Free Star Force: Proving Ground (SF66) by Aer-ki Jyr Page B

distance. Iden backed up a
step, continuing to fire down as the closest lizards reached the upper three
steps and began shooting back. The striker held his ground and killed two more,
taking a pink spurt of phaser into his shields before he stepped forward and
kicked one back into the group, causing a domino effect that knocked half a
dozen down before the kinetic momentum was bled off.
    More from behind pushed those who had fallen back up
and onto their feet, with Iden going hand to hand and smacking the next closest
lizard with the butt of his rifle. A telekinetic push sent another on the
stairs tipping backwards. Flipping off his shields the striker tossed his rifle
aside on the floor of the hallway and tackled the next closest lizard, emitting
a Fornax field as he did so. The resistance in its limbs and those behind it
vanished, with him pushing the pile of them back down the stairs using his own
momentum and weight.
    He kicked himself free and climbed back up the stairs
before he released the field, summoning his rifle back into his grip and using
it to shoot the stack of disoriented bodies below as he got a recall prompt and
new waypoint. A wide Fornax blast as a going away present covered his tracks as
Iden raced down the hallway to the left and joined up with two of the others as
all the Archons converged on Sonya’s position and pushed their way down a
single stairwell.
    “We’re going out through the lobby, run and gun,” she
told them. “Stay behind me and Chrissie and shoot targets of opportunity, but
don’t break off. We’re going to have to hammer our way out.”
    “What happened to the gun port?” Iden asked.
    “I can feel wisps outside, so that’s a no go.”
    “Looks like we got their attention,” one of the
rangers noted as Sonya/Chrissie threw up an invisible wall that shoved some 8
lizards back from the base of the stairs at the lower level and into the
hallway, clearing a path for the Archons to continue moving down. Iden snapped
off a pair of shots as he passed, hitting at least one lizard as the others did
the same, with the last man in line throwing Fornax blasts behind them to keep
their tracks clear.
    Their route down through the tower was predictable,
with every level there being more and more opposition, but it wasn’t until they
hit the bottom third of the building did they run into the first physical
barricade blocking the stairs. Iden felt a battlemeld prompt and accepted, with
the Archons using Nemsa to create a joint telekinetic
push that dislodged the heavy canisters from where they sat, picking one up and
throwing it further down the stairwell where it bowled over or crushed numerous
lizards below. The others they moved into a side hallway one by one, with the
Archons without Nemsa using their Ikrid to disrupt
the lizards on the other side and throwing in a few Fornax blasts where they
had clean lines of sight so they wouldn’t hit the other Archons.
    Iden had gotten his Nemsa not through individual ascension, but from another Clan Jinx striker. Likewise
most of the other strikers had acquired a handful of battlemeld and tier 2
psionics in the same way, with Pren being the only
trigger that he’d found on his own. It added to his telekinetic power, which
was then multiplied many times over by combining it with the others’ power
levels. Adding theirs together not only gave them a sum total greater than what
any individual could produce, but by using multiple emitters they gained a
power boost from the overlap, and the more minds involved the larger the boost.
    They could have lifted a small tank together if need
be, so they didn’t have trouble moving the makeshift barricades until they came
within 3 levels of the surface and found structural components welded across
the stairwell. Together they tried to dislodge them, with a few openings
sprouting a phaser blurp or two before the lizards on
the other side were psionically shut down through one means or another.
    “Cover