Star Force: Rescue (SF71) Read online

  “A far more pleasant demise for their civilization than they deserve.”

  “Probably true, but this way we don’t accidentally kill someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “I still have my doubts. Feel free to impress me.”

  “Watch and learn, youngling.”

  The Chancellor blinked his glowing purple eyes, covering them briefly with glowing green eyelids. “How old do I have to get before you stop calling me youngling?”

  “Tell you what. When you hit 500 years I’ll stop.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, Archon.”

  2

  May 5, 2827

  Solar System

  Earth

  Paul swung his double-bladed stun sword through a left to right slash, hitting and deflecting a thud up over his head before dipping the left side of his sword down to get another heading for his legs. He reversed the slash and brought the right side around to pick up another near his face then continued in a back and forth motion picking the little balls out of the air as a couple of padawans did likewise beside him in the training chamber.

  All three of them were weathering a storm of thuds being directed their way from omnidirectional points and using battlemeld to see if they could effectively cover each other in close quarters without letting any through or getting their blades crossed. The two padawans had single blades, with Leona-11932 carrying a pair. Those were the three sword options available in Star Force, aside from the shorter stun sticks, and gave all three Archons a different feel for the combat…which all of them could sense through the battlemeld.

  As Paul worked his way through the thuds heading towards side his of the small circle he tried to get as many as he could to minimize what the other two had to deal with, including those coming down from above with him whipping his sword around and over their heads often to pick up a few. He had two edges to work with, as did Leona, but Jackson-12431 only had a single. That meant he had less picking up capability, but should have had better movement speed. This was the third day that Paul and the pair in the advanced training group had been working on this, and honestly it was still a bit clunky.

  Paul was so much faster than them that he’d had to adjust his battlemeld pacing accordingly. Operating at his Sav-enhanced rhythm while monitoring their normal speeds caused him to either lose the feel for them or to start operating at their speed. Often with the battlemeld a sync was formed one way or another and part of this drill was for him to learn not to do that. Training with Jason or one of the other trailblazers was easy because they were on the same level, but these two padawans were not.

  And the reverse was also true, in that Paul’s Sav-enhanced mental status would overwhelm the padawans and they’d lose some amount of connection with him. They were having to learn to filter out what he was transmitting to them because their minds literally couldn’t keep up with his. There was a way to do this, Paul knew, but it was going to take a lot of work to figure out…which was exactly why there was still a permanent advanced training group. They’d do the head scratching and experimenting, then figure out how to accomplish whatever was necessary and codify it in the Star Force database for other Archons to learn from down the road.

  The trailblazers always kept a minimum of three here at all times, plus a group of between 30-500 other Archons working on various things. Vermaire was almost a permanent resident aside from his time spent training the Arc Knights, and he was even more of a monster now than ever before. If not for the advanced psionics the trailblazers had there was no way they could have taken him on hand to hand. He was setting the benchmark in that subcategory with Paul and the others trying to keep up, though the size differences involved did have a huge impact on their effectiveness.

  Archons were smaller and usually faster, while Vermaire and the other Knights had the greater mass and usually lesser speed, except the Black Knight’s agility was so great now that his size wasn’t a liability. That’s what made it so hard to fight him, for no matter how strong Paul or the others got Vermaire always had a muscle advantage.

  Paul appreciated that, glad that there was someone above him in that subcategory for him to watch and learn from…but he didn’t like getting beaten any more than the rest of the trailblazers, or Archons for that matter. With Sav Paul could still move faster than the Black Knight, barely, and that allowed him to stand his ground in sparring matches, but he couldn’t beat him often. Usually it involved a momentary opportunity that Paul took advantage of, then Vermaire would learn and close the door to that method of attack.

  The more Paul and the others sparred with him the tougher he got. Morgan could take him easily using her Jumat, and Paul was very interested in seeing the day when they found that ellusive trigger and gave Vermaire the concussive energy, for that was something he desperately wanted to see the effects of on the man’s combat potential.

  But for now the trigger hunting was at a standstill. Most of the tier 2 triggers had been found with those still remaining being very buried…or perhaps they were just going about finding them the wrong way. They had no guides to work from, and the accidental discoveries were growing more and more rare as time went on. Rio gaining Ubven had been a major boost to their efforts, but so far that trigger still eluded them as well and the fact that a few tier 3s were being accessed before all of the tier 2s suggested that some of them had to be buried in different locations than they were probing.

  And by probing he meant fumbling around in the dark. After all this time no amount of gravity training had given anyone else Jumat, so what it was that pushed Morgan to that trigger was an ongoing mystery. Paul and the others were no longer looking for triggers, but rather just trying to expand and learn their new potential while hoping to accidentally stumble across them. It had happened enough already not to be inconceivable, but the fact that they didn’t have a plan to reaching them other than pure luck annoyed Paul enough that he just had to let it go and look at them as bonuses rather than goals to attain.

