Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

far that was more than enough to hold them back, but he was fully prepared to extend it further. Jessie and Bong Cha had already telepathically offered themselves for the circuit once they realized what he was doing. There was a certain temptation to expand the circuit as far as he could. It would definitely be god-like to hold onto more than twenty-eight billion PSI. But Jay had already recognized the danger in thinking too much of himself. These jumps needed to be made little by little so he could adjust and maintain his humanity.

      After a few minutes the bombard slowed and then stopped. They must have come to the conclusion that his wall wasn’t gonna fall. Truthfully with this much PSI and his regen rate he could have kept it up for days. Jay had steadily been trying to read the minds of the defenders. While he could catch glimpses of their thoughts, most of it still came out garbled.

      He assumed that was because they were alien creatures, and their thought patterns might be different. But he was also confident that given a little time he would be able to learn to read their minds. Now he just needed to try to communicate with them. He hoped that making himself understood would be easier than reading their minds.

      Jay focused on emotion and intent as he tried to communicate with them. He broadcast out a telepathic message as broadly as he could, hoping to catch all of them. The five thousand had grown to more like seven thousand and more vehicles and cat men came. For just a moment, Jay was struck by the oddity that the warriors facing them were nearly 99.9% male while his force was almost exactly the opposite.

      “Stop!”

      Apparently his message worked because they all suddenly got very attentive. Equally apparent was the fact that he had yelled a bit too loud as the first dozen ranks of the defenders all dropped to a knee and held a hand to their heads. Jay filed that away a useful note for the future. With enough PSI to back it, even telepathic communication could be turned into a weapon.

      Now that he had their attention he continued, “We do not mean you any harm. We have come to talk and barter for information.”

      There was a flurry of communication going on between the cat people. Their voices ranged from deep guttural growls to the almost comical sound of a house cat in distress. It was going to be hard to keep a straight face when talking to some of these people. Rather than listen to their words though he focused on their thoughts.

      Some wanted to keep fighting. The words ‘hunt’ and ‘prey’ kept coming through. Then he sensed some personage that was respected make his way. The word ‘elders’ was repeated again and again. While listening, Jay freed up the part of his mind that had been assessing the battle capacity of the enemy and instead dedicated it to learning to translate their language. This partitioning thing was great. He only wished he’d had it back in school. So many nights wasted studying when he wanted to be hanging with friends or playing video games.

      Finally, the wall of the cat men’s bodies split and a lion man larger than any of the others came flanked by a dozen females. He wasn’t wearing armor like the others but instead was adorned in rather ornate robes. Clearly this was not just a martial people but one which also had a social hierarchy.

      The lion man stepped forward again after looking at their dead strewn all over the ground in the hundreds. No not lion man, Leon. That was what they called themselves. Or rather it was a translation of what they called themselves if his telepathic scan was working correctly. The Leon elder then called out in a deep voice that Jay could hear even without enhanced senses.

      Jay heard the message and then instantly threw up a Tempus Fugit field around himself. It would only affect a hundredth of a second but would still give him over fifteen minutes to study the language and process the message. Thankfully, that was enough time for Jay to feel fairly confident that he had the general meaning of the message.

      He now also felt that he had enough understanding of their language to be able to speak it. He was definitely digging this new processing power. Just minutes to learn a new language. So now he used his Body Modification ability to reshape his vocal cords in subtle ways. It felt weird but was necessary for him to be able to speak the alien tongue. Human mouths were simply not meant to sound like this.

      “I regret the deaths of your people but mine assure me that they did not attack first. They came to scout out this leviathan and find out what people might be here for us to meet with. They did so in order to prepare a meeting for me with your leaders.

      My name is Jay and I speak for what is left of the human race. Despite our beginning, I would still like to speak with our leaders if you are willing.” Jay didn’t stop and tell them that he was going to get the information whether they wanted him to or not. He would tear the leviathan apart if it would help him to learn where Higen had been taken. He also didn’t try to pass the buck for the girls’ decision to scout without him onto them, no matter how rightful. He wanted to be the type of leader who took responsibility for his subordinates.

      The fact that he spoke in their own language obviously shocked them. They quickly spoke in hushed tones and eventually one of the females whispered in the Leon elder’s