Star Force: Shame (SF59) (10 page)

But Tennisonne didn’t care about that, for he was used
to being the new kid on the block that couldn’t tie his shoes or walk and chew
gum at the same time. Years spent digging through the V’kit’no’sat database and
multiple trips down to the pyramid underscored that far more than the Dsevmat
ever could, but having so much corovon at hand still made him feel like a kid
just being given his first piece of candy.

But that was a metaphor his fellow techs wouldn’t
understand, for now candy was free to everyone in the cafeterias…or the simple
ones were anyway.

After inspecting the corovon cubes he went straight
over to the other items the Dsevmat had included, with there being 7 different
‘presents’ given to them. Two were more basic materials, one being an advanced
polymer and the other an assortment of common metals in vast quantities.

The clear spheres with the pixilation in the center
had subsequently been classified as fission fuels, but of a type that Star
Force didn’t use. They were densely constructed molecules that when
deconstructed would release impressive amounts of energy, so much so that they
made for extremely potent volume ratios, but the fuel systems that Star Force
used and Tennisonne had had his hand in creating were on a tech tree line
heading towards bigger and better things, meaning that using these
Scvob
fuels would be a divergence and not worth the effort.

Still, the compounds themselves could prove useful in
research and development and give his assistants something to play with down
the road. The same went for two other items in the inventory list, but the
smallest one was the sweetest and the reason Tennisonne had come here in
person.

There were four crates that had small, palm-sized
cubes stacked in elaborate holding materials that made up the majority of the
volume of the crates, which Tennisonne considered over packing, but none the
less the valuable contents more than made up for the dramatic packing peanuts.
In total there were 2048 cubes that were a mix of 26 different arc elements,
each far more valuable than their larger corovon twins. To date Star Force had
artificially created and produced in large quantities 8 arc elements, with an
additional 17 in low levels of production and another 8 in research development
only.

Most overlapped with the bounty, but there were 4 that
did not.
Tennisonne’s
people had already identified
what they were, with one arc element in particular drawing his attention. They
were all immensely valuable, especially the 4 types that Star Force couldn’t
produce yet, but the
most rare
type of them all had
only 1 cube in the inventory…and it alone was worth more than all the rest
combined.

It was an arc element known as
Bi’rovsken’thrnem
to the V’kit’no’sat, but to him and the other techs they simply referred to it
as Biro. It wasn’t the top tier as far as the V’kit’no’sat were concerned, but
it was an important component in a lot of the machinery they used on a daily
basis. That might not sound all that impressive, but since Tennisonne and the
others like him had to build the tools to build the tools that built the
machinery that made the products, he was limited in what he could build despite
knowing how to build bigger and better things.

He wasn’t able to produce Biro, therefore he couldn’t
build any tools that required it. But this one little cube would allow him to
create a low, but impressive number of new tools that would advance the
research and development department ahead by at least 60 years, in some areas.
They’d eventually get to the point where they could produce Biro on their own,
but having some on hand to use was quite the cheat, and when Tennisonne found
and picked up the small blue cube and held it in his hand he literally felt
like he was holding onto a piece of the future.

“Alright fellas, keeping doing your thing with the
rest. I’m taking this one and getting to work on it immediately,” he said,
keeping the warm
metalish
cube in his hand as he
walked a few steps through the tables set up with all the little cubes on
them…then he stopped suddenly and reached out telekinetically to pick up a
dirty yellow one and drag it through the air to his free hand.

“And that one,” he said so they could log it and not
go running around like crazy later when they counted and found it missing.

10

May 21, 2659

Solar System

Earth

Ginsi
Korinth
transferred
off the jumpship and onto a
Falcon
-class
dropship along with six other A7 candidates, settling into the small bank of seats
next to a trainer and a handful of other personnel heading down to Atlantis.
She was both excited and nervous, for this was the first time she’d ever been
to the Solar System, let alone Earth, and everything she was seeing on the trip
in was blowing her mind.

Ginsi had been born on
Kokiri
in the Dancer System, a Human-only world that in the Core Region that held some
22 billion people spread out over a mix of forest and grasslands. It was
classified as a heavy
grav
world, with a 1.34 rating,
but Ginsi like the other natives had lived inside cities with normal AG so she hadn’t
acclimated to it any more than the people on Earth or Mars, but one difference
between the planets was that
Kokiri
had a forest of
‘small’ infrastructure blanketing the planet and lacked any of the huge
structures that were present in Sol.

And not just on the surface either.
Kokiri
had been one of the original colonies Star Force had
created, but it had grown slower than Sol and developed along a less cluttered
geography, filling the planet with people and expanding as needed, but never
letting the masses grow too large in any one place. Ginsi had been born to
parents she didn’t know and didn’t care to know, then immediately taken to a
maturia where she’d developed and trained with her classmates up through
graduation, all of which occurred in a restricted part of her native city.