  There was a lot of information in the Zen’zat files regarding their fighting style but Archon combat was a bit different, and not only due to their sizes. Zen’zat fought with many exotic styles while Archon combat had been created by the trailblazers themselves through them just experimenting and seeing what worked. There wasn’t any flair in it, just efficient knockdown power. The Zen’zat had techniques that favored a certain angle and amped it up greatly, like their Namen’trist. That style of hand to hand combat saw the use of the arms and hands as secondary and used only to facilitate setting up body blows thrown from the torso.

  Even their kicks were supplementary, with the idea being to get a hip or shoulder into the opponent and use your mass and momentum to deliver kinetic force to momentarily stun your opponent enough to get a loose grapple with a foot or leg enough to pull them back to you for another body hit. The technique was effective, but narrow minded. Archons wouldn’t stick to one technique, rather they saw all techniques as tools to be used when there was need, which had them basically fighting and making it up as they went along.

  The Zen’zat did not fight that way, which was why the Archons couldn’t just use their playbook and had to write one of their own, with this battlemeld swords chapter having to be written by those developing it. When completed they’d be able to link up with others, regardless of their rank, and effectively fight together as one mind rather than two competing individuals crammed into a confined space.

  That space was marked by a small circle on the floor for this drill, and any of them stepping outside of it would end the challenge in failure. Every hit on their bodies was 10 points to the negative while every successful deflection was +1. There were bonus point receptacles placed on the walls for them to aim their deflections at but today they didn’t have that luxury, for the thuds were coming at them in too great a number to try and pick up any of the bonuses. Paul had to work his ass off just to keep himself and his teammates from getting hit.

  He saw everything they s
aw, not to mention with his own Pefbar active. That was one sensation that the others had to learn to block out, relying on Paul’s vision and their own Pefbar to see everything around them. His sight was necessary for the colors and context, but add in his own superior Pefbar on top of theirs and it’d provide even more data to their minds…which would be too much for those without Sav to handle. A three-way meld was more burdensome than a pairing as it was, so a significant part of this swords exercise was in learning to pick and choose which pieces of the battlemeld you wanted to utilize, which had to be done by the receiver.

  Paul’s battlemeld ability was transmitting everything automatically and rather than trying to create a custom link the Archons were learning to just filter out parts of it. Paul was learning too, though he didn’t need it for this drill. He could handle everything the two were feeding him and then some, it was the constant thud blocks that required his body to be moving so fast that the physical processing was overloading his mind and making him veer into numbness as he tried to overcompensate to take pressure off the other two.

  As with most training drills in the advanced training group, this one was not meant to be beaten, but rather to have your limits pressed and surpassed, showing you where you were weak and giving your subconscious mind a taste of failure to adapt to. Paul never accepted that, but with so many thuds coming in at a slowly increasing rate there came a point where they were losing more points than gaining them. The challenge continued until their score eventually dropped to 0, then the thuds suddenly shut off as Paul blocked one last one into a bonus receptacle on the wall to his left, but it was too late to count.

  All three of them stood there dripping with sweat as Leona released her part of the battlemeld, with Paul doing likewise a moment later. That had been a solid session regardless of what the stats eventually said. He didn’t know how long they’d been at it, but they’d gained enough experience points out of this to trigger a good adaptational training surge. Their bodies would adjust to the demands, as would their minds, and the next time they came back to this they’d be a little bit better at it…and from that they’d press even further.

  “My arms are so dead,” Leona complained, having had to wield each sword with only one arm while Jackson had two-handed his single blade the entire time.

  “Do you need the extra length?” Paul asked. “Switching to stun sticks would reduce the weight.”

  “I don’t know, most of the thuds I’m getting on the bottom two thirds, but I’d be missing some if I made the switch. Not sure if it’d be a good tradeoff.”

  “Has anyone build any novelty weapons?” Jackson asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like blades attached to a gauntlet or throwing knives or such?”

  “Fixed blades are a disadvantage save for leverage. They wouldn’t help,” Paul explained. “I’ve looked into variations, but the three we’re using as the best we’ve found.”

  “Why don’t more Archons use the swords in combat?” Leona asked.

  “They’re more of a badass weapons. You have to get melee close, and most stunning missions make use of ranged stuns or psionics. As far as kill power goes, the plasma swords have a very limited use. It’s more of a utility item than a main.”

  “And why don’t they cut?” Jackson asked. “I mean, instead of delivering a point blast.”

  “Because they’re not a lightsaber. Jason and I have been working on some prototype blades with some new tech, but not for combat. We’d like to have something to cut through doors or armor plating with, but to set up a blade like that it almost has to be flat. Combat needs the blades to be rounded, hence the explosive touch rather than a fine cut.”

  “What about throwing knives?”

