Star Force: Evacuation (SF50) (5 page)

Riona did likewise, forming her weak shield over her
hand and pressing it up against Paul’s. The two shields touched and…

“That feels so weird,” he said, relishing in the new
sensation until hers popped. “Sorry.”

“That was probably just me. I can’t hold it long.”

“With time and training, you will.”

“Four hours?”

He nodded.
“Meditation room.
We’re going to tackle this through battlemeld.”

“Do I have to be naked like Rikku?” she said with a
bit of disgust.

“No,” he said with a laugh. “Though I’ll be honest in
saying I didn’t mind those sessions.”

“Well if you feel like going it in the buff
be
my guest,” she offered, “but I tend to concentrate better
with at least a few clothes on.”

“I wouldn’t be a distraction?” Paul said, mock shocked.

Riona cracked a smile. “Ok, you have a point there.”

The levity left Paul’s face.
“Full
clothes and full effort.
I’ve had time to get a lot of ideas and haven’t
had anyone to practice with until now. It’s going to be extensive, if you’re up
for it?”

“Always.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, lightly punching her in the
shoulder before heading off to finish up whatever crazy training he’d just been
doing, for Riona noticed his uniform was already soaked with sweat.

She let him go and stood in the hallway for a moment,
trying to figure out exactly where she was for the Archon hadn’t been back here
for many years and she’d never gotten the complete layout of the massive
facility down. The residential area she was in now was newish, she thought, not
able to remember completely given the continuing construction on the command
deck and other places as Star Force added additional buildings inside the
pyramid as needed. As of now it held a population of more than half a million,
making it a busy city of its own, though still a secret to the public and most
of Star Force.

Riona walked around a bit until she found a familiar
hallway and headed back out a different entrance than the one she’d come in
through, heading out for a bit of a sightseeing expedition and catching up on
the new developments and discoveries as well as to just enjoy the sights. The
pyramid was pretty much Disney Land for Archons and she liked being here just
for the ambiance…and the constant reminder of their true enemy and how
formidable they were. It both scared and impressed her to no end. To have
someone that powerful as an enemy was terrifying, but to have someone that
powerful was also an opportunity to learn and grow faster than you would on
your own figuring things out through trial and error.

Which was why she wanted to come here to learn from
Paul, knowing that he’d cut years off her own learning curve while remaining
ahead of her the entire time. For bioshield he was the trailblazer, and she was
immensely glad that he was still here pressing his abilities and developing
others rather than out fighting in the field. She needed and wanted a
teacher…not to mention the chance to get to know him better. Normally the
trailblazers kept to themselves as far as any close personal bonds went, but
that was to be expected. She was just a ‘second gen’ and they all outranked
her.

But now that she had something to offer Paul she was
eager to help out, and despite the fact that he had years of training ahead of
her in this discipline she now had something the other trailblazers didn’t,
making her a ‘peer’ despite the fact that she’d been an Archon almost exactly
as long as they had been.

To her it felt like she’d just been bumped up to the
big leagues, and now she felt different. The slight resentment towards the
trailblazers was gone, now that she felt she was on par with them.

Actually, she kicked herself for having felt the
resentment in the first place. It was childish and, now seeing it from a
different perspective, admitted that instead of being their equal they’d
‘believed’ they were their equal, which involved more whining than doing. Now
that she suddenly found herself on the other side of the line, even slightly
so, it was an epiphany moment, feeling like she’d all of a sudden experienced
another upgrade.

“Time to get to work,” she told herself, letting go of
the last feelings of resentment and the ‘second gen’ label she’d worn with a
mix of pride and embarrassment for centuries. She was an Archon, pure and simple,
and it was her skills that defined her, not her birthdate.

5

September 13, 2536

Solar System

Earth

Smooth
, Paul
reminded her as his thoughts transmitted through the battlemeld telling her
exactly what she needed to do through memory rather than words.

Trying
,
Riona responded, summoning up another weak shield in front of her and barely
holding the effort. Manifesting the barrier around her body was easy compared
to creating an independent wall not locked into a specific distance from her
frame. With the invisible barrier visible to her senses, and Paul’s as well
through the link, she held it in place and slowly began to walk a circle around
it, forcing her to maintain its position while altering hers.

The effort was intense, but not something she could
achieve through raw power. Push too hard and her ‘grip’ would slip, which was
what Paul was trying to teach her. Drawing on his experiences, memories, and
realtime guidance, she soaked his skill in through the battlemeld and held up
the shield for the complete walk-around, then took up a position behind it as
the thud shooters in the walls warmed up.

Or rather one did, placed directly in front of her
while Paul was sitting with his back to the wall just underneath it and
telekinetically adjusting the control panel from afar, which she could also
feel through the battlemeld. He specifically wasn’t using any other psionics,
such as Pefbar, so Riona couldn’t draw on those. Rather, he was letting her
‘pick his brain’ as to how her own abilities worked as the first tiny
projectile shot out and hit her shield wall.

