Star Force: Captains Mint (Star Force Universe Book 70)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “I am having trouble shutting it off,” she admitted. “Can you help me learn to better control it?”

  “Nuv’ernor is a natural upgrade that cannot be precipitated by another. Similar prerequisites seem to be required for the phenomenon to occur, but no strict correlation between action and effect has been determined. However, notes from those few that have achieved it indicate that the siphon effect responds to need as first priority, making it difficult to terminate oneself via overdraw.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “Individuals have achieved Nuv’ernor during battle and not, making prediction of such an ability impossible to determine. Notes indicate that second priority is lack of use. The Core mechanism that draws in the Essence from the realm beyond requires periodic use, and if not consciously triggered will open on its own. Once Nuv’ernor is achieved, lack of Essence use is impossible.”

  “So I ended up a Saiyan after all,” Kara said, slapping her left leg with her fist.

  “Demonstrate this ‘Saiyan’ ability.”

  “No,” Kara said, waving the Responder off. “I was talking to myself. How can I keep the Nuv’ernor from activating on its own? I’m having to focus my senses very finely to make the siphon close, and if I get distracted it opens on its own.”

  “Further use will satisfy it for a time. You have not drawn enough to exhaust the need.”

  Kara frowned. “I’ve used a lot, and it hasn’t started to behave itself at all.”

  “Typically activation of Yin’san will provide sufficient exhaustion.”

  “I don’t know what that ability is, which means I probably do not have it.”

  “No recorded occurrence of Nuv’ernor has been without a prior breakthrough into Yin’san.”

  Kara raised her hands in futility. “Guess I’m the first then. What do I do, because I’ve tried the exhaustion thing to the point where I start to get lightheaded?”

  “Use the Essence before it creates an oversurge.”

  “I have. I still get to the point of passing out before too long. I’m not used to using anywhere near this much. You said before this was an ability of the Core?”

  “Yes. All Essence abilities are Core generated.”

  “How do you know that? Can you track a Core?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Via Essence abilities you will have to demonstrate before I can explain further.”

  “Never mind, I don’t have them. Is there some way I can practice controlling Nuv’ernor?”

  “Essence donations.”

  “I’m doing that right now into one of these,” Kara said, holding up her rings.

  “Demonstrate the highest flow rate you can achieve with Nuv’ernor.”

  Kara blinked. “Ok, but it’s pretty intense on its own.”

  “It is not. It is minimal.”

  “Really? How about this,” she said, focusing on the doing the exact opposite thing she’d done before. She kicked herself into combat mode and used the flow itself to identify her nipple that she otherwise couldn’t see, then she tried to squeeze it.

  It didn’t work, and after a few minutes she gave up and tried to calm herself back down so she could at least partially restrict the flow.

  “I can’t. That’s wide open as far as I can determine.”

  “Then it will most likely be insufficient to satiate the Nuv’ernor until you can modulate the flow upwards.”

  “Great. So I’m stuck like this unless you have any nifty training ideas about how to teach me to modulate it?”

  “It is a basic function that cannot be trained for. All others have been able to modulate upwards at the onset. Please demonstrate the most difficult Essence ability you possess.”

  Kara turned around and Force-choked the pylon, crunching it in few inches but no further. She added Essence to it from her siphon, but the effect didn’t strengthen. That was as much pressure as she could apply using the Essence-only attack.

  “That’s it, unless you want me to upgrade my other abilities using Essence.”

  “You are a novice, both in skill and power level. However you achieved Nuv’ernor, it is irregular.”

  “Have others achieved high ranking abilities prior to expected progression?”

  “Occasionally irregular progression occurs, but never with Nuv’ernor.”

  “So I’m the wonder kid who can’t shut off the spigot of awesomeness,” she said, sitting down on the floor and bringing her knees up to her chin to rest it upon. “So what do I do now?”

  “Continued use until you achieve the ability to increase the flow rate, or continued use until you reach satiation level.”

  “What happens if I overload my Essence level too far?”

  “It will spill out back into the Essence realm.”

  “Why does it feel like it damages me?”

  “It does not. It disrupts your control. Your body is unharmed.”

  “What about my connection to my body?”

  “Obscured, but not endangered. Only lack of Essence flirts with death.”

  “Well there’s that at least,” she said, starting to cry a little under the strain now that it looked like she wasn’t going to get any help here. She was going to have to suffer through this, and even as her ring sucked up the excess Essence it was burning her inside a little.

  The Responder didn’t notice or didn’t care, simply waiting for the next question as Kara sat there in silence dripping a few tears on the floor as her ring reached maximum capacity and she had to switch over to the backup one.

  10

  September 2, 128854

  Happhetima Nebula (Zavrex Kingdom)

  Gamma Tricumbda Temple

  Kara sat on a rocky outcropping that gave her a view just above the treetops, posed cross-legged and motionless as the breeze blew her blood red hair back and forth as if she didn’t notice, but she did. She noticed everything that happened to her and within her. Kara had spent the past 2 years in isolation in the Temple as she conversed with everyone across the galaxy that could possibly help her.

