by Aer-ki Jyr
But that fog was lifting and Paul was feeling more and more like his old self, and so were the others. This vacation had been spur of the moment, but it was turning out to be a very good thing. Even superhumans needed some time off every millennia or so.
“Hello, Indiana,” he whispered, looking out at the sea of trees, some of which were extremely tall. “You really need to shave.”
4
Jason was laying on the forest floor, his head cushioned on the crudely rolled up sleeping sleeve as an impromptu pillow as he stared at the campfire just past his feet. The sun had gone down a couple hours ago and their tent was set up to the far left between two thick trees in the small clearing they’d had to make, for there was scrub brush everywhere even a little sunlight got through the trees.
A little bioplasma here and there had solved that problem, giving the six of them a comfortable campsite about 15 meters away from the shallow river. Past Jason’s feet and the campfire was Oni leaning against a tree trunk, then behind her was the water and the opening in the canopy it provided…which was just enough to see a bit of stars through.
“I didn’t realize doing nothing could be so tiring,” Logan commented as the six of them were all lounging in various fashions around the campfire, which was completely unnecessary given the mild temperatures, heated tent, and ample artificial lighting they’d brought with them, but the trailblazers were all old enough to remember when campfires had been commonly used, and it felt appropriate to make one now…especially since they could light one using nothing but the palm of their hands.
“I don’t know about you guys, but that’s the longest I’ve ever flown,” Rafa commented. “Beat my old record by 3 hours.”
“Same here,” Paul added. “Never had enough time to go that far before. My body is tingling all over. Feels good…”
“Slackers,” Morgan said with a smirk. “I’ve gone 18 hours straight before.”
The other five looked at her curiously, then Oni shook her head. “Should have expected that.”
“Ginsi went 17,” Morgan explained. “Couldn’t let her keep the record.”
“Can you still take her?” Jason asked.
“Barely. She’s stronger and faster, but I know her fighting style well enough to predict most of it. I’ve also got two inches and 12 pounds on her.”
“I’d like to see her go up against Kara,” Paul commented. “Any bets?”
“Ginsi would take her,” Morgan said firmly. “She’s the better tactician.”
“You taught her well,” Logan noted.
“I didn’t teach her everything,” Morgan declared with a humorless smile. “She’s not better than us. She’s just focused more of her training in one area. Makes her a good commando, but a poor Archon.”
“Maybe we should do something about that,” Rafa floated.
“I think we should,” Oni said pensively. “We’re all multi-taskers by nature. Not all of the others are, and forcing them into fixed roles won’t work either. I think we need a branch function.”
“To what end?” Morgan asked. “Even with all the losses we’ve taken, Star Force is getting huge. Ginsi wants to be the best hand to hand fighter, she wants to be the best of the best, but you can only do that as an Archon. Arc Knights and Arc Commandos aren’t suited for her. They’re too one dimensional, yet she still wants to focus on her skills. She doesn’t really fit anywhere.”
“Same with the Twins,” Jason added. “Archons are meant to be soloists as a base, but those two need each other to really shine. I think we need more Archon options when you get to the higher ranks. The bottom ones are solid and what bind us all together, but the upper levels aren’t working the best for everyone.”
“Work in progress,” Oni noted. “We’ve got some big decisions to make for ourselves too.”
“I’m staying as is,” Paul said, drawing some odd looks. Advancement was the lifeblood of the Archons and stagnation was essentially treason. “I’m not going to lose any psionics to extend others. We’re going to hit limits no matter what we do unless we keep increasing our size, and I like mine the way it is. The V’kit’no’sat will always be stronger. There’s no way we can get our cranium size up to Era’tran levels, so this is one area that I’m not going to delve into the way Aaron has.”
“Our empire aside,” Morgan said, being more candid with her brothers and sisters than she’d had with anyone for centuries, “what do we do when we hit growth limits? My entire life has been based on improving, and not being able to scares the shit out of me. I feel like we’re only a few hundred years away from losing our path, and I’m not going to vicariously live through the younger generations retreading the same path we’ve already walked. Where do we go from here?”
“I haven’t had time to think about it,” Logan said with a frown. “The empire has always taken up so much time, but I see your point. Something tells me we will be able to keep advancing, someway, somehow, because that’s the way the universe designed us. I don’t truly believe we’re fixed to plateaus. Yet cranium size is there staring us in the face. I’m mixed on this, but I think we’ll eventually find a way forward.”
“But what about the others?” Oni asked. “Most will never reach our level. We need to give them options.”
“Draw the line at Mage,” Paul said. “Don’t touch anything before that.”
“Then let them specialize after that?” Jason wondered. “Special ranks if they want to go a different way?”
“Not ranks, positions,” Rafa corrected. “Special roles based off preferences more than skills. The larger our ranks grow, the less multi-tasking we need to be. Well, others I mean. We’ll always need a core of pure Archons.”
“Ginsi is a Brawler then,” Morgan coined.
“Scouts too,” Jason added. “Some want to go beyond the empire and explore more than train. If they can get to Mage, then they’ve learned enough. We can keep the forever training to ourselves.”
