CHAPTER 226 – REPRESENT
(Conference Room, Black Star Hotel, Kyoto, Nuevo Edo)
Shadowgate was a bundle of mysteries. The strange configuration of their ships only made those mysteries more intriguing. But so far, no one even knew what the Shadowgaters looked like, as they had left their ship on their own shuttle, landing directly on the shuttle pad for the Black Star Hotel. Their forms were clad in what looked like an armored suit designed to hide as much as possible about their physiology from observers.
There was currently a betting pool going around about what these Shadowgaters actually were. So far, the most popular idea was that they were some form of mutants, and that the tech that had cut Shadowgate off from the rest of the universe had mutated them somehow. Not far behind it in the betting pools was the idea that, maybe, they were some kind of heretofore undiscovered alien species, or perhaps a hybrid of unknown aliens and the ‘known’ types. There was even a suggestion that they were ‘demons’ born in another were chimeras who had fled persecution after the wars when they’d been unleashed like living weapons upon populations.
Obviously, that last theory intrigued me, for reasons that shouldn’t be hard for anyone who actually knew me to divine. I had always known that there were other chimeras out there, of course. You didn’t just have the templates I’d been presented in character creation without having used things like that in the past. And it would be easy enough for some types of chimeras to escape notice, if they were sneaky enough to get out from under observation by their handlers.
There were the obvious questions, of course, about how they had actually managed to shut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy. Everyone knew it had to be Lost Tech, as only Lost Tech would be able to interfere with the Gateways, but how did it keep anyone from traveling in warp reaching the system? It was like there was a wall surrounding the system, which made things extremely curious.
There were three of the Shadowgaters, but locked in their armor, the only way to tell them apart was by the color. Each one had different color highlights on their armor. Yellow seemed to be the leader, walking in the center of the group. I didn’t know whether Purple and Green were bodyguards, or assistants, or what. It was an unfamiliar experience, not having anything to go on.
As they entered the conference room, I rose from my seat, and nodded to them. “Welcome to Nuevo Edo. I am Mirikon Mollen, Owner of the Black Star Company, Admiral of the Black Star Navy, and a Nomad. Please, take a seat.”
The three Shadowgaters moved to the seats opposite me, but didn’t sit down, and Yellow spoke in a synthetic voice that hid any indication of gender. “I am Kosh of Shadowgate. I speak for the Council of Nine Shadows. Are you the ones who destroyed the Great Beast?”
I nodded slowly as I sat, watching the three. Perhaps their armor made sitting difficult? “Yes, my forces launched the killing blow that slew the X’thari Harvester, though we had the aid of others getting us into position for that blow. What of it?”
Suddenly, he felt a pressure on his mind, on his mental defenses. A Special Defense of over 500 with 130% Mental Psy Resistance meant that he had some very formidable defenses indeed. And someone was pressing on them, trying to get into his head. He recognized the method, he’d used it many times before.
With a thought, he clamped down mentally on the intruding probe from another mental psy user, holding it fast as I followed it back to the source. Purple. I didn’t bother with subtlety. I simply blasted the offender with the strongest mental blast that I could manage, draining half my considerable pool of PP to do so.
As Purple staggered back under the assault, I shouted, “GUARDS!” Instantly, the two Black Star Marines in the room had their weapons up and trained on the Shadowgaters, and Raven was holding her new favorite toy, a kinetic shotgun. As I rose from my seat, I brought my energy blade to my hand.
My eyes locked on the faceplate of Kosh’s helmet. “You DARE come in here and try to assault my mind? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t rip the three of you to shreds this instant, and send you back to your Shadow Council in nine different buckets?” All right, that was slightly over the top, but I was pissed. This was not the way you started diplomatic talks.
Kosh turned to look at the Shadowgater in purple. “You were supposed to remain undetected. Better to get nothing than alert him. Now we are disadvantaged.”
The purple one shook their head. “His defenses and aptitude are unusually high, especially in concert. He caught the probe before I could finish analyzing his defenses and reversed the link.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Green spoke up, “The aide is artificial. We would need a technician to properly analyze it. The guards know nothing of value. They are fighters, not commanders.”
Kosh turned back to face me, and said, “You possess too much power to be allowed to exist if you were harmful to Shadowgate. You were supposed to be unaware as we tested you. It seems now we will have to take things in a different direction. You will be made safe for Shadowgate. As our puppet, you will keep the outside world from interfering in our affairs, no matter the consequences to yourself or your people.”
I grit my teeth as I felt all three of the Shadowgaters focus their will on me. I was forced to take a step back as their mental attacks hit my defenses. They were strong. In a fair fight, I could probably take one of them. But all three? No, I couldn’t do that. I was outmatched.
I barely noticed as shots rang out. The two guards unleashed their rifles on the aliens, while Raven used her shotgun. A shield snapped up around the aliens, and I felt the strength of the attacks lessen slightly. They were attacking and defending solely as psychics. Well, fuck that, I’m more than just a psychic!
