the hallway traffic thinned out and she was brought into what looked like a higher level administrative section, through which her journey ended at a conference room with a few other people already inside and its own pair of guards silently standing by in their enormity and pure white armor, both of which she knew meant they were Knights.
“This is you,” one of her escorts said, pointing her inside while they remained in the hallway.
“Thank you,” Jessica said graciously as she walked in, immediately feeling better when she saw the other four people were Star Force outsiders like herself. They were seated around a large ovoid table that had seats for forty, none of which were marked, so Jessica sat down along the right side, giving a nod to a woman three spots down from her.
“Long walk?”
Jessica reddened a bit more. “Very. Do you know why we’re here?” she asked, curious to find out and eager to change the subject from her shoes, which she dumped on the floor beside her feet, both of which were now under the table and out of view.
“No, they told us nothing. Aside from the list of candidates. Who are you here for?”
“New Zealand…and you?”
“Russia. I’m surprised you couldn’t guess by the accent.”
“You barely have any,” Jessica said as another person entered through the door, and she just caught a glimpse of his own pair of guards/escorts disappearing down the hall past the Knights.
“Thank you. It seems as more years go by my mastery of English increases.”
Jessica smiled in response, but didn’t continue the conversation any further. More people were entering the conference room and sitting down, probably being summoned from their own sets of temporary quarters like she had been, though it was hard to imagine any of them having to have come from further away, given the distance that she walked to get here.
She sized them up as they came in, seeing that they were all visibly ‘young,’ though in her case that didn’t hold true. How many of them had attained self-sufficiency she couldn’t know, for while it wasn’t uncommon amongst the non-Star Force nations it wasn’t prevalent either. Her name had been given along with 36 others from New Zealand to her government to choose a representative from, with the instructions being someone that they had full confidence in, both in terms of honesty and skill. Someone that they could trust as an emissary between Star Force and their nations to deal with the verification issues that would be forthcoming.
Jessica assumed the reason she was on that list was due to her experience and self-sufficiency, but in truth it could have been any number of reasons. Star Force hadn’t been forthcoming on the details, but by choosing the list of candidates she assumed they wanted her for a reason…which made her poor shoe choice even more embarrassing, for she wanted to live up to the compliment they had given her.
Beyond that, she was here to represent New Zealand. What they would need a second ambassador for she didn’t know, and had been pondering that question ever since being selected by her government. She got the feeling she was about to find out within the next few minutes, but after all the hours she’d wasted trying to guess, Jessica still didn’t have a clue, and judging by the small talk going on around her, neither did the others.
When the doors were finally closed only half the seats were filled. 18 in total, including her, with no Star Force personnel present. She and the others glanced at each other, not sure what was supposed to happen next, then a door on the opposite end of the room opened and a young and very attractive man walked in wearing Star Force civilian clothing rather than a uniform.
Jessica had an instantaneous crush on him the moment she saw his face…which didn’t register with his identity until he spoke. It was only then that she realized it was Director Davis himself, looking far younger than any photo she had ever seen of him. He looked younger than her, which was impossible, given that she appeared to be in her twenties. She stared at him, a mix of awe and appetite, then realized her mouth was hanging open and pressed her lips together, trying to regain some semblance of professionality.
“Welcome to Atlantis,” Davis said, walking a slow perimeter around the chairs and table rather than sitting down. “Your stay won’t be long, but I felt it necessary that we understand each other before proceeding any further. You’ve all witnessed the revocation of six nations’ sovereignty over their attempt to strike at Star Force via the creation of The Word, and many of your nations have disagreed with those actions.”
“Tough,” Davis said as he walked behind Jessica, who pivoted her chair around slightly so she could face him, as the others were doing. When she did, coming within 2 meters of him, she flushed more than she thought was possible, digging her bare toes into the carpet to try and steady her nerves. Whoever had been responsible for updating the Director’s public profile should have been fired years ago.
“Star Force has been very accommodating to your countries over the centuries, and in fact all of you rely on Star Force to maintain your local economies, not to mention your off-Earth colonies. You’ve had time to get your houses in order, but instead of living up to the responsibilities that come with sovereignty, you’ve leaned on us to do so. As of now, we are no longer being so accommodating.”
Despite her swooning, which Jessica was mentally kicking herself for, she felt the warning in Davis’s tone as he completed his loop around the assembled representatives, finally settling at the head of the table, but shoving a chair out of position so he could remain standing.
“I am rescinding the sovereignty of all nations. As of now, you are all part of Star Force.”
3
Davis held up a hand to forestall questions as the representatives visibly stirred.
“I know this may not be a popular edict, but consider this. It is Star Force that is protecting Earth. Star Force that is feeding Earth. Star Force that is channeling most scientific advancements to Earth. We are sustaining the planet and your so called ‘independent’ nations. In truth, you are already linked to us and not taking any of the responsibility. We are doing it all, while you sit back and reap the benefits, including making laws that work contrary to your citizens’ own good. Without Star Force counteracting your bad policies, your nations would collapse, thus we have been subsidizing your bad behavior…which stops now.”
“If Star Force is going to run Earth, then Star Force is going to run Earth. No
more parasites. The 18 of you are from nations that have shown some measure of wisdom and responsibility, but it isn’t enough. You are being annexed, while maintaining a temporary, partial sovereignty during the second stage of the verification process. The nations that you do not see represented here did not pass the first phase. Shortly, their sovereignty will be revoked and Star Force will take full control over their territories. Their governments will be dismantled and we will reorganize them as we see fit.”
“Bottom line is, we’re not coddling the incompetent anymore. You’ve had more than enough time to learn and grow, but most of you have not. You 18 can thank your predecessors for doing something of merit, otherwise your nations would be in the same situation as the others. You have a chance to prove yourselves…a single chance. Whether you make good on it or not is up to you.”
One of the representatives raised a hand, and Davis nodded in his direction.
“What of the nations not on Earth? Are they being annexed as well?” the German asked.
“Yes, but many of them will maintain partial independence. No one will maintain full independence. The details of those annexations will vary based on the history they have with Star Force, but other than knowing that they’re all joining the band, you needn’t concern yourself with their fate. You have your own to worry about,” Davis said, flicking as small remote in his left hand to trigger a hologram over the table.
“Star Force is larger than you know, and it’s time you’re brought up to speed. What you see before you is the current map of our territory. As you can see, we possess dozens of star systems,” he said, triggering a slew of green dots to appear alongside the blue that marked Star Force territory.