by Aer-ki Jyr
The other trailblazer took off his shield vest and tossed it outside the boundary as well, then walked toward his peer cautiously, hands set in front of him and ready to repulse an attack.
“Any useful applications?”
“Not really. It’s sort of my backup,” Rio said before stepping forward and throwing a punch that began a series of blows and counter blows as the two Archons sparred for a few minutes until Riley got a handhold on Rio and flipped him out of the small ring, but still well inside the shield boundaries. They were dormant at the moment anyway, activating only if needed, but Rio wasn’t going to use his bioplasma again without giving Riley a heads up…and right now they both needed a good workout to loosen up, for Rio had just gotten back from a field assignment below Gamma Region hunting down some clever pirates that had been poaching non-Star Force shipping traffic moving to and from Voku territory.
The trailblazer got to his feet and gave his friend a silent nod as he walked back towards him.
“Burn yourself yet?” Riley asked as he backstepped a bit, drifting to his left.
“No, but I’ve had to make myself stop worrying about it.”
“Come close?”
“Woke up once to a smoking bed. That transition from dream state restrictions to waking impulses can get a bit blurry.”
“Good for toasting marshmallows?”
“I hate burnt marshmallows. What a waste,” he said, diving back at Riley and opening up another exchange of blows. Neither Archon was swinging hard enough to do damage, making it more of a fast-paced chess game where one was trying to get leverage or an opportunity to disrupt their other. This time Rio won out, managing to knock Riley’s arms a bit wider than he’d hoped to swing them and ramming his shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him back a few steps as Rio held his ground.
“That’s better,” Riley scoffed. “Thought you’d gotten a little weak with all the field work and plasma tuning.”
“Not all of us can camp out here and train nonstop,” Rio said as he took a step back and began to circle around where Riley stood. “Some of us have to do what the second gen can’t.”
Riley smiled. “True dat.”
“You sound like Paul.”
“Hey now,” Riley objected with a frown. “No low blows.”
“You’re practically turning Saber blue,” Rio pressed, knowing that was a sore spot with him. Clan Olympus was an impressive Clan in its own right, but when compared against the equally impressive other 99 Clans they didn’t fare so well, having taken a rounded approach to their various disciplines that left them bottom of the barrel more often than not. Riley had tried to counter that by boosting his mech division above the rest of his little empire, but even though it was the second weakest division in Paul’s arsenal Clan Olympus couldn’t best them in a single challenge.
Not even one.
And it had begun to be something of a legend amongst the trailblazers, noting the statistical improbability of such a thing when the highest ranking members of both Clans were off fighting the lizards and leaving the challenges to the junior members. To make it worse, Riley had poured even more resources and effort into breaking the Saber streak over them with no luck whatsoever. Every time Saber went up against Olympus in a mech challenge somehow Saber would always beat them, even when it looked to be Olympus’s day.
“Now you’re going to get it, buddy,” Riley said, pointing a warning finger at him just as the door to the sealed chamber opened and both Archons put a pause on the beatdown about to come as Aaron walked in.
“What’s up?” Rio asked, knowing that while second gen might interrupt the trailblazers for not so good reasons Aaron never would, meaning this was either something bad or really good.
The newly arrived ViLord looked at Riley. “We just got word from the Preserve. There was an attack against the Uriti by the Revcor.”
Riley frowned heavily. “What?”
“They attacked the Uriti,” Aaron clarified, knowing how stupid that sounded. “They attacked some of our ships that tried to enforce the perimeter and sent the rest of their fleet straight into the herd…and were subsequently wiped out. They focused on Nami and she took some light damage.”
“What the hell?” Rio said, exchanging glances with Riley. “Who are the Revcor?”
“They have an empire out beyond the Preema,” Riley said as he thought hard. “They’re amongst the very large group of people who don’t like us controlling the Uriti, but why attack them and not us? There’s no reason to attack the Uriti unless you’re trying to commit suicide.”
“Davis wants to talk to you as soon as possible,” Aaron added warily.
“If there’s blowback from this it might already have went down,” Riley said with a snarl. “I knew I shouldn’t have left.”
“What are you worried about?” Rio asked, shrugging. “The Uriti didn’t die, obviously, and everyone just got an idea of how powerful they really are. I’m assuming they didn’t go rogue?” he asked, looking at Aaron. “Please tell me they didn’t go rogue.”
“The Uriti haven’t left and are still responding to orders.”
Rio blew out a relieved breath. “See, nothing to worry about.”
“There’s plenty to worry about,” Riley said, walking past Aaron towards the door.
“Such as?”
“With people that stupid you never know what they’ll do next,” he said with disgust as he left.
“Did we lose anyone?” Rio asked Aaron.
“No, just some drones and a chunk out of a warship.”
“Do you really think someone was just being stupid and miscalculated the danger?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been keeping tabs on the Preserve but I don’t fully understand the dynamics of the politics going on there.”
