by Aer-ki Jyr
“Thank you,” she said as he pointed her up, with the exhausted Human walking past the ViLord’s pink armor and stepping onto the smooth construction of the Star Force ramp for the second time in her life. The first had been on Forso after almost being killed by the V’kit’no’sat, leading her into a world she knew nothing about. This time, after nearly being killed by the V’kit’no’sat, she knew what lay ahead of her and felt even more relieved at the sight of the pristine white dropship with wide, thick wings that curved down into a plumb, rounded hull that she climbed into.
The gravity change didn’t hit her until she passed the top of the ramp, then the huge weight that she’d been carrying vanished in a heartbeat. It was so sudden that her body didn’t realize what was coming and she dropped to the floor coughing as her head rushed with pain and she started shaking. A moment later Tyrenk was beside her with a firm grip on her shoulder.
“Sorry about that. Should have warned you. The transition can be rocky. Plus you just ripped out some of the repair work I’d done on your head. Guess I make a lousy medic,” he said, numbing out her pain as she began to breathe easily again…more so than she’d been able to since setting foot on this stupid planet.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Spontaneous Fornax development.”
“Wow. Don’t see many of those. Tissue malformed?”
“Yeah, but it was functional enough to save her life. I’ve done some Haemra repairs, but they’re not enough.”
“Change of plans then,” she said, telepathically contacting the pilot. “We’ll get her to a med bay now.”
“Sleep, Esna,” Tyrenk said as her head started to get blurry. “I’ll see you later.”
The copilot came back into the empty bay and knelt beside the now unconscious Human the Archon had gently knocked out with nothing more than the touch of his hand.
“I’ll look after her. Anything she needs on the way up?”
“No, she’s stable enough. Just get her to the medics.”
“Will do,” the copilot said, lifting her up into his arms and carrying her into the forward compartment where there were padded benches as the two Archons walked down the ramp and back into the high gravity that both of them barely felt.
“Archon potential?” Susan-1193663 asked.
“No, not even close.”
“Well that complicates things, especially if she isn’t even maturia trained. How’d it happen?”
“I’m guessing the gravity. She had to fight hard to just survive it in the beginning. She’s come a long way in a few weeks.”
“We’ve tried gravity before,” Susan pointed out. “There has to be more to it than that.”
“Her best friend was also killed here, after saving her from an Era’tran and some Zen’zat on Mace. Then she got another jolt on Tauntaun. This one’s been put through a lot in a few months, all of which started with the loss of her brother, the only other Human she’d encountered since she was yay tall,” Tyrenk said, holding his hand at hip level.
“Where did she come from?”
“Merchants I’d guess. Her father was visiting the planet when he was killed, stranding the two of them there. We haven’t been able to determine where they came from before that.”
“Humans surviving out here beyond Star Force? How the hell can they manage that with the Viks monitoring everything?”
“She wore armor her entire life. The people on Mace didn’t even know she was a Human. Hell, Esna didn’t even know the word Human. The ADZ is so far gone now it’s hard to fathom.”
“There is no ADZ anymore,” Susan corrected him.
“There are people out here that the V’kit’no’sat ignore. The Devastation Zone is not empty.”
“They’re not ours, which is why they don’t care. I’d just like to know how a Human could have hid in them, armor or not. Let alone lots of Humans.”
“We don’t know how many are out there.”
“And it’s not our job to find them. We have to protect the trillions we already know about. Any idea how they found Tauntaun?”
“No. They just showed up knowing where we were. Unless someone got sloppy and they observed a ship coming or going, I don’t know how they found the exact base location. We had it buttoned up tight. Have any other outposts been hit?”
“Not yet. Everyone is throwing down at the same place right now with reinforcements continuing to come in for the Viks. I’m not sure what they’re doing, other than picking a fight to wear us down, but the trailblazers aren’t calling for a retreat…at least not when we left. How bad did it get here? You look alright, but a little rough.”
“I’ve had plenty of time to rest. They came after us hard on the ground and wouldn’t let up for days. I did what I could but it wasn’t enough. I had to borrow Esna’s Commando armor at the end before I appropriated this,” he said, gesturing to his gauntlets. “They had a badass Zen’zat with them that made it difficult, and I think he was there to guard whatever was on the ship.”
“A badass on a scout ship? Did they intend to board you?”
“No. They were pounding away with intent to kill, making his presence unnecessary. There’s gotta be something vital there and we need to find it…or what’s left of it. The Kaeper was shadowing Morgan’s fleet, then broke off to kill us. It’s a stealth version, but there’s something new about it. My tech has identified components he hasn’t seen before, wildly different stuff, but the V’kit’no’sat did a good job trashing it. Its puzzle pieces now.”
“Why come after you if they’re carrying something important?”
“We were alone and too fast for anyone else to catch. Probably thought we’d make an easy kill.”
“That ramming move was well played, but the feed cut out right after. Did their entire ship go down immediately?”
“Yeah, thankfully.”
“And they came after you right away or did they play defense?”
