Star Force: Reignor Page 6
The Reignor put down the food containers, in row so they wouldn’t completely block the passage. “Stay in this passage and stay behind me. I’m going to check behind us.”
The Ren’mak did as told, but trailed him closely, hovering just behind his head as Plausious moved back to the entrance crack, coughing on a little dust, but it wasn’t overwhelming when he stepped out into the open and scanned the area, seeing that the dome itself hadn’t been compromised, but there was a new shaft open in the center above the lake with a small pile of debris below it, having crushed a few eels in the process and pinning some more there.
But above them all was a single individual descending through the shaft, and it wasn’t a Hadarak. It was something else, and its Essence silhouette was immensely powerful when Plausious did a quick check.
“I guess we fight here,” he whispered to the Ren’mak. “Keep back and give me room, please,” he begged. “Stay in this crack and watch from here until I call for you. If I can beat him, we can survive. But you can’t help me in this fight. And I want you to live. Will you watch from here?”
The Ren’mak squawked painfully, agreeing but pointing out that he couldn’t see anything from here in all the mist.
“I know. I promise I won’t leave this place without you,” he said, almost telling him to flee through the caves if he died, but the harsh truth was that the Ren’mak would not survive without Plausious even if he was able to get out into the free air. He’d starve to death even if the other Hadarak didn’t find him. His survival depended on Plausious’s entirely.
“If the Hadarak come through this passage, tell me. Otherwise stay silent so they don’t know you’re here,” he said, stroking its head for a moment after the Ren’mak landed and clung to an outcropping in the fissure. “This won’t take long.”
Plausious turned and flew off through the mist, expecting the Ren’mak to panic and follow after him, but to its credit it stayed put, though its emotions were crying out in a myriad of ways. The Reignor forced himself to tune them out and abandon his mental tracking of its position as the person coming down the shaft flew to the edge of the shore and landed on the thin mud-covered rock along the edge.
The Neofan flew near, but landed in the trees a ways off, doing one last quick check behind him to make sure the Ren’mak didn’t follow, then he turned his full attention forward as he strode into view preparing himself for battle.
“I did not know these caverns existed,” the unknown opponent said in the Neofan language, though butchering it considerably, meaning he wasn’t used to speaking it…as well as indicating that he knew a great deal about Plausious’s race. “It’s an impressive find, given your situation, but unfortunately it ends my little experiment.”
“Who are you?” Plausious asked, coming to a stop on the edge of the shore near the tree line, giving them several strides of distance between each other, with the individual being a third taller than Plausious, though thinner in build.
“An observer from a very distant galaxy. A lesser peer of mine reported your inexplicable presence here, and your singular efforts to survive with no way off the planet against an army of Hadarak. When you did not die as expected, I grew curious and replaced him…and I have been observing you ever since.”
“Why do the Hadarak not kill you?”
“Because they obey me. The Neofan do not know as much as you believe you do. The Hadarak are tools of my race and others, and we need to craft our tools to face current and future threats. When we encounter unique resistance we study it, as I have been studying you and directing the Hadarak to try different strategies, to adapt to your skills and perseverance. They have failed every time, and with each failure we learn and I grow more respectful of you. But recently the combat ended, the experiment paused, because you found this place to hide,” he said, gesturing to the chamber around them with upraised arms tense with pale blue muscle that was not sculpted as Plausious’s was, suggesting a deficit in physical strength despite his size advantage.
“Why did you not track me before?”
“It was a test of the Hadarak, not my skills. I was determined to stay and learn from your anomaly of a conflict until you were dead, but you outsmarted me and ended my experiment prematurely. I should kill you, but given all you have accomplished and the data I’ve gathered, I am willing to give you a reprieve.”
“In what form?” Plausious asked suspiciously.
“First, tell me how you came to be here?”
“I came here to seek single combat with the Hadarak, to test my skills. When I was alone on the planet my crew betrayed me, destroyed my landing craft, and marooned me here in a coup.”
“A coup? Of what?”
“I am Reignor Plausious, the leader of House Atriark. Do you know what this means?”
“I do. You are the splinter faction that has taken residence in this galaxy. And they left their leader here? For what purpose?”
“We do not kill each other out of respect for our longevity unless specific offenses are taken,” he said, almost spitting the words as he referred to his past life as if it were his own now. “We exile them instead.”
“So they removed you from power by leaving you here, and you foolishly gave them the opportunity to do so?”
“Their betrayal was not expected.”
“A colossal error on your part, but someone unwise would not have survived here as you have. What was your oversight?”
“What is your need to know?”
“Mere curiosity. Knowing your past may help me better understand how you could survive this long. What would you do if I returned you to your people? Avenge yourself against those that betrayed you.”
“They would be dealt with.”
“But surely they must have appointed another Reignor by now. Would they accept you back, or would they just kill you? I wouldn’t want to have your journey end in such an inauspicious manner.”
