by Aer-ki Jyr
It was a Star Force courier, and he got the message packet delivery in the middle of a subsurface swim as he pushed his Yen’mer hard to move like a missile through the water far faster than his arms or legs could ever hope to propel him.
Then suddenly he stopped, with the friction of the water dragging him into a list as he reviewed all the data updates, but amongst them was a single message for him from Davis.
Paul, I need you to come home. Stuff to discuss. The Paradigm has changed.
That was all it said, and his first reflex was to say no. Intercepting this transit line could take months, perhaps years, depending on how many the Hadarak were sending through it and if they’d ever catch on to the fact that it was being poached.
But Captain Numann could handle the combat well enough without him, and if Davis needed him to return without saying why then it was sensitive enough information that he didn’t want to risk it in a message…despite the high security their comm system was designed for.
“Captain,” he said mentally from underwater as he accessed the ship’s comm system and synthesized his natural voice. “I’ve been recalled to Earth. How do you feel about staying here and playing with the Hadarak without me?”
“Not preferable, but you’ve trained us well. We can accomplish the mission assuming the Hadarak don’t throw anything new at us. Shall I have the courier pick you up?”
“Yes. Give me 12 hours though. I need some intense training before I’m stuck in that can for a few weeks.”
Numann chuckled. “Understood. Is it bad news?”
“I don’t know. Something they didn’t want to discuss other than face to face.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Rare.”
“Then that’s where you need to be, not here. Perhaps the Hadarak are finally showing their hand.”
“They’d have given a warning if it was something imminent, but you could be right. 12 hours. Then I’ll be ready. Make sure the courier doesn’t get scratched on approach.”
“I’ll make sure it isn’t,” the Captain promised.
Paul diverted to the surface, then flew out of the water and headed for another training chamber…one with drone opponents that would simulate battle conditions and require Paul to get close to, or perhaps use his Saiyan mode to endure to completion.
Either way, he was going to work up more than a sweat, and when he finally boarded the courier, he was going to get a few hours of restful sleep before his Saiyan metabolism started itching again.
2
January 4, 154928
Solar System (Home One Kingdom)
Earth
Paul rode into Earth orbit on a Kvash warship that had picked him up along the Grand Border and ferried him back to the Star Force capitol, and as he looked out the virtual windows in his quarters he saw that things had changed quite a bit since the last time he was here.
Everything was new…and by that he meant the architecture in orbit. The rest of the Solar System was a mix of new and old constructs, but Earth had been cleared of all that was old after the Vargemma attack and left barren for quite a long time. Now the orbital habitats, shipyards, commerce zones, etc were all rebuilt in the same fashion…that being smooth white hulls without a rough corner to them.
Those were harder to build, and didn’t offer as much internal volume as the standard box structure or perfect sphere, but Paul could see niche advantages here and there in the designs and he knew at a glance that Davis had laid all this out himself. Earth was no longer a collection of mismatched infrastructure in orbit. Everything was in sync and was interconnected by data, comm, and even some power relays that were stretching glowing filaments from point to point like a spider web.
Yet everything was built mobile. You couldn’t see the engines on the outside, but Paul could easily figure out the newer designs and what did what. Every station could move on its own, meaning nothing was pinned down and vulnerable to attack.
He could also see the traffic moving to and from Earth along only a few corridors. That was also new, and meant there was some sort of restrictions in place. Paul mentally tapped into the data network and found out where they were going…which was 9 select spaceports on the planet that were large enough to be cities in and of themselves. There was no traffic going directly to Atlantis, which was back in the Pacific Ocean where it belonged and not hiding underneath the diminutive polar ice cap.
Atmospheric regulation was obviously on, or that ice would have extended much further. And Greenland still looked green, which wouldn’t happen under normal conditions. In fact, most of the planet looked green, speckled with signs of civilization amongst it that would grow to monstrous size as his ship got closer to its parking orbit.
The defense fleet around Earth was massive, but sitting passively in various orbits waiting for a call to action, as were the numerous Sentinel defense stations that were now equipped with at least one Essence weapon in addition to their numerous conventional ones. Shield piers were everywhere, as were drone docks that could spam a warfleet in a matter of minutes when called for.
Earth wasn’t just back to its old self, it had gotten a serious upgrade while Paul was away. And while it wasn’t nearly as grand as Itaru and Wendigama had been, for it was a much smaller planetary system, its grandeur now surpassed it. Paul felt a little like the beginning of the old movie Jurassic Park when Dr. Grant first arrived to the island and saw how wondrous everything was.
The Archon was surprised at his reaction, for he knew a lot of this stuff was in the works. Why did he not know it was already here?
The answer to that belatedly hit him. Courier updates carried a massive amount of data, but they couldn’t match the constant pumping of updates across the comm grid. And even then there would be stuff that wouldn’t leave one system, planet, or city. To fully explore something you had to go there in person, and it felt odd that Paul would be exploring his home.
