Psi Warrior
By 3DD
Chapter 1: New beginnings
“Ziiiiiing!”, a sharp and loud, almost sizzling sound rent the crisp mountain air.
Tril stopped running in surprise, jolted from her running ‘zone’ by the unexpected sound. It was a blue-sky day, an intense blue almost the perfect shade as her eyes. No hint of the clouds which normally hugged the peaks before they descended to rain on the lowlands where her home on the outskirts of the village was located. No one ventured into the mountains as they were supposed to be haunted by a long dead emperor. People had disappeared, but not in Tril’s lifetime.
She felt the beginnings of alarm as she was far from any human habitation and had no weapons with her other than her magic skills. Unfortunately, the vast majority of her skills were beginner level and were aimed at laying a solid foundation before she learned more complex skills, or were everyday skills such as lighting candles and healing. She hadn’t progressed past small animals and wouldn’t think of trying to heal a person until she received more training.
Tril had been running up the track which led to the glacial lake nestled in valley located just a few tens of metres along the track. She was planning to have her breakfast there before walking back to her farming village.
She scanned her surroundings trying to determine the origin of the loud and unusual sound. The echoes of the unexpected sound still bouncing from the surrounding peaks made the task almost impossible.
She had been running fast up the track on her daily run, so she was breathing heavily. This made listening for any further sounds problematic. Wiping the sweat from her brow before it dripped into her eyes, she scanned her surroundings. Other than a large flock of tiny snickers, nothing else disturbed the pristine landscape, unless you counted the thousands of flowers swaying in the cool morning breeze. The flowers’ movement formed waves of rippling colour, undulating and flowing over the mountain side. This movement made it tricky to identify the cause of the sound.
Ignoring the flock of snickers as they could not be the source of the strange sound, Tril turned in a complete circle, still failing to see anything unusual. Looking ahead, Tril could just start to see into the valley leading up to the cirque where a large tarn was located.
This was her favourite swimming place, the cold water invigorating after the strenuous two thousand metre ascent from the plains below. At this time of year she could only do around ten laps before she became too cold. Another month and the lake would freeze over for the winter.
She had just decided to start running again when an immense pressure hammered her to her knees. She struggled to draw breath. Her heart hammered in her chest, fighting to pump her blood around her body. All the surrounding snickers fell to the ground amongst the flowers, looking as though they were multi-coloured ribbons, their snake ancestry becoming apparent now they were motionless.
Tril gasped and struggled to her feet, fighting hard against the pressure. She realised it was mental and not physical in nature. The effects on her body were from the severity of the mental attack.
The snickers stunned bodies laying around her provided evidence the pressure was not just her over-exerting herself or having a stroke, as unlikely as that was considering her young age. She was still a teenager, but was on the cusp of adulthood. She was the fittest teenager in the village, beating even the warriors-in-training in her level of stamina. Her grandfather’s advice to have a healthy body to help have a healthy mind, hadn’t been forgotten, as one of his legacies he gave to her before he left on a trip, never to return.
Staggering up the path towards the valley she reflected that her unconscious decision to investigate the source of the pressure was probably unwise, even though the valley was the only possible source of the mental attack. She always wanted to know the cause of unusual things; or even the mundane, much to her father’s delight and her mother’s weary patience.
She had time to ponder on various possibilities for both the source of the mental attack and what she should do about it. A strange type of magic attack was her only guess, though she had never heard of such a thing being possible. She had a feeling the attack wasn’t even aimed at her as the snickers had also been knocked down. She hoped she would see the originator of the attack before they saw her.
Cresting the rise she looked into the valley. A large man was standing over a young teenage girl. He had a triumphant grin, whilst the girl looked scared but somehow resigned to whatever the man had decided on her fate.
Tril couldn’t help herself and shouted at the man, “Stop what you are doing!”
The man spun instantly to face her whilst drawing a vibrant red weapon and pointing it at her. His incredibly quick reaction shocked her. How could he move so fast? His hostile expression instantly changed to distain at the sight of her.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
“A local primitive. Just your unlucky day to come to the mountains.” He said in the most ridiculous high squeaky voice Tril had every heard.
Tril struggled to not burst out into laughter. Only the seeming seriousness of the girl’s situation helped quell her mirth; that and the fact that the weird looking man was pointing a red coloured weapon directly at her. Red usually indicated danger, and her instincts were screaming at her to run.
He started to say something more to her but was interrupted by an intense flash of light which caused Tril to shield her eyes and blink rapidly to regain her vision. The flash of light was accompanied by a incongruously soft popping sound.
Once Tril regained some sight she peered through the spots in her vision, only to find the girl laying on her back cradling a small blue weapon in her hands. The large man was nowhere to be seen! Not even his weapon. Where did he disappear to? He did move extremely fast when he initially whirled to confront her but how could he just disappear?
Tril blinked her eyes some more which fully restored her sight though she still couldn’t spy the man. She cautiously approached the girl while scanning her surroundings. The girl smiled weakly up at her.
“Are you okay? Where did he go?” Tril asked in bewilderment.
“I vaporised him.” The girl replied, then started coughing, blood immediately appearing on her lips. Speaking had set her to coughing. The girl paled as she gasped for breath in between bouts of coughing.
