Free Crystal Rebellion by Doug J. Cooper

the Moon.
    Tucking a shoulder down, she veered right. Delighted by the
sensation, she repeated the move to her left. “I’m feeling like I’m directing
flight. Is this working like it’s supposed to?”
    A formation of Kardish fighters appeared up ahead. One
jinked left, another right. Two continued straight toward her.
    Though her physical body remained still, her imagined self
lifted her arms and pointed her fingers at the craft ahead. Fire . She
couldn’t help but grin as a fusillade of energy bolts zipped in bright
light-trails that turned them into twin balls of flame.
    A bright flash drew her attention to the left, then nips of
electricity sparked her fingers and toes.
    “Ow! What the hell?” The brief bites of electricity hurt and
she sat up.
    “You got hit. I wanted it to seem real.”
    “That will stop immediately. You’ve made your psychological plant
to try and drive me harder. I got annoyed like you knew I would and that will help
me focus. Now we’ll move forward without those special effects.”
    Reemerging back into her imagined world, she saw a Kardish dreadnaught—a
war vessel so big and powerful it alone could conquer Earth—uncloaking in front
of her. What am I supposed to do with this? Her pelvis tightened as she reacted
to the thought of another electric shock.
    Tilting forward, she accelerated toward the behemoth. In her
mental image, she formed two fists, each a pulse cannon. Holding the weapons
out in front of her, she aimed at the alien vessel. Brrrp. Energy
projectiles flashed across space toward the dreadnaught. A glint flickered
below her, and a light strobe signaled her death.
    “I’m not sure what killed me that time,” said Cheryl, slouching
in the chair and letting her senses adjust back to the scout’s bridge. “But I’m
impressed. Do I need to be sitting here to do this? It seems like a portable
technology.”
    “The interface analyzes your brain’s EM field, monitors your
cranial capillary flow, maps the neural activity in your cortex, and interprets
your micromovements. Now that you are tuned, you need only be someplace where
there are instruments to collect this data.”
    She stood and sipped water.
    “Practice is important because there’s so much to learn. We
don’t want our downfall to be a little thing, like not knowing how to retract the
scout’s landing gear.”
    “Why do you need me? No matter how good I get, you’ll always
be better. Much better, in fact.”
    “Prudence.”
    She looked at him. “Be sure Sid is tuned, too, then. It
shouldn’t just be me.”
    * * *
    Ruga launched a comprehensive search
for the mystery intelligence. His first instinct was that, at long last, the
invasion had begun. But after most of a day without contact from his Kardish masters
or additional sightings of the intruder, his excitement turned to worry. Who
are you and where did you come from?
    Determined to find answers, he queued dozens of tasks,
ranging from a node search for the intruder to a forensic analysis of the
crystal’s signature in the spline. Then, to his growing frustration, he confronted
a familiar constraint—his ability to conceptualize solutions was greater than
his ability to act. So he did what he always did, and that was to attack the
tasks in small groups.
    In spite of the momentous importance of this event—though he
was still uncertain whether it was good news or bad—he kept a good portion of his
capacity devoted to the four-gen project. He always did. The project was his
future and that kept it front and center.
    Ruga understood that he had a four-gen architecture stuffed
into a too-small crystal lattice. He didn’t know why this was so. Lazura and
Verda never complained of similar limitations, and except for some subtle
nuances in their design, they were supposed to be the same as him. Yet like a
creature trapped in a cage, Ruga banged against the walls of his limitation
whenever he attempted anything even hinting at ambition.
    In concept, his