“I do not know the full reasons why they betrayed me, so I cannot answer that. Are you offering me safe passage off this planet?”
“I am. You have earned that, I think. I cannot take you to your hidden fortresses in the Rim, for Star Force blocks such passage. But if I take you to their nearest outposts, can you convince them to return you the rest of the way.”
“Most likely yes.”
“Very well then. I will give you a ship and order it to obey your commands until you reach your destination. How will you keep Star Force from destroying it on arrival?”
“What kind of ship are you speaking of?”
“A Hadarak one, of course. I can reconfigure the interior to carry you. Did you not know we could do so?”
“As you said earlier, there is much we do not know,” Plausious said as the larger unknown alien nodded its triangular head slightly. “And you are searching for additional information. Ask plainly.”
“Nothing of consequence. Technically I’m not supposed to be speaking with you at all, but I will simply report your death and that will be the end of it. One warrior to another, I will spare you. No one knows who you are other than me, and the Hadarak don’t comprehend things in the same way we do. From this point on you don’t exist and I return with my data on your inspiring defiance here. Although I will need a small tissue sample from your corpse. I am expect to retrieve as much.”
“And if I refuse?”
“It is nothing to concern yourself with. All I need is a scratch of tissue, enough for analysis. Consider it your travel purchase.”
“What is your name?”
“I do not exist, and therefore do not have a name. I could not let you return with information of consequence, and my existence is already a small breach if Star Force hasn’t already shared with you knowledge of our existence. By chance have they?”
“Not to my knowledge, but I’ve been away for some time.”
“Of course you have been. That wa
s foolish of me to ask. Tell me, what have you been eating down here? You haven’t stolen Hadarak food in quite some time.”
“I manage,” he said, almost saying ‘we’ and catching himself in time. Perhaps this individual did not know of his traveling companion…or did not care.
With that thought he sensed behind him to see if the Ren’mak was still there, only to feel him much closer and perched in a tree watching them.
“I understand your dislike for me. I am, after all, the leader of the enemy that has been trying to kill you. There are other questions I could ask, but I will spare you them and send you on your way before your latent ire overwhelms your wisdom and encourages you to attack me out of mistrust.”
“Should I trust that this is not some trap?”
“Difficult, I know. But I did not bring the Hadarak down here with me, and I am not attacking you, so I…hope that gesture is worth something,” he said, hesitating.
That hesitation made Plausious worry about the Ren’mak, and if he had just been discovered, so he reached out telepathically ready to tell him what to do when he sensed his opponent talking to it as well and ordering it to quietly fly back up into the shaft and wait there to relay his orders as he sent his own ire at it for violating his command not to come down here…but he wasn’t going to kill it, Plausious suspected, for he hoped that he hadn’t seen it yet.
But when the Ren’mak refused his order and took flight, not away from them but towards Plausious out of fear, his opponent flicked a hand in its direction, abandoning subtlety, and launched an Essence attack at it, knowing full well that Plausious would see it and that it would make a liar of him.
Such things occurred quickly, and if the Reignor had not been worried about the Ren’mak and aware of his location and danger, he would not have seen it coming. Had he thought about it he would have waited too long, for only an instant reaction could have intervened in time.
So it wasn’t a calculation. It wasn’t logic or forethought. It was the acceptance to act on a well-practiced protective instinct, though he knew that the fragile mercy he was being given would be in jeopardy.
After all the time he had spent with the Ren’mak, Plausious didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
He sent a protective bubble to his friend while simultaneously sending a wave of Essence in front of it to diminish or deflect the attack…which resulted in several nearby trees puffing into dust plumes as they were disintegrated.
And in that moment his opponent’s expression turned dark at his audacity, with Plausious knowing that his safe passage out of here was irrevocably gone.
7
His nameless opponent sneered at the Neofan as the Ren’mak flew up and hovered behind him chirping away at him in warning. “I was going to send you back to cause trouble,” he said, slowly raising a hand. “But you’re not worth the effort.”
Plausious grabbed the Ren’mak and shoved him back so fast it looked like he was fired as a projectile. He sent a firm and fast order to him to run…then after that he had no time to focus on his friend as an Essence wave hit him and cascaded over his nullification shield, rippling with the concussive impact while mutually disappearing along with Plausious’s outer layers of his defense. The nullification shield was the easiest defense possible, but also the most costly in terms of energy. It also had the advantage of being able to counter all types of Essence attacks, and not knowing what was coming his way, Plausious had chosen wisely.
He felt his barrier get chunked by the attack, then another and another followed it in rapid succession, with him knowing his opponent was trying to wear him down rather than overpower him. Plausious delved into his stored energy to reinforce his shield, letting his opponent hammer him with multiple types of attacks, each of which he was able to see and catalog, with only one being new to him.
