Star Force: Cascade (SF73)

1

November 19, 2888

Solar System

Earth

Paul sat there as the water fell, barely holding on to
the ascension prompt that seemed to want to disappear again. It was so faint he
was surprised to have even noticed it, as well as curious as to what was actually
going on. As the minutes passed and the sensation slowly grew under his
prodding he felt he began to understand it, or at least had a theory. Other
ascensions were pretty much automatic, hit the trigger and it’d send you into
the conversion mode that, if handled ‘properly,’ would make small adjustments
in increments that would eventually allow the final transformation and flash
growth of new tissue in a controlled manner.

Paul and the others weren’t going for controlled, for
they didn’t want to risk losing the ascension and not getting it back again
since they didn’t know for sure what was causing it. That’s where the
discomfort came from…rushing the preliminary into a short amount of time. It
was the more direct course, rather than being an incorrect one, but it was
definitely what left one wasted after the transformation, though to be honest
no one had ever done it the slow way to find out how much easier it’d be.

This one, Paul figured, was due to a progressive
trigger rather than a finite one. What they’d learned so far was that the
triggers responded to different things, some being a fitness level stat, some
being a momentary bio status…like being really stressed. That momentary status
would disappear while the fitness level stat would stay the same or improve,
for Paul and the others didn’t backslide.

The fitness level stat made it easy to share an
ability using the twin link, for the person who had it didn’t have to do
anything but get their partner to mimic their status and then their trigger
would activate. For the status though the one with the ability had to recreate
the stress or whatever it was that flipped their trigger, then link to the
other person to make their trigger read the wrong bio data. That was very
difficult to do, but Paul and the others had learned how to summon up a fake
memory of the occurrence or whatever they needed to do in training in order to
get their bodies/minds into the correct state.

Paul had the suspicion that this one, whatever it was,
was a temporary status ascension that he was just nibbling on the edge of. It
might even be the case that his momentary alignment had now passed but since
the ascension process had already started it was hanging around without any
real power…hence the lack of internal fireworks. If that was the case then he’d
stumbled onto it, probably very briefly, during his day of workouts, though
which one was in question.

But it didn’t matter now, getting the new ability did,
and so long as he had a sniff of an ascension to latch onto he was going to
make this work…but at the same time he didn’t want to go after it too fast,
knowing that the longer he dragged this out the more data his biomonitor would
register. Paul already had all the known psionics, that they had triggers
mapped out for anyway, so even if this one was something someone else had
already achieved then they still needed more data.
Him
having
Sav
necessarily lengthened the process a bit,
but he needed to drag his feet as much as he could without losing the
ascension.

Both priorities were counterproductive, but Paul was
having to work hard to hang onto it at all, so his near failure was
accomplishing the stall tactic and he didn’t push any harder than he needed to
in order to gain ground, with the instability steadily rising. The further it
did the less chance he had of losing it, but his mind became more and more
clouded with the mental storm and no one here to help him through it. He
thought about calling for help but nixed the idea immediately. He could do
this, as he’d done many times before, and he wasn’t about to back down from a
challenge.

So what would have been a 20 min shower stretched on
into an hour, then two hours, then a third hour and six more minutes before he
got to four flashing red lights. At that point he was so exhausted he didn’t
dare try and stretch it out further else he’d risk losing it altogether, so he
committed himself to go fully into it and push past what seemed to be a very
defiant limit…only to realize that he hadn’t been holding back much at all.

That sent a shock through his clouded mind, along with
the fear that he might peg out and lose his energy and fall off the crescendo
he was surfing. Doubling down he summoned up a surge of anger at the thought of
losing this and the emotion steadied his effort. He gritted his teeth,
suspecting he was in for a hell of a transformation if the resistance was this
bad, and pushed the mental storm into the channels necessary to peak it out,
having to apply so much pressure for so long he began to wonder if his trigger
might be broken.

Minutes passed on as he was teetering on what he felt
was the brim of the now very full cup and wondering if he hadn’t delayed too
long, for his fatigue was making his control jittery and he wasn’t sure how
much strength he had left to channel the instability…then in a split second the
pressure was gone, the storm’s strength shifted, and his entire body convulsed,
knocking his head against the shower wall multiple times as tissue was flash
grown throughout every part of his body.

Paul knew he had to ride it out, so he didn’t try to
stand or do anything other than stay put and let it happen. He was only
partially aware of his flopping around at the base of the shower, for inside he
was on fire and regretting the decision to push this ascension…for it was far
worse than anything he’d experienced before, easily surpassing the bioshield
upgrade which had a full body transformation similar to this.

He didn’t know how many seconds it lasted, or perhaps
minutes, but somewhere in the torment the prescribed upgrade was met and the
worse of the pain subsided, leaving him hurting but with a clearing head as he
slumped to the wet floor and just held still, his head leaning against the
clear sidewall as he took stock of his situation.

His entire body was numb, seeming to pulse with heat, and
the ascension storm was still swirling in his mind, but with each second that passed
it diminished by a chunk with him knowing it would soon be gone and the
aftermath of the transformation would remain…which in this case was going to be
a very bad case of fragging. He knew moving would make it worse so he stayed
still and just let himself hurt before he tried…

“Paul?” a voice said along with a triple knock on the
outside of his shower tube to get his attention, for he wasn’t moving. “Are you
ok?” Rio asked.

No
, he
answer telepathically, which hurt enough on its own. He figured the movement of
speaking would be even more traumatic.

“What happened? I heard you screaming from over a mile
away.”

Ascension.

“You got another one?” the trailblazer asked, his
eyebrows raising.

This one is full
body, and the worst yet. Don’t try to move me, please.

