Star Force: Newbslayer (SF64) (3 page)

“You’re not going to make this awkward?” Jenna asked.

“We passed awkward when we started this training.”

“For the record, this is one reason why the general
population should never have Ikrid. They’d never leave their quarters.”

“Wow. Death of a civilization via pleasure. That’s a
new one.”

“Sexuality has a strong influence on the weak minded.”

“Or the ignorant,” Levi added. “Surprise attacks
always will be like that.”

“Do you have these same worries, or is it just a girl
thing?”

“Different version probably, but basically the same
thing.”

“Ok,” she said, interlocking wrists with him again.
“This is going to take some time to let you in. Don’t go poking around until
you’ve got a lock. My involuntary reflexes could be stronger than you think.”

“I’m assuming so. I don’t think you realize just how
powerful your mind is. Looking from the outside I think I can size you up
better than you can.”

“Be cautious and make this happen the first try. I’m
not used to shutting down my own defenses.”

“Relax, I’ll give you what you need.”

Jenna smirked, but Levi immediately shook his head.
“That’s not innuendo. This is a type of training and I’ll make sure you get
what you need. I imagine you’re going to have to do some work on your end to
really accept this, so focus on that and don’t worry about the rest. I’ve got this.”

Jenna sighed. “And here I’m being schooled by the
padawan…how embarrassing,” she said, closing her eyes and beginning to take
down her mental barriers around her sexuality, Farchor included. She sensed
Levi ‘knocking’ on her motor control, then got the mental explanation that he
needed to hold her body in position himself, releasing her to focus purely on
the pleasure.

And the fact that she was, if he did this correctly,
about to become a drooling idiot burned her. Jenna pushed that unwanted thought
away and focused on letting him in. However this went down she wasn’t going to
let herself be shy. This may be an unused part of her psyche, but she was going
to bring it out into the open and get a feel for it. The ironic part was she
couldn’t do that herself, which was why it’d always been lying dormant within
her mind.

But no longer. Time to end the mind games once and for
all. And she was very glad she had her fellow Archon to help her, for something
like this, sexuality aside, required a great deal of trust, for she was opening
her mind deeper to Levi than she’d ever let anyone in before. That wasn’t easy
to do, but Archons were loyal to the core and Levi’s tone had indicated that he
understood the importance of this. She could trust him to help her, and that
was the only reason she was able to remove the deepest blocks, for had there
been even the slightest bit of hesitancy those would have remained no matter
what her conscious mind insisted.

But aside they went, temporarily disabled as Levi’s
mind entered those areas and began putting up ‘supports’ to keep the doorway
open for when she recoiled later. This was going to be jarring for her, from a
pleasure standpoint rather than pain, but it was still going to shake her. How
much she didn’t know, but her job was to just ride it out and learn from it
after the fact. She didn’t like not being in control, but releasing it was the
mission here, so that’s just what she did.

The two of them sat on the pedestals, arms locked and
motionless, with Jenna’s last coherent thought being that it was probably a
good idea that she’d chosen the hottest padawan available.

3

October 5, 2735

Mak’ri
Jor
-El

Mid Jump

Jenna and Levi sat in the meditation chamber again,
going through another round of Orren drills for the padawan. It was the second
set since their experimental training, with both Archons having devoted
themselves to physical workouts as Jenna sought to
recenter
herself. Yesterday Levi had taken the sexual distraction route again, finding
it effective but in a different way. Today though was going horrible, for he
couldn’t get any useable amount of traction from her with that tactic.

He knew he was scoring hits and tweaking those
emotions, but her recovery rate had become so fast that they didn’t offer more
than the slightest of head starts. With the entrenched defenses that Farchor
gave Jenna, there was no way Levi was going to have enough time to undo them,
making her mind virtually impregnable unless he could find a way to distract
her. As it was, he was having to work a bit harder to access any part of her
mind, with her sexual areas having been her weakest blocks. Those defenses had
ticked up a bit already, which made Levi begin to search around her mind’s many
facets trying to find another way in.

Going easy on
me?
Jenna asked during the doldrums.

Hardly. You’re
locked up tight.

I don’t feel
like it. Everything is still a little loose.

Not enough for
me to pry free, and your sex drive isn’t having as much an effect on you.

Are you sure?
Yesterday I thought you were being gentle.

I was at first,
but I’m not holding back anything today. I can’t distract you for as long as I
used to. You’re snapping back too fast for me to go elsewhere.

Keep trying. I
don’t think I’m that good yet.

If you have
another weak area, feel free to point it out. I’m not finding anything.

So you’re saying
it worked?

I know I’m not
holding back, so yeah, it seems to have. Care to share what you’re doing
different?

As far as I know
I’m not
, Jenna admitted.
But I’m no
longer worried. Wary, but not worried, if that makes sense.

