by Ivan Kal
Aileen dropped to the tatami hard, the force of her fall rattling her through the Sentinel suit. She rose to her knees quickly and tried to block a kick to her head, bringing her hands up to block at the last minute. Adrian’s kick pushed through, throwing her back to the floor and causing her to roll until her back struck one of the training pillars in the room and she stopped.
Shaking the blow off, she managed to get up to her feet before Adrian reached her. He led with a series of punches that she could only partially block; glancing strikes hit her shoulders, helmet, and chest. She tried to get her own punch in, but every time she thought she saw an opening, Adrian punished her for attempting a counterattack. He was pummeling her, pushing her backwards until her back was against the wall and she no longer had anywhere to go.
His attacks never slowed; the only thing that she could do was defend. Fists rained on her at an amazing speeds, far faster than anything an unaugmented human could possibly achieve. Seeing no other way to free herself, she turned her palms towards him and fired of a kinetic blast that pushed him back. She tried to press her momentary advantage. Stepping forward, she attempted a side kick to Adrian’s side—only her attack never connected. Her leg froze a breath away from Adrian, and a moment later she was thrown to the side.
She twisted in mid-air and landed on her feet, only to be knocked back by a kinetic blast several times more powerful than her own. As she was flying backwards and towards the floor, she felt as if something grabbed her, suspending her in the air momentarily. Then, a force pulled her back. She managed to turn her head enough to see Adrian jumping at her before he hit her with an elbow to the chest in mid-air as he was pulling her towards him telekinetically.
Aileen smashed into the floor, denting it from the force of the attack. Her suit protected her from most of it, but she was still in pain and could barely move. Once she had mastered the basics of the two beginner psionics, as Adrian liked to call them—telekinesis and kinetikinesis—Adrian had gifted her a Sentinel suit. As she was staring at the ceiling of the Veritas’s training room, a helmeted head moved into her view.
“That is what you get for using psionics in a hand-to-hand-only spar,” Adrian said calmly through his suit’s speakers.
Aileen didn’t have the strength to respond, so she remained silent and tried to regain her wits. She’d known, of course, that the moment she used psionics Adrian would respond in kind. Not that he actually needed to use them. Aileen was still much weaker than him; the one kinetic blast she’d fired had almost drained her entire reserve.
Ever since Adrian had taken over her training in full from Clara and Meifeng, he hadn’t spared her at all. In fact, he was much harsher with her. He still pulled back, but even then, he was leagues ahead of her. She had never really believed in all the stories that people in Warpath had told about him. She’d thought that he was good, but not that much ahead of the other Sentinels, especially with the fact that he was rarely seen training.
But sparring with him had served to teach her just how wrong she’d been. The way he moved and anticipated the movements of others was perfect. His technique was fluid, always adapting and never predictable. Every part of his body was a part of his arsenal; he used everything to fight. And his punches were much stronger than hers ever were. It wasn’t that he had greater physical strength; they were about equal there. It was that when he moved to attack, his body reacted in perfect synchronization, every muscle moving perfectly to execute a much more powerful attack.
Aileen had learned so much from Adrian. So many of her beliefs about hand-to-hand combat, he had shattered. And she knew that she was improving at a much faster rate now than when she’d still been in Warpath.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Aileen said once she recovered enough.
“You always have a choice, Aileen. Sometimes losing is preferable to breaking the rules,” Adrian said as he reached down and pulled her up, his helmet withdrawing back from his head. “We had agreed on fighting without psionics; you chose to use them even though you knew that it would make no difference. Tell me, why did you do that?”
“Because I was frustrated,” she said, her own helmet withdrawing. “I couldn’t land one punch on you.”
“But you knew that psionics wouldn’t change anything,” Adrian persisted. “Why try even?”
“You could’ve made a mistake,” she said.
“There is always a possibility of that. But you will not win, or even level the playing field, by hoping that I make mistakes,” Adrian said. “At our level of prowess, mistakes are rare. You need to guide me into doing something beneficial for you. Trick me into giving you an opening on purpose, then take advantage of it in a way that I haven’t predicted.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Aileen complained.
Adrian nodded. “It is. It is not about having a perfect technique. In fact, being perfect in your movements, attacks, and techniques is a bad thing. You need to be able to adapt to everything, invent moves that will accomplish what you want in an instant. Being perfect makes you predictable, easily maneuvered to exactly where your opponent wants you to be.” He tilted his head. “That is your problem; you think that if you fight perfectly, you will somehow reach me. But it has never been about that. On our level, fights are won in your mind. You need to manipulate me, trick me into doing what you want me to do.”
“I doubt that I could manipulate you into giving me an opening that I can exploit,” Aileen said.
“You can’t. I am too good at seeing those kinds of traps. What you need to do is let me attack you where you want me to, take the punch, and sacrifice in order to make an opening yourself,” he said.
Aileen nodded in understanding. At this point, she was willing to try anything to just land one punch on him.
“Let’s go again,” Adrian said as his helmet started covering his head.
