Starseed Chapters 1-2

* Author Note *

Title of series is temporary as is the name Alpha Uncaria and potentially some character names etc. This is a very rough draft. I'm posting a second chapter and working on a third because I felt the rhythm for the story so to speak. For those that read the first chapter, go ahead and skip to chapter two it's in this post. Those that haven't read it yet, this is #2 of the potential new stories.

Anyway, please leave your thoughts in the comments. Thank you for reading!

* End Author Note *

Chapter One – Summons – Part One

“Sir, I’ve already told you, I need the authorization marks in order to release a prisoner in transit.”

I push the paperwork in front of the woman again.

“Sir, as I said three times, it’s missing the seal of approval on indexes twelve and thirteen.”

My mood couldn’t be more sour as I press it forward one last time. I don’t want to be here right now. There are a hundred places I’d rather be, some of which are considered active war zones.

The woman stands and slams her hand on the paper, “It’s not fucking signed properly you goddamned brute!”

Her office goes quiet and stares at her. I blink at her, somewhat surprised that she mustered the fortitude to curse me out. Not just for the fact that I tower above her and most natural born humans, but because above all, I’m an Alpha Uncaria. Once known as the highest order of soldiers in the Empire. They don’t make our kind anymore. It was deemed that we’re all walking and talking war crimes. A sentiment that I can hardly disagree with considering I’m here to pick up an unruly soldier. 

A look at her wrist shows me a metallic band, the kind that people wear to remember those they’ve lost. Three names are etched in it. With the ages, I’d guess, her mother and father, and maybe her brother. The anger in her eyes doesn’t fall away, even as her career goes up in flames in real time. She doesn’t have neural implants, meaning she likely came from an outer colony. There are scars on her neck though, ones that show she was given the standard growth synthesizers for low grav colonies.

Likely a mining colony on the outer rim of this sector. Hellish circumstances. A place of frequent rebellions where my kind come swift and heads fall swifter. My head tilts at the anger in her eyes mired in sadness. My kind probably killed those she wears on her wrist. A story I have heard too many times to count.

We were the Emperor’s elite force for nearly a millennia. Our hands know blood.

Such brazenness, I can relate to it, respect it even.

“Alpha Uncaria…” a stocky man says, eyeing my name plate now, “Lycan…” he blinks, looking at me squarely, the color drains from his face, “Lycan as in…”

“The commander of the Alpha Uncaria, yes, the very same.”

He swallows and bows deeply, then turns a halfway glance at the woman and motions for her to do the same.

She doesn’t. I don’t care either way.

Her hand is shaking as she points it at me, “I’m not scared of you, monster.”

I analyze her body with my Heta corp scanners, she’s either lying or she normally has a heart rate over one hundred and fifty. I examine her physique, there is no excessive weight on her body, and she appears toned, in the manner of someone who exercises.

Lying.

A trait the Alpha Uncaria breed out with prejudice. We do not tell lies.

“I want to pick up my soldier and be done here.”

“Of course, sir,” the man says, scrambling to grab the paperwork, his eyes fall on the missing authorization marks. A short glance at me and his eyes fall flat on it again.

Sweat beads from his brow as I ask, “All is in order?”

“Of course, Sir Lycan.”  

“Good, I will wait near the shuttles.”

“Understood, sir.”

He bows and grabs the woman by the arm, scolding her while pointing to the paperwork. My enhanced hearing tells me that he means to have it verified and given an exception to policy. Good. I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to be.

Finding my way to the shuttle bay, I stare out at the large metropolis of Heden Prime, a trade world in the Aldaren family’s pocket. One that the last Uncarian frequents. She grew up here. The trouble maker that I’m here to collect. A street urchin. Breaking her habit of lying was no easy task. She is the youngest amongst us. The last of our kind since the high senate revoked our branch of service.

“Sir!” a familiar voice yells across the landing pad, “You really came for me!”

