by Aer-ki Jyr
“Not this time,” he said in English. “I have betrayed my people, and I will not live if they or the Neofan catch me.”
“Why take the risk?”
“I do not wish to live as a slave.”
“What is your agreement with the Neofan?” Paul asked, catching back up from his overshoot.
“The Zak’de’ron become their apprentices, and if we rise in power as expected they leverage us against the rest of the Bond of Resistance to break the power equilibrium and tip it in their advantage. The Veloqueen and Denogi wish to survive the Hadarak, the Neofan want to conquer and supplant them, but they need the Bond of Resistance to do it. The promise of a position of power in exchange for becoming their effective slaves now is abhorrent. My race has lost its mind.”
“And Zeno’dor?” Kara asked as she strained to pour as much Essence into the portal as fast as she could to reach the amount required for the shortest trip possible to another Temple not owned by the Neofan. It scanned them, measuring their mass to determine how much was required, and Kara informed it that all three would move simultaneously.
“He is not who he once was. His wisdom is gone, and he remains in seclusion. No one sees him but a rare few, and they may be manipulating him, yet no one is questioning the evacuation or the terms. They want to leave this site of shame.”
“And you don’t?” Paul asked.
“I don’t like leaving a good fight behind. Though I can’t contribute much, I will assist you against the Hadarak as I am able.”
“Able how?” Kara pressed.
“I brought datafiles and tech seeds. And I am willing to give you eggs to put into your maturias. I hold nothing back. I have no place with those that have left. I am ‘all in,’ Archon Kara,” he said, citing a game reference she had previously taught him.
“Do you know how to take the Vorch’nas off?” she demanded, her voice straining as her body was almost convulsing from the Essence transfer and the disruptive effect it had on her.
“I know how to create a false signal to prevent the poisoning from taking place, but there was no method created to undo the cellular alteration. It was fashioned so it couldn’t be undone, even by us. If you wish to remove the Vorch’nas I can do so, but you will have to carry another device of your manufacture to continually transmit the disarming mechanism.”
“Well that’s worthless,” she all but spat.
“I looked,” he attested. “I cannot change what they did.”
“Kara, any time now,” Paul said, seeing the Neofan flying towards them had increased their speed greatly and were only a few minutes away.
“I’d tell you to help, but you don’t have more than a few drops to offer.”
“You have them if you need them.”
“Save your Magicite in case we have to fight.”
“Are we?” Paul asked.
“Almost there. Get him in position.”
“You need me over the interior?” the invisible dragon asked.
“Yes,” Paul said, pointing as he flew up next to him, sensing his body with his Pefbar that the cloaking field couldn’t affect. As he did so Paul contacted the Star Force embassy using the most secure encryption he had, explaining the danger and the helplessness of the situation if the Neofan decided to move against them.
“Pol, how long can you survive in vacuum?”
“Weeks in my armor.”
“Good. Paul, go with him. I’ll stay here and deal with the Neofan.”
“Yeah right.”
“If there’s going to be a fight, I’m the Jinx. Get him out of here.”
No, run, Azoro said as he suddenly reappeared in Paul’s mind. They are after the Zak’de’ron, not you. They do not wish to jeopardize your agreement, so they will not engage you. They will only attempt to kill him.
And if we stand in between?
They will go around or strike through you. If you escape now, the embassy will not be targeted, but they will try to track him down and kill him later. Their thoughts are clear on the matter, and they have received strict orders on how to proceed. The Neofan will not endanger or break either agreement, and will honor both through whatever means possible, even if they must wait to kill him years later.
“Wonderful,” Paul said, telepathically letting Kara in on the revelation.
“Fuck,” Kara said, still straining. “Paul, you’re going to have to finish the dialing. They’re trying to override and we’re going to have to do it multiple times. I can’t think right now.”
“You going to pass out?”
“No,” Kara said, suddenly slumping her shoulders as the interface with the portal Paul just connected to indicated the receiving amount of Essence was now met, but the coordinates were changing to another Temple too far away, causing the portal to signal it needed more Essence.
Paul changed it back to the intended one, having to go through the drill multiple times and very fast before it finally stuck. The Neofan might have been powerful in Essence, but with regards to mental interfacing with computer systems, they couldn’t match Paul’s connection speed when he was physically on location and they were transmitting from who knows what distance.
The interior of the ring that was covered in more desert suddenly disappeared as a shimmering pool covered it all. Paul extended a thin shield around himself, Kara, and the Zak’de’ron so the portal would register them as a single ship, then he pushed the others through, telekinetically locking onto them to produce a fixed object, then when they were halfway in the portal snapped the encapsulation around them and dragged them into the Essence realm.
Paul watched as the ghost-like structures of the Temple moved them around and into position on one of the main launching platforms visible only in the glowing light of Essence. He wondered if the Neofan had some sort of override or redirect, but the moment came when they were launched away at dizzying speeds and the glowing framework of the Temple shrank and disappeared behind them.
