Star Force: Divergent (SF74) (7 page)

She tossed it several times, hitting different
sections, but there was still no response. Eventually she untied it and put it
back on, then walked up to the pillar and hesitated before touching it, half
expecting to get a stun shock from contact. Jyra thought through everything for
the hundredth time, but if there was something for her to figure out here she
was either missing it or was being duped into wasting time prior to climbing
the pillar. She could wait here as long as she wanted chewing on this, for
rushing wasn’t worth screwing this up…but at the same time she would be waiting
here indefinitely if there was nothing to find.

Once again there was no right course to follow, at
least not an obvious one, so she gave herself a few more minutes to think
before she started climbing. When nothing came of it she reached out gently and
touched the pillar with her left index finger…again drawing no reaction.

Jyra bit her lip and committed herself to this,
spotting finger and toe holds a moment before she reached out and got her weight
off the floor, hanging a few inches up as she very slowly began to climb. The
indentations weren’t deep, but they were much easier to manage than some of the
climbing walls she’d been training on. Fortunately she didn’t have to search
minutes for the next hold and could make her way up fairly fast if she wanted,
but the Commando instead decided to take a ponderously long time climbing as
she was looking for any deviation in the pillar or room, for something coming
up behind her when she wasn’t watching would fit just right into this
situation.

Every meter she climbed she grew more nervous, feeling
the moment coming as the distance shrank. When she was hanging directly under
the top she stopped, taking another long look around before finally sliding her
fingertips up on top of the flat cap while holding on firmly with her other
three grip points, expecting to be stunned or attacked in some way that would
toss her off and onto the hard ground below.

When her fingers brushed the top…nothing happened. She
pulled herself up a bit more and got her eye line over the edge, seeing a small
blue orb sitting suspended in a field, either energy or magnetic, but it was
hovering an inch over a slight depression. Now guessing that it was either
protected or would trigger the fireworks when removed, Jyra moved up more and
got her elbow on top before reaching out and waving a hand around the object in
multiple directions, feeling for something invisible. Nothing triggered, so she
bit her lip again, making sure her grip points were solid, then reached out and
grasped the orb.

When her hand hit it she felt a bobble, but otherwise
nothing happened. She held it in place for a moment, then pulled it away while
glancing around. Wanting her hand free she tucked it awkwardly inside her bra,
giving her a third breast, then got her hand back onto the grooves and began to
slowly climb down, expecting something to jump or shoot her and monitoring what
she could see of the walls and floor intently. Stopping just before she reached
the bottom, Jyra extended her left foot out and tapped the floor, half
expecting it to fall out beneath her.

Again, nothing happened and she got the feeling that
she was about to run into an idiot trap just shy of completing the mission. San
had said she had to get it back to him, and he wasn’t walking out to
congratulate her. Nor had he moved from the short walkway, suggesting that the
floor outside, or maybe the airspace, wasn’t safe. She wished there was a way
to smoke out whatever was waiting for her other than using her own body, but
that was a luxury she didn’t have in this situation.

She stepped down onto the floor, hanging onto a pair
of grooves with her hands just in case, but when the floor didn’t disappear
beneath her she began walking around the pillar until she was on a straight
line to San.

That might not be a good idea. Maybe she had to
approach from a flanking angle to avoid triggering the trap. Damn it, she
wished she had something to work with here, but the chamber was exactly the
same as it had been when she…

No, wait. Something was different. There was a smell
that wasn’t there before. It was faint and coppery, almost undetectable, but it
definitely had not been there before. Jyra didn’t recognize it but thought
fast, wondering what it could be as the scent increased in intensity. She
definitely did not like the feel of this and took another step forward,
thinking hard.

Another step followed but still no response. Feeling
like she was about to walk into a huge trap she continued forward, for the
smell was increasing like a countdown. When she was a third of the way to San
she abandoned the tiny steps and just walked normally, looking down and around
and on her guard as much as she could be. She got to the halfway point and
continued strolling on as the smell increased to the point that it felt like it
was starting to clog her nose.

With the tension in her running at an all-time high
she walked the last few meters and up in front of San who held out his hand.
Glancing right and left she looked for something to attack her at the last
moment, then cringed and pulled out the orb and reached it towards him…

The palm-sized ball landed neatly in his hand and his
fingers curled up around it as she let go.

“Well done,” he said, tossing it into the air
playfully and catching it again.

Jyra frowned. “That’s it?”

