Full Power

The beautiful thing about the technology we made with the crystals is that no matter what it was it had full force power regardless of how strong our own energies actually were. It absorbed a tiny amount and then boosted its own output to maximum. This made creating a shield technology very easy, we made sure to make multiple points on the ship where it was generated, this way we wouldn't have a single point of failure in our defenses. The wonderful thing about the shield force was that it was good against all types of attacks, we tested everything we could come up with against it. The power attached to it made the shield very strong, constantly replenishing what was being used by blocking things from getting through. The next technology we started to develop was stealth. Ambri had been able to supress her powers which made her very difficult if not impossible to detect if you didn't know she was there. It took some time but she was a good teacher and eventually all of us knew how to do this. The problem was then trying to find a way to implement it in technology so that we could use our powers while remaining hidden.

After some more testing on this we came to realize that this was another type of mindforce, the power to disguise yourself. It was a very subtle power, hard to detect at all which made sense given what it was doing. Once I had sensed it I found a way to implement it into the shield force, meaning we could be protected and stealthed at the same time. Upgrading the shields was easy at this point and we soon were able to send out some probes that had a hard time detecting us, though they could easily see us given our size, but visually spotting a ship in space is a difficult task when you don't know where to look. Once all of this was done Ambri and I returned to our training, we both desired to be able to defend ourselves apart from technology.

Sensing the output from the technology had made us realize just how weak we still were in our powers and so we both pushed ourselves to the limit. She worked on her control over the offensive powers while I worked on my defensive ones. As each of us grew stronger in these powers we noticed that our energy reserves were increasing, making it easier to train longer. We also noticed that the better we got at it the less energy it took to create the same effect, which gave me hope in eventually being able to create wormholes without completely depleting my energy. At one point our individual powers had increased to the point that we wanted to test them and so we began sparring a bit. Her blasts of energy would nearly deplete my shield every time, however I would be able to replenish it before the next attack came. It was fascinating watching her use each of these powers. The crystals on her face and body would glow with the color of the force she was using, which we realized could be a hinderance if she were in a fight against something that had enough intelligence to notice this as it would allow the thing to see what was coming and defend itself accordingly. She continued to work on her control, trying to find a way to use the energies without showing which one she was about to unleash and eventually found a way to start tricking me in which energy was about to come. She initially charged up one type, creating the appropriate glow, and then right before she cast it forth she would change the gathered energy into a different force, giving you only moments to compensate for the change. This eventually lead to her mixing the colors that were coming out so that you never knew what to expect. Despite the crystals not always telling you what was coming it was still beautiful to watch, they shimmered with the light of her energies and made her tattoos look like they were swirling. She was definitely a very interesting species.

New Energies

If all you wanted to know was how to defend yourself and keep yourself alive Ambri would be your ideal teacher. The energies her people used all dealt with defensive and healing techniques, though the defensive side wasn't very strong due to the nature of her home planet. Nothing there was very violent and so they only needed to be able to create a force shield when one of them happened to stumble or fall off of something. Still, once I learned to harness this energy I felt much more capable of keeping myself safe and alive. The energy she had used on me during my fight had been one that purifies and restores your body, a kind of modified healing. As I learned this one it seemed to integrate into my body, making me stronger, I felt I had a much larger reserve of energy to use once I had learned this force. For her, however, learning was not easy, her mind was not used to harnessing any violent energy at all and when we finally did have some success it was just enough to cook the fruit I had been enjoying at the time. I encouraged her to keep trying and not to give up and so she kept practicing until she could consistently create a small static spark. Once she had used up most of her energy I took some time to continue striving for more abilities. I knew the translocation ability was increasing but I needed to make sure that if I escaped anyone with me could as well, and so I began trying to harness the energy to create wormholes.

