Hrynkak quickly made good on the promise of a feast, and the celebrations continued into the night. It was an open-air affair with kegs of fermented drink, tables full of fresh fruit and roasted meat right off the spit, all served in the city square. Aside from the smashed gates that could be seen to the south and east and the bullet holes which riddled some of the buildings, the signs of battle had been cleared away for the festivities.
Hrake spoke happily with his cousin the King while Vanbrook and Reclan sampled the various meats, reveling in new spices and flavors. Raivyn had tried some of the meat but had wandered over to the fruits to find something a little sweeter.
“Hello Raivyn,” said a strange voice.
She turned around, her chin dripping with juice and her mouth full of fruit, to see Elder Shaman Rehkna. Raivyn quickly chewed and swallowed the bite and wiped her chin.
“Elder!” she said. “So good to see you! And to hear your voice this time, too.”
“Ah, yes, I have learned your tongue. It has become quite fashionable,” she said with a smile. “And how has Hrake adapted to life in the aether?”
Raivyn looked over at the warrior, who was clearly enjoying his homecoming. “Very well, I believe. He’s certainly not one to complain.”
“No,” said Rehkna, shaking her head and smiling. “He certainly is not.”
“Say, Elder, time got away from us too fast last time I was here. If we have time, could we discuss how you manage to facilitate psychic communication that gets around language barriers? That technique could be incredibly useful in our travels.”
Rehkna’s wrinkled face contorted in thought.
“It is difficult to teach,” she said finally. “But I will try, should we have time.”
***
Raivyn woke up the next morning eager to start the day. The party continued long after Raivyn had said goodnight to Rehkna, agreeing to meet her for their first training session the following evening, if she was able to. She went to the mess hall aboard the Halberd to wait for the others to join her for breakfast. Doc and D’Jarric came along in a few minutes, but there was no sign of the others for some time. Eventually Hrake stumbled in, looking exhausted.
“Woah, rough night?” asked Raivyn.
“Hmm? Oh, one could say that,” said Hrake. “Though it was indeed an excellent night. I’m just getting back to the ship.”
“Oh,” said Raivyn noncommittally.
Hrake made himself a tavan blossom tea, something more restful and soothing than his normal morning cup of rakka, and sat quietly sipping it. Nearly half an hour later a very groggy Vanbrook and Reclan trudged into the galley.
“You two look worse than Hrake!” exclaimed D’Jarric with a smile. “A little too much celebrating?”
“Hey, I had one drink!” said Vanbrook defensively.
“Yeah,” said Reclan, holding her head. “Me too. I just didn’t know how strong Hrudukites like their wine.”
Hrake laughed. “Perhaps after breakfast we can all go back to bed.”
Just then, Captain Kesht’s voice came over comms, “Talon Squad, please report to my office at your earliest convenience.”
D’Jarric chuckled to himself as Reclan groaned and laid her head on the table.
***
Captain Kesht stood in his office as Talon Squad filed in, King Hrynkak and Sergeant Hargen by their side.
“Good, you’re all here,” said Kesht. “Hrynkak and I have been in conversation with the Zrykite, or rather, former Zrykite warrior who Vanbrook wounded. It appears that the Koomites have been using the planet as a staging ground on their way to the Cornucopia Cluster. They’ve also been paying Zrykyk to stay quiet about it while simultaneously using his “sovereign” status to stop the Republic and the IGC from setting up a satellite network, which could have detected their movements.”
“We hope to have the IGC investigate the matter,” said Hrynkak. “We’ve been trying to build a case that Zrykyk is not a truly sovereign city state, but a band of rebels hoping to retake Gred, propped up by an outside entity.”
“To that end,” continued Kesht, “the Gladius will be joining us shortly. Initially they were on their way from Kirakna to help fight off the Zrykites, but as that’s been accomplished they’ll be focusing on the Koomite angle. The two RIS agents aboard the vessel were already investigating the Koomites, and they’ll be joining us as we continue on to Gateway. In the meantime, you’ll be expected to work with Grepk’s Marine squad to gather intel on the Zrykites and their connection to the cult.
