Point Zero by Aer-ki Jyr (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

cementing my link to the Saiolum, he’s given me so many ideas for empire upgrades I could stay here days talking about them. Not stuff he came up with, mostly, but spinoffs that I had never considered before. Most of it is Saiolum-related, and until Wilson figures out how to get others across the barrier it won’t be useful.”

“Such as?” Megan pushed.

“Such as having an individual aboard a ship or station that can scan for lifeforms through their displacement in the Saiolum currents, regardless of whether they’re cloaked or not. There’s no way to hide against such a scan unless you are aware of the Saiolum. Those civilizations that are not will be completely blindsided by another’s ability to track them wherever they go, and mass doesn’t matter. You can hide inside a planet and still be perfectly visible if it’s just a big, dead rock.”

“So we’ll need an army of personnel with Saiolum skills?” Davis suggested.

“Yes,” Paul confirmed. “And that will take a great deal of time to develop and train, for our physiology is not well suited to it, though mine now is since my upgrade occurred during my breakthrough. The rest of you may not be as close after you finish, but as long as we have my genetics the Furyans should be able to produce a lot of Saiolum-sensitive individuals whereas recruiting them out of other races would be far more difficult.”

“How difficult?” Wilson asked.

“I don’t have a clear sense of it, so just consider it like a breakthrough to Essence without mechanical assistance…though there are advanced Sha’kier rituals and devices to assist with such things. But we have to advance to that point before we can make use of them, so my future path is remarkably clear. I’m going to learn as much as I can from Azoro and explore the mysteries of the Force to share with the rest of you, as well as act as a conduit for his knowledge in other matters, particularly technology that we haven’t encountered yet.”

“Onboard the Excalibur?” Jason asked.

Paul shook his head. “No. My time there is over, for the most part. When the big battles come I’ll be there, but my highest value is no longer naval. It’s Jedi,” he said with an ironic smile.

“About time,” Jason said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back as Jack suddenly slumped over and blacked out, with Jason telekinetically pulling him up into a better resting position. “Should have given us reclining chairs, Sean.”

“An obvious oversight,” the Director said deadpan. “What can you currently do with this Saiolum?”

“Observe,” Paul said, standing up and walking to the left of the podium as he reached both arms up forward like two horizontal poles…that he then used as leverage points to raise himself into an armstand…while his arms were on nothing but thin air.

“What exactly are you doing?” Wilson asked.

“No Yen’mer, no psionics or Essence at all. I’m gripping the Saiolum in my arms and using it as leverage to hold myself up,” he said, tilting back over again. “It burns a bit when I do it, but it’s because I’m new and raw, but I’m acclimating. In this same way Azoro can cling to me or others and let them drag him across the galaxy…or he can grip the Saiolum and propel himself at much slower speed, though there are many currents, and if you catch the right ones you can go a lot faster. But starships are still the best way to get around, and as long as the crew onboard are living he can ride with them. He can latch onto a drone, but only as long as the drone stays in a sufficiently dense Saiolum area. If not he’ll be peeled off when the density drops too low, such as in between star systems, or sometimes planets if the system isn’t sufficiently populated.”

“Nice trick,” Morgan commented.

“A lot more will come with time,” Paul promised. “But right now I need you to leave this to me to explore. I don’t know how to get you across the threshold, and frankly I don’t want you trying. Our new transformations are what you need to dig into, and hopefully we’ll each have something unique to add to the gene pool later. We need to own this, and be ‘we’ I mean mostly you guys, because I’m doing double duty here, as will Wilson. There are a lot more second gen out there that are probably in the same boat we are, and if they relax enough they may also start to transform. We need to get this nailed down before they accidentally do…which is why we’re not going to tell them about it. Got that, Kara?”

“My lips are sealed,” she promised. “But what about me?”

“You never went Saiyan, but your body has topped out. I don’t know if that’ll be enough.”

“What about this?” she said, holding up her arm so her wrist jewel could be seen.

Paul frowned. “Right. I don’t know about that. It may try to rewrite you to your original code, or maybe the transformation will rid you of the sabotage genetics. It took away my bioplasma, so it doesn’t seem to only make additions.”

“You think I should try?”

“Not today, but down the road, I would. Just let us figure out what this is first.”

“Deal. Now to the most important question. Did you grow a second dick?”

Everyone who wasn’t close to unconsciousness snickered or laughed out loud, including Davis, but not Wilson. He glanced back in her direction with an unimpressed look on his face, but she ignored him as she stared at Paul’s lower section.

“Slightly larger, but still just one. Though my balls got tucked a bit. Guess they didn’t need to get any larger, so I ended up more streamlined.”

“Show please,” Kerrie asked.

Paul didn’t hesitate, and pulled down his pants