Mythra. I sigh looking at her uniform. Torn and tattered, bloodied and stained. Yet her face does not bear bruises or cuts. So there is some pride.

When she arrives she musters a salute, one I return before my hand rests at my side again.

“Did Darius come too, sir?”

“No.”

“Does he know?” she asks coyly with a measured half grin.

Barely out of trouble and she’s already smiling, it makes me mutter, “To be young again.”

“Young?” she sneers, “Sir, I’m over thirty.”

My datapad authorizes on the shuttle door, opening the side entry, “When you’re over two hundred, I’ll stop calling you young, girl.”

“Over… Maleka’s taint, how old are you, sir?”

“Old as the hills and twice as dusty. Get on, we’re late.”

She leaps in a single bound into the side bay door. Something in my youth I could have done as well. The body betrays as you age though. Especially after the senate removed our rejuvenation centers. Our kind used to stay young for hundreds of years.

Politics… the oldest word for bullshit.    

It was after the death of princess Alara that the Emperor’s power began to wane. So too did his sanity. With seventy one assassination attempts during the revolt of Galstad it’s a wonder how he managed to survive. His heir, Altonius the despot has run the Empire into the ground in only a century. Truly the worst.

Alara was different. She was going to give power back to the people. She was going to expand the empire and form a true republic. One we could all be proud to be a part of.

Now… it’s just filth. Those who seek money and power for the sake of it. There is no beauty in it. No reason for the Alpha Uncarians to even try to remain a stalwart force that is loyal only to the emperor.

No, our time is over. The walls are closing in and we have no one left who is worthy to serve.

“Sir, are you alright?” Mythra asks.

I nod.

“Well, you’ve been staring off doing that old man reminiscing face for the last few minutes, instead of… well, you know, starting the damn autopilot on the shuttle, sir.”

She waits for me to turn before she gives a wide toothy grin. I knew her mother well. She reminds me of her. Even the sass is the same.

“It doesn’t start itself, sir.”

I stifle a groan as I swipe the command for it to engage toward our destination.

“Command accepted, welcome Commander Lycan.”

Mythra turns to look at me coyly, “Sir, mind if we listen to some Xanthian boomjab?”

“Yes.”

“Yes I can or yes you mind?”

“I mind.”

“Oh come on, sir, boomjab ain’t half bad, if you let it be.”

“I don’t mind boomjab per say. I just mind the sounds they make.”

She raises an eyebrow, “Sounds like you don’t like it then, probably because you’re old.”

My head turns, “Boomjab was around before I was born.”

“Xanthian boomjab wasn’t, been less than five years since Xanthia got incorporated into the Cornak syndicate.”

I roll my eyes, making sure to put in a lock for this Xanthian garbage.

“Alright, what about Crutha stingpuck, fancy a game?” she asks, stretching her neck, “Bet you a couple beer rations, sir.”

“Pass.”

She sighs, leaning back in her chair, “Well what the hells are we going to do for the next six hours?”

“You should be reflecting on making your commander come and get you from an outer world when you didn’t even have leave.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed.”

“Deep shit?”

I sigh, “Just shit.”

She smiles and pats my shoulder, “Thanks, sir.”

“I’m not sure what Darius will do though,” I warn.

She swallows, “You’re going to tell him? I thought you said just shit… that’s deep shit, sir.”

I shrug, “Forgetful I guess. Maybe I’m getting too old.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m sorry I called you old, sir.”

I let out a weathered chuckle, I miss spending time with this unruly runt. Mostly I miss her mother. And I suppose part of me feels guilty for not following up with her child until she found the Alpha Uncaria. I knew of her existence, but I didn’t know her circumstances. Vempra’s eggs were donated when she first enlisted. It was the standard for Alpha Uncaria. The process… it leaves you sterile. 

She even named all of them. At the time it was allowed. Now, they don’t even make us anymore. We’re obsolete… the last of our order.

“Sir, you’re doing that thing again.”

