The Powers That Be Page 6

  “Then with the Hadarak, we shouldn’t be focusing on the Essence units, we should be focusing on the transport capability. Disrupt that, and their spamming ability diminishes greatly.”

  “Spaceball designs won’t be enough,” Tennisonne said. “I wish they were, but they’re too damn large to mass produce and too hard to implement outside of special conditions.”

  “Then why not put slip’n’slides on every spacelane into a high priority systems and let momentum do the damage for us?” the Golden Knight asked.

  Those who were familiar with Hadarak naval warfare glanced at him in unison.

  “If they collide with sufficient force in the right location,” Davis answered, “it can trigger a Nova that will do far greater damage than the Hadarak.”

  “What about the smaller Hadarak?”

  “Depending on their velocity, they can still survive ramming the star. It will damage them, but not always kill them. We could implement some in certain situations…”

  “And a black hole?”

  Davis tilted his head to the side as he thought. “I don’t think we’ve ever tried one, have we?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Tennisonne said. “I don’t see how a Warden could survive the impact, and the mass difference is so great it wouldn’t…well, I can’t say for sure since you won’t let me throw moons in to see what happens.”

  Davis smiled, remembering that conversation millennia ago. “We’re still talking special circumstances tactics. We need something more broad-based.”

  “A trap,” the Viceroy said suddenly. “We need to trap the Hadarak before they reach their deceleration point, not prolong it. Can we build a Spaceball and inverted slip’n’slide to create a predictable capture zone?”

  “With dampeners?” Tennisonne said. “Possible.”

  “Then we don’t need to worry about low stellar orbit,” Davis noted. “Just high orbit on the jumpline.”

  “And catch other traffic at the same time,” Daegan added. “That’s feasible since they’re not being destroyed. It would act like a gate to the system that all would have to pass through if they were using that particular jumpline.”

  “Kirritimin?” Davis asked.

  “What do you do with the captured Hadarak?”

  “Tow it elsewhere and let it sit,” Esna said.

  “And if two come in succession?”

  “We build a really big and nifty capture system,” she said, undaunted.

  “The power required to operate it…” Tennisonne said, cutting himself off as an idea came to him. “I wouldn’t want to try it on reactors or Essence enhancement. We’d need a siphon line out from the star itself to power it.”

  “If we can eliminate certain routes the Hadarak prefer,” Grand Admiral Lucin pointed out, “we can corral them into certain areas where our Avengers will take less time to get to them.”

  “And we can start controlling the galactic map a bit,” Davis said with a nod. “I’ll take it. It’s not a solution, but it’s another piece of the puzzle.”

  “And if a Lurker is caught?” the Viceroy added.

  “We’d need Essence technology incorporated,” Tennisonne said, souring on the idea.

  “No you don’t,” Bren said. “You just need it killed quickly.”

  “They can kill anything in a matter of seconds if they’re close enough,” Esna told him, “and it doesn’t have to be melee range.”

  “Use a null field to blind it to the targets while IDF pins it in place while you kill it. Enough Ysalamir spaced around the perimeter can do it without Essence, correct?”

  “We’ve never even simulated that because we could never get one close enough,” Tennisonne said, leaning back on the wall as he thought. “They’re too damn dangerous for anything other than a Borg vessel with Essence weaponry to take on. And what’s worse, even if we could trap one, another could take out the ‘gate’ coming in on another jumpline and attacking from the rear.”

  “Label it a bad idea and see what modifications can be made,” Davis declared. “We haven’t considered this quite this way before, so at this point anything new is good, no matter how flawed. Now, what else do you have for me?”

  “Flying space monkeys?” Esna suggested.

  “Meaning what?”

  “I don’t know. Sounded like something an Archon would say. I got nothing at the moment.”

  “Now you know how I feel,” Davis said in agreement. “I need every new idea you guys can come up with, flying space monkeys included. So keep it coming…”

  6

  November 24, 128885

  Happhetima Nebula (Zavrex Kingdom)

  Gamma Tricumbda Temple

  Kara had been in the same Temple for the past 31 years, but so much had happened in those years that it felt like half her lifetime.

  Kara was now beyond Neo 5002, which was the highest level in the Archon ranks currently mapped out. Greg was still tops, currently at Neo 4987, and new levels were having to be designed based on how he developed, which meant they couldn’t plan out very far ahead…but Kara’s siphon ability completely cheated the power ranking system, so Wilson had been working on crafting a new Archon division based off her training while letting her freestyle with Strovok and learn as much from him as she could.

  Kara’s hair was now long and double braided…blue. It had been Morgan’s suggestion, for the way she could generate Essence at will from her siphon completely changed what it meant to be a Neo, where you had to build up your personal reservoir slowly over time, and when you exhausted it you had to go on ‘rest’ period until it rebuilt before you could use your Essence abilities again.

  But Kara did not have to rest…ever. The size of the siphon was not unlimited, but its duration was. She could keep pulling Essence as long as her body could handle it, and keep firing off with what was essentially ‘unlimited ammo’ in the video game sense. And now that she could turn it on and off at will, Kara was immensely enjoying the life hack and gaining so much experience from non-stop training that she was quickly passing up Vargemma who had spent many hundred millennia slowly building up their power levels to where she was now.