“To what end?” Oni asked. “Now that I’ve got a chance to think about it, and we don’t have V’kit’no’sat breathing down our necks, what do we do when we finish? Building an empire is something we’re perfect for, but what then? Monarchs can maintain, but we go where the need is. I feel we’re not built for peace. We’re meant to go for the next challenge. So what do we do if we eventually win? Beyond the normal problems that others can usually solve if they’re in the right place at the right time.”
“That’s a good question, Oni,” Paul said ominously. “I think that’s what’s bothering Morgan too. Once we win something, we can’t just stop. We have to move on to the next challenge. We can’t be adults and defer to the next generation. We’re forever kids climbing the ladder, and the end of the ladder is…unacceptable.”
“Don’t worry,” Logan assured them. “The universe is too large to ever fully know. We’ll never run out of challenges.”
“I think we need to seek them out together,” Rafa cautioned. “I think there’s going to come a point where we’re going to get lost in this monster we’ve created and be lured into a doldrum.”
“So we need to start taking on apprentices again?” Paul asked.
“Yeah we do, but I’m talking long term. Eventually I think we need to group up, back like when we were in basic training. We haven’t had that luxury recently, but down the road I think we’ll have to…or we’ll be hammering on plateaus we can’t break through alone.”
“You guys worry too much,” Logan dismissed. “Some people wonder about the purpose of life. How we began, why we’re here. Me, I just accept the fact that I am here and I’m supposed to be a badass. Being me is the objective, and right now I’ve got plenty to do.”
“To do for what purpose?” Morgan asked. “We instinctively react to injustice, but beyond that, what’s the point? I feel we’re missing something.”
“We’re defaultly designed to advance,” Paul said. “We know we’re supposed to. It’s our driving purpose. The idea of that ceasing t
o exist by hitting the peak improvement is problematic. But I’m with Logan. The answers are there, we just have to find them. I mean look at me. I used to live here, and compared to now I knew nothing then. There were a lot of dead ends I faced, thinking there was nothing more beyond. Me being here, now, is proof that life is full of mirages. The fact that we’re even concerned about this is proof that there is something more. If not, we wouldn’t care.”
“You don’t feel it then?” Morgan asked. “This threat in our personal futures. Aaron faced it already and found a way to postpone it, but I feel something worse is waiting for us. The others will probably never reach it, but we will.”
“You seem rattled,” Logan noted. “That’s not like you.”
“I suppose I am,” she admitted. “My entire life has been a quest. I don’t ever want it to end. If it did, my life would be pointless.”
“Is this the price of victory?” Rafa wondered. “The V’kit’no’sat have been our driving enemy for our entire lives since joining Star Force. Now the war is over. We’ve still got two worse enemies out there, at the minimum, but I feel it too. The constant, never-ending threat is now gone…and I’m not liking it either.”
“We’re trailblazers,” Jason summed up. “We push through the wilderness and leave a trail behind for others to follow. But it’s not about the others for us. It’s a critical function we provide, but that’s not really why we do it, do we? Why do we do it?”
“The adventure,” Paul admitted. “The challenge. We can’t stand still. We have to constantly be moving.”
“At first we learned from others…long, long ago. Since then we’ve been figuring things out for ourselves. If we suddenly came into contact with another race, a superior race. A better race. One that offered to teach us. What would we do?”
“Accept,” Oni answered. “I’d be there in a heartbeat. And now that you ask, that surprises me.”
“Why?” Paul asked.
“I thought Star Force was my home. But if what Logan said actually happened, I’d leave it eagerly. Why would I want to do that?”
“We want to be the best,” Morgan said pithily. “We always have.”
“It’s a call to duty,” Jason said as an epiphany hit him. “We don’t really want to rule, we want to serve in a war that we can’t fully understand. It’s there, we can feel it, but it wasn’t the V’kit’no’sat. I’d say it was good versus evil but that falls hollow. It’s something else at the periphery that I can’t quite latch onto. Without that war I’d feel like Morgan does. Pointless. Useless. Like a civie.”
Paul chuckled at that, knowing what he meant. “You get the feeling that we’re not supposed to be the old guys instructing others. We’re supposed to be the younglings learning as fast as we can.”
“And we were left clues,” Oni added. “Genetic memories driving us onward towards the horizon. Always seeking what is beyond.”
“Exactly,” Morgan agreed, feeling like a block in her mind had just dissipated. “Why didn’t I see that?”
“You just proved my point,” Rafa emphasized. “We work well alone, but we figure things out much quicker bouncing ideas off each other. For the bigger challenges, we have to group up. We’re not there yet. We still got a lot of house cleaning and empire building to do, but when the time comes, we have to face this together.”
“Is this why all the mythical wise ones eventually go into self-imposed exile?” Oni wondered.
“As we are right now?” Logan echoed.
“When we’re together we’re peers, not masters moving at the pace of the apprentices,” Paul pointed out. “We’re being held back by more than just the war.”
“So we need to…” Oni said, interrupted by a telepathic ping from the tent.
Morgan moaned, then all eyes focused on her.
“You didn’t…” Oni said accusingly.
