Star Force: Liberation (SF56) Read Online Free Page A

came back to Davis in the security station
with a smile on her face. “Easy peasy .”
    “Thank you,” he said as she handed him the small vial
that contained the genetic sample she’d had the medics take off the Bsidd while
he was disoriented.
    “Anything else?”
    “Always something else to do…but not for you.”
    “Call if you need me,” she said, retreating out of the
station and back to whatever she had been doing which, judging by the casual
tank top and shorts she was wearing had been a training session.
    Davis let her go and looked at the genetic sample in
his hand, or rather the container, for the actual sample was microscopic and
something the Bsidd wouldn’t notice missing. Their files on their race hadn’t
included a full sample, and were so sketchy that a lot of the data was little more
than rumor, one of which was how they reproduced. It was said that all Bsidd
originated from a small number of queens, but unlike some other known races
they weren’t directly birthed or hatched. They came from subqueens in various forms.
    The exact details were lost, however, for the Bsidd didn’t
share such secrets with outsiders. With analysis hopefully the medtechs would
be able to shed some light on the truth of their reproductive systems, which
was important if Davis was going to assimilate them. He’d been skeptical about
their inclusion into the ADZ from the beginning when the Hycre had requested
it, but this meeting made it clear that the Bsidd had a one track mind and if
he let them develop, or redevelop, with their current disposition then they
were only going to be trouble going forward…and the ADZ had enough of that with
the ongoing civil war that now included 6 races.
    He would have just broken them up by individuals and
incorporated them into Axius, scattering them far and wide and essentially
ending their civilization right from the beginning, but if they could only
reproduce through queens that gave those queens a firm hold over their society,
and anywhere they went they could start to rebuild their numbers and that
wouldn’t work with the Axius maturia setup…and he didn’t want the Bsidd
reproducing off the grid and causing havoc that way.
    Which was why he needed to know exactly how they
reproduced. If the Bsidd were going to be a problem then it was one he was
going to deal with from the get go rather than let it grow. If Axius wasn’t
feasible for the Bsidd then Star Force could incorporate them as a ward of the
empire, but only if they had full control of their race. If the ‘minions’
couldn’t reproduce on their own and only the queens could, he couldn’t separate
biology from culture the way he had with others and that lingering taint could
cause problems, though it would fade over time.
    He didn’t want to take that risk and hoped there would
be a way to annex the Bsidd without them becoming more trouble than they were
worth. If not…then he’d have to keep them contained and under his thumb while
he tried alternative ways to influence them. That wasn’t something he wanted to
do, especially given all the bad examples floating around the ADZ for them to
pattern off of. He needed to isolate and teach their offspring in order to cut
the cultural cord…but queens was something new.
    He wasn’t sure how to deal with them and hoped his
genetic experts would have some answers for him now that he had something more
than rumor for them to analyze.

 
 
    3

 
 
    December 22, 2555
    Solar System
    Earth

 
    Davis flew in a mantis across the landscape of
Antarctica, now devoid of snow given that it was the summer. Most of what was
below him, visible through the datapad that he was browsing on during the
flight, was cityscape with large, almost mountain-sized buildings rather than
the smaller versions seen in warmer climates. There were roads and rail lines
crisscrossing everywhere, but most of the infrastructure was subsurface with
the ‘ground’ being comprised of rooftops