Star Warrior

by Isaac Hooke

  Tane accepted the small object. It was something he could easily hold in one hand, though there was enough room to grip with both if he desired. One end, which he assumed was the top, was open, revealing a small shaft that dug deep into the cylinder. Small vector designs were etched into the surface, reminding him a little of the patterns found on printed circuit boards. There was a rune carved into the side, shaped like an inverted F, indicating the item was Essence Imbued.

  He attempted to ID the item, but got nothing. Even so, he had a good idea what it was.

  “I’m sending the ID information and necessary digital manual to you,” Lyra said.

  “Manual?” Tane said.

  “Yes, it’s not as good as a nanotech brain dump, but it will have to do,” Lyra said. “I’ll teach you what I can as well, of course.”

  Lyra wants to share the details of the weapon “Essence Energy Sword” with you. Do you accept? Y/N.

  Tane accepted and reviewed the resultant ID information:

  Weapon: Essence Energy Sword I.

  Item type: Epic.

  Additional damage: 25% added Essence damage for each successful hit.

  Additional effects: As blade is formed of Essence, it can instantly penetrate personal energy shields. Weapon can also be used to deflect incoming plasma and Essence bolts, based on wielder’s Dexterity.

  Rune bonus: +7 Endurance while equipped.

  Chrysalium bonus: +5 to Intelligence while equipped.

  Essence Energy Sword specific:

  The sword is restricted to those who can Siphon. The user must constantly funnel Essence into the hilt in order for the blade to function; as such, only those with a high natural Siphoning ability can use it for any length of time.

  The device is composed of 50% Chrysalium, providing the aforementioned boost of +5 to Intelligence while equipped.

  Weapon is capable of launching an Essence bolt at a given target. Aim the top of the sword at your target, and activate the release on your HUD: a deadly bolt of Essence will leave the magnetic containment field of the sword and ram into the target, passing through any personal energy shields. Based on current Essence Energy Sword skill and Endurance, you may fire three Essence bolts per minute.

  Tane turned toward Lyra.

  “I can’t take this,” Tane said. “What will you use?”

  Lyra smiled patiently. “I won’t need it. I plan to be fully rested when we begin the operation. Nebb is hiring another interim jump specialist, so we’ll have two. When we breach the enemy, my weapon will be the Essence.” She took a step back. “Try to activate the sword.”

  Tane examined the device but didn’t see any obvious switches. He attempted to link his HUD to the device, but it didn’t show up on the mixnet as a network-enabled device.

  “I don’t know how…” Tane said.

  “Siphon,” Lyra said. “But instead of allowing the ribbon of Essence to flutter uselessly in front of you, funnel it down through your arm and into the hilt. There is no need to expend precious effort and concentration into creating Branches from the raging river. Simply redirect the flow into the hilt and continue Siphoning. The sword AI will handle the necessary Branchwork creation.”

  Tane emptied his mind with the polished ease that came from his purchased Siphoning skill, and reached out to the edges of perception, beyond which the Essence beckoned. Consciousness expanded and time slowed. He perceived the minute details of everything around him, sights, sounds, smells, and touch. The interlacing metallic strands of the bulkheads that formed his practice area. The siren of an ambulance sounding somewhere in the distance. Lyra’s scent, the soothing fragrance of some vaguely familiar flower. The steady ka-thump, ka-thump of her beating heart. The scratchy feel of his clothing. The gritty texture of the cylinder he held.

  Tane reached past that boundary of perception and touched the Essence. The raging, frigid river of energy exploded inside him and he surrendered to it, allowing it to sweep him back inside of himself, and his consciousness returned to the confines of his own reality. Time snapped back to its original pace. The now familiar line of white light burst from his chest and wavered in front of him, waiting for him to begin the Branching.

  He remembered Lyra’s words:

  There is no need to create Branches. Simply redirect the flow into the hilt.

