The Powers That Be Page 7

  “I know we will fight, the question is when and where.”

  “I’d rather them walk into our trap than catch us on the run.”

  “The Elcee are not a trap. They are pebbles to be crushed.”

  “Let us worry about that. Given Eldorat’s size, I’m assuming he was at least as powerful as one of the smaller Founders you spoke of, perhaps more so.”

  “You said you barely destroyed him with a warfleet.”

  “Yeah,” Kara said, pointing to the sky and the rows of starships parked up in ‘orbit’ as the Paladin spam produced more and more for her in preparation for the time when the predicted arrival came. “Got one, with more than one Essence weapon this time.”

  “The Founder will be able to overwhelm us within seconds.”

  “Even with your Black Shield?”

  “He will most likely be able to overload it with one strike.”

  Kara raised her arm up and produced a hologram of a piece of chest armor, spinning it slowly around so Strovok could see all of it.

  “What is this?”

  “Something we’ve been working on. Something that will hold more Essence than your body can. A lot more.”

  “Your Magicite? The Founders have this technology already.”

  “I know, but this isn’t just Magicite.”

  “A weapon?”

  “An automatic defense. I’ve helped our Mastertechs create a nullification shield that will protect our non-Essence troops briefly.”

  “That is worthless to us.”

  “Will the Founder come looking for me with his own Magicite? Or will his own Siphon or whatever other stuff he has be enough?”

  “Could be either, but I would wager his own skills are more than sufficient.”

  “So if we create technology and fuel it with our Essence, we can use it against him here.”

  “A personal well will allow for recharge, Kara. Our abilities have limits that we have to raise with training. It is not simply about power…” he said, trailing off as he finally caught on.

  “And?”

  “How large of a nullification shield can you produce?”

  “Unlimited, though inefficient given our current designs. The question is how much technology can we carry. If we can pick the battlefield, we don’t have to carry it.”

  “A true trap then,” Strovok considered.

  “But I need you to teach me the Black Shield and other defensive and containment techniques so I can help craft them into machines.”

  “I cannot give you what I do not possess. The Responders will not give me the blueprints.”

  “I’m an Archon. I create blueprints for fun. What I need is the technique so I can experiment with it.”

  “Black Shield is far beyond you, little one.”

  “Catch me up faster then.”

  Strovok sighed. “It doesn’t work like that. There is a progression you must follow.”

  “That’s what the Responders say. I say they’re lying. I got Siphon way early, and Morgan got Jumat way early too. Things happen, and people take different paths. Help me craft a faster path, Strovok. Help me cheat.”

  The Mek’tal huffed, then patted himself on the chest with his big left arm. “You strike at my pride, but I do not know how to teach in a way that I have not been taught.”

  “Then generate the Black Shield now, and sustain it while I beat on it.”

  “It is not a physical shield,” he said, generating the effect none the less. It was invisible, like nearly all Essence techniques, but it cast a hazy effect around him when viewed by Essence-enhanced eyesight, hence the name.

  Kara reached out her hand and stuck it through up to her wrist, then held it there, trying to create an Essence Rush in her arm and having the shield stop it…painfully.

  “That is unwise,” Strovok cautioned, but he maintained the shield nonetheless.

  “Maybe, but I gotta feel it to learn it. Can you reduce strength to the point where I can easily break it?”

  “I do not know. I’ve never tried to produce a weak shield. There is no point.”

  “There is now. Please try. Losing gives valuable experience, but winning gives a different kind.”

  The Black Shield flicked on and off numerous times, then finally remained constant.

  “That’s as weak as I can maintain it.”

  Kara pushed against it inside her arm, but it wouldn’t budge, so she brought forward her other arm just shy of the shield and fired small Torrents into it…which were basically an Essence drill that would tear through matter in a corkscrew fashion, but it wasn’t Hard Light, which would pass through a Black Shield due to its physical nature. Torrent was more or less a tiny tornado drill, and the Black Shield did block it.

  Kara drilled into it just over her wrist, because if she dipped it down she’d cut into her own flesh or Vorch’nas, and she didn’t want to see what happened in either. She worked on the shield for nearly 10 minutes before it finally broke and the Essence in her arm was able to move through momentarily before the Black Shield reformed.

  “Finally,” Kara huffed. “You really don’t know your strength.”

  “Did you learn something?”

  “A new feel. It’s a puzzle piece, and I need to collect as many as I can before I start trying to put them together. Are there techniques that disrupt Black Shield?”

  “None that you know.”

  Kara raised her right hand and created a Reflect shield between them.

  “I will have to raise intensity of the Black Shield, otherwise it will be destroyed. And I may overwhelm your Reflect.”

  Kara flicked her thumb, still using physical gestures to summon abilities, and created a Nullification shield behind the Reflect to protect herself against whatever it was he was going to throw if the Reflect shield failed.

  “Reckless are you, little one,” Strovok said with a smile. “Fortunately I like reckless. Prepare yourself. I am not sure of the power levels needed.”

  “Go as low as you can and adjust upwards,” Kara said, feeling something hit her shield and bounce back…then she felt it ripple through the Black Shield in a way that made its hard structure bend a bit.