“Same here.”
“But if Davis is worried, then so am I.”
“Worried or in a hurry?”
“Probably both. The signal lag for something like this has to be driving him crazy. He needs to be in both places at once.”
“Aren’t there still Dukes there?”
“Out of their league by the looks of it.”
“Did they attack a control ship?”
“No,” Aaron said, his voice grim. “And that’s what worries me the most.”
Riley stood in Davis’s office, having gone straight there from the advanced training group’s exclusive wing of Atlantis, and watched the holographic replay of events in the Preserve with an eye on the simultaneous data notations that had been added by analysts after the fact and scrolling down the side of the virtual display.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, pointing a finger at the damage statistics for Nami. “This was no kamikaze run. It was a weapons test.”
“Meaning?” Davis asked with an even sterner look on his face.
“Nami barely got scratched, but it should have been a bigger scratch. I’ve run through the Chixzon data on the two dead Uriti enough times to be able to guess at damage statistics and these are off. We never got a standardized weapon profile on the Revcor, but I know this energy signature. Mixed in with the rest of their weaponsfire is a neulon beam, and it did almost no damage at all.”
“An ineffective weapons test?”
Riley nodded. “The Ancients tried the same thing a long time ago, which is why I remember it. I’m surprised Nefron didn’t spot it yet. Why are there no notes from him?”
“He wasn’t in the system at the time. He’s doing his work wandering around to stay out of sight and told me to route all immediate inquiries to the wranglers because he might be out of regular communications reception.”
“What is he up to?”
“I don’t know for certain. He’s got several projects he’s working on and he’s keeping them close to the vest until he has results, which he forwards on to me. Regardless, he’s probably found out about this by now and his analysis will be forthcoming. But since I’ve got you here, start speculating further.”
“A small sacrifice,” Davis noted, bringing up the files he had on the Revcor, limited as they were and mostly obtained from the Preema, “for a civilization of their size. One that could be repeated multiple times.”
“We’re not going to allow them back into our territory again, so it’ll be harder for them to make another run. Do you want us to hit them back?”
Davis shook his head. “Not worth the effort right now. If we have any future relations with them I’ll make sure they pay for this, but as it is they’re too far away to devote resources to. See to it that they get what’s coming to them if they poke their nose back around here.”
“Consider that done.”
“Odd…” Davis said, trailing off.
“Which part?”
“The part about a weapons test needing to be observed. All the ships were destroyed in the attack, and I’m betting that wasn’t an accident.”
“Meaning they had other ships nearby watching? We haven’t attributed any stealth tech to them yet.”
“Why bother when you have others who can watch and report for you?” Davis said, his voice growing cold. “And why worry about reprisals if you can get a distant empire to attack for you.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “A hired hit?”
“Possibly…and with a side benefit if they irked the Uriti enough to stop obeying us.”
“And let them smash us up?”
“They are the biggest weapons around, and they have no knowledge of our depths of control over them aside from what we tell them. And from the Uriti’s point of view, don’t all our ships look the same?”
“No, they don’t. Not the control ships anyway.”
“But do the observers know that?”
“If they can’t possess the Uriti then no one will?”
“This neulon beam. How was it supposed to do damage?”
“The Chixzon notes didn’t specify other than the fact that it didn’t work. What the Ancients were thinking they didn’t know or didn’t feel it was important enough to include in Nefron’s memories.”
“What if it’s not a damaging weapon?”
Riley considered that. “Something that affects them mentally?”
“Like a stun. The Ancients eventually won the war by neutralizing rather than killing the Uriti, and if someone is following in their footsteps…”
Riley shook his head. “Not their footsteps, otherwise they’d know this didn’t work, but they might be traveling parallel paths. If it was an attempt at a neutralizer it completely failed. Nami’s vitals didn’t alter in any visible way, and Kacie was linked in with them the entire time pulling and recording data.”
“Whatever they were trying, they were trying something,” Davis insisted. “And they might try again.”
“Unless they come up with something that’s actually effective we might as well let them.”
“I think we’re being encouraged to believe this was a heroic and foolhardy attempt to kill a Uriti that went unbelievably wrong…all of which is meant to cover for the real reason they attacked. If it is meant for data collection, I don’t think they’ll use the same tactic a second time.”
“They’ll try to get close to the Uriti another way,” Riley said, biting his lip. “Stealth tech, maybe a fast single ship running the blockade. An ambush set up on the circuit ahead of their arriving. Hell, maybe even an intercept in interstellar space. If you’re bold enough there are lots of things to try. I just don’t see an end game here.”
“Because you’re got Chixzon knowledge they don’t. If they’re not taking us at our word…”
“…they’re experimenting, which means they’ll deduce everything off of confirmed data. That’s a hell of a high price to pay, not to mention ticking us off in the process.”