“We expect them to arrive in the next four days, so you’ll be utilizing one of the army shuttles."
"Since the shuttle is under my command, I'll be sending one of my own as a pilot," said Hargen.
For the next hour, the group hashed out the plan for surveillance, and ultimately decided to give Zrykyk's forces time to get back to their city. This gave Raivyn the afternoon to train with Rehkna and the others some time to recover from the previous night's festivities.
***
“No, no, you’re still just sending impressions,” said Rehkna patiently.
Raivyn huffed and sat down. They had been at it for hours now, and Raivyn was starting to wonder if Rehkna’s psychic communication abilities were something one could learn from another psychic, or if it was a special skill the Hrudukites possessed.
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“I haven’t struggled this much with a technique since I was a teenager,” she said.
“As I said, communication like this is hard to teach,” replied the Elder Shaman. “It’s built off the impressions that you are already able to send, but it requires greater focus and precision. You must… intend what you are saying.”
Raivyn mulled over this for a moment, unsure how to implement it.
“Perhaps we’ll continue this another time?” suggested Rehkna.
“I’d love that,” said Raivyn seriously, “but there was something else on my mind as well.”
“Go ahead, child.”
“I noticed that when I clashed with a Hrudukite psychic in battle they were difficult to assault directly,” said Raivyn. “I had trouble making a connection with Hrake the first time we met, as well. Do Hrudukites have an innate psychic resistance?”
Rehkna nodded. “I believe so. Until this past year I had no way to judge such things, but I was surprised how easy it was to access the minds of our new allies.”
“Do you think that natural resistance led to the development of more powerful communication abilities?” asked Raivyn. “Sort of like a psychic arms race?”
“It’s possible,” said Rehkna, pondering. “Though one would expect an ‘arms race’ to involve psychic attacks, not friendly communication. Are different abilities and skills typical across different races?”
Raivyn nodded. “Yes, very common. Humans are actually not particularly prone to psychic abilities. I’m an exception, there. Talpidarians rarely produce psychics, but the ones they do tend to be extraordinarily powerful. Krauqians, on the other hand, have a relatively high proportion of low-level psychics and very few of notable power. Raki, Wabuluban, and Dromeans have more sporadic distributions. Electromagnetic beings are highly likely to have at least latent psychic abilities.”
“What about constructs?” asked Rehkna. “That is, Robots such as Doc.”
Raivyn pondered the question for a moment. “Up until recently, it was believed they could not have innate psychic abilities, being artificially constructed. It was assumed a natural mind, possibly even a soul, was required to produce natural T-waves, though some specially designed technologies can mimic them. Recent events have called that into question.”
“Interesting,” said Rehkna. “Interesting indeed.”
***
The following day, Talon Squad had taken the army shuttle to the craggy island Zrykyk had built his so-called city on. Far from the rich, green palette of Gred, the island was a grim, lichen-covered gray. Thankfully, the hills and crags offered plenty of hidden space to set up a base of operations and keep watch on Zrykyk.
“Man,” said Reclan as the team stepped out of the shuttle and began setting up camp. “It’s hard to believe Zrykyk took those outdated hovercraft over an ocean and practically halfway around the planet.”
“He’s as vengeful as he is paranoid,” said Raivyn. “Now let’s climb this hill and see if we can get some equipment aimed at his grand new city.”
Reclan looked doubtfully up the massive rock that stood before them. “I’m not sure hill is the right word. Shouldn’t we have jetpacks for this kind of thing?”
Raivyn shrugged. “Jetpacks aren’t cheap, and honestly this isn’t that bad a climb.”
“If you say so,” said Reclan with a shrug.
“D’Jarric and Doc, stay here and keep setting up camp,” said Raivyn. “Reclan, Vanbrook, and I are going to climb up to our surveillance point. What’s our pilot up to?”
“She said she’s the pilot, not the ground crew,” said Vanbrook, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the shuttle.
