Star Force: Persistent Ravage (Wayward Trilogy Book 3)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  With the flesh to flesh contact he could have tried hacking into the Zen’zat’s mind now that he was past the Ikrid block, but that’s not what he intended to do. The Zen’zat did try to hack him, however, and that effort was enough to allow Tyrenk to create one more Lachka tendril than the V’kit’no’sat servant could handle…

  When the Ubven field dissipated the Zen’zat’s body dropped to the ground with Tyrenk’s hand still buried in it and the smell of burnt flesh wafting up from the contact point as the Archon proceeded to rip apart internal organs as the Zen’zat’s armor tried to repair them. He’d taken out the heart first, quickly rendering the Zen’zat unable to fight back for more than a few seconds, so now all that mattered was damaging him enough that he couldn’t be revived.

  The V’kit’no’sat outside weren’t going to stand still for that though, and they began rushing the entrances as the Archon held his ground, snapping arteries and Kich’a’kat tendrils that were trying to repair them as he finally hacked his way into the now dying brain and used what functionality was left to trigger the armor release.

  As the first of the Zen’zat got to the entrance and dove inside, the protective covering on the dying Zen’zat withdrew back into the forearm gauntlets that Tyrenk pulled off fast, snapping the Kich’a’kat tendrils still trying to repair the warrior, but once that connection was lost it took the Archon only half a second to shred the Zen’zat’s brain tissue with his Lachka.

  Tyrenk took three shots to his shields as he let go his grip, pulling his hand out of the now dead body and triggering his armor to cover it again, then as his shields got low to the breaching point he threw a Jumat blast back towards the entrance and knocked the inferior Zen’zat off his feet.

  Then in a display of pure dominance, the Archon threw up a bioshield wall between him and the now two Zen’zat entering the chamber as he quickly deactivated his Commando armor and climbed out of it, leaving him extremely vulnerable. He felt a Lachka attack from one of the Zen’zat, but pulsed his own Rentar around him, dissolving the invisible energy tendrils without effort as he slid the two captured Zen’zat gauntlets onto his arms as his bioshields started to fail under both weapons’ fire and the frantic physical beating of the two opponents that were about to be totally outmatched.

  V’kit’no’sat armor had safeguards built into it so no one could access it that wasn’t supposed to, but the coding wasn’t built around any academic measure. Rather, it was genetic. And genetically Humans and Zen’zat were identical, so when Tyrenk mentally reached into the two forearm gauntlets that he now wore they recognized him as V’kit’no’sat and gave him full access.

  Having trained with Zen’zat armor obtained from the pyramid in Antarctica in the past in order to know how to use it, he didn’t have much of a learning curve to deal with as the green/black material melted over his arms and quickly spread over the rest of his body…now giving him two forearm Dre’mo’dons to replace the pistols he’d lost.

  His bioshield was near to failing, but now protected again he let it drop, conserving what little energy was left in it, then knocked both of the Zen’zat rushing him back on their asses with a Jumat balst as he stood still and looked down at the fallen giants.

  “One chance guys. Run while you can,” he said, his tone dripping with lethality as the Zen’zat ignored him and split up, one trying to rush him while the other sidestepped and began firing both weapons at him.

  Tyrenk sneered in disgust, knowing that there was no way they were going to beat him now that he had armor that was in some ways superior to even what Archons normally possessed, and didn’t bother to use his psionics. He let his tissues replenish their lost energy as he engaged the rushing V’kit’no’sat hand to hand…which was almost an even match. Angry beyond measure, the Archon accepted the challenge as the three of them went at it inside the debris.

  More Zen’zat came later, piling in as the Kat’vo circled overhead and watched with their Pefbar, flying low in order to use their Lachka to help with the fight, but Tyrenk’s Rentar made him invulnerable to it as long as he was pulsing the energy. Eventually the Kat’vo all turned and fled to a nearby section of ship, leaving the Zen’zat there to fight and eventually die as the Archon killed them all one by one with the powerful forearm gauntlets doing far more damage than his pair of pistols could have. He’d expected needing to go back and snagging his supplies from nearby to get more weaponry, but now that he had the Zen’zat armor there was no need, for its power level was nearly full to begin with.

