by Aer-ki Jyr
Jason frowned, not having ever tried that…nor knowing how. His Pefbar energy always seemed to radiate out from him like the light from a lantern. How was he supposed to direct it inwards?
Then again, it was emanating from his brain, so he should have been able to use it to see inside, say, his arm as the records indicated was possible. In fact it’d be necessary if he had to telekinetically remove a piece of shrapnel from inside his body, so how was he supposed to refocus the energy into his body whereas it seemed to only exist outside of it?
An hour of reading through subtext gave him his answer…the energy was already being transmitted throughout his body, it just wasn’t registering in his mind. In order for him to process the signals coming to him his own body was a null spot, as he’d discovered earlier through his own training. He’d learned to pull that in with proximity mode all the way to his skin’s surface, but never inside his body.
The data indicated that level 1 abilities were standard, but that subsequent level upgrades had to be attained by the individual rather than by genetic manipulation…which suggested that such genetic manipulation might be able to deliver the ability directly. According to the generic timeline a Zen’zat would train and develop the Pefbar ability on a particular level until the next level randomly broke through. There was no significant precursor or threshold to be met, according to the data, which left the process a bit murky from a scientific point of view.
Jason found that odd, given the rest of the detail in the records, but he could accept that the next level wouldn’t manifest until an individual had attained a significant amount of skill in the current one. It seemed appropriate, actually, given that they had to earn their way forward.
During his search Jason came across a statistical assessment of Zen’zat in general, indicating that 98% progressed to the 2nd level…reminding him that, once again, he and the other Archons were still newbs compared to the real Zen’zat out there somewhere in the galaxy. Frustrating as that was the numbers intrigued him, for while 87% progressed to level 3, only 54% progressed to level 4…and upwards from there the numbers dropped drastically. That meant either the development of the abilities got progressively more difficult or the turnover rate of the Zen’zat was drastic.
Everything he’d learned thus far about the Zen’zat indicated that while they were deemed somewhat expendable in combat, they were valued enough not to be wasted, if for no other purpose than the other races didn’t want to be constantly having to train replacements. Most Zen’zat lived over 1000 years, shy of large scale conflicts, of which there were a number throughout V’kit’no’sat history, but 400 years old was considered young by their standards, meaning that most of them would live well past that and conceivably have a wealth of time to train their abilities up to the higher levels.
But how good were they, really? That had been a lingering question in all of the trailblazers’ minds for some time. How well did they stack up, head to head, given their age? Were they ahead of the curve and only behind because of the Zen’zat’s longevity, or were they on par, or inferior, with the V’kit’no’sat training standards being even higher than the Archons’?
They’d been able to study some training data left in the machines in the pyramid, getting the raw scores from a number of the Zen’zat who conceivably could have been their ancestors, as well as pulling some numbers from the database of their training in general, but this was the first instance that he knew of where he had a ‘tech tree’ of comparison scores to view. Maybe that was because he’d never been able to identify an individual skill to study, or maybe their understanding of the database was just too pathetic for them to realize how much they were missing.
Regardless, Jason now had a glowing display of Zen’zat aptitude scores, pulled from what he didn’t know. It could have been a detachment, planetary statistics, or all Zen’zat throughout history. The label had three terms he couldn’t identify, but the scores he could read and they were showing him that there was definitely a bulge of lower level individuals that steepled into a very elite group.
The scores for the masses were attached to individual tests. Jason tagged one of the solid holograms and a schematic of a familiar room appeared, along with a wider breakdown of the test scores for what appeared to be a response drill…if Jason was reading it right, and he wasn’t completely sure he was. He brought up the test description and read through a mass of text, realizing that he could stand here for the next 24 hours and not even get through a sliver of the material on Pefbar. That excited him to no end, so he squelched his curiosity and focused on the single test before him, reading up as much as he could.
Content that he knew what he was doing, Jason eventually shut down the interface and made the long run back to the ramps on the edge of the command deck and up into the Zen’zat zone of the pyramid. He worked his way into the restricted section and into one of the chambers that the Archon’s had previously assumed to be a sparring chamber…one of many.
It had a circular mat with a narrow ring of hard floor around the outer edge, but now it seemed that this and probably the others like it were more than met the eye.
“Cha’ves’lak,” Jason said aloud as he stood in the center, as the database instructions had indicated was the startup procedure.
The open-air arch of a doorway disappeared as recessed door segments slid shut, sealing him in. From there a holographic array of colored discs appeared around Jason. Through them he chose the particular psionic test he’d been reading up on and selected the lowest ability level.
The menu vanished, as did all illumination in the chamber. Jason flicked on his spherical sight, or ‘Pefbar’ as he had to keep reminding himself, and saw an object about a meter wide appear to his right in the shape of a geometric sphere with more than 100 tiny sides…which he was pleasantly surprised that he could make out. In the past it would have appeared as a giant blur, and the detail was a welcome perk of all the headaches he’d gone through to develop his ability to this point.