  Her ship would receive the messages and relay them for her, but Kara didn’t want anyone to come to her. Only by keeping her senses heightened and her defenses down could she maintain the poise necessary to keep her siphon closed, and nothing that had occurred over the past 2 years had helped, despite her regular training, physical and Essence. The pain had continued and accumulated, leaving her burnt out with no relief in sight.

  It was a subtle thing, and mild compared to the rigors of training, but when she was not in combat mode and she tried to relax she couldn’t. Not fully. Even now when the siphon was not flowing her body was still reeling from the past times. It was always too much, too fast, and she wasn’t adapting to it as far as she could tell…but then again Kara couldn’t know for sure, because the days all blurred together, and not just because of the constant sunlight. The past 2 years had felt like a millennia, but she had no choice but to endure it and keep trying to do as the Responder had suggested and learn to open the siphon wider, but neither she nor anyone in the Empire knew how, including the Varkemma, for none of them had attained this ability or knew anyone else who did.

  So Kara alternated between training and sitting in the wilds trying to discover a way out of this perpetual predicament. Wilson was working on the problem, as were the Elcee, but the Responders would not talk to them because they did not possess the ability, and she’d pried as many answers out of them as they would give, but nothing useful had been revealed.

  Nuv’ernor was now a curse word to Kara, despite the obvious breakthrough it was for the Empire. She was filling up so many rings that the Elcee had arranged for a small drone to fly out and drop off empty ones while picking up the full ones every 18 days. It was the one contact Kara had with the empire in her self-imposed exile, and it also brought with it occasional supplies so she didn’t have to ask the Caretakers to sustain her.

  Kara wanted to be alone. Needed to b
e alone. And for the past 2 years she had been, but not today, for a soft sound brought her out of her introspection. One that was foreign to this forest, and no more than a soft step on a fallen twig.

  Her Pefbar kicked on before she could override it, and good thing too, because there was actually someone there and not just another false alarm like so many before.

  Kara jumped up and triggered her armor for the first time since arriving here, with it covering her naked body within 2 seconds as she stared down at the large biped that was easily twice her height.

  “Stay back before I kill you,” she warned, slipping into a fighting stance while activating her Essence defensive shield she’d been practicing heavily ever since getting so much additional power to use.

  “You could not if you wanted to,” the Mek’tal said in English with a heavy alien accent as he raised his two large forward arms up in a gesture of peace while the two smaller ones coming off his back remained limp. “I do not come to fight.”

  “Stay back!” Kara yelled, knowing that if this was one of the Vargemma who had Essence skills far beyond hers that it was possible he could kill her in a single shot if her shields didn’t work like she hoped they would.

  The Mek’tal stopped walking forward, but he did not retreat. The scales that covered his body were a slightly darker shade of red than Kara’s hair, but his four eyes were a fiery green that would be scary enough if you didn’t know how powerful the Vargemma were…and how malevolent.

  “I have come for you, young one. I know the pain you are in. I could feel it from far away. It took me time to evade your empire’s security perimeter, and once I did I had to travel on foot to get here. Please give me a few moments of your time.”

  “How far away?”

  “I left from Socar’negorum, and have spent one and a half of your years trying to get to you.”

  Kara’s face inside her helmet frowned. “Why?”

  “Because you have achieved Nuv’ernor. The pain you are eliciting through your Essence exertions is a very specific kind, and your inability to contain your Essence is the reason it is transmitting outward. You were easy to locate, but hard to get to.”

  “How do you know about Nuv’ernor? The Responders will not talk of it with anyone else.”

  “No one else in this Temple has it, except for me, and the Responders do not know it. No one knows it.”

  “Why keep it a secret?”

  “Because the Founders have been here before, I saw one myself, and they took the only other person who had achieved Nuv’ernor with them by force. He was my master, and I didn’t even have a chance to defend him before being incapacitated by an Essence attack beyond my ability to even disrupt. The Founder came, took my master, and left. Neither has been seen again, and no one knows the Founder was here because his attack also came with a neural rewrite. I was barely able to fight it off using my Nuv’ernor after he left, for it took so much power that I am still in terror of them. I believe this Temple is a breeding ground, and when someone becomes useful to them they pluck them away for what purpose I do not know, but it is nefarious or my master would have gone willingly. The Founder did not even speak one word, and treated my master as if he were nothing more than a package to retrieve. They will do the same to you if you have revealed your ability to the Responders. Have you done so?”

  “Yes,” Kara said, not liking this one bit.

  “They did not come quickly before. It was many centuries, but I believe they will come again. That is why I have hidden my power. But you are transmitting yours unwisely.”

  “So you’ve come to shut me up?”

  “I have come to train you, if you will allow it.”

  “I can’t trust any Vargemma,” Kara said icily. “You’ve been trying to kill us any chance you get.”

  “Very well. We will do this the hard way,” he said, reaching out for her with an invisible vice grip that slipped on her defensive shields for a moment, then a huge power boost followed and broke right through them.