I sigh, shaking my head, “Listen to your damn boomjab and let me reminisce in peace.”

She grins widely and then frowns, “Sir, you’ve locked out boomjab and… and even wrote a note that says it’s garbage.” She squints at me, “Is that how you really feel?”

“Some… most is.”

“I see,” she says, deflating a little.

“Well go on then, change my mind.”

She inflates again, grinning, “Sounds like a challenge?”

“It is.”

She howls as is our custom in the last brigade. My brigade. There is sorrow in that thought. There were many brigades when I was younger. Before we failed to keep the Princess safe. Before the Empire turned to shit and ash.

The music blares in a disorienting fashion that pisses me off.

Maybe I am old. My head shakes as I transfer control to her and head toward my private quarters. She smirks and sticks out her tongue as I go.

Unruly little shit.

Still, it makes me laugh. I shouldn’t, but I do. Because her mother would have done the same.

When I reach my quarters, I put the dampeners to maximum. Not even a whistle or a piston of a sound breaches the barrier of solitude in here. It’s a special design, one that the last commander requisitioned. His splicing was rather unfortunate, giving him super hearing. Always wore ear plugs. Said they didn’t help though. I remember him when he was a cadet.

A complete moron. But he was loyal to a fault. That served him well. Above all Alpha Uncaria respect loyalty to the order and to the Empire… or at least we did. Before it became a festering wound.

When did the order fall so far that we couldn’t pick ourselves back up? Was it on my watch or was it before that?

I think on this every day and every night. It is all that occupies my old fraying mind. My idle fantasy is wishing I could go back to change it all. Go back to before they killed the shining hope of our empire. The last light before the endless night.

My wrist buzzes but I ignore it. Probably the runt trying to get me to listen to more… it buzzes again. I ignore it.

Again… my eyes peer downwards. Before I can finish opening the message, my door pries open. The servos scream in protest and sparks laden with smoke shower the air.

“Who the fuck ignores priority messages!” Mythra yells with wide eyes.

“Who the fuck breaks their commander’s door?”

“Not the time, sir, come, you’re needed, the Emperor has sent you a personal envoy request. He’s waiting on the secure channel.”

My heart nearly skips a beat. The emperor sent me a request… how long since I heard those words.

More than a hundred years.

Chapter Two – Summons – Part Two

My pace is not uneven or quick as I move to the main comms panel of the shuttle. This is no ordinary summons. Likely meaning we will need to escort someone or something of extreme value. What though… and why after all this time?

“Sir, not to be a shit, but shouldn’t you, I don’t know, hurry the fuck up and answer it?”

I shake my head. She doesn’t understand the implication of such a summons. Why would she, she’s never seen one before.

“Sir, seriously, he sounded very agitated that you weren’t there to accept the call.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, he just told me to get you… basically.”

“Basically?”

“Well, he first asked very incredulously why I was answering your personal communications.”

I turn to look at her, “Why were you answering them?”

She blinks, then points to the comms panel, “Hardly the time for a reprimand, sir.”

I sigh, but I don’t stop looking at her.

“You should be thanking me, I did you a favor… sir.”

“What else did you do?”

She clears her throat, “I may or may not have messaged the brigade a funny morale boosting message whilst pretending to be er… you, sir.”

“Godsdamnit, Mythra, for fuck’s sake,” I groan, looking at the comms panel. It’s blinking angrily, meaning his royal ass clown is pressing the urgency button repetitively. Giving her a stern look and a growl, I say, “We can discuss this later, leave.”

She salutes and turns on her heel faster than a Pumjar in a jungle full of Garros. Disciplined when she wants to be… just like her mother. I let out another old man sigh, like her father too.

I wait a few more moments before answering the comms, not because I have to be an asshole, but because I decided to be one. Besides, one would be hard pressed to find a bigger piece of shit than our current Emperor.

My head lowers as I answer the comms, “Lord Emperor, your faithful…”

“Yes, yes, shut up and listen you fucking giliwinka.”