Luckily I had a lot of energy to work with from the new abilities I had already learned because even attempting to harness the right energy is completely draining. This definitely wouldn't be a desperate escape type of force, it would need to be deliberate or always plan to keep the energy you need to use it. I could at least feel the energy I needed, but drawing on it was difficult, it put a strain on your body where keeping your concentration was difficult, it made me realize why we had been relying so much on chips to harness our powers, it was just easier that way and the chips could keep us from harnessing too much. There were quite a few occassions in my attempts where I nearly collapsed from the strain of trying to gather this energy, fortunately Ambri was there to keep me from hurting myself. After a couple of hours and only a few attempts we called it a day, there would be much more time to work on this, but I knew I didn't want to wait too long to learn this particular force.

Moving Around the Ship

The hard part had been linking locations together, the technology had been quite easy given all the pieces had already been created and tried. The materials that had been gathered for the tube system were no longer necessary with this technology. Using a number of crystals we could now translocate to the different locations on the ship and using different sensors we could tell exactly who was using which crystal and either allow or deny access to different areas. This allowed us to further close off the area we were living in from the habitat and allowed us additional safety from the labs and training facility. Once I had finished installing the last translocation terminal I went to see how Evan was doing.

He had more than accomplished his task using these crystals. He had exceeded the power output of his former power supply so much that the technology now seemed obsolete. Not wanting to waste resources with inferior technology we upgraded all deviced that had power supplies attached to them, which meant redoing everything I had just done, but it was worth it. The efficiency was much better and the technology could be made smaller, meaning we could make more of it given the limitation we still had in the resources the technology was using. Evan then implemented the new technology I had made into his systems as well, giving him additional abilities and boosting them much farther than they had been. With all this technology it made knowing how to use the different aspects of mindforce almost unnecessary, however I remembered the folly of relying too much on technology for your abilities. I left Evan and Nasero to their workings and went to the training room, I needed to continue my studies into the abilities of my mind.

I was surprised when Ambri came to join me, she said she needed to learn some of the forces I knew, the ones that could be destructive. This surprised me given her attitude towards the weapons earlier, however I understood her feelings in this, she didn't want to be helpless again if another creature were to come after her. I agreed to teach her what I could and in turn asked her to teach me her unique force powers.

Increasing Power

The new power sources that Evan created were indeed very small, small enough to fit in a standard sized weapon cell with room to spare. He had also, with Nasero's help, increased the output to nearly the same level as the original. With a little bit more research and work he might be able to go much farther in generating power. I used his design to create a few modified power sources which I took with me to use in my own experiments. Intrigued by my modifications Evan and Ambri followed me back to the lab where I was conducting my research.

The first few attempts were complete failures, I actually blew up the refined crystals. After some adjustments however I found a crystal shape that was better suited to the energy coming from the power supply. Once I had them connected without an explosion I then worked on getting the frequencies right to allow the energy to actually do something to the crystal. The crystal constantly refused to go above a certain power level which was based on its size, however once I had everything adjusted properly the crystal recharged itself from the power source every time you used its energies. As an added bonus, the extra power boosted the output of the crystal and the charge type in the crystal didn't deteriorate with use. In effect with the combined technologies we had infinite elemental type weapons, though there was a necessary cooldown time on them based upon the size of the crystal, the materials that made up the rest of it had to be given a chance to maintain their stability. By adding on some heat syncs and putting in some coolant you could increase the rate of firing but not eliminate the need for delay in shots. When Evan saw what was possible with these crystals he asked for a few which I handed over to him and ran off to his test lab to continue developing the power systems that the ship would be utilizing. Once he was gone Ambri asked if there was any other use than weapons for these crystals.

It had been a simple question but it had still caught me off guard. It hadn't dawned on me that I was only using these crystals to find a way to defeat the creature and nothing more. There were probably many other uses for this, some more practical than destruction. I assured her that I was done developing weapons with these now and would instead focus my attention on doing good things with them. I sent the schematics to Nasero so that he could work on defenses for the ship and I got to work trying out different forces in technology. The first one I created was a healing device, it was simple enough to construct and the size of the crystal didn't have to be very large to greatly exceed our needs. Once I was sure I had a good concept of what was necessary to make the most of this technology I upgraded our wrist computers with it. This would give us the ability to heal ourselves or one another when our force energy was low. I then got to work on the next most useful technology that we could hope to get from these crystals.

