Star Force: Sav (SF51) (4 page)

“Let’s get going,” Morgan finally said, not wanting to
take the chance of being discovered.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to come back for
a while.”

The Archon sighed. “I know. We’ll have to go back to
hitting up their outposts.”

“Thought we’d picked them dry?” he asked, making final
jump preparations.

“Well,” Morgan said, eyeing the ship counter as it
finally crept up past 10,000, “I get the feeling they’re going to get some new
blood in soon.”

“Point,” he said, keying the gravity drive and
shooting them off away from the planet. The sensor feed went out, leaving them
without any
intel
about how many more ships were
coming in.

As soon as they got back to the
Tigerzord
Morgan headed up to the bridge and got the Captain to get them
moving in towards the star. She wanted to sneak back into planetary orbit and
have a look at how many ships had arrived, but didn’t want to tip their hand as
to having been in the system. Traveling to the star always had that chance, but
to date the Skarrons didn’t have any detection platforms set up to monitor
traffic, so the only way they’d know that there was a Human jumpship in the
system was to have another ship nearby at the time. With quick
in
and outs it was possible to enter and leave unnoticed,
though it was a gamble each time they did so.

Morgan and the
Tigerzord
had been insystem for more than 9 months plucking
out Hobbits to bring back, so the number of trips they were making through
stellar orbit wasn’t many and she hoped the Skarrons had no idea they were even
here, but there was no way of knowing for sure. Dropping into planetary orbit,
even the extreme high orbits that their binary drives were capable of placing
them in, would be like waving to the enemy. The infiltrator was small enough to
sneak around, but a jumpship was another matter entirely.

None of that mattered when they got to the star
anyway. It had been several hours since the infiltrator had left planetary
orbit and Morgan assumed the incoming Skarron convoy had completed arrival…but
it hadn’t. What she saw on the sensor display was like a kick to the gut by the
Black Knight.

There were ships still coming in from outside the
system, visible as tiny specs on the sensors along a specific jumpline some 58
degrees around from their current position, and a HUGE pool of ships around the
star gradually transitioning over to the jumpline to the planet. The computer
tagged in excess of 270,000 and there was no way of knowing how many more had
already parked in planetary orbit or were still to come from deeper inside
Skarron territory.

There was no way they weren’t going to be spotted, so
time was of the essence. There would be no more Hobbit fetching from here. She
had to get back to the ADZ to warn the others immediately for this
was
no mere reinforcement. The Skarrons were going to drop
the heavy end of the hammer on them…and even now she still didn’t know just how
large that hammer was going to be.

“Get us out of here,” she ordered the Captain, sitting
back in her command chair and beginning to run the naval numbers through her
head versus their various defense positions along the border.

4

June 29, 2546

Solar System

Earth

Bo stood in the middle of the ring, his body
stationary but his mind ablaze with telekinetic control signals. All around him
thuds were coming in and he was having to block them with short-lived grips,
then drop and move on to another. Add in the random Fornax twitches that Paul
and Jason were hitting him with to disrupt his focus and you had one headache
of a training drill…but Archons liked challenges and this one had a very
specific purpose.

They were trying to get Bo the Pren ability, which was
a power upgrade to Pefbar/Lachka. In order to get him into the desired zone for
it to occur they had to overload his Lachka skills, as they had done with the
others and hope that they hit on the trigger. They still didn’t know exactly
what it was but had narrowed it down considerably. It had taken Jason 3 weeks
to get it, Paul 2.5, and the others above and below them, with Emily finding it
the quickest once she arrived after only 3 days of trying. That said, she’d
been the most recent to arrive aside from Bo and had the benefit of the others’
experience…but it didn’t seem to be helping him.

He’d been at it now for several weeks and Paul and
Jason’s response to that was to up the intensity even further, pushing him to
the ascension point, in theory, but so far nothing had happened aside from him
getting pelted with thuds from the surrounding walls. He was blocking a lot of
them, but every time one got by it hit him with such force that it knocked his
mental balance off. The trailblazer
was having
to
constantly reset while trying to minimize the disruptions when they
happened…for his two friends were making sure they did regularly.

Right now the walls were chucking out some 12 thuds
per second. Some simultaneously, others staggered. The pattern was random and
kept Bo guessing, with him having to relent and just take them as they came,
for he couldn’t get into much of a rhythm. Already he had some small welts from
repeated hits and was trying to cover certain angles more than others…such as
those headed for the face, neck, and crotch.

He lost himself in the effort…that was the only way he
could hope to keep up, and he had to remain still, for if he stepped outside
the small circle around his feet it would be an immediate disqualification.
That had happened several times already, thanks to the blindsiding of the
Fornax blasts, but lately he’d been managing to stay on his feet when they hit
and the next one was no exception.

