Sen and Josh moved with a purpose down the passageways through the ship. Sen felt the same burden Josh did through their Karmic Bond. They shared thoughts so rapidly they couldn’t tell whose was which.

~Symbal’s need is a mirror reflecting our goal for Sophie.~

~There is no question that we need to save this girl to save Sophie.~

~Agreed, without a doubt!~

~If Symbal’s daughter is alive... we have to do everything possible to bring her back.~

Head shake. ~To fail her is to fail Sophie!~

As ridiculous as this seemed, it felt true down to the bottom of their cores. The girl had to save this girl at all costs. Karma demanded they achieve this to reach balance—either for what they had received or, more likely, for what they would ...

Sophie’s safety.

Sen and Josh started walking faster. Transcend us if we should fail!

~Yes, she must be saved.~

Epsilon 97 was perched on the Hegemon 4’s upper-surface decks, just forward of the waist of the ship. It was a vast free space with an open range for fostering forest habitats and growing crops. The area was primarily used for research by investigators looking into organismal growth in space environments. Knowing all these things helped Sen understand how an invasive species found its way into Epsilon 97 and why they might have wanted to stay. Sen could also understand why making it available for the expanding crew had never been an emergency. It was primarily an area for “eggheads,” as his father would have described them. Such researchers were usually the last aboard any duty vessel.

Sen and Josh arrived via monorail at the midship junction. From there, they would catch a “skin-to-skin” shuttle flight, where they left the surface of the Hegemon and landed back down on the surface of the Hegemon in order to enter the main airlock of Epsilon 97. Their last leg of the trip was the longest in distance but the shortest in time. At 20,000 km from their insertion point, it would take less than one minute of flight time. A shuttle wouldn’t typically be used for such a short intra-ship hop. But Symbal’s influence was anything but ordinary. Just a digital order with his name on it was enough to make the crew snap to attention and ask if there was anything else they could do to facilitate Josh and Sen’s travel.

Josh smiled and nodded to Sen. ~ The small things in life make it fun.~

~I’m starting to learn this.~

It had taken them three Earth hours on the monorail to get from the center mass of Hegemon-4 to its surface. Sen used the time to train individually with the short sword.

As part of his normal routine, he spent the first minutes training to continue perfecting his basics. He started with blocking maneuvers and footwork, focusing on the head, shoulders, abdomen, chest, legs, and the basic guard. He then moved on to attacks, thrusts, lunges, and parry maneuvers. Parrying was very limited with a short sword, but such was Sen’s lot in life right now, as enforced by the Clone limiting their offensive capabilities.

After this, Sen grabbed one of the practice-longswords and focused the remainder on dual-wielding attacks and blocking. Sen was playing a losing game. He would eventually have to find a new way to apply the mundane acts of sword usage... Or find a grandmaster to further his knowledge. This was a problem for tomorrow, though. For now, he could still slowly but steadily improve what he knew. So, he did.

As he finished his last sequence of dual weapon figure eight passes, his probability interface chimed—

Advancement.

An increase of one skill point. Even this little bit was enough. He and Josh would figure something out. Of that, I am sure.

Josh’s instruction came after. For him, just reviewing the basics still yielded significant results, which was what they did. Sen was encouraged that Josh’s retention was phenomenal. It even showed in his sparring. He lacked the skills to stop Sen from overpowering him with strength and speed. But he never fell for the same trick or feint twice. Truly remarkable for any student.

After their session, Josh stood for several long moments looking at his sword and focusing the Essence in his right hand to swirl around the sword’s pommel.

Sen finally took note and asked Josh. “Troubles?”

Josh squinted as if looking for the right phrase, “... I’m just thinking about the first tenet of sword usage you taught me.” Then, with a meek, slightly Asian accent, Josh repeated, “The sword is an extension of your body...”

Sen rolled his eyes at Josh’s weak joke.

Josh quickly changed the subject back to what he was doing. “--So, anyway... I cycle Essence through all the other extremities of my body. Why not this extremity?” Josh slightly raised his short sword to make his point. “By applying the concepts of EM fields to how our Essence flows through our meridians, I’m almost certain that I can get Essence into this sword under the same physical principles that arcing electricity does when it...well, arcs.” Josh started repeating complicated mathematical formulas under his breath, then looked up and waggled his eyebrows at Sen. “By applying these electrical-magnetic formulas to our Essence... I should be able to treat this sword the same as my hand. And... viola—”

At that point, they both felt Josh’s Essence break the barrier between his hand and flow into the pommel of the Titan Short Sword. It took on a golden-orange hue, like Josh’s Earth-Attuned Essence. The sword immediately began releasing sensations of sharpness and durability.