  Morgan had said she could literally shoot everything in sight and cause unlimited havoc…so why not use ‘Jinx’ as a metaphor?

  Kurt-074 had objected to that, for his Clan was named Jinx after the League of Legends character, but the other trailblazers had sided with Morgan, citing it was too good a fit and even relieving Kara of her Clan Ghostblade duties so she could focus everything on developing her new skill. They’d said it was because they needed her to cause as much ‘havoc’ as possible when the time came, and rather than be annoyed at how far she was ahead of them and them not being able to keep up, they told her to run with it as her one and only priority.

  Which was exactly what she needed to hear from them.

  Kara was back to being just one person now, not a fleet leader, not a civilization builder, not an explorer or the bazillion other things Archons had to be skilled at. Her job was now simple.

  Blow stuff up…then blow some more stuff up, and learn to like it.

  And to top it all off, the character of Jinx had the body of a 12 year old too, so it seemed to fit too well to ignore, and Kara had instead embraced the role…minus the rocket launcher.

  Because she didn’t need one.

  “Defend!” Strovok ordered as he jumped up into the air near where Kara was floating, using the armor she’d built for him to fly, though the Archon needed none herself with her Yen’mer.

  Kara pulled her left fist back, summoning what was called a ‘Hard Light’ technique that built an invisible hammer off her arm reaching forward, as Strovok had done before he jumped. She could see his and he could see hers, but non-Essence users could not, though there were none around here. Only a few Elcee watching the pair train as well as watching their backs to keep unwanted visitors from traveling out to their training grounds…which had gotten so damaged from the constant melee they�
�d started taking their sparring to the air to avoid more surface damage.

  Kara waited until nearly the last moment, then surged forward and swung her arm, meeting her hammer against Strovok’s in a thunderclap that was heard miles away. Both Essence hammers collided and buckled, but as was normal it was Kara’s that shattered, letting Strovok’s through after a brief delay…but the Archon spun in the air so it missed her body by inches, with her right hand sending a Jumat-like Pulsewave into the Mek’tal before he could raise his other arm.

  His body moved about a meter before a spherical Pulsewave of far greater power responded, knocking Kara back as she tried to brace herself with a Cutting Shield that looked like a bent leaf over her body. It disrupted Hard Light as if they were real objects, causing them to melt and split apart as they hit the ridge on her shield, but the impact of the Pulsewave worked differently and actually pushed more on the shield than it would have Kara’s body, acting like a sail, but still melting aside some of the effect as the Essence was de-crafted and let to whisk away to the realm from which it came.

  When the Pulsewave ended, Kara threw one back at Strovok…simultaneously launching a Jumat wave and had both hitting at approximately the same time. Strovok blocked the Pulsewave easily, without it even touching his body, but the Jumat caught him off guard and sent him flying backwards momentarily stunned.

  Suddenly his left foot became super heavy, so much so it was being pulled down to the ground by the Gravity Clasp Kara had created and lashed to him, with it responding to the local gravity and pulling towards it until it ran out of power.

  Strovok destroyed it long before that happened, but not before Kara got up in his face and dropped an Ubven around him, momentarily pinning him in an Amumu-style Lachka field so he couldn’t raise his arms…then Kara summoned up another Hard Light hammer off her left arm and one on her right, slamming both into his chest.

  But they didn’t hit. He projected a Hard Light Shield a few inches away to take the blow…which it did, shattering her hammers again, then she kicked off the shield, moving through the Ubven when he couldn’t, and getting a few meters back as she spread both arms wide and brought her legs up underneath her as she fed as much Essence as she could draw from her Siphon into a containment orb just over her abdomen.

  Strovok fought against the Ubven rather than mess with her, annoyed by the invisible field that didn’t want to go away and would only allow him to move as if he was having to fight through meters of wet sand all around him. It wasn’t Essence-based, so he couldn’t see it, but after enough struggling it finally dissipated…just as Kara released a visible light beam from her center of mass.

  It wasn’t light, but rather a heavy Essence attack that she had created on her own using three different techniques Strovok had taught her. She called it ‘Final Spark,’ and sent the bright white beam with a kaleidoscope of other colors on the fringes straight into her sensei, trusting in his superior strength, skill, and knowledge to be able to block it…otherwise it could have vaporized a row of people with one shot.

  Strovok caught and negated most of it against a Dark Shield, then held up a hand as Kara began to move again. “Stop.”

  She frowned. “Did that hurt you?”

  “No, but it had more effect than I anticipated. That was not a true Essence attack. What did you add to it?”

  “My Bioplasma,” Kara said, emitting a glowing streak from one palm and arcing it over to her other one where she caught, contained it, then snuffed it out.

  “Your hands were set wide.”

  “I was generating a defensive shield between them as I gathered the charge. I’ve used my Vorch’nas to create secondary firing pathways down to my navel. Figured I might as well use it for something.”

  “Then you mixed the plasma with the Emblaze technique?”

