Star Force: Empire (SF58) Read Free

comfortable sound range for his vocal chords. It
always was a chore to pronounce, but with the conversion taking place on the
planet and the Lacvamat becoming more and more Star Force, English began to
take over as well, allowing normal speech that he was grateful for.
    The Lacvamat had their own dialect, of course, but it
was easy to get used to given that they’d learned it from Human trainers and
holo recordings. It was the non-maturia raised natives that spoke it with an
almost garbled tone, and that gave him some considerable difficulty in
understanding them, but he rarely dealt with those individuals anymore now that
he’d accumulated a moderately sized staff of Lacvamat that he could rely on to
do basic tasks. Over time that staff would grow in number and experience, but
it was going to be a long haul indeed.
    He’d learned early on that he needed breaks to refresh
his Humanity, or more accurately to refresh his ‘Star Force.’ That wasn’t a
proper term but it was the only one he had, for when dealing with the Lacvamat
and trying to pull them into the massive organization he was likewise pulling
himself out of it a bit, being blended with their bad habits and tendencies as
he battled them.
    So it was days like the next, when he met up with Nadie and the pair took the day off from duty, going far
away from the Lacvamat and retreating down into levels where they didn’t
typically go to get away from their charges and recharge their Star Force
batteries. As planned they hit up the entertainment facility, playing through
two rounds of simulated golf by smacking the real little projectile and having
the computer calculate its movements even as a force field caught it only a few
meters away.
    After golf it was damough ,
then tennis, followed up lastly by a lazy game of holographic cards in a
private hot tub as they soaked the alien influences out of them. Through it all
they exchanged information, plans and concerns, turning the ‘fun’ day also into
a business one, but that was just who they were. Administrator wasn’t a job you
did during the day and walked away from at night, it was a position with round
the clock responsibilities and while they might take time to blow off some steam
and recharge, they were always Administrators and when they chitchatted it
usually came back to the work at hand.
    After quick, separate showers they had food brought in
for them and they spent the evening on a rooftop deck watching Larry’s city as
the twin suns slowly set over the far canyon wall and the nighttime lights
replaced them, twinkling as tiny Lacvamat would fly by in the dark and cause
the distant lights to blink in and out almost as if they were silent fireworks
going off.
    The breeze felt good and the pair sat in silence,
taking one last break from the Lacvamat while still observing them, almost as
if in transition back into their world and out of the tiny bubble they’d
retreated into. Bringing a race into Star Force was no easy task, and if one
wasn’t careful they’d lose themselves in the process. This had been underscored
many times by the Archons and even Larry’s superiors. He hadn’t understood
initially, but now saw the wisdom in their warnings.
    He had to stay Star Force in order to bring the
Lacvamat into it. It wasn’t a trade off or merger, they had to come fully in
with Larry not budging an inch. That was the only way they would truly become
part of the empire, and it was the only way to keep the Administrators and
other personnel on planet from being corrupted, for like it or not, those you
spent time with had an effect on you, and the weaker minds would often begin to
emulate their environment.
    Larry’s mind wasn’t weak, but he also wasn’t an
Archon. That said, a little recharge like today was enough to keep him on track
and come tomorrow morning he’d be ready to go at it again and bring the
Lacvamat one more baby step closer to truly being a part of Star Force.

 
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    April