  Another puzzle piece gained.

  Kara just hoped she could get enough of them to learn Black Shield, for it was the primary defensive ability the Vargemma had, and anyone without it was seen as an easy mark for a master to overwhelm with a simple force against force engagement…which was the equivalent of arm wrestling and usually ended within seconds.

  Black Shield gave weaker opponents the ability to resist this at low energy cost to themselves, and blast it all, the Temple said you had to have so many prerequisites before it would train you for it, that no one in Star Force or even the Varkemma had yet earned the privilege of trying for it.

  It was the defensive key she needed to badly encode into Essence technology if she was going to build a trap in the Temple, and Kara had no idea how much time she had before a Founder would show up and try to kidnap her and Strovok.

  She knew she was risking a lot staying here, but it was crystal clear that she and Strovok were the only ones that stood a small chance against a Founder, and probably none at that. If they weren’t here to draw out the target and then direct orbital bombardment, Kara wasn’t confident the Elcee or the Paladin could get the job done. Which meant she had to stay.

  Stupid or wise, she wasn’t sure, but Kara knew she had to have Black Shield and she couldn’t wait for the normal progression of skills. She had to cheat jump again, and this time she couldn’t rely on random chance. She had to make it happen.

  And right now that mean shooting everything in sight and seeing what hidden treasures could be hit with random shots. It wasn’t the best way to explore the universe, but right now it was all she had. So despite the growing pain inside her arm that her Vorch’nas was hilariously trying to figure out the source of, she kept pressing on the Black Shield and trying to bend a bit of it on her own.

&
nbsp; And failing.

  7

  December 25, 128885

  Solar System (Home One Kingdom)

  Earth

  Esna sat down in her quarters in Atlantis, covered in more sweat than usual after her workout in one of the 7 major training centers in the city that had an insane number of options for specialized challenges, even outside the Archon-only sanctum, but she’d felt off since she’d arrived here from the Deep Rim where she’d been doing a lot of hunting for bad guys that felt an opportunity for mischief while the Core distracted everyone, and they were coming out of the woodwork in droves.

  When the Director had called her to Earth she hadn’t resented that, knowing it had to be something damn important…and it was. Too damn important.

  Esna took off her right shoe and sniffed it…a habit she’d had since all the way back on the planet Mace where she’d been born. Why she’d done it then she couldn’t remember, but now she knew that a person’s sweat didn’t stay constant, and one’s scent altered with their mood, toxin levels, and several other factors, and she was detecting one now she hadn’t had in a long time.

  Stress sweat.

  She’d had a whiff of it ever since coming to Earth, but now it was reeking. Normally her sweat smelled neutral to good, and it was only when her body was under some sort of duress that it turned bad.

  Esna pulled off her other shoe and checked it too, then took a whiff of her armpit and flinched.

  “Wow, that is bad,” she said to herself with a sigh. It wasn’t the food here doing it, nor the water, nor the air she was breathing. Everything was top notch, like in the rest of the Empire, and she wasn’t injured. The only thing that had changed was her mission.

  An impossible mission, with her body reflecting her mental distress at having been thrust a problem even the Archons couldn’t solve, nor the Director himself. He’d made it clear that unless they found a better way to fight both the Hadarak and the Founders, Star Force was going to be crushed between them.

  One war they might survive, even find a way to win. But two at once was going to be their doom, even if it was a long, drawn out one with the Archons doing maximum damage to both enemies…but fall they would. And now Esna and 7 others were being tasked with finding a solution.

  And she knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  They probably weren’t the only team the Director had consulted, nor would consult, but right now they were the ones with the weight of the empire on their shoulders, and Esna didn’t like failure…but more than that, she didn’t like being helpless.

  Helplessness is what got Rammak killed. And she’d vowed shortly thereafter to become as strong as he’d been so that she’d never have to face the same situation.

  And yet here she was, and she’d gotten far stronger than Rammak had ever been…well, not in muscle, obviously, but in other ways. Esna was now one of the leaders of Canderous, and she knew Rammak would have been proud, but part of her still wanted to go back in time and take his place. She didn’t feel worthy then, and since then she’d tried, but part of her never would.

  And her body was agreeing with the mind, stinking like a damn newb who’d never known combat after a little 3 hour workout.

  Esna threw one of her shoes across the room, bouncing it off a wall just as the door chime sounded. For a second she wondered if she’d hit something, but the panel was more than 4 meters away from where her shoe hit.

  She got up and walked across the carpeted floor in her sweat-soaked socks and just opened the door, not bothering to see who it was first…only to look up at the very tall man standing there. Someone nearly as large as Rammak had been, though he was missing a pair of arms.

  “Can we talk?” Bren asked, not wearing any armor, which was unusual for any of the Esquires or Golden Knights, who were obsessive about always being ready for battle wherever it chose to show up.

  “If you don’t mind the smell,” she said, flicking her head towards the inside as she turned and walked out of the doorway back to her bed where she sat down and stripped off her socks, throwing them lazily out of view as she flexed her toes on the carpet fibers. “What’s on your mind?”