“Sit still and wait,” Paul told the Zak’de’ron over the comm now that there was no air around them, for Paul’s shields weren’t designed to hold the air in, just block incoming attacks or high speed objects. That way they wouldn’t draw much power over what was supposed to be an 18 hour and 22 minute journey. “We’re ballistic now.”
The cloaking field dropped, revealing gray-scaled armor covering the dragon’s body from tail tip to nostrils.
“Thank you,” he offered. “I did not know Kara was here, nor you, or I would have come to you directly.”
“We weren’t exactly hiding,” Kara said, blinking heavily inside her helmet as her body was quite loopy after having that insane amount of Essence pour through her so fast.
“I was lucky to get off my ship without the others detecting me. I knew the location of your embassy. I did not think of looking for anything else. How did you defeat my cloaking device?”
“Your body’s Essence is mildly reflective, even if you do not use it. I was counting how many were onboard your ships, then they all left and one remained behind.”
“Then the Neofan knew I was there the entire time,” he said with obvious frustration.
“Maybe, maybe not. You have to look, though they may have powers beyond me. You got lucky. And you owe us.”
“I am here to help and to learn. You have grown larger, Archon Paul.”
“Noticed that, did you? Secret stuff, so don’t ask. Why come to us?”
“Your lightside philosophy has become the dominant power in the galaxy…”
“And you guys live and breathe dominance.”
“Zak’de’ron do. Those that left…I do not know what they are now, but they are the true traitors. We held responsibility for this galaxy, then we abandon it when fortune is not with us. True rulers must weather the harsh times if they are worthy to rule during the good ones.”
“Is this going to be a long trip?” Paul asked Kara, referencing that he couldn’t go anywhere to get away from the conversation if he wanted.
“Very,” she confirmed. “He likes to talk a lot.”
“Then you talk and I shall listen,” Pol’ake suggested.
“You holding us together?” Kara asked Paul.
“Yeah. You need a nap?”
“I need a coma. Tap on my helmet if you need something. I’m shutting off the comm. You two discuss the ways of the Force and why the Sith suck. I did my instruction on the way to the Core.”
“Night,” Paul said, letting her skip out of the banter, but he wasn’t going to tell the Zak’de’ron to just shut up. If he had a chance to learn, then someone had to deconstruct his bad habits…plus, Paul wanted to discuss other matters. “Alright, Pol’ake. Tell me the story of the Zak’de’ron starting when you were hatched and everything that’s happened since. I’ll jump in whenever I spot a mistake made.”
“And explain how the lightside would have done better?”
“Exactly. Unless you have a better place to start.”
“I will start wherever you wish,” the dragon said as he began to lay out the basic structure of Zak’de’ron society and how hatchlings were integrated into it.
He’s not hiding anything, Azoro told Paul. He’s on the crux of a personal tragedy, and you are his one and only lifeline. He’s desperate for a path to legitimacy while the rest of his race abandon what they were and pledge fealty to the Neofan in an attempt to vicariously live off their power and prestige.
If he lies, let me know immediately.
Unlike you, I don’t sleep, and I can’t see anything unless you bring it up in conversation. So please, get him to explore as many subjects as possible. If there are correlations between them and your Furyan advancement, I’d like to explore them. But I suggest you record everything, for my memory is very good, but not perfect.
You find anything good?
Plenty, and not enough. I need you to press certain areas when I tell you.
Paul flicked on his armor’s comm log recorder and set in to hear dragon tails, and boy did he ever get some. Kara wasn’t joking earlier, for Pol’ake truly did love to talk…and talk…and talk…
8
January 23, 154965
Solar System (Home One Kingdom)
Earth
Davis was once again confined to his office most of his days. Aside from training he very rarely went anywhere else other than his quarters. So much was in motion that he didn’t feel the luxury of getting outside Atlantis into the planet’s air or down beneath the oceans for some change of scenery. Nor did he walk throughout Atlantis and utilize the recreational options there.
No, Davis was in full-on Director mode ever since his brief break with the trailblazers, but since they’d gone off to war he was left alone again with no more ass kickings to struggle through…and to be honest, he sort of missed it.
Lord Daegan had done a decent job in his stead, even finding a few areas to make improvements on, which had been a bit of a surprise. That quickly resolved into a facepalm moment as he copied one of the more mundane inventions the trailblazers used on a regular basis.
Their message board.
Normally, it was assumed a higher ranking Monarch would know everything and more than a lower ranking one. So when Davis came across a problem that none of the others could solve, he didn’t think about asking other lower ranking Monarchs for input. With Daegan’s chance to peruse through Davis’s own ‘wanted list’ of unsolved problems, he’d realized they weren’t all carbon copies of each other, and in fact were more varied than the trailblazers who were basically carbon copies of each other.
They’d been meant to be, and recruited as such, but they still used their message board to bounce ideas back and forth rather than assuming nobody else could figure out something they couldn’t.
And for the life of him, Davis didn’t understand how he’d missed this Monarch application for all these eons.