I ignore the insult, yet there is silence, as though he expected me to react, or hoped I would. But I won’t give him a real reason to cut our funding again. He is the noble senate’s loyal puppet after all. His tongue does not wag without their permission. Usually…

“Well, as I was saying.”

Another pause. There wasn’t a command for me to speak, so I don’t.

“I need something from you and your order,” he begins, smacking his lips.

Is he eating while issuing an order to the commander of the Alpha Uncaria? My predecessors, did they… it doesn’t matter. I ignore the insults, even as he belches and yells for more wine.

“There’s something interesting on Zeka Nine, something I want desperately.”

No command has been given for me to stop shutting up. So I don’t.

He gulps a few more swigs of his expensive wine and says, “The thing is, the Senate already made a treaty with the Republic of Halla allowing them to excavate said item of interest.”

My eyes raise more than they ought as I peer into the eyes of the stain of shit that should have been swallowed instead of birthed. He’s grinning, like a fucking child.

“Exciting, I know. I have a plan to overthrow those old crones in the senate if that’s what you’re worried about.” He belches again, “Relax Lyon.”

He doesn’t even remember my name… fuck wit.

“I want no one to know that it was me that ordered this. Naturally you are free to devise whatever scheme you wish in order to make it happen quietly and efficiently.”

We are the Alpha Uncaria… we do not lie… we do not fucking scheme.

“For the honor of… for the…” he pauses, this dimwitted piece of fucking shit actually forgot the Empire’s creed. Someone in the background whispers to him, I can barely make out their undertone in the static. A woman, strange accent. Fazarian I think. What’s a Fazarian doing in the Emperors private chambers?

“For the honor of the Empire, for the glory of the forefathers and for the love of the gods, I command you Lyon…” the Emperor begins, but the voice interrupts and he shoos them, whispering back, “It’s fine, stop interrupting me,” he turns back to the holo recorder and clears his throat loudly, “You get the point, don’t fucking fail me, or I’ll personally flog you and take that bitch you have answering your comms as my seventeenth concubine.”

Anger flares, but I manage to hold it back. I’ve suffered worse insults than this in my time. He may be a puppet, but he could have our organization completely dismantled.

“Do you understand me, Commander?”

I do not reply, for the asshat has not given me leave to speak. The voice whispers again and the Emperor’s nostrils flare.

“You are permitted to speak,” he seethes.

“I understand that…”

The communication ends as he rolls his eyes.

I look down at my hands and see the metal of the grab rail is bent in the shape of my hands. My anger got the better of me. Even at this age it would seem I can’t outrun it. Still, in my youth, before I became an Alpha Uncaria, I would have throttled that pampered little…

“Sir, um, I’m sorry for going through your messages,” Mythra says quietly.

 How long has she been standing there eavesdropping, “It’s fine, we have more pressing concerns.”

“Right,” she says, turning then she pauses, and dares to turn back again, “Sir, you’re not going to order me to… to service the Emperor, right?”

“No.”

“And if he orders you to… order me…”

“I said, no.”

She nods resolutely, color filling her cheeks as she grins, “I bet you wanted to kick his royal teeth so hard they fell out his ass.”

I ignore her correct assertation and send a quick comms request to Darius, my second in command. Mythra makes a few more comments that would likely be construed as treasonous sentiment, but I ignore them. Instead looking through the mission briefing files that were sent shortly after the comms ended with the Emperor and his mysterious Fazarian woman.

I send a request to our intelligence gathering branch. There are only fifty of them now. I remember when they numbered more than our last brigade.

How we have fallen…

Shaking the thought, I answer the incoming comms from Darius.

“Commander, I just want to start by saying, I had absolutely no idea that Mythra was on unscheduled leave. I’ve already reprimanded her first line supervisor and her platoon sergeant. I’ve prepared a course of corrective actions and already submitted a formal request to have her released back into our custody. I… sir?”