Paul hit him with one from the left where he sat
against the wall underneath the thud shooters, causing Bo to lose his balance
for a microsecond but he didn’t have to take a step to recover. A twitch in his
hips was enough and he was back on center, but he missed swatting down two
thuds and they hit him in the back and lower right leg. He accepted two more
hits to his right side as he concentrated and held one coming in at his head a
split second longer than normal…enough to throw it to his left and hit Paul.

His fellow trailblazer caught it a foot in front of
his face and tossed it aside with a smile, then tossed another mild Fornax
blast his way. Paul knew they had to keep pressing him in order to find the
trigger, for most of the ascensions that he’d studied the data from occurred
during some form of overload.

Power comes in
response to a need, not a desire
, he remembered
Goku
saying, and as far as psionics were concerned that appeared to hold true.
Trouble was they still didn’t know exactly where and how to push, but with
every ascension that occurred they got more data. Bo was wearing the monitoring
headband that Jason and Paul were also sporting, though at the moment they were
just sitting and ‘watching’ while Bo was the one working up a good sweat,
despite the fact that he was barely moving.

Paul sent another three Fornax blasts his way, all low
intensity until Jason threw a big one at him. That sent him forward a step,
just inside the boundary of the circle with Paul cringing. They needed Bo
processing heavily to trigger the ascension, and every big stumble he took was
going to interfere with that and essentially give him a momentary mental break.
With 11 thuds hitting him in succession as he stabilized his stumble Paul was
about to complain to Jason when Bo went the other direction, dropping to a knee
and getting pelted by everything coming in.

Jason flicked the stop button on the far panel
telekinetically as he frowned. “Bo?”

“Got some instability,” he said, focusing on it and
dropped his second knee down and sitting back on his heels.

“About time,” Paul said, getting to his feet and
trying to get a read on his mind. “Say something if you need help.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Bo said as the little
monitor icons on his headband began to tick up into the red. Before long they
started flashing and Bo physically yelled a good imitation of a DBZ
powerup
as Paul felt the change occur within him. Tissue
flash grew as his mind appeared to
explode,
dulling
the other trailblazers’ limited connection to him…then after a few seconds it
began to recede as the last bits finished their growth and stabilized.

“Damn that hurt,” Bo said, holding his head and
sagging backwards even further onto his heels, with them pressing up into his
butt. “Still hurts, actually. Feels like I pulled something.”

Jason and Paul exchanged glances. “It wasn’t that bad
for us.”

“Do you mind?” Jason asked, walking up to him and
putting a hand on his head.

“Help yourself…I’m still picking up the grenade
pieces.”

Jason linked in and began searching through his mind,
particularly the physical structure, and blinked in surprise. “Ah, I don’t know
what you ascended to, but it isn’t Pren or anything else we’ve got yet. The
tissue is in the wrong place.”

“You sure?”
Bo asked, still
wincing.

“Positive,” Jason said as Paul came up and put a hand
on the other side of Bo’s head, with Jason mentally directing him to the new
growth.

“Damn that’s big,” Paul said, seeing a spider-like
network of tendrils where there should be none…and they were all mentally afire
with activity typical of recent flash growth.

“That’s what she…ah hell, I can’t even make a joke,”
Bo said, leaning forward and curling up into a ball as he sat on his legs with
the pain swelling again.

“I’m not joking, you have a huge new growth,” Paul
pointed out. “And Jason’s right, I’ve never seen this one before.”

“Shoot me now,” Bo moaned.

“Suck it up, cupcake,” Jason said half serious, for
he’d been through worse back when their abilities were first manifesting.

“Yeah, you’re all heart, Jason.”

“And focus on slipping into Sesspik,” he added.

Bo made an exasperated sound. “I can’t even think
straight,” he said, trying to steady himself enough to get into a healing
trance, which hadn’t even occurred to him to try.

“Hold onto this,” Paul said, creating a telepathic hard
point for Bo to hold onto. When he mentally grasped it the blurriness that came
along with the pain reduced somewhat, but his head was still awash with
disorientation. Paul felt his mind begin to settle a bit, but whether he got
into Sesspik or not he couldn’t say, for his current state was so erratic that
even Paul was having a hard time reading him without exposing himself to the
same pain.

“Thanks,” Bo said, not moving so much as a muscle as
he tried to bleed off the fragmentation, getting just a hint of coolness as the
Sesspik activated.

“Wait a sec,” Jason said, not believing what he
thought he was seeing.

“What?” Paul asked, sensing something important.

“Stay with him. I’ll be back,” Jason said, letting go
of Bo’s head and hurrying out.

“What?!”
Paul asked.

“Not sure yet.
I’ll let you
know,” he said, leaving the other two trailblazers behind and trying to keep a
mental picture of Bo’s new tissue intact without it warping…too much. He ran
through the corridors until he found the closest room with a computer terminal,
politely kicking aside the trainer who was using it and logged him out. Pulling
up a special prompt he accessed Atlantis’s online database of V’kit’no’sat
translated information and dug into the psionics files.