Josh’s interface chimed.

New Earth Attunement skill created:

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Weapon enhancement: Invest 200 units of Earth Attuned Essence into a weapon for 100 percent probability to increase a weapon’s durability by 1000 percent and damage rating by 500 percent. Duration dependent on use. Increase your cultivation to increase this Earth-attuned skill.

Check your status for details on current weapon enhancement.

Weapon:

Titan Short Sword

Bladed Weapons Skill Level: Junior Basic (10% → 20%)

Damage:

Superior mundane

Quality: Mundane masterwork. Allows interface guidance for optimal usage.

100% probability of 915% increased damage vs. standard hand-to-hand.

Body

Earth Attunement: 100% probability of increasing your health status by 5000%. 100% probability of increasing the molecular density of your skin by 780%.

Weapon Enhancement: Invest 200 units of Earth Attuned Essence into a weapon for 100% probability to increase a weapon’s durability by 1000% and its damage rating by 500%. Duration dependent on use. Further increase your health status, connective tissue density, and Earth Attuned Skills by increasing your level and cultivation.

Psyche

Mortal level

Spirit

Spherical cultivation level 47% to stage 2/7.

Weapon:

Bladed Weapons

Skill Level:

Junior Basic (20%)

Damage:

Superior Mundane (Earth Enhanced)

Quality: Mundane masterwork.

Allows interface guidance for optimal usage.

100% probability of 865% (x5 while Earth enhanced) increased damage vs. standard hand-to-hand.

Armor: None

Standard Earth Attunement resilience.

Josh explained his experience to Sen and then gave details of his new skill and its impact on increasing weapon durability and damage by 500 percent. Sen’s eyes bugged out at that, and he immediately began working with his own Essence. For the next sixty minutes, Josh guided Sen to arc his Essence. By the end, it was Sen’s turn to be drenched in sweat with his hand white-knuckling his sword’s pommel as he felt the Earth-Attuned Essence leave his meridians. His short sword took on the same golden-orange hue as Josh’s. They smiled at each other dumbly.

“We need to test this out!” They said at the same time.

Josh supposed that it was always challenging to find something on a spaceship that was a sufficient quality material, but not essential to the operation of the vessel–just to destroy it. From watching the Discovery Channel, Josh knew that an entire special division of the military corps of engineers spent most of its time building things just so they could be blown-up.

Fortunately, this was not a problem Josh presently faced.

He walked over to the training dummy he had been striking moments before. Its transparent green energy shield covered a pristine, humanoid-shaped torso and head.

Josh cycled the Earth Essence from his sword back into his meridians and smiled. “My free Essence is back at 1200. No loss when I cycled the Essence back into my meridians from the sword.”

Sen nodded sagely. “Essence is eternal. It is never lost or diminished, it simply transitions among various states of being.”

Josh scowled. ~You lying ass dog... I can tell through the Bond you were just as uncertain as I was...~

Sen laughed nervously. ~Well... someone... somewhere taught me... I just didn’t remember until you pointed it out...~

Rolling his eyes at Sen, Josh turned back to the business at hand. He cycled his Essence to his hips and upper body and struck a standard midrange upswing. The shield crackled and hissed but held. Josh didn’t feel bad at the lack of damage to the training dummy. Not after watching the Hegemon’s fire teams farther down range on this monorail gym get the same results with their heavy ordinance.

He then invested 200 Essence in his sword and restored its golden-orange hue. Repeating his swing, the glowing sword smashed through the shield like so much glass, evoking a brief static hiss from the apparatus powering it. The shattered pieces of its energy fell in broken shards and dissipated into floating motes before they hit the ground. Josh’s sword continued through the neck of the dummy, sending its head to fly off to slam against the wall thirty paces down range. Its trajectory of showering sparks took it over several of the still-shooting teams’ lines of fire. The smoke from the head’s severed end quickly died as it wobbled face up before coming to a rest.

The combined gym and firing range went silent, and all heads turned to stare at Josh.

With a deep smile, Josh looked around, sheathing his sword. “Oops...”

Then, they cleared out of the firing range in a hurry, the gym attendants sending dirty looks in their direction. The hit had drained no further Essence. Apparently, the act of cutting with the enhanced blade was like seeing with his enhanced eyes. Not requiring any additional Essence to meet the task…

That was good. But what If I tried to cut another Essence-enhanced blade instead of just this target dummy? Would that increase the cost of Essence? Josh could n’t help but wonder. When there was more time, they would have to do some experimentation… For now, he would keep an eye on it during fights but liked how things were so far.