  Tane focused on steering that flickering ribbon of light, and bent it, steering it into his shoulder, then his bicep, and finally his forearm, so that the cold light traveling down through his body, following the skeletal frame of his arm, to emerge from his hand.

  And directly into the cylindrical weapon he gripped.

  Already he felt his stamina starting to flag slightly from the Siphoning, but then the rune on the hilt abruptly pulsed with blue power, and he felt a boost, feeling like he could Siphon forever, and he knew that the Endurance bonus had kicked in.

  An instant later a beam of energy erupted from the hilt. It glowed with white light of about the same brightness he had seen when Lyra used the weapon in the Umbra. He gazed at the glowing blade in awe.

  I’m doing this!

  Turning slightly away from Lyra to give her some clearance, he swung the weapon about and it cut through the air, painting bright afterimages over his vision. The sword emitted a deep hum whose volume seemed to depend on how fast he moved the blade.

  “I’ve cleared the ownership lock,” Lyra said above the buzzing. “You should be able to link to the weapon now.”

  Tane attempted to interface with the hilt. Sure enough, a network-enabled device ID for the sword now appeared on his HUD. He successfully achieved the link and received a message: Essence Energy Sword Provisioned. A basic user interface overlaid his vision.

  “The user interface will highlight any plasma or Essence bolts that are coming your way,” Lyra said. “Helping you to deflect them. In the lower right of your vision you should see the release command. Use that to launch an Essence bolt from the tip of the sword once you’ve aimed at a target.” She pointed toward the tripod-mounted pipe. “Try it.”

  Tane held the sword at chest level, bringing back his arm to hold the hilt behind him as far as he was able, and aimed the tip at the vertical pipe. The blade buzzed loudly in his ear.

  A targeting reticle appeared on his vision, aligned to the tip of his sword. He adjusted the hilt positioning until he had the reticle lined up with the center of the pipe, then he activated the release.

  The blade flared brighter for an instant, and a white bolt ejected from the top, smashing into the pipe and breaking it in half. The bolt also carved a neat hole into the bulkhead beyond. He could see another metal wall positioned just behind the first—Lyra had evidently placed multiple bulkheads to form a double layer. Probably a wise move.

  “Very good,” Lyra said. “Release the Essence.”

  Tane did so. He felt weaker, but not as drained as he usually felt after attempting to create a Branchwork. He supposed the Endurance bonus from the rune helped.

  “Am I correct in surmising that you’ve never used Chrysalium to enhance your Siphoning before?” Lyra asked.

  “No, I haven’t,” Tane said.

  “All right, well, Siphoning through Chryasalium is easy,” Lyra said. “Instead of reaching through yourself to touch the Essence, you reach through the Chrysalium. You should sense the Essence even now, lurking beyond the hilt you hold in hand.”

  Tane focused. Now that he thought about it, yes, he did sense the Essence lurking inside the hilt, seeming to beckon from within the device just beyond his grasp. He attempted to touch that Essence, but it was like there was a mental barrier between himself and the ethereal substance.

  “How do I get to it?” Tane asked. But as the words left his lips, he extended his mind even harder into the hilt, pushing against the invisible barrier. He penetrated.

  The Essence flooded inside of him, coming from the hilt. The torrent was more powerful than what he could ordinarily Siphon on his own, and for a moment threatened
to overwhelm him, but he surrendered entirely, holding back no part of his being, and that seemed to help.

  He received a notification on his HUD:

  Siphoning bonus. All Branchworks are enhanced 18% percent due to Siphoning through Chrysalium hilt.

  The freezing ribbon didn’t emerge from his chest this time, so there was no need for him to steer the power all the way down his arm. Instead it erupted from the base of the hilt, like the fiery emissions of some tiny rocket.

  Tane simply looped the Essence back into the weapon.

  The blade of white light literally exploded from the hilt this time. The beam was thicker, and so bright that it was nearly blinding. He waved the sword about, relishing in the characteristic buzz as it cut through the air in front of him. That angry hum was even louder than before, a dire warning to anyone around him: approach and die.