“I told them only in an emergency,” she said, lifting a tiny comm out of her pack and floating it through the air, out of the tent, and into her hand.
“Traitor,” Paul mumbled as she put it to her ear.
“Yes?” Morgan said, then fell silent as she listened. Paul could almost make out some of the words, but the din of the river and chirping frogs was too much for even his advanced hearing to overcome.
“Stand by,” Morgan said, looking at The Admiral. “A V’kit’no’sat ship has arrived. They want to talk.”
“About?” Jason asked.
“The lizards are hammering systems near us and the V’kit’no’sat are not sending reinforcements. They’re leaving systems to die, and a Wass’mat one wants to discuss membership in Star Force.”
Paul rolled his eyes, leaning his head back then covering his face with his hands. “Fine, you win.”
“She usually does,” Logan pointed out. “Good call, Morgan.”
“Send a dropship to pick us up,” she said into the headset, then turned it off and threw it back towards the tent…where it curved and landed neatly back inside her pack. “Sorry, Paul. We couldn’t all be completely out of communication.”
“Looks like our future will have to wait. The present calls,” Jason said as he sat up.
“Next time we leave Logan behind to mind the store,” Paul quipped.
“Agreed,” Oni said humorously as she jumped to her feet.
“Why me?” he protested.
“You’re the badass,” Morgan reminded him as she stood.
“I’ll pack up,” Jason offered, looking at Paul. “If it’s lizards, you probably want to call Thrawn.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, telekinetically reaching into Morgan’s pack and pulling her comm back out and flying it to him. “We’ll table this discussion for later. Looks like we’ve got some more bad guys to kill first.”
5
March 17, 4917
Pooovalla System (H’kar territory, Rim Region)
Ratchniva
Thrawn was sleeping onboard his flagship when a chime woke him. He pulled his head up from the curl that Paladin preferred with their tails wrapping around to touch near their nose. Their bodies were so lithe, the position that would have seen Humans breaking their spine was actually comfortable for them, and Star Force had fashioned unique bed pods for them that had a warming feature built into it that replaced traditional blankets.
The Supreme Viceroy looked to the small notification device beside his bed, then jolted upright when he saw the red icon that represented the trailblazers. That meant this wasn’t a notification from the bridge, or Arch Duke Tevvaline, whose world he was currently orbiting as his fleet continued to make repairs while guarding the ‘safe’ border that Thrawn did not quite consider so.
He half stood up and crawled to the device, pressing the activation button and seeing a text message appear in hologram.
Combat with lizards imminent. Rescue mission to the Ohson System. Will arrive before you do. I need you to hold and defend the system afterwards. Get here fast.
The message was marked as coming from Paul-024, though it didn’t come through normal channels. That was odd, but he didn’t doubt the content. The system name, however, he did not recognize.
Thrawn fully pulled himself out of bed and over to a proper terminal, then looked up the information from the ship’s database…which prompted a perplexed look on his face. The Ohson System was a V’kit’no’sat one, and not on the list of worlds to be ceded to Star Force as part of the Armistice. It was slightly coreward of that, in the Tamprani Region, meaning it was close to Star Force territory but still about 8 weeks away from his current position in H’kar territory.
Earth was closer, which was where Paul was last noted as being, and that meant Thrawn was already 2 weeks behind in travel time. It would be shorter than that if he took the Grid Points, but he couldn’t with his fleet. There weren’t enough mag drive transports available on short notice, so they were going to have to make their way across the Devastation Zone just to get to Earth, and from there further coreward.
Act
ually, he could save some time by bypassing Earth, and he hoped a subsequent message would follow explaining more, but he couldn’t wait too long and the relay grid in the Devastation Zone was virtually non-existent. A limited line to Earth had been reestablished using mobile relays until permanent ones could be rebuilt, but that meant everywhere else where there would have originally been a system with a relay that he could tap into enroute was now dead to the grid.
So if a message didn’t come in from Paul soon, he was going to have to go straight to Ohson and find out in person what was going on…and every minute he wasted could have implications.
Thrawn activated the comm and reached the bridge, issuing orders before he got there to save a little more time…
“Stay,” the H’kar tech said, tapping the table for emphasis as he set his cards down and looked to his right at another H’kar. There were five of them at the table along with a Paladin technomage, their version of a tech but with extra abilities that the H’kar had not been granted. Namely the psionics Pefbar, Lachka, and Rensiek.
The H’kar were still sore about that, as were many other techs in other races, but HABDX-28894 had explained to them that if any Paladin wished to leave for civilian life they’d have to give up the psionics. Or rather a block would be installed rather than the tissue being removed, so if they chose to reenter service they would be able to reclaim their abilities without having to start from scratch again. It was said that Paladin civilians were rarer than rare, but there were a few exceptions.
Those exceptions left Paladin worlds, for there was no civilian presence there. They made their way into Axius or wherever else would take them, and it was hard to ever get to talk to a Paladin in service, with this technomage being an exception. He was older than the others, having survived over 900 years, and in that time he’d loosened up enough to spend his off duty hours exploring and interacting with other races…and in this case, finding card games to play with other techs.