Star Force: Sav (SF51) (7 page)

When it came to a certain section of the fight he
paused,
rewinded
, and replay a specific series of
blocks Bo had made and set it into its own mini-loop. Wilson went on to point
out the small errors and the drills he had constructed to counter them,
then
proceeded through the entire fight in a similar
manner…switching over to footage of some of Bo’s training drills at the end and
offering a few upgrades there as well.

After he was finished he had a question for Paul.

“How close are you to finding the next trigger?”

“Battlemeld is the only reliable one, but I thought we
were close to nailing Pren until he went Sav. He was doing the same training
the rest of us had done to trigger it, and I’m at a loss as to what happened. I
thought we were starting to get a handle on it but now I’m not so sure.”

“Tell me how this individual compares. I know he isn’t
nearly as advanced, but from what you’d learned prior to Bo’s ascension how
close do you think he is?” Wilson asked, grabbing another datachip and bringing
up the biotelemetry data that Paul could almost see in his sleep by now, he’d
gone through so many of them.

He gave it a quick look then glanced at Bo, having a
silent conversation.

“Close,” Paul said, mildly impressed. “All the major
skill areas are weak, but the internal alignment looks favorable. Who is this?”

“Not an Archon,” Wilson answered vaguely. “Is it worth
your time to train with them, or would they be too much of a stretch?”

Paul didn’t know if this was a test or a request, so
he just took the question at face value. “I’m curious as to how he got to this
position. He’s so stacked towards what we thought was a Pren trigger that even
if he didn’t get it quickly I think we could learn something from the attempt.
And the closer we get to the triggers the better. What division is he?”

“
Gotta
be commando,” Bo
said, looking at the stats. “No one else does that much physical
augmentation…and he’s too short to be a Knight.”

Paul shook his head, taking to the guessing game they
seemed to be playing. “No, he’s missing several commando traits. Could be an
oddball, but my gut says no.”

“Then what?”
Bo asked.

Paul hesitated, then went ahead and said it. “This
can’t be true, but the only connection I can make is this being a quitter,” he
said, referencing the handful of Archons that had turned in their badass card
and went civilian.
“One making a comeback?”

Paul looked at Wilson, but the taller man shook his
head. “No, but I’ll thank you for the compliment. You’re looking at my
biotelemetry.”

Bo let out an exasperated sigh.
“Should
have known.”

Paul glanced at the numbers again. “Have you been
trying to get to Pren?”

“Yes. There’s only so much I can help you guys with if
I don’t experience these things for myself. I can’t be a backseat driver and do
much good.”

“Your past history says otherwise,” Bo added, “but I
get what you mean.”

“Do you have time to join us?” Paul asked.

“Do you have time to train here while there’s a war
going on?” Wilson countered. “I’ll make time, if you think it’s worth yours?”

“I’m too curious to say no regardless,” Paul said with
a smirk and extended his hand to the bigger man. “Welcome onboard.”

Wilson took it with a fairly firm grip.

“But don’t expect us to go easy on you,” Paul warned.

“It’d defeat the purpose if you did.”

“Alright then,” Bo said, feeling like getting back to
their workouts. “Let’s get at it.”

7

July 15, 2546

Solar System

Earth

Bo sat in one of the sparring chambers, legs crossed,
eyes closed with hundreds of tiny thuds orbiting around his body in a pattern
too intricate to easily pick up on…except that the trailblazer was hardly
concentrating on them. Archons often found pure meditation not to work, and
that in order for them to really disconnect from their environment and let
their minds wander they had to be at least partially involved in the
environment, as if no action whatsoever put them on guard for something to come
and low level activity allowed them to relax.

Some of the Archons used handstands, others more active
drills that required little effort that they would repeat over and over again.
Ever since his Sav ascension Bo had turned Jedi, levitating and orbiting
objects around him not so much to free his mind but to work out some of the
lingering pain that seemed to be grudgingly diminishing with each day that
passed. It was 1 pm and he’d just finished up an hour run, with the slight
fatigue that brought warming his legs as his mind worked through the
telekinetic manipulation necessary to keep his little star system of thuds in
order.

Two hours from now he would get back to harder
workouts, but for now he wanted to get some meditation time in before catching
a shower and a quick nap…the latter of which was helping his head. Straight
rest and he’d lock up, but action/rest cycling helped to loosen him up…an old
Archon training trick they’d learned back in their first 100 years.

As Bo’s mind wandered he gently nudged it into the
parts of his mental capabilities that were untapped, probing the limits of his
thoughts almost randomly as if he was bouncing around. That was another old
trick, that when one didn’t know what they were looking for they had to ‘shoot
around’ randomly. That little tidbit had come from Taryn, who often went crazy
in drills trying to shake more speed out of
herself
. A
crude, jerky, almost completely random action sometimes had the ability to
access a part of yourself that your normal control didn’t allow you to touch,
so in order to find new mental territory Bo was flailing around inside his
head, making him feel kind of like a Human pinball machine.

