“There are many important reasons why we must train hard together,” Baeven said. “They are just as important as these other matters, and we don’t have much time. Proceed, Doctor. Don’t scold us. Tell us what to do.”
Tyber jumped in at that point. “We hook you two up to the leap drive according to the specs, and you two basically become our batteries. Without a steady and very significant source of Cosmic energy to draw from, there’s no way in heaven or hell that such a device like this will ever work.”
Naero looked at Baeven and they nodded.
“Let’s give it a whirl,” she said.
They stretched out on the medbeds. It took several frustrating minutes just to hook up all of the connections.
“Alright,” Tyber told them. “I’m throwing the switch. Both of you try to give us a trickle of Cosmic energy.”
Naero startapped and did so. Immediately she felt the Cosmic energies within her being siphoned off, passing into the collectors of the device. It felt like a yawning maw ready to drain her dry. That frightened her slightly, reminding her too much of the Darkforce energy generators of the enemy.
She nearly panicked. Looking over at Baeven, he appeared to be straining as well.
“No, no,” Ty said. “Don’t fight it, and don’t let up now, of all times. In fact, I need you to increase the flow of Cosmic energy slightly. Dial it up and give us more–imagine about ten times what you’ve put out so far, if you can.”
“Just nod or shake you head,” Zhen said. “Stay focused. You’re readings are elevated but stable for now. Don’t try to talk. As the intensity of the drain increases, you’re probably going to experience some discomfort.”
Yeah, no shit–like burning icy pain shooting through her body like nano-fibers of pure agony. No problem.
But as both of them increased the Cosmic energy feed, the leap drive prototype sputtered and emitted flickering, glowing pulses and flashes of light, as it struggled to fully activate and come on line.
“More, give it more,” Ty said. “About a hundred times more. Imagine it. Let it flow into the device as you steadily increase the energy levels.”
Naero startapped again and redoubled her efforts to comply.
Suddenly the device shuddered and emitted a bright, blinding flash.
Naero and Baeven convulsed on their medbeds and cried out.
For an instant, the device sucked Naero dry and left her gasping, close to blacking out. Baeven seemed to be in the same bad way.
Then the prototype disrupted and lurched to one side, smoking.
Zhen hovered over her patients, checking their scans and examining them with her healing sight.
“Dammit,” Ty said, going over the ruined device with several fixers and teks looking on. “Burned out the interface completely. That will take hours to refit and bolster the parameters for that factor alone. We just don’t know enough about what we’re doing here. It’s all experimental. This tek is so complex and strange, most of the time, I’m still guessing.”
“We almost powered it up,” Alala told them. “Don’t be discouraged.”
Om added over his link with the ship. This is good progress. Alala, Jia, and I will crunch the numbers on the various data analyses and compare them to the Kexxian theoretical design spec simulations. From what we learn here, our next attempt will take us forward even more.
Ty laughed. “Or blow us to kingdom come.”
“Uh…” Naero said. She looked over at Baeven.
He just drank a bunch of nutrient rich lix and promptly went to sleep. Naero saw his eyes roll up and felt hers about ready to do the same.
“Z, that little ride sucked both of us dry. Do what you can to replenish our energies. Like Baeven, I’m going night-night here.”
Zhen kept one hand on Naero’s forehead and the other clutching her pale hand. “Go ahead and rest, N. You’ll be all right. I’ve got you.” Z smiled down at her.
Tyber’s voice trailed off. “Perhaps if we re-calibrate the energy collectors and beef up the inducer parameters and shielding, it won’t even require half as much Cosmic power–just for a raw start up.”
39
While she rested, Naero experienced visions and nightmares again.
She saw Khai, patient and determined, resting in meditation within his green transport sphere, projecting himself rapidly through jump space in swift pursuit.
Now that the Astral marker placed within her was gone, she figured the Enforcer didn’t have a precise lock on her, but who knew what other tricks he or the Mystics had up their sleeves? She had no doubt that they would run into him at some point, and that she would have to face him again.
Neither she nor Baeven knew of any way to prevent that, except to keep moving and jumping. Proceeding toward Zoa would take them further away from any pursuit.
Baeven explained that the Mystics had grudgingly accepted a mutual stand off with him. Unless he became a direct Cosmic threat, they would no longer pursue him actively or directly.
Naero was another matter entirely, especially since her situation involved her killing a High Master.
Khai would never stop pursuing her–until he either captured or killed her–and he was among the most formidable opponents she had ever encountered.
She knew that on her own, even in her best shape, she was no match for the Mystic Enforcer one-on-one.
But that could eventually change. She and Baeven were training hard each day. Given enough time, she might learn to defend herself better.
As the days and the jumps passed on their way toward Zoa, she and Baeven made good progress on reducing their weaknesses and increasing their strengths. All of this, despite the required beat down sessions.
Gradually Naero grew not only faster, but also more powerful and accurate, in tune more with both her physical prowess, and all of her growing abilities.