Then again…it was a bit too precise, and he couldn’t help but think that some of the new tissue Kara had said was needed to be grown had added an element to his ability that hadn’t been there before, meaning he was probably functionally stronger than he had been a few hours ago, even if he’d lost a bit of power generation in the process.
Jason walked over to the object and punched it lightly, feeling his hand sink into the hologram with resistance, like he was pushing into liquid. After a brief delay it ‘cracked’ and vanished, along with a satisfying tone indicating that the target had successfully been dispatched.
When it went away another one appeared elsewhere in the room, immediately coming up on Jason’s ‘vision.’ He walked over and tagged it as well, then proceeded through 13 more before the basic test ended. His statistics appeared, along with the control interface and a prompt asking for a username to attach the scores to.
Jason smiled, inputting his number 025, which he’d used before for the holographic sparring program. The purely holographic interface was slower to use than the console mounts in some of the other chambers, but it functioned well enough, making him wonder why all of the chambers weren’t controlled strictly from holograms.
A matrix appeared with two small areas highlighted. Jason touched one and his previous sparring scores appeared, filling in a small area of that overall program and indicating that that he’d only brushed the surface of its capability. It took him a moment to find the ‘back’ button, then the matrix returned to overview mode and he tagged the second piece, bringing up an almost blank submatrix with the test he’d taken highlighting one area.
Tagging that, he had to go through another submatrix to get to the hexagonal cylinder tube that showed the bottom segment highlighted. This, he knew, was the test level, marking his completion of level 1. He touched it with his finger and the attempt he made showed up, tagged as a single score icon. Had he not found and dispatched all of the targets within a generous timeframe it woul
d have indicated how many targets he’d successfully achieved, but since he’d gotten them all it merely marked the attempt as completed.
Jason touched the 2nd level sliver of the cylinder and brought up a blank score sheet. From there he used a linking button to reactivate the chamber without having to go back to the main menu.
The visible holograms disappeared again, while the invisible ones popped up, this time two at a time. They neither glowed nor reflected light…not that there was any in the chamber, but if there had been they’d have been completely clear and perceptible only by touch. The Pefbar ability manifested in a similar manner, ‘touching’ all objects and as such it registered the holograms…at least that’s what Jason could make of the description in the database, of which a lot of the vocabulary was still a mystery to him.
He wondered where the massive dragon had gone, and what it would take to get him to pass out a few more of those forearm trinkets.
The two holograms were of equal size, but different shape. One was the geometric sphere like before, while the other was a cube. Jason walked over and touched the sphere, jamming his knuckled fingers into the resistant surface and shattering the object. The cube disappeared at the same time, then two more targets appeared elsewhere in the chamber, with him having to choose the sphere each time.
In the past, he knew, his Pefbar wouldn’t have been detailed enough to determine the shape, but rather would have registered as a blurry spot on his vision. As Jason danced around the chamber easily tagging the spheres, he was relieved that he could pass the lowest level of the Pefbar tests. That meant he was ahead of the rookie Zen’zat, at least. How long it took them to move through these levels after their genetic conversion from Ter’nat he didn’t know, but he was glad to be statistically in the game now, and was eager to see just how far up the cylindrical icon he could move his scores.
Four hours later he hit his limit, on level 17, when multiple moving objects were put into play…and by multiple he meant upwards of two dozen. They were small and different shapes, each of which indicated a sequence, like being numbered. Jason had to tag them in order, but he couldn’t maintain ‘visual’ identification of them all simultaneously…it was too much for his mind to process and he kept losing track of some of them. They literally vanished from his view as his mind constrained what processing power it had to focus on certain areas, using his ‘spotlight’ ability simultaneously with his spherical sight, something that he’d not done before.
The other tests had gradually progressed him towards this point, and he felt like he was getting quite the psionic workout, even though these tests were meant to measure one’s skill rather than train…there were other scenarios for training sake, he’d discovered, but using the tests designed specifically for this ability and refined over millions of years was doing more for Jason than their own crude training chambers ever had.
That was a result of simple ignorance, and he knew their own facilities would advance quickly as they mimicked and upgraded the V’kit’no’sat methods…though without the ability to produce solid holograms this was going to be the only location capable of this level of training, meaning that the pyramid was going to be Archon central for years to come.
Jason failed the level 17 test, not moving fast enough between targets and feeling like an elementary student trying to order block letters in a sequence and studying the ‘U,’ holding it upside down and wondering if it was an ‘N.’
He sighed, resigning himself to stop for the day but satisfied with his progress. The past few months hadn’t been a wash after all, for they’d advanced him beyond the basic level of Zen’zat Pefbar skills…though only barely. The progress cylinder, as he’d found out, was only marking the lowest subset of 10 tests. Once he’d completed that it had minimized into its own block on yet another cylinder. Jason had searched through the displays and discovered approximately 1200 testing levels available, which absolutely blew his mind…both with imagination and appetite.
New training programs, with this level of complexity and depth, were like opening a Christmas present and finding a Time Lord’s cookie jar…which was bigger on the inside.
