by Aer-ki Jyr
A thud shot out from directly in front of him, aimed straight at his nose, but Paul caught it a bit earlier than the last, slowing it to a stop before it could hit him and then dumping it off onto the ground as he felt like he was squeezing the final bits of energy out of his Lachka reserves. This was as far as he’d ever gotten on this test, falling short every previous time as he ran out of energy, but he’d spent the past month focusing heavily on his telekinetic endurance and had thought he was finally ready to knock this one off…but he wasn’t sure how much he had left, if any, so when the next thud came in at the back of his head he cringed, throwing whatever power he had left at it.
The small sphere slowed on a longer deceleration track, ending just two inches shy of the back of his head. Surprised he’d had enough to stop it, he quickly released his hold and let it roll off in order to preserve as much power as possible. He was 1 away now, so he had to concentrate and scrape together whatever he had…and throw it at the thud as soon as possible, because he didn’t think his power level could go quite as high again.
He pushed his Pefbar ability out, concentrating it as much as he could and hoping to eke out a little bit more forewarning. Paul had plenty of energy left there so he didn’t skimp, though he did have to keep himself focused, otherwise his mental fatigue would leave him a little foggy, and that would cost him inches on his reaction speed…which he needed to maximize, given that he was now underpowered.
Paul felt the last one coming from his left, out of a launcher slightly ahead of him. Sensing that, his Lachka energy field concentrated in that area and gripped the little bit of mass flashing out, putting a small, curved wall in front of it as he didn’t even try to suspend it in midair by gripping it. He bled off momentum but his power wasn’t there, as expected, so he went for broke and just pushed as hard as he could.
On instinct he tipped his head back as the thud came in at him…then it stopped an inch from his nose and dropped into his lap, with Paul coughing out a breath of air that he’d been holding tightly. It hadn’t hit him, but he wasn’t sure if it’d passed the halfway point, which also would have disqualified the stop. Regardless, he’d improved considerably, but at the moment he didn’t care. He wanted to know if he’d made it or not.
Paul stood up and turned around…then smiled widely as the stop counter read 100.
“Ow…” Paul said as another thud shot out and hit him in the leg. The sensors registered the impact and stopped the scenario, logging Paul’s 100 mark and flashing a large holographic symbol into the air above the control board, indicating that he’d completed the Lachka test requirement.
A completion tone accompanied the hologram, which lingered there for three seconds before transforming into another symbol with another tone. This one indicated the ballistic Lachka subset had been completed, due to the fact that this test had been the last in the group that Paul needed.
The trailblazer sighed and waited, knowing it wouldn’t be the last one and taking in the moment even as his head began to ache from the previous effort, now that he was no longer pushing back against the fatigue.
A third tone accompanied another symbol, indicating the completion of the Lachka defensive skillset, followed by a fourth indicating completion of all Lachka skills.
But that wasn’t the end of it, because with that last test he also completed the requirements for all of the psionics, with a symbol twice the size of the others flashing into view in front of him.
Three seconds after that the big one came, which he’d been working towards for the past two and a half years, training round the clock and excluding all other duties while most of the other trailblazers were out on the war fronts. While they were training on their own in addition to their current missions, Paul had elected to remain in Antarctica and see how far he could push his training…both for his own sake, and on behalf of the other trailblazers, who’d lost their higher ranks with the psionic reset.
The second geners, by virtue of there being so many of them, had people on the war fronts and in the pyramid, training round the clock to develop their psionic skills and keep even, if not ahead of the trailblazers. With Jason already having taken over the lead on the lizard front and them seeing no significant pushback as of yet, Paul had elected to stay in the pyramid and remind the second geners why the trailblazers had the reputation they did and take it to them on an even playing field…or in Paul’s case a disadvantageous one, given that he’d gotten his upgrade later than the others.
So when the level up symbol appeared, indicating that Paul had completed all of the prerequisites in every measured skillset, psionic and otherwise, he felt quite satisfied, putting yet another level up on the others and continuing his breakneck advancement, given that his physical skills had already reached prerequisite levels years ago, allowing him to focus the bulk of his training on psionics and catch up on his levels faster than the second geners.
The huge level up symbol in front of him, which was larger than his body, lingered for a full 10 seconds before disappearing…then another tone sounded, and the half the room above the control pedestal was filled with a gigantic green symbol, indicating that he’d just made the transition from acolyte to ranger, with the level upgrade having gone from acolyte 99 to ranger 1.
“Green again,” Paul said, glancing down at the silver stripe on his uniform and mentally making a note to change out all of his clothes by the end of the day. He looked up at the glowing symbol and let it sink in, knowing that he’d literally done the impossible. 99 level upgrades in less than 3 years. That was something not even Morgan had achieved.
It was a bit of a cheat, given that he was retreading ground already covered, but his psionic skills were now above and beyond all the rest, save for a few isolated skills by individuals pressing them as far as they could while largely ignored the rest. Some of those specialists still held an advantage on him, but he’d caught many of them already, surging ahead of them in skill and power despite the fact he was training for all 6 areas evenly.
