by Jyr, Aer-ki
A slight smile crept across Paul’s face as he accessed the nearby control station and dug his way into the Star Force files, pulling up a restricted section and waving Henderson towards the grocery list of boom-booms.
“Any of these big enough?”
The tech looked through the list, pulling up several and seeing their insane yields. “Explosive junkies.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
2
May 7, 2739
Merovingian System
Prometheus
Paul’s ship approached the Star Forge for the second time in 5 days, having just made the short jump over to Sol and back again, this time carrying 15 warheads and an equal number of penetration vehicles, for you couldn’t simply shoot a missile into a star and expect it to get very far without being destroyed first. Each of the vehicles was the size of a dropship and heavily shielded, having been built originally to get the fat bombs to their targets before they could get knocked out of the sky by anti-air defenses.
As soon as Paul’s warship came within range of the Prometheus he received targeting coordinates from Henderson, then using the yield level they’d discussed previously, the ship launched the remote craft with the trailblazer flying it remotely down and into the star. He stayed with it as long as he could, but eventually the control signal was cut off and both men had to wait to see what would happen.
Several long minutes followed, with Paul knowing it would take time to reach the necessary depth within the star. Had the penetration vehicle been using standard combat shields it would have been destroyed almost instantaneously, but Paul had some quick swapouts done in Sol to replace the shields with the absorption variety. Calibrated using the data from the Prometheus, the shields were designed to soak up the energy from this star, taking that power and redeploying it into the shield matrix. If the calibration was off part of the destructive power would get through and kill the bomb before it had a chance to detonate, so there was no way of knowing if the first attempt was going to be successful or not other than to wait for the bang.
Paul had brought 15 for a reason, and it wasn’t just to shake up the surface levels multiple times. If some additional tweaking of the shield matrixes had to be done, he didn’t want to have to run back to Sol again to get some more…not that they had that many on hand. The yields were so great that there wasn’t much cause to build them, though he’d really like the chance to throw a few against the lizard shipyard rings.
That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, so their limited supply was just sitting and collecting dust when he dropped by the vault to pick them up. Hopefully now they could be put to a more productive use.
They weren’t all the same make, and the one he’d just sent down to the star was a concussion model, designed to be detonated within a medium and use the surrounding material as the destructive force. Had it been detonated in space it would still do damage at close range, but couldn’t affect much of anything across a vacuum, for the energy matrix had an expansion distance of less than a kilometer. It would push through it so fast that anything hit would be thrown out violently, but beyond that boundary line the energy fueling the push fizzled.
That wouldn’t be an issue within the star, for the density of material surrounding it was more than enough to trigger a huge blast wave…if it detonated.
Paul watched the clock ticking off the seconds, not knowing for sure how fast the penetration vehicle could descend. It had a small gravity drive to pull it through the stellar matter, but there was no way to know how it would respond because nothing like this had been tried before. The only data they had was from the shield columns dipping down into the star, for research into the internal dynamics was pointless considering the database in the pyramid.
That meant to date Star Force hadn’t sent any physical probes down into any star, nor could they have until the recent development of the absorption shields. Paul was fairly certain this would work, but there was no way to know for sure other than chucking one in and seeing what happened.
The Prometheus was situated 120 kilometers above the surface of the star, but stellar fluctuations had bits of atmosphere tickling its own absorption shields, meaning there wasn’t a definitive boundary above the somewhat chaotic exterior…that became a lot more chaotic when the bomb detonated. It took time for the shockwave to hit the surface, but when it did a huge bump formed, rising up several kilometers before breaking and shooting out a shower of stellar matter halfway up to the Star Forge before gravity started dragging it back down again.
Paul watched and waited, seeing a shield column begin extending down from the Prometheus following the retreat of the glowing stellar material. It punched down inside it even as it was churning about, then the telemetry feed from Henderson showed it push down even further, eventually spreading out its tendrils like a growing tree.
He saw some of them disappear, snapping under the strain of the turbulence, but others remained and continued to sprout more roots. Soon a glowing tendril began to shoot up from the surface, traveling in the lift column and eventually reaching the Prometheus where it was taken inside and separated into its constituent components with any unwanted material heading back down the opposite side of the giant straw.
The amounts collected were known almost instantly, with Paul watching the feeds. Solari particles were a small minority within stars, and it required a lot of sifting to get a significant amount of them, so when no chori showed up he didn’t immediately label their first try a failure. Rather he waited and watched, seeing a few trace amounts of other solari popping up as it was separated from the hydrogen and helium, which were both sent back down into the star a waste material.
In the future those would have been claimed as well, but the storage areas for the bulk materials weren’t yet activated. When they were they’d fill up quickly, which would require regular cargo shipments off the station, and as of yet no regular jumpship traffic was routed here so the Prometheus hadn’t bothered harvesting any of the common elements.