Not only that, more and more, she developed the ability to mimic or learn the psyonic abilities of others. And once she had a working understanding of them, she continued developing her power to use biomancing to bolster and increase the effectiveness of those innate psyonic abilities in others.
“This could be a huge source of income,” Naero remarked to Zhen and the rest of her friends. “If I’m not locked up or executed, Spacers will line up to have me augment their psyonic abilities and make them more powerful and effective.”
“I wonder if that is wise,” Zhen said. “Can our people handle the increase in such powers? Could it go to their heads and corrupt them? Look at what your powers have done to you, and what you struggle with, N?”
Naero nodded. “We’ll have to consider all that. Just one more reason why I wish I could talk to the Mystics. They could help me decide the wisdom of such things. My outlaw status puts a damper on me conducting any kind of business.”
“I know, N. You joke, but I know all of this puts you in a very tough spot. I know how important your honor is to you. I know you’re hurting.”
Zhentisa took Naero’s hands in hers and smiled at her, looking into her eyes. “My dear friend–as much as a pain in the ass as you can be. I wish that you could see, for once, the way others see you. So many people love and admire you, N. They really look up to you. You’re a good person, with good instincts–just like you’re parents. You don’t want to hurt anyone, unless you have to.”
“But the fact remains. I have hurt people, and I’m still a killer on the run, Z. I’m a renegade on the lam, who has dishonored herself, and her Clan.”
Zhen patted her hands. “And some day in the future we’ll find a way out of that. But for right now, I still believe in you, and so do all of your family, friends, and crew. We will stand with you, Naero–to the bitter end if need be, and we’ll all go down together if it comes to that.”
Under her running circumstances, Naero had all but given up any thought to ever having a life that anyone might even attempt to call normal.
But that was the place she found herself in.
Nor would she begrudge Zhen and Ty or anyone else among her friends, Clan, or crew from going off to have lives of their own at any point. She hoped that they could in fact, and that they all didn’t end up dead somehow, because of her and her transport full of problems.
Before they could reach Zoa-4, they conducted further tests of the leap drive in the observation chamber adjacent to the medlab.
The latest version of the device was slightly larger and more durable–and the interface much improved–with all that they had learned from the failure of the first prototype.
Tyber announced proudly, “We think that it will only take one of you to power it up this time. And in fact, it should be easier to modulate one energy source than two variable sources. That might have even been part of the problem last time.”
Naero climbed up onto the medbed. “Alright. I’ll volunteer. Baeven, you standby in case I pass out, or something else goes wrong.”
“Will do.”
“Alright,” Zhen said. “Here we go.”
The links and connections went faster and smoother this time.
“Start feeding the device Cosmic energy. Give it a steady flow. It can take it this time.”
Naero startapped and produced a large surge of Cosmic energy. She gasped slightly.
The energy collectors on the device latched on to the energy flow, automatically attuned to it, and actually began drawing it out from her–almost by force.
She resisted the drain instinctively at first, feeling a bit dizzy at the sudden demand.
“Don’t let up now,” Tyber said.
Naero steeled herself to relax and not fight it, despite the feeling that she was being slowly bled dry. Again, it was too much like the energy leeching of the Darkforce generators. Dizziness and even waves of nausea followed and slowly increased, but she keep the flow of Cosmic energy strong and constant.
Despite the discomfort, she could keep the power up at this level, at least for a while.
“It’s working,” Jia exclaimed. “The device is powering up, cycling and storing energy in preparation for functioning.”
Tyber clapped his hands.
“As soon as the generation sequence is primed, we can try to project and retrieve a tracking probe. There are some minor glitches and modulation fluctuations beyond the design parameters, but I think we’ll be good to go on the probe test.”
“Guys, I’m going to start feeling pretty weak here–I might black out, very soon.” Naero blinked and swallowed with great effort.
Tyber looked over at Zhen, somewhat worried. “Can she hold on for about two more standard minutes? That’s about all the juice we’ll need to send the probe and retrieve it.”
Zhen looked at the readings. “I’m not sure. N’s right; she’s fading. The process is taxing her system close to its limits.”
Naero gasped and then nodded. Her face red and sweating. “T, it’s all right. I can hold out that long.”
Help me Om. Help me hold out.
She focused on keeping the Cosmic energy flowing through her steady.
Two agonizing standard minutes passed.
“Got it!” Tyber said. “Launching probe.”
A soundless blinding flash erupted.
Ty watched the scanners.
“Powering down. Probe retrieval in six seconds. One…two…”
“Abort! Abort! “Jia warned. “Feedback levels on retrieval increasing exponentially. This will cause a massive detonation of the probe!”
“Too late!” Ty shrieked.
“Focus all emergency shielding around the probe itself!” Baeven shouted, stepping in front of them all.
His emulators shot out in front of their ships to intercept the returning probe.
Naero still felt so weak, she couldn’t even lift herself up.
Zhen drew them and Ty back behind the medical bay shields and brought down heavy blast screens.
That left Baeven in the observation chamber with the device and the returning probe out beyond them, blazing like a comet right toward them.
Then it detonated.
