by Aer-ki Jyr
Paul started to convulse as the wave of miniature explosions traveled down his neck and into his body, spreading out quickly with little tendrils down his chest, arms, and legs all the way into his feet, then like a virus they spread out from all points, saturating his body as it underwent hyper cellular growth that had been prepping for several months with small incidents…and now the sudden payoff was finally here.
Paul clenched up his body, riding it out and keeping from screaming out loud, though Kara could clearly hear his mental version.
As the crackles exhausted themselves the mental hurricane continued, slowly decreasing in intensity as Paul floated, twitching in the center of the room as Kara telekinetically nulled out his movements. More than two minutes later Paul finally opened his eyes and released the clenching in his chest, forcing himself to breath normally even though every fiber of his body ached.
How you doing?
Is it supposed to be like that?
Yeah, it is. They wanted it to be quick.
How many lights?
1 yellow.
Paul blinked several times as he held his hands up in front of his face. His eyes still weren’t focusing correctly, but they were better than they had been. He did a mental inventory, still feeling his head scattered and unreliable, but couldn’t make out any new facets yet. He resigned himself to wait for the lights to transition back down through green and then shut off entirely, indicating that the flux was gone, then he should be able to sense a new ability…at least that’s what Aaron had told him.
His fellow trailblazer had gone through this already, earning him the second tier psionic ability known as Leechas, which was essentially a range upgrade to his Ikrid. He’d gone from being able to sense minds at 250-300 meters on up to better than 2 kilometers. Morgan had gone through this process twice, which Paul learned about well after the fact, given that she was still out on the Calavari front, and gained the Snu and Pren abilities, which were an immunity to Fornax and a power boost to Pefbar/Lachka, respectively.
The ‘immunity’ wasn’t quite as encompassing as the word sounded, but it effectively reduced Fornax interference by 90-95%, meaning it’d take 10-20 guys hitting you with Fornax blasts to equal the same effect as one previously…which was possible, but it meant that Zen’zat who’d upgraded to Snu would be difficult to take down, not to mention they could unleash Fornax fields amongst others with Snu and not affect them much, which would be a significant boon in high-numbered melee scenarios.
Pren added a power boost to Pefbar, which extended the size of the detection fields one could produce, as well as increasing the strength or range of Lachka. It was noted in Morgan’s log that she’d been able to telekinetically lift 5 times the mass after the upgrade, as well as being able to extend her range out to a factor of 3…though not both at the same time. The closer an object was the more lifting power you had, and vice versa.
Kerrie, Ryan, Vic, and Rex had also gone through upgrades, and after the first three the medtechs doing the ongoing research into the V’kit’no’sat database discovered that there were specific biological triggers set for each of the psionic abilities past the original 7. They hadn’t found a master list of abilities on the dinosaur side, just the Zen’zat list of all that had been discovered, some 18 in total…15 second tier and 3 Mvor abilities.
The database entry hadn’t even been listed with the psionics specifications, it had been buried in an Era’tran file detailing expectations regarding Zen’zat progression, which was somehow related to field assignments. The entry noted the biological triggers and explained the randomness was a Zen’zat myth, and that there were carefully constructed requirements built in to ensure only the most worthy garnered the upgrades without the need for testing or further genetic modification.
Training, it seemed, was the best avenue to unlocking the upgrades, but they weren’t meant to be trained for specifically. Instead, they were meant to be a reward for those who advanced themselves across the board, which would inevitably lead to stumbling across one or more of the triggers.
Knowing that there were specific triggers, the medtechs had worked long and hard trying to isolate what they were and after considerable failure concluded that the only realistic way they were going to be able to identify them was to monitor the transformation processes when they happened and try to backtrack, citing that pure genetic analysis was next to worthless at this point, considering the sheer complexity of the V’kit’no’sat’s genetic engineering capability.
Hopefully whatever Paul had just experienced on a cellular level would be recorded on the device attached to his head, as well as the status of his body just prior to the transformation. With enough data, the medtechs hoped to be able to isolate the triggers so they could tell the Archons what to specifically train for in order to draw them out earlier than randomness would allow. The trailblazers wholeheartedly agreed, and over the past years Paul, Kara, and the other 99 had worn the biomonitors during training in the hopes of catching more of the upgrades as they happened.
Three green, Kara noted as Paul continued to float and wait out the remainder of the process. Does it still hurt?
Oh yeah. You can withdraw now…and thanks.
Kara’s hard point within Paul’s mind disappeared, which felt like he was in a ship that just cut its mooring lines to shore and started to list about with the waves. That shook him for half a second, then he held his own mental bearings and kept his mental armor intact as the hurricane spun down to a mere thunderstorm.
The remnants faded rather quickly after that, leaving Paul’s mind suddenly clear and his vision restored…but the pain in his body was more persistent, leaving the Archon with dull, heavy ache that wasn’t fading.
Paul coughed, releasing his body’s tension along with that in his mind and trying to relax.
“Pull me over,” he said aloud, with Kara telekinetically obliging.