“Don’t try to speak!” Tril cautioned the girl. Her concern for the girl faltered for a moment as the import of what the girl had said sunk in. Vaporised? A brief flash of alarm ran through her nervous system but her natural instinct to help the obviously hurt girl quickly overrode her worry.
The girl looked at her weirdly, tilting her head to the side as she examined Tril. Drawing a careful breath she whispered, “Are you from the agency?”
Seeing Tril’s puzzlement she looked both excited and sad. Seemingly making a decision, she firmed her expression into one of concentration, <“I am Deeja, from the Galactic Psi Agency. I don’t have long to live. Know that you have latent psi abilities which seem to have great potential if your ability to resist the mind powers of the Sram just now is any indication.“>
Tril blinked, this time in shock. She spoke to me with her mind! Tril could somehow sense where the girl was located when she used telepathy, and how she formed the thoughts then transmitted them to her. The thoughts went into a kind of buffer or holding location then were shaped and pushed as a whole to her consciousness.
To her wonderment, she realised she could sense the girl’s mind! She carefully moved her new found sense towards the girl. She was stopped by a barrier. Was the girl protecting her mind somehow? Did everyone have this barrier and this was why no one knew about thought transmission? Plus the seemingly necessary first step of putting your thoughts into the buffer before pushing or aiming the whole package to the receiver.
The whole thought transfer process was simple yet complicated, and amazing! What else could be possible? Reading minds, sensing emotions, transferring memories,,, Tril was feeling blown away by the experience and the potential uses.
Focusing herself, she tried her first thought transmission, <“Hello? Am I doing this right?”> she thought back at the girl, hoping she wasn’t making a fool out herself.
A faint smile blossomed on the girl’s face. <“Yes, you are doing well. Keep directing your thoughts at me so they don’t spread. If any more Sram are in the area they won’t be able to hear you.”>
The thought of more of the Sram distracted Tril from the shock of being able to speak telepathically with the girl. Gathering herself together she asked, <“What can I do to help you?”>
The girl replied sadly. <“Nothing I’m afraid.”> Seeing Tril’s worried expression she tried to console her, <“I have had a long and mostly happy life, doing what I love.”>
<“You don’t look that old?”>
<“I’m over 100,000 of your years old. I have aged well…”> The girl gave her a cheeky, if faint, smile.
Tril blinked in surprise. She had been doing a lot of that since she met the girl. <“Where are you from?”>
The girl coughed again, bringing up more blood and paling even further. <“Not important. I need to hand over my ship before I die.”>
Seeing Tril’s frown she continued,<“She is a space ship with a great personality. I’m young compared to her. She is over 11 billion of your years old. I was born on her when my parents found her in one of the dwarf galaxies near our own. My parents managed to detect her as they had extraordinary powers of detecting faint psi sources. She is a rare remnant of the first great intergalactic civilisation. They were masters of spacial manipulation. Their level of technology has not been matched since by any of the other nine great galactic civilisations.”> She looked down and took hold of the electric blue gem of the necklace she was wearing. <“It is unbelievable for us to understand how it is possible for such a large ship to be shaped into this necklace in our reality.”>
Removing the necklace from around her neck she looked fondly at it then held the necklace up for Tril to take. <“Look after each other. You both are very special.”>
Tril tried to overcome her feelings of shock, disbelief and being overwhelmed by so many amazing revelations, one after another. What is a dwarf galaxy? What is a galaxy? Galactic civilisations,,, she couldn’t begin to process the flood of new terms and advanced concepts. She had no basic understanding of what the girl was trying to explain to her. Again she centred herself. She struggled to ignore the mix of emotions washing over her, and just managed to stop herself from beginning to ask the myriad of questions she desperately wanted to find out the answers to, to satisfy her natural born curiosity.
She leaned forward and gently took hold of the necklace. <“Should I wear the ship, err, necklace?”>
<“Yes, once you do she will imprint on you and become yours. This is the command necklace of the ship’s captain. She understands her creators no longer exist, and so has given herself the task of helping the worthy races of the galaxy, as defined by her creator’s race.”>
Tril placed the necklace around her neck, feeling apprehensive and excited at the same time. With her new found sense she felt the beginnings of the stirring of a powerful mind. Rays of gold and blue started shining from the necklace. They shone on the young-old girl before her. Motes of multicoloured light floated from her skin, hiding the girl from view.
Tril felt a sense of growing both mentally and physically, though how could she become bigger and remain the same size perplexed her? The process finally finished with the forming of a link in her mind to the necklace’s mind. The size and power of the ship’s mind was beyond her ability to grasp! She only knew it was vast!
Becoming aware of her surroundings again, Tril noticed the girl had disappeared, leaving behind only her weapon. She picked it up carefully, trying not to touch the black button on the handle. She felt this button would activate the weapon. She had no desire to vaporise anything!
Tril looked up from examining the weapon, as she started to hear a low humming sound in the distance. The sound suddenly became louder as a large black object came flying over the top of the mountain peak in front of her. Alarmed by the never before seen sight, Tril watched as the object rapidly sped in her direction!
<“Molecular what? How do I hide from an enemy that can fly? That thing is fast!”> Tril thought back at the necklace-ship. She glanced down at her turquoise blue shirt and white shorts, <“I’m not exactly wearing camouflage clothing!”>
<“Lay down and play dead.”>
<“What? You have got to be kidding me!”>