I think so. It
was my idea, after all.

And I’ll return
the favor later. Right now make sure it’s a genuine quality control test. If I
have any cracks left, find them. Forget other avenues and just focus on this
one.

I have been. I
can’t do much here that I haven’t tried.

You haven’t
tried a binary.

Levi mentally cringed
. I don’t think I’m strong enough for that yet.

Give it a try
anyway. The more failures you have the more data you’ll have to learn from.

Alright
,
Levi said, finding her sexual programming again and concentrating. What Jenna
meant by ‘binary’ was a double attack, one using the Orren to slip in
unannounced and the other being a brute force Ikrid assault, trying to
overpower her defenses and fight his way in. He didn’t stand a chance against
her superior strength, Farchor aside, but in theory if he could make enough
mental noise to help cloak the Orren angle it was possible he could get some
traction right under her nose, so to speak.

Trouble was, applying so much power basically took
away his finesse skills, like trying to fight a boxing match while balancing an
open bottle of water on his head. He didn’t think he could do it, but if she
wanted him to try he’d give it a go.

Levi amped up his mental pressure and applied it directly
to that subsection of her mind. He felt her press back without
counterattacking, as if holding a line rather than trying to push him out of
her head. That gave him some freedom to experiment, but when applying full
power to any point, or across her entire sexual program, he couldn’t
concentrate enough to engage a separate Orren tendril. He pulled back a bit,
going at about 75% strength and knowing that was pretty much a joke from
Jenna’s point of view, but he didn’t lose any ground and she didn’t kick him
out, merely holding her own against his lesser pressure.

The padawan managed to summon up a secondary attack on
the same area and at first it managed to get through and he was able to create
a little bit of euphoria in her. That sent a quiver through her power levels,
reducing the pushback for a split second before she just amped it up to
compensate. The window of opportunity wasn’t enough for Levi to act on, for he
was tapped out just maintaining the two simultaneous attacks, and a moment
later his Orren tendril was discovered. Jenna pushed it out and regained her
iron wall against him, with Levi abandoning the effort less than a minute
later.

Sorry, that’s
all I’ve got.

Not bad.

Looks like you
finally got your sexual resistance you wanted.

It’ll be armor
once I get around to customizing my Farchor there, but yeah, looks like it.
Keep poking around to see if you can find anything. I want to be sure about
this.

Well I’m sure. I
got nothing left to try.

Maybe you’re
subconsciously holding back after the pathetic mess you left me in earlier?

Feel free to
check,
Levi said, immediately feeling Jenna’s presence enter his mind. He
didn’t resist her, not that he could have kept her completely out if he’d
wanted to, but he let her poke around his memories and current analysis of her,
also giving her a chance to look at herself through his eyes. She lingered
there for what felt like a long time, then the Archon eventually pulled out,
satisfied.

Jenna disconnected their mental link and let go of his
wrist, opening her eyes and looking at him. “Didn’t realize I was that
resistant.”

“Happy now?”

“Relieved, not happy. I’m still a little loopy.”

“I figured you would have burnt it out of you by now
with all those cardio workouts.”

“Not completely. Still missing a bit of my edge, but
it’s coming back. Feels like I missed a week of workouts.”

“When was the last time you missed a week…ever?”

“Combat mission, about four decades ago. A lot of
hunting, very little fighting. I was very rusty by the time I got back to a
sanctum. This is different, but with a similar diminishing effect.”

“Kind of makes you wonder why anyone has sex.”

“What you did to me was far worse, youngling. But
yeah, it just cuts your badass mojo right out of you.”

“You’re welcome. I’ve also noticed you’re being a bit
nicer to me.”

Jenna frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah, but I guess that’s just a side effect. I tried
to use that inside your head but it didn’t work because you were already
holding back. When we spar again you’ll probably have to shake that off.”

“Do me a favor and give me a reason to hate you a
bit.”

Levi suppressed a smile and, without warning, ripped a
side-
fist
punch across her head. He hit her so hard
it knocked her off her pedestal and left a big red mark on the side of her
face.

Jenna shook her head, having had her bell rung a bit.
“Bastard,” she said, standing up and staring laser beams at him. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said, rising gracefully from his
pedestal to join her, figuring that the mental training session was over.

Jenna thumbed over her shoulder. “Sparring ring.”

Levi sighed. “I’m going to pay for that, aren’t I?”

“No, I’m just going to beat the crap out of you like
normal.”

“Oh, well then…” he said, a mock expression of relief
on his face as he walked past her and out the door. “Let’s get to it.”

Four days later…

“What have we got?” Jenna asked the Captain of the
Jor
-El
as it entered high planetary orbit
over
Tieor
.
 

“Low orbital traffic, no known ship types. Definitely
no Skarron presence.”