But that’s what was happening. The continents were different than they’d once been, reshaped by artificial means where logical to put mountain ranges along the coasts to cradle the cities further in for when the rare planetary event moved the bodies of water without asking permission. But more than that, the lakes and rivers were different, as if Davis had went around and reworked everything before letting the people come back.
Paul checked the count. Current population of Earth stood at 2 billion…which meant access was still restricted, otherwise civilians would have been moving here in the masses for the chance to live on Star Force’s capitol.
But that wasn’t the case, and the planet looked pleasantly natural and inhabited at the same time, which a stark contrast between the two that Paul knew was no accident. Nature was not your friend, usually, and it was the rival enemy of civilization. Nature would tear civilization down if not maintained, and Nature could never be permanently ended. So what one did was carve out little niches of Nature and build Civilization in it, then defend those boundaries against it to give the younglings being born a proper environment to develop within.
“Pockets of peace,” Paul said to no one in particular, but the scenery on Earth below certainly fit that description. Not that the trailblazer needed the peace, for he was trained for war at any time in any place, but after spending so long in the infested regions of the galaxy, it genuinely felt good to witness this for the first time as his warship finally settled into its parking orbit and he got an automated message from the bridge indicating he was cleared to depart.
Paul adjusted one of the windows until it was looking directly below them…and sure enough there was the floating city of Atlantis sitting out in the ocean by itself. Just a little hop to go and he’d be there…and from the looks of it the city was smaller than before. Back to the old measurements, actually, Paul guessed.
“What’s old is new, and what’s new is better,” he said, telekinetically grabbing a duffle with some personal items and slinging it over his back before leaving his quarters and
heading for the hangar bay. He could have just flown down himself, but there was no rush and he felt like taking the scenic route, so he got onboard a dropship and let the winged craft carry him out into space briefly, then down into the atmosphere where it circled around and landed on top of Atlantis, then lowered its boarding ramp amidst a familiar and mildly intense sunlight as the sky didn’t have a single cloud in it.
He walked out, feeling an odd nostalgia as his current situation mirrored his first time arriving here, and sure enough even the buildings on the surface of the city were identical to the first Atlantis…except they were not built of the same material.
“Damn, Davis. You really did indulge,” Paul said as he walked off the ramp and the dropship slowly took off and left him on the massive landing runway that had a few other dropships in sight, but was otherwise empty. He looked down at the deck below him and tapped it with his shoe, feeling the normal abrasion pads that would hold up almost infinitely against wear and tear of landing craft and tiny feet such as his.
He used his Pefbar and looked deeper, seeing another layer just below it that was pure Petricite. The same material on all the surface buildings and everything within sight.
Paul flew a little Essence down into it to check, and sure enough it disappeared on contact. Davis had built the new Atlantis with a cocoon of anti-Essence armor that must have taken so much fabrication that Paul couldn’t even fathom how he’d done it. The few Petricite factories that he knew of couldn’t have crafted all of this plus the other projects he knew of.
Yet one more question for Davis when he saw him. Speaking of which, no one was here to greet him, which was odd. His arrival had to have been announced, and he wasn’t getting even a ping on his armor, which was stored away in his duffle along with some other stuff rather than him wearing it, but he was still mentally linked to it in a limited fashion.
“Well, time to look around I guess,” he said, taking off towards the nearest entrance he could see at a brisk walk.
When he got inside the scenery changed, and the hustle and bustle that was normal for Atlantis of old returned, but without the civilians. Inside were walkways and promenades full of Star Force uniforms and about a third in casual clothes for those that were off duty. Most were Human, but there was the scattering of other races here that was typical for any high end duty post. Humans may have begun the empire, but talent rose on its own merits and now most of the Monarchs were non-Humans. Even the Archons were now far outnumbered by the Mavericks, but at the highest of the high ends Humans still dominated, for they were older than the rest and had been here…many of them…from the initial creation of Star Force.
And that was experience that was hard to come by, which was why Paul was recognizing many faces…and once they started recognizing him the crowds all but stopped, looked, and then continued on with their business until one person reached out a hand and stopping the Archon by the shoulder.
“At ease, Trainee,” the taller Human said with a stern face. “Seems you’ve lost your team. Or were you just sneaking out to try and get at the restricted sections again?”
“I didn’t expect you here,” Paul said as he looked up into Wilson’s face. The man wasn’t a Page, but he’d always been taller than Paul by a good margin. “Is there trouble?”
“For once, no, there’s not trouble. No more than usual, anyway,” he said, pushing Paul back a bit as he let go. “You’ve been out there a while, haven’t you?”
“Does it show?”
The Master Trainer nodded. “Rough, calloused…everything I’d expect from a warzone life. The others rotated back, but you never did. Why?”
“Tip of the spear doesn’t work very well in the back of the formation,” Paul quipped. “Are you visiting or stationed here now?”
