Read Online Omega Force 5: Return of the Archon by Joshua Dalzelle - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joshua Dalzelle
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that, however. He was more like a father to me.”
“So what do you want to do?”
There was a pregnant pause while Crusher contemplated Jason’s question.
“I don’t have much of a choice,” Crusher said quietly. “I’ll need to travel to Restaria at the very least to determine what is really going on. Even though I know her well, I don’t discount the possibility that Connimon has her own agenda.”
“OK,” Jason said simply. “I’m putting the Phoenix at your disposal for as long as you need her. You’ll be both tactics and operations on this trip, so we’ll be taking our lead from you.”
“I won’t insult you by trying to talk you out of this,” Crusher said, “so I’ll simply say: Thank you.”
“If you are in exile, how will we safely travel to your homeworld?” Lucky asked, getting down to business.
“We won’t be going to Galvetor,” Crusher said. “We wouldn’t be able to land the Phoenix there anyway. Instead, we’ll fly directly to Restaria and begin operations from there. While I’m technically not supposed to be on either world, the reality is they expected me to simply slink away into the wilderness of our world. The legions don’t use up a lot of space and the bulk of Restaria belongs to nature.”
“So why didn’t you?” Jason asked. “Just go camping, that is.”
“Pride,” Crusher said. “While I willingly accepted my sentence, I wasn’t happy about it. I asked to be dropped off on a frontier world, convinced I would thrive among the weaker species. I wasn’t prepared for the cunning of the galaxy’s criminal element. After a year or so of bouncing around, I was drugged and chained and presented to Bondrass as a gift to settle a debt. You know how that turned out.”
“Is there any place we can safely land? Other than a spaceport?” Jason asked.
“There is,” Crusher confirmed. “Here’s what I had in mind …”
Chapter 8
The Phoenix had changed course and increased speed and was streaking though the ether of slip-space towards the Galvetor System. Jason sat in the pilot’s seat, trying to absorb as much information as he could on Crusher’s homeworlds in the short amount of time he had. Information on Galvetor was slim on any public nexus, but Connimon had uploaded some files to the Phoenix’s main computer that filled in a lot of the gaps.
The split culture of the geltens was fascinating. Jason had yet to encounter a people with such a divided personality. The warrior caste had been developed over centuries and centuries of careful selective breeding until the unique traits of Crusher’s kind began to emerge. The blunted snout, the vestigial crest on the forehead, the exaggerated sensory organs around the head, and even the sheer size and strength were all traits missing from Connimon. To Jason, she simply looked like any other bipedal alien with dark, almost black skin.
They’d inadvertently developed the most powerful warriors in the known galaxy, if one were to discount Lucky’s creators giving life to the battlesynths, and when those warriors reached the zenith of what was possible as a species, their world no longer needed or wanted them. They were an army without a war. The general consensus was that the warrior class was too dangerous to live among the normal citizenry and a concerted effort to remove them from Galvetor began in earnest. Predictably, the warrior class, whose only crime was to be born different, pushed back against them. Hard. Bloody conflicts forced the government’s hand and a solution needed to be found, and quickly.
Oddly enough, the star system had a second perfectly good, habitable planet that had no prime species. Given the geltens’ isolationist, almost xenophobic, nature, the planet had never been colonized. After a short negotiation, the legions agreed that they would inhabit the second world, Restaria. It was also agreed that any warrior child born on Galvetor would be sent to Restaria to
“So what do you want to do?”
There was a pregnant pause while Crusher contemplated Jason’s question.
“I don’t have much of a choice,” Crusher said quietly. “I’ll need to travel to Restaria at the very least to determine what is really going on. Even though I know her well, I don’t discount the possibility that Connimon has her own agenda.”
“OK,” Jason said simply. “I’m putting the Phoenix at your disposal for as long as you need her. You’ll be both tactics and operations on this trip, so we’ll be taking our lead from you.”
“I won’t insult you by trying to talk you out of this,” Crusher said, “so I’ll simply say: Thank you.”
“If you are in exile, how will we safely travel to your homeworld?” Lucky asked, getting down to business.
“We won’t be going to Galvetor,” Crusher said. “We wouldn’t be able to land the Phoenix there anyway. Instead, we’ll fly directly to Restaria and begin operations from there. While I’m technically not supposed to be on either world, the reality is they expected me to simply slink away into the wilderness of our world. The legions don’t use up a lot of space and the bulk of Restaria belongs to nature.”
“So why didn’t you?” Jason asked. “Just go camping, that is.”
“Pride,” Crusher said. “While I willingly accepted my sentence, I wasn’t happy about it. I asked to be dropped off on a frontier world, convinced I would thrive among the weaker species. I wasn’t prepared for the cunning of the galaxy’s criminal element. After a year or so of bouncing around, I was drugged and chained and presented to Bondrass as a gift to settle a debt. You know how that turned out.”
“Is there any place we can safely land? Other than a spaceport?” Jason asked.
“There is,” Crusher confirmed. “Here’s what I had in mind …”
Chapter 8
The Phoenix had changed course and increased speed and was streaking though the ether of slip-space towards the Galvetor System. Jason sat in the pilot’s seat, trying to absorb as much information as he could on Crusher’s homeworlds in the short amount of time he had. Information on Galvetor was slim on any public nexus, but Connimon had uploaded some files to the Phoenix’s main computer that filled in a lot of the gaps.
The split culture of the geltens was fascinating. Jason had yet to encounter a people with such a divided personality. The warrior caste had been developed over centuries and centuries of careful selective breeding until the unique traits of Crusher’s kind began to emerge. The blunted snout, the vestigial crest on the forehead, the exaggerated sensory organs around the head, and even the sheer size and strength were all traits missing from Connimon. To Jason, she simply looked like any other bipedal alien with dark, almost black skin.
They’d inadvertently developed the most powerful warriors in the known galaxy, if one were to discount Lucky’s creators giving life to the battlesynths, and when those warriors reached the zenith of what was possible as a species, their world no longer needed or wanted them. They were an army without a war. The general consensus was that the warrior class was too dangerous to live among the normal citizenry and a concerted effort to remove them from Galvetor began in earnest. Predictably, the warrior class, whose only crime was to be born different, pushed back against them. Hard. Bloody conflicts forced the government’s hand and a solution needed to be found, and quickly.
Oddly enough, the star system had a second perfectly good, habitable planet that had no prime species. Given the geltens’ isolationist, almost xenophobic, nature, the planet had never been colonized. After a short negotiation, the legions agreed that they would inhabit the second world, Restaria. It was also agreed that any warrior child born on Galvetor would be sent to Restaria to
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