Point Zero

by Aer-ki Jyr

  That meant they had to continue moving quick if they were to capture any more, but the few secrets this Saiyan…whose identification was Nathen-2562…had managed to pull out were already transmitted out through the battlemeld indicating where some of the sensitive technology in the city was located…along with the Chixzon city sitting in the bedrock below it that was going to be hard to get to.

  That was when one of the warships in orbit opened fire again with a cutting beam, vaporizing sand and rock as it cored down through the surface alongside the Kiio city until it was just above where the Chixzon city was supposed to be, for it wasn’t showing up on any sensors. Down through that explosively evacuated conduit a number of mining drones were sent, along with a few that went down partway, then chewed into the side of the chamber to link up to the Saiyans in the city.

  Nathen got there first, as the others were still engaged with the Chixzon up here, and he slid past the mining drones and fell down the main conduit all the way to the bottom where he flew to a stop and dropped in a hero landing on the semi-molten rock as the drones dug 5 additional new tunnels that were only a few meters wide each as they searched for the city that was supposed to be nearby.

  The Saiyan reached out with his senses, Essence-enhanced them, and found the minds of the Chixzon nearby…which he redirected the mining drones towards and rode one of the small conduits behind one, floating above the outstream of chewed up rock that was being transmitted via shield conduit to a collection terminal at the bottom of the main shaft, then being elevated through it by other support drones, otherwise they’d be digging and dumping the rubble in the very pathways they were trying to open up.

  Nathen sensed his drone getting close, but none of the Chixzon were aware of its exact location or they chose not to be there when it bored through the stealth sheathing that surrounded the hidden city and the drone popped out into some sort of support infrastructure, tearing through a myriad of equipment that had to be signaling alarms as it was destroyed.

  The Saiyan pushed by it as soon as he had an opening and took off in a blur of Saiyan 2 speed and strength as he shot and punched his way through the first door in his path, delaying him 4.3 seconds, after which he was mostly in the clear as he hunted down the nearest Chixzon minds enroute to the mainframe he had seen in the other’s memory.

  Nathen took two more down with his Saven psionic, which was the equivalent of a mental flash bomb he transmitted into their minds, followed up by a quick 4 or 5 series of punches into their bodies with his fists and the corresponding stun blasts leaping off his wrist-located weapon packages. He had to delay enough to disable them, but couldn’t waste time, for the mainframe held a lot of information the Chixzon knew they had to destroy, but its redundancy was critical to them, so they’d built it without the ability to delete everything in a single button press.

  Nathen came across 3 more Chixzon and subdued the first, but the next two came in a pairing that actually put up a fight, delaying him another 26 seconds, but after that it was just a matter of running and busting through doors until he got within telepathic range of the Chixzon in the mainframe…which he then threw every Psionic he had at them to buy a few more seconds before he could get inside.

  Saven, Orren, Ju’nu’bo, Wequay, Saniso, Leechas, Kop’ni, and Vado when he got close enough. He had to distract and suppress the 9 of them long enough for him to physically get there as they were wiping one memory cube after another with alarming speed.

  His intervention stopped that, causing one of them to lash out violently with his shoulder spikes and accidentally cleave the arm off another as his vision was no longer working due to Nathen’s intervention. All the Chixzon were telepathic, so they had some resistance to his powers, but Ikrid was far superior, and with all the other upgrades that came in the other psionics there was no way one could resist the mind of an advanced Archon…but hacking the minds of multiple targets was very hard, which was why Saven and some of the battlemeld technics were designed to interfere with multiple targets without actually hacking into their brains.

  They were a ‘throw in your face’ attack that didn’t require any follow-up, and Nathen managed to get all but one of the Chixzon in a state of disarray, but the last saw or felt what was happening to the others and just started trashing all the equipment within reach and not bothering to actually delete anything.

  It took Nathen another 18 seconds to break inside, at which point his head was hurting from the sustained attacks on the now 13 Chixzon in the mainframe, with more coming in to assist.

  The Saiyan didn’t have time to take them all prisoner. The information in their minds would be valuable, but the records might be more so. Plus, they had time to engage their sabotage nodules and there was no way he could use his Regenerator on more than one at a time unless he could lay them next to each other and pull some shit that way.

  But in the middle of combat, with him barely keeping them distracted from trashing the equipment, deleting more files, or someone bringing a bomb with them and just shredding everything…

  There was only one way to deal with this situation, and that was the fastest way possible.

  Nathen ignited both death saber blades in his armor, with the flat, glowing, and screeching energy weapons glowing Star Force blue popping out just over the top of his hands from his elevated wrist gauntlets and extending straight as if an extension of his forearm bones, for they couldn’t rotate or twist. They were locked in place.

  The Saiyan fired several stun blasts at the Chixzon manning the consoles as he leapt at his nearest active targets in a blur, then started engaging them with lethal intent in mind as another three came out of a doorway and jumped toward him…

  10

  Nathen moved faster than them, thought faster, but there was only so much he could do and process in a tenth of a second, so as more reinforcements poured in and was surrounded with enemies clawing at him with their glowing green cutting spikes, he used his Ubven and dropped a restrainment field over everyone within range…then he moved through it as if it weren’t even there and wove his way through the temporarily trapped enemies and back towards the free ones near the consoles.

