Star Force: Cascade (SF73) (5 page)

It expanded out into a huge volume that swallowed up
all the bots, invisible to the naked eye but visible to Paul if he’d bothered
to use his Rentar ability. He didn’t, merely holding position against the wall
as all the bots froze midair, locked into a super dense telekinetic field that
lingered on even after Rio released the effort. It’d remain there for several
seconds, depending on the size of the field and the density that he’d created,
but while everything solid and liquid was physically locked in place as if the
room had suddenly filled up with invisible sand, Rio casually strolled through
it, immune to his own effect due to a passive emission from his Ubven tissue.

Had Paul wanted to walk out to him he would have ran
into a solid wall around the edges, but able to push his way in slowly if he
used his Rentar to ‘melt’ away the Lachka field. Rio’s immunity worked far
better, with his stride barely showing any hindrance at all. When he got to the
edge he reached out telekinetically to hit the switch on the wall ending the
simulation a split second after the Ubven field fizzled and the orbs started to
move about very slowly, gaining speed with every tenth of a second until they
broke free into normal movement.

But by then the signal had already been sent out and
they no longer angled towards Rio, rather flying up towards wall niches that
opened to allow them access to their docking berths.

“So what do we do now?” he asked, arms spread wide in
a gesture of exasperation.

“I guess we do it the hard way,” Paul answered, not
liking it either. “If this is a test, then we’re going to have to pass it as
designed…and be ‘we’ I mean ‘you’ for the most part. Kara couldn’t remember the
dreams either, and I’m guessing that no one with a single Tier 3 will be able
to. Either Ubven is different or it’s just a quirk that you’re able to pull
enough to be aware of it.”

“I hate to say this…”

“…but what if we need all 8 Tier 3s?” Paul finished
for him.

“It would explain why no Zen’zat ever had to deal with
this, and maybe why Kara has no memory. Something so exclusive that they didn’t
expect us to achieve it.”

“He did give her the Vorch’nas before he knew we could
cheat our way into new abilities.”

“Share,” Rio corrected him. “At least one of us has to
earn them.”

“True, and maybe this is the same deal.”

“Tier 4?” Rio floated.

Paul bit his lip. “Kara knows about Tier 4, but not
these dreams.”

“She knows about Tier 3 too, but not our eyes,” Rio
said, pointing at his own twinkling grey orbs.

“I really want it to be a gateway into Tier 4 too, but
I wouldn’t put any credits on that.”

“Actually, if it’s not Tier 4 it’s
gotta
be something else that big if multiple Tier 3s are a prerequisite.”

“That thought alone is enough for me to keep a dream journal.”

Rio raised an eyebrow. “You’re keeping a dream
journal?”

“Yeah. I keep a datapad beside my bed and write down
whatever I can remember when I wake up before it fully fades.”

“Worth a try.”

“It’s still blank,” Paul said flatly.

5

March 13, 2890

Deering System
(Core Region)

Gray (Clan
Aquaman Capitol)

Lens-087 dove off the pier headfirst into the warm
ocean that covered only a small fraction of the planet’s surface, but every
liter of it belonged to Clan Aquaman while the land, save for a mile deep
around the shore, belonged to Mainline Star Force and six other Clans. He’d
built several narrow cities on the perimeter of the Tear Drop to function as
intermediaries between his Clan and the rest of the planet, but most of his
infrastructure and population was situated beneath the waves.

He hadn’t built any surface water cities, with
everything sitting on the seafloor or dug in beneath it. At the center of the
Tear Drop was a 19 mile deep hole, at the base of which sat a basin that held
one of his largest and most secure cities. In the past Star Force couldn’t have
built anything that deep, but their technology had progressed to the point
where it wasn’t an issue now, though at those depths no free swimming was
possible, not even for the scattering of Elarioni in his Clan.

Those few he’d been able to recruit due to Clan
Aquaman still maintaining a narrow hold on aquatic dominance within Star Force,
but most of the superior aquatics race that had chosen to join a Clan were now
part of Clan Alterra. Erin had beat him to the punch and, as a result of
recruiting Ariel to her Clan, had pulled all the best and brightest Elarioni to
her save for a few. They’d helped her Clan jump their aquatics division up to
rank #2, surpassing Kyler’s Clan Cloud only 9 years ago and creeping their way
toward the
Aquamen
.

Len’s Clan was superior all around if you took the
Elarioni out of the equation, despite the advancements they’d helped the
Alterra make in terms of technology and tactics, but now that there were no
rules regarding the makeup of a Clan the Elarioni were now counted in the
scoring and were giving Erin’s civilization a huge boost…one that Lens was
desperately trying to stay ahead of. Some of the Elarioni recognized his
methodology was superior and wanted to help him out, hence they’d thrown in
with his Clan, almost out of pity for how much the other Elarioni had shifted
the balance of power within the ‘JV teams.’ The independent Elarioni
civilization still held a considerable advantage, though no actual competitions
were held to determine exactly how dominate they would be.