He skipped over the tier 2 abilities and brought up
the 3 known tier 3s, though by this point they knew there were actually 8…but
without any files on the other five.

The three were Jumat,
Beynat
,
and Sav. He knew it wasn’t Jumat, for he’d studied those files closely after
what happened to Morgan, but he thought one of the other two might be the case.
That spider-like tissue pattern caught in his memory and he dug up the files on
the physical growths of the other two…with Sav coming up with an almost exact
match.

Jason double checked to be sure, comparing the image
still in his head with the basic construction of the Sav psionic, and after
several minutes of not believing his eyes he logged out of the terminal and
headed back to the training area…finding Bo sitting up but still sprawled out
on the mat with Paul’s hand on his head trying to help stabilize him.

“Alright you space monkey,” Jason said, shaking his
head as he walked over to and knelt down next to Bo. “Look at me.”

Bo tilted his head up and unclenched his eyes…with
Paul and Jason now seeing that they’d changed in color to an eerie twinkling gray.

“You just skipped tier 2 and joined Morgan’s exclusive
club.”

Paul’s eyes widened. “He got Jumat?”

“No, he got Sav…I think. The tissue looks almost
identical.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” Paul said, looking from
one to the other.

Jason smirked. “Jealous?”

“Very,” he said, actually a little ticked.

“Remind the pain-stricken one what Sav does?” Bo
said,
his eyes watery.

“It’s the multi-tasking upgrade,” Paul said, still
miffed. As far as naval was concerned that was the holy grail of all psionics.
“If you’ve really got it then you should be able to utilize different psionics
simultaneously.”

“Processing power upgrade?” Bo asked, vaguely
remembering reading that file.

“As well as being able to control more drones,” Jason
added. “
Which is why Paul really hates you right now.
”

Bo laughed, but that hurt his head even more. “
Wanna
trade?”

“Just think of what this will do for your naval
scores,” Jason prodded, with some amusement. “You’ll be able to remote control
entire ships down to every available system…if not fleets. You might even come
close to matching him.”

“Shut up,” Paul said, looking down at Bo. “It’ll do a
lot more than that. If I remember correctly it’s not psionic specific and
essentially acts like a second
brain,
focus wise at
least.”

“Like what I needed to keep track of all the thuds,”
Bo pointed out.

“We need to take a close look at those files,” Paul
insisted. “Not sure how we’re going to confirm this one while his head is
fragged.”

“I’m serious,” Bo reiterated. “You got bioshields and
I got a bigger brain.
Trade?”

“Actually I want both,” Paul answered honestly.

“You’re no fun,” Bo said.
“Jason,
any advice?
This feels a lot like what you described.”

“You think it
misgrew
?” he
asked, his merriment now gone.

“I don’t know, but it’s bad.”

“Something caused you to skip a tier…though that might
not be quite accurate,” Paul said, thinking. “Regardless, we’re not supposed to
access the third tier until we’re much more advanced, or so the Zen’zat
say
. This might be some sort of glitch or malfunction.”

“So don’t even think about undoing it,” Jason said
firmly.

“I’m not hurting
that
much,” Bo clarified, “but close.”

“We need to get you under a bigger scanner,” Paul
said, glancing at his headband that, as far as the indicator lights were
concerned, was registering no lingering instability. “Walk or carry?”

“Is stun an option?” Bo asked, slowly pulling himself
to his feet with Jason grabbing his arm to help stabilize him.

“Come on,” Paul said, leading the way. “Let’s get this
figured out.”

“Here,” Vortison said to Paul as Bo lay on a bed on
the other side of the room under a scanner with Jason by his side monitoring
other readouts. “This data you probably never looked at. It’s all statistics
relating to the tissue growth process and has never been translated. I just got
used to looking at it in V’kit’no’sat because some of their means of
recordkeeping don’t have English or Metric equivalents.”

Paul looked at the data, seeing a bunch of
mathematical symbols mixed in with various terminology. “What am I looking
for?”

“Nothing without the proper context, but basically
this outlines how the tissue is supposed to be grown…and in this case the Sav
is clearly supposed to occur in various stages. The ‘instability’ that you guys
refer to is actually part of the prep work that allows a smoother transition.
I’d guess that Bo forced the transfer too quickly, which is why he’s in so much
pain now.
Same thing for the rest of you.
Once the
flash growth stops the pain should as well.”

Paul considered that. “I was under the impression that
the instability was a hurdle to overcome in order to activate the ascension. I
didn’t know it was variable?”

“I can’t say for certain because I’ve never
experienced it myself, but I would guess that your tissues want time to adapt
in stages. Not entirely sure what that would feel like from your end though…”