Despite the assault lessening slightly, it still took everything I had to keep the three psychics out of my head. I stumbled forward, against the table, my hand reaching for the button I knew was there. My actions didn’t go unnoticed. Kosh sounded amused by my struggles.
“There is no point in resisting, human. Even if your guards come, they cannot break the shields of those trained on Shadowgate. Give in, and assume your proper place in the new order of things.”
“Fuck you.”
With that eloquent rebuttal, I pressed the button. Kosh may have thought that I was reaching for an alarm, to call more guards, but that was the other button. This was something my R&D people had been working on for a while.
A psychic scream filled the air, physically driving me to my knees. Well, it wasn’t so much a ‘scream’ as it was the mental equivalent of standing next to the speakers at a rock concert and having some jackass cause that horrible feedback sound, while the sound board is turned all the way up. To say that it was ‘unpleasant’ would be the mother of all understatements.
The white coats called it the Psionic Negator. I had realized early on that Mental Psy powers could do a lot of damage in the right (or wrong) hands. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that my hands were the only ones with such power. Since I generally try not to be an idiot, even when I don’t always succeed, and I had a whole group of scientists as my personal R&D department, I set some of them on making a way to take out mental Psy users without harming other troops. Ideally, freeing anyone from mental control or attack, while disabling the enemy so that they could promptly be shot. Repeatedly.
The initial tests I’d been present for (some of which involved me being the test subject) all showed promise, especially when the analysis of the Harvester’s scream came back. But it was still weak. This was the newest model, with the power boosted by 350%. And oh, did I sure as hell feel the difference!
The Negator caused feedback in the areas of the brain responsible for Mental Psy, which meant that anyone who didn’t have Mental Psy would, in theory, only have a ringing in their ears, or some other annoying side effect. For me, however, the only good thing was that I immediately felt all attacks against my mind stop. I couldn’t really do anything about that, however, as I was quickly reduced to being curled in the fetal position, and wishing I could just die, to relieve the pain.
The next thing I consciously knew, I was in the hallway outside the conference room, in the blessed quiet. I’m not sure how long it took me to make coherent thoughts again, but eventually, I focused on Raven’s face. She seemed concerned, and angry. Trying not to speak too loudly, I said, “Report.”
Raven looked down at me, and offered a bottle of water and some painkillers before saying anything, which I was more than grateful for. “The impromptu field test of the Psionic Negator has proven to be quite successful. The power output increased by 350%, as you know, and proved effective at immediately disabling psychics that were alert and on a combat footing. The increase output has zero effect on mechanical or electronic systems, and individuals with no Mental Psy have reported symptoms equivalent to walking past a construction site, but were not significantly impaired. We may consider it a successful test run.”
“Our new test subjects?”
Raven’s smile grew feral. “We are currently testing what long-term exposure to the Negator will do. Currently, they have been under the effects for forty-five minutes after we removed you from the room, while being monitored both remotely and by Marines on rotation. Incidentally, the shielding designed to protect the conference rooms from various vectors of espionage has proven effective in blocking the Negator’s effects, leaving them confined to the conference room.”
Hoo boy, they must have managed to really piss Raven off if she left them like that for forty-five minutes after they dragged me out of there! I took a breath, and tried to keep my head from exploding with the slight movement. “All right. What about their ship? Any movement there?”
“Citing a clear attack against a head of state on the equivalent of embassy grounds, the Black Star Navy launched an assault on the Shadowgate ship, after clearing the action with the Nuevo Edo Navy. The attack began thirty minutes ago, when the destroyers BSN Knucklerot and BSN Luzran opened fire on the ship, disabling its drive systems and opening several areas to vacuum. The Black Star Marine contingents aboard both ships launched to conduct forcible search and rescue missions, and transferred all survivors to secure facilities.”
She paused, and said, “Incidentally, Admiral, it would appear that the Shadowgate population consists almost entirely of either Chimeras or chimera-descendants. Once stripped of their armor, medical scans revealed that Kosh and his associates were pure-blood Chimeras. Similar reports are coming from the captured vessel as the Marines process survivors.”
I nodded slowly. Things began to make more sense, now. Why would Shadowgate, which had sealed itself off since the end of the Chimeric Wars, suddenly reach out? Because they ‘heard’ the Harvester get wounded, and then die. They knew something new had come into play, and they were afraid. They were, after all, legally allowed to be killed on sight in many places. That meant they were operating from a place of fear. They saw a potential new threat, and they decided they had to control it, contain it if they could.
The irony, of course, was that, up until this moment, I had no interest in Shadowgate. They were a curiosity, nothing more. I was certainly no threat to them. Now, however, I was feeling particularly vengeful. I locked eyes with Raven. “Have the ship and the new test subjects transported to Star’s Reach. Let the engineers tear the ship apart to figure out how it works, and give the prisoners over to the scientists for experimentation. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”
“Very well. And what should we tell the Nuevo Edoans?”
“Send word to the Prime Minister and the General, and invite them to dinner. We can talk about things there. I need a few drinks before I’m ready to be civil to people, and they don’t deserve me grouching at them. They didn’t piss me off.”