by Jyr, Aer-ki
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 th
e 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.”
“Alright, with the Bsidd it seems like their programming is shipped in after the fact. If we block that shipment can they still function?”
“That’s your priority question?”
“Yes.”
“I would say maybe, at this point.”
“How long to find out?”
“Give me an hour, maybe two. Can’t guarantee anything, just have to follow my instincts as I sift through all this.”
“How many staff you need to make this go quickly?”
“Right now just me until I figure out what the tedious work is going to be.”
“Fair enough.”
“What else do you want me to look into?”
“How are the keys produced?”
“Oh, already know that,” Trell said, bringing up another hologram and physically dragging it across his primary view and over in front of Davis. He highlighted one module and zoomed in, pulling up pieces of what Davis didn’t know, but he suspected it was important.
“This is the queen’s genome. They have a special line connection running from the base of their brains down to their egg sack. The keys are produced in the brain and secreted down, bathing the eggs until they take.”
“How big are these eggs?”
“Microscopic at that point. They don’t begin growing in earnest until the keys are delivered.”
“And if they’re not delivered?”
“There’s a null line code that renders them inert. I suspect they’re expelled in the fluid if the keys don’t take.”
“How big do the eggs get before hatching?”
“Um…not sure, but I’d guess about yay big,” Trell said, holding his hands apart about the distance of a football. “They don’t stay within the queen for long, or, well they can, but based on the few rumors floating around I’ve deduced that they use an artificial birthing pod filled with nutrient fluid to grow the eggs outside the queen’s body.”
“So they can reproduce faster?”
“Way faster. Like factory line faster.”
“Growth rate?”
“This one matured within 4 years, physically speaking.”
“You said something about an immunity?”
“Yes, here…” Trell said, adjusting the holograms again and showing Davis something equally unintelligible. “It’s something they added, I think, because it stands out. Shoddy work, if you ask me.”
“Genetic engineering?”
“Pretty sure, and since I sent you that message I’ve determined it’s a toxin. One that would be lethal to many races…including the lizards.”
Davis’s face tightened. “They fought them with a chemical weapon that they made their own people immune to?”
“They tried, I think, but the immunity isn’t complete. The toxin won’t kill them, but I think it will still make them sick. Not sure, haven’t gotten that far on it yet. Been cherry-picking inroads to give you some options.”
“And the reason I need to be here in person?”
“These holograms won’t transition through our computers,” Trell said, altering them again into a much more detailed view, making Davis think he was looking at star charts at first, but with angles to the shards that made it look a bit creepy. “If you’re up to it I can give you a primer. If not I’m going to have a headache trying to translate all this for you. If you really want to find a way to strip the queens’ influence we’re going to have to have a back and forth regularly about how that might be possible and what you will or will not allow. Not that I’m going Dr. Evil on you, but with genetics there are always a lot of bad ideas available that we have to sort through…and if you can’t read the lingo you’re going to be out of the loop.”
“I cleared my schedule, so let’s get started with the basics,” Davis said, wasting no time jumping into the challenge. If there was a way he could strip the hive mentality out of the Bsidd he was going to go for it, both for their sakes and the power balance withi
n the ADZ.
4
March 1, 2556
Orica System (Nestafar Territory)
Inner Zone
The Hycre jumpship came out of its interstellar braking maneuver with its sensors transitioning back into the readable range, immediately picking up several contacts near to the central stars in the trinary system. At first they expected the contacts to be Skarron warships, given that they were in the process of devouring the Nestafar empire in leaps and bounds. After the annihilation that the old Alliance had laid down in their capitol system, the Nestafar had begun rebuilding heavily as the Cajdital had taken away what opposition remained…up until the Skarrons had attacked.
The Hycre had kept tabs on the Nestafar, along with many other regions outside the ADZ, but such scouting trips were sparse and there hadn’t been one to Orica in the past 8 years. Then there had only been Nestafar there, so when new contacts that didn’t match Nestafar profiles were detected it was assumed, for a few seconds at least, that they were Skarron…but immediately that was dismissed as soon as the sensors began to get better resolution as the last of the momentum canceled out and the passive signals got some computer work to increase clarity.
The ships were larger than the Skarrons, but clearly not the wing-shaped Nestafar designs. They were, however, familiar enough that the Hycre computers spat out a match with little additional data required, let alone active sensors that would make the scout ship stand out to everyone even remotely close by.
What they were detecting were unescorted jumpships…Cajdital jumpships sitting in the null gravity gap between stars. Not an orbit, but the tug of war center of their gravitational pulls that effectively hid them from most of the rest of the system. The jumpline the Hycre had come in on happened to be lateral to the three point line, allowing the stellar radiation reflecting off their shields to make the contacts literally glow on passive scans given their immense size.
As the minutes passed no further signals were detected around the stars, so the scout ship moved around the larger of the pair to a jumpline that would take it out further into the system to Orica B, the system’s third star, where they began doing their survey of the 93 formerly inhabited planetoids. At last count only 18 had been repopulated by the Nestafar, and lightly so, but after finding the outer star devoid of any ships or tracking satellites the first planet they jumped to, a formerly barren one after the Alliance’s ‘cleansing,’ showed both orbital and surface activity.