Star Force: Sav (SF51) (10 page)

Trouble was when you were swimming underwater, holding
your breath, and heavily exerting yourself that wasn’t the best time for an
instability surge to hit you. David had almost not made it back to the surface
without having to dismiss it, but he held on just long enough that when he got
back into the air and pulled himself up onto the side of the training pool he
was able to force it up into red level on his own, then when Kiran come over
and helped with a metal fixed point he made the full conversion and the
upgrade…which had him now able to swim and fight underwater for several minutes
without problem or a breath mask, so long as he had full reserves beforehand,
which took some 20 minutes or so to replenish.

According to the database that replenishment time
would come down with training, and he was eager to press the new ability. The
medtechs were also excited, because
with every ascension
they caught on biomed sensors they got a little closer to finding the
triggers…but they kept reminding Bo that he was the key to it all with his
supposedly longer ascensions. That theory hadn’t been tested a second time yet,
but he’d been making tweaks in his swimming training as a result of what they’d
learned from Kiran.

And so the cycle continued, or rather just began.
Training with others on, near, or above your ability level truly made a world
of difference, especially when they were just as fanatically obsessed with it
as you were. All eight of them were constantly driving themselves and helping
each other out, barely taking any free time at all aside for meals, naps, and
sleep…and reducing the latter down to as little as they could tolerate in order
to get more training in, bumping up their advancement rate while adding an
extra element to their training that the fatigue induced.

In fact, it induced it so much that only a few weeks
later Vermaire ascended to a brand new ability…and fortunately they’d convinced
him to wear a headband, which he’d been disinclined to previously, not
expecting to be able to match the
trailblazers
psionically. His insane training regimen, which was both longer and more
intense than even Bo was doing, caused him to ascend to
Inas
after three tries…the last of which had Jason nearby to help.

Inas
was, unsurprisingly, an
ability that was healing related and allowed one to take and process a lot of
stress above and beyond the norm, including fatigue that induced a need to
sleep.

After Vermaire achieved that his ego blossomed even
more, as did his schedule. The man pushed himself to a level that Bo couldn’t
hope to match in 100 years, if not 1000. The infamous Black Knight now only
slept for 5 or 6 hours
every 4 days
.

Inspired by that feat and how much training he was
getting in…which would invariably lead to even greater adaptation and
advancement…Bo added a bit more to his own schedule, literally falling into bed
when his sleep cycle came and dragging himself out when he woke up 9 hours
later, but he knew it would be worth it.

And he loved it. They all did. Archons needed and
thrived off of challenges, especially physical ones.

Hyperbolic Time Chamber was right…except that this was
way more intense, and the gravity was higher. For the variable chamber they
used for that type of training had Bo enduring bouts at 12g and Vermaire at
14g.

10

September 27, 2546

Solar System

Earth

Bo woke up, still in a haze but no longer missing his
alarms. He rolled himself out of bed and immediately pulled on a shirt, shorts,
and his running shoes, then headed over to the nearby track for an easy 3 miles
to wake
himself
up before hitting the weight room for
one of Wilson’s callisthenic programs that had, as usual, the Archons active
under weight restriction. That was intentional to make sure they built strength
rather than bulk, for a slow opponent was an easy one to defeat.

He latched on custom built weights to his shins and
forearms before going through a series of prescribed movements over and over
again. Halfway through Kiran came in and started doing an identical set off to
his left a few meters and both trailblazers fell into sync with each other. As usual
Bo’s weakness came from his muscles, for his coordination and awareness of what
he was doing was so much higher with Sav. He had to fight to keep himself in
alignment, but succeeded in doing so…which also helped keep Kiran in line by
matching Bo’s pace and timing.

After that it was time for ‘breakfast’ despite the
fact that it was evening. The area the training group was located in had no
windows and they never left it, so time of day quickly became irrelevant,
especially with each Archon on their own sleep schedule…with Vermaire virtually
being awake at all hours.

After about a 10 minute break for food it was off to
the simulators,
this time
a command nexus where Bo
worked on his naval skills, or rather two of them…fleet coordination and
gunnery, the latter of which had him target shooting. He could have used manual
controls but his mind processed so well that he just kept with the Ikrid link
and mentally targeted his simulated weapon with slightly better accuracy. The
trick of it was to keep your mind focused, for even an erratic thought could
have you aiming the completely opposition direction or freezing in place.

The mind was much
more loose
than the body, which was why mental control was key to using any tech Ikrid
related. Bo found that the physical training actually helped calibrate his
mind, acting as an anchor, and liked to hit these targeting drills while his
muscles were still warm and the impatient part of his mind was still partially
satiated with the previous workout.