It was something he had done many times in the past,
but now that he had new brain tissue and a whole new mental structure he had
plenty of room to bounce around in, and exploring those new capabilities was
something he was going to chew on in every way possible…though at night he
tried to do the opposite and not think, needing smooth sleep. That didn’t
always work, but he found that if he let his mind go in meditation then sleep
time would often not be invaded by as many random thoughts.

Which was another reason to take a nap afterwards and
suck up some good minutes while his mind was satiated from the meditation
randomness.

But that wasn’t going to happen today, for somewhere
in his ramblings he hit on something. He didn’t know what, but almost
immediately he felt instability swelling inside his head.

“What the…” he said, dropping his orbiting thuds as
his mind suddenly lost its cohesion. He focused on the ascension prompt, not
understanding how this would happen outside of training. Every single time it
had occurred previously, in all the Archons, it had been during some type of
physical stress. He was under none now, nor
mental stress
given how easy holding the thud grid was
. What was going on he didn’t
know, but he wasn’t going to squander the opportunity for another upgrade.

With the little semi-bouncy balls dropping and rolling
everywhere Bo concentrated, channeling the instability and trying not to
overload himself…but then he said screw it. If he got brain burn again so be
it. It would be worth it.

Not taking Vortison’s advice, the trailblazer pushed
the instability onward, unable to see the indicator lights on his headband
creep up into the yellow. This time the instability fought him, not wanting to
be drawn out as fast so Bo went with it and tried a very gradual draw, playing
to not lose it rather than force it out. Little by little it crept upward, with
the indicator lights marking his improvement up into the red…which was when he
sensed another presence in his head.

It felt like a solid pole imbedded into the ground
amidst the hurricane he was riding out and stoking. Bo grabbed hold of it and
used the mental signature to stabilize
himself
further, which added to his ability to channel the mental winds. That didn’t
cause him to get to the transition point immediately, but with a considerable
amount of time and effort his mental storm took shape and in mind’s eye turned
into three tight rings before it flashed and his head began screaming from new tissue
growth.

The pain passed quickly, unlike the Sav upgrade, and
Bo blinked his eyes open…to see Paul, Jason, Greg, and even Wilson standing in
front of him.

“Where did you guys come from?” he said, getting to
his feet.

“When you were overdue for your workout I came looking
for you,” Jason explained.

Bo frowned. “What time is it?”

“A little after 5,” Greg answered.

Bo’s eyes widened. “That’s not…”

“I found you here an hour and a half ago,” Jason
confirmed. “That’s the longest ascension anyone has ever endured and we were
worried that something might have gone wrong.”

“How long were you in here before it started?” Paul
asked.

“I was meditating and it happened so I jumped on it. I
don’t know what time it was…maybe 1:30.”

“I wonder what he got,” Greg commented.

“Pren,” Wilson said, holding a datapad that was linked
into the biomonitors on all their heads. “I don’t know why your ascension
lasted so long, but we got so much data from it that Vortison says he’s found
the trigger.”

“When?”
Paul said, frowning.

“Text message about 15 seconds ago,” he said, hefting
the datapad.

“You always carry that with you?” Greg asked.

“Habit,” he answered, but apparently one he’d picked
up after the trailblazers went through basic.

“You alright?”
Paul asked Bo.

“I think so,” he said, levitating one of the thuds up
into his palm, then his eyes tightened a bit and it shot off and ricocheted
against a wall and stopped a foot in front of Paul’s chest, with the
trailblazer raising an eyebrow as he telekinetically caught it.

“Definitely a speed increase,” Bo confirmed as Paul
tossed the little projectile off to the side. To have gotten that much of a
rebound showed considerable strength, but to line up the shot that well to hit
him was definitely a Sav moment.

“Let’s take this elsewhere,” Jason prompted. “I think
we all would like to have a chat with Vortison.

“Agreed,” Paul said, walking out. Wilson and Greg
followed him while Jason hung back with Bo a few meters behind them.

“You didn’t black out earlier, did you?”

Bo shook his head as they walked through the entry
doors. “I had to be awake to keep the instability going, but it felt like maybe
five, maybe ten minutes tops…not hours.”

“I’d like to see what it did to your Sav tissue, if
anything.”

“Think there’s a connection?”

“You’re the only one to have gone that long, by far.”

“Could be some other wrinkle we haven’t come across
yet.”

“All the more reason to get you
under a full scanner.”

“Doesn’t explain why I ascended while meditating,” Bo
added.

“Another good point.
Seems
every time we start to get a handle on psionics something new pulls the rug out
from under us.”

“That’s what happens when you buy a new toy and throw
out the instruction manual without ever reading it.”

“Speaking of which…I think we need to have a chat with
our own.”

“Kara?”

“I’m going to swing by my quarters and send her a
message. Meet you guys at Vortison’s lab.”

“Recall?”

Jason hesitated.
“Just a chat for
now.
I don’t want to pull her off the front if we don’t have to.”