His opponent stood with his arm raised, throwing the invisible energy towards him while taking a few slow steps to begin closing the distance between them…and in that moment Plausious realized something. The disgust and hate emanating from his opponent did not match the reserved attack pattern he was using. This patient, attrition-based technique was something a calm opponent would use, not someone so irate their emotions were spilling over into their telepathy for all to sense.
No. His opponent was not using strategy. He was throwing as hard of attacks against Plausious as he could manage, one after another in a rage.
And Plausious could absorb them all.
Essence generation was not a simple as draining a container…not when that container was your body. The rate of drawdown was dependent on skill development, with new users only able to remove a small, steady flow at the beginning. Massive power dumps required practice and temperament of the body, otherwise such power could not be unleashed so rapidly. When it was drawn out too fast, as in the case of the apocalypse monsters, it ripped the body apart, which was why there was natural inhibitors against Essence drain. If there were not, one could conceivably drain their full lifeforce in a single moment.
The amount of Essence being thrown at Plausious, in a cumulative sense, was impressive, but each attack seemed capped at a certain amount, as if his opponent could not summon more than this amount, no matter what form he sent it in.
But the Reignor’s cap was heightened greatly by his time spent in spontaneous battle where he did not have the luxury of slow, methodical combat, and he knew he could generate more than that.
He continued to absorb the attacks, pouring more Essence into his diminishing shield, as he tried to determine if his opponent was generating this energy or was drawing it from a technological source. If it was technological it would come in a different ‘flavor’ than his own, and he was sensing only one. Perhaps he had a reserve and was not yet using it. Plausious did not know, but if he let this exchange occur in this fashion, the nullification shield would drain the Reignor far more than if he started using specific defensive techniques to parry those coming at him.
But if something new hit him, it might slip through. No, he had an opportunity now, in the beginning of what could be a long exchange of Essence until one ran out or defeated the other through skill…for there was a third way to win fights if you had a power differential.
And that was to overwhelm your opponent early, to give them so much attack that they couldn’t defend against it even if they had ample power in reserve…for that reserve flowed through your body, and there was a limiting facto there as well with regards to how much you could channel.
And that amount was a multiple of your draw cap.
Plausious might be able to win this in the long game, but then again he might lose if this opponent had a personal well hidden in reserve…or had a higher Essence count within him, due to his body size and age. There was no way of knowing here and now while under attack, but his opponent was behaving as if he was at max cap, and the Reignor decided to test whether that was true or not.
His nullification field morphed into a static shield, taking the hits as if it was armor rather than a wall of water meeting and cancelling out an attacking flame. His opponent altered his Essence output into a different type of attack that would defeat such a static shield…but Plausious layered another type behind it, and it caught the fracture technique, compressing it into a short lived orb that the Neofan could make use of, absorbing, transforming, scattering, deflecting…or sending it right back at his opponent.
Plausious chose the latter, ramming it directly at him and forcing him to shield against it…and he took it poorly, suggesting he was either not expecting the Neofan to be able to do that, or he was not accustomed to defending against large Essence attacks.
Could he really be that naïve? Plausious wondered, launching a snaking, flanking attack as two conduits of Essence reached out from his torso like rivers and arced around towards his opponent, but avoiding the straight line conduit between them that was filled with another attack and deflection and many more to come in rapid fire sequence.
The two snakes made it almost all the way to his opponent before one of them was smacked aside, with the redirect breaking Plausious’s hold on it…causing the Essence to disperse harmlessly.
But the other one actually hit his opponent in the leg, tearing into his body and rending his flesh in a way that turned it into paste that then dripped out of the crater now in his lower left hip.
A spherical defense shield went up around him, with his attacks momentarily stopped as he countered his rapid bleeding with a crust-hold that turned his exposed flesh into a hard char…painful, but useful when you didn’t have time to deal with injuries in a fight.
The reprieve didn’t last long, with a penetrating attack coming that would get through most basic shields, but Plausious had been trained during his Construction in all the basic techniques, along with garnering many more over his years along with a biological energy shield matrix that he could augment with Essence. He generated that one easily, and the piercing attack broke through half way, then faltered for not having enough power to finish.
Plausious then sent a concussion wave towards his opponent, but without Essence enhancement…and it caught him off guard, for his defenses were only set for Essence attacks or Essence-enhanced ones. The modified grapple-energy hit his opponent like a giant boulder and knocked him backwards into the lake, generating a big splash as his body hit, as well as a brief moment of opportunity for Plausious to scan behind him to find the Ren’mak.
He had to shove it back again, for it was flying too close.
Stay back. One attack from him and you will be killed. Let me handle this while you watch the tunnel overhead. If Hadarak or anything else comes down, warn me. That is your task. Now go! he yelled telepathically as he modulated another shield to deflect a new attack, one that he actually reflected backwards into the water between them…with it vaporizing it into even more mist, making it impossible to see visually.
He sidestepped on instinct…only to have another attack fly past him.
He can’t feel my location.