San nodded. “What were you expecting?”

“Oh fuck that!” she said, backtracking a few steps and
closing her eyes in vexation before clenching her hands into angry fists and
mentally kicking herself for letting him do it to her again. “What the hell is
this?”

“Your final trial,” he said casually.

“What, climbing that?”

“I said it was your final trial. I never said it would
be hard.”

“Fuck you, San. Do you have any idea…oh, damn it. I
did it all to myself again, didn’t I?”

“Well, you certainly didn’t set any speed records, but
you still completed the mission.”

“So the whole, ‘you only get one shot at this’ was
just a load of bull?”

“No, you did only get one shot. If you can’t climb
that and grab a stupid ball,” he said, tossing and catching it again for
emphasis, “then there’s no way in hell you deserve to be a Commando, let alone
an Arc Commando.”

“I really hate you now.”

“I did nothing.”

“That’s exactly why. You made me kick my own ass
again,” she said, letting a bit of a smile slip. Through it all she hadn’t
missed the fact that she had actually passed, worthless of a final test as this
was.

“Sometimes the mission is a lot simpler than you
think.”

“Final lesson then?”

“If you ever stop learning, then quit and go
civie
. We have to stay adaptable. Come on then, what are
you waiting for. We’ve got stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like making you an Arc Commando. It’s not just a
title you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Follow me and find out,” San said, turning and
walking off with the door opening before him again. He left Jyra there until
she jolted out of her angry/happy stupor and jogged a few steps to catch back
up with him as they left the final challenge chamber and its coppery stench,
heading off to who knew where.

7

May 6, 2897

Solar System

Earth

The mantis Jyra and San were flying in set down on a
pad atop an unremarkable bioharvest facility in Antarctica, with the Commando
eyeing him questioningly.

“Can I talk now?”

San rolled his eyes. “Follow me,” he said as the
boarding ramp opened and the two passengers got out, stepping down onto the
thin layer of snow amidst a storm that was kept back via a bubble shield
covering the landing pads. It was coming down so hard that the few times it had
to be lowered to allow ships to come and go the falling snow had blanketed the
surface. The temperature was frigid regardless, causing the Archon to shiver a
bit when it first hit him, but he walked across the snowy tarmac to the nearest
visible bunker that contained a lift down into the facility.

Jyra walked behind him, wrapping her arms around
herself and wishing she had her armor on instead of a casual uniform, but they
spent no more than 20 seconds outside before stepping through the door and into
a lift shaft that wasn’t much warmer. They traveled down a few levels then a
wall of warm air hit her as they stepped into the facility and San headed off
without saying a word.

“Come on,” she whispered as they passed several
workers. “Tell me something.”

“We’re not here for a snack,” he said, then continued
on through the unfamiliar hallways making twists and turns as if he’d come here
a lot. To her it just looked like a cramped facility maximized for volume
output and turned into a cozy labyrinth as a result. She had no idea what
they’d do in this place, but she had a sneaking suspicion it didn’t involve
food.

Eventually they turned a corner and ran smack into a
guarded checkpoint…with six Commandos in armor standing in front of a closed
door. San put his hand on a scanner that identified him as an Archon mage,
which gave him the authority to bring guests past the doors, though he’d need
to have Jyra logged in as well, so he stepped to the side and pointed her to
the scanner.

She raised an eyebrow when her ID popped up as a
hologram, similar to San’s, except hers was labeled ‘Arc Commando.’ The guards
exchanged glances with each other, but didn’t say anything. They let them both
pass and San opened the door with a special code that he tapped into a rubrics
cube-like color system.

“What you see beyond this point doesn’t exist.
Understood?” San asked as he was punching squares with his fingertip.

“Understood,” Jyra said, her curiosity and eagerness
spiking.

The doors pulled open and revealed a personnel lift,
into which the pair walked but San didn’t turn around to face the door. Jyra
mimicked him and kept her back to the guards, then the doors shut and they
began to move, though neither could feel it given the IDF field insulating them
from inertia. Should the lift fall they’d live through a crash…so long as
something spikey didn’t come shooting up through the floor to impale them.

“Where are we going?”

“To the beginning,” San said cryptically. “What you’re
about to see is why Davis began Star Force in the first place, and why we’re in
constant danger.”

“Danger? From the lizards?” she asked, expecting that
not to be right.

