by Aer-ki Jyr
“You’re saying they’re stagnant?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but as of 850,000 years ago they weren’t in a hurry. Militarily they don’t have a lot of challenges outside of the Hadarak, but they’re formidable enough that when they make a push they’ve got their hands full. As for their techs, each race does its own research and shares the results. That, really, is the reason they’re not advancing by leaps and bounds anymore. They don’t need to, and they don’t want to be doing the hard work while the others sit back and reap the rewards. If a need arises they’ll get very industrious, so even if we could theoretically match them technologically they’re sure to make a pushback there.”
“They’re so dominate they’re just coasting forward now?”
“Coasting…yeah, good word.”
“On that note, gonna need you to teach our techs some new words.”
Kara sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“You’re the only one with the full vocab,” Jason reminded her.
“I know, I know. It’s just boring. I want to be out fighting the lizards or Nestafar, not handholding a bunch of techs,” she said as they came to a sealed door. Kara touched it with her bare fingers and the stone-like material verified that she was Zen’zat, splitting apart to give them access to the restricted sections.
“Why was this door shut?” Morgan asked.
“I guess it’s not used much,” Jason said, glancing around and confirming that they hadn’t walked into some new area. “The techs come down from above.”
“Still, I thought we’d opened all the doors,” Morgan added, following them in.
“Me too,” Jason said, raising an eyebrow at Kara.
“Don’t look at me. It’s just a door,” she said, making a right turn shortly after passing through. “Here we are.”
“A closet?” Morgan asked, seeing the small room she was opening.
“What? No. Why do you say that?” she asked as the door split in half and revealed an empty room about 10 meters wide and ovoid with the door being on the longer axis.
Morgan waved a hand at the empty room.
“Seriously?” Kara asked with a look of disbelief, then she glanced at Jason. “Please tell me you know.”
“Know what?”
“There are hidden components,” a tech said from the back of the group of Archons, one that they’d grabbed in the cafeteria, and a few other curious ones had followed along. “Some are accessible by control panel, but some rooms don’t have them.”
“Some rooms are more important than others,” Kara said, closing her eyes for a moment…then the floor opened up and a host of machinery began to rise up a la transformers and assemble around a central pedestal. “Some of the doors and equipment function off of genetic identification through tactile contact…others, like this ‘closet,’” Kara emphasized, glancing at Morgan, “have a telepathic trigger. Call it a mental ‘on’ switch.”
“You knew this?” Morgan asked the tech.
“We knew the dinosaur chambers had components that responded to mental command, but we’d assumed a physical link or sensor was required. These chambers have no sensors or interface pads, so we assumed they were just for storage purposes or extra rooms to be configured at a later date.”
“The room doesn’t have a sensor,” Kara explained, “in so much as it scans your mind, but it does have a sensor right there,” she said, pointing at the center of the ceiling. “I have to use my Ikrid to link with it, because it’s little more than a switch.”
“How do you know where it is?” Jason asked.
“I can see it. It has a telepathic presence, just like all of your minds.”
“Kara, is this the device?” Tyr asked, taking a few steps forward and past her.
“This is a medical station where genetic alterations are made. It’s one of the more impressive pieces in the V’kit’no’sat collection, and if misused could cause all manner of trouble.”
“Like what?” Morgan asked.
“Well, if you’re wanting to live you’d better not alter the wrong bit of genetics, otherwise you’ll grow a third arm or your heart will shrink down to the size of a quarter. Bad stuff like that they didn’t really care about, because the idiot using the machine would just kill themselves. What they needed to make sure didn’t happen was one of the races physically advancing themselves beyond the others. Any upgrades had to be approved by the collective, otherwise you could customize your body like you do your armor and create all kinds of abilities.”
“Like the Hjar’at,” Morgan pointed out.
“Their Saroto’kanse’vam were sanctioned, but their medtech is so advanced they could literally create super-monsters if they wanted. Think Godzilla and you’ll get the idea on the small end. Problem is, that sort of tampering with the genetic code has unanticipated consequences, so any sanctioned upgrades are heavily tested before general implementation.”
“This machine,” she continued, “has only one setting, which is basic Zen’zat. We can’t use it to open up powers like Morgan has, that would have been cheating as far as the V’kit’no’sat are concerned, so all we can do is trigger the transformation and then dig out the powers through training.”
“With core access to the pyramid, shouldn’t we be able to override that?” Tyr asked.
“If you’re insane, sure,” Kara scoffed. “Even the V’kit’no’sat techs don’t fully understand genetics. There’s an element of the core interaction with them that can’t be predicted. It’s a symbiosis effect, and they have nothing that can touch the core, gratefully. You don’t want to go messing around with this stuff, trust me.”
“By core, you mean life force?” Jason asked for clarification.
“Yes.”
“What about bioweapons?” Morgan asked.
“They can make them, if desperate, but they prefer not to.”
“Can we make them?”
Kara glared at her. “What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked with a bit of venom.