He put a hand on the wall, grabbing one of the recessed padded handles. “I think I’m done training for the day, my body is fried.”
“That didn’t happen to any of the others,” Kara noted, having been given access to the trailblazers’ logs so she could help them with all things Zen’zat. To date she’d been the only Archon allowed access to their private boards.
“What didn’t?”
“The bodily pain. Their upgrades were mental.”
“Which narrows it down to how many possibilities?”
“I don’t know, but odds are it’s something new,” she said as Paul glanced over at the exit and gently pushed off the wall towards it. Kara followed him but at a faster pace, floating past him and arriving first. She found a handhold and reached her right arm back for him to grab onto, then she shoved him towards the door a few meters further down.
His feet felt gravity half a meter out from it, cementing him to the ground in a jolt that ran the entire length of his body. “Ow.”
“What?”
“Gravity doesn’t agree with me,” he said, pushing the door open and walking out into the hallways as Kara came down behind him. “Where am I at?”
“One green.”
Paul stopped a few steps outside and closed his eyes…then shook his head. “I can’t find a new mental trigger.”
“If your body is hurting…” she suggested.
Paul rotated his arms around in sync, feeling the pain spike with the movement. He locked onto the sensation, mentally feeling out what was hurting, and looking for a link.
It was elusive at first, but once he found it and ‘flexed’ a few times the pathway broke free and he could feel the small reservoir of power within him…but it didn’t feel like the mental powers he’d gained before. This was emanating from what felt like every cell in his body.
“Anything?” Kara asked.
“Hold on,” Paul said, closing his eyes again and tilting his head ever so slightly to the left. Eventually he held up his right hand and pointed it towards Kara. “High five.”
She fro
wned, but put her hand up and clapped it against his, then jerked it back as she hit something weird…then realized she hadn’t felt skin. She’d felt energy.
Kara reached her index finger out and poked his hand again, this time impacting his palm.
“Sorry, couldn’t hold it,” Paul apologized, concentrating. “Try it now.”
Kara poked his hand again, with her finger stopping short as it hit a tiny energy shield…but one of a matrix she’d never encountered before, not in reality anyway, but she knew it from her memories.
“Bioshield,” she said with an unguarded grin, which Paul matched.
“Now that is cool,” he said, staring at the invisible energy covering his palm.
Kara glanced at the small circle on his head as the last green light disappeared. “Let’s hope that thing got some good data, because I really want those.”
“Phfff,” Paul scoffed.
“Hey, if this thing every runs out of juice…” she said, pointing to her clear Vorch’nas on her left arm.
“How often does that happen?”
“Depends how busy I am. I may look invincible, but this is just armor…plus a few other things. I’m going to need the extra psionics as much as you guys down the road.”
“That’s way more than just armor,” Paul corrected her. “Even the V’kit’no’sat don’t have that, right?”
“Oh sure…so I can just quit training, get fat…it’s all the same,” she said incredulously.
“Alright,” Paul said, getting her point…and starting to get sleepy. Apparently his available bio energy was limited. He wondered if it ate ambrosia the same way Morgan’s Jumat did, for the files hadn’t said. “I’m going to grab some food then hit the sack and try to sleep this off.”
“Good idea. I’d join you, but I’m not hungry yet. See you in 8 hours or so?”
“Maybe,” Paul said as they started to walk off towards the hallway intersection where they’d go their separate ways. “This might end up being a 12 hour deal. I’ll contact you when I’m over it, then you get to start throwing stuff at me.”
“Gladly,” she said, clapping him on the shoulder before jogging off ahead of him and making a right turn out of view.
Paul sighed, feeling a stress headache creeping up. He needed to get some rest in a hurry before it got any worse…but he was going to grab some ambrosia first, just in case that was what his body needed. And a few breadsticks.
8
March 8, 2465
Krichjan System (Protovic territory)
Eshwan
“Get him, Dina,” Kip said as he ran his voltron forward, putting divots in the street from the footfalls as he awkwardly pulled his right arm up and slipped his hand behind his head…save for the mech didn’t have a head.
Kip fought the imbalance with an extra arm swing on the left side as he telekinetically triggered the cargo release switch for the mech’s back, which raised a thick pylon up high enough for the hand to grab. He latched onto it and pulled it free, then swung the stubby ‘ping pong paddle’ forward over top of his head, with the mech swinging it higher than necessary to clear the headless shoulders…one tiny glitch in the control system they’d have to work on later.
“I’ll try,” Dina-1202 said as she worked her own voltron up another street parallel to Kip’s but more than a kilometer over as they both zigzagged their way through the annoyingly unstraight streets to try and intercept the half dozen Type-3s that were crawling their way forward with surprising speed, heading for the formation of hoths behind him that were even now digging into the side of a Type-1 in the distance. Along with them were hundreds of the smaller walkers, all of whom had come together in the same area of the city to strengthen their defenses after the hoths had killed an isolated Type-2 a couple of days ago.