“No. They’re pushovers. You,
me
,
every Human in existence descends from Zen’zat, which are an altered form of
Ter’nat. Zen’zat were never meant to reproduce, so our psionic legacy has gone
dormant over time. I was brought here to wake mine up when I became an Archon,
and the same is true of the Arc Knights. More recently the Arc Commandos have
joined us and a limited number of highly placed civilians. I have dozens of
abilities, but all of us have a basic 7. Yours never developed because they
were genetically inactive. By the end of today that will no longer be the
case.”

The wall in front of them opened into a concealed set
of doors leading them out onto a wide landing platform…save for they were
underground in a very tall chamber, on the other side of which was an angled
wall made of a green/black material that was unlike anything Star Force used
and clashed with the walls and floor halfway up to it, then the footing changed
over to the same material.

“Welcome home,” San said, starting to walk across the
artificial platform built to nestle up against the tiered nature of the huge
structure in order to create a flat plain that stretched off into the distance
so far that Jyra couldn’t see the end of it, but she did see a couple of parked
mechs nearby, both combat models, along with a host of industrial mechs, hover
trucks, and smaller bits of equipment.

“What is this place?” she asked, wide eyed as a group
of workers were shipping Star Force crates in through a gigantic open doorway,
ostensibly from another lift shaft more accommodating cargo traffic.

“Davis found it buried underneath the snow of
Antarctica and began a clandestine excavation project. It’s a massive pyramid
miles wide, built of a technology that we are still trying to master. It’s been
driving our technological progress all these years, but we still haven’t caught
up yet.”

“These Ter’nat built it?”

“No. Ter’nat are a slave race that Zen’zat are pulled
from, then enhanced to function as infantry for a conglomeration of races
called the V’kit’no’sat. Their empire suffered a civil war when one of them
rebelled and it caused the outer border regions to be abandoned. Earth was one
of numerous worlds that held colonies out in what is the wilds as far as the
V’kit’no’sat are concerned,” he said as they crossed from the Star Force deck
plates onto the green/black stone. “A battle was fought here, in which the
rebels won. They trashed the planet and left, but apparently a few Zen’zat were
missed and became our ancestors. Abandoned here and choosing to reproduce
against their mandate.”

“Mandate?”

“Zen’zat serve the V’kit’no’sat as individuals because
the Ter’nat race is considered inferior. When one is upgraded into a Zen’zat,
they are forbidden from reproducing in exchange for the enhancements given to
them. Passing on those enhancements to offspring is a treasonous offense. The
Zen’zat and their offspring would both be killed. If the V’kit’no’sat ever
return to reclaim their lost colony they will kill us all.”

Jyra considered that for a moment, still not fully
understanding but making several connections. The purpose of the Archons and
the military throughout Star Force history now got a thorough revamp in her
mind, leading to the obvious question.

“Where are they?”

“Most of their empire exists in the galactic core. We
only have outdated maps, but it stretches to cover so much territory that it
makes the Skarron domain look small.”

“Shit,” Jyra said as they approached the doors and a
row of mongooses parked outside.

“Climb on behind me,” San said, sliding onto the
nearest one. “It’ll take forever to get around inside if we walk.”

“Who are these other races that make up the…
Vick.
”

“V’kit’no’sat,” San repeated as she slid on behind him
and wrapped her arms around his waist. He stared up the mongoose and slowly
wheeled them over towards the huge doors, avoiding the light traffic coming in
and out that kept the pyramid supply lines functioning. “Did the maturias
mention anything about dinosaurs?”

“No, but I’ve heard of them in some video games.”

“The dinosaurs are the V’kit’no’sat. We found their
skeletal remains long before this place. Everyone thought they were primitives,
but in truth they’re superior to Humans.”

“Superior how?”

“Smarter, stronger, sometimes faster, and a whole lot
bigger,” he said as they passed through the doors and Jyra could see the size
of the interior hallways. “Hence the supersized infrastructure.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, taking it all
in as San drove them on.

“Nope. And even after eight and a half centuries, with
this place and their database fully at our disposal, we still haven’t caught up
with them tech wise. Psionics, however, we’re a bit more even. We even have a
few advantages that we don’t…or more accurately, the trailblazers do. That’s a
story we’ll get into later. The reason you’re here, in addition to letting you
see all this, is to use the medical tech to give your genetics a scrubbing and
get rid of all the rust. It’ll also enable you to grow the tissues you’re
missing without complications and do so in a matter of seconds. We can’t match
that yet with our own tech, but every year that passes we come closer.”