Standing in the ten-foot cubical airlock of Epsilon 97, Josh and Sen looked through the heavily scarred, transparent doors as they slid to opposing corners, opening on diagonals.

Standing in the ten-foot square airlock of Epsilon 97, Josh and Sen looked through the heavily scarred, transparent doors as they slid open into opposing corners on diagonals.

The temperature was a mild seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. The smell of pine and peat moss greeted their noses, and they heard the sound of bird calls in the distance. After confirming that they hadn’t been immediately attacked by anything, Josh and Sen stepped through the doors onto ground covered in a thick mat of green grass. The area was currently undergoing a daylight period. Overhead, light from an unseen source shone down on them. Josh had no idea how long the day and night cycles were here or what triggered them. After several seconds, the airlock behind them began closing. Near the airlock was a small kiosk with one of the video recording devices that Naron had told them to look for in tracking the space marines. Approximately ten steps in front of them, a line of trees marched off to the right and left.

Sen walked up to the device and entered the given codes.

There was a split-second image of eight heavily armed and armored marines smiling in the kiosk’s monitor. Their body language and weapons were at rest. The view immediately cut to a nighttime closeup of a dark-haired woman who had, by all appearances, spent the last several days roughing it. Josh noted her absent headgear. Leaves and pine needles were poking out at odd angles from her pulled-back hair as if she had just crawled through a day’s worth of tall grass and forest-floor litter.

She began whispering in a rushed voice that was filled with an intense focus.

“Mission log eleven dash echo-bravo. This is First Lieutenant Alysa Nang, second in command of joint scout team delta six”— she glanced overhead briefly at a sudden noise— “I think this… likely... final daily log.” The video and sound cut in and out in sporadic bursts before the resolution and audio came back into sharp focus. “I am the sole member of the team still at liberty. The other seven members are presumed killed following capture. Pursuit is immediately behind me.

“The enemy organisms are sapient with coordination, organization, tactics, and behaviors congruent with terrestrial hive mind organisms.” Lieutenant Nang paused, some of her professional detachment flaking away for a moment. “My gut tells me these things belong to a colony.” She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “Resuming report. Team Delta Six contacted aggressors at oh-seven-forty this morning. We were ambushed. The creatures we have encountered so far function primarily as large, physically powerful drones that attack from concealment. Thick, bony plates cover their surface, and they are resistant to all energy weapons. Only heavy, armor-piercing matter-based mass projectiles are effective against them.”

The disheveled warrior smirked, looking directly into the camera. “That’s right, come heavy and don't let up!” Blinking, she raised a shaking hand to push back a tangle of rogue hairs behind a bleeding ear. Straightening once more, she leveled her gaze directly forward, looking above the camera and resumed her report. “Their primary habitat is the area of the conduit breach we were deployed to secure. They number between twenty and thirty individuals, including the ones cut down in the attached video. There has been no sighting of personnel previously deployed into this area.”

A set of coordinates blinked over the screen’s lower portion, indicating where the joint team had encountered the organisms. Followed by what must have been body-camera footage partially corrupted with static and transmission artifacts likely from the EM disrupting forces of the exposed conduit. Despite this, the film adequately showed several seven-foot tall, mottled white and green, vaguely humanoid forms. Sharp-bony shields covered all joints, along with blade-like protuberances lining their flat bones, heavily augmented the beasts’ long limbs. A heavy triangular snout with narrow slits protected dark, black eyes. There was no apparent mouth... until it hinged open the top half of its head in a 180-degree movement that displayed rows of needle-like teeth. Josh absently thought of a moray eel.

The soldier with the active camera was firing his weapon and yelling obscenities at the attacking monsters, blatantly attempting to taunt them towards him. His large, mass-projection weapon rendered his first and second attackers into large quivering chunks and sprays of white luminescent ichor.

Josh noted idly that there were no acidic smoking hisses from the beasts’ sprayed fluids.

Thank heaven for small favors, he thought grimly.

Suddenly, a clawed hand came into view from the upper right corner of the screen and smashed the warrior’s head against the nearby rock that had been serving as the now-fallen warrior’s firing shield only seconds before.

“This footage is from Chief Petty Officer Tonda’s bodycam. Moments ago, he sacrificed himself so I could get here and warn you.

“Honor his sacrifice. My estimation of the recommended strength for securing this area is a full company–at minimum! Otherwise, do not come down here. I repeat, do not proceed or you will fucking die like we did!

She looked up again and to the side. “They’re here. I’m going to lead them away from the airlock... I have a plan. Please tell my father I love him—”

The video ended.

The time stamp on the message was interpreted by his interface as being recorded one point five hours ago.