He spent quite a long time on the gunnery today,
racking up experience points on hard scenarios before getting in a few more
easy fleet runs when he checked the time. He wore a watch to keep himself
aware,
otherwise he’d completely lose himself in the
training. Wilson had them on a strict schedule as far as what they needed to
get in per ‘day,’ and while it was up to them to figure out how to fit it in
they knew better than to fall behind. Bo had to section out his days into time
blocks and cut himself off when he reached his limit, otherwise some of the
challenges he would get so annoyed with that he’d stick with them for hours
until he passed or it became obvious that he had to get to other workouts.

That bit of self-analysis had been crucial, with him
now moving from one segment to another as if he was staying ahead of an enemy
chasing him. He got in what he could, when he could, but always kept moving
forward no matter how tired or impatient he was. By now that had just become
routine, with him bouncing around the training area from one individual drill
to another before meeting up with the others for team activities.

Those were reserved for the second half of today, and
at hour 21 he left the pool and headed over to the psionic training areas where
he met up with Aaron and the two linked into battlemeld immediately, not even
bothering for pleasant conversation. They’d gotten so invested in their
training they didn’t want to waste even a few seconds, with both of them
searching for tiny switches in the walls and objects in the room that they had
to trigger with Ikrid.

It was a V’kit’no’sat tech they’d reverse-engineered a
while ago, but these switches required two minds to activate, as well as being
on tricky timers and pressure sensitive panels. Bo had to stand on one to
activate a certain set of switches, or rather to make them live. Aaron likewise
had to stand in certain places and do so in the time allotted, leaving both of
them hopping around the room while scanning the various invisible switches and
combining their Ikrid skills to ‘flip’ them.

It was training designed to go after another psionic
that Kara had told them about, but that no one had gotten yet, as were many of
the drills that Wilson was sending them. After completing it both Archons moved
to another psionic, and another, and another, staying together for the next 8
hours before splitting up again…with Bo finally heading for food and bed.

He woke up six and a half hours later and began the
cycle again, with many of the workouts being the same but some changed. No day
was completely identical, but in order to improve you had to have repetition.

Bo took a few minutes and picked up a datapad,
scheduling next week’s workouts ahead of time and seeing who was available for
what. It took a little juggling to get what Wilson wanted them to do in, but
after about 12 minutes of trying he worked out what he was going to do and
when, then disconnected his mind from the big picture and focused on what he
had to do next, which was another easy morning run.

Five months later Bo was working another Ikrid session
with Aaron when the instability hit him. Both knew it instantly, for they were
locked in battlemeld, with the other trailblazer withdrawing and making his
limited mental presence known as Bo dropped to the floor and sat down
crosslegged, chasing the mental storm forming and urging it on within certain
pathways. The fixed point formed in his mind from Aaron’s presence and he used
it to stabilize himself through what was another extra long ascension.

He got it on the first try, taking him some 43 minutes
to do so…all during which his headband recorded the biotelemetry of what was
happening inside his head. The tissue growth at the end wasn’t as extreme as
before, but it still hurt. Both of them thought they knew what it was, for
Aaron had ascended a week previously gaining Neritu…the very specific psionic
that Wilson’s training had been aiming for.

It was a battlemeld ability that allowed two
individuals to link together and combine their Ikrid and Ensek abilities, with
both growing stronger above and beyond the sum of the two. The new tissue acted
as a binary and created a powerful transmitter when the pair
were
within a short distance from one another.

Aaron hadn’t been able to test his because no one else
possessed it, but once a quick assessment of Bo’s telemetry by the medtechs
confirmed it was Neritu and was communicated to them via datapad, the pair
immediately adjusted their schedules to give themselves half an hour per day to
work on developing it…with new workouts from Wilson soon to follow.

But the new ability aside, the significance of that
ascension was the confirmation that Bo’s Sav was going to make all his
ascensions longer. One could be an anomaly, but now
two
had been extended, essentially confirming their theory…meaning
that he was going to be the key to unlocking the triggers, with the medtechs
already confirming that they were close to finding this one between his and
Aaron’s data.

That discovery would come four days later once they
had the chance to really crunch the numbers, and within two more days Aaron was
successfully able to share Neritu with Jason through the twin link.

Three triggers down…and many more to
come.

Paul was in his quarters onboard the
Excalibur
when word came that the
Skarron fleet had begun to arrive, reading through recent intelligence reports
that he quickly threw aside, with the datapad landing on his bed as he rushed
out of the room enroute to the bridge.