It nearly overloaded it, and when she tried to repair
it she suddenly got a lot of intricate instructions from Paul, again, not in
words, but in raw mental images that essentially guided her with a level of
knowledge she did not currently possess. This was Paul’s choice of instruction,
and Riona had to admit she was making far more progress than she’d expected. He
was showing her things above her level, almost like a cheat, and as a result
was helping her level up much faster than had she been doing this alone or even
with an advisor.

It was almost as if he was controlling her shield for
her, save for the fact that she was still making the actually projections and
corrections, which right now involved reforming the damaged pieces of the
shield matrix and holding them intact, for it didn’t matter how much energy she
provided the shield if she couldn’t maintain the structure. Let go her
concentration and the energy would dissipate…unless she recalled it, which was
another trick that Paul was trying to teach her.

Riona had learned that, like the emitters on their own
armor, a semi-functional shield matrix was held inside prior to deployment…kind
of like opening an umbrella. That meant when a shield first formed it could be
somewhat stored away for later deployment. If the shield was completely
destroyed then it would have to be reformed before it could get to full
strength again.

The bioemitters in her body weren’t quite to the
‘storing’ phase yet, and Paul said they’d have to be kicked in the ass to get
it going, which was the next phase of this little calibration exercise…after
she blocked 3 more staggered hits.

Barely making it through those, Riona then had to
recall her damaged shield. She tried, really, but almost all of the energy was
lost when it hit her flesh, like a glass window shattering and falling to
pieces on the floor, except that in this case the shield energy simply
dissipated into the environment without so much as a sight or sound…though for
Paul, he could ‘see’ it through Riona’s senses thanks to the battlemeld.

“That’s better,” he said, releasing the link and
standing up.

Riona frowned. “How was that better? I lost it again.”

“Not all of it. Your emitters pulled back in a touch.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“Yes you did, you just didn’t notice it because it’s a
subtle sensation. The effort was blinding you but I was able to pick it up
because I was specifically looking for it. From now on that amount you recall
will grow, thanks to the small crack you’ve formed. That was the transition
point, and you just achieved it.”

“If you say so,” Riona said, not sensing anything
different in her body. “Are we done or are you just tired of being in my head?”

“Just taking a break, or did you not feel somebody at
the door?”

“I thought they were walking by.”

A telepathic prodding resulted in the chamber door
opening and Aaron walking in. “Sorry for the interruption,” he offered.

“You’re excused,” Riona said sarcastically.

Aaron smiled at her then turned to face Paul. “We just
got word from the Hycre that the Elarioni worlds are getting hit by the
Skarrons. So far they’re just fighting the Nestafar on the surface, but there’s
no way of knowing how long that will last. They’re requesting any help the Alliance
can give in evacuating their entire population to the ADZ.”

Paul whistled.

“I know,” Aaron agreed.

“How many ships do they have available?”

“Not enough, but they were able to get a messenger out
through the fighting easy enough.”

“How many worlds are currently under assault?”

“They said 5 of 8, but the Nestafar are still on the
other three, so they can’t just pack up and leave without getting shot at.
They’re only safe underwater because the Nestafar don’t have the resources or
tech to hurt them there.”

“Is Kyler going to take this?”

“Hasn’t reached him yet.
I
thought you’d like to handle it since you and Ariel are so close…and the fact
that we’re talking a huge naval operation to get to them. Plus Kyler is
probably busy with the lizards right now.”

“And I’m just sitting here training my butt off.”

“We’re just sitting here training our butts off,”
Aaron amended. “I can go, but I figured this is more in your wheelhouse.”

“It is,” Paul agreed. “But there’s no way we have the
ships available for this.”

“The
Adamant
will be available soon,” Riona added. “Repairs are almost finished.”

“We’re going to need more than that,” Paul said with a
shake of his head. “Even if we can fight through both the Nestafar and Skarron
fleets, it’s going to take a long time to evacuate their people…not to mention
we’re going to have to configure cargo ships to carry aquatic passengers. That
alone will take a few months, minimum.”

“Yeah, about that,” Aaron said deviously.
“Sounds like we could use a little
help
.”

“So it does,” Paul agreed after a second’s delay.
“Then take them to Atlantica?”

“Not sure about that one or what kind of resources
they need, but that’s a definite possibility.”

“How many people need to be transported?”

Aaron cringed. “The Hycre couldn’t give us a specific
number.”

“Wonderful,” Paul said, frowning. “Did they say where
this messenger was?”

“At a Hycre world in the old
Calavari zone.”

“Well I need more information if we’re going to make
this happen,” he said, turning to Riona.

“Go,” she said, dismissively waving her hand at him.
“I can take it from here.”

Paul frowned. “What, and leave my new best friend
behind. Uh
uh
, you’re coming with.”

A smirk worked its way onto her face. “Best friend
huh?”

“You know someone else with bioshield?”

“So you only like me for my abilities?”

“Pretty much,” Paul said, turning back to Aaron. “I’ll
take care of this, but I may need your help down the road.”