“They were on us immediately from the air, and the Zen’zat on the ground didn’t take long to catch up. They wanted us dead in a bad way.”
“Overcompensating to keep you away from their ship?”
Tyrenk considered that. “Maybe. I hadn’t thought about that. They kept us on the run for a long time before we bled them out, then they still had troops at the ship that I came back for. They didn’t start trashing stuff until they knew they were going to lose, otherwise they would have had plenty of time to finish before I arrived.”
“So they wanted whatever it was retrieved?”
“That’s a fair guess.”
“The ship was never going to fly again, so whatever it is they wanted it removed. That suggests it’s something hard to make, otherwise they just would have smashed it to deny it to us.”
“Don’t suppose you have any good techs onboard?”
“Techs, yes, high level ones, no. But Ghostblade should. We can turn the pieces over to them then get back to the fight…if you’re up to it?”
“I have to take care of Esna first. A Commando went to a lot of trouble to make sure she survived, and I’m going to finish what he started before I get back to work.”
“You need to the break too?”
“No, I need to smash some more skulls, but Esna is a victory for us that I don’t want the V’kit’no’sat to snatch away. I’m going to escort her all the way back.”
“As you wish. You did well to keep the two of them alive, yourself included.”
“They all would be alive if not for this stupid ship. Running into it was blind luck.”
“It’s a gut punch, but it happens. Hopefully it won’t repeat for us.”
“You have any drones with you?”
“A handful. The rest are still in the fight, but our shipboard weaponry isn’t too badly damaged. We can swat scout ships all day. It’s the bigger stuff I’m worried about.”
“Do the V’kit’no’sat still have the Tauntaun base?”
“No, it’s ours again…what was le
ft of it. We retook it long enough to look for survivors, then bailed. It was a fully naval fight when I left.”
“Paul doing his thing?”
“Oh yea, but they’ve got so many ships he’s got his hands full. If we need to cut and run we can, there’s nothing holding us to that system anymore, but he intended to fight it out when he sent me back and was calling for more reinforcements. We’re hammering them as hard as we can.”
“About damn time,” Tyrenk said as they walked away from the dropship as it finally lifted off and headed back to orbit.
“I just don’t know why they’re sticking around to fight without a base to hold, unless they’re so desperate to engage us they’re willing to run into a Paul buzz saw.”
“I have a feeling this ship is going to tell us something important,” Tyrenk said, feeling a similar unease about the situation. Normally you didn’t throw down in a massive naval fight if you didn’t have to, suggesting there was something else in play. “So try not to step on any pieces please.”
Susan raised an eyebrow his direction, but Tyrenk didn’t follow up his sarcastic comment with anything else so she let it pass and followed him inside where their techs were busy cataloging and collecting ever bit of rubble that didn’t belong on a standard Kaeper-class scout ship.
9
When Esna woke up Tyrenk’s darkly tanned face was the first thing she saw, then she noticed the ceiling behind him and the fact that they weren’t in the dropship.
“How are you feeling?” the Archon asked as she slowly sat up, seeing herself in a room with several people wearing the aqua-colored medtechs uniforms.
“Weird…but ok.”
“Take it slow, you…” Tyrenk said, stammering on the last word as everyone else in the room suddenly tripped and fell while a wash of fatigue rushed over Esna. If she hadn’t been sitting she would have probably fallen too.
“Easy, easy,” he repeated quickly. “Don’t do anything. Just be still.”
“What just hit us?” she asked, perplexed while her head ached a little, but the pounding headache she’d had on the planet was now gone.
“You did, youngling,” he said, lightly grabbing her wrist as she felt him enter her mind. “Now focus where I point you.”
In the following minutes no more words were said, not aloud anyway or in any form Esna could explain, but as the medtechs got back to their feet Tyrenk showed her around her own mind and where the button was she had just accidentally pressed…and how not to do it again. When he released his grip on her flesh the link to her mind ceased and she looked over at the medtechs.
“I did that?”
“Yes you did.”
“I am so sorry. I didn’t…”
“Occupational hazard,” one of the medtechs said, glancing at Tyrenk. “Are you sure she can handle it? We can disable the tissue without removing it if needed.”
“She will learn,” he promised. “Are any of you injured?”
“Just a bruise,” another one said. “Easy enough to fix.”
“I’m sorry,” Esna repeated. “I didn’t do that on purpose.”
“That’s why we deactivated the Human population in the first place.”
“What?”
“Rather than remove our genetic coding for the psionics,” the medtech explained, “we made them all permanently dormant so people wouldn’t accidentally develop them on their own. When that happens they usually grow malformed tissue and could die a very long and painful death if not treated. Now only Archons and a few others get them unlocked. How you circumvented our locks is perplexing.”
“How old are the locks?” Tyrenk asked.
“More than a thousand years. Most predate the fall of Earth.”
“Then it’s not due to her rogue bloodline?”
“Not that I can tell.”
Tyrenk nodded. “Good.”
“Good?”