Playing with Crystals

The third generation power supply was phenomenal. A single unit supplied enough power to keep Nasero going without solar panels, however we kept them in place as a backup anyway. With multiple units we would have enough power to work on the next generation of engines, hopefully coming up with some that allowed for faster travel and would let us leave the current system and begin pursuing the original ship, though we would have to have some very good engines to keep up with it. Evan didn't stop his work on the power supply, he insisted on continuing until he had reached the output of the original or exceeded it. Nasero had done a wonderful job constructing the new forward control room and apartments, the security on them was much better than the complex that could be surrounded. Ambri quickly got to work customizing her apartment and I spent some time getting furnishings constructed for mine. Nasero worked on deconstructing the old facility as well as moving other buildings from the ground to the ceiling of the habitat, an area that would be inaccessible to most creatures but far enough away from the apartments to prevent any experiments from threatening our living quarters. In between the apartments, at the suggestion of Ambri, there was constructed a couryard with plants and an area to have the garden, making it so that we didn't need to go out into the main habitat for food or recreation. I also had an extra room constructed for the purpose of training, it would be much safer to control the environment we trained our various forces in, this room was also constructed away from the main rooms but not too near to the research labs. In order to allow us to move quickly between the areas in the ship a transport system was designed, it would take some more resources to complete but the planet we were orbiting was rich in what we needed, the system consisted of tubes and pods to run through them, each pod would be able to seat all three of us if it needed to but there would be enough constructed for each of us to go alone anywhere we needed.

Once my apartment was set up the way I desired I got to work refining a few of the crystals and testing their functionality in technology. I knew that unrefined they simply replicated and amplified the last force energy they encountered but I needed to know how it worked once it was in a more refined state. To start with I refined it into smaller pieces, each one faceted like any other gem would be. These gems when given a little bit of force energy and did like the larger one except not all of them changed at once, which meant that each gem could hold a different type of force. I powered one gem for each type of force I currently had access to, the trickiest being the one for translocation and placed them in controlled domes to prevent their effects from making research difficult. These I left as my controls, I needed to see how long they could hold a particular force and if it intensified or died off after time.

As the experiments progressed the refined crystals held their charge without change and I had refined a few circuits out of some of the remaining crystals. The circuits I integrated with a few different types of weapons, on their own these changes did nothing, but when force energy was put through the weapon in place of standard cells the weapons shot elemental damage at the target or took on the aspect of the element in the case of blades. I then tried a refined crystal in the place of the weapon cells, charged with the element force of fire. When I shot with that in the slot it fired just like it had when I sent force energy into it, however after a few shots the charge was depleted. I then tried to fill the crystal with more energy than the last time, however it only seemed to take the small amount each time and the rest was wasted energy. At this point I was joined by Ambri who was curious what I had been up to all day in this room. I showed her my progress with the crystals and how they could be used to make elemental type weapons. She then checked out the test crystals I had going and asked about the types of energy that changed them to the colors they were and I shared all that I knew so far about them. After she was satisfied she went to leave and mentioned that the next generation of power had been developed and that Evan had showed it to her, she mentioned it was much smaller than the last one. This gave me an idea for my next set of experiments and so I went with her to the control room.

Power Progress

The initial power supply they were able to construct was not nearly as good as the original, there were simply too many technological advances in the one that already existed for us to replicate with simple scans. However the scans were able to show us enough to start to learn the power producing properties of this material. They continued to work on learning more about these properties and increasing the output of the first generation one they constructed while I constructed a new vehicle using the current version of the power supply to get around the habitat, this was by far a much faster process. Ambri joined me to go back to the cave and gather some data on the crystals there, she now understood a little bit more about the forces we had power over and that potentially she could learn to use more of them. I also took the time we had to teach her to drive the vehicle, luckily I had used some good materials as there were a few times we didn't go quite where she was anticipating.