“Easy youngling…I wasn’t suggesting anything grotesque, but if we could create something to interfere with their powers, or even render them unconscious it could be useful.”
“Possibly…but not with this machine. It’s set up for Ter’nat biology.”
“You look like you don’t think that would be a good idea,” Jason commented.
“They’re counterpunchers,” Kara reminded him. “If you want to fight that kind of war they’ll reciprocate. And the potential they have, considering they know our biology intimately, is downright scary.”
“Can we use the technology to develop immunities?” Tyr suggested.
“That’s something worth looking into,” Kara agreed, “but it’s way over our heads right now, and my knowledge doesn’t extend into tech areas very much.”
“So what can we use it for?” Jason asked.
“Tyr, step inside,” Kara prodded.
“Uh, what for?” he asked skittishly.
“Just a scan,” she promised.
“Don’t go making any changes,” he said as he walked onto the pedestal with the various arms of the equipment forming a loose cage around him.
Kara stepped up to the device and a slew of holographic control icons appeared before her that she began tapping on, working her way through the control menu. “This will let us see what’s going on in far more detail than I can.”
A moment later a holographic version of Tyr manifested beside her at about half height. She zoomed in to his brain and highlighted the portions that were beginning to develop psionic growths.
“You,” she said, pointing to the medtech, “get over here. Follow along as best you can. I’m not going to do this thousands of times, so you guys are going to have to learn.”
“Do what?” Tyr asked.
“Nothing yet,” she promised, then began sifting through additional scans until she finally got to what she wanted, though she had to rely on the machine’s own diagnostic equipment to
handle most of the work. “There.”
“There what?” Jason asked, standing behind her other shoulder.
“That’s the bit of genetics that has altered, along with several other pieces. The Zen’zat powers are there, lying dormant. If we can reconfigure the machine to only target those areas it’ll set them to defaults and trigger the growth of the new tissue like I did with you. This machine is also a regenerator, but on a level far beyond the other Kich’a’kat. It has nutrient stores…correction, it had nutrients stores so it wouldn’t have to cannibalize other parts of your body to grow tissue. We’ll have to replace those.”
“You’re saying we can turn on everyone’s powers by turning them into Zen’zat for a second time?” Morgan asked.
“Basically yes, but I wouldn’t do that. There’s a lot of other little genetic changes that occur over time, and if we use the default setting for the entire body we could lose some things we’ve gained or gain some things we’ve lost. Either way, it’s not something to go playing around with…and it’ll cost you your Jumat, because it’ll reset you to newb status.”
“No thanks,” Morgan whispered in a ‘over my rotting corpse’ tone.
“Which is why we need to target only specific sections of your genetic code, turning on what we want while leaving the rest alone. That will stop the developmental headaches you’ve been getting,” she said, glancing at Jason.
“But it’ll reset anyone who already has the abilities manifesting?”
“I can fix those personally, but there should be a way to reconfigure this machine to fix them the same way. I know how to use my regenerator because it’s a part of me, but it’ll take some time to learn how to use this bad boy.”
“Ok, so bottom line,” Tyr asked, still standing in the machine. “We can give everyone minimal skill levels in the 7 basic psionic powers, correct?”
“If you want to bring everyone down here, one by one, yes.”
“And we can fix those who are…having difficulties?”
“Once I, or we,” she said, glancing at the medtech, “figure out how to operate it properly, yes we can.”
“Not all of us,” Morgan said flatly.
“No,” Jason agreed, getting her point. “We’re keeping these powers for Archons only.”
“Really? Why?” one of the other techs asked from the back.
“Telekinesis would be advantageous for working with tiny parts,” Tyr pointed out. “The engineers could use that.”
“We might consider that later,” Morgan wavered, “but for now Archon only and…” she said, thinking out loud, “only rangers and high level acolytes have been developing them on their own, so I say we run them through the machine at acolyte level 1. The adepts have enough on their plate as it is to work on, we don’t need to throw this at them from the get go.”
Tyr nodded. “I like that. They get the upgrade when they become acolytes, and if an adept happens to break through on their own we can deal with that individually.”
“We’re going to have to rework the level requirements,” Jason said, realizing how much this was going to change their ranking structure, “and develop new challenges for these skills.”
“Not to mention reworking the existing ones,” Morgan added. “Some will be pathetically easy to beat with telekinesis.”
“Everything adept stays the same,” Tyr reminded them. “So the younglings won’t be affected, but we are going to have to retool everything else.”
“Looks like we’ve got some homework then,” Morgan said, crossing her arms and glancing at Kara. “How long before you can get me and the other trailblazers opened up to all 7 skills? We can’t design challenges unless we can test them.”
“No promises,” Kara said, glancing at the medtech, “but if I can do it in my head, then it’s just a matter of figuring out how to do the same on this machine. Give me a couple of days and I should have something.”
Morgan nodded, satisfied. “Tyr, Jason…let’s go.”
“Go where?” David asked.