  Eventually only one suit of Zen’zat armor walked out of that chunk of dead ship, with Tyrenk leaving all the bodies behind after making sure none of them could be revived by their armor or the Kat’vo if they swung back around after he left, then standing outside trying to take a moment to gather himself as his emotions were pounding as much as his pulse, he looked around to see where the flying V’kit’no’sat had gone and if any more Zen’zat were around for him to kill.

  The answer to the latter was none that he could find, but his Ikrid spotted the debris that all the Kat’vo appeared to be inside…which was perplexing. Their safest option was to take to the air where he could not go, but they were all clustered inside the piece of ship doing something. If they were bunkering themselves inside maybe they still had a weapons battery partially operational, but he doubted it as he ran forward lightly and focused is Pefbar out into a cone to increase its range.

  When he got close enough to see the exterior there were no visible weapons. Suspecting some kind of trap, he continued slower with care until his Pefbar crossed over the Kat’vo inside and he discovered that they were firing their own armor weapons at something inside. Multiple somethings, for they were not all shooting in the same spot. It took a moment longer for him to realize they were shooting parts of the ship, then he sprinted as hard as he could while looking for an entrance.

  When he got to the chunk of ship after coming out of a piece of jungle that had survived the crash, he jumped up on the wall and climbed the side using the grip points in the fingers and toes of his armor, doing a spiderman on the smooth hull until he got to a section that had been ripped off by the impact, then he dove inside and quickly got to the Kat’vo in the confines of the ship where they were walking around and blasting apart equipment, looking like big dogs now that their skin flaps were retracted.

  They didn’t even bother to shoot at him, rather taking what few seconds they had remaining to do more damage to the ship. Tyrenk suspected there was something of value here that they didn’t want Star Force to find, but more practical was the fact that they were all indoors and he needed to kill them quickly before they could flee again. Putting the highest priority on that, he didn’t bother trying to avoid misses and preserve equipment, choosing to kill the Kat’vo as fast as possible, but their armor took time to pound through, allowing them plenty of time to shoot up the ship.

  One by one he killed them, and one by one they didn’t respond until he was on top of them and physically knocking them away from their targets. They didn’t even bother to help each other when they were only a few meters apart, and that cold apathy told him there was something very important onboard this ship and that they’d calculated that they couldn’t stop him even if they all worked together, so they were doing the next best thing as he worked his way around the interior of the debris like a Terminator, trying to kill them as fast as possible but not succeeding as much as he wanted.

  By the time he finished there wasn’t much of the interior corridors left but for bits and pieces of broken and burnt material in which the dead Kat’vo now rested. Two he had to kill a second time as their armor healed them, but after taking them all down he made his rounds and finished each of them off for good, then headed outside and searched the skies for more.

  There was nothing visually in range, and the same went for his Ikrid. That didn’t mean there weren’t more, for there was a lot of planet out there to hide in, so he was going to have to be careful. Heading b
ack the way he’d come, he ran off and back into the jungle where he quickly engaged his Kgat. That made him effectively disappear from anyone’s Ikrid radar, as well as blinding his own sight, but unlike the Va’do that jammed the Ikrid for a radial range, this psionic was meant to make him a ninja that could sneak up right behind someone without knowing. There would be no null zone to detect. He was a ghost now as far as Ikrid was concerned, and the Archon swung around in a wide loop and headed back to the ship chunk where the Kat’vo had died, sneaking up on it well aware that he could still be seen.

  That meant he had to get creative, but ninja-like stealth training was something all Archons had been practicing from their earliest years, and he soon returned to a nearby perch in the trees where he could see the ship segment.

