Maty

by Aer-ki Jyr

  But the Gahana had made assuming control possible using merit gates rather than alphanumeric passcodes that could be eventually hacked by systematic attempts, even if the number of those attempts were limited during a given period of time.

  The merit gates assured that no primitive could access even the most basic systems given an eternity of trying, but the PanNari…even the Elloquim and their direct links…were not as advanced as the Gahana had been, so they were having to learn and grow in order to access more and more of the Maty, and the more Craniems they had working the problem in multiple places, the faster their collective knowledge would become.

  And that was also why the comm chains between all the Craniems had to be kept intact, so they could share what they learned immediately. And not too far behind where Kyra currently was there lay one of those limited wireless data lines…and these minions were not going to get to it today.

  Kyra stopped firing and started punching and kicking her way through, then leapt up on the sidewall and clung to it with the bottoms of her armored feet in order to get a shot at the nearest pot. The zerglings tried to jump on top of it to block her, but they weren’t quick enough and didn’t fully block her line of sight…and Kyra didn’t hold back, firing a shotgun-like barrage of all her weapons at once…with the pot being cleaved in half for a moment before the explosive decompression of its contents blanketed the zerglings all around it…who also shielded Kyra from most of the blast.

  They melted apart within seconds, dying to their own weapons, but a few tiny splatters got through and sucked 18% of her shield strength down in a flick of liquid smaller than raindrops. How it was so effective was an ongoing mystery for the Craniems, for the acid didn’t last long enough to be analyzed.

  Kyra scooped up one of the droplets in her right hand, lowering her shields over it and letting it burn into her armor and skin as she turned around and ran back towards the sentries, calling for help over her short range comm. The pain in her hand could be ignored, but even that data might be helpful so Kyra didn’t dial back her biological senses, and in the process of her running she involuntarily puked, stumbling into two zerglings who took advantage of her misstep and jumped onto her torso and wrapped their claws around her neck, sawing back and forth trying to get through to her head.

  The weight tipped her down, but with her good hand she shot one of them off while the other was already through her neck shields and working on her armor, filing it down like sandpaper as its spit mixed with the shards and formed a paste that actually helped accelerate the friction damage.

  Warnings flared, but her hand was giving her the most trouble, so Kyra bent over and grasped it against her abdomen and twisted her body in a sideways leap, moving her and the zergling across the hall and into the wall where she smacked it hard, but it didn’t let go, and three more jumped on her now that she wasn’t running evasively.

  Topaz beams burned through them, and the one clinging to her neck, barely having inches to spare from missing her throbbing body as she tried to shake them…then the pressure relented as they were all dead, and Kyra jumped into a run back towards the nearest sentry that had shot them off, diving under its floating torso for cover as more came and jumped on it in a wave of reinforcements that had a pot with them.

  Kyra scrambled to get away as two more sentries and a walking gogorum moved up to form a line and they took the next pot hit. Their shields went down immediately, then the acid began to eat through their armor but not enough to destroy it. All the minions around them melted, and the next wave to come through died as well, stepping on the acid on the floor, but eventually their corpses covered it and they jumped onto the damaged attack drones whose weapons were mostly incapacitated, but they held their ground and bought Kyra time as she ran and ran back through the other attack drones, keeping what was left of her hand tucked up against her abdomen as the pain made it hard to focus enough to keep from tripping.

  Everything she was experiencing, her biological senses to her technological ones, she was transmitting through the drones back to the line that linked the Craniems, so they could see what she had done when the moving drones came into alignment around various corners. It wasn’t instantaneous, for there were moving units all over, but her proximity to one of the fixed lines meant they were already getting her information long before she got there.

  A floating cargo unit met her first, escorted by four sentries, and Kyra was ordered to jump onto it. She did so clumsily, and had to drag her right leg on with the help of one of the sentries’ gun barrels, because her right hand and now arm were totally inoperable, yet stuck in one position. The acid had worked its way up her arm with her blood flow, and though it was now all consumed, the damage remained.

  Kyra was told to deactivate, and she gladly did so, cutting out the pain and all vision and senses, and simply becoming cargo that would be taken back to a secure area so her wounds could be further analyzed in an attempt to ascertain exactly what the acid was made of. In lieu of actually examining the material, the next best thing was to analyze that which it reacted with and try to infer backwards how those molecular alterations had occurred.

  Given that biological matter melted on contact, there wasn’t anything left to analyze in most cases. But Kyra’s exposure had been so small she now had burned out tissue along several tracts in her body, and the points where the intact tissue met those areas should hold some valuable information.

  It was a gamble, but she had seen the opportunity and taken it. Now it was up to the Craniems and their medical scanners, for Kyra’s internal systems were limited for the kind of in depth analysis needed…and the last thing they wanted right now was for Kyra to heal, so along with her shutdown order was a secondary order to deactivate her mechanical augments to her healing abilities.

  They needed her damaged body as it was, and Kyra was glad not to need to be awake during the examination process.