  It was also far brighter than the blade Lyra had made in the Umbra, and for a moment he thought he was more powerful than her, but then he remembered she was still recovering from a jump attempt at that point.

  “Excellent,” Lyra said. She had stepped well away from him. “Now you’re truly using the weapon to its maximum. Release.”

  He was glad to obey, because even with the Endurance bonus, he already felt his stamina beginning to flag from handling that much of the Essence. He stood still for a moment, panting as if he had jogged a short distance.

  “It’s an exhilarating feeling, isn’t it?” Lyra said. “Wielding that much of the Essence.”

  Tane nodded. “It is. But since this weapon is made of fifty percent Chrysalium, couldn’t someone weaker in the Essence, like a jump specialist, use it?”

  “In theory,” Lyra said. “Though in practice they’d never create a beam as powerful as the one you just formed, nor even as strong as the unassisted blade you produced the first time. Instead, theirs would only be a weak whimper of a weapon, the blade almost a hologram, quite useless for fighting.”

  “Makes some sense, I suppose,” Tane said. “But that brings up another question. How did you know I would be strong enough to wield the sword in the first place?”

  Lyra shrugged. “Just a hunch.”

  Tane wasn’t sure he bought that answer, but he decided to let it pass for the time being.

  “Now it’s time for some practicalities,” Lyra said. “When using the sword to its fullest extent by Siphoning through the Chrysalium, the brightness will blind you, occluding your vision and partially blocking your line of sight. That can be offset to a degree with help from the user interface, which will provide auto-gating of light levels, and highlight opponents and incoming bolts that aren’t visible to you because of the blade. But to truly master the weapon, you must learn to see from the Essence.”

  “See from the Essence?” Tane said. “How?”

  “The key lies in the Essence itself, of course,” Lyra said. “When you first reach through to Siphon, do you not notice how your consciousness seems to expand? Time seems to slow, and you’re able to see and hear things in vivid detail all around you. But then you lose that enhanced awareness when you touch the Essence: time snaps back to its former pace and you shrink back inside of yourself. You must learn to hang on to some of that expanded consciousness. To anchor a part of yourself in the world outside of your body. The ideal position is a short ways behind and above you, so that you can be aware of attacks from the rear.”

  “Sort of like playing a video game in third person perspective?” Tane asked. “Or observing yourself through the point of view of a selfie drone?”

  “Somewhat,” Lyra said. “Your movements will be slightly disorienting when viewed from that perspective. Which is why the ideal position for a beginner is behind your body, so that the orientation of your arms and legs matches what you are seeing: left is left, and right is right.”

  “Tell me what to do,” Tane said.

  “It is difficult to describe,” Lyra said. “When you’re sitting on the edge between our world and the next, you simply leave a part of yourself behind when the raging river passes over you. Focus on that area with all of your intensity. Imagine that you’re in a hot air balloon floating behind your body, and that the basket is still roped to the ground.”

  “Hmm.”

  Tane cleared his mind and allowed his awareness to grow. He touched the Essence and surrendered to its raging river as he had in the past, but instead of letting it sweep away his expanded consciousness entirely, he envisioned throwing out a small lifeline above and behind his body.

  That worked to anchor a part of himself on the edges of perception: while most of his consciousness fell back within himself, his view remained at the third person angle behind him, just as if he were viewing himself through a fixed, airborne drone.

  He waved the weapon about. Time still seemed slightly slower, though not as leisurely as when his consciousness was fully expanded. That would be useful if he had to deflect any incoming plasma or Essence bolts.

  “I think I’ve done it,” Tane said above the weapon’s humming, his voice and the blade sounding lower in pitch thanks to the time dilation. It was odd hearing both sounds seeming so near, given how far he seemed from his body.

  “Try switching back to first person perspective and firing at the pipe,” Lyra said. Her voice was directly to his left, matching her location near his body, once more at odds to his current observation point.