“You know where to find me.”

Paul fist tapped Aaron’s chest and jogged towards the
open door. “You mind keeping her company for a while? She gets lonely real
easy.”

Riona scoffed at his back as he ran out of view, then
saw Aaron smirking.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.
You up for
some sparring?”

“Actually…yeah,” she admitted.

“Come on, we’ll grab a different chamber. What were
you working on?”

“Shield deflections,” she said, walking out with him.

Two months
later…

Paul and Riona crossed through the shield barrier on
the rear of the
Sparrow
-class
dropship and into the watery environment of the Elarioni hangar bay. Each
Archon wore a wet suit with breath mask and swam away from the dropship to
where one of the mermaid-like aliens
were
waiting.
Their muscular tri-finned tails trailed below them in the blue-lit water as
their neon-colored hair floated loose around their heads. All the Elarioni were
‘female’ in appearance, reproducing trisexually, so they all tended to look
alike…almost identical save for a minor tweak here and there.

Whereas Ariel had green hair these two had orange, and
one of them raised a three fingered hand up to wave them forward. Paul and
Riona followed, swimming crudely by Elarioni standards through the tube-like
passageways with Paul doing a weird looking flip kick for propulsion that kept
him ahead of Riona and her struggling to keep up most of the time.

Their guides slowed to match their pace, but were
clearly riding the brake the entire way to a large chamber that had a squashed
spherical design with multiple protrusions that doubled as ‘chairs’ in that
there were Elarioni latched onto them operating various control consoles,
though in truth they were merely floating in place, tail down for the most
part.

Both of them were led over to a pair of spindly
tentacle-like arms coming up from the floor that put them nearly in the center
of the room with something to hold onto, after which a blue-haired Elarioni
swam down to them, her skin darker than her hair save for the patches that
glowed with bioluminescence.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, translated through
the programming in the Archons’ breath masks, which likewise transferred their
words into the Elarioni language…with a bit of imperfection, but reliable
enough for most conversations.

“If we’re going to make this happen I need
information,” Paul said without preamble. “How many of you are there, where
is the fighting currently
taking place, how many enemy
ships, etc.”

“We will tell you what you require. At present there
are 800 billion Elarioni spread across 8 worlds. We believe that all will be
under assault in the near future, which was why we have come now to ask for
assistance.”

“How many can you transport on your own ships?”

“Only a small fraction, I’m afraid. We have lived in
seclusion for so long we do not have many starships, but we do have warships
and we will fight both the Nestafar and Skarrons in order to get free. We
simply do not have the numbers or transports to do this alone, and we will not
leave people behind to die. We ask that you help us evacuate everyone, and in
exchange we will use our abilities, knowledge, and strength to become part of
your Alliance and fight both the Cajdital and the Skarrons. We had hoped the
latter would be honorable, but their conduct thus far has shown otherwise.”

“How did you get this ship out through their fleets?”

“It wasn’t difficult. Their technology is vastly
inferior to ours and as you well know orbit isn’t something that can be locked
down easily. We ran through their lines and jumped away from our world without
major inconvenience, but they also didn’t know we were coming. An evacuation is
quite another matter.”

“As I well know?”

“We are well aware of who you are, Paul-024, even
before you agreed to this meeting.”

Looks like your
famous
, Riona commented telepathically.

“And who am I?”

“A skilled naval tactician and a
bold and powerful fighter.
We have seen the recordings of many of your
battles, including the raid you made against the Scionate den.”

Guess I am
famous
, Paul answered her. “Then you know what I’m capable of, including
sizing up our opposition. Getting your people out will be very difficult, but
there is a plan in the works. Before that can begin to take place we need
data…and an understanding. Have you reviewed the message?”

“Yes. Our sister has described the world in question
and we are willing to take her at her word. We also thank you for rescuing her.
I would ask, on a personal note, how have you preserved her so long? She is
more than twice the age of the oldest known Elarioni.”

“A little thing called self-sufficiency.”

“A drug?”

“No, it’s a state of maintaining a positive healing to
attrition ratio, accomplished primarily through training. She learned to do it
and as a result doesn’t physically age, though she does grow wiser with time
and experience.”

“We have no knowledge of such things.”

“We can teach you, or she can.”

“And there is much we can teach you, in exchange for
your assistance.”

Paul smiled, tapping into her mind for a bit of a
read. “You’re not sure she’s telling the truth.”

“We have no reason to doubt the word of our sister.”

“You doubt whether she is real or a fabrication we
have concocted. You don’t think it’s actually possible to live that long.”

The Elarioni was silent for a moment. “I do wonder why
you did not bring her with you.”

“Time,” Paul stated simply. “If we’re going to
evacuate your people the longer we wait the more the war between the Nestafar
and Skarrons will escalate, which will make a difficult extraction even more
so. At present Ariel is in transit. She will not be coming outside the ADZ, but
I’ve arranged a meeting on a world near the border.”

“What do you require of us, in addition to
information?”