The analysis telemetry had registered 9 different compounds so far, then a tenth was added as a bit of corovon was collected. It was a tiny amount, but in its rare form. Most corovon Star Force collected was bonded to other compounds and had to be separated from it on a subatomic level, but most of the corovon in the star had already been separated due to the destructive soup that made up the star…or at least the trace amounts this far up. The deep core was another matter, but Star Force didn’t have the shield strength to reach that far down as of yet.
It took more than eight minutes before the first bit of chori was reported, and just a tiny spec at that, but another followed some 23 seconds later, with more bits and pieces coming up the straw and into the Star Forge.
A hologram of Henderson popped up beside the main feeds in the command nexus where Paul was watching from and the trailblazer mentally flipped the image to a headshot rather than a full body image.
“A few hits,” Paul mentioned.
“How long the plume stays within the radius of the collection field is in question, but if this saturation level persists a number of days we’ll have enough out of this single detonation. If not, we’ll need to reposition and repeat.”
“I’ve got two more of similar yield. If it takes more than that we’re going to have variations to deal with.”
“Keep your fingers crossed then. In the meantime head back on over and we’ll troubleshoot the rest of our headaches, unless you need to be elsewhere?”
“I’m going to stick around a while. I’ll be over within the hour.”
Henderson nodded, then his hologram cut out.
Paul glanced at the updating collection numbers again, seeing a steady trickle of chori being brought up and wondering how soon the subsurface currents were going to sweep it aside and outside of the filament perimeter.
Paul stood on the floor of a huge chamber, or rather the lack of one. The artificial gravity was working, but everything over his he
ad was empty space inside the Prometheus…for 17 miles.
He looked up, unable to see the ceiling in the darkened distance and knowing that this area was reserved for future construction. The outer shell of the Star Forge was complete, as was a lot of the interior, but there were voids such as this that had atmosphere but little else on the 94 mile long mining station. It’d taken a hell of a lot of resources to build it, but now that it was here those materials were going to be returned in the form of stellar mining resources from now through infinity. At the moment there was only a negligible trickle of exports, but that would gradually grow and as it did so would the station’s interior.
At full strength it was estimated that at least a crew of 200,000 would be needed, but the Star Forge had been designed to house upwards of a million with ease, and areas such as this could be fitted with additional residential areas if necessary. How the Prometheus would eventually turn out was unknown, allowing for the adaptation that was required in any prototype. The trick of it was that you couldn’t build multiple prototypes of this size, so you had to get all the kinks worked out in this one effort before you got around to building any standardized Star Forges down the road.
Paul threw a handful of small lights out into the chamber, catching them telekinetically and spreading them out in a wide circle and sticking them in place with the light adhesive on their backs. He flicked them all on, bringing far more illumination to the void than the open doorway behind him allowed, but it still got ate up by the immense distances involved, for the chamber was over 4 miles wide.
The trailblazer closed the door, leaving only his small lights as a source of illumination. He had his Pefbar, of course, but that was soon about to be outranged, thus the need for a visual source of reference. He touched a small control panel attached to his left forearm and dialed down the gravity in the void to 5%, then gently dropped to the ground, bending at the knees briefly before launching himself up with a Yetu-enhanced jump.
He shot away from the floor like a missile, with the bit of gravity gradually slowing his ascent but not before he angled into the near wall. Paul kicked off of it, sending himself out towards the interior where he essentially hung weightless traveling through a giant arc in the dark, with only the small circle of lights below giving him any point of reference.
It took more than two minutes before he landed again, so far out into the chamber that the lights appeared to be a mere pinprick in the distance across the floor. Paul dialed up the gravity to 12% and took off running in long strides that eventually began to reach in excess of 20 meters each. It was an odd motion, but one that he’d practiced before…yet never had he had this much open space to play with.
He ran in a straight line in the total dark, his back to the tiny prick of light, and jumped on the next step, doing a triple flip in the air before landing again. Next he threw in a cartwheel at considerable speed, flipping over twice before getting a running step back in and righting his motion, then jumping up again in a Hulk-sized leap that was more lateral than up.
Using his Pefbar he could see the ground below as he flew across it about 30 meters up and still gaining altitude. Eventually the gravity nulled out his upward momentum and he began drifting back down again, where he eventually hit and restarted his loping run…which he halted by leaning backwards and slamming his staggered feet down, transitioning into a skid that ground on his shoes and brought him to a stop.
He dialed the gravity down to 3%, then launching himself straight up, letting himself pass beyond his Pefbar range of the floor and into the darkness. He couldn’t maneuver much at all, with only the air around him to grip, but he created some bioshield fins on his arms and legs and used them to spin him about so he could see the tiny dot of light in the distance.
Paul centered himself relative to it and just ‘floated’ as he continued to move upwards, closing his eyes and trying to feel something similar to what it was to fly, and not just for fun. Five months ago Kara had had another revelation revealing the identity of one of the elusive tier 4 psionics, and to his and other DBZ fans’ great delight, she confirmed that it was, in fact, a biological gravity drive similar to what the Zak’de’ron possessed.