Bo nodded. “Anything she can remember would be…useful.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Jason said, turning left at
the next intersection and breaking off from the group.

“If you’ve really done what you claim to,” Paul said
when the four of them, plus
Jace
and Riona who they’d
picked up on the way, walked into the genetics research lab, “you can have the
rest of the day off.”

“Why would I want time off?” Vortison answered deadpan
as he enlarged a hologram that showed biotelemetry in a synthesis of numbers
and icons that made for easy recognition…once you got used to the tech
vocabulary. “Here it is,” he said, pointing to one particular area. “Quite
obvious now that I know what to look for. Bo’s data offered more than all the
rest of you combined. If you guys can prolong your ascensions as he did it will
shave centuries off us getting the complete
set.
”

“I don’t know how I did what I did,” Bo said with a
shrug of his shoulders. “I completely lost track of time.”

Vortison pointed towards one of the beds and Bo walked
over and laid down…with the scanning equipment coming out over him.

“Any side effects with this one?”

“No pain, if that’s what you mean.”

“Anything new?”

“Other than a power boost, no.”

“That’s standard for Pren,” Vortison explained, “but
you should be extremely tired now.”

“A little bit, but compared to the others this has
been by far the easiest ascension…I don’t know why it took so long though.”

“Perhaps therein lays the answer. You weren’t trying
so hard and took your time with it, hence the lack of physical trauma…
cellularly
speaking.”

“Ah…actually I was pressing hard and it just wouldn’t
come.”

“Impatient as always,” Vortison said as the scan
results started to come in. Archons never did like waiting for anything.

While they were doing that Wilson was studying the
trigger hologram intently along with Paul and Riona, with the two men having a
telepathic conversation that was going on at a feverish clip…so much so that
when Riona asked him a question he held up a wait finger until they’d finished.

“What?” she whispered.

“We’ve got two puzzle pieces now.
Pren
and Battlemeld.”

“And there are some similarities in the triggers,”
Wilson finished.

“
Trackable
?”
Jace
asked, walking away from Bo and joining the
conversation.

“Possibly,” Wilson said, comparing something on his
datapad with the hologram. “I’ve seen these patterns before.”

That comment got Vortison’s head spinning around to
face him, momentarily ignoring Bo’s scan.
“Where?”

“V’kit’no’sat engineering. Whether it
be
combat philosophy, infrastructure, or societal
architecture there are fingerprints on all of them that can be recognized with
a trained eye…and I’m seeing them here as well.”

“What are you noticing?” Greg asked.

“It’s just a hunch, but I’d say that Bo’s stall during
his ascension was the result of his Sav tissue. It’s not an add-on like the
others, but fully integrated into his every waking thought and subconscious
process. I think they designed it that way on purpose, and if I’m right
every ascension
from this point on for him will take
extra long
while it makes the upgrades.”

“How did you get that from that data?” Vortison asked,
very confused.

“It’s a training thing,” he said simply.

“Then his massive headache earlier?” Paul wondered.

“It wasn’t just growing tissue, it was
acclimating
that tissue to his current psionic tissues,”
Vortison said, taking the next logical step in the path they were traveling.

“Meaning the more you get the more it will hurt,” Greg
said, cringing.

“If you rush it,” Vortison added.

“We don’t know which is which when they start,”
Jace
pointed out. “Instability is instability from our
point of view. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever felt even the slightest
variation.”

“Neither have I,” Paul said, thinking hard as Wilson
continued to study the holographic data.

“Are you done here?” Bo asked, still lying down.

“Almost,” Vortison said, getting back to the work at
hand. 30 seconds later he had it completed and up on a different hologram.

Bo rolled out from under the scanner and stood up with
the others as they waited for the medtech to do his thing and translate most of
the mathematical gibberish they were seeing.

“Interesting,” Vortison mewed as he altered the view
to a more traditional brain scan, with the various psionic tissues highlighted.
“There
are
minor variations in your
Sav.”

Greg threw a look at Wilson, who he saw crack a smile
but say nothing. “Don’t suppose those will help you find its trigger?”

“Probably not, but any information is better than
none. Right now I’m more interested in his Pren. It’s advanced further than any
I’ve seen to date, including those of you who’ve had time to train and develop
it.”

“Synergy,” Wilson commented, still pulling through a
comparison of his datapad and the hologram.

“I would agree,” Vortison said, shaking his head
slightly, “but I have no idea how. I thought the tissue growth was a fixed lot,
but if it can be flash grown variably…then this is a whole new ball game.”

Paul looked at the more intricate holographic scan
that had just been done, seeing not only the Sav tissue but the Pren that was
spread out like a clump of fiber optic cables between his Pefbar and Lachka
tissues. There was already some interlinking there, but this added more onto
it…which Paul knew was like adding more shield emitters to a warship’s hull.
Upgrading the emitters was one way to get more powerful shields, while adding
more was another.