  There he waited, playing a hunch that if there were any more V’kit’no’sat left then destroying whatever was in that ship would be their highest priority. Tyrenk rested, recovering his psionic energies as the rest of his body ached from the combat effort. He was also out of ambrosia, knowing the depletion feeling well but also knowing how to deal with it. There was probably some wherever the Kat’vo had hidden their supplies…assuming there were any. He’d have to check on that soon, but for now he was just going to wait and watch.

  It took six hours before a pair of Kat’vo flew in, then when both entered the debris Tyrenk ran across the open gashes in the forest that the crash had created and climbed up the wall again without any Pefbar fields crossing into him. Apparently they didn’t expect anyone else to be here and weren’t paying attention, for when he dropped into the ship they still hadn’t detected him.

  Then he revealed himself with a Saven flash that disoriented both Kat’vo as he quickly attacked and killed them, though they still managed to do some additional damage to whatever was so important inside the ship.

  6

  Esna and Hati were sitting just outside the cave, running bags of water they’d collected from a nearby icky pool through a cleanser when a rustling of leaves got their attention. Both Human and Kiritas turned their heads, Hati’s still in his envirosuit helmet, towards the noise just in time to see a green quadruped run out and snarl at them. It was smaller than Hati, but had two not so nice looking fangs nudging out over its lips as its vision was locked on the pair.

  Hati didn’t wait, jumping back into the cave where a rifle was leaning against the inside wall.

  Esna backpedaled a step, then tripped over a crate she forgot was there as the quadruped jumped forward and sprinted at them. It got halfway there before a blue Dre’mo’don blast hit it in the leg, then as it rolled forward towards Esna’s feet two more shots nailed it in the chest and head as it flopped dead two meters in front of her as she scrambled back onto her feet as the gravity tried to glue her to the ground.

  Breathing heavily with adrenaline pounding through her veins, she backed up next to Hati and away from the thing as more leaves began rustling all around them.

  “Get your weapon,” Hati said, backing up to the center of the cave entrance and holding position as two more of the creatures came into view.

  Esna jogged back inside and grabbed her pistol, but before she could turn around Hati fired again amidst a jumble of biological sounds, half of which she had no idea what they were. When she finally got pistol in hand she turned to see not two or three, but what had to be at least 20 of the small creatures sprinting forward and getting mowed down by the Kiritas. Esna walked forward, taking a couple steps before she fired a shot to make sure she didn’t hit Hati, but already two of the things were at his feet biting at his envirosuit…futilely. The hard casing wasn’t budging, but Esna didn’t have any protection on.

  She dropped to a knee, then used both hands to steady the heavy weapon as she aimed and fired, not so much at a single target but at the area to Hati’s left, hitting quadrupeds just because they jumped into the way as the smell of burnt flesh and vaporized blood wafted over her. At first the creatures went straight for Hati, but eventually one of them spotted Esna and got within a couple meters.

  She fired in a panic, falling backwards as she adjusted her aim just in time to hit the thing in the chest, but it didn’t die instantly. It got up to and swatted at her leg, ripping her pants below the knee and scraping her leg deep enough that blood began to flow before she put another shot into it.

  A moment later she saw Hati stumble as four of the things jumped and knocked him into the wall, then three more coming up behind them ran at Esna and she knew she was going to die.

  A calm settled over her as she raised her weapon, intent on taking out at least one of them as her rage and frustration boiled over inside. Her headache returned with a vengeance, and as one of the creatures fell the others jumped into the air and landed on her, one sinking its fangs into her left arm as the other hit her chest and knocked her onto her back, with the weight of the creatures and the gravity making it impossible for her to get up.

  Esna fired a shot that hit the ceiling, then as another bite sunk into her leg something inside her head exploded and the next thing she knew her weak kicks and thrashes succeeded in knocking the creatures aside. Her head hurt so bad she could barely see, but her adrenaline was running so high that she managed to pull her pistol across her chest and shoot the twitching creature beside her in the head.