They didn’t need it, being able to fly with their wings alone, but the added ability gave them insane maneuvering capabilities, and given their insistence that their Zen’zat be able to fly as well, which Kara could thanks to her Vorch’nas, it only made logical sense that they’d included the biological equivalent in the hidden genetic triggers.
Paul didn’t think that he could learn to fly here and now, but as long as he was here and had this massive chamber to play around with, he might as well try and tickle the sensation a bit, not knowing how in hell one was supposed to find the trigger for flight when one couldn’t fly.
So he just floated upwards, eventually coming to the apex and slowly sinking back down again. He kept his Pefbar focused below him, so he could see the ground coming when he got close, but otherwise put his mind into a meditative mode and just tried to bounce around a bit inside his own head, hoping to glean a bit of insight but not really expecting to find anything.
When his spherical sense picked up the approaching floor he bent his knees slightly and readied himself for the landing…which was about at the same speed that he had jumped from. He caught himself with his legs, then bounced off a bit when he failed to negate it all, rolling through a light somersault and awkwardly jumping back up again.
This time he didn’t try to soak in the feeling, but instead deployed a series of bioshields along his legs and moved them down towards his feet, disengaging them there and deploying another at his hips simultaneously…his version of a crude jet engine. He had done this sort of thing in the water, but the loose air was another matter entirely.
He used the multiple shields to push the air down away from him, adding to his upward momentum while throwing fins off his back and arms to guide his movement. The shields had to be locked to his spine, rather than independently deployed, but that only made them easier to generate. The trick was in creating multiple ones simultaneously, as well as moving them relative to his body.
Once getting a feel for the air and remembering his rhythm rate, for he had no visual reference to judge his speed off of, Paul just focused straight up and put himself through a workout, able to seemingly fly in any direction for an infinite distance, for he couldn’t detect the far walls, let alone the ceiling. He also wasn’t moving very fast, for the propulsion he was providing was now having to fight the gravity without his upward momentum.
When that transfer happened his gut settled slightly, for he was no longer ballistic and the gravity was tugging on his insides a bit more than his fall rate allowed. It wasn’t much, but Paul knew he was on his own power now and intended to stay aloft for quite some time, throwing in a few aerobatic maneuvers while he was up there.
He gradually increased the gravity as he progressed, making it harder and harder for him to counter the pull, with him eventually coming back to ground when he hit 9%. Pedal as hard as he could, he just couldn’t move the bioshields fast enough to get enough air underneath him to counteract his weight.
Tired from the effort, he switched the gravity up to 20% and created a telekinetic plate beneath his feet, then split it in half and spread it out like an inflatable bag, pushing him up into the air by forcing distance between his feet and the floor. Paul launched up and slightly forward, pulling a quick flip and coming back down again, using the same tactic to create a ‘crashbag’ underneath him to help slow his descent.
That one failed, badly, for instead of crunching down it merely stopped him cold up until the point his feet overloaded and breached the weak field, bringing him down to the ground with Paul catching the rest of his momentum on his legs with ease.
“Damn it,” he said in the dark, with the tiny circle of lights so far away now that he could barely make them out. “How the hell does Morgan do that?”
Paul set himself and lau
nched upwards again, trying multiple times to get the ‘cushion’ effect and hoping to learn from the succession of failures.
3
April 19, 2741
Daxmet System (Old Calavari Region)
Cjom
Heema walked down the long hallway onboard the Alliance jumpship, following a row of other Reen that were making their way to the hangar bays to leave the ship. Almost the entire complement of passengers on the Star Force vessel were Reen, with Cjom now being the furthest endpoint of the ADZ transit grid into the region that had once been dominated by the Calavari, though this system had never belonged to them.
Two years ago it had been infested with lizards that a Star Force fleet and army eradicated, freeing the former transitional system that had been used to funnel Calavari and other survivors away from the lizard advance and into the ADZ. Now that they’d returned to reclaim it, the new Alliance that Star Force essentially controlled was giving the Reen’s former system back to them.
It was something that Heema and others had been pressing for relentlessly in their efforts to grow their race’s dominance within the ADZ. Already they possessed two planetoids of their own within those borders and numerous pieces of others that defaultly belonged to Star Force and operated under their limiting, but fair code of conduct. However, this was the first opportunity they had to reclaim what was once theirs and to establish a foothold outside of the ADZ, whose climate was stable, but overly populated with any type of expansion requiring considerable skill and resources.
The worlds outside the ADZ were another matter, with plenty to seek out and colonize now that the lizard threat had been pushed back…except that Star Force wasn’t allowing any such colonization to occur except with their express permission, and the Hycre and Protovic were backing them on that. The mysterious Voku also seemed to be in their pocket as well, for that overly powerful race had just set up its first embassy within the ADZ and was beginning to make civilian contacts with what they referred to as Star Force’s wards. The Reen didn’t like that term very much, but in truth Heema had to admit it was accurate.