“So you’re saying we all have dormant superpowers?”

“The basic 7, yes. Upgrades have to be earned through
the unlocking of genetic triggers. You have the potential for those, but the
Archons have figured out how to share them with each other. When I reached
padawan rank I was given a lot of new ones by my mage master. For Arc Knights
and Arc Commandos it’s different, and to be honest we’re not totally sure about
where both will go, but that won’t matter to you for a long time, because
Archons have to be a
mid level
ranger before they’re
even physically capable of sharing abilities. We’re not supposed to be able to
do it. It’s a glitch we stumbled upon, and yet another reason why the
V’kit’no’sat will kill us on sight.”

“How many people know about this?”

“Every Archon and a lot of upper level personnel.
Pretty much those who need to know and those we trust not to spill the secret.”

“And there haven’t been any leaks in 800 years?” she
asked disbelievingly as San drove them up a ramp next to what looked like oddly
shaped, giant-sized stairs.

“About this site, no. But people know Archons have
powers, even if we never officially confirmed that.”

“Do our allies know about this place?”

“No. And only Humans within Star Force know of it…save
for the Dragons.”

“There are dragons?”

“Long story. And it’s something most Archons don’t
know about either.”

“So you can’t tell me?”

“I can, and will, but there’s a lot for you to absorb
and I don’t want to jump ahead to the details when you’re just learning the
basics. In fact, you’ll know a few things that
most lower
level Archons don’t after we’re done, so keep them to yourself.”

“What about other Arc Commandos, or Arc Knights?”

“Arc Commandos you can discuss anything with. Arc
Knights have a different mandate and do not have a full picture. They’re
brought here and let in on the secret when they get their genetic wash, but
their focus is on dominating hand to hand combat. Yours is
more
broad
in scope and you need to be in the know.”

“Makes your pain in the ass training worth it,” she
said, looking around at what appeared to be a busy city with Human techs and a
few Archons moving about everywhere. “Almost.”

“If it was easy anyone could do it.”

“I’m not going to argue with you today.”

“That’ll be new,” San said, transitioning over to
another up ramp. “The Zen’zat levels are near the top. After you get your
treatment we’ll spend a couple days exploring and get you up to
speed…somewhat.”

“How much danger are we in at the moment?”

“We never know. The V’kit’no’sat are too far away for
us to spy on, and we’ve decided not to try, else we risk revealing ourselves.
We’re basically holding our breath and hoping they don’t show up today, and
it’s been that way ever since day 1.”

“That’s crazy.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“How far ahead of us are they, military wise?”

“We can scratch them now
navally
,
and Zen’zat vs Archon is pretty much even, but bottom line is we can’t stand
toe to toe with them and hope to survive. If they come we have to run, and will
probably lose a lot of people anyway.”

“I thought you said we had their database? What’s in
it?”

“Everything. But their tech is so advanced we’re still
trying to figure out the intricacies of it. Now that we have the star forges
we’re making more rapid progress, but we’re not going to get caught up anytime
soon.”

“What’s a star forge?”

“Mining facility that pulls rare materials out of
stars. The V’kit’no’sat weapons and other tech require compounds that we
couldn’t synthesize or mine prior to the star forges’ development.”

“Where are they at?”

“When you get your real codes you’ll be able to fish
that out of our databases. The ones you’ve been using in training were
limited.”

“I get the feeling that Arc Commandos are a bit higher
level than I thought.”

“You’re an experiment,” San said honestly. “What you
become is ultimately up to you. We’re giving you our tools and knowledge with a
much smaller focus. Even though there are only a few hundred of you right now,
and there are over a million Archons, we don’t have enough Archons to
accomplish all we need to. Some of those duties, specifically strike missions, will
be given over to you, but what your eventual incarnation will be is still up in
the air.”

“So you’re basically giving us all the cool toys and
saying ‘impress us?’”

“Pretty much.”

“No pressure,” Jyra said as they passed, or rather
were passed by a group of what she assumed were Archons out of their armor and
running in formation along the traffic flow, then darting off across a huge
cavern that had Star Force buildings set up inside it.

“One step at a time, youngling. And your first step is
getting your basic psionics. After that things begin to get interesting.”

“And this isn’t?” Jyra said, referring to everything
around her.

“Right now you’re the equivalent of a tourist. Once
you get your psionics you’re going to see things in entirely new ways…especially
considering one of them, called Pefbar, allows you to see in every direction
simultaneously.”