Free Star Force: Ghostblade (SF67) by Aer-ki Jyr Page A

time
now,” Paul admitted. “We were just waiting on the necessary technology to catch
up. As it is now, we can order a redesign with a loss of a decent amount of
internal space to accommodate the drives. It’ll lower their population count,
but we can work on increasing it over the years rather than waiting for a
prerequisite number. What about Australia?”
    “They’re the weak link, by far, but so small in number
I’m considering not even tinkering with them. Thoughts?”
    “Let me handle them,” Remy suggested.
    Davis raised an eyebrow, about to ask what that meant
when Randy interrupted.
    “Um, we’re overlooking the Kiritas/Kiritak why?”
    Davis sat up a bit straighter. “I had assumed the
Kiritak were good to go as is. As far as the Kiritas are concerned, the Kiritak
are already their upper tier, and to date you haven’t wanted them involved in
military operations. Are you wanting to change any of that?”
    “I’m just wondering why, if we’re altering all the
other factions to the same model, are we leaving them
unchanged.”
    “Frankly I hadn’t considered it because their
civilization is so polished already that I didn’t want to mess with it. You
know them better than anyone. Do you think they’ll benefit from an internal
tier structure?”
    “Not my point, exactly. But Mainline already has a
large number of Kiritak in it, working mainly the cargo fleet. Are we expelling
them to keep it all Human ? And this new tier 4 you’re
planning sounds an awful lot like what the Kiritak already are, minus the
reproduction part.”
    “I feel a criticism here. Just spit it out.”
    “We can’t be split minded on this. Either we’re Star
Force or we’re just the Human Empire. Humans and Kiritak integrate so well together
in naval there’s no functional reason to split them up. If we’re worried about
the V’kit’no’sat targeting them along with us, then shame on us. We can’t treat
them as family and outsiders in the
hope that the enemy will leave them alone one day in the hopefully distant
future. We’re either in this together or not, and if not we need to split Star
Force apart and give the various factions their independence and stop feeding
them additional technology. That’s the only way they have a hope of not being
targeted.”
    There was silence for a moment, but then Liam blew out
a long breath. “He’s right, and I would go forward to add that we can’t pretend
that Humans are just one faction out of several. We are the core of Star Force
so we shouldn’t try to isolate ourselves. We need to extend the Mainline fleet, not create a separate group. Same goes to
civilian operations. We pull other races in where beneficial while letting them
keep isolated groups as a supplement.”
    “We can’t evacuate everyone out to the rim,” Davis
said regretfully. “And if we fight it out here, we’re most likely to die along
with them. I don’t see a good option in this, so please feel free to throw out
ideas.”
    “Let the Clans experiment and figure it out,” Randy
suggested. “If the V’kit’no’sat come back now we’re screwed anyway. You work
the present, we’ll fight the future.”
    Davis looked around at the 100 trailblazers, realizing
how simple that solution was. Not because it was a solution, but because he
knew he could trust them enough to take that burden off his shoulders and find
a way, if one existed, to make this monster of an empire they’d cobbled
together work in the face of that potential doomsday.
    “I can live with that,” he said simply, suppressing a
grin for what he was about to say next. “So, the next question before us then
is whether or not Kara gets her own Clan.”
    “Ah…” Paul groaned, burying his face in his hands in
visible complaint while several other trailblazers snickered.

 
 
    7

 
 
    July 30, 2812
    Solar System
    Earth

 
    “Found something?” Jason asked, walking up behind Paul
in the Zen’zat barracks in the pyramid