“Which is why it’s even more possible that the Revcor were hired out by someone else.”
“Or they might think they’re too far away from us to worry about a reprisal, but I think your theory is more likely. How do you think the others are going to react to this?”
“Subdued. They’ve been able to witness a far more convincing weapons test than we ever provided them and our control over the Uriti has been confirmed to the point where they’re not going to go on a rampage if someone pokes them. With that in mind I think they’re going to be more wary of us.”
“So no need for me to go back with nothing to do?”
Davis shook his head. “Waiting for another attack that may not come is pointless. Our fleet couldn’t stop this one from getting through, and even if you were there I doubt that would have changed. Even with forewarning, could you have blockaded all those ships?”
“Best I could do is try to intercept them before they got within range. It’d be tricky, but possible.”
“And without knowing they were coming?”
“Unless they got sloppy or I got lucky, the answer is no.”
“Then we proceed as usual with the exception that the Revcor are banned from Star Force territory.”
“I don’t like sitting and waiting, but I agree. There are no other leads to follow yet.”
“I’ll inform the Preserve to treat this as inconsequential. That’ll send a message to the observers that…” Davis said as a ping stopped him midsentence. Another priority message had come in from the same source, prompting a look of worry on both men as Davis opened it. A second message so soon could only mean trouble.
A hologram of Kacie-2512 appeared from the waist up with her arms crossed over her chest in an annoyed look with the special gauntlet that she wore just visible sticking out from under the sleeve of her uniform.
“Alright, you’re not going to believe this, but I’m going to have to amend my prior report concerning the Uriti. There has been a deviation in their behavior, specifically in Bahamut. The rest are nominal and Nami’s wounds are already beginning to heal over rapidly using internal reserves. I can see why the Hadarak are so damn hard to kill. The rate of tissue regeneration is insane.”
“Anyway, that’s not the point. I’ve sent a message to Nefron to get his ass over here. He’s out taking samples or something elsewhere in the Preserve. But I know Riley is going to want to come back too, plus I figured you wanted to know as soon as possible.”
“Spit it out already,” Riley grumbled.
“When I was checking the status of Nami again and monitoring her healing rate live I was linked into all of them and got a response from Bahamut. It was telepathic only, but with a clarity that I find quite damn alarming. The thing can practically speak our language without actually using any words.”
“Oh, and that isn’t the most surprising thing,” Kacie continued, laying on a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Bahamut asked about the ships we lost and if there was anything he could do to help…and no, this is not a joke and I am not making this up. Bahamut can talk to us just fine if he damn well pleases, but apparently we haven’t been interesting enough until now. I told him thanks for asking but there wasn’t anything that he could do to help and I don’t know if that pissed him off or just made us uninteresting again, for when I tried to press the conversation further he went back to ignoring me.”
“So will the Uriti experts please get back here pronto. The babysitter is in a little over her head.”
4
April 3, 3329
Krachnika System (occupation zone)
Michra
Thrawn stood by as the growth pod was opened and the new Li’vorkrachnika took its first violent breaths. One of the standard variants attempting to restrain it was knocked two meters back as three more stepped in to provide more muscle, eventually calming the new mastermind until it relaxed enough to realize who and what it was, then it began ordering the underlings off it with a flurry of gestures as it coughe
d out gel from its airways. They stepped back but stayed close, in obvious defiance of its orders, as Thrawn walked forward asserting his dominance as the minions spread apart for him.
“Welcome brother. Do you know who I am?”
“You are not a templar,” it spoke for the first time in its life, but thanks to the genetic memory and time spent in the growth pod the words flowed well enough.
“No, I am not. There are no templar here.”
“Why are there two of us on the same planet?”
“Things have changed greatly, and I did not want to alter your genetic memory too far. Try to think. Who am I?”
The new mastermind looked at him curiously, then a twitch of recognition occurred as a memory clicked.
“You are the source of my template.”
“Good,” Thrawn mewed. “Very good.”
“Why am I here?” it reiterated.
“Because I require assistance. Our enemy is too great a foe for me to combat alone,” he said, forcing it to remember rather than give a name.
“The templar…no,” it said, pressing a damp hand against its head. “You’re speaking of the empire at the galactic core. But what of the templar? My memories are conflicted.”
“As are mine. You must use your wisdom to discern the truth. He did not want it forced upon you.”
“Who did not want it forced?”
Thrawn half turned as a figured walked out of the shadows behind him. The new mastermind flinched on reflex, then his more recent memories kicked in.
“You are Paul.”
“Yes I am,” the Human said, walking through the standard variants as they too split apart to make way.
“You are enemy…yet master?”
“Former enemy,” Thrawn corrected. “It will take time for you to sort through all of your memories, just as it did me long ago. You are here because it is time for us to grow larger than I can efficiently manage on my own.”