Star Force: Battlemeld (SF45)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  October 5, 2476

  Solar System

  Earth

  Travis stepped out of the V’kit’no’sat medical station, trading places with Karen who was waiting nearby the tech and Jason. He had a light headache now that the numbing effect of the machinery had worn off, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d been told that since the tissue being added was makeshift there would be some ‘roughness’ to the transition, and this time was no exception.

  This was the 8th adjustment he’d had made, with his sister progressing on an identical track. He’d been told this upgrade would bring his Ikrid tissue up near 90%, but how much of it would take and how much would have to be undid at the next treatment was anyone’s guess. Once Karen got her new tissue added, flash grown in place drawing from a vat of biological molecules so the regenerator portion of the machine didn’t have to suck material from other parts of her body, they’d go through a now familiar set of psionic drills while the biomonitors registered their efficiency and logged any anomalies.

  Already they both had more tissue than normal, given that their original Ikrid growths had been left in place to preserve their link. The new tissue was forming around that, creating an even larger lump in their heads that the rest of their brain tissue had to adjust to, and in fact Travis had been told that the machine actually enlarged their skulls microscopically to adjust for the extra mass.

  He’d tried to notice the changes in the mirror, but never could, making him wonder exactly what ‘microscopically’ meant in med tech terminology.

  Karen’s treatment didn’t take any longer than his had, with her stepping into the small platform and having the various equipment arms encircle her and connect to her body, through which the regenerator tendrils entered and worked their magic, altering her DNA slightly and growing new tissue to match. Less than two minutes later she stepped out, having completed the procedure…then she stopped short, with a weird look crossing her face.

  Travis felt the same thing, and a simultaneous beep from both their biomonitors caught Jason’s attention.

  “Don’t fight it,” he urged.

  “What is it?” Travis asked, holding his head as the internal stress increased.

  “Your trigger is activating again, and this time it’s not being blocked. You’re showing 3 yellow.”

  “So is she,” Travis said, pointing to Karen.

  “Is he doing this to me or am I doing it to him?” she asked Jason, wincing against the pain.

  “Could be either one, maybe both,” the trailblazer said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Sit down and work your way through it. Let the pressure build but keep it channeled.”

  Travis and Karen sat down crosslegged, facing one another. “That’s not very helpful,” he mentioned.

  “You’ve got to work it internally,” Jason said eagerly. “Stay with it. You might not get it this time, but the further you go the more you’ll learn. Only block it if you’re spiraling out of control.”

  “What happens if we don’t?” Karen asked.

  “Mental rug burn, so focus.”

  The twins didn’t ask any more questions, instead working to corral the escalating instability and pressure within their heads. Travis could sense Karen’s distress, and she his, but there was too much for each of them to worry about that they couldn’t focus on the other, with their mental haze rising so high the rest of the world outside the two of them seemed to disappear from mind’s eye.

  “One red,” Jason informed them. “Keep at it.”

  Travis let out a grunt, but otherwise the two of them remained silent, though Jason could see them rocking back and forth a bit, which meant they were starting to lose a bit of their balance as their minds were being overloaded with instability…which was why he’d had them sit down in the first place. When he saw Karen twitch badly, the trailblazer knelt down next to them and grabbed each of their necks from the back with his hands and firmly held their skeletons in place so they could shift some of their processing power away from balance to the problem at hand.

  In truth Jason thought it would have ended by now, for the first time he’d gone through this he hadn’t been able to control the instability and he’d lost it…but maybe their twin link was helping to give them both an added bit of control, especially given the fact that they were just adepts.

  “Two red,” he said aloud and telepathically so they’d be sure to hear him. “Stay with it.”

  They barely heard him, awash in a mental fog that seemed to be charged with electricity. Surviving that swirling mess was hard enough, but trying to channel it to where it was trying to go was virtually impossible, with every small success being rewarded with yet more mental wind. Karen resolved herself to wait it out while Travis was a bit more bold and reached into it, actively trying to redirect the flows.

  Both approaches bled across their link and affected the other, but soon Karen lost all conscious contact with Travis, reduced to the only stable point within the mental hurricane she was experiencing, with the pressure in her head continuing to escalate. Though she didn’t know it, the extraneous link to her brother remained, helping both of them to keep their center, though Karen nearly lost it three times before it finally exploded.

  She never heard Jason’s warnings about 3 red lights, nor about them starting to flash. The adept was doing her best to survive what seemed to be uncontrollable, with the last thing she remembered as the pain became too much for her being her screaming…then the next thing she knew her head was throbbing and her eyes were open, looking down in her lap as her physical senses suddenly returned to her from wherever they had disappeared to.

  Jason still had a hand on her neck, and for the first time she felt his presence in her mind.

  “What…did you do?” Travis asked a moment before she did.

  “I helped stabilize you as much as I could. How do you feel?”

  “Like shit,” Karen said honestly.

  “Ditto,” Travis echoed.

  “You’re still bleeding off the instability…down to 1 red, and that will continue to decrease. Do you feel any new abilities?”

  “No,” Travis said flatly. “I think I screwed it up.”