“It means she had to earn it the hard way. That she had to be stripped down to her essence in order to reset her biology.”
Another medtech raised an eyebrow. “I’m not aware of any biological process for that.”
“The body reflects the core,” Tyrenk reminded them, “and we can’t chart it. The trailblazers and second gen Archons had to root out the first psionics, then find the activation triggers for the rest without medical assistance. Training and experience change a person, including ones genetic code occasionally. Unlocking one is less of a jump.”
“Not our area of expertise so we’ll take your word for it.”
“You’ve never studied pseudo evolution?”
“Briefly. That’s high level biology we don’t have much use for in the field. How are you aware of it, if I might ask?”
Tyrenk looked at him with a dumb look. “You don’t think an Archon would be interested in a line of research that suggests you can upgrade your genetics via core interaction?”
“No I wouldn’t. Everything you guys do is training oriented.”
“One high level branch of Archon training is core manipulation. Or to be more accurate, core isolation through mediation. It’s a form of training.”
“Then I’ll defer to you. You think she overrode the lockouts in this manner?”
“Has her genetic code altered?”
“No it hasn’t. The locks are still there, including for Fornax. Somehow her tissue developed anyway.”
“Then I’d suggest you take as many scans as you can for later research. This has happened in a few other cases, and so far no one has been able to figure it out. Original Humans didn’t have locks in place, just generations of stagnation that accomplished the same thing.”
“You guys don’t reproduce, do you?”
“No. Not even vicariously.”
“Then generational wash is out…” the medtech said, glancing at Esna. “Unless.”
“Her lineage? The few Archon quitters have their genetics reset and their offspring monitored closely. I doubt she could be of that line.”
“What about the Arc Knights?”
“Anyone with psionics are held to the same standards…which means we need to deactivate her reproductive systems.”
“What?” Esna asked, still trying to work around what was in her head now without touching the activation button and knocking everyone to the ground again.
“Her locks are in place, so I don’t think it would matter,” the medic said, talking past her. “She’s quite the anomaly.”
“What about my reproductive systems?” she repeated.
“If a person has their psionics unlocked,” Tyrenk finally answered, “they have to have their reproductive systems deactivated. Archons don’t because we don’t have sex anyway, but some of us, mostly the girls, have it shut down so it’s impossible for them to get pregnant. If I had children they’d probably be born with my psionics, and that would be a huge problem. The V’kit’no’sat didn’t design them for infants. All the Zen’zat were adults when they were given them.”
“Didn’t they have children on Earth that led to us? How did they deal with it?”
“No one knows. There are no records from that time. Psionics, Zen’zat, even the V’kit’no’sat were gone from planetary memory until the pyramid on Earth was rediscovered.”
“So if I got pregnant my younglings would have my Fornax?”
“Possibly.”
“No,” the medtech said firmly. “It’s still locked down as far as your genetic code is concerned. You have the tissue, even though you shouldn’t. It’s almost like we put it into you artificially. Your offspring shouldn’t possess it.”
“We can’t take the risk. All non-Archons have to be deactivated. That’s part of the deal for letting them keep it,” he said, looking at Esna. “And you definitely want to keep it. Trust me.”
“What do you have to do to make me unable to have younglings?”
“Genetic deactivation,” the medtech said offhand. “You’ll also stop your monthly bleeding.”
“Really? T
hat’d be nice. Do you have to cut anything out?”
“No, no. We just turn it off. Same thing we do with the guys.”
“So I can’t have sex either?”
“You can, and it’ll feel the same. We don’t turn off the sexuality programming, just the reproductive component.”
“Not that I was going to,” she said, looking at Tyrenk. “I need to train and get stronger. I can’t have people dying because I’m too weak again,” she said, her voice tightening up at the end.
“If you learn to use this, you’ll be more combat capable than most Commandos.”
Esna turned to the medtech. “Do it.”
“Step over here,” he said, pointing to a standing chamber.
Esna slid off the table, landing so lightly it reminded her that she was no longer in the high gravity that her mind had gotten used to, and her walking steps were appropriately awkward as her mind recalibrated muscle movements to this gravity. Esna walked inside the chamber and grabbed one of the cage-like beams to steady her balance as her body tried to remember its natural movement.
“Hands on the sphere please,” the medtech said, taking his position at the control console outside. “This will only take a moment.”
Esna put both hands onto it, then felt them get glued in place as her body went numb in a few places. She fought the paranoia that the lack of control pulsed through her, but before she had completely locked it down her body unnumbed and her hands were set loose.
“Done.”
“That’s it? I don’t feel any different.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“So I can’t reproduce now?”
“Nope. Try all you like, but you can’t get pregnant.”
“And you have to stay that way,” Tyrenk said, “as long as you have Fornax. If you ever change your mind it has to be removed before your reproductive systems can be reactivated.”
“So they’re not gone, just turned off?”
“Yes.”
“What if they accidentally get turned on the same way my For…thingy did?”
The medtech and Archon exchanged glances.
“Never happened to my knowledge.”