Physical skills aside, Paul’s psionic rating was now ranger level, which was 7 levels ahead of the next best Archon…that he knew of. With the other trailblazers spread out across this corner of the galaxy, their scores were updated with considerable delay, especially those fighting on the Nestafar front, where Morgan was still on her second deployment. As of last check she hadn’t made ranger again, so it was possible that he had even surpassed her…though that wasn’t something he was going to make any bets on.
Still, he was curious, because even with her Vorch’nas Kara hadn’t made ranger yet either, as of last check. She was out on the lizard front working special ops assignments and finally getting some of the field work she’d desperately wanted…all of which diminished the amount of training time available to her. Paul hadn’t been fighting any lizards on Namek, but when he was there he had been dealing with a lot of administrative work that took hours away from his training, and this training stint in the pyramid had been something he’d badly needed.
What he and the other trailblazers were doing, both on the fronts and in the prep work back home, was vital…but they needed heavy training blocks if they were really going to step up their advancement, and Paul hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing until he’d gotten down here with the other Archons, second geners as they were, and started training with/against them, as well as devoting 24 hours a day, every day, to pushing his training into unknown territory.
Whether Paul was the only ranger now or not, he’d regained the rank, if not the level, he’d had before, cementing the trailblazers’ dominance and leadership…as well as schooling the other Archons as how to really train.
Paul waited out the even longer duration of the hologram until it finally shut off and left his updated statistics behind in much smaller form. That brief moment of reflection was all the celebrating the trailblazers ever did, knowing that taking any sort of break would just be wasting time. To that end Paul shut off the console and left t
he training chamber, heading off to Balboa Lane for some agility runs while his Lachka reserves slowly regenerated.
Even if he had beat Morgan back to ranger, he knew it wouldn’t last for long, and he intended to goose whatever lead he might have on her as far as he could.
Three months later…
Paul pulled himself out of the pool, coughing out a bit of water that had worked its way up his nose during his laps. He’d been swimming on his back with symmetrical arms so he could breathe constantly and not splash too much water in his face, a form he’d come to call ‘butterfly backstroke’ that got made fun of by most of the better swimmers, but as he’d learned, he was an air hog and his body performed much better when he had a constant supply of air, so whenever he was doing distance swimming on the surface he used this style…but never the less he always managed to get at least a few drops of water down his airways.
He pulled in a few mouth breaths and blew out of his nose, clearing the water as he always did and walking over to the locker room where he changed out of his jammer-style swimming suit and into a ranger training uniform which he wore with considerable pride around the pyramid, especially around the second gen swimming specialists.
“Paul,” a voice said as soon as he left the locker room and stepped out into the main hall.
The trailblazer frowned. “Director?” he asked, seeing Davis standing off to the side in a Red/Gold/White Duke’s uniform.
“I didn’t want to interrupt your training,” Davis said, leaning against the wall and doing a good job of blending in with the Archons milling about, fit as he was. “But there’s something we need to discuss.”
“Hungry?”
“In private, if possible?”
“Do we need a terminal?” Paul asked, wondering what this was about.
“No.”
“Alright,” the Archon said, pointing to his left. Davis followed him a few steps down the hallway and into a side door. Paul turned to the right down a short interior hallway to a stairwell and headed up two levels, leading to an observation deck overlooking the four Olympic-sized pools below.
Paul leaned against one of the windows after taking a glance down at the scattering of Archons swimming laps. “What’s up?”
“What are we going to do with the psionics?” Davis said, mimicking Paul’s pose and leaning against the window opposite him.
Paul sighed. “You mean with non-Archons?”
“The Zen’zat are more than just warriors, they’re techs and analysts too.”
“They don’t need them just for kicks,” Paul said, looking Davis in the eyes. “What do they need?”
“The ability to diagnosis by touch would be useful for medtechs,” he pointed out.
“True, but I don’t know how far we can narrow it down. Ikrid has more sub-skills than any of the other 7.”
“What’s your biggest concern?” Davis asked.
“Breeding,” Paul said without hesitation.
Davis blinked. “I guess I’ve gone more Archon than I thought, because that thought hadn’t even occurred to me.”
“Not only do we have only one machine to make alterations with, not counting Kara, I don’t want the general public getting access to powers that even Archon adepts don’t have. We’re having to earn ours, and for good reason. We’re not having children, so there’s no issue there, but we can’t assume the same for all Star Force personnel. Even if they work for us for 100 years they may have a change of mind and go civilian…then what happens if their kids develop psionics?”
“It could kill them,” Davis said first off.
“Yes, but that’s not my point,” Paul said, raising an eyebrow and wondering where the Director’s head was at. “They’d be getting access to powers they hadn’t earned.”
“I read more into your tone than I’m thinking. Why is that a serious concern?”