The blast vaporized every one of Baeven’s emulators and then crumpled both ships, causing major damage.
Their deflector shields disrupted and the heavy blast screens ruptured. The hulls of both vessels decompressed and struggled to seal themselves.
Clouds of fixers raced to the affected areas and immediately began repairing the damage at all levels.
Naero and her friends picked themselves up and stared through the gaping hole in the blast shields and the blasted observation chamber. The leap drive device lay heavily damaged and burned out once again, smashed or blasted into the far wall, off its ruined gravlifts.
Baeven lay to the other side in a scorched, bloody heap.
“Hurry,” Jia said. “Bae’s hurt badly. He needs rapid medical attention.”
Naero staggered to her feet. She and Zhen rushed into the ruined chamber and went to work on him immediately where he lay gasping.
He passed out, going into traumatic shock.
His chest was torn open, shrapnel penetrating close to his heart.
Naero moved in and carefully used teknomancing to draw out all of the pieces of foreign material from his wounds, while Zhen kept oxygen flowing to the brain, closed the injuries off, and re-knit the various tissues and organs to continue their functions.
Once the major damage was mended, they continued using their biomancing abilities to strengthen Baeven and bolster his life force energies back up to optimal levels. Then they brought him back around.
Without their miraculous efforts, even he would have bled out and perished within the space of a few minutes.
“Thank you,” Jia told them. “Thank you for saving his life.”
Any normal man would have been killed outright, yet Baeven had used both his considerable tek and Cosmic abilities to shield himself and all of them from as much of the destruction as he could take on.
He had saved them all–again–at great risk and cost to himself.
What a gigablast. All from a streamlined tracking probe no more than a meter in length.
That mishap was most unfortunate, Om said. Yet we are theoretically much closer now to getting this extremely complex and dangerous device operating properly.
Naero felt her eyes widen. “We nearly died,” she noted. “I’m starting to question if all of this risk is worth it.”
Baeven nodded. “It will be. How close are we now, Jia?”
“We can compensate for all of the problems we’ve had thus far and eliminate them. We’ll still need more tests before we can attempt to transport an entire ship. Yet time grows short.”
“Just let us know when you need us. Update us on any progress.”
“Will do. In the mean time, it is imperative that I attempt to contact the other sentinels on our secret channels. It may take some time for a response, due to the extreme ranges. But it could also focus our search and possibly save us a needless trip. If any of the sentinels are missing or do not respond, I should be able to determine who, and where.”
The two ships separated when they finally reached Zoa-4. The Darkstar would remain in orbit, keeping watch and conducting its continuing tests on the leap drive.
The Shadow Fox would proceed down to the planet surface
Zoa-4 was a proto-world. Life-bearing, but all the lifeforms were simple. Basic plants and simple animals.
Close up scans barely revealed an old crash site, decades old. The site was now almost completely overtaken by mosses, molds, lichens and algae. The moist, humid atmosphere proved very conducive to such growth. Zoa was nearly a swamp world.
Jia effortlessly passed her soul into Baeven, with Naero and Zhen monitoring the process with their healing sight. Both gained further insight into the procedure, and discussed the ramifications back and forth for a few minutes. Both of them noticed different things.
For Zhen, it was her first viewing of such a transfer with her biomancer skills.
Routine scans confirmed Jia’s information on the atmosphere of Zoa-4 being safe and breathable. The landing party disembarked and made their way first to the nearby crash site.
There really wasn’t anything else visible to head to.
Yet once they reached the site itself, Jia emitted a single, clear lilting note out of Baeven’s throat.
Om actually informed her that note was a coded vibronic signal, filled with complex Driathan activation frequencies–and the earth itself opened up before them.
Naero felt Om gasp.
This world is a marvel, N. Everything looks as natural as could be–but it is all synthetic.
Are you certain, Om? Even the bio-scans read everything as completely natural?
The complex lattice structures are so perfect, that they are nearly indistinguishable from biological life. But make no mistake. Zoa is an entire living, biomechanical world. It functions as a single, hyper-complex android entity–right down to the nano levels that Jia’s presence has activated.
Baeven himself moved quickly, despite two recoveries from recent severe injuries. His rate of regeneration was still staggering to Naero’s mind. Yet now that they were on Zoa-4, he was obviously eager to reach something.
The planet seemed to be coming more and more to life as they passed through it. The world seemed to sense Jia’s presence and responded to it.
Finally, just in front of them, an intricate series of heavily armored blast hatches opened in rippling sequence.
Carefully concealed beneath the surface, as one of the Driathan Sentinel Worlds, Zoa was an impregnable, biotek fortress.
As they went forward into the hidden structure beneath the surface, Naero spotted tatters of a dusty, old fashioned Spacer nanosuit–first generation–before the improved invention of Nytex. They were covered with old, faded brown blood stains. Then a shattered Spacer helmet, still lying in the dust.
Naero gasped a little and snapped her head back to look at Baeven.
For one of the first times since she’d known him, he truly smiled with what could only be happiness.
Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury Page 37
