Star Force: Cascade (SF73) Page 9

  “Also on my to-find list. I need your active stats to determine that as your stress levels recede. It’s a good thing you came straight from training.”

  “I wasn’t hitting it that hard, to be honest. I was working on my Jumat’s finer control. Stressful in its own way, but not what I’d image this trigger is looking for.”

  “It has to be full body,” Vortison confirmed, “to get the necessary levels. If you got your arm chopped off it wouldn’t be enough because it was region specific. You need to feel it all over and, I think, you need to be pressing back, so damage alone won’t trigger it.”

  “Trying to walk under heavy gravity,” Rio said, drawing another conclusion.

  “I’m not an Archon, but I think that would be the most efficient means of reaching it.”

  “It doesn’t work,” Paul said, dashing his hopes and drawing a curious glance from the medtech. “I tried long ago. The level Morgan probably survived I’ve matched and exceeded in training. It’s not going to be enough unless we allow ourselves to be damaged at the same time, and we’re not stupid enough to risk that. She almost died, and I think we’d have to do the same in order to get at it that way.”

  “So how did you get at it?”

  “Cumulative effect would be my guess.”

  “Specifically?”

  “Workout load. Not one specific drill or action, but the effect of everything adding up into a giant weight that will crush you if you don’t rest or know how to manage it. I’ve learned and press it harder in training in order to up my resistance to that kind of stress. I think it’s fair to say I’ve gone further in that area than anyone else?” Paul asked, looking at Rio.

  “Holistically, yeah, I’d say you have. Vermaire, however…”

  “Damn, why hasn’t he popped the trigger,” Paul said, thinking hard.

  “Mass,” Vortison said off hand.

  “What?”

  “It’s his mass…I mean I’m just guessing here, but the larger you are the more tissue you have to spread the load through.”

  “Wait a sec…” Rio said, with Paul thinking the same thing.

  “If it’s proportional to size, then the Zen’zat growth enhancements are actually hindering their ability to achieve Jumat?”

  “I’ll know more after we peg this down, but I’d hesitantly say yes…assuming that the smaller individuals were competing on the same level. You’re both stronger than Vermaire, I assume.”

  Rio cringed. “Not exactly.”

  “No?”

  “Hand to hand,” Paul admitted, “he pretty much owns us.”

  “Is he stronger, in terms of muscles, per fiber?”

  Paul raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I don’t know which one of us is stronger per fiber.”

  “Boris is the smallest, though not by much.”

  “Percentage strength,” Vortison explained. “If you lift a static amount of mass, the effort is spread out through your fibers. The Knights have far more than you, so is Vermaire creating as much force, and inversely as much strain, as you are?”

  “I’ve never thought of it that way,” Paul admitted. “He’s done what seems impossible by virtually undoing his speed penalty for his larger size. He moves as fast as us, and coupled with his mass that gives him a huge advantage in raw power.”

  “Vortison is right,” Rio agreed. “He’s a badass, but there’s a lot more of him to absorb punishment. If this trigger is taking the whole person into account, then we’re ahead of him.”

  “Not by that much,” Paul argued.

  “These triggers were designed for Zen’zat,” Vortison reminded them. “The others aren’t affected by size. This one, I can say, probably is…but if we can identify how much stress it takes it won’t matter.”

  “It will if others want to share it,” Rio said, thinking ahead. “They’ll have to find their own limit breaks.”

  “Damn, you’re right,” Paul agreed. “Only me and Morgan have reached them, and hers was a fluke that she was lucky to survive.”

  “So Paul just shares it with everyone,” Vortison said as if it was obvious.

  “For the trailblazers that’s not an issue,” Rio explained. “But going forward when there are thousands of titans he can’t be pinned down playing Yoda.”

  “You’re reserving it for titans?”

  “Actually,” Paul said, thinking ahead. “I think we’ll stick with Sav as the titan upgrade. We haven’t discussed it in detail because it’s the only Tier 3 trigger we had, but I think we should save Jumat for the next level.”

