Star Force: Ambrosia (SF6) Read online

  Wilson shook his head. “No more than the sugar you eat, though you do notice an uncomfortable difference when you deprive yourself of it as your body adjusts downward.”

  “So the more you can tolerate the stronger you get?” Paul asked.

  “No, not at all,” Wilson said, almost relieved. “It allows you to train harder and longer, with almost no recovery time. That training is what upgrades your body. Vermaire has gotten as strong and fast as he is because he spends virtually every hour of his time either training or kicking your asses in challenges. He’s earned those skills, the ambrosia just gives him an advantage in workouts.”

  “Wilson is not on the ambrosia,” Davis pointed out.

  “It’s an advantage, not a requirement,” he said defensively. “Much like sugar isn’t necessary in your diet, but provides a significant advantage. I should be able to boost my healing rate high enough with unaugmented training to achieve self-sufficiency, and we need to know what that will take rather than just sticking everyone on ambrosia and hoping it will be enough.”

  “Self-sufficiency?” Morgan asked.

  “The point at which your healing rate equals or exceeds your attrition rate,” Wilson defined. “It’s impossible to scientifically measure, but it exists none the less. I expect I’m borderline, but I don’t truly know. Davis is there now, thanks to his training, because his body has begun to ‘de-age’ slightly.”

  “And us?” Paul asked.

  “Probably the same as me, perhaps a bit better. Impossible to know unless things start to go wrong, though if you have a high differential between the two in the positive, you’ll be able to shrug off a lot of attrition damage whereas others can’t.”

  “That’s why you’re able to recover faster on the ambrosia?” Paul asked. “You can probably get by on less sleep too?”

  “No,” Wilson said, slightly shaking his head. “The ambrosia does that part on its own. What I’m talking about is separate. Let’s say your healing rate is running .1% higher than your attrition rate…again, pointless numbers since we can’t measure them, but useful for explanation none the less. If it’s running higher, by any amount, any attrition damage incurred during the day will be fully healed. That’s not counting injuries, just the microscopic and systematic damage that typically goes unnoticed.”

  “But the difference between a positive .1% and a negative .1% is that in one case time is your ally and the other it’s your enemy because with every day that goes by you lose a little ground. Self-sufficiency is being out of the negative numbers, so running even technically counts because you’re healing as fast as you’re being damaged.”

  “Now, the problem is that your rates change more than day to day, they change minute to minute, so if you’re running .1% to the good in the morning, you may be negative .3% by the afternoon. Everything you do or don’t do during the day effects your attrition levels, so you can see some really big swings.”

  “Stress levels?” Morgan asked.

  Wilson nodded. “That’s part of the attrition.”

  “Guess a bad day really is a bad day,” Paul commented.

  “Which is why to be truly self-sufficient you need a larger positive trend that can survive the rate swings,” Wilson continued. “If you can get your healing ability up high enough to have a positive 5.0% differential, then you’re not going to dip below the threshold during the course of a day, plus you’re going to heal a lot faster. In that way you can recover from workouts faster, because even though they are beneficial to the body, workouts dump a lot of attrition on you through microscopic muscle tears, joint damage, stress, etc.”

  “So having a big differential eats it up faster,” Jason surmised.

  Paul nodded. “Like extra RAM on a computer, it can process the backlog faster.”

  “And when you recover faster,” Wilson pointed out, “your workouts can be more frequent and more intense, which in the long run will upgrade you and your healing ability even more.”

  “Snowball effect,” Davis commented.

  “Do all workouts increase your healing ability?” Morgan asked, trying to wrap her head around the concept.

  “More or less,” Wilson answered. “Think of the attrition dump on your systems that occurs from a workout as a learning experience for your body. With the downtime in between workouts to recover and recharge, your body adapts to be able to handle the attrition better. In doing so for the large dumps, it also makes it better at handling the lower level attrition that accumulates around the clock.”

  “Like how running makes walking easy,” Paul pointed out.

  “I see the connection,” Morgan said. “So what happens if you’re not able to rest and recover?”

  “Problems,” Wilson said pointedly. “When you’re fit enough to do workouts, you can take an attrition dump in stride because you have a lot of strength reserves. If you’re taking large amounts of attrition continuously and are unable to get your moment to moment trend back in the positive, you’re essentially grinding your gears and causing a lot of damage. Sometimes we do this on purpose to generate a greater training effect, but when that’s the case we have the option of stopping whenever we want. It’s when the attrition isn’t caused by training that a negative snowball effect can occur.”

  “Again, with the numbers, assume a hard workout puts your current trend at negative 5.0% for twenty minutes. Once you stop that goes back up to, say, positive 1.0% and your body starts to process through the accumulated attrition. If you can’t get into recovery mode because of environmental factors, like say from excessive heat that you have no control over, you’ll be riding a negative trend for an extended period of time and losing ground constantly.”

  “It can also happen when someone overtrains. While they do have some recovery time in between workouts, their backlog becomes so overwhelming that they can’t truly rest anymore. It’s similar to being out of breath after a hard run. How long it takes you to get your breathing back to normal varies, but as a metaphor, the overtraining person never gets his breathing down to normal levels before the next workout.”