  “I used Emblaze and a bit of Constrain along with Contain.”

  “Plus Accelerate I assume?”

  “No,” Kara said, confused. “It launches on its own.”

  “The pressure of the plasma?”

  “Probably, but it also did before I learned to add it.”

  “Produce the defense shield again,” Strovok told her as he flew up closer.

  Kara took on the same position, arms spread wide and legs tucked up underneath her but not blocking her abs, then a shield formed to cover the entire front of her body, but not the sides or rear.

  “You are using Reflect. Why?”

  “I wouldn’t use this technique if I had enemies behind or flanking, only in front. It’s sort of a finishing move or opening salvo. The charge time pretty much makes it that way, and the more time I have the bigger I can get the blast…up until my Contain fails.”

  “What’s your max charge time?”

  “About 7 seconds.”

  “The Reflect isn’t just defending you, it’s also pushing your charge away when you overlap them. I have not seen that done in a long time. It’s an odd technique, and not the most powerful, but in this case it allows you extra defense without overlapping another ability. I’m mildly impressed.”

  “Thanks,” Kara said with a smirk as she twirled one of her long blue braids in her fingertips. “How close was I to getting through?”

  “Closer with your Hammers. That Ubven psionic is very annoying, and your using both disciplines is wise, but you will not defeat an opponent of my physical size unless you deplete the internal Essence reservoir. You need to use Psionics that do this rather than pin me in place.”

  “I pinned you in place so I could use Final Spark. That took you down a considerable about, right?”

  “Not when I use Black Shield. You expended more Essence than it took for me to block it. You lost in that exchange, and will lose every time, unless you can overwhelm the Black Shield’s tolerance.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “The intensity has to be so great that my recharge rate can’t come into play.”

  “Point overload?”

  “That is one way of saying it.”

  Kara sighed. “How close was I to doing that?”

  “You would need at the minimum triple effect, but only if you Constrained the beam much tighter.”

  “Density, not surface area?”

  “That is how Black Shield will usually fail…unless you can generate an area of effect attack so powerful it drains the whole thing faster than the recharge capacity. You cannot do that against me, for you do not have the generation capability yet, and you do not have the reserve charge in such a small, untrained body.”

  “I’m not untrained now, but I take your point.”

  “There are many Vargemma that have far greater Essence density within their bodies than you, accumulated from slow development over millions of years. You need a few hundred more to surpass them.”

  “How many to surpass you?”

  “You never will so long as we continue to train together.”

  Kara smiled. “That’s why I’m doing extra training while you sleep.”

  “And you are paying the price for it. Your body screams in pain even now.”

  “I can take it. I’ve been through worse before.”

  “If you continue to increase your Essence use, it will get worse.”

  “I know how to ride the ascension line, and if I fry myself too much my Vorch’nas will kick in to heal the damage.”

  “It cannot heal what it cannot touch. Your connection to the Essence realm is also damaged. You must allow time for it to adjust to greater usage.”

  “Are you talking about the barrier or my body?”

  “Both. You will damage your Siphon if you stretch it too far, too fast. Then you will have to cease its stretching in order for it to repair. Your technology cannot do that. It must occur naturally.”

  “And my body?”

  “It binds to the Essence in a way that makes overuse manifest physically. You may repair the damage, but you are not repairing the cause of the damage. You press too hard, Kara.”

>   “We’re on the clock, remember,” she said, referencing the Founders coming for her. “And I don’t intend to let the Elcee fight them here while we run off somewhere else. I need as much power as I can get, and if I have to endure some pain to get it faster, then so be it. I’m not permanently damaging anything as far as I can tell. Am I?”

  “I do not know. My Master never attempted training at this rate. Even I am feeling the effects now. It must be far worse for you.”

  “I may have not done much Essence training in the past, but I’ve done so much other training that this is easy for me. I know what to do and how to do it, the new wrinkles are the challenge and right now I’m a kid in a candy store. I can handle it. Trust me.”

  “I am beginning to, but we must not only focus on the near future, but the challenge of the far distant,” he said, pointing towards the Hadarak Colony Spore spark visible through the shell of the Temple due to the fact that the barrier shield was permanently down, otherwise it would have absorbed it and kept the denizens clueless to what was happening outside. “I do not want to run either, but if we must then we must. If we allow ourselves to be captured or killed, we give them victory. They do not want a Siphon free to develop, let alone two training together. Our vengeance must be over the eons, and by gaining peerdom. Even if we somehow managed to kill a Founder, as you did their Apprentice, they will send another and another. What are we to do then?”

  “We don’t abandon people to die, Strovok.”

  “If there is to be a fight here that cannot be won, evacuate the Temple.”

  “Would they stay here?”

  “Make them go beyond the Temples. You have said the galaxy is vast and easy to hide within.”

  “And you have said that our training bouts are visible to everyone in this Temple when we really get going. The more powerful we are, the harder it is going to be to hide our training. Now I could probably find us some place they’d never look, but if we can’t hide inside a star system now and they have Caretaker drones that can sense Essence, I can’t guarantee they won’t find us eventually.”