  Jason shook his head firmly. “I felt you ascend…both of you. I just don’t know what changed. Where are you hurting?”

  “Head,” Karen said immediately and emphatically.

  “Just your head?”

  “Yeah,” Travis answered.

  “Well that’s a small datapoint. Just sit still and wait this out,” Jason said, loosening his grip and feeling both of them slump down on their spines. “Can you sit up?”

  “Didn’t realize I wasn’t,” Karen said, straightening her spine enough for Jason to fully let go.

  “I’ve been through this before, so I know what it’s like.”

  “What did you get?”

  “Rentar…it lets me see and disrupt others’ Lachka tendrils. It’s a psionic ability that manifests from the entire body, not just the head, so my pain was everywhere at once.”

  “Meaning nobody can force choke you anymore?” Travis asked sarcastically.

  Jason smiled. “Nope.”

  Karen groaned. “I don’t know what just happened, but I really need a nap…bad.”

  “Same here.”

  Jason nodded. “Don’t worry about training today. Whatever just happened needs to process further. I was burnt out when it happened to me, and you’re just a couple of weak ass adepts, so…”

  “Shut up,” Karen said, punching for his leg and missing as her arm protested halfway there and dipped towards the ground.

  “Like I said,” Jason commented with a frown. “Can either of you stand?”

  “Some help,” Travis said as he started to get to his feet. Suddenly he felt a firm grip around his waist and legs, belatedly realizing that Jason was steadying him with Lachka rather than a traditional arm under the shoulders.

  “Ow…ch,” Travis said, standing up and feeling his hea
d explode like a grenade had just gone off.

  “Karen, stay put. Travis, head over to the platform. I want to see what was added.”

  “Ok,” he said, walking very slowly over to the device with Jason doing most of the heavy lifting. Once he got inside he leaned forward on the two circular pylons and felt the trailblazer let go.

  “You good?”

  “So long as I don’t move, sure.”

  “Just stay put a few seconds,” the tech prompted, pulling a full body scan that Jason was eagerly watching build in holo. When overlaid with the previous one taken a few minutes ago the computer immediately identified a new growth on his Ikrid tissue, and Jason immediately knew this was something new, for he’d studied all the tier 2 psionics listed in the database and their corresponding physical growths, but nothing that been even close to this size, for the tissue was nearly half again what the normal Ikrid material would have been.

  “And?” Karen prompted, still sitting on the floor.

  “And we’ve got a mystery on our hands,” Jason told her. “This isn’t one of the tier 2 psionics.”

  “Tier 3?” Travis asked hopefully.

  Jason shook his head. “No. This doesn’t match up with anything in the database.”

  “Don’t tell me we grew a faulty one again,” Karen begged him.

  “No, no…the placement is different. This is something new. Feel anything yet?”

  “Just a monster headache,” Travis answered.

  “Alright,” Jason decided. “Switch up and then I’ll take you back to your bunks to rest and we’ll figure this out later.”

  “Thank you,” Travis said, stumbling out with Jason telekinetically catching him again until he got to the adept and wrapped an arm around him, freeing up his Lachka so he could help Karen into the device as she stood up a few inches before falling back down.

  “Take it slow,” he prompted, dragging Travis out of her way.

  The pair spent the next 38 hours in bed, with Travis being the first to make his way to the sanctum for a very easy run to flush the crap out of his system, feeling like he hadn’t worked out in a month. His head had stopped complaining with every little movement he made, but it was still a constant dull ache, with it taking more than a mile before he started to feel any relief.

  He got through 8 miles on the track, watching his pace carefully because his body was feeling all out of whack, before Karen showed up. As soon as she did his head exploded…but not in pain. Suddenly his senses seemed to wobble and he nearly ran off the track before he adjusted to a very strong pull coming from Karen.

  Travis coasted to a stop and walked off to the side, seeing her ‘glowing’ in front of him.

  “What the hell is going on?” she asked.

  “What are you feeling?”

  “You…like you’re the only thing around here in color.”

  “Ditto. Happened as soon as you came within range.”

  “Meaning Ikrid. If this is a new ability, what the hell is it supposed to do…other than distract us.”

  “Don’t know. You up for a few miles?”

  “How many have you done?”

  “8…it’s helping out my head.”

  “Good. Maybe this will wear off too,” she said, slowly getting up to speed as they both angled into lane 1 and ran side by side with Karen taking the inner curve. By the time they got around to the backstretch they both knew something was different. They’d always known where each other were, even when they couldn’t see each other, but this was far more intense.

  Travis could literally feel every inch of Karen’s body, her footsteps, arm swings…even her breathing and heartbeat. Her bio telemetry was saturating his senses and taking precedence over everything else, but with focus he was able to keep running and quickly got a handle on it. Her ‘glow’ didn’t diminish, but it quickly incorporated into his normal twin feel as the shock of it first activating wore off.

  They both completed the first lap without comment, then they began pulling weaving maneuvers close in to one another on the second. By the third they were seeing how close they could get, stepping inside each other’s stride and coordinating their arm swings to the point they were literally jumping on and over each other as they held sub 6:00 pace, drawing some very odd looks from the other Archons on the track.