  “Full body intervals,” Paul noted, using a running metaphor.

  “Which never end,” Wilson agreed. “So you’re constantly grinding yourself down. Before long you start to experience systemic damage and that’s the kind that becomes visible on the surface as old age.”

  “So bottom line,” Jason said, trying to sum it up in simpler terms, “we get some benefit just from taking the stuff, but in order to go superhuman we have to train our asses off while on it?”

  “Basically,” Wilson confirmed.

  “So where does the super growth come in?” Morgan asked. “Or was he always that tall?”

  Davis and Wilson exchanged glances, but it was Davis that spoke. “That’s where Vermaire gets complicated. Ambrosia wasn’t the only substance we discovered in Antarctica, though it was by far the largest in quantity. The V’kit’no’sat had a wide range of supplements and drugs that they used to augment their slaves, as well as themselves. Vermaire requested permission to use some of them, which I initially refused but eventually relented on. One of them was a growth serum.”

  “Ah, exactly how big were the Human slaves?” Paul asked, feeling even more uneasy about potentially fighting them, let alone the Dinosaurs.

  “6 foot 7 inches on average,” Davis said matter of fact. “We couldn’t find an image of anyone even under 6 feet, male or female.”

  “And the taller ones?” Jason asked.

  “Nothing above 8 feet, that we found anyway…which is still rather small compared to the Dinosaurs,” Davis reminded them.

  “Great,” Paul said, imagining an army of Black Knights with a T-Rex as backup.

  “Did he take something to make him resistant to stun energy?” Morgan asked.

  “No, that’s his armor,” Wilson admitted. “It absorbs stun energy, and will even draw it out of the user’s body so long as it doesn’t become saturated.”

 
; Jason frowned hard. “Really wish we’d known that earlier.”

  “Ditto,” Paul agreed.

  “What else did he take?” Morgan pressed.

  “He took a reduction drug when his growth rate exceeded expectation. He was a good 6 inches taller than he is now. Fortunately the V’kit’no’sat had created a way to fine tune body size using a combination of the two drugs, otherwise I don’t know how much bigger he would have grown before the drug wore off.”

  “Wait, they actually have a drug that makes you smaller?” Jason asked. “How does that even work? The loss of body mass would have to be uniform across all tissues.”

  “It is,” Davis confirmed. “I was as surprised as you, but the V’kit’no’sat apparently did their homework, and it does function without apparent side effect, though Vermaire is only one of three subjects to have experimented with it, and the other two were to combat growth deficiencies rather than for augmentation, so their data is questionable at best.”

  “He also took a sensory enhancement serum,” Wilson added with obvious dissatisfaction. “His eyesight and hearing increased significantly, as did taste and smell, but not touch or the internal senses.”

  “Are you making these available to us as well?” Morgan asked.

  Davis visibly stiffened. “I hadn’t planned to, we have very little data to work with other than Vermaire and I’m still not completely convinced there aren’t unforeseen side effects. The ambrosia I’m fairly certain of, but the rest is too dangerous in my opinion. If in time you feel otherwise we’ll discuss the matter, but for now I don’t want anyone using the other substances.”

  Paul looked at Wilson. “His physical strength and speed….drugs or training?”

  “Training, boosted with ambrosia,” the former Olympic decathlete confirmed, his distaste for drugs evident in his defensive tone.

  “Do the other drugs increase fighting ability?”

  “Theoretically yes,” Davis answered when Wilson hesitated.

  “Do you have any information on how badass the Human troops were? Do we have any idea what they were capable of?”

  “And how long they lived?” Morgan added.

  “A little,” Davis answered. “And several hundred, if not thousands of years…assuming they survived that long. The V’kit’no’sat used Humans as expendable resources, though it seems they didn’t waste them. Some entries even indicate that they were perturbed at having to retrain new Humans when some of their veterans were lost.”

  “How long do they live?” Jason asked.

  “You’ve seen video images of them?” Wilson asked.

  “Some,” Paul answered.

  “Different than the movies?”

  “Yes,” Paul answered as Jason’s eyes lit up.

  “More wiry,” he said. “More agile and fit.”

  Wilson nodded. “With their own version of ambrosia and their understanding of training, their lifespans appear to be unlimited, though there were references to some losses.”

  “Whether it be due to combat or some sort of internal social conflict or selection program,” Davis added, “there did appear to be an age hierarchy, with those more powerful individuals having lived for thousands of years, at least.”

  “Do we know how many of them there were?” Morgan asked.

  Davis shook his head. “No, but rough guestimates easily exceed the population of Earth. They had, or perhaps still have, an interstellar Empire spanning thousands of star systems. We’ve only been able to pull a partial map from the database, and it’s little more than navigational tags with no population references.”

  “What about the Humans?” Jason asked.

  “No firm numbers, but they appear to have been bread in far greater numbers given their smaller size and expendability.”

  “So we’re not only outgunned, outnumbered, and outclassed, but we’re also newbs on the experience front too. Oh yeah, this is going to be a piece of cake.”