“Relax, you’re putting more grey in my beard.”

“You don’t have a beard, sir.”

“It’s an expression,” I sigh, combing my hand through my grey hairline.

“Right, well, I will send you the corrective…”

“That’s not why I called.”

“Sir?”

“We have a mission request.”

He lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes his decorum, “And whose ass do we have the pleasure of wiping, sir?”

“The Emperor’s.”

“His aides sent a request?”

“No.”

He blinks, squinting at me, “He personally requested it?”

I nod.

“Well fuck…” he says, slumping back into his chair.

“Indeed.”

“We knew this day would come,” he says, cracking his neck, “We’re ready, sir, for whatever the fuck they throw at us.”

“I hope you’re right,” I breathe quietly.

“I guess Mythra can wait then, sir.”

“No, I already picked her up.”

“You… you did, sir?”

I nod.

“The commander coming to pick up a grunt personally. Don’t you think they’ll find that suspicious?”

I shrug, “It’s not our top concern at the moment. Ready the brigade, I’ll be there in less than a day. I expect the carriers to be spick and span before then. Make sure they understand this is not a drill.”

“Understood, sir,” he says with a rendered salute.

When the comms end, the rascal Mythra pipes up, “Sir, why did you come to pick me up yourself?”

I shoot her a narrowed glance, one that hopefully tells her to stop eavesdropping.

“Sorry, sir, I’ll mind my own business.”

“I somehow doubt that,” I say, rubbing my temples.

***

The rest of the transit was spent readying my forces and cashing in favors with other branches of the Empire’s governmental entity. After reviewing the files I understood why he asked us to do it. He likely remembered tales from his father, telling him that the Alpha Uncaria can bring victory in the face of insurmountable odds.

That was when we were the most fearsome force of the Empire, now… I don’t know that we can accomplish it within the parameters that he requested. Understaffed and underbudget. The Beta Uncaria, our support force was disbanded more than fifty years ago. Most logistical things they would have dealt with for us. Now… I’m lucky if my soldiers don’t requisition liquor instead of munitions.

We are still disciplined though, in our own ways. We train every day for moments like this.

Before me stands my brigade, at attention, standing tall and proud. It does them well to have a day like this. For far too long they were idle.

The leaders of the platoons salute me in unison, mimicked by their soldiers. My salute does not fall away quickly as it normally would. I let the moment soak, so that they will remember their commander saluted them.

When I lower my hand, so too do they. As is the way of the warrior.

My voice booms across the quiet halls of our forefathers, “Words are for the rich, work is for the poor. A common adage that we’ve repeated since the inception of our order.” I pause and begin to walk toward the brigade that has dwindled to a mere three thousand strong. “We are the Alpha Uncaria, we fight so that others do not have to. We seek the impossible, we thrive in oppression and shine under pressure.”  

The brigade howls as is our custom since I took command, Darius’s doing no doubt.

“I will not lie, for the Alpha Uncaria do not lie. This mission we are to embark on is a fool’s errand. An impossible task that no one in the known universe could accomplish with such a small force.”

More howls. Eager anticipation rises.

“We are not like normal people, we do not shy from the challenge, we seek it. These are our moments. The ones that we live for. To accomplish the impossible is our creed, our reason for inception. Even the fact that we have survived this long from the purges of the senate and a failed Emperor some would say is a miracle.”

A roaring howl follows.   

“These old bones are ready for war. They were shaped in the fires of Alakar and strengthened by the hardships of the last rites of the Uncaria. So too were your bones, and your will.”

Hands strike chestplates and war cries echo in the chamber.

“We will not fail to rise to the occasion. We will thrive in the oppression of fate’s embrace.”

Excited fervor grips them, while fear grips me. Fear of losing the last of them. Fear of being the last to not uphold the legacy. Fear that I kick down with prejudice as I roar my last statement.  

“We are the Alpha Uncaria!”