He’d recently corrected that, and created a short list of Lords, Grand Dukes, and a few promising Arch Dukes that had a decent enough handle over their territories that they could spend some time chasing other challenges. Davis had experimented in throwing some of his ‘wanted list’ at them, and over the course of the past 17 months he was pleasantly surprised that 8% of that list had been deleted with solutions that he had not considered.
Likewise, those on the list had also started sharing amongst each other problems rather than going straight up their chain of command with it. Davis usually stayed out of those discussions unless everyone was stumped…which was rare…and he was finding that they were coming up with ideas that he would not have. Partially because their ideas were inferior to his and he knew better ways to get certain things done, but every now and then a good idea would surface that he was happy to steal, and he continued to kick himself for not copying this aspect of the trailblazer’s playbook earlier.
He figured it was a side effect of him having built the Star Force Empire from scratch and always being at the tip of the Monarch spear with all of the members having been hand chosen by him because they understood his way of doing things…which wasn’t really his way, but the accumulated META after millennia of trial and error.
‘META’ was a term he’d picked up from the trailblazers, and it came from videogames referring to the ‘Most Effective Tactics Available’ or ‘Most Effective Tactics At the moment.’ No one really knew what the term had begun as, but the impetus was clear. You didn’t have a universal playbook to follow, so you had to learn as you went, and when you did and shared notes with others, you developed a consensus as to what was most effective, and Davis had thought he was the one producing any advancements in it on the Monarch front.
But the view from the top was different from the view from the side or from below or behind, and as the old saying went, truth was a cube that you could not view more than 3 sides of at any given time. And it seemed his fellow Monarchs, having different vantage points, were able to spot things he couldn’t unless he spun the cube around and lost vision on what he was currently working on.
And that’s why he couldn’t take time off, go on vacation, or browse random projects. The side of the cube he was locked in on was the warfront and supplying it. He couldn’t let that go to someone else so he could work other angles, and now he was realizing he didn’t have to. Others could figure out some things he couldn’t, and that was the first real sense of relief he had felt in far too long.
He didn’t have to hold up the Monarch tent anymore as the single pole. Star Force had become multi-poled, and he hadn’t realized how tall some of those other poles had reached until he started throwing out problems and seeing how they reacted to them…even when they couldn’t figure out most of the wanted list…but then neither could Davis…yet.
His list of Monarchs…which he now referred to as the ‘Round Table’…had recently been let in on the existence of the Furyan manifestation in the trailblazers and potentially more in the second gen, though they hadn’t ventured there yet. He explained what had happened, what they had planned in terms of reproduction, and basically told them to figure out applications and the best way to utilize the now theoretical Furyan Faction as a way to glue the Empire together further or any other potential benefit.
Davis got more clarification questions than suggestions at first, but then the discussions began and he could read all of it, for it was one giant open forum under high encryption. Only those who had the encryption could read it, and those codes were hand delivered by couriers rather than transmitted, because all data in Star Force was spread to all star systems and ships. Even a direct message from one person on a planet to another in a neighboring star system was copied and sent out everywhere.
That seemed ridiculously burdensome on data storage to many, but Davis knew there was a deeper wisdom in it. If a message was sent by courier only and was lost, nobody would know it was lost to send it again. Same way if a transmission got scrambled or blocked. Sometimes interstellar comms would not get through the seeming vacuum of s
pace because there was a lot of stuff floating around in between the stars that could soak up or deflect a signal. The major spacelanes had been more or less cleared, and that’s where most of the comm signals traveled, but a ship could intersect a piece of that signal, some passing rocks more, a bit of nebula, etc.
But if you sent it out everywhere, in all the primary spacelanes, with an identification stamp, it would work its way around the network and the missing transmissions would fill in from the backside assuming a system had more than a single comm link to another, and Davis made sure all systems had at least 7 routes of signal going out. That was standard procedure, and if 6 of those were blocked, the last one would be enough to get the message packet through, downloaded, and transmitted back out on the other 6 not knowing if they were blocked or not.
That way a few problems could not stop message propagation, but a large amount of blockages could still prevent it from reaching some areas…included targeted disruptions in times of war. Fortunately the Hadarak didn’t fight that way and hadn’t gotten past the Grand Border, but Davis had also been quietly creating secondary comm networks that no one knew of for redundancy sake, though most of those had been scaled back in resources due to the war sucking up most material.
Davis didn’t cancel the projects, or others, they just got slowed down a lot. Including adding Grid Points to the transit system. He needed more. A lot more. And the things were damn expensive to make. He still marveled at the Bond of Resistance’s ability to create even a single Temple, given how massive an undertaking that was, let alone the thousands they had in this galaxy and others, plus the support networks.
Their strength was still unknown, despite what they’d learned about the Neofan and from the Neofan, and Davis really wanted to start trying to rise to their level on a construction basis, but he couldn’t. Warships and drones were far more important now than Grid Points and other big infrastructure. But he knew better than to cancel the projects. Better to let them creep along over time considering there was no fixed end to this war. They could be stuck in a quagmire indefinitely like the Bond of Resistance was, and if he waited on these projects they would get nowhere. So he had them running in low resource mode, making slow but steady progress across the galaxy.