  The other one got back up as her head seemed to go the other way and deflate into a more familiar headache, and she angrily swung her pistol from left to right in front of her and hit the thing as it jumped. It bounced into the tent wall, then in a rage Esna dove on top of it, accepting another bite into her soft flesh in order to get her pistol a pointblank shot.

  When it was dead she turned around as fast as she could manage with at least three deep wounds expecting to get jumped from behind, but thankfully the others were still focused on Hati as he knocked one towards her with a tail kick. Esna gladly smoked the thing as its attention was still on the Kiritas, then a few seconds later the Dre’mo’don rifle fire stopped as there were no more creatures left standing to attack them.

  Hati hopped over their dead bodies to get to Esna, but her head began to spin before he could get there as the loss of blood got to her and she half passed out, falling on top of one of the dead creatures.

  The Kiritas’s helmet was over her, but his words she couldn’t understand and shortly thereafter her head washed with so much disorientation that she had no clue where she was or what was going on…then her vision began to clear and she saw the ceiling of the tent with Hati’s unhelmeted head looking down at her saying something.

  “…then some. Esna, focus.”

  “I…” she groaned, with her headache cutting off her next word.

  “…massive blo…you..est.”

  Esna didn’t hear anything more, for her vertigo returned and the whole tent began to spin so much she had to close her eyes and just curl up in a ball trying to wait it out. She spent so much time in that state it felt like an eternity of pain and sickness that would never end.

  Esna suffered, mightily, and part of her just wanted it to be over with and die, but she didn’t. The suffering continued until a cooling wave of relief appeared so fast she choked in response.

  I’m here, Tyrenk’s voice said in her head. Stay still, you’ve been poisoned.

  She tried to say something but found she could barely open her jaw. It hurt so bad she didn’t try again, clinging to the cooling sensation inside her as she finally felt the Archon’s hand on her neck. He held it there firmly as her condition gradually improved enough for her to open her eyes without the vertigo sending her head spinning…at which point she noticed her clothing was gone, now replaced by multiple healing patches.

  She had one on her right leg, at least two on her left, more on her abdomen and both arms were plastered with the things.

  “I’m neutralizing the poison,” Tyrenk said out loud as her senses returned to her. “Try not to speak. Your jaw is locked up. Whatever those critters injected you with is nas
ty. I’ve got a handle on it, but it’s actively damaging you as I heal. I’ll win out, but this will take some time.”

  Esna’s eyes moved to the Kiritas, and he took a step closer in response.

  “I am so sorry, Esna. I couldn’t shoot them fast enough.”

  “She knows,” Tyrenk said in her place. “She’s just glad you’re still alive.”

  “I had protection,” the tech argued. “I should have put her in the tent immediately.”

  “You didn’t have much time. I can see her memories.”

  “What did she do?” Hati asked. “During the fight. I’ve felt that before.”

  “I know. I can see the tissue growth in her head. I can’t stabilize it yet. The poison is taking too much time, but I am numbing out most of the pain.”

  “Is that a psionic?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is that possible? I know she’s Human, but I thought only Archons and Mavericks had them.”

  “Something very rare…and dangerous. Humans are descended from Zen’zat, who have 7 psionics as standard issue. The others are upgrades. Somehow my ancestors’ psionics went dormant, still in our genetic code but not manifesting. I didn’t have any psionic tissue until I got a treatment that activated them and grew new tissue in a controlled fashion. Somehow Esna spontaneously grew psionic tissue…but it didn’t grow right. Using it damaged her badly, but not as bad as what this poison is doing. I’m pretty sure those critters are used to taking down targets bigger than Humans with it.”

  “Are there more nearby?”

  “I checked a moment ago, but right now I have to focus inside her. Keep the door closed just in case. I’ll do a sweep later.”

  “What psionic?” the Kiritas asked.

  “Fornax. And her using it saved her.”

  “How did she know?”

  “My first time I just felt a mental button and pushed it. She probably didn’t know what she was doing.”