Jenna bit her lip, squishing her face up in a confused
look. “Find their toys.”

It took a few minutes, but eventually the crew brought
up a bad hologram of the surface of the planet. It was being scanned from high
orbit, hence the poor quality, but it made out the shape of a Skarron Type-5
walker well enough, sitting in the center of a city. Another hologram came up
showing an identical one with several damaged spots, then the zoom panned out
and numerous vehicles were surrounding it beyond plasma range.

“Put us down there, then find a camping spot in
orbit,” Jenna said, heading for the bridge exit. “Don’t get involved until we
figure out what’s going on.”

“And if they involve themselves with us?”

“Pull out to an orbit they can’t follow, but leave a
comm
buoy within our suits’ transmission range.”

“Copy that.”

Jenna reached out with her mind and found Levi in
another chamber nearby.
Gear up, we’re
heading down.

Brayden sat in the pilot’s seat of one of their hover
tanks, with it being the most advanced model they fielded and completely
useless against the Skarron walker they were engaging. He knew that closing to
within the walker’s plasma range was suicide, so the Marauders were hitting it
from afar using a combination of rail guns and missiles, neither of which the
Colonel’s tank possessed. What it did have, however, were strong anti-tank
plasma weapons and a multipurpose low yield turret useful for both
anti-personnel and anti-air functions, both of which were getting a workout as
Brayden was fighting off the Tangos’ counterattack.

They were hitting the Marauders with their own small
tanks, infantry, and aircraft…the latter of which were a big problem given that
he’d ordered his own fighters to keep well away from the walker. He’d gone so
far as to keep them out of this mission entirely and had them sitting at a
staging base, both to secure it and their line of retreat if it came to that.
Right now he was having second thoughts about that, for a good pilot could stay
away from the walker and still engage their fighters, though them having a safe
haven to run to would have made engaging them very difficult.

His tanks were taking a beating, but they had enough
anti-air capability spread out among them that they were picking off a few of
the enemy fighters and keeping them back from the assault tanks, which had been
modularly fitted to hit the walker and nothing else. They all had to have
escorts, and Brayden knew he’d be better suited to fighting that battle than
taking pot shots at the more or less stationary walker. It was moving
constantly, trying to close with the Marauders who wouldn’t let it, but from a
gunner’s perspective it was so big and slow that it was easy to hit.

And hit it they were. The shields had already been
breached and the bright white armor was cracked and burnt in many places, but it
was still very much alive and lethal. Brayden had six attack groups spread
around the perimeter, all of which constantly kept adjusting their position on
the grassy plains to keep near to it, but far enough outside its own weapon
range. The walker had its own escorts alongside its thick bipedal legs, but
most of the Tango’s units had moved out to engage the Marauders, leaving only a
handful behind within the protective halo of the walker’s plasma.

Brayden knew they were wearing it down, but his tanks
would come out of this with heavy damage at minimum. He just hoped he didn’t
lose any crew in the process.

The mercenary commander swung the front end of his
triangular tank around and fired off a pair of red plasma orbs ahead of a group
of infantry that contained a few rocket launchers. The ground exploded and the
grass caught fire, scattering the troops as he accelerated towards the flames
and eventually pushed through, with his secondary gunner chipping away at those
infantry with the small turret on top of the tank.

Just then another of the Tango fighters zipped by low
overhead, stitching the ground with plasma strikes, three of which hit the
tank. Its shield held up against the first two, but the third got through and
kissed the hull, followed by several hits from surrounding enemy tanks as they
focused on the single Marauder target…as Brayden had hoped. His wheeled tanks
were less resistant to weaponsfire, and in order to keep them operational he
needed to play bait with the more advanced units, and the best way to do that was
dive down the enemy’s throat and dare them to ignore him.

If they did he could hurt them badly, if they didn’t
then they’d pour firepower into his tank leaving the others free to fire at
will. Every operational unit he kept in the game meant more firepower for his
side, and for that reason he didn’t mind his own armor getting hit and melted
off in spots. This was a messy fight, and they were going to have to fight
messy if they wanted to bag that walker. It was doable, otherwise he wouldn’t
have committed his forces against it, but if they handled this right they
should be able to kill it and keep themselves alive…but there was a narrow
margin of error there and as the Marauders’ commander, his place was in the
thick of it, taking out enemies and keeping his people alive.

So that’s where he kept his tank, protecting his group
of rail guns as they peppered the distant walker with huge metallic slugs that
were slowly breaking apart the Type-5’s armor with concussive damage that their
plasma resistance didn’t affect. A few missile plumes would be seen going in
with the slugs, but most of them had been fired off already to take down the
shields as quickly as possible.

The Marauders were having to fight a battle to allow
them to fight a second battle against the walker, making for an unusual mission,
but one that his men were more than capable of handling.