He privately thought Clan Alterra could best them now,
but sadly Aquaman could not. Hand to hand in the water the Elarioni were just
too damn agile. Equipment-wise was another story, and even with millennia of
fine tuning what the Elarioni had was not necessarily better than what Star
Force was using now, thanks to the sharing Ariel and others had done, giving
Star Force the benefit of their experience.

There were still some technological secrets that the
Elarioni held on to, but for the most part everything they knew Star Force now
knew, and Lens and the other aquatics leaders weren’t squeezing them for
details. They were a private race in some regards, though they also wanted to
exert influence with the other water dwelling races that Star Force had
relations with, so there was a dichotomy in their social structure that
inevitably led to a lot of sharing…including Star Force secrets flowing back to
them from the Elarioni that served in Mainline and now the Clans.

Lens didn’t think there were any thefts of material or
schematics occurring, but what one individual learned they could always share
with others. It was their personal knowledge and Star Force didn’t try to clamp
down on such things, though there were sensitive items, like
comm
systems, that the individuals involved with knew not
to share. A single leak there could lead to disaster, but as far as how to
build better aquatics craft or engineer training drills was knowledge that was
best shared within the Star Force community that included empire members and
associates.

Though there were also a number of known links to less
than friendly races who coopted former Star Force personnel for a price. Again,
there was no theft going on there, just organizations and nations looking for a
quick way to jump the learning curve by recruiting talent. It was a form of
competition that Lens could appreciate, for he and Erin were doing the exact
same thing by bringing in Elarioni, and he was still kicking himself for
letting her get to Ariel first.

But that was behind him now and the landscape was set.
Clan Aquaman would pull people from every race available to gain an advantage,
and as of now he had some 19 different aquatics races and 4 non-aquatics under
his command, all of which were working together to up their power ranking and
further develop their little pocket civilization within Star Force. They had
bits of territory on six other planets that had water and 4 that didn’t, with
those 4 all being in Sol, but this Ocean was entirely theirs and where Lens was
putting most of his resources into building a stronghold that even the
V’kit’no’sat would have a tough time conquering.

19 miles of water made for a decent shield against
orbital bombardment, though he knew some weapons would even be able to get
through that, but the extra defense always made sense to him, which was why he
put his largest city at the deepest point in the Tear Drop. Other
infrastructure was spread out through the middle depths and the shallows, with
one more recent addition being within half a mile of the shore but unconnected
via subsurface tunnels.

That was a security issue, requiring one to swim to
get to the location. Lens often chose to go the direct route rather than finding
a ship to hop a ride on, with him wearing nothing but a wetsuit and breath mask
today, preferring to feel the water on his skin rather than be insulated from
it in a suit of armor.

As he dove beneath the surface he passed by schools of
fish and other sea creatures, none large enough to try and eat him, but there
were a few races in the depths that could. They normally avoided the shallows
and anywhere there was infrastructure, but to be on the safe side there were
barrier nets surrounding the shallows cities. The energy barriers allowed the
water to flow through but not solids unless you had an access code. That
allowed ships to pass through but the dangerous wildlife, none sufficiently
advanced to actually talk to, were kept out and the miles of ‘safe’ territory
had been screened thoroughly to make sure none had been missed.

That said, free water swimming was frowned upon
outside the safe zones while not being technically banned. He trusted his
people to know the difference as to when was a good time to go and not, but as
for him he wasn’t concerned, even if this had been deep water. His psionics
allowed him to detect and deter even the largest of the aquatic predators if
need be. It was the low level and non-Archons that were at risk, including the
Elarioni, for some of the wildlife could match them in speed, which was quite
alarming.

Some had questioned the wisdom of setting up in an
unfriendly ocean, but Star Force had done it back on Earth originally and Lens
wasn’t too concerned here. Yes, there were other bodies of water without
predators or even wildlife at all, but this was the one that had become
available to them via trade and he’d taken it, challenges and all, and his Clan
was flourishing as a result…save for the competition from Clan Alterra.

Knowing that he wasn’t going to beat them at their own
game concerning Elarioni recruitment he’d been searching for other angles and
had finally found one…or rather created one, in a crazy co-op with the Dvapp to
help them develop a new kind of aquatics technology. That was insane, given
that the Dvapp didn’t live underwater, but his apparent stupidity was beginning
to show merit as a recently developed and quiet research facility had been
built along the shore in the shallows and had Lens working there most days of
the week.