  “Which will be?” Vortison asked.

  “We haven’t named it yet,” Rio answered, but his eyes were on Paul. “There are 8 Tier 3. You really want to divvy them out one per level?”

  “The padawans have their hands full getting all the Tier 2s, some of which we’re still waiting on the triggers for,” Paul said irreverently.

  “I can’t give you triggers for abilities that you haven’t unlocked,” the geneticist pointed out.

  “I’m referring to the others, but fair enough. They’re going to have a lot more to learn than we did, then they need to spend their mage years mastering them. Add Sav at titan and everything changes again. We take it for granted because we’re still learning its effects, but if we throw too much at the second gen they’ll skip and piecemeal their way forward. What we need them to do is grind it out and develop techniques that don’t directly affect their levels.”

  “Like Ginsi,” Rio pointed out.

  “Exactly. She’s narrow focused. We don’t want to encourage that, so spreading out the Tier 3s is probably a good idea.”

  “500 levels to integrate Sav seems like an overkill.”

  “And to continue developing the Tier 2s,” Paul added.

  Rio considered that, assuming that they did eventually unlock them all. “Ok, I’m sold. So long as I get Jumat before then.”

  “We’re always exempt,” Paul said unnecessarily.

  “Why is that?” Vortison asked, his focus mostly on his displays.

  “Because we have to figure out how everything works,” Rio explained, “so we can write the instruction manual.”

  “And the writer’s block is real,” Paul added.

  “That…is something I totally understand. After all these centuries I’m still trying to catch up with what the V’kit’no’sat geneticists know. The learning curve, even with the abundant data we have, is massive.”

  “It ought to be for a civilization that persists millions of years,” Paul pointed out. “But don’t let that be an excuse to sandbag. Rio wants that trigger ASAP.”

  “Yes he does,” the trailblazer agreed.

  “Impatient twerps,” Vortison mumbled. “Lucky for you I’m one too. You’ll have what you need shortly, then it’ll be up to you,” he said, pointing at Paul, “to replicate the necessary stress levels.”

  The titan smiled. “Challenge accepted.”

  10

  May 27, 2894

  Solar System

  Earth

  Paul flipped backwards, landing on his hands and continuing to flip over to his feet again in sequence, doing a line of some 100+ back handsprings with such a fluid grace it was almost boring. When he reached the end of the line he paused for a moment, just long enough to turn around and head back the other way on Balboa Lane and finish his 18th lap. Halfway down it the tiny biomonitor on his head chirped a series of Artoo beeps but Paul didn’t stop and continued with his gymnastics tumbles.

  He went ahead and did two more laps, then shook the dizziness from his head as he jogged through the sanctum and took to a climbing wall at speed, knowing that he needed to push his stress level higher than the trigger required. Last time he’d pegged out he’d stopped and called Rio, but the stress levels diminished enough in the next few minutes that by the time the trailblazer got to him it was too late. He’d tried to get it back again shortly, but for some reason he couldn’t and he thought it was probably a chain effect.

&
nbsp; That meant a sequence of stress hits some hundred or even thousand long, which if broken would have to start all over again. Unfortunately this time he didn’t have the luxury of an ascension prompt that could linger on after the stress diminished, so he had to get himself up to proper levels and then go beyond it so that he’d have some extra to lose without taking him low enough to turn his now pointless trigger off.

  Pointless as far as the V’kit’no’sat were concerned, for they had no idea that there would be a way to cheat the process.

  As Paul climbed the wall he got another series of electronic bleeps telling him that he’d just ratcheted up another level. Switching actions, he’d learned, helped increase the stress whereas if he’d just stuck with the tumbles he would have become immune to it after a while, plus his fatigue would have diminished his movement speed. By switching to another activity that used his muscles in a ‘fresh’ way he would get more bang for his buck and cause his stress levels to skyrocket…so that’s what he had been doing these past few weeks, with his biomonitor now programmed to tell him how far above the trigger he was.

