Star Force: Recalibration (SF30) Read online

  1

  September 4, 2406

  Solar System

  Earth

  The Kich’a’kat leads withdrew from Jason’s head back into Kara’s body and she sat up looking down at the trailblazer. “How’s that feel?”

  Jason blinked twice, seeming to come back to his senses after having disappeared inside his mind’s eye and doing a check on his abilities, finding the pain and fragmentation gone…along with a touch of his power reserves, but that didn’t matter.

  “Hey,” Kara asked, frowning a bit. “You still with me…or did I unplug something I shouldn’t have,” she joked.

  Jason reached up and grabbed her head, pulled her back down, and kissed her once, hard.

  “Thank…You…” he said emphatically.

  Kara smiled broadly. “You owe me one.”

  “That I do,” Jason agreed as she slid off him and they both got to their feet.

  “I assume whatever you did worked?” Kian asked.

  “She’s definitely got the magic touch,” Jason said, flicking his spherical sight on and off several times, trying to get the pain to return and happy when he couldn’t. “David’s next. Can you find him?”

  Kian frowned. “You got somewhere else to be?”

  “Yeah, I do,” he said, turning to Kara. “Pefbar?”

  She nodded, then added, “and Lachka.”

  “Get to David and the others. I’ve got some homework to do.”

  Kara turned to Kian. “Let’s go.”

  The other trailblazer nodded and followed her out of the training chamber, throwing Jason a questioning glance on the way out.

  Jason gave him a subtle nod, indicating that he was truly ok, then he found himself alone on the platform and took a moment to reshuffle his thoughts…including bleeding out a few tears from the sheer relief of having the fragmentation in his mind cured in a matter of minutes. It seemed cheap, in a way, because every inch he’d scraped for over the past months had suddenly become irrelevant.

  Jason took a knee and sat on his heel, breathing in heavily and relishing the calmness of his mind.

  “Now,” he whispered, “it’s time to start playing catch up.”

  Half a dozen things leapt to mind, training wise, that he wanted to tackle today now that the pain was no longer inhibiting his workouts, but getting some answers was going to take precedence. With that thought in mind he stood up and walked out of the training chamber with an intensity that had been sorely lacking…and only now did Jason realize just how debilitated he’d been.

  He left the sanctum and passed up the group of mongooses parked outside, preferring to run instead…and finding a measure of his speed had returned, now that he didn’t have the mental drag on his movements. Jason ran across the command deck to the nearest of the pads and scaled the attached stairs, coming up on top and shooing away the techs working there.

  “Move aside fellas,” he said, jogging up to the Zen’zat control consoles. “I need to do some research.”

  “Anything we can help with?” one of the three offered as they made room for him, either moving aside or to other stations, giving him the primary.

  “Actually yes. I need you to assemble of list of terms that we have no V’kit’no’sat translation for, specifically items that we’ve tried to locate in the database and failed to do for lack of necessary vocabulary.”

  “How long a list are you wanting?”

  “Everything you can think of,” Jason said, accessing the console and bringing up a holographic interface display. “We’ve got someone who can translate now. Start with engineering terminology.”

  The techs eyes went wide, but they held their questions, sensing that the Archon was busy.

  “Right away,” one of them said as all three left the platform in a hurry to find their peers and start compiling the list.

  Jason didn’t give them a second thought, digging into the database with tunnel vision. He input the first word, Pefbar, and got an immediate hit…several actually, for the ability was present in many of the V’kit’no’sat races. Resisting the urge to start exploring their capabilities he focused on the Zen’zat entry, and upon opening it was overwhelmed with data.

  Good as his V’kit’no’sat was, he had to concentrate to decipher the alien script, though there were many charts and schematics to work off of as well, all floating in holo before him. One detailed the position in the brain where the relevant tissue was located. Another was a chart of different developmental tiers. There was a wealth of knowledge here, with Jason drooling like a kid in a candy store, but the overall assessment he was gathering without having to dig too deep into any of the individual files, was that the spherical sight ability was something that could be developed in multiple ways.

  He’d originally thought that the telekinesis was the second stage incarnation of the ability, but that appeared not to be the case. There was a small subset of data related to the interaction of the Pefbar with the telekinesis, but Jason set that aside for later and dug through the timeline. It seemed as though his current incarnation of the ability was at level 1, with level 2 manifesting itself internally.

  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 the
re 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, imputing 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 would 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 qu
ite 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.