“Don’t worry,” Rio said with a smirk, guessing at how
much pain his peer was in. “I can improvise.”

The trailblazer raised his right index finger and
concentrated, pooling the heat within it for a long moment before jabbing it
into the clear material of the shower tube and melting through it. He slowly
pulled his finger through a rough square, cutting out a section and tossing the
piece aside as water droplets spilled out onto him and the floor, but he didn’t
care. He let his finger cool off and reached his other hand through to grab the
nearest part of Paul’s body, which was his ankle, and hacked his way into his
nervous system and got his first look at the score.

What he saw/felt blew him away. Paul was totally
wrecked, and in so much residual pain he was glad he had left him where he was.
With an effort he numbed up his friend as much as he could, blocking the pain
from getting to him and giving him an artificial soothing to wrap his mind
around.

Thank
you…very…much.

“You are so fragged. I don’t think this is Ubven. It
was really bad for me, but nothing like this.”

I tried to
stretch it out to get more data. That should have made it easier. I don’t know
what happened…unless this was easier.

“They said post-
Sav
ascensions were nastier…whoa, dude. You’ve got tissue growths all over your
body.”

What kind?

“I don’t want to guess and be wrong.”

Just tell me. I
can’t sense anything right now.

“Have a look through me then,” Rio said rather than
making a pronouncement. He sent his mental image of his hacking into Paul’s
body back to Paul, which made for a very weird mental echo, but it allowed him
to see the new growths without all the mental disturbance that was clouding him
out right now.

Damn
, Paul
said, knowing those type of growths intimately well. He laughed once, then
immediately regretted it as the bodily pain shot through the numbing Rio had
him under.

“Buddy, I think we need to use the regenerator on this
one. I don’t think you even realize how tore up you are.”

Do it
, Paul
said without hesitation.

Rio looked around, knowing he couldn’t let go of Paul
in his current state. He saw through the walls using his Pefbar into the other
rooms of the quarters and even all the way out to the door that he’d broken
through to get to Paul when he didn’t respond to telepathy, and blast it all,
he didn’t have a portable
comm
device laying around.
There was a terminal he could use, but it was in the next room and out of
reach.

Reaching out with his Ikrid, he searched the
surrounding minds in Atlantis out to the edge of his range, finding several
Archons that could help him. Rather than explaining to them what was happening,
he requested an Ensek link be established, with them using their own psionics
as relay transmitters for him. None of the six he mentally contacted complained
or asked for an explanation, simply trusting in him and using their ability to
relay his telepathy out to others beyond his range.

He found more and extended his chain across the city
to a specific building, and as luck would have it, Davis was sitting in his
office when the Ensek relay reached him.

I’m here
,
the Director responded using his limited telepathy, which then got amplified
and sent across the city person to person.

It’s Rio. I’m in
Paul’s quarters and I need you to send a V’kit’no’sat regenerator here
immediately. He’s had a bad ascension and I can’t risk budging him. I’m numbing
him up best I can, but that means I can’t leave either.

Is he dying?

No, he just
wishes he did.

Stay there, I’ll
get it to you as soon as possible
, he responded, feeling the link disappear
a moment later.

Davis brought up an order prompt and sent a text
message to the medical division, explaining the urgency and linking them Paul’s
quarters’ location once he looked it up, then he headed there himself, hoping
for Paul’s sake the regenerator arrived before he did.

The Kich’a’kat leads withdrew from Paul’s body after
only a few seconds of being fully deployed, and with them went the insane pain
and clouded mind, leaving Paul sitting at the bottom of his shower, naked, and
four people standing outside it.

The trailblazer got to his feet slowly, still feeling
wobbly as if all the connections in his brain weren’t fully functioning yet,
and leaned against the sidewall for a moment.

“Want some help out?” Rio asked.

“No, I’ve got it,” Paul said, pushing aside the top
panel and climbing out. He walked down the short staircase and grabbed a towel,
rubbing his blue hair dry then slipping it around his waist before sitting down
on the steps. “I’m not hurting anymore, but I am totally exhausted.”

“What happened?” Davis asked as a medtech and Aaron
looked on while Rio leaned against the nearby wall, his eyes also on Paul.

“It’s strange, it didn’t jump me this time. It was in
the background and I had to draw it out. I took my time and hopefully got a lot
of bio data, but when it hit I was overwhelmed. I can’t believe Morgan went
through that.”

“Meaning what?” Davis asked.

“We’re pretty sure it’s Jumat,” Rio explained as he
glanced at the medtech. “Care to confirm that?”

“I don’t have a scanner with me, but if you’ll come
down to the
medbay
I can tell you exactly what you
got.”

Paul raised an arm up level to the ground and
concentrated, trying to summon up some goosebumps and succeeding with ease. He
tried to force them off his hand but they didn’t cooperate, flying off his arm
randomly in all directions…and leaving him even more fatigued than before,
which was saying a lot, given that he started out this whole mess at the end of
a day of workouts.

The air pushed by the invisible energy washed across
the four men present but only the Archons noticed, leaving the medtech
oblivious.

“Well that settles that,” Aaron concluded. “I wonder
if your advancement made it worse. Morgan was so young when it happened to
her…”

“Maybe
Sav
,” Rio added.

“Morgan walked out of that gravity trap,” Paul
reminded them. “I don’t know if I could even have stood or not, but the pain
was bad enough that I didn’t want to try. I’m not dissing her in this, but
there’s no way she went through all that and made it out. There has to be
something different.”

“Maybe hers processed more gradually during the
duration of the enhanced gravity,” Davis suggested. “Though we still don’t know
what the actual trigger is.”