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

      “Is that a way of saying that I’m fat?” Jay teased.

      To his surprise she didn’t immediately apologize but instead went along with him. “No, my lord husband, you actually seem to be very fit. Your muscles are your most attractive feature.”

      Jay grinned, but then she added, “Which is a good thing to make up for your lack of fur, blunt teeth, funny ears, and odd shaped nose. To say nothing of your lack of claws and a tail.”

      He simply shrugged and said, “No one can be perfect, but I bet your Tamoori males can’t do this”. Then with just a moment of thought he created a PSI blade and sliced through a three-foot tree. Before it hit the ground, he caught it with kinetic manipulation and then used Molecular Separation to turn the tree’s trunk into so much dust on the wind.

      Then he fed energy through Genesis Modification Mastery and caused the branches to grow new leaves feeding them solely with his power before he finally burst into flame form and ignited it, incinerating the rest of the tree in a second.

      When he looked back at Eesa, she said, “If my people had not outgrown the belief in gods, I would probably assume you were a god. With their belief in the Source, some of them may still end up worshiping you.”

      Jay made a coughing sound and then said, “Truthfully, I still believe it is likely that humans are the source of PSI in the universe. You know a little bit about how much PSI your helite crystals hold as well as how much your mystics use, right?”

      “All children receive some education on it but if they are not born with the mystic gift they are pushed into a path as a scientist, maker, breeder, which is what you would call a farmer, or a warrior. Now that the A’snkarnt helped us to use PSI with our starfighters I have learned more about it than ever before.

      As an energy source it is fairly rare at least when compared to nuclear, or solar, or geo-thermal energy as examples. Very little is known about it in that it doesn’t behave as particles or rays would. There is an expression that PSI is as PSI does, meaning the only real way to understand PSI is to see it in use. Even the A’snkarnt had no real understanding of it.”

      “Okay, interesting. And how many PSI points does a helite crystal hold and how many can a mystic hold on their own?” Jay asked.

      “The strongest of mystics can hold as much as one hundred PSI according to what I was taught but as an example, Jad-bal-ja’s wife who is a mystic can probably control thirty of forty PSI on her own. I don’t know the specifics about that.

      I do know more about helite crystals. They range from one hundred for tiny crystals to the strongest which can hold ten thousand. Our fighters are set up to store crystals holding between ten and twenty thousand PSI, but we don’t have enough of those crystals so only a small number of starfighters can be fully equipped at a time,” Eesa answered.

      “Thank you, so, let me tell you that the crystal that Mia showed off with the elders held one hundred thousand PSI and now since the further fusions she can make a crystal with half a million PSI. If her skills fully develop, she may be able to get closer to a million and that is without any further fusions.”

      “If only we had more of those, my lord husband. We could have ten thousand starfighters attacking at the same time. Well assuming we could build that many of them,” Eesa said.

      “We can make you hundreds of crystals. It would be demanding work, but Mia and all the other fuses can now make crystals thanks to a new skill we have, called Assimilate. Each of us could make between six and twelve crystals per hour and of course with time dilation we could create enough to power all the fighters you can build,” Jay replied.

      “It is too much to even imagine,” Eesa said with a sigh.

      “Thinking about that, how much PSI do you think that my body is holding now?”

      She stared at him for a second as though she could see through his poker face. “From what you have shown me you are tremendously powerful, lord husband. I know that some of it is your physical strength, but I have to guess that another part of it is your PSI powers. Although, I concede that I don’t know much at all about how such things work. Even what little I know about our mystics is dwarfed by what you humans can do. If I had to guess though, maybe twenty-thousand PSI.”

      Jay smiled, “Oh, I have so much more to show you. Right now, my body is holding almost four point seven million PSI and I can produce that much every five minutes.”

      “How is such a thing possible? You must truly be a god.”

      “Sadly, every time I think I have become strong enough to protect all of my family, I learn that the dangers are even more deadly than before. There are hundreds of thousands of Forlorn ships now. I am baffled as to how we will defeat them all. Even if we were able to upgrade your starfighters to the point that they were each a match for one of the larger Forlorn battleships, you have what, a thousand ships and ten thousand capable pilots? It isn’t enough,” Jay said.

      “Won’t you join in the fight?”

      “Of course, but I have yet to figure out how I will fight in the void of