***
Adrian walked into the control room of the Veritas with Sora following close behind a few minutes after the ship exited the trans-lane and dropped into normal space. Their location was an unimpressive system some one hundred light years spinward from Sol. And it was also the furthest point that the Empire had explored in their search for the Ra’a’zani. From this point on, they had no intel.
As he entered, one of the people standing in front of the holo table showing the system they were in turned to face him.
“Lord Sentinel,” said Gotu, formerly Hokra Gotu, one of the first Nel to have ever met a human, who was now a Warpath Master.
“Gotu, what do we have?” Adrian asked.
“Nothing much. There is no sign of life, but the system has two outgoing trans-stations. I’ve already sent two drones to the trans-stations; they should be arriving shortly and we will see what the scans say about them,” Gotu answered. Adrian nodded. From the sphere, they had gotten the scanning tech that allowed them to test trans-stations and find out the direction and travel time without actually going through them.
A few minutes later, they got the information from the first of the drones.
“Hm...three days’ travel time, going rimward...” Gotu started. “And here is the next one, going in the opposite direction—coreward, eleven days’ travel time.”
Adrian looked at the data on the holo. “Send both drones through, full stealth mode. Let’s see if there is something interesting on the other side.”
“Alright. Do you want us to explore the system some more? There are a couple of planets; we might find something useful for the future.”
Adrian glanced at the bleak system. He doubted that they would find anything that would warrant making a bigger colony here. But his people should at least have something to do as they waited for the word from the drones. “Yes, let’s start the survey. I’ll spend the time in the training rooms. Let me know the moment the first drone gets through.”
***
Adrian tried to lock his arms around his opponent, but he was too big for that. Instead, he found himself thrown
off his opponent’s back to the floor, and a moment later big jaws started to come down on his neck. He rolled to the side and got to his knees, turning towards his opponent as he raised his front paw and swiped at Adrian’s head, only to be met with Adrian’s arm blocking it. The strength behind the attack pushed Adrian into another roll, and he used his arms to raise himself over his head and to his feet.
As he got his footing back, 700 kilograms of muscle crashed into him, with Adrian shifting his weight forward and grabbing the wolion. His legs slid across the floor a good meter and a half before he stopped. With a groan, Adrian twisted his upper body and dropped Akash to the ground, landing on top of him. Akash tried to bite his helmet, but Adrian jammed his forearm below the wolion’s throat, not letting him get close enough. He kept his weight on Akash, keeping him pinned; it was something that he never could have done before his body had been augmented. Akash struggled, trying to get a paw between them and trying to roll enough to get leverage on the ground.
Then Adrian’s hand slipped, and Akash turned enough to get his balance back and threw Adrian off again. Adrian stumbled a few steps back, and Akash followed by running at him, this time going low, with his head towards Adrian’s legs. He got a grip on Adrian’s leg with his jaws and pulled him to the floor. He then put his entire weight on him, pinning him to the ground in a similar manner that Adrian had done to him a moment ago.
With no way to get the giant wolion off, Adrian relaxed and conceded the win.
“Fine, you win,” Adrian said out loud over his Sentinel suit’s speakers.
Akash kept his weight on Adrian for a few more beats, making a point. Then he stood and sent Adrian a flash of his emotions—amusement, pride, and contentment.
“Yes, yes. But if I’d used my psionics, you would have had a lot more difficulties,” Adrian said.
Akash sent him another burst of emotions that Adrian took as him expressing doubt at that. The wolions—at least Akash and Sora—understood Adrian and spoken language perfectly. But their own language relied on their empathy, on being able to project and manipulate emotion. That made it much harder for Adrian to understand them. His telepathy could project emotions, but it was not the same.
“Fine, I’ll admit, you are a formidable opponent,” Adrian said as he reached Akash’s side and petted him on the head. His attention made Akash release a growl of contentment, and then he walked over to Sora, who was watching from the back of the room.
Adrian turned to one of the crates with equipment. With his telekinesis, he took out six rubber balls and sent them flying towards him. As each reached him, he put his hand out and fired a kinetic blast, sending it back as he released his telekinetic hold on it. Then when the ball reached close to the end of the room, he would grab it again and send it back towards himself. After a couple of minutes of that, he started moving around the room and sending the balls in all directions around himself. Pull then push, and repeat. Then, after a couple of minutes of that, he sent all the balls flying at his position at the same time. As the balls were flying, he bent and pulled his hands close. Using another one of his psionics, he built up an energy field around himself. As the balls closed the distance, he released the energy, letting loose a shockwave in every direction around him that sent the balls flying back.
He dropped to the floor, exhausted. That psionic was one of the more demanding, as far as the energy required was concerned. Up until now, he had mastered telekinesis, telepathy, kinetikinesis, and vitakinesis. Out of the other psionics that he possessed—and there were many—he knew how to use a great number, but he still hadn’t figured out how to use them efficiently. He had also realized that naming the psionics was foolish. Too many of them were interconnected, and relied on each other, that there was no distinction. So he had started to wonder if he should just start to refer to all of his abilities as the Sha, much like the People had.