“Secret stuff,” Jason said with a wink as he passed him by and wove his way through the others back to the door.
“What we’re best at,” Tyr said as he came by last of the three. “Trailblazing.”
“Yep,” David said after they’d gone, “that feels more like it.”
“Always second gen, huh?” Kara asked with a knowing look.
“I get the feeling that I’m about to lose my level 77 status,” he said with a frown, though at the moment he didn’t really care so long as the headaches didn’t come back.
“And me my ranger,” she said, one eye closing half way in a suspicious look. “Makes me think they’re doing it on purpose just because I busted up their party.”
“Actually, it puts us all even for once,” Riona commented. “Except for you, Kara. You’re ahead of everyone else now.”
“She has a point,” David said, his mood improving considerably. “A lot of the trailblazers haven’t even developed an ability yet. They may be stronger and faster than us, but as far as these powers go we’re dead even. I kind of like the idea of a fresh start, now that you mention it,” he said, nodding his head towards Riona.
“It won’t last,” Chad said knowingly. “They didn’t have much of a head start on us the first time.”
“We’ll see,” Kara said, sizing up their odds. There were thousands of acolytes, but only 100 trailblazers…most of whom were out fighting the war.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” David asked her.
“I say it’s on…us against them.”
“What…” Riona asked, wide-eyed. “You’re serious?”
“If Kara only trains with us…”
“Oh…I like where your head’s at, boy.”
Chad rubbed his hands together, building up a little friction-based heat. “They do like doing things on their own…and they claim to always be up for a challenge.”
“Kara, get to work,” David said, exchanging glances with Riona. “We’ll get our team up to speed.”
Archon-111 smiled. Having been only a couple of months shy of being a trailblazer herself, Riona had always resented the divide between the first 2 classes, which had been of the trailblazers’ making. Now it was time for a little payback…or at the very least, push them into another round of greatness, from which everyone else could pattern off of and learn from. Either way, the Archons as a whole would be better off for it.
“I’m in. Let’s get going. We can’t waste a minute against these guys.”
“Not a word from you,” David said, pointing to the techs as the rest of the Archons made their way out, leaving Kara alone with them.
“What was that all about?” one of them asked with a confused expression on his face.
“It’s an Archon thing,” Kara said dismissively. “Come on over here and start taking notes.”
5
November 14, 2409
Solar System
Earth
A mantis landed on the snowy rooftop of the foodstuff production facility in Antarctica and disembarked 12 Archons, including Paul, then just as quickly took off again and disappeared into the sky heading back to one of the nearby spaceports on the southern continent. The twelve men walked across to the nearby, hut-like entrance and descended down into the facility and made their way to the covert access shaft that led down into the V’kit’no’sat pyramid underneath.
As they walked down the catwalk Paul reached a hand out and stroked his fingers against the smooth green/black stone, finding it warm to the touch. It’d been a very long time since he’d visited this place, and once again the sheer magnitude of the construct reminded him of the terrible power their enemy wielded…a power that still dwarfed their own, despite how impressive Star Force was becoming and their growing role in the Alliance.
The two-front war they were fighting was showing mixed results. Taryn’s and Morgan’s fleets were continuing to harass the Nestafar as they pounded the Calavari. Ev
en with support from the other races in the Alliance, limited as that support was, the Calavari were losing the fight at a snail’s pace. Both sides were grinding it out, both in terms of ships and personnel being lost, the benefits of which were obvious to the lizards as they continued their part of the war with campaigns against the other races on multiple fronts.
The Calavari weren’t lost, not by a long shot, but the Nestafar had prepared well and were hitting the Calavari where they were weak while suffering through their air superiority with sheer numbers until they ground down their fighter core…essentially taking the Calavari’s best shot to the face and still standing. It was gutsy and, in Paul’s opinion, sloppy strategy, but it was proving effective none the less.
Star Force’s two fleets were breaking up the Nestafar onslaught, hitting their supply lines, backwater planets, and other areas that the Nestafar either had to abandon to them or devote more resources to defending…resources that would have to be pulled from elsewhere. Ship to ship, Taryn and Morgan’s forces were proving superior, but the vast scale of the warfront made whatever gains they earned seem inconsequential, given that the entire Nestafar and Calavari civilizations were going at it, with populations in the hundreds of trillions and militaries greater in size than the entire population of Earth and its colonies.
Such wars did not occur quickly, even if it had been a rout. The war against the lizards had been going on for centuries, and that was with them steadily winning. The dynamics of interstellar warfare dictated as much, given the distances between star systems and the inherent advantage of the defender when one was assaulting a homeworld or other major population center, making kings of those who could plan strategy years in advance…and those who could coordinate such massive fleets with little or no communications between the various pieces on the galactic chess board.
To that end Paul’s part of the war on the lizard front was proceeding well, with Star Force having eradicated the enemy presence on a total of 8 worlds. Despite several attempts to negotiate surrenders the lizards still battled to the last individual, and the Archons were willing to oblige them after a point.