Today was no exception, so as he swam by a few schools
of tiny fish he dolphin-kicked his way down to an entrance and passed through a
waterlock into the interior that was air-filled. Most Clan Alterra facilities
were now water-filled, given their number of Elarioni, but Clan Aquaman was
about 60/40 air to water. A lot of his aquatics races were also capable of air
breathing, so he didn’t have issues with needing a lot of water-only
structures. That said, his air-breathing ones often had submerged compartments
or tunnels, with swimming from one location to another being as common as
walking.

That had been deliberate to encourage casual swimming
to further their skills through use rather than exclusively workouts…but Humans
were still
groundpounders
and needed to live in that
environment, as did the Dvapp who were working in this facility with him.

There were 329 of them here, and while they could move
about under water it was a new experience for them. They didn’t breathe via
lungs, but rather ‘soaked’ oxygen in through their crystalline bodies. They
didn’t need much, and could get enough from the water if the concentration
levels were high enough, but their swimming skills were still in their infancy
and right now he needed them comfortable and focusing on their tech rather than
struggling to get around in water-filled infrastructure.

So when Lens passed through the waterlock he entered a
facility that was air-only save for the hangar bays where their prototypes were
berthed and the lap pool where he was trying to teach some of them to swim,
though with their amorphous bodies they had virtually an infinite number of
propulsion possibilities. The Dvapp were intrigued with the idea of developing
their own aquatics division and had agreed to help Lens advance his in exchange
for them sharing the results of their research.

Lens pulled off his breath mask and retracted it into
a small pouch behind his neck on the collar of his wetsuit, then walked with
bare feet down the hallways as most of the staff did while the Dvapp moved
around either in bipedal form or as long snakes wriggling to and fro. One of
them coming down the hallway Lens was in stopped about ten meters in front of
him and squished together into a thick puddle of what looked like white crystal
mush, then it rose up from the center and resolved into a stocky biped with two
arms, two legs, a stubby head and no facial features whatsoever.

“We have good news,” it said in English, though the
pronunciation was coming from body vibrations rather than vocal chords. That
gave it an echoing sound, but the words were spot on. The Dvapp, like most
races in the ADZ, had incorporated English into their cultures given that it
was the trade language that all others used. The old one had receded in
prominence, though it and many others were still used in various sectors, but
the Star Force language is what bound everyone in the ADZ and expansion regions
together, with the Dvapp realizing that they needed to learn and master it in
order to facilitate their interconnection with the overall community, though
that was still limited to very restricted activities, for they preferred their
privacy in most cases.

“Tell me it’s the form shift?” Lens almost pleaded
with ‘him,’ though technically Dvapp didn’t have a gender.

“It is,”
Ga’rel
confirmed,
vibrating his body in a ripple that sounded like metallic clinking and was a
sign of excitement for them. “An adjustment made last night compensated for the
tension issues. The new crystal slurry is maintaining rigidity throughout under
level 18 pressure.”

Lens pulled a slow, silent fist pump, knowing how
significant that sentence was. This issue had been plaguing their research for
the past 11 months and been holding back a whole line of experiments that could
now begin. “Well done.”

“We knew we would solve the riddle eventually. Your
formula is new to us, and its impressiveness will not deter our applying
applications as we familiarize ourselves with it.”

“We just took yours and upgraded it.”

“You altered it in a way we had never considered. Now
that we are becoming accustomed to it, I anticipate several more breakthroughs
in the coming years.”

“I’m hoping,” Lens agreed. “Is the dart ready for its
run?”

“It is as of 15 minutes ago.”

“I’m headed out then. Carry on.”

The Dvapp leaned forward and fell onto the floor,
melting back into a snake and moving on down the hallway and around a corner. A
lot of them chose bipedal form as a form of courtesy when talking with bipeds,
but it seemed a lot of them preferred to move about as snakes. When he’d asked
them about that earlier they said it was just a personal preference, but about
two thirds of those assigned to this research mission were inclined to do the
worm rather than walk.

Lens passed a few more as he navigated his way through
one chamber to another enroute to one of seven hangars. It was the one meant
for external use rather than construction, and in it were several of the
sea-worthy prototypes, including the
Dart
-class
speed craft that he’d helped design to replace the traditional streak that Star
Force was still using.

Right now it didn’t look very speedy, for it sat
bobbing in a cubical berth with an energy net set across the open side that
connected to the communal pool, on the far side of which was a tunnel that led
to a much larger waterlock, though this one had shield pass-through capability
rather than double doors so traffic wouldn’t back up. It had doors as well, and
right now they were closed, for very few missions were active. Most of their
research was still unfortunately in the development stage.

The dart was their most capable design, and the
smallest, with it sitting in the pocket of water with an exposed seat on top.
It was designed for a biped, which the Dvapp could accommodate to and therefore
useable by both Star Force and their race down the road.