There were a few abilities that were elusive, and he couldn’t figure them out, but hopefully after children and other people received psionics, they would stumble upon them. And Clara and Meifeng were perfectly capable of figuring things out on the go. But for now, Adrian focused on the ones that he was good at. The rest would come with time.
Drained of all energy, Adrian got to his feet and started towards the mess hall for some food. His metabolism had increased at least ten times since his changes, and food was instrumental in regaining energy. He exited the training room, all the way thinking about how to improve his skills with the psionics.
***
Later that night, Adrian entered his quarters on the Veritas, exhausted. He walked across to his room, leaving the wolions in the living area, where they usually slept. He entered his room and sat down at his table, opening reports that he hadn’t read through yet. Before he started reading them, his attention was drawn to the picture at his nightstand. It was the only one he had of Bethany; it was a group picture with all of their team from the Academy. It had taken him a long time to put her death behind him. He didn’t forget; he would never do that to her memory. But it hurt less now.
He was never really bothered by guilt; she hadn’t blamed him, and he knew that he would have made the same decision again. It had made him understand who he was as a person, and he had grown to accept that. He knew that emotions would never compromise him doing what he believed was right. But that did not mean that it didn’t hurt him. It was the pain of losing someone he loved that he had a problem dealing with. She was the first person that he had opened up to. The first person that he had felt he could reveal all that he was.
But now, with years of reflection, he knew that it wouldn’t have worked out between them. She had been in love with a person that was only a small part of what Adrian was. That did not diminish his love for her, though. At the time, it had been real. But he kept the picture there as a reminder that there probably would never be anyone who could understand who he truly was. Someone who could be with him even when they knew that he would sacrifice them in order to defeat his enemies.
He forced himself to look away and focus on the reports. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Three days later, Adrian stepped into the control room again, as the drone they’d sent through the first trans-lane had reached its destination.
“What do we have, Gotu?” Adrian asked as he was approaching.
“The drone is some thirty-six light years away. We should be getting its sensor readings back any moment now,” Gotu answered.
Together, they watched the holo and waited. Then the information started pouring in. Both of them read it as it was arriving, and at about the same time turned to one look at one another.
“Well, that is interesting,” Adrian said.
“Very much so,” Gotu said as they watched images and readings from the system depicting a small station orbiting a small, rocky planet.
“Can you analyze it, Iris?” Adrian asked, and a human-sized hologram of Iris appeared in front of them. While on Veritas, she was connected with the onboard system and could use any projector on the ship.
“The tech does not appear Ra’a’zani in nature. Energy readings are different,” Iris said as she manipulated the holo. “Hmm...We have a match for the architecture and a partial on the energy readings.”
“Really?” Adrian asked, surprised.
“Yes, from the Union ship’s databases. The Union encountered this race in their explorations. They had limited contact, as their territory was too far away for any kind of relationship between the Union and this race, but we have a translation of their language,” she said. “There is very little else, only a mention that they were technologically inferior to the Union, but that was a couple thousand of years ago. And that they appeared peaceful. The race’s name is Sorvani, and that is all that we know.”
Gotu looked thoughtfully at the holo. “Hm...They don’t appear to have any defenses in system except that station. That could suggest that they don’t really have anything
to fear in this area of space. Which, if it is true, means that we are on a wrong path. I’m sure that if the Ra’a’zani were anywhere close to here, they wouldn’t be so careless,” Gotu said. “Do we know how what they look like?”
“No. The Union exploration ship encountered a single Sorvani ship at the outer edge of their explored space. They only exchanged the basics, no visual contact. That was...on the other side of the galactic core. The Union territory was—or still is—in the Perseus arm. They encountered the Sorvani at the inner edge of the Sagittarius arm, only on their side of the galactic core. About thirty thousand light years from here,” Iris answered.
Gotu looked thoughtful. “That could mean that they are a race that holds a big chunk of territory. Or, and I think that this is more likely, the Sorvani ship was also an explorer.”
Adrian scratched his head. “Whatever may be true, they are, as far as we know, our closest neighbors in this area of space. I think that we should go and introduce ourselves. Who knows, we might even get some information about this area of space that can narrow our search.”
“As you wish, Lord Sentinel. We can depart immediately,” Gotu said.
“Yes, but leave a relay probe here so that we can receive data from the other drone once it passes through its trans-lane.”
***
About a day later, Veritas exited the trans-lane and dropped into the Sorvani system. Adrian, Gotu, and Björn Borg—another master from Warpath, with the focus on cultural interactions—watched as their prerecorded greeting message was sent to the Sorvani station. The first thing they used was the normal space FTL comms, and the Sorvani acknowledged and responded in the same way.
“Well, they have some advanced tech,” Björn said.
In front of Adrian, the holo screen turned on and he could see a bright red alien. It was a biped with fur. It wore a harness of some sort and nothing else, and had two arms, only at the elbow they split into two, which technically made it have four arms, with three fingers on each. Its face was flat, with no pronounced snout or a nose, three eyes arranged one above the other, and only a slit where a human nose would have been. Adrian wasn’t sure that it was a nose, though, and he was proven right when the orifice opened and the being started speaking through it in a whispering voice.