“Bit of both. Jepiker is still mine to run, but I’ve got some projects going on here too so I bounce back and forth as needed.”
“Uh oh. I remember some of those ‘projects.’”
“No surprise challenges today. Sorry.”
“Are you my escort?”
“Nope. Just literally bumped into you. Where you headed?”
“Got a call from Davis to head home. Said the paradigm had changed. Do you know what’s up?”
“Negative on both counts. You going to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know why I was called.”
“Not what I mean,” Wilson said, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at him.
“I know it’s not telepathy. How do you do that?”
“Familiarity with the subject matter. Something’s eating at you.”
“Not a siphon. I checked. But something has been off for years. I can’t track it down.”
“Why not ask for help?”
“I didn’t expect to be coming back, and I thought I’d figure it out on my own given time.”
“Serious?”
“Curious is more the word. My proficiencies are not visibly affected. My mojo is just lacking something. Almost as if it was something I knew before but have now forgot.”
“Are you having cranial issues again?”
“Not in a long time,” Paul said, referencing the difficulties with jamming too many brain cells into a confined space. “Removing the Ensek did the trick.”
“Where you headed right now?”
“To see Davis, I guess. I was just told to come home. Not when or what to do when I got here.”
“Then let me steal you away for a few hours and run some tests.”
Paul shrugged. “I’m in no hurry. Lead on.”
Wilson did as much, walking ahead of Paul a couple of steps as he led him into one of the more secure sections of the city where the visible traffic reduced down to a trickle, and then a wall with no door in it suddenly melted into an archway as Wilson approached and the pair walked through, with it resealing behind them.
“Cozy,” Paul noted as he found himself in a work area with no paperwork or physical items, but gobs of holograms all over, coming from the tables, overhead hanging orbs, and even from the walls as if they were 3D pictures hung there.
“Still can’t crack the siphon mystery,” Wilson admitted. “But I’ve narrowed it down a bit. Davis has me working on other future stuff while my team on Jepiker handles running the younglings through the established programs. Scanning station,” he said, pointing to an almost invisible booth denoted only by a couple of inches of wall sticking out around a bronze circle set into the floor.
Paul put his duffle on one of the tables and walked over, spinning around so he faced out as he felt the machinery turn on and do something to him, for his skin prickled from an unknown source.
“What is this?”
“New type of Essence scanner, or rather Essence-enhanced. This will take a few minutes, so just hold still.”
“You’re telling a Saiyan to hold still?” Paul challenged.
“Baby Saiyan,” Wilson corrected. “You never took the other upgrades.”
“You know my reasons.”
“You’re the best naval combatant we have, Paul. But is that really where your aptitude lies?”
“Obviously.”
“Let me rephrase. Is that where your best fit is? Sitting still and directing fleets?”
“When the need arises, yes.”
“But it’s not where you are meant to be, is it?”
“It’s not something I want to give up,” Paul summarized.
“That’s what I thought. And you’re not the only one. Some of the others have been having issues as well. You guys were faced with an unlimited number of seemingly insurmountable challenges from the beginning, and you grew around that constant. Now that constant is crumbling as you have less and less to do that’s new. It’s a side-effect of victory, and you’re going to have to adapt to it.”
“By getting used to being bored?”
“By reaching for the unknown once again,” Wilson said a little too epically. “There’s going to come a day wh
en you and the other trailblazers are going to have the leave the empire behind or you’ll lose yourselves. The tip of the spear has to break the wind for everyone else, and by doing so you become one with the wind. You can’t function without it unless you change who you are, and that is what you do not want to give up.”
Paul stood there for a good three seconds silent before he finally responded.
“You’ve summed up the problem I’ve been fumbling around with so succinctly I feel like a dumbass.”
“The others don’t fully understand it yet, but I’m starting to understand, and I’m working on it. You’ve got a war to win, so just know that I’m working on it and I won’t let you down.”
“You never have. But what exactly are you working on?”
“A future for the trailblazers beyond babysitting what you’ve built. Ah, here.”
“What?”
“Your ‘mojo’ is what I’d call in well-groomed dust. Physically you’re the fittest you’ve ever been. Your psionic tissue is maxed, as is normal. But your stress markers are non-existent. That means all your workouts are improving you, but you’re not diving off the deep end and having to rework yourself to meet the challenge.”
“Other than doing something really stupid, I don’t see how I can.”
Wilson nodded. “Therein lies my challenge. I’ll find a way, but I’m fairly sure that way is not Essence-related. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion there is a disadvantage to drawing on it, but I haven’t been able to confirm it yet.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Just a curiosity that I don’t want to comment on until I have something more to work with.”
Paul frowned at him. “Come on. Throw me a bone.”
“I would if I had one, but this is just an instinct I’m following it. But your data combined with the others will be helpful. You guys rarely come back home, so I’m glad you’re here for research purposes.”
“You’re looking at something. What?”