  Bren telekinetically pulled over a chair and looked for the anti-grav adjustment panel…then saw it wasn’t going to be big enough, so he drifted it back to where it had been and simply sat down on the ground cross-legged, which put his head height about even with Esna’s.

  “I did not know who you were until after you arrived and I checked your record. You were born outside of Star Force, whereas the rest of us were not.”

  “Kirritimin wasn’t either,” Esna corrected him.

  “No, you are right, but he is not a warrior. Not in the flesh. His mind can lead fleets, but he doesn’t know the feel of combat as you and I do. And you have felt it outside of Star Force, without training or an empire behind you. I wanted to ask what that was like?”

  “Maddening,” she answered, cupping her head in both hands as she thought back to memories she’d prefer to keep buried. “You were always afraid of getting caught up in something and dying, from something stupid or just a random accident. It wasn’t glorious like the movies suggest. I lost my brother to that shit, and would have died myself if not for a Calavari named Rammak who saved me. He was Star Force, but he’d been left behind when Mace fell. The planet was wrecked and what had once been Star Force was so far gone we didn’t even know its name. We called the planet Forso, for what reason I don’t know. I didn’t even know I was Human at the time. I didn’t know anything.”

  “Did you do any training?”

  “Ha. We didn’t even understand what the word meant. We piddled around, experimented, mostly did stupid stuff, and some of it worked and we learned. Nobody really knew what they were doing, but a lot liked to pretend they did, and we bought it for the most part. I wish I’d been born into Star Force, for many reasons, but we don’t get to choose our entry point into the universe. I’m fortunate to have survived mine. I certainly didn’t earn it.”

  “Do you know why Davis called you here?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “I know,” Bren said, eliciting a raise of Esna’s head. “He and I are rather close. I spent many of my early years on his personal guard, and his wisdom is still underestimated by the Empire. You are here because of your vantage point and your skill. You started with nothing, outside the empire, and have risen past so many who had far more than you. You have earned your rank of Khan in Canderous, but even then you chose the life of combat rather than a life of organizing others in combat. You became an Ard Ri, and I believe I know why.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “You want to feel the combat. You want to determine the outcome based on your skills and your actions…not ordering machines around or putting someone else into harm’s way. You want to be in the heaviest of fighting, like the Archons do, but they’re needed for so much else they rarely get that opportunity. The Golden Knights take most of those duties on us so that the Archons can be freed up to do the duties that few can. Do you know why I am here?”

  “You’re a Golden Knight. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “I’m a Golden Knight who was also once an Admiral, long, long ago. A special appointment by Davis when he saw more tactical skill in me than most naval officers. He said we needed people who could see beyond the small battles without losing sight of them, and that only someone who knew how to fight hand to hand could direct others to, all the way up the line to the Admiral who commanded the destiny of thousands. I took the opportunity and responsibility he gave me and learned the hard way…no training, no peers, just straight to Admiral. And to his credit, I added a few new tricks to the Naval handbook after I got my bearings and began looking at things from a different point of view.”

  “That’s crazy,” Esna said in admiration. “I had no idea anyone had done that.”

  “I had no idea anyone had done what you did. Apparently Star Force isn’t interest in bragging on their heroes that are
n’t Archons…and I only say that because that’s what Davis described me as once. He said there were many heroes that nobody would ever know of, because the fighting we do, especially on the bridge of a warship, won’t be seen by the masses. Not even your own crew. But heroes we are nonetheless. And in truth, most people see the Archons as multiple versions of the same person. The ‘Archon’ is the hero, not the individual.”

  “I thought the trailblazers were all etched in stone somewhere?”

  “And they rightly should be, for among other things they head up their own Clans. But the rest of the Archons are nameless, faceless heroes in armor, and they’re the inspiration others need. People like you and me have walked paths that they cannot, so they don’t need to know our stories…though they’re there to find if you dig hard enough. And the people who need to hear them usually learn to dig.”

  “Did the Director tell you that too?”

  “More or less. And you need to start calling him Davis or Sean. He prefers that.”

  “Really?”

  “In his position, do you think he really cares about titles? He cares about who has skills and answers. And both you and I have stuff that he doesn’t have, which is why we’re here.”

  “Well, my stuff isn’t amounting to much more than bad ideas. Everything I’ve suggested has gotten shot down after analysis.”

  “Same with the rest of us. Even Kirritimin.”

  Esna put her head back into her hands and stared at her toes. “So why aren’t you still an Admiral?”

  “I gave it up. I was good at it, but it was too isolated and my physical skills didn’t matter short of a boarding party…which almost never happens. Our fleets are far too dominant, and if we are ever at a disadvantage our enemies take the opportunity to destroy us. They’re not bold enough to try and capture one of our ships.”

  “So was the Dir…was Davis wrong about you?”

  “No. He showed me an aptitude that I never would have developed because I didn’t know it existed. But naval combat is about technology and knowing how to use it. Commando is about being the weapon, and I have always wanted to be a weapon, not wield one.”