  9

  October 3, 154959

  System 9923004 (Hadarak-Occupied Territory)

  8th planet

  Kyra was awoken by an external cue, coming back to consciousness without pain and waking inside a PanNari facility. That much she could tell from the structure before her interlink woke up enough to pinpoint her location.

  She was no longer inside the Maty, but rather outside it and back inside Nevantha…and her arm and hand had been repaired, mechanically and organically.

  “The data you collected was valuable,” the Elloquim spoke to her as a hologram of his squid-like shape appeared beside the bed where she half laid, now propping her torso up with her arms as she downloaded information about her repairs.

  “Do we know what it is?”

  “The suicide of minion variant 328 is not only explosive biology, but also Essence collection. It charges the acid to exceed physical predictability. That was why we could not determine its cause previously.”

  “Do we have a countermeasure?”

  “Not in total, but we now know what materials and shield frequencies are more resistant to the basic structure. Our knowledge of Essence is limited, so we have requested Star Force analyze our findings. They have responded by demanding an in person team be allowed into the Maty in order to confront and capture one of the 328s.”

  “How are they going to get through the blockade?” Kyra asked, sitting up all the way and swinging her naked legs off the edge of the bed and swaying them back and forth experimentally. She had pose-induced stiffness, but it wasn’t too extreme.

  “They already have. Their team is waiting below.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Your revival. I am assigning you to be their guide.”

  Kyra hopped down, her legs wobbling a bit, but not as much as her breasts. She wore no clothing, which was typical onboard Nevantha, for she needed none. But going into combat required protection.

  “My armor?”

  A panel in the wall opened to reveal a slightly different variant from the suit she had worn before,
and Kyra raised an eyebrow in the direction of the hologram.

  “I made some minor modifications while your tissue regrew. It will have greater resistance to the acid and the ability to interface with the Star Force comms.”

  Kyra walked over to it, spun around, then stepped backward into the metallic suit as it opened for her and seemingly swallowed up her pale flesh inside, covering every square inch of her body, including her face, with no openings for breath or vision.

  “Ready,” she said, with the floor dropping out from under her as the compartment she was standing in was moved rapidly through Nevantha’s interior enroute to the tendril connecting him to one of the Maty’s entrances…

  5 months later…

  Paul-024 kicked forward as he twisted his hips, with Morgan-063 sliding under him and getting a punch in to his left hip…but his body jerked so fast his other hip rotated over on top of her and he shoved her to the ground with a Jumat blast before she could counter.

  Morgan bounced back up, covering herself with a bioshield, but Paul wasn’t there. Instead he was standing 3 meters away staring down at her with a cruel smile.

  “Stop it,” she said calmly. “I know that look.”

  “Is it the ‘I’m better than you’ or the ‘it’s overpowered’ look?” he scoffed.

  “Your horizontal movement is way faster than Yen’mer allows,” she said, referencing the flight psionic that got the majority of its power going up or down as it opposed or enhanced gravity. Sideways movements were always lesser, because you had to pull or push against a slice of the planet on the horizon and not the core, thus there was less mass and less gravity to work with. “You’re using it, aren’t you?”

  “Yen’mer? I always have.”

  “Paul…”

  He leaned forward into a combat stance. “Figure it out, tiny.”

  He didn’t let her get a reply in, darting forward and throwing several punches…all of which she dodged by inches…then he threw a body-generated Jumat blast into her at close range, attempting to knock her backwards, but Morgan was ready for it.

  Paul’s Jumat blast bounced backward, and not from the physical hit. It landed with nearly full strength on his own body, knocking him back instead of Morgan. He almost got his balance on his flailing feet, but he lost it and tipped over…then froze in partial fall and righted himself in the air, ending up in a low crouch on the ground as this time it was Morgan who held off and scoffed at him.

  “How?” he demanded.

  “Cav,” she said simply, citing the Tier 4 psionic that worked to reflect other psionics back on their user.

  “That doesn’t work on Jumat,” Paul said, standing up. “The energy matrix is too weak…unless you found a way to enhance it?”

  “Or maybe your attack was just so paltry it didn’t matter.”

  “Alright then,” Paul said, getting back into another combat stance. “I’ll just beat it out of you.”

  “Do try,” Morgan said, going on the offensive with a Jumat blast straight off from her cupped hands Goku style, then when Paul braced against it she darted forward, faking a chest high punch, then dipped down and kicked into Paul’s right leg.

  The impact hit, but didn’t do as much damage as she was used to given his larger body. Still it knocked his balance out from him and he had to roll to the right, otherwise her foot would have dragged his leg further away from where it was meant to be. Morgan expected that and launched herself upwards into his abdomen, wrapping her arms around his waist and pushing him over in a cartwheel as she flung/flew her body around his making half a circle, then when she got her feet back on the ground she lifted him and continued the twirl twice more before finally releasing him at an angle into the air.