It was only 3 months ago that she’d even been able to
roam freely and explore the planet, having known it only through vids and maps.
Just as soon as she’d begun to feel accustomed to the mojo of it all she’d been
whisked away to the very heart of Star Force and was having to go through yet
another acclimation process to the organized chaos that was Sol. So far that’d
been happening remotely, with her watching the ‘scenery’ via datapad or vid
panel as her jumpship had taken her across to Sol, exiting its jump near the
yellowish star, then making a slow microjump first to Mars, then Ganymede and
Titan before coming in to Earth orbit.

From there it parked near a starport and a flurry of
activity ensued with Ginsi watching it all unfold and staring at the great
rings of infrastructure orbiting the planet. She’d heard that back in the day
it had been a spherical shroud of stations on crisscrossing orbits, but at some
point they’d decided to line them all up into the various rings, putting them
closer to each other to allow for shorter travel routes, as well as to leave
open the large gaps for the quick to ground transit that the civilian public
didn’t have access to.

But her dropship did and as it exited the jumpship it
flew ‘down’ beneath the ring of stations that the starport serviced and got
well clear of the infrastructure before making a tiny jump down towards the
atmosphere. There it braked and settled into a looping descent that would bring
it a quarter turn around the planet and over the Pacific Ocean to where
Atlantis sat. Ginsi still couldn’t believe she was coming here, and ever since
they’d told her she’d passed the tests to become an Archon she’d been in a
state of denial, expecting there to have been some sort of mistake and still
clinging to a bit of worry about that.

She was barely out of maturia training and now here
she was heading to Atlantis of all places! It was the most secure and secretive
city in the ADZ and she just got a 1-way ticket down to what she didn’t know,
but however the Archons trained it was done here, behind closed doors, with few
ever glimpsing what went on. There were a wide variety of rumors, but the
Archons themselves didn’t care to share about their experiences, nor did Star
Force itself, leaving her more than a little worried about what she might be
asked, or forced, to do.

She still didn’t think she belonged here, but the
other six sitting next to her didn’t seem that different, which made her feel a
bit better…and more worried, for some of the rumors said the Archons were
cyborgs with the candidates receiving implants and conditioning to make them
follow orders like they were nothing more than computers. Ginsi didn’t really
believe that, but seeing the other ‘weak’ candidates around her the notion that
they were fit to become Archons without some extraordinary augmentation was
quite a stretch.

She watched on her datapad as the exterior cameras
cleared up from the reentry friction and the ocean below came into view, with a
tiny dot marked as the city that they were quickly approaching. Ginsi stared at
it, wanting to see what it looked like in realtime, but the trainer sitting
next to them stood up and turned around so he could see them all and got their
attention.

“Alright younglings, we’re about here,” he said evenly
and almost bored, as if he’d done this many times before. “First thing you need
to know is that there are many different classes of trainees in Atlantis and
you are not all in the same class. When we arrive I’ll take you to a holding
area where you will be grouped with your classmates, then you’ll get your first
briefing from Head Trainer Wilson and Director Davis himself…and from there
you’ll be given instructions about what to do, where to go, this and that. It’s
much like your maturia training, only way, way harder. Stick to the program and
you’ll probably make it through. Usually the only ones that wash out are people
who just decided to quit…and Archons never quit.”

“Davis?” the boy next to Ginsi asked. “We’re going to
meet Davis?”

“Yes you will. He keeps a very close relationship with
the Archons and meets with every class as they begin their training. He’ll fill
you in on some very important things…things the public doesn’t know and that
you will need to, but for now I’m here to tell you who you are and where you’re
going. You no longer will use your last names, nor does any Archon. You may be
trainees right now but you get your number at the outset, not at graduation as
some people erroneously believe.”

“Stan…500112. That’s your name from now on, as well as
tells you what class you’re in. The last bit anyway. 112 means you’re in the
100s. All of your classmates will have the same first four digits, with the
last two ranging from 00 to 99. Emil…you’re 500398 and in a different class.
You won’t be seeing each other again except maybe in passing in the hallways on
some rare occasions, but you’ll be doing everything with your classmates.
They’ll become your brothers and sisters. Bit of advice I like to give the
rookies coming in is to be honest with each other. You need to learn to work together
as much as you do as an individual, and it works better when you leave your
egos behind at the door.”

“If not you’ll lose them eventually, like a lot of
other bad habits you’ve picked up from civilian life…and I know some of you are
straight out of the maturia. Hopefully that means you haven’t picked up as
many, just be aware that your classmates here are going to be on a whole
different level. They’re going to be like you, the rarest of the rare, so
respect them enough to be honest from the get go. You’re essentially being
reborn and going through the maturia all over again, so just mentally start
over and learn as you go. Let everything else from your previous lives
dissipate and walk into Atlantis as a clean slate.”

“Just some advice. You guys always figure it out
eventually. Han…500181. You’re in the same class as Stan. Julie…500001. You’re
in the half million mark group. That means nothing other than a lot of
zeros
in your number, by the way. Ginsi…500289.”