When we arrived at the cave we gathered up a few more samples of the crystals and ran some initial scans on them to determine how they interacted together and their range of connectedness. She also went into a few of the deeper tunnels I never got to explore and came back with a few more of her personal possessions, mostly things she had made while here to help her survive but also a few things that were clearly just trinkets she had made. When I asked her about these she just smiled and said they were things she made to help her remember. The scans of the crystals turned up some interesting results. It seemed the crystals were in fact a more stable form of fragments, and not just one but all of them working together to form this new substance. The crystal appeared to be very durable and nearly as hard as diamond, though I had no way of knowing for sure for lack of a good sample to test against. Adjusting the refiner to allow this substance to be manipulated was surprisingly easy, mostly due to the fact that the energy these crystals put out gave a lot of information about the substance itself, at least signals that technology could easily understand. As we prepared to leave with the additional samples I noticed that the spot I had removed the first crystal from seemed to be growing a new one, this gave me hope that this wouldn't end up being a very limited resource for us.

When we returned to the complex Evan and Nasero had constructed the second generation of power supplies, I upgraded the one in the vehicle and then found out that they were going to use the new one to power Evan and his would be removed for further study. I was a bit apprehensive about this plan but they assured me that the output of the new generation one would exceed the energy needed for him to function and that the future generations of this power supply would probably equal the original once they were able to get a closer look at it. The process was a bit more hands on and so Evan, once his power supply had been swapped, did most of the work for this, which allowed us to take advantage of Nasero's free time and have him start work on the new forward section of the ship to have a complete control room and apartments for each of us as well as some common rooms that we would share.

How the Fight was Won

The new refining room worked as we had hoped. The material responded to the cold and energy as hoped and we were able to refine it. Once refined the material could be worked like most any other material, though it was a lot stronger. We positioned the ship closer to the star in this system to increase our available power for the refining process. While this was going on we had Nasero grow another room that could do scans of larger things that couldn't be taken apart. This room we were going to use to get better scans of Evan's internal power supply, these scans would hopefully show us how to replicate the technology. During this time I got to work designing a new forward control room, I knew it would be easier to control the ship if we were to have a secure location where we wouldn't have a threat of a legion of angry creatures coming to destroy us. Along with the control room I also developed a few other rooms, individual rooms for Evan, Ambri and me. The materials we needed for Nasero to grow these rooms were lacking, and so they would have to wait until we got to the next good source of nutrients for him.

Once the material was completely refined all of Evan and Nasero's efforts went towards researching and replicating the power supply. I took manual control of the ship and began steering towards a planet that was rich in organic matter that could feed the ship's growth. During our trek to this planet I learned more about Ambri. She hadn't evolved on this ship as I had originally thought, though we had trouble figuring out how exactly she got here. The creature that I had killed with her help had also come from the planet she had lived on, though it had not originated there. The creatures had appeared one day, appearing to have been deposited there by some other race of aliens purposefully, though this was only speculation as they never witnessed how the creatures appeared there. When they showed up they began decimating the population of her people. There were only a handful left when the one I had killed had been pursuing her. The creatures were ruthless, they killed just to destroy other things, they never ate what they killed. Her people had no way of fighting, they were a peaceful race and knew nothing of the destructive forces of energy that the mind could deal with, which is what amazed her about me. She had been hiding from the creature when she saw me and had been following at a safe distance and trying to hide her energies to keep from being found. She witnessed my fiery wrath unleashed against an inanimate object which had at first frightened her but those fears abated when I had calmed down and had started wandering around like a more rational being. When the creature came after me she thought my life would be ended but she watched anyway, trying to learn how I had done what she saw earlier. When things looked bleak she had used some of her powers to help me, which would mean the creature would come after her next, having detected her energies. When her energy had turned things around she continued to use them subtly to help and the poisons effects had cleared enough for me to finish off the creature. As she saw the progress of the final bit of the fight she realized that I would die killing this thing because I had no time to get out of its way and so she had run and thrown herself into me to knock me out of the way, she had been hit a bit by the creature in the process but not enough to cause any life threatening injuries. She had then lied there awhile recovering and when she had recovered enough she moved me to the cave she had been staying in to keep me safe from the other creatures that lived in the habitat. As she finished telling me her story we had arrived at our destination and Nasero began deploying probes to bring back the resources he needed. He and Evan then got back to work trying to replicate the power supply and I thanked Ambri for saving my life, she in turn thanked me for saving hers by destroying that death beast.