From where she stood, Raivyn saw the Talpidarian female sitting in the cockpit, her arms behind her head and her cap over her eyes.
“That’s the spirit,” said the psychic sarcastically. “Alright, let’s head out.”
The climb turned out to be more of a difficult hike than true rock climbing. The slope was never so drastic as to require climbing gear and networks of holes made for easy foot and hand holds. Even with surveillance gear strapped to their backs, the squadmates made good time.
“Huh,” said Reclan. “This could have been a lot wor-”
Her thought was cut short as Vanbrook’s pistol rang out. She looked up at him in shock, only to see him staring past her. She turned and saw a corpulent white worm-like creature hanging limp from one of the holes.
“Guess I spoke too soon,” said Reclan.
“Let’s move, you two! Avoid the holes!” cried Raivyn.
Already more than halfway up, the squadmates began a mad dash to the top of the cliff. The segmented white worms, nearly a foot in diameter and sporting a circular maw of needle-like teeth, continued to burst from the holes, striking at them at every opportunity.
Vanbrook holstered his pistol and drew his saber, using one hand to steady himself on the rock and the other to fend off the worms. Reclan scrambled up the hillside as quickly as she could, kicking one of the worms with her prosthetic foot, the metal claw tearing the monster to pieces. Raivyn reached out telepathically to see what she could determine about the beasts as she tried her best to avoid the holes they were emerging from.
“They-” she stammered, “there’s only one mind.”
“Is that important right now?” demanded Vanbrook, skewering a worm that was headed for Raivyn.
“Not really,” replied Raivyn, making her way around a boulder. “Except that it’s an extremely powerful animal mind. I can’t override its hunger to calm it down.”
They continued their climb, eliminating as many of the worms as they could. Soon it became apparent that the injured worms were easily replaced. Vanbrook severed the head off of one entirely, and the stump was pulled back into the cliff with a slurping sound. The swordsman turned his back on the hole and continued climbing. A moment later a fresh new worm shot out of the same hole, biting onto Vanbrook’s ankle. Vanbrook cried out in pain, and Reclan quickly severed the new worm with her plasma cutter.
“Vanbrook, are you okay?” asked Raivyn.
“Yeah,” he answered through gritted teeth. “It hurts like crazy, but just in the teeth-in-my-flesh kinda way, not the venom-in-my-veins kinda way, y’know?”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Reclan. “Cover me for a second.”
Vanbrook planted himself as far away from any of the worm holes as he could manage and pulled his pistol again, bracing himself against the hillside and taking out any worms that threatened Reclan as she tapped away on her tablet.
“There,” she said at length. “That ought to do it.”
Her drones flew out from where she sat, the hovering black orbs standing like sentinels just above the squadmates. A worm emerged to strike at Raivyn, and, before Vanbrook could react, one of the drones shocked it with a bolt of electricity.
Though Vanbrook kept his guard up, the drones provided the cover they needed to finally reach the top of the hill. The worm holes stopped once the ground leveled out, allowing the squadmates to work in peace.
“Looks like the mighty city of Zrykyk should be… that way,” said Reclan, studying her tablet. “About twelve miles away. Unless they’re looking, and I mean looking with a telescope, they’re not going to see us.”
After giving Vanbrook’s leg a once over and wrapping it a bandage, the squadmates installed an array of devices for looking at and listening to their distant foes. When Reclan fired it up, she was able to pull up a video feed on her tablet’s screen.
They had based their plans off of the partial topographical information they’d collected before Zrykyk had halted the satellite network, but the data was good. The hill they sat on looked down over the craggy valley Zrykyk’s city was built into. The city could be seen clearly enough to make out the moss that had begun growing on the low, stone wall that had been hastily erected. Beyond the wall, she saw a number of buildings of equally slap-dash quality. Panning the camera, Reclan saw the remnant of the hovercrafts that had made it out of Gred, being watched by a few guards.
“We’re good,” she said to the others. “Now, how are we getting back down?”