Star Force: Sav (SF51) by Aer-ki Jyr Read Free Book Online

himself
to his feet with Jason grabbing his arm to help stabilize him.
    “Come on,” Paul said, leading the way. “Let’s get this
figured out.”

 
    “Here,” Vortison said to Paul as Bo lay on a bed on
the other side of the room under a scanner with Jason by his side monitoring
other readouts. “This data you probably never looked at. It’s all statistics
relating to the tissue growth process and has never been translated. I just got
used to looking at it in V’kit’no’sat because some of their means of
recordkeeping don’t have English or Metric equivalents.”
    Paul looked at the data, seeing a bunch of
mathematical symbols mixed in with various terminology. “What am I looking
for?”
    “Nothing without the proper context, but basically
this outlines how the tissue is supposed to be grown…and in this case the Sav
is clearly supposed to occur in various stages. The ‘instability’ that you guys
refer to is actually part of the prep work that allows a smoother transition.
I’d guess that Bo forced the transfer too quickly, which is why he’s in so much
pain now. Same thing for the rest of you. Once the
flash growth stops the pain should as well.”
    Paul considered that. “I was under the impression that
the instability was a hurdle to overcome in order to activate the ascension. I
didn’t know it was variable?”
    “I can’t say for certain because I’ve never
experienced it myself, but I would guess that your tissues want time to adapt
in stages. Not entirely sure what that would feel like from your end though…”
    “Did his form incorrectly?”
    “I would say no, for the most part. Everything appears
to be there that should be, it’s just chewed up from the hyper-condensed
process. He’s got more than a pound of new tissue in his head. That alone will
cause headaches until everything adjusts.”
    “I went through that with the bioshield ascension,”
Paul reminded him.
    “Yes, but that was spread out over your entire body.
His tissue is all in one place, more or less if you ignore the tendrils.”
    “Cranial pressure?”
    “Stabilizing. The V’kit’no’sat
did good work when they designed these. My guess is he’ll work it all out in
time, he just rushed it and got temporarily fried in the process.”
    Paul nodded, taking that as good news despite the fact
that meant Bo would be in considerable pain for at least few days, if not more. “Any idea why he went to tier 3?”
    Vortison held up a finger as he switched screens,
bringing up the data that had been transmitted to the computer just before the
ascension occurred.
    “I don’t think the tiers are meant to be stepping
stones. They’re a level of power or difficulty if you want to think of it that
way. Sav has no precursor other than the tier ones, and I think it’s the
intensity of your training that triggered it. You know far better than
me…what’s your training like compared to what the Zen’zat do?”
    Paul hesitated for a moment, for that was a tricky
question. “We use a different basic philosophy, but a lot of their training
regimens are just as intense, if not more so.”
    “Do they have an equivalent to the drill you were running
with Bo?”
    “Not that I’m aware of. We were actually trying to
activate Pren when this happened.”
    “Same drills as the others?”
    “Exactly the same.”
    “Then I would hazard a guess that there was something
different in his training leading up to this point. I’d dig into those records,
if you have them.”
    “I’ll see what I can find,” Paul promised, walking
back over to Bo and Jason.
    “He’ll be alright,” Jason said confidently. “Not as
bad as I was,” he said, tapping the flatscreen display, “but he did get a good rug burn.”
    Paul thumbed back over his shoulder towards Vortison.
“He thinks we’re pressing the ascensions too fast and that’s the problem. Seems
Sav is meant to occur in growth stages. You got it on the first try and as a reward
got