Free Star Force: Liberation (SF56) by Aer-ki Jyr Page B

up on the clear desk
as she read a datapad containing Paul’s most recent report on the assault of Tarania …the last Skarron foothold within the ADZ, or it was,
because now Star Force, with the help of the Dvapp and Hycre, had finally rid
the planet of enemy troops. Paul indicated that there were still enemy ships
insystem that had to be hunted down or forced out, but the planet was back in
Dvapp hands and the incursion was, after so many decades, finally repulsed.
    “About damn time,” she said aloud, tossing the datapad
on her desk and sliding her feet off. She stood up and looked out the window
behind her, running her fingers through her pink hair and staring down on the
colony that was building rapidly below. Her office was tower top in the center
of the city, sitting right below the primary shield generator in a huge spire
that had been the first bit of infrastructure completed on the ugly moon.
    It was low grav , dirty, but
with a habitable atmosphere and moderately high temps. Larissa knew it was a
fixer upper, with plans to start terraforming when they had the necessary
resources and workers, the latter of which were beginning to pool back on Venus
as they completed their basic training. There was already a Kiritak colony
insystem, set up on the planet below that contained no atmosphere whatsoever,
and was feeding Char the materials it needed to build the Star Force Bsidd
infrastructure that Larissa was tasked with overseeing.
    Already she had a few hundred thousand Bsidd here, but
they were all young and inexperienced. Her core of Humans, a handful of
Calavari, and a lot of Kiritak were in charge of building the colony and giving
the Bsidd their secondary training in a hybridized work/training environment
that the trailblazer was having to juggle. With Star Force’s empire continually
growing faster than its Human population adequate leadership was hard to come
by, but fortunately several other races were contributing experienced people to
the project so it wasn’t entirely relying on Humans to keep it progressing
forward.
    It was operating on a thin budget, both in terms of
resources and personnel. All the Bsidd in Star Force were essentially
younglings, with none of their own to lead or train others. Until they elevated
to the point where they could themselves become trainers and handlers the
amount of Bsidd population they could grow was going to be limited, but like
all good trailblazers Larissa was pushing the limits and cover the slack
herself.
    The number of eggs even a few queens were capable of
producing was staggering, so Star Force was never going to be limited in that
regard. All reproduction was controlled through the maturias, however, so there
was no fear of a runaway birth rate such as with the Kiritas. Larissa could
‘produce’ as many as she liked and feed the maturias exact numbers of keyed
eggs with whatever variant was needed. It was then up to the individual Bsidd
to complete their training and choose the course they would take, either
staying in Star Force or leaving…with a good number heading to Axius, which
while part of Star Force was essentially free man’s land where they could
disappear into civilian life and do whatever.
    Those that chose to stay in Star Force were being
shipped out to Zerus and deposited on Char. Rather
than be incorporated into Star Force’s mainline organizations they were being
crafted into a splinter division much like the Kiritak, but given their biology
and sheer size, not to mention their variants, it was a splinter division that
Larissa was going to shape into a full-fledged entity…including military
capability.
    That would put them on par with the Calavari, but
before that happened Larissa had a lot of work to do.
    Most of the Humans on Char were Clan Meteor, with
Larissa having recruited them from her own ranks. They were going to be the
transitional crew until permanent recruits could be obtained. Thing of it was, even a lot of her own Clansmen