  It also sent out a signal on its own telling Rio to get his ass over to Paul. This one happened to catch him while he was sleeping, so by the time he got out of bed and over to the sanctum Paul was a half mile into his never-ending wall climb and busy grasping and throwing himself up a meter or two at a time from the knobs and ledges, forcing the pace so hard he was almost falling, but with little danger there considering he was only 3 meters off the ground as he fought to stay ahead of the vertical treadmill’s safety slow that would activate when he got within a meter of the ground.

  I’m here, Rio told him telepathically, standing off to the side as he watched his peer climbing the moving wall with such recklessness it was a mix of comical and awe-inspiring.

  Five more minutes. I want the cushion.

  I’ll be ready when you are, Rio said, sitting down crosslegged and clearing his mind as he ran himself through the basics of the twin link again. It took a few seconds of calibration each time he tried it with someone and he hoped to shave one of those off if he could with a little preemptive mental alignment. Paul was of no help to him right now, but he could reach out and sense the other to a degree, allowing him to create a mental handshake that was ready and waiting when Paul suddenly flipped backwards off the wall and landed on the floor feet first, only to be dumped backwards by the momentum and his weak limbs.

  He got up and jogged over to Rio, sitting down while mentally establishing the twin link between them as he felt his repetitive numbness begin to diminish as the rest break ate into it. A moment later he could sense what Rio did, and vice versa, but in order to get the trigger to transfer they had to share a specific section of their biotelemetry, and in order to do that they had to go deep. Since they couldn’t cheery pick very well they had to go broad spectrum and link as much of their minds together as possible, accomplished via continuous transmission rather than battlemeld…for that was the only way the cheat could work. Battlemeld was designed to not activate triggers, but the twin link was an anomaly that let one think that the other’s body was actually theirs, if they got the bond strong enough.

  Both Paul and Rio had done this many times before with their padawans and others they were sharing abilities with, but this was the only one they had a countdown on, for the other ‘temporaries’ required an internal alignment they could produce while sitting there, whereas stress and fatigue had to be garnered through physical activity. They’d practiced many times over the past weeks after workouts, trying to shorten the connection time and by now they had it down to a step by step process that brought them closer with each connection. After a few seconds the two began to lose their individuality and think as a pair, with Rio’s biomonitor popping up to 3 green soon thereafter.

  Rio could see it through Paul’s eyes, so there was no need to talk. Their twin link was now unnecessary, but they held it up until he reached 1 yellow, at which time Paul broke free and Rio concentrated internally, though the other titan did establish a regular Ikrid link to help him stabilize the growing storm inside.

  “Patience,” he urged. “You’re not going for it this time.”

  “Killjoy,” Rio said as he fought to keep the storm brewing inside him without snuffing it out entirely. The plan was to stay in yellow and not hit red, allowing his body to start prepping for the flash growth later so to avoid the cascade that Paul had experienced, though with an extra Tier 3 to his credit, Rio’s would probably be even worse. “I got this. Just stand by in case I lose it.”

  Paul withdrew his deep stabilizing presence and just observed what was happening. Unlike his own, Rio’s ascension prompt started stronger, but still weaker than the other psionics. Perhaps that was because their bodies knew the toll that this was going to take under the cascade or perhaps something just unique to Jumat. Either way, Rio had to go against his standard operating procedure of pushing for red and this time try to avoid it and make the process linger in order to prep for the transformation later…and by later he meant not today, which Paul knew would require him pushing himself to the trigger again tomorrow or the next day, and perhaps several times more to get Rio where he needed to be.

  After about ten minutes, with Rio still holding his 2 yellow bars, a rude Artoo bleep indicated that Paul had slipped beneath the trigger level.

  “I’m out,” Paul said.

  “I’ve got it from here. Go ahead and get back to normal training.”

  “Training? I’m going to get some Mariokart action in then head to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  “Don’t rest up too much. I’ll need you to hit it again tomorrow.”