500289
, she
repeated in her head, memorizing the number. That meant the other three weren’t
in her class, nor were the others that the trainer read off next. Glancing down
at her datapad she realized the city was right below them and decided to stow
it away, no longer feeling like sightseeing. The trainer didn’t have much more
to say, but she could already get the feeling that this was a high pressure
environment and she needed to have her mind focused on what she was doing, and
right now that meant following instructions and not looking out the virtual
windows.

When the dropship finally did land the ‘trainees,’ as
they were now apparently called, were escorted off first onto the open surface
of the city. The humidity struck Ginsi immediately, given that she’d grown up
on a world that had no oceans or bodies of water larger than a small lake. The
wet air hit her nose right off, as did the wind that whipped her loose green
hair around like a hurricane with her swiping it out of her eyes as the seven
trainees followed the trainer over to a nearby building entrance.

Once inside her hair settled down and she was split up
from the others, with a different trainer taking her off on his own and the
pair heading for a lift. From there they traveled through the city interior,
which wasn’t all that different from what she was used to, though it did feel a
bit more ancient, if that was a feeling that one could feel.

Out of the lift they walked a bit more then passed
through a checkpoint and into what the man said was the Archon training areas
where the rest of Atlantis’s personnel weren’t permitted. From there Ginsi was
escorted to the holding area the first trainer had promised and she was left to
mingle with her new family until they were called for, with some six trainers
stationed nearby to look after them. She got the feeling they were being
handled a bit like younglings, but since she didn’t have a clue what was going
on she was actually glad for it.

“Nice hair,” a girl behind her commented.

Ginsi turned around, then ran her fingers through the
mess a few times. “That stupid wind.”

“Actually I meant the color. I like the green.”

“Thanks. I’m Ginsi by the way. 289. Or, well, 500289.
Don’t think we’ll be using the first 3 very much since they’re all the same.”

“First four actually. I’m Sax-500211.”

“Right, four.”

“Looks like we’re only 3 shy now.”

“If you say so,” Ginsi said, looking around at all the
others. Most were near her height of 5’10’’ but a few looked to be near the
6’5’’ range.

“I’ve been counting.”

“Did they tell you we were going to see Davis?”

“Yes,” Sax said eagerly.

“They also said something about secrets.”

“Archon only stuff…I can’t wait.”

“I didn’t realize being hot was one of the
requirements for being an Archon,” a guy said, walking up beside Sax.

“It’s not,” she said, glaring at him. “Otherwise you
wouldn’t be here.”

He looped an arm around her shoulders. “Now that’s
starting to sound like my sister already.”

“I’m Ginsi…89.”

“Matt…34.”

“And thanks for the compliment.”

“Just pointing out the obvious,” he said, letting go
of Sax. “Some of us have been here a few hours already and we’re getting a bit
tired of waiting.”

“Did anyone say how long it would take?”

“No,” Sax answered. “So we’re just chitchatting to
pass the time.”

“Ugh…and here I really hate small talk.”

“Apparently all of us do,” Matt commented. “That’s one
of the first things we figured out.”

“Really?” Ginsi said, starting to feel an odd
familiarity with them already.

“Would you like to make out instead?”

“Why not,” she said, calling his bluff and taking a
step towards him while grabbing his neck with her right hand and laying the
biggest kiss on him that she could manage before slowly pulling back. “Here or
would you prefer some place more out in the open?”

Matt coughed once, catching his breath. “Wow. You’re
even more sarcastic than me. I humbly admit defeat,” he said with a short bow.

“Slayed with a kiss,” Sax said, lightly punching Matt
in the stomach. “Now that’s a new one.”

“Looks like our last 3 are here,” he said, pointing to
the entrance as two guys and a girl were brought in wearing the same white with
blue stripe uniforms that the rest of them had been given prior to transit to
Atlantis.

“Just in time to wait some more,” Sax said dryly, and
she was right, for the group wasn’t taken away to another chamber till an hour
later. There they were seated in a small amphitheater with her taking a seat in
the second row with a tall, muscular man standing before them that introduced
himself as Wilson, their Head Trainer. He spoke briefly, then another man
walked up and exchanged places with him.

Ginsi almost didn’t recognize Davis in person, for his
hair was all short and spikey, but as soon as he started speaking there was no
mistake. He spoke quickly yet clearly, and outlined why they were here, what
they had been chosen for, the challenges ahead, and the ‘secrets’ that had been
alluded to.

By the end of it all Ginsi was nearly speechless.
After all this time and 6 centuries of building and growth and war, the general
population still had no idea of who the true enemy was and the threat they
posed. She found that staggering, but also empowering, because she was being
trusted with the secret and the responsibility to do something about it by
completing her basic training and becoming an Archon.

Little did she know how big a role she’d play in the
future, for like any proper Archon she kept her mind focused on the here and
now.
Ginsi didn’t need any coaching on that, for once the
V’kit’no’sat were revealed to her everything in her life seemed to crystalize
into one undeniable purpose…and from that day on she worked just as hard as the
others, if not harder, to earn her spot in the Archon ranks and begin her meteoric
rise up through the levels.