  He was about to ask how to switch back, but then he knew: he was able to draw in that lifeline, and his viewpoint returned to himself. He aimed at the remaining portion of the pipe, lined up the reticle, and released, cutting down the pipe almost to the tripod. The blow was more powerful now that he was Siphoning through the hilt, and it partially ate through the second layer of bulkhead beyond the first.

  “Now return to third person,” Lyra said.

  Tane released the lifeline and his vision snapped back to its former position above and behind his body.

  “Got it,” Tane said. He swung the sword about a few times, turning around as he did so. His observer perspective remained anchored behind him, rotating to remain behind him at all times. “It’s certainly a little surreal.”

  Tane released the Essence and the sword shut off. His perspective instantly snapped back inside of himself.

  A notification appeared on his HUD.

  New skill learned.

  Essence Sight. Level 0.

  “Well done,” Lyra said. “Very few people get it the first time. I’ll attribute it to beginner’s luck.”

  “I actually imagined a lifeline, rather than a hot air balloon,” Tane said.

  “Whatever works for you,” Lyra told him.

  “You don’t understand,” Tane said. “I didn’t even try to think of the air balloon. The lifeline just came to me automatically, and it worked.”

  Lyra nodded. “Remember that you learned how to Siphon from nanotech. Could be some residual muscle memory imprint from the person whose brain the nanotech dump was taken from. You paid for Siphoning, and got Essence Sight for free.”

  “That would make sense,” Tane said. “Which makes me wonder how many other unintended ‘skills’ I’ve received when buying nanotech. Not to mention other subconscious imprints.”

  “That’s one of the drawbacks of nanotech, and few ever talk about it,” Lyra said. “Though the benefits far outweigh the negatives, in my opinion. Besides, like I just told you, you already got a skill for free.”

  “I suppose,” Tane said. “It does make me wonder, if I ever decided to give a memory dump in exchange for credits, how many other intertwined skills I’d be giving up for free?”

  “You have a long way to go before anyone ever pays you for a memory dump, I’m afraid,” Lyra said.

  “You’re probably right,” Tane said. All it took was a quick glance at his skill screen to tell him that. Essence skills, all level zero. Other skills, mostly level one, with only Sharpshooting at level two.

  Yup. Definitely a long way to go.
r />   26

  Tane continued practicing for the rest of that morning, taking rest periods as necessary. The Endurance bonus let him pour Essence into the sword for long periods before he had to stop. It helped that Lyra mostly made him draw Essence directly from his body rather than through the Chrysalium of the hilt, so that he didn’t have to handle as much. He got it down to a fine art, using the hilt to choke the flow of the Essence raging through him until he had reduced the river to a trickle, with the energy blade becoming little more than a holographic projection in front of him, which was all he really needed to practice with.

  Lyra lent him some Essence-Imbued rings to boost his Endurance, and that helped as well. Even so, after an hour long session, he found himself having to rest for at least half an hour before he could try again. Lyra assured him that his recovery time would improve as he got used to Siphoning the raging power of the Essence through his body, but she also warned him that he was still experiencing only a tiny fraction of the drain that was possible when Siphoning through larger Chrysalium sources such as the hulls of ships.

  “The sheer, incredible, universe-bending power ripping through your body when Siphoning through a starship is an experience you won’t soon forget,” Lyra said. “As is the absolute, mind-numbing exhaustion that follows.”

  “Speaking of which, when do I get to touch the hull of the Red Grizzly?” Tane asked.

  Lyra smiled sadly. “I fear you would burn yourself out given your current Siphoning skill level. Already, whether you realize it or not, you balance on the razor’s edge when you Siphon, teetering on the brink. One misstep, failing to surrender yourself completely, and that raging river will tear you apart. It won’t kill you, but it will burn the Ability out of you. A misstep while Siphoning the massive amounts available from the hull of a ship, however, will completely atomize your body.”