  “Two days…don’t push it.”

  “Fine,” Rio grumbled.

  “Don’t go red,” Paul warned, standing up.

  “I won’t. Thanks, buddy.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t go there yet.”

  “Dude, I’m not lying. Playing it the wussy way.”

  “You don’t want that cascade, trust me.”

  “Last one was bad enough, thanks. I’ll take the slow route this time. Just don’t like having you trash yourself over and over again to get at it.”

  “It’s a tradeoff. My skill work is sucking, but it’s getting easier to reach this level. A century or two from now I’ll probably be hitting the trigger in daily workouts without trying, so I’m guessing this is as hard as it’ll get.”

  “Still think you’re going to catch Morgan?”

  “I am going to catch her,” Paul said firmly. “In about 7 months if I don’t have too many guests come looking for psionic handouts.”

  Rio smiled. “I’m not going to be able to pass it on, you know.”

  “I know, but as long as Morgan is out there fighting she’s losing ground to me. This overload training is useful, but it won’t factor into the scaling until down the road. I’d prefer to get top spot back soon, but I can wait as long as necessary knowing that I’m pulling ahead of her off the charts.”

  “You are one badass muther.”

  “Ya mon,” Paul said, accepting the compliment and walking off to let Rio spend as much time as he wanted, or could, in the ascension…which amounted to a good hour and a half until his grip slipped and he started to head up into red uncontrollably, at which point he forcibly ended the ascension, with the mental storm disappearing and Rio left with a bit of a headache.

  By that time Paul was gone so he let him be and went back to bed, letting the prep work soak in and getting back to his own training the next day. No calls came in for him, just as Paul had said, and he wondered if his fellow trailblazer wasn’t pushing himself to that level or had just turned his calling device off. Either way, Rio got in a good day’s training and entered his next sleep cycle, which was offset from Paul’s given that they each had a different length of training day.

  That meant he was woke up in the middle of his night again when the call came, with Rio happily getting out of bed and tracki
ng Paul down inside the sanctum. This time he was running laps on the halo track, so Rio jogged over to the transition incline and ran up onto the ‘wall’ and took off to the right, disappearing into the tunnel that ran a complete circle more than mile wide. It’d taken some reworking into Atlantis’s architecture, but the standard quarter mile oval was no longer useful to the trailblazers. The speeds they ran at were hampered by the sharp turns, hence the halo track had been developed that had no turns, rather they ran in a straight line that gradually bent upward and looped back on itself, with artificial gravity allowing them to run horizontal around the inside of the hoop while feeling as if they were upright.

  With that large of a track it took some time for Rio to catch up to Paul, but he had taken off the opposite direction so to meet up with him as quickly as their paths crossed rather than trying to race to overtake him the hard way. When he eventually did see Paul’s feet appear far ahead he slowed to a stop and let the sweat-soaked Archon come to a stop next to him. Both sat down off to the side of the road-sized track and linked up, with Rio’s body/mind thinking Paul’s status was its own and the trigger popping him into another ascension.

  “I’m going to take it slow, but I’m going for this one.”

  “Big surprise,” Paul said, releasing the twin link.

  “Might be a good idea to get a medical scanner on me.”

  Paul raised an eyebrow. “That it would. Can you walk or do you want a ride?”

  “I’d rather stay on top of this,” Rio said, with him already 3 bars into the yellow.

  “Turn inward and I’ll get you there without any bumps.”

  “Hopefully they’ll learn a bit about the cascade when I’m fried,” he said before blocking out most external stimuli and turning inward as Paul suggested.

  “Let’s hope it’s less this time,” the level 134 titan said, telekinetically lifting Rio off the ground on an invisible plate that allowed him to still sit crosslegged. He started walking forward with him in tow, then got tired of it and just ran. It looked weird, but Paul’s Lachka was more than strong enough to do it, and he even added a wind shield around him so Rio wouldn’t notice.