  Those that turned to engage him he sliced and diced, but the ones who did not he shot with multiple stun blasts, for their biology was resistant to it. Fortunately Star Force weapons were adjustable, and he amped up the power level enough that it would kill other races, but would take the Chixzon down with several shots each.

  They might not be fully out, and they’d have time to kill themselves if they weren’t, but he wasn’t going to kill them if all they were doing was destroying data…even if it lost him some of that data. But he wasn’t going to lose all of it.

  The Saiyan blew out a Jumat ring just over the consoles so it wouldn’t damage them further, knocking down the tall Chixzon who were working at them and giving him a little more time to get around and render them all unconscious before his Ubven field eventually failed and the aggressive ones were free again.

  An energy blast whizzed towards him, but Nathen saw it coming in time to twist his left shoulder out of the way as one of the arriving Chixzon had a rifle…until the Saiyan telekinetically ripped it out of his hands and flew it into a quick death saber slash. After that it was back to slice and dice, though some of the Chixzon turned to the equipment again.

  It took several minutes, but by the end of it Nathen was standing alone over several stunned Chixzon, the pieces of dozens that were cut up and strewn across the floor dripping blood out of their cauterized flesh, and a room-full of equipment that looked like a pack of metal-eating beavers had gotten to it, but at least some consoles were still visibly functioning.

  First priority was the stunned ones, and Nathen got to them, shot them redundantly to keep them out, then established telepathic links to them all simultaneously so he could monitor them as he used his armor’s Regenerator to two at a time remove the sabotage nodules inside their bodies and secure his prisoners.


  Before he finished another Saiyan arrived, and he instructed him to get to work on the terminals with a mere thought, for they were all still battlemeld-linked…at least those in range, and when they came back into range they automatically relinked without hardly having to think about it.

  So Nathen knew as soon as the other Saiyan began hacking in that he had been somewhat successful, for there was a multitude of data files available, and in exactly the format that Star Force was familiar with the Chixzon using thanks to Nefron. They hadn’t changed a thing in all these years…

  Grand Admiral Han Tyver watched from the bridge of his personal flagship, The Lady of the Lake, as the Saiyan first wave teams quickly secured all the major cities on the planet, as well as few unknown ones discovered once they were on the ground. From there they moved on to all the rest, with the second and third waves doing most of the leg work. The Saiyans were here for the Chixzon, and it seemed they were not spread across the entire planet, but rather only in a few pockets in the public cities and one hidden one buried even further beneath the surface than the Kiio ones.

  It had been raided and secured, with some 3,291 prisoners taken and a partial data theft of their main computers. It was estimated that the Chixzon had managed to delete or destroy about 30% of it, but currently the prisoners’ minds were being searched for the most pertinent data, with follow up teams to do a full cataloging of their secrets before they were even allowed to wake up.

  The prisoner count from across the planet added another 832, with 93 more having died in combat and some 24,012 dead from self-inflicted damage. It was clear that they knew they weren’t going to escape, and rather than try and survive most of them opted to die before their minds could be raided for information…save for 4 who actually surrendered. And it was those 4 that the Grand Admiral requested be sent up to his otherwise normal Warship-class jumpship that he chose to lead his fleets from rather than a donut-shaped command ship.

  The Saiyans agreed to send them up…after removing their sabotage nodules and doing mental scans to confirm they knew little about where the rest of the Chixzon were…but Tyver was interested in knowing why they had surrendered. And what interested a Grand Admiral was not something to dismiss off hand.

  The Human walked into one of the four separate holding cells, intent to talk to them separately, with him separated from the larger, nearly all black Chixzon who was situated behind an energy shield powerful enough to stop even the advanced cutting technology of their biology, though there were four guards in the room as well in case he did somehow find a way to break through.

  “What is your name?” Tyver asked, clasping his hands behind the small of his back two feet away from the shield barrier as he looked up at the gargoyle-like face before him.

  “Muen-ti.”

  “Why did you surrender when the others chose to kill themselves?”

  “I wish to live.”

  “A good reason. Why didn’t they?”

  “It is not our way to subjugate.”

  “Why the change of mind, in your case?”

  “I wish to live.”

  “And how do you see that life progressing in the future?”

  “I will be taken to one of your indoctrination centers and held there for the rest of my life or until I convert to your ways. My life as a Chixzon is over. I wish to start a new one, even if it is in Star Force.”

  Tyver studied his subtle body language for a moment. “You didn’t have a choice previously?”

  “We do not. Chixzon act as one. I am dead to them, and wish that they do not find I am alive. They will kill me if they can.”

  “Not in our custody they won’t. Can you tell me where the others are?”

  “I do not know the specific locations, but most are on roaming ships designed to last until the Hadarak purge the galaxy, then the Chixzon will rebuild afterward. At least, that was the plan. They did not anticipate your level of resistance. The Chixzon empire will not rise again.”

  “And you wish to switch to the winning side?”

  “I wish to choose my own path, eventually.”