Kip swung the ‘paddle’ forward in front of him, then tucked his arm back and started pumping it to even out his running gait just in time to make another turn without smacking into the side buildings. His mech’s feet dug in deep, leaving furrows as he bled off his momentum, but he successfully made the turn and angled left, running 18 more steps before a shallow right turn, all of which was bringing him closer to another Type-3 that was flanked and preceded by four Type-4s.
He ignored them and the plasma they tried to shower him with whenever they had a shot, but otherwise they ignored him as well, pushing forward to try and get to the Star Force heavy walkers, for the Skarrons had learned quickly they had no defense against the long range cleansing beams and continuous lachars. If they had let events continue, Kip’s mechs could have killed every single Skarron walker from range with their anti-missile cover, which had precipitated a change in the enemy’s tactics.
As dangerous as their walkers were on their own, they were considerably more lethal in packs, and they’d formed huge ones around all of the Type-1s…which Star Force was now trying to take on. The Skarrons fat walkers had proved to be more agile than they looked, with considerable straight line ground speed when they wanted it, and now that Kip’s hoths were within weapons range the Skarrons were charging forward, trying to close distance before they could take down the big one…or at least to destroy them after the fact. Either way, Kip had to keep them off the hoths, and he was relying on the smaller, conventional mechs spread out around him in the city to handle the Type-4s while he and Dina went straight for the Type-3s.
The furthest one forward was closer to Dina, meaning she would be engaging first. He wanted to double team it with her, but the others were pressing forward and would slip by if he didn’t hang to the right, so he kept moving forward, zigzagging towards the closest one as his twin voltron engaged the enemy.
Dina knew what she was doing, so Kip kept his focus ahead…though it wasn’t like he had much choice. A lot of buildings were blocking his line of sight, plus he had to keep his attention close to keep from running into buildings at the high speed he was moving his mech…not to mention slipping on all the Skarron infantry that he was stepping on. There were clusters of them everywhere, and they weren’t holding position…they were rushing forward, trying to get at the hoths themselves.
Clan Protoss’s assaults had inspired an almost desperate counterattack from the enemy, with every unit they had available now turning away from conquering more of the Protovic planet and heading for the newly arrived Humans. Good thing was, most of them were so far away they wouldn’t get to any Star Force positions for days, if not weeks, for they had no air transit that he was aware of.
Bad thing was, they were coming with a vengeance, and along with this one group, which centered on the Type-1 and had hundreds of walkers with it, there were 51 other such groups forming out there, plus a lot of smaller ones centered on Type-2s and down that could move with greater speed…and they were all coming for them.
Clan Metal Gear had their hands full already with the Skarron rear units, but this was by far the heaviest engagement Kip’s forces had seen…and it was only going to get worse. They no longer had the option of nipping at the edges of the Skarron lines, it was either kill them or turn tail and run…and Kip intended to fight the bastards.
He made another shallow turn, immediately taking fire from a Type-4 that was sitting in the street ahead of him blocking his route towards the Type-3 that was a half mile back, though Kip could clearly see its double humps over the ‘smaller’ walker. A few of its plasma cannons shot out and blanketed his voltron with what mechwarriors referred to as ‘spit,’ which was plasma that had outranged itself, cooling and pulling apart as it traveled through the atmosphere, leaving it only harmful to infantry and other unarmored units.
The plasma from the closer Type-4 was another matter, but Kip ignored it and sprinted ahead, finally getting a section of straight street to accelerate up on. His forward shields were bathed in white plasma, but it wasn’t going to take them down anytime soon, so he kept his running line and jumped when he was a dozen or so steps away from the Type-4, activating his jump jets simultaneously.
Kip let them take the Type-4 as he steadied his mech’s right arm with the paddle still in its hand, then he triggered the activation command and the edges of the paddle began splintering apart and moving forward, interlocking with each other as the light corovon alloy plates assembled into a thin, long sword that Kip then rotated around in his mech’s hand, switching to a reverse grip…a maneuver that most mechwarriors couldn’t have hoped to have pulled off, but with so much personal sword training under his belt the maneuver felt so natural that he had no trouble pulling it off even with the mech’s clumsy metallic hand.
The plasma fire from the Type-3 was more than double what had been coming from the Type-4 and ate away at Kip’s shields, underneath which were the armor scar marks from the missile attack and a previous encounter with a Type-3. He’d held back for too long and took some damage as he’d been feeling out its capabilities a few days ago and wasn’t going to make that mistake this time.
It felt like he was running his mech into a waterfall of plasma, for the orbs were so tiny, yet so numerous, but he held his nerve and accelerated the mech up to as fast of a run as he could and jumped up at the last moment, goosing the jump jets a bit to get a better arc as he double-handed the sword in an overhead grip with the point to the ground.
He came down on the Skarron walker’s bulbous front, driving the blade in through the top with the corovon-laced metal cutting through the thick armor with little effort given the amount of mass Kip had dragging the sword down. The blade cut through then sank in deep, with the voltron’s arms catching the mech before its feet hit the ground. It hung off the front of the walker as the blade stuck firm, with the extra mass pulling the front end of the moving Type-3 down and compacting its legs underneath.