  Davis half smiled. “One advantage we have is the vastness of space. Survival isn’t always about fighting and winning. I’m convinced we’re alive today because the V’kit’no’sat don’t know we’re here. According to the records they went to great lengths to track down and destroy any rogue slave populations.”

  “Either that or they’re dead,” Paul pointed out.

  “Wishful thinking, but a possibility none the less,” Davis admitted. “We need to spread out off of Earth so we can’t all be taken out in one assault, but before we can do that we have to get the home front stabilized, which means establishing a military so we can guard against our own planet’s stupidity. I don’t know the full implications of the ambrosia,” he said, motioning again to the vial, “but I trust you’ll figure out how to make the most of it.”

  Paul nodded.

  “Do you have more files available on the Human slaves?” Morgan asked. “It would help if we could study how they used it.”

  “All applicable files have been transferred to your personal database under the keyword “Ambrosia.” In addition, I’ve unlocked more auxiliary files on the V’kit’no’sat and their technology. It’s not everything we’ve collected to date, but it’s more than you were given access to during your basic training.”

  “Are the Dino drugs included in that?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, along with a full profile on Vermaire and what we’ve learned from him.”

  Jason turned to face Wilson. “I think you were right. We haven’t got to the hard part yet.”

  The head trainer raised an eyebrow. “Told you so.”

  Their conversation lasted another two hours before the adepts returned to their new accommodations and found most of the others in the lounge playing games, including a mammoth 16-player Mario Kart race taking place on the big screen.

  “What did they want?” Emily asked, walking up beside them as they watched the others from behind.

  “Oh nothing,” Paul said deadpan. “They just gave us full control of the military, chatted a bit about the V’kit’no’sat, and revealed the origins of the Black Knight.”

  A dozen nearby heads suddenly spun around, including two that were wielding controllers.

  “What?” Kevin asked as his Yoshi ran off course into a pond.

  “Pause it,” Morgan ordered. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  6

  June 17, 2045

  Paul walked into the sparsely filled data lab and took a standing position at one of the flat workstation tables, using the touch screen surface to pull up the warship schematics he’d been working on for the past month and a half. He’d just gotten finished with his second run of the day but found he still had plenty of energy and didn’t feel the need to drag up a stool to sit on.

  As their dedicated computer system pulled up all the auxiliary files and spread them out across the virtual tabletop like paper documents in exactly the same positions he’d left them this morning, Paul rubbed his forehead and tried to blink away some of the pain from his lunch-induced headache. He’d just upped his ambrosia dosage for the second time, and the resulting ‘sugar-rush’ headache was no joke. He’d taken his most recent dose at lunch in the form of a tiny cookie wafer, which had only spiked the effect further.

  Over the past few weeks all of the 100 adepts had gone on the ambrosia, starting out at 3 ‘decis’ as they measured them. Davis, it turned out, was taking 2 decis per day, which were 1/10 of a ‘dose’ each, measuring in volume little more than a grain of sand. Due to the small size, they were usually incorporated into food or added to water, as was Davis’s preferred method of ingestion, carefully measured through a tiny automated device. Paul and the others weren’t patient enough for that approach and given their propensity for consuming snacks day round had found the ambrosia wafers an easy fit.

  They could be eaten at any time of the day, simultaneously or spread out, with Paul choosing the later, taking some with each meal, otherwise the adjustment headaches would be more severe. His body was still getting used to th
e super potent substance, but he was now able to triple his running workouts per day, getting his accustomed 10k in thrice…early morning, noon, and early evening, and he was running a good 15 seconds per mile faster than he had been before. Not quite superhuman level, but he knew that the additional mileage at a consistent speed would pay dividends a few months down the line, so he was content to put in his 75 laps a day and wait it out.

  The rest of his day was split between martial arts and the design work he was doing, both on the warship prototype and the overall military structure. He, Jason, Morgan, Greg, Sara, and Sam had been selected to handle the later duties, while the others focused solely on physical training, spending more than 10 hours a day every day pushing their bodies to make as rapid improvement as possible, as well as to increase the dosage that their bodies could handle. Paul would have been doing the same thing, but his progression would have to occur at a slower rate, for he had a more immediate priority.

  Liam and Roger were also taking a couple hours out of their day to help with the warship design, but Paul had the lead and the responsibility to make it work, in addition to the design of the military structure. Part of him would rather have been training nonstop, but he knew how important getting this early foundation right was.

  But then again, that was the good part about having 100 adepts. They were all skilled enough that they could split up the duties and share the load, so while Paul was very interested in seeing how far the ambrosia could take his abilities, he knew the others would push the limits and experiment, then share their experience with him later that he could then use to more selectively plan out his own training and avoid the early pitfalls. The first ones to do something new were always having a rough go at it as they learned the ropes, and Paul’s current task was no exception.

  Between the ‘leaders’ and input from the others they’d unofficially decided to split their military into specialized divisions while they and the other classes that followed would be trained as multitaskers and trailblazers…those who spearheaded the drive into the unexplored, unfamiliar, or unexpected. The specialization for the others was meant for them to be able to focus all their efforts and training on one skill, both to push it as high as possible and to be able to keep up with them, given that they were the elite of the elite and could train in multiple skill sets simultaneously to great effect.