Star Force: Cascade (SF73)

  1

  November 19, 2888

  Solar System

  Earth

  Paul sat there as the water fell, barely holding on to the ascension prompt that seemed to want to disappear again. It was so faint he was surprised to have even noticed it, as well as curious as to what was actually going on. As the minutes passed and the sensation slowly grew under his prodding he felt he began to understand it, or at least had a theory. Other ascensions were pretty much automatic, hit the trigger and it’d send you into the conversion mode that, if handled ‘properly,’ would make small adjustments in increments that would eventually allow the final transformation and flash growth of new tissue in a controlled manner.

  Paul and the others weren’t going for controlled, for they didn’t want to risk losing the ascension and not getting it back again since they didn’t know for sure what was causing it. That’s where the discomfort came from…rushing the preliminary into a short amount of time. It was the more direct course, rather than being an incorrect one, but it was definitely what left one wasted after the transformation, though to be honest no one had ever done it the slow way to find out how much easier it’d be.

  This one, Paul figured, was due to a progressive trigger rather than a finite one. What they’d learned so far was that the triggers responded to different things, some being a fitness level stat, some being a momentary bio status…like being really stressed. That momentary status would disappear while the fitness level stat would stay the same or improve, for Paul and the others didn’t backslide.

  The fitness level stat made it easy to share an ability using the twin link, for the person who had it didn’t have to do anything but get their partner to mimic their status and then their trigger would activate. For the status though the one with the ability had to recreate the stress or whatever it was that flipped their trigger, then link to the other person to make their trigger read the wrong bio data. That was very difficult to do, but Paul and the others had learned how to summon up a fake memory of the occurrence or whatever they needed to do in training in order to get their bodies/minds into the correct state.

  Paul had the suspicion that this one, whatever it was, was a temporary status ascension that he was just nibbling on the edge of. It might even be the case that his momentary alignment had now passed but since the ascension process had already started it was hanging around without any real power…hence the lack of internal fireworks. If that was the case then he’d stumbled onto it, probably very briefly, during his day of workouts, though which one was in question.

  But it didn’t matter now, getting the new ability did, and so long as he had a sniff of an ascension to latch onto he was going to make this work…but at the same time he didn’t want to go after it too fast, knowing that the longer he dragged this out the more data his biomonitor would register. Paul already had all the known psionics, that they had triggers mapped out for anyway, so even if this one was something someone else had already achieved then they still needed more data. Him having Sav necessarily lengthened the process a bit, but he needed to drag his feet as much as he could without losing the ascension.

  Both priorities were counterproductive, but Paul was having to work hard to hang onto it at all, so his near failure was accomplishing the stall tactic and he didn’t push any harder than he needed to in order to gain ground, with the instability steadily rising. The further it did the less chance he had of losing it, but his mind became more and more clouded with the mental storm and no one here to help him through it. He thought about calling for help but nixed the idea immediately. He could do this, as he’d done many times before, and he wasn’t about to back down from a challenge.

  So what would have been a 20 min shower stretched on into an hour, then two hours, then a third hour and six more minutes before he got to four flashing red lights. At that point he was so exhausted he didn’t dare try and stretch it out further else he’d risk losing it altogether, so he committed himself to go fully into it and push past what seemed to be a very defiant limit…only to realize that he hadn’t been holding back much at all.

  That sent a shock through his clouded mind, along with the fear that he might peg out and lose his energy and fall off the crescendo he was surfing. Doubling down he summoned up a surge of anger at the thought of losing this and the emotion steadied his effort. He gritted his teeth, suspecting he was in for a hell of a transformation if the resistance was this bad, and pushed the mental storm into the channels necessary to peak it out, having to apply so much pressure for so long he began to wonder if his trigger might be broken.

  Minutes passed on as he was teetering on what he felt was the brim of the now very full cup and wondering if he hadn’t delayed too long, for his fatigue was making his control jittery and he wasn’t sure how much strength he had left to channel the instability…then in a split second the pressure was gone, the storm’s strength shifted, and his entire body convulsed, knocking his head against the shower wall multiple times as tissue was flash grown throughout every part of his body.

  Paul knew he had to ride it out, so he didn’t try to stand or do anything other than stay put and let it happen. He was only partially aware of his flopping around at the base of the shower, for inside he was on fire and regretting the decision to push this ascension…for it was far worse than anything he’d experienced before, easily surpassing the bioshield upgrade which had a full body transformation similar to this.

  He didn’t know how many seconds it lasted, or perhaps minutes, but somewhere in the torment the prescribed upgrade was met and the worse of the pain subsided, leaving him hurting but with a clearing head as he slumped to the wet floor and just held still, his head leaning against the clear sidewall as he took stock of his situation.

  His entire body was numb, seeming to pulse with heat, and the ascension storm was still swirling in his mind, but with each second that passed it diminished by a chunk with him knowing it would soon be gone and the aftermath of the transformation would remain…which in this case was going to be a very bad case of fragging. He knew moving would make it worse so he stayed still and just let himself hurt before he tried…

  “Paul?” a voice said along with a triple knock on the outside of his shower tube to get his attention, for he wasn’t moving. “Are you ok?” Rio asked.

