Star Force: Perquisition by Aer-ki Jyr Page A

before
reaching out to group with others.”
    “By design?”
    Brad nodded.
    “So someone put our ancestors out there in danger and
told them to survive, and you know that a lot of them didn’t make it?”
    “That seems to be the case.”
    “And it makes you worry that whoever started all this
were dishonorable bastards?”
    Brad looked him straight in his glowing red eyes.
“That thought has occurred to me.”

 
 
    9

 
 
    November 1, 3056
    Aphat System (Bsidd
Region)
    Nym

 
    Brad stood waiting on the edge of the landing platform
as a dropship came down through the overhead shield dome that was keeping bugs
and birds out of the city’s interior while maintaining the open air approach.
The higher mass of the ship easily punched through the weak shield that was
designed to dent rather than lightly crunch anything hitting it and flew in to
the otherwise empty pad reserved for special traffic. The Eagle -class dropship lowered its boarding ramp and a trio of
medtechs walked out with a host of cargo pallets following them, each pushed by
techs wearing dark green uniforms that had black stripes, indicating that they
were handlers for precision and sensitive equipment. Computer hardware fell
under that category, but Brad knew that’s not why these were here.
    Of the three medtechs dressed in their aqua-colored
uniforms, most prominent among them was someone he truly had never expected to
see anywhere outside of Sol, with the other two being his support staff, he
assumed.
    “I’m surprised you came here yourself,” Brad said as
he walked out to greet Vortison.
    “If something goes wrong I can’t fix it from Earth,”
the geneticist argued.
    “Have you even been outside of Sol before?”
    “Twice. This makes the third. You have some place for
us to set up shop?”
    “Are you sure you can do this without a pyramid trip?”
    “Our tech is sufficient. It’s the manipulation that is
the question mark…which is why I’m here in case onsite improvisation is
needed.”
    “Alright then, follow me. You have enough guys to move
everything in one trip or you need some extra hands?”
    Vortison glanced over his shoulder, with Brad’s glance
being directed to one of the techs.
    “There’s a lot more where this came from,” she said.
    Brad reached out telekinetically to one of his people
in a nearby control facility and requested assistance as he looked at the other
two medtechs. “Should I know you two?”
    “Only after today,” the man said. “Name’s Brenson .”
    “ Tahiri ,” the other said,
offering the Archon a nod.
    “They’re here to relieve me of some of the mundane
work,” Vortison explained, “and to catch any mistakes I make before they can be
implemented.”
    “Does that happen often?”
    “Like never,” Tahiri muttered.
    “This is too important to take chances with,” Vortison
insisted.
    “Agreed,” Brad said as a handful of Protovic emerged
from a nearby door. “There’s your extra hands. I want everything moved
together. It’s a bit of a hike to get to your lab.”
    “I assume you have volunteers,” Vortison said plainly
in the otherwise empty hangar bay, for they’d come down into what amounted to a
private facility within the Protovic city and not one of the primary
spaceports.
    “I do.”
    “Purples I assume?”
    “Of course. You can do this, right?”
    “I believe so. If I can, do you have a plan for how it
will be implemented within this society?”
    “Yep. That’s the easy part.”
    “How so?”
    “We already do it for Archons.”
    “ Hmmn . I expected a bit more
widespread distribution.”
    “We can always expand later.”
    “True,” Vortison said as more crates on hover sleds
came down out of the dropship hold. “I’ll leave that to your judgement then.
Get me to my lab and we’ll make this happen.”
    “How long are you staying?” Brad asked as he turned
and walked side by side with the man towards the landing bay exit into the
city’s interior