  Kara responded with her psionics, feeding Essence into them and launching every mental disruptive technique she had…which worked to free her momentarily, during which she turned and ran, then leapt into the sky and tried to fly away.

  But to no avail. She was grabbed again and pulled backward, with her firing her Jumat down at the Mek’tal and knocking him on his ass…but his Essence grip did not relent. She even fired her armor’s Dre’mo’dons at him, but an Essence shield caught or deflected them aside, some of which hit trees and caught them on fire, sending up smoke plumes amidst a shattering of splinters flying everywhere like fireworks.

  Kara didn’t relent, feeling the deepest fear in recent memory as she knew she was outmatched…but Archons didn’t quit, and she sent Jumat after Jumat blast towards him while expending her bioplasma and dropping a Po’levo over him, but the darkness field did nothing to hide her Essence presence, and his grip didn’t relent.

  He weathered everything she threw at him, while slowly pulling her closer and closer. When she got within melee range she switched directions of her flight and popped up her Vorch’nas’ version of a death saber, with the blade coming within an inch of his forehead before her arm was pinned in place by an irresistible force.

  “I am not trying to hurt you, little one. I am here to help you, but some warriors must fight first to show they have the ability to kill. Have I shown you? Or do I need to injure you to make the point?”

  Kara retracted her blade, but her arm was still stuck in place.

  “Point made, but why aren’t you trying to kill me like the rest of the Vargemma?”

  “They wait for the day the Founders return to lead us in the war against the Hadarak. I do not believe that will occur as prophesized. I believe they will use us as they wish, perhaps in battle, but also perhaps as Essence generators for their own armies. I do not know why else one with Nuv’ernor would be taken against their will. Do you?”

  “I didn’t even know it existed until 2 years ago, but I know the Founders are aware of our takeover of the Temples. Someone is directing the Caretakers against us beyond here, in the other facilities the Founders made.”

  The Mek’tal frowned. “There are more than the Temples in this galaxy?”

  “Far more, though nothing as large. There is a service network that feeds the Temples resources, as well as other locations. Will you release me now?”

  “I am not done speaking with you,” he said, returning her arm to her while slowly setting her down on the ground so she had to look up at his huge head. “Do not flee until I am finished.”

  “Agreed,” Kara said, looking at him through her armored helmet…which felt useless now, so she retracted it but kept the rest of her armor on.

  “Your empire does not worship the Founders. You do not obey them. You break their rules, steal their property, and imprison the Vargemma.”

  “You’re too dangerous to let out, or let close to us. The only other option we have is to kill you, and that’s not the way we fight.”

  “Why not? It is the most effective option.”

  “Because it would be wrong.”

  “You just tried to kill me.”

  “I didn’t feel like giving you an opportunity to kill me first, which I think you can do easily enough if you wanted to use your other abilities.”

  “You fear being unable to defend yourself?”

  “Yes,” Kara admitted. “But we can manage it if we stay out of range.”

  “That is how I feel. They took my master, who was far stronger than me, and he couldn’t fight back. All my strength means nothing compared to the Founders. They can do with us what they want and we are impotent in their presence.”

  “We’re not,” Kara said, knowing how ridiculous that sounded. “We know how to fight in other ways, and we killed one of their emissaries not so long ago. It took a warfleet to do it, but he’s dead and we’re still here.”

  “You killed a Founder?” the Mek’tal asked in d
isbelief.

  “No. A Founder came here long ago and trained one from this galaxy to become very powerful. He was left behind to collect races capable of killing Hadarak and put them in a form of stasis to keep them alive when the Hadarak recognized their threat and attempted to wipe them out. One of those races is an ally of ours, and when they refused he killed their leadership in an attempt to intimidate them into serving him. It did not work, and with the help of one of our Essence-equipped warships a massive conventional fleet was able to destroy him.”

  “I have heard nothing of this in your records.”

  “We don’t feel like sharing everything with people who want to kill us,” Kara rebuked, accepting the fact that he could kill her on a whim, but not really caring to mince words at this point.

  “Do the Founders know you killed their emissary?”

  “Depends how closely they monitor our communications. Probably not, if they’re as disinterested in us as they claim to be. But who knows.”

  “Then the Founders will destroy your empire when they return…unless they find it too burdensome and choose to ignore your actions. I do not know their nature beyond my single encounter, but I know they are unbeatable if they wish to fully attack any opponent.”

  “They can’t beat the Hadarak. Their emissary made that pretty clear, and we’ve got intelligence that suggests one of their 3 galaxies is falling and they’re evacuating out to the numerous other galaxies where they have Temples and resources set up. They’re supposedly going to claim one to replace the falling one, and assault it while the Hadarak are busy chewing up their former holdings. So they’re not unbeatable.”

  “Your knowledge of Essence is tiny, but your knowledge of the galaxies is far greater than mine. I have no hope of ever seeing my master again, but I wish to avenge him if possible. I have tried to grow as strong as I can alone, without revealing my power to any that might get word back to the Founders, and now I have found you. Something is wrong with your Nuv’ernor, isn’t there?”