  “What’s the purpose?” the titan countered.

  “To look…cool? I don’t really know.”

  “Our weapons are designed not to leave shrapnel behind, so sticking a blade into a body isn’t one of our goals. We can deliver remote grenades, like the Kiritas variety, but there’s no point in making them pointy.”

  “So that’s why you switched from hard casings to gel?” Leona asked. “No more shrapnel.”

  “Just a concussive energy pop,” Paul agreed.

  “I guess I was just thinking that with psionics we could retrieve the blades so there wouldn’t be an ammo issue,” Jackson explained. “Throw and pull.”

  “Tell you what, hit the showers and meet me topside in half an hour. I’ll grab some snacks and we’ll go on a little field trip.”

  Leona raised an eyebrow. “Field trip?”

  “You’re starting to think a like a trailblazer now, so why not show you some of the stuff we’ve made that hasn’t been very good. We keep it in a place called the Vault. It used to be stored in multiple places but we moved it to one facility here on Earth. There are a few combat items you might like to see.”

  “How much training time are we going to lose?” Jackson asked.

  Paul raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t say a word.

  “If he’s suggesting we go, the answer is none,” Leona said.

  “Smart girl. We’ll take a break then extend the afternoon session to compensate.”

  “What exactly do you have in there?” Leona asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “No reason you should have. It’s just kind of like our storage locker. I think it’ll answer your blade questions better than I can,” Paul said, retracting his doubleblade sword down into the extra-wide hilt before throwing it towards a wall rack and sliding it in telekinetically. “Half an hour,” he said, heading for the door, then he turned the corner and was gone.

  “What was that about?” Jackson asked as Leona retracted her pair of swords and put them back into the wall storage rack before he did the same and shut it.

  “I’m not sure, but it sounds interesting. Something the other Archons have probably never seen.”

  “So why does he want to show it to us?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’re just padawans, and we’re not even in Clan Saber.”

  “We’re working out here, so that makes us kind of special. Who knows, he offered and we’re going. Save your stupid questions until we get there.”

  “Fine,” Jackson scoffed. “You’re not sharing a shower with me today.”

  “Never do,” Leona mocked as she headed out a step ahead of him.

  It took them sixteen minutes to get to the nearby equipment room, shower, and change into a fresh set of clothes, then another seven to move through Atlantis’s internal transit systems and up to the top deck of the city. Paul hadn’t said where to meet him, but there was a pad reserved for Archon craft and that was where they found him a few minutes later carrying a satchel and chewing on a sugar stick as he headed for one of the smallest mantises.

  “Let’s go,” he said with his mouth half full as the padawans were just standing there, then he boarded the small aerial transport and headed for the cockpit as they followed him in. He sat down at the controls and powered the craft up as the two Archons parked themselves on the bench behind him.

  “How far away is it?” Leona asked.

  “About 20 minutes.”

  “What city is it in?”

  “It’s a standalone facility,” Paul said as they lifted off and coasted on anti-grav out into the sunlight from the concealed hangar and gained altitude. He extended the 4 wings from the craft’s upper housing and shot them off across the Pacific Ocean at low altitude while quickly gaining speed. Leona and Jackson held off further questions until they arrived, seeing nothing until Paul brought them to a standstill over an empty bit of ocean and just held them there, doing nothing.

  “Is there a problem?” Leona asked.

  “This is kind of a secret. So this stays between us, alright?”

  “Ok,” Jackson said, with Leona nodding her agreement.

  “Pinky swear,” Paul said deadpan as he held out his right hand.

&n
bsp; Leona laughed. “Are you serious?”

  “Totally. You don’t mess with the pinky. You in or not?”

  Leona didn’t know if he was joking or not, but held out her hand and looped her pinky finger around his, which he then latched onto in a firm grip.

  “I swear never to reveal the most awesome place in the universe.”

  Leona couldn’t help but smile. “I swear never to reveal the most awesome place in the universe,” she repeated.

  Paul let go of her hand and spun back around to his controls.

  Jackson frowned. “What about me?”

  “You’re a guy, why would I want to hold hands with you?” Paul asked, tipping the mantis’s nose over and sending them straight down into the water.

  3

  “Where is this exactly?” Jackson asked. “There aren’t any cities here that I know of.”

  “It’s below the seafloor,” Paul said as they slowly trolled through the water with the sunlight disappearing with the depths. “And it’s not on most maps. Just a little hideaway we made.”

  “You have a lot of those?” Leona asked.

  Paul smirked. “Depends on your definition of ‘a lot.’”

  “Worried about a security breach?”

  “Privacy has its advantages. Someone doesn’t know to look for something if they don’t know it exists. Nor can they complain about not getting access to it.”

  “It’s that cool, huh?”

  “You wouldn’t believe how many times people have asked me to see the X-wing after Mark blabbed that we’d built one.”