By the time he got there and linked in with the
command nexus a good 129 Skarron warships had already entered high orbit around
Urrit
, one of the most forward Dvapp worlds on the
ADZ border and the one that Paul had guessed the enemy would hit first. He was
glad he’d been right and was here to assist in the defense, though he doubted
this was the only incursion that was happening. The sheer number of the enemy
fleet suggested a widespread campaign…or at least he hoped. If they threw
everything against one world then they were going to be in for a world of hurt.

Other fleets were positioned along the inhabited
worlds on the Skarron front, with the trailblazers playing a game of chess that
hadn’t officially started. They split up their reinforcements as they chose,
but to date no word had come through the relay network of any assault, suggesting
that Paul was going to get the first one to deal with…which was what he wanted.

The arrival of the Skarrons had already gone out over
the comm network, just in case they managed to knock it out…though they had
several long range Star Force transmitters scattered across the system to
prevent an easy takedown. That said, they weren’t going to take any chances and
intended to keep transmitting updates as they had them. That news wouldn’t make
it to the nearby systems for days, but the sooner they got word out the better.

Right now that was someone else’s concern,
orchestrating the orbital defenses was Paul’s…or rather the Star Force part.
The Dvapp were loosely coordinating with him but their fleet outnumbered his 6
to 1, despite him having brought Mainline, Clan, Axius, and Canderous units in
to both counter any assault here and give him the ability to reinforce other
nearby systems if the call for help came down.

All together he had a massive armada centered on the
Excalibur
, including a large number of
ground troops standing by to be thrown into the mix if and when needed. Those
jumpships were holding position elsewhere in the system and safely out of
harm’s way as he watched the number of Skarron vessels tick up over a
thousand…and continue to climb.

The Dvapp weren’t waiting around to count, already
launching their smaller ships ahead to intercept the enemy as they came in
staggered. Paul didn’t do the same, instead taking the time to reposition his
fleet and get the drones out into play. There were three Sentinels in orbit,
which were the strongpoints in the planetary defense, and it seemed the
Skarrons were respecting their kill power, for they had come in high enough in
orbit to be out of their range.

More and more ships came pouring into the system, and
soon the Dvapp were forced to pull back to lower orbit. As Paul had guessed the
Skarrons had tightly staggered their jumps in order to avoid getting killed
piecemeal on arrival. It was something they’d been hinting at in previous
conflicts after the Protovic had done the exact same thing to them, and
apparently they’d learned their lesson.

But it wasn’t without consequences. Paul saw at least
three collisions that ended in either massive damage or ship kills as the
Skarron navigators dropped the ball and didn’t leave sufficient deceleration
room. That was sloppy fleet movement and something that Paul would never have
tolerated, yet it barely seemed significant in the face of so many ships
pouring in behind them.

Like a moving carpet, the first ships to arrive moved
further down into orbit while the others kept popping up on sensors behind
them. That carpet then slowly began to split up into tendrils, each with
several juggernauts leading them out and around the planet…but none were coming
down to engage the Sentinels or the Dvapp, who were constantly hitting the
enemy’s inner flank and killing ships without provoking a massive
furball
.

Paul had his ships do the same, except from above. It
took some time to get them there, but he had several dozen warships jump out
and back in on either side of the jumpline from system’s center, with them
spreading out in a funnel cone and shooting into the arriving ships with their
cleansing beams from range and daring the Skarrons to come out to engage
them…which the enemy was eventually forced to do. Those skirmishes were very
one-sided, with the maulers and Ta’lin’yi hitting them hard, but as always the
Skarrons accomplished their goal of guarding the jumpline, even if it was at a
cost.

Through that cone the rest of their fleet continued to
arrive, like a swarm of angry bees that was growing by the second. Eventually
there were so many it started to become a fair fight between the two and Paul
recalled his ships before they could start taking appreciable damage. Using
their binary drives that the Skarrons lacked, they made tiny jumps further out
into high orbit, knowing that if the Skarrons did the same they wouldn’t be
able to stop.

The Star Force warships could by yanking the planet’s
gravity and bringing themselves back in wherever they liked. Paul ordered those
ships to do just that and harass the outer flank at will, doing damage but
not
allowing
themselves
to get caught up in a slugging match.

Meanwhile the Skarron ships continued to flow in,
passing 10,000 and continuing to rise but they didn’t launch any assaults,
merely defending themselves as they spread out in a sea of ships…

Which was when Paul finally
understood what they were doing.
They knew the Sentinels were going to
be a problem, not just here but across the ADZ, not so much in destroying them
but by costing the Skarrons too many ships to do so in order to make a
successfully incursion. There was one solution to that though, and a pretty
obvious one that they were now choosing to employ, made all the more evident by
the glut of ships staying put at the stellar jumppoint.