  No, he answer telepathically, which hurt enough on its own. He figured the movement of speaking would be even more traumatic.

  “What happened? I heard you screaming from over a mile away.”

  Ascension.

  “You got another one?” the trailblazer asked, his eyebrows raising.

  This one is full body, and the worst yet. Don’t try to move me, please.

  “Don’t worry,” Rio said with a smirk, guessing at how much pain his peer was in. “I can improvise.”

  The trailblazer raised his right index finger and concentrated, pooling the heat within it for a long moment before jabbing it into the clear material of the shower tube and melting through it. He slowly pulled his finger through a rough square, cutting out a section and tossing the piece aside as water droplets spilled out onto him and the floor, but he didn’t care. He let his finger cool off and reached his other hand through to grab the nearest part of Paul’s body, which was his ankle, and hacked his way into his nervous system and got his first look at the score.

  What he saw/felt blew him away. Paul was totally wrecked, and in so much residual pain he was glad he had left him where he was. With an effort he numbed up his friend as much as he could, blocking the pain from getting to him and giving him an artificial soothing to wrap his mind around.

  Thank you…very…much.

  “You are so fragged. I don’t think this is Ubven.
It was really bad for me, but nothing like this.”

  I tried to stretch it out to get more data. That should have made it easier. I don’t know what happened…unless this was easier.

  “They said post-Sav ascensions were nastier…whoa, dude. You’ve got tissue growths all over your body.”

  What kind?

  “I don’t want to guess and be wrong.”

  Just tell me. I can’t sense anything right now.

  “Have a look through me then,” Rio said rather than making a pronouncement. He sent his mental image of his hacking into Paul’s body back to Paul, which made for a very weird mental echo, but it allowed him to see the new growths without all the mental disturbance that was clouding him out right now.

  Damn, Paul said, knowing those type of growths intimately well. He laughed once, then immediately regretted it as the bodily pain shot through the numbing Rio had him under.

  “Buddy, I think we need to use the regenerator on this one. I don’t think you even realize how tore up you are.”

  Do it, Paul said without hesitation.

  Rio looked around, knowing he couldn’t let go of Paul in his current state. He saw through the walls using his Pefbar into the other rooms of the quarters and even all the way out to the door that he’d broken through to get to Paul when he didn’t respond to telepathy, and blast it all, he didn’t have a portable comm device laying around. There was a terminal he could use, but it was in the next room and out of reach.

  Reaching out with his Ikrid, he searched the surrounding minds in Atlantis out to the edge of his range, finding several Archons that could help him. Rather than explaining to them what was happening, he requested an Ensek link be established, with them using their own psionics as relay transmitters for him. None of the six he mentally contacted complained or asked for an explanation, simply trusting in him and using their ability to relay his telepathy out to others beyond his range.

  He found more and extended his chain across the city to a specific building, and as luck would have it, Davis was sitting in his office when the Ensek relay reached him.

  I’m here, the Director responded using his limited telepathy, which then got amplified and sent across the city person to person.

  It’s Rio. I’m in Paul’s quarters and I need you to send a V’kit’no’sat regenerator here immediately. He’s had a bad ascension and I can’t risk budging him. I’m numbing him up best I can, but that means I can’t leave either.

  Is he dying?

  No, he just wishes he did.

  Stay there, I’ll get it to you as soon as possible, he responded, feeling the link disappear a moment later.

  Davis brought up an order prompt and sent a text message to the medical division, explaining the urgency and linking them Paul’s quarters’ location once he looked it up, then he headed there himself, hoping for Paul’s sake the regenerator arrived before he did.

  The Kich’a’kat leads withdrew from Paul’s body after only a few seconds of being fully deployed, and with them went the insane pain and clouded mind, leaving Paul sitting at the bottom of his shower, naked, and four people standing outside it.

  The trailblazer got to his feet slowly, still feeling wobbly as if all the connections in his brain weren’t fully functioning yet, and leaned against the sidewall for a moment.

  “Want some help out?” Rio asked.

  “No, I’ve got it,” Paul said, pushing aside the top panel and climbing out. He walked down the short staircase and grabbed a towel, rubbing his blue hair dry then slipping it around his waist before sitting down on the steps. “I’m not hurting anymore, but I am totally exhausted.”

  “What happened?” Davis asked as a medtech and Aaron looked on while Rio leaned against the nearby wall, his eyes also on Paul.

  “It’s strange, it didn’t jump me this time. It was in the background and I had to draw it out. I took my time and hopefully got a lot of bio data, but when it hit I was overwhelmed. I can’t believe Morgan went through that.”

  “Meaning what?” Davis asked.

  “We’re pretty sure it’s Jumat,” Rio explained as he glanced at the medtech. “Care to confirm that?”