  They pulled off after completing a mile, and as soon as they got out of lane 1 and to the outside of the track they started shadow boxing…and missing each other by a fraction of an inch. That lasted some 20 seconds before they started going through gymnastic maneuvers, again missing each other by narrow margins, and eventually leading up to paired holds and flips, executing them with more precision than they’d ever been able to do in the past.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Karen asked once they finally stopped and got their breathing under control. As elated as they were, they still felt drained from their ascension two days ago.

  “Our link just got stronger.”

  “Way stronger,” she echoed.

  “Is that what it’s supposed to do, or did it just do it for us?”

  “Don’t know. Let’s run this by Paul and Jason before we try anything else.”

  “They should be doing their own workouts now. I think this warrants disturbing them,” Travis suggested with a wry smile.

  Karen copied it perfectly. “Let’s go.”

  Paul and Jason were locked in a heavy, blow by blow sword fight in a small sparring chamber when suddenly they lost their balance and stumbled into each other, quickly steadying themselves and pulling apart…which was when they finally noticed Karen and Travis standing just outside the doorway as they released their steadying arm lock.

  “Sorry, did we interrupt something?” Travis said, smiling widely due to the fact that their overlapping Fornax fields had been enough to break their rhythm, though they’d had to blast each other with it as well because they hadn’t learn to send out individual Fornax blasts yet, but it was well worth it.

  The two trailblazers glanced at each other, then both pointed towards the twin with their free hands, jerking them off their feet and throwing them onto the mat a meter away with a heavy telekinetic ‘Force’ tug.

  “No, not at all,” Paul said lightly, looking down at them.

  “What did you want?” Jason asked, matching his mocking tone as the twins climbed to their feet minus their previous levity.

  “Something happened,” Karen said, biting back a curse.

  “Our coordination got better,” Travis explained. “A lot better.”

  “When, where, and how?” Paul demanded.

  “As soon as we got within Ikrid range, on the track, and we’re guessing our new tissue,” Karen answered succinctly.

  “Is it still active?” Jason asked.

  Both twins nodded.

  “Have you tried shutting it off?” Paul asked.

  “No,” Travis said, resulting in Jason pointing a finger at the door. “Right,” he said, walking out and putting some distance between him and Karen.

  “How’s the head,” Paul asked her.

  “Dull ache,” she said, then jerking suddenly. “Ouch.”

  “It shut off?” Jason guessed.

  “Yeah. There was no fade out. Ugh, everything is…dull now.”

  Jason sent a telepathic summons for Travis to return. “Explain what improved.”

  “I know exactly where he is at all…times,” she said, twitching when Travis returned into range. “I can feel exactly where his arms and legs are right now,” she said without looking behind. “And he glows, like everything else is a weak signal.”

  Paul held out his hand. “Show me.”

  Karen took it in hers, allowing the two Archons to form a direct Ikrid link. Most of Paul’s mind was shut off from her, but she let him through her defenses and highlighted her new sense…with Paul also digging through her recent memories and transmitting what he saw to Jason.

  Then suddenly he let go and walked around the pai
r, heading to the door and leaving the three of them behind.

  “Where’s he going?” Travis asked.

  “To send a message. Ok then, if you have enough energy to be pulling pranks, you’ve got enough to start probing this enhanced link. Let’s take a trip to Balboa Lane and see how coordinated you really are.”

  6

  November 11, 2476

  Retari System

  Atlantica

  Kara woke when she heard the soft tone in her otherwise silent quarters onboard the Broadsword, prompting her to sit up in her bunk and look towards the comm terminal. As she’d suspected a message from one of the trailblazers had come in, meaning that the ship had finally returned to Star Force space and linked up with the network. After several months in lizard territory backlogged messages coming through in bunches was common, but she’d programmed her terminal only to audibly signal her when a priority alert or a message from one of her ‘peers’ came through, with all others waiting until she decided to check in and see if she had mail.

  Kara slid out from under the thin covers and walked over to the terminal, feeling the slightly cool air on her bare arms and legs. She sat down and pulled up the message, seeing it was from Paul, and opened a nearby water bottle to take a swig…then nearly choked as she read his startling revelations.

  The twin prodigies that Paul had tried and failed to recruit into Clan Saber had been confirmed to have a psionic link, which invariably helped to aid their tandem coordination, but Paul also indicated that he thought it was helping them to level up faster than the average Archon. He couldn’t put his finger on how exactly it was occurring, but he was sure they were gaining some type of advantage through what was described as being a continuous subconscious bond.

  But that wasn’t what startled Kara. It was the headline for the message that Paul had chosen.

  UNKNOWN PSIONIC ABILITY DISCOVERED

  Paul went through in detail what they’d learned from Karen and Travis, eventually working up to the recent ascension that had both of them transforming simultaneously. That was unheard of, and Paul cited that he also believed that whatever allowed them to train to more effect had also triggered the simultaneous ascension, and not just because of their prior blackouts. He theorized that whatever the trigger was searching for it had found it in both of them because of the link, meaning that either one could have triggered it in the other…or that it had been looking specifically for a binary ability.