“Cha’ves’lak,” Jason said, powering down the testing program. The lights came back on and the doorway reappeared, revealing a pair of second gen Archons looking inside.
“Easy kiddos,” he said, walking out and rubbing his head reflexively, then realized he didn’t have a headache and laughed at himself. “I’ll show you the ropes later.”
“What is it?” Sloane-1043 asked.
“New training toys,” Jason hinted, then walked off, knowing that they couldn’t get anywhere without the activation phrase. Those two didn’t have Pefbar anyway, but even if they did they’d need to get worked on by Kara before they could make any real progress.
On that note, he needed to find her and ask her a bazillion questions…now that she’d had enough time to fix David’s head, along with who knew how many others.
2
Kara pointed to the tiny cookie on David’s tray with her finger, then sent it smoothly flying down the length of the table as if on an invisible tractor beam emanating from her fingernail. Two meters down and it landed in Riona’s mouth. The Archon bit into it smiling, then Kara slowly launched another from the tray down towards Aeryn-412’s waiting tongue.
A few inches from her mouth and the cookie made a sharp detour, bouncing off her forehead and away from the table…straight into Jason’s hand. He held it between two fingers and nipped off a bit of it.
“Looks like this is the ex-headache Clan,” he said, sitting down at the cafeteria table opposite from Kara, but two seats down where there was an opening. “Thanks again, by the way.”
“Questions?” she guessed.
“Plenty,” Jason confirmed.
“You should have gotten here earlier,” David suggested. “We’ve been getting schooled on several matters.”
“You mind?” Jason asked her.
She telekinetically stole a cookie from another Archon’s tray and delivered it straight into her own mouth as she set her elbows on the table. “Shooott,” she said, chewing.
“I just found a Pefbar training chamber that we didn’t know we had and spent several hours measuring my skill. I hit level 17…out of some 1200. How far behind the Zen’zat are we really?”
Kara swallowed and stared down at the tabletop for a moment, seeming to search her thoughts. “My information is dated. Some comes from near to when the Rit’ko’sor rebellion began, but the rest comes from the period previous to the Zak’de’ron purge, which was approximately 850 millennia ago.”
“Ouch,” Lanny-257 commented.
“That’s the first number I’ve heard on that,” Jason added.
“I had to do the math,” Kara admitted. “I’ve got the dates up here,” she said, tapping a finger against the side of her brunette head. “Some of them, anyway. More information keeps popping up as I come across it, so I’m not sure how much memory I actually have. I do know that the V’kit’no’sat advance slowly when they’re not being challenged, technologically I mean.”
Kara held up her wrist so all 9 Archons at the table could see the jewel, with a few techs from the other tables starting to come over and listen as well.
“This should still be superior to what the Zen’zat have. At least that’s what my memories tell me. Zak’de’ron technology was superior, and they only shared part of it with the V’kit’no’sat. We’re…their Zen’zat didn’t mix with the others, and were drawn from their own Ter’nat populations. All the races draw from the communal Ter’nat race, then usually keep some of the Zen’zat they produce for themselves once they reach higher levels, but technically they’re supposed to serve all the races and can be rotated between duties.”
“The Zak’de’ron didn’t submit to that and kept their own Zen’zat, not to mention giving them greater abilities than the others. We all have one of these,” she said, tapping on the clear jewel imbedded into her
left wrist, “it’s our armor, regenerator, comm system, and just about everything else you can think of. It uses compression based technology on a scale far beyond what the V’kit’no’sat possessed, and the knowledge in my head says that there’s no way they’ve caught up yet.”
“The knowledge is separate?” David asked.
Kara frowned. “I’m pretty sure it comes from this, but it’s not standard. I think the dragon added it specifically for me so I’d know what the hell I was doing. Then again, some of it could have been standard.”
“Maybe I should ask how strong are you, then?” Jason pressed.
“I’m a weakling, unfortunately,” she admitted. “You need to understand, the Zen’zat attain self-sufficiency, as do most of the races, so you’ve got individuals living hundreds of thousands of years, with a small few reaching over the million mark. Most of those, oddly, are Zen’zat. And you can imagine how powerful one could get with a million years’ worth of training.”
“Damn,” Riona whispered. “I can’t even imagine what that skillset would look like.”
“I don’t have to imagine, I can remember,” Kara said uneasily. “The greatest Zen’zat in history was Ironnsey. He wasn’t Zak’de’ron, but a regular Zen’zat who primarily served the Oso’lon. He was pretty much a Jedi compared to everyone else, Zen’zat and dinosaur combined. I have several memories of him, including an incident where he was ordered to hunt down and destroy a group of six rebel Hjar’at warriors.”
“I should probably say, and don’t hesitate to ask questions because I don’t always remember what you know and don’t know, but the Hjar’at are the more dangerous of the races when it comes to close quarters combat. Their Saroto’kanse’vam were specifically engineered to make them lethal above all others, and while they’re not the dominate race in the V’kit’no’sat socially, they are the most militarily dominate on the ground.”