  “Why not come to us earlier?”

  “How? I had no ship. I was never alone. The others would not have allowed it. And even mild suspicion of treason is investigated and punished. I never considered it until now, when the option presented itself. Am I wrong about your intentions for me?”

  “They are accurate. I’ve been told that it was the Chixzon that started the Hadarak purge. How did you do that?”

  “Knowledge gained from Hadarak experimentation. I do not know the specifics. I was hatched from the first generation that contained genetic knowledge. I do not have the same knowledge of past eras.”

  The Grand Admiral raised an eyebrow. “Why were you not all given the same starting point?”

  “It is not our way. Rebirth demanded maximized odds. After that was accomplished, reproduction returned to original methods. Knowledge and power must be earned, not gifted.”

  “And it bothers you that so many were gifted it, without deserving that power.”

  “You can see it in my mind as well?”

  “No, I’m not telepathic. Just observant.”

  “I did not think Naval members were, only Archons and Mavericks.”

  “And a few others, but you are mostly correct. We restrict power to those who earn it as well. And you can begin your new path by earning your fresh start rather than simply being gifted it by those who agreed to accept your surrender. Tell me something of value I do not already know.”

  “Are your mind readers not thorough?”

  “Knowledge and wisdom are not the same things, nor are memories and skills. Tell me something of value.”

  “They envy you.”

  “Why?”

  “You have surpassed them, and proven their methodology is inferior. You have also taken their Uriti and made them more powerful through training. All our efforts are on biology and control, not upliftment. They had assumed it was negligible. They were wrong.”

  “Have you always thought of ‘them’ and not ‘us?’”

  “I did not choose to be born Chixzon, nor did I choose to be born into a race of failures. I can do better on my own.”

  “Do better by giving me some knowledge I can use.”

  The Chixzon thought hard for nearly a minute of silence, then his eyes flared green for a moment as his head came up. “There is a planet they wish to go to, but cannot access. It holds ancient knowledge that we were supposed to retrieve after being reborn, but many died in multiple attempts and we were told it was untenable. No one knows what it contains, but we were tasked with going there. I can tell you where it is.”

  “What is guarding it?” Tyver asked warily.

  “We do not know. Those who went in never returned. It is in a gas giant, on a floating construct hidden within. It is easy to get there, but nothing came back out. When we sent drones, they came back with images of the dead on the exterior entryways. They were each cut in four pieces. One line down the center, the other horizontal across the waist. Each of the dead was exactly the same. No battle wounds were visible, and whenever the drones tried to pass the archway they were disabled. It is a death trap, but we were tasked to go there. Yet another failure.”

  “What system?”

  “Your records call it Shi go Zu Mata’ki, in the…”

  “…Jumangi Kingdom,” Tyver finished. “That’s an Oso’lon world, is it not?”

  “One of their degenerate splinters now. Previously it was inhabited by smugglers. Neither used the gas giant, nor are they away of the construct. It is hidden within 167 of your miles. You must be within the atmosphere to locate it if you do not otherwise have the coordinates.”

  “Thank you, Muen-ti. I will arrange a special indoctrination slot for you. One away from the other Chixzon who surrendered.”

  That brought a visible shiver. “There were others?”

  “Three more, who I am to speak with shortly. It seem
s you were not the only one dissatisfied with their former path. Do not worry, I will not tell them your name nor will you ever see them again. Your path forward will be a solitary one where you can leave the Chixzon behind.”

  “May I make a request?”

  “You may ask.”

  “You have many Protovic in your empire. They are Chixzon who were not allowed to become Chixzon again. If I prove myself worthy, will you change me back into their form?”

  Tyver raised an eyebrow. “You wish the downgrade?”

  “I wish to be free of the Chixzon oppression, and the controls they set into our minds. It took a great deal of effort to crack them previously, but much remains. I would give up my enhanced abilities to be a free-minded Protovic gladly.”

  “I will remember that request. I am not sure how easy such a transformation is to do, but since you are the same race in different forms, it should be possible…if you earn it.”

  “I will.”

  “I will speak to you once more before you leave the ship,” Tyver said as he spun about and left the chamber, but he didn’t go directly to the next one. Instead he went to review the ship’s navigational database and see what information there was on Shi go Zu Mata’ki. That place, nor that name, hadn’t come up in any of the Saiyan reports as yet, though at the moment Tyver’s task and theirs was the same.

  As soon as they got position data for other Chixzon locations he would be taking his personal warfleet out after them, on Kara’s orders. Nobody knew deep space better than Clan Ghostblade, and if the informant’s information proved true about the roaming ships, they would have to be hunted down quickly before word could leak out that their anonymity had been compromised.

  So as soon as the Saiyans dug out enough information, Tyver would be off hunting, but this secret facility that even the Chixzon could not access was intriguing, and perhaps more important. He wanted to go after it himself, but knew he would be occupied in the coming years with the Chixzon hunt, so after finding nothing to back it up in the ship’s database he transferred the information to a small courier ship and tasked it with immediately returning to the Star Force comm grid so the data could be sent to Kara-317, and from there she’d know how best to deal with it…