“Why don’t we sell weapons?” Paul countered.
“Psionics are that much of a threat?”
Paul sighed. “I guess if you haven’t used them you can’t understand. Give me your hand.”
Davis frowned but did as instructed and held out his right hand. Paul took it in a handshake…then the next thing the Director knew he was waking up, staring at the ceiling.
“What…”
“Your head’s a little groggy,” Paul explained, leaning over him. “It’ll shake off in a moment.”
Davis blinked several times, then finally sat up and looked around. “Explain.”
“Ikrid,” Paul stated simply. “It’s far more powerful than communication. Zen’zat are shielded against telepathic interface, but not tactile. Give me access to your body, skin to skin, and I can hack into your mind through your nervous system.”
“I knew that,” Davis said, still sitting on the ground and shaking his head to try and clear it. He felt like he’d just woken up from a long nap and couldn’t get his brain to fully function. “What exactly did you do to me?”
“I rendered you unconscious with a single touch,” Paul said, and there was no mistaking the severity in his voice. “Me and some of the others have been practicing on each other in the hopes that we could develop an immunity to it, and so far we’ve learned to resist it when our minds are focused, but catch us off guard and we’re still vulnerable. All we need is a moment of contact, and the more skilled we get at it, the briefer the contact necessary. It took me about 4 seconds to fully knock you out.”
“That wasn’t in your updates,” Davis mildly complained.
“A lot isn’t,” Paul admitted, helping him to his feet. “We’re keeping some of these things to ourselves until we get a handle on them, and when I say ‘to ourselves’ I mean myself and a handful of others in the pyramid. Not even the rest of the trailblazers know, not for security reasons, but because I don’t want to give them information that may or may not turn out to be true. We’re learning to do a lot of cool things…but in the wrong hands those cool things get rather scary. Not something you want to trust to some random kid.”
“They’ve already got the genetics,” Davis said, mentally working the problem. “How sure are we that they’ll stay dormant?”
“We’re not sure why they went dormant in the first place, but best guess is that it was a function of time. I don’t see the general populace developing them on their own, though there may be isolated cases popping up that we need to be on the lookout for. But speaking from personal experience, I’ve done just about as much training as any of the others and I didn’t have so much as a psionic blip before I got upgraded. I may have been headed there, maybe not, but if it is linked to our training, then there’s zero chance of the general public accessing the repressed genetics through the same route.”
Davis nodded. “And Morgan?”
Paul cringed. “Traumatic events may serve as a breakthrough, but combat is traumatic enough and the V’kit’no’sat didn’t have people skipping over to the third tier powers. None of us have any reliable theories as to what happened with her…aside from her being typical Morgan.”
“Assume Ikrid is out then,” Davis said, floating options. “What about Lachka for some of our high level techs?”
“There’s still the reproduction issue…and Lachka is worthless without Pefbar. Plus, I’m not even sure if we can activate the powers individually. The process was set up as all or nothing.”
“Kara was able to make some alterations, I read.”
“That was to keep the machine from deconstructing the tissue some of us had already grown…and I’m not sure, but the 7 might have additional levels of interconnectivity that I’m not aware of. Going piecemeal could cause unforeseen problems.”
“Bottom line, is there any scenario you’re comfortable with outside of the Archons?”
“Other than you, no.”
Davis smiled. “I appreciate your vote of confidence, but I certainly haven’t earned them where adepts haven’t.”
“Check that,” Paul corrected himself. “Throw Wilso
n in there too.”
“I’ve already spoken to him about it. He seems to think as you do. I just want to know if there’s any reasonable advantage we can get out of them with non-Archon personnel, and you’re saying there’s none?”
“There are probably some advantages, but they’re not worth the risks. We keep ambrosia in-house, and psionics should be the same.”
“More than Archons use ambrosia,” Davis pointed out.
“But they can’t take it with them when they leave…and you haven’t trusted anyone else with its manufacture.”
“Not counting Canderous,” Davis said, tapping his lip with his finger as he thought. “I have a nagging feeling that this is something we’re not going to be able to contain within the Archon ranks forever, and I’d like a plan set up before it breaks out on its own.”
“Breaks out?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Davis admitted. “I’ve just got a bad feeling about this.”
“So do I,” Paul agreed. “Which is why we need to keep this Archon-only…at least until we’ve got more experience with it. We’re still in the discovery stages.”
“I guess we’re both on the same page, just working it from different angles.”
“This is changing the Archons more than you know,” Paul told him. “Let us get a handle on it first, then we can sit down and analyze where else it might be of use.”
“Agreed,” Davis said, glancing down at the swimmers through the window. “Though I wish we had the ability to turn it off. Right now we have no safety net if someone else develops the ability…or an Archon goes rogue.”
“If the second case occurs we’ll deal with it,” Paul promised, “but that’s another reason to restrict it to acolytes and above. The few quitters we’ve had didn’t go very far past basic training.”