  He didn’t go far, for suddenly both were caught in an Ubven field that stopped his momentum flat, then he dropped it before Morgan could use her own to cut through it and punched her in the face with his left hand as she dodged an attack from his right, knocking her back a step.

  “There,” she said, standing and not counterattacking. “How the hell did you move like that?”

  “Currents,” he said, launching at her again and this time using a Lachka grasp on her ankles to yank her feet out of her before she countered with her Yen’mer and flew up and away from him while washing her feet with Rentar to break his invisible grasp. As she did she used her Si’mosa and hurled a pair of fist sized solid Jumat ‘stones’ towards him, with one hitting him in the nose so hard it broke it.

  “Ow,” Paul said, breaking off his attack and cupping his two nostrils with his fingers as at least one of them started to bleed.

  “Sorry. Reflex,” she said honestly. “You’re too good to hold back on.”

  Paul concentrated for a moment and she heard a light ‘click’ as his nose snapped back into place, then a few seconds later he let go of his momentary healing surge and sniffed to ensure the blood flow had been stopped as well.

  “How did you reflect the Jumat?”

  “A little Essence alteration I developed a while ago,” she admitted.

  “And you didn’t feel like sharing?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Not until I got better at it.”

  “Seems to work fine now.”

  “What did you mean by currents?”

  “The Saiolum isn’t still. It’s like an atmosphere with currents and eddies everywhere. If I catch one at the right direction, my movement speed can be enhanced by it. If I catch an opposite one, my movement speed is diminished.”

  “It’s never constant?”

  “Afraid not. Kind of like rolling dice. You never know what you’re going to end up with until you try, though I am getting better at reading it right before I try to do something.”

  “But you still can’t move other things with it?”

  “Not unless I connect them to myself, and I don’t know how to do that yet.”

  “Yoda holding you back?”

  “I don’t have the prerequisites yet,” he said as the distant doorway to their sparring chamber opened and Jason walked in unannounced.

  “Who invited you?” Morgan asked.

  “Got something for Azoro,” he said, palming a holocube which he activated only once he got to the center of the ring where his slightly taller co-captain and the mini-me version of Morgan stood. Paul extended a battlemeld to both of them, and soon Morgan could sense Paul’s mind and his connection to Azoro, who was in fact here and monitoring, and when he spoke to Paul’s mind he could speak to them as well through the link.

  “Do you recognize this?” Jason said, producing a hologram of a symbol he had never seen before.

  I do not, Azoro said in Paul’s mind.

  “What about this?” Jason asked, switching to a diagram of the Maty.

  It is unfamiliar.

  “What about the name Gahana?”

  A legend we heard in passing when we occupied this galaxy. Gods of all knowledge, I believe they were called by several races. I remember because we were mistaken for them upon arrival.

  “You were there at the onset?” Paul asked.

  I said ‘we’. I was not part of this galaxy’s colonial team, but I saw reports from it. I remember the name because of the comparison.

  “Well, we have more than a name now. The Hadarak found this structure buried on one of their planets and have been using its high tech cloaking surveillance drones to monitor a portion of the Grand Border and organize their attacks more effectively. Nothing has gotten through, but the PanNari detected the mathematical anomaly and tracked it back to its source.”

  “Then sent that huge armada after it,” Paul said, connecting the two. “Why is it so valuable to them?”

  “Mak’to’ran went after them to find out. We just got word back from him that he’s made a pact with the PanNari for a knowledge share of the facility he has granted them possession of if we can mutually hold it. The Hadarak have been holding back on the Grand Border and playing us for fools. They’re going all in for
this complex, which is called ‘Maty.’ Mak’to’ran says he has never seen this level of combat, and estimates their combined forces can hold out no longer than two years. He is requesting a massive reinforcement to hold the location.”

  What is it? Azoro asked before Paul could.

  “A machine race built it as sort of an embassy to the galaxy long ago, then some cataclysm made this galaxy uninhabitable and the survivors had to leave. The technology in it is supposedly far superior to the PanNari’s, and our own. The fact that the Hadarak want it so bad is also concerning. For they weren’t able to access much of it, and the PanNari are having a hard time on their own despite their machine mind meld.”

  “I’m fairly good at that mind meld as well,” Paul reminded him.

  “That’s reason number two that you and me are going to take a field trip there along with a few of our friends.”

  “What’s a few?” Morgan asked.

  “I think we have to launch the invasion early to secure this system. Mak’to’ran is adamant about it, and Davis is looking over it now. Either way, you and me need to be there.”

  “Why you?” Morgan asked. “Yoda only speaks to him.”

  “Because when we fight together, nobody outmatches us,” Jason said pithily, raising a finger at her before she could say the cliché reply. “Not even the twins.”

  “Not since you went Furyan,” Morgan amended.

  “Not even before that,” Paul added. They may have broken Paul and Jason’s record…a few of their records…but they’d never eclipsed them in real time, for as fast as Karen and Travis developed, Paul and Jason always kept at least a few steps ahead of them.