  “I don’t have a scanner with me, but if you’ll come down to the medbay I can tell you exactly what you got.”

  Paul raised an arm up level to the ground and concentrated, trying to summon up some goosebumps and succeeding with ease. He tried to force them off his hand but they didn’t cooperate, flying off his arm randomly in all directions…and leaving him even more fatigued than before, which was saying a lot, given that he started out this whole mess at the end of a day of workouts.

  The air pushed by the invisible energy washed across the four men present but only the Archons noticed, leaving the medtech oblivious.

  “Well that settles that,” Aaron concluded. “I wonder if your advancement made it worse. Morgan was so young when it happened to her…”

  “Maybe Sav,” Rio added.

  “Morgan walked out of that gravity trap,” Paul reminded them. “I don’t know if I could even have stood or not, but the pain was bad enough that I didn’t want to try. I’m not dissing her in this, but there’s no way she went through all that and made it out. There has to be something different.”

  “Maybe hers processed more gradually during the duration of the enhanced gravity,” Davis suggested. “Though we still don’t know what the actual trigger is.”

  Paul shook his head, glad that the movement didn’t ring his bell again. “I took my time…a long time, and still got fragged. Still first try, but I dragged it out to get more data.”

  “How old are you?” Aaron asked.

  Paul looked up at him, knowing full well that he knew how old he was, but that wasn’t the point. “Too young,” he answered.

  “How many others have Jumat?” Davis asked, knowing the Archons had gone over the psionics records more times than he had, but he still remembered it was very few.

  “98 thousand, give or take,” Paul answered. “The youngest of which was 29,000 when he got it.”

  “We knew Morgan’s was a mistake…a fortuitous mistake,” Davis added, “but I’m guessing this is not. How do your skills match up with the others? I know there’s data on some of them in the pyramid.”

  “The age numbers don’t match the skills,” Aaron answered. “They’re all over the place.”

  “But,” Rio said, getting to the point, “even the weakest of them could kick Paul’s ass.”

  “It could be a cascade,” the medtech said, almost apologizing with his glance when he realized he was interrupting an exclusive conversation.

  “Meaning?” Paul asked.

  “I’m not involved in the research, but I have heard suggestions that your psionics tissues have to be rearranged slightly when new growths come in. The more tissues you have, the more alignment is required…”

  “Hence a cascade in alteration changes,” Paul said, pounding his right fist into the step, “that the V’kit’no’sat never had to worry about since they didn’t have all the psionics.”

  “Now the reports I’ve been reading are making sense,” Davis added, thinking things through quickly and making the connections. “A lot of mages’ reports indicate that they’re taking their padawans through the ascension process in stages to lessen the fragging effect. The more psionics we add to the pool the harder the transition is going to be.”

  “And we’ve got Sav,” Rio added.

  “So the next time one of us ascends,” Aaron finished, “we either have to face this or let the ascension process partially run its course and cancel it, hoping to start over again the next time it pops up.”

  “Except we don’t know that there will be a next time,” Paul argued.

  “You also didn’t have any help,” Rio reminded him.

  “I don’t think that had an effect on the fragging, but maybe on my fatigue. I need some ambrosia doses sooner rather than later. If I move around too much I feel like I’m going to kee
l over.”

  Davis glanced at the medtech and he politely hurried off to fetch the required foodstuffs, but he hesitated before he got out the quarters’ door and came back into Paul’s large shower room. “How many doses are you taking?”

  “213.”

  The medtech did a double-take. “Per day?”

  “Yah,” Aaron answered for him.

  “That’s enough to kill a normal person.”

  “Kill or render comatose?” Davis asked curiously.

  “Still a debate on that. Fortunately no one has been stupid enough to overdose far enough to find out. Do you just want me to measure it off in liquid?” he asked Paul.

  “I don’t care, I just need it in me. Between the ascension and the regenerator, I think I’m actually totally empty.”

  “That’s not fun,” Rio commented.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” the medtech said, disappearing for keeps this time as Davis walked over and sat down next to Paul on the carpeted steps.

  “Do you think this is intentional or an unforeseen complication?”

  “The dragons are too good at what they do. Even if they didn’t expect any Zen’zat to attain this many psionics, they would have made contingency plans just in case. Us breeding was unexpected because it wasn’t allowed and contrary to the program design, but getting psionics is the point of advancement.”

  “Another little test for us to pass?” Aaron wondered.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “We’ve got to tell the padawans to take it slow,” Rio insisted. “Ubven really worked me over, and we can’t expect them to be as strong as us. Especially when we’re giving them psionics that were designed for a much fitter person.”

  “Agreed,” Aaron echoed.

  “Which brings us back to Morgan,” Davis deferred.

  “It was her first ascension…actually, she got it even before all of tier 1.”

  “There’s your answer,” Aaron pointed out. “No cascade effect, just her nearly getting crushed to death.”

  “About that. Got to be more involved than ‘moving around.’ I get his gist, but not the physical applications of it.”