“Sorry,” Cassie threw the picture from her implant onto the feed for screens in the jet.
I slowed the jet down further because now that we were no longer working at the speed of thought, we needed a second. I already had cloaking on. Hopefully, Rook hadn’t figured out a way to detect it.
He’d figured out how to block Cassie’s blade and Grandpa’s monomolecular tech before our last fight. The cloaking tech wasn’t on full display, so he might not realize we had it, but you never knew.
His fascination and admiration for Grandpa’s tech and even mine neared obsession as witnessed by creating his own version of the League jet in addition to his own Rook suits and weaponry.
I wasn’t sure whether it came from admiration or hatred. Maybe jealousy? All of those?
Rachel peered at the screen in front of her chair, “So… Rook? The Rocket wannabe?”
“Wow,” I thought about our past interactions with him, “I don’t think you were around either time we fought him.”
“I was,” Rachel frowned, “but I was out of town for an internship when you were at Higher Ground. The time Cap got captured, I flew along but with the nerve gas in his base, I didn’t come into the fight until the end. I don’t think I even saw him except maybe for a second.”
“It was probably for the best,” I stared ahead toward the flat disc, “Rook’s the kind of guy who’d have the equipment to prevent you from phasing out.”
“I’m looking forward to facing him then because that goes so well,” Rachel stretched out her right arm and grimaced from whatever pain or soreness remained.
Jaclyn’s suit absorbed her helmet, and she took a glance at the screen in front of her before saying, “Do we want to sneak in or fight? We could talk, but we don’t have the best talker with us.”
Cassie laughed, “Rook would talk to the Rocket. He might even talk to me. He was very interested in the Citizen’s Mark when he held me captive.”
Shaking her head, Jaclyn said, “Don’t take this wrong, but I don’t see either of you persuading Rook to do something. The Rocket might work as a distraction because of the whole techboy crush thing, but I don’t think the Rocket will convince him to let us walk around inside.”
Staring the jet in a wide circle around the Abominator red disc, I said, “Techboy crush is pushing it. I’m pretty sure he’s straight, but was impressed by Grandpa’s tech. Larry told me that he saw Rook get maced because he hit on a woman once.”
Rachel shook her head, “That was in the 80s. Hitting on women didn’t mean you were necessarily straight. It could mean that you didn’t want people to think you’re gay. Ok, sure. Maybe he liked Grandpa’s tech so much he patterned his whole life around recreating his own version, but is liking someone’s technology enough to do that?”
I thought about it as I let the jet slow. I’d be using the anti-grav to keep it in the air eventually. Eventually, I said, “It depends on how cool the technology is… I have a hard time seeing it as a sexual thing.”
From a couple of rows back, Marcus said, “I don’t know. If you look at Batman and the Joker, some people think it is at least on the Joker’s end. It doesn’t have to be creepy though. Think about Black Cat and Spider-man. For her, it’s all about the persona of Spider-man that she’s attracted to just like Joker is obsessed with Batman, but doesn’t care about Bruce Wayne.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jaclyn’s face twitch, “Unless we’re going to have the Rocket seduce Rook, I don’t see this as relevant.”
Cassie turned away from the weapons console, looking back at everyone else, grinning, “That sounds hot, but I have a better idea. It’s simple. We sneak in. We’ve got to land anyway. I’m not getting enough of a connection up here. If we go down on the far side, I can get a connection and open something or you can break in. Simple. Done.”
Raising an eyebrow, Jaclyn said, “It’s never that simple.”
Rachel laughed, “It isn’t, but let’s try it. I can float in, scout, and let you in, or at least suggest the best place to break through. I think that’s a good beginning.”
Giving her a nod, Jaclyn said, “I can work with that.”
“Good,” Cassie’s smile widened, “Now we can talk about the important questions. For example, what’s the next limb Rook loses going to be? The Rocket blew up his hand. I got a leg. What’s next?”
Marcus raised his hand, “Not a limb. It’s got to be an eye or ear. Then he can give himself a super sense.”
“Hey,” I said, “we’re on the far side from Rook’s ships. I’m taking this down. There’s an indentation that might be an entrance. We could start there.”
In addition to updating the serial, I also voted today. I don’t know about the rest of you, but where I live Drain Commissioner is an elected office. I’d be willing to bet that less than 10% of the population has any idea of what makes a good drain commissioner (or even who’s running) before they look at the ballot. Not only that, but it’s a partisan position. How does a Republican handle drainage differently than a Democrat?
I have no idea. So far as I know, neither party’s platform includes a philosophy of water management.
Rant over.
Top Web Fiction
“How does a Republican handle drainage differently than a Democrat?”
*snark* – By whether they do the job, or tell you it’s all working perfectly?
Democrats build a government department to handle the drainage, with unionized labour and a bunch of managerial inefficiency. Republicans give the contract to the lowest bidder, or whichever company is most likely to donate to their next campaign, with underpaid labour and overpaid management, and a bunch of money going into offshore untaxable accounts.
Hg
“How does a Republican handle drainage differently than a Democrat?”
I think that’s obvious, instead of smuggling the illegal immigrants through the drainage, you can drown them there.
Disclaimer, not an American, have no idea in politics, have no intention to start political debates or influence any elections 🙂
That, sir/madam/whatever, is an excellent centrist joke. Making fun of both sides will never not be funny.
As for today’s entry, I’m kinda surprised Marcus is fine to joke about taking out Rook’s eyes, considering I believe that’s part of what he did to Victor (sliced up the brain and exited through the eyes IIRC). Good to know he’s getting through it with humor, that can’t have been pleasant on the psyche.
“for the best,” I stared ahead toward the flat disc, “Rook’s the kind of guy”
Change the commas after ‘best” snd “disc” to periods. This is really three separate sentences.
“that goes so well,” Rachel stretched”
Change the comma after “well” to a period. THis is really two separate sentences.
“Staring the jet in a wide circle around the Abominator red disc”
“Staring” should probably be “Starting”.
“red” looks wrong.
“keep it in the air eventually. Eventually, I said,”
“eventually. Eventually” is awkward.
“Joker is obsessed with Batman”
“Joker” should be “the Joker”.
“I saw Jaclyn’s face twitch, “Unless”
Change the comma after “twitch” to a period. This is really two separate sentences.
“grinning, “That sounds hot”
Change the comma after “grinning” to a period. This is really two separate sentences.
“”Good,” Cassie’s smile widened, “Now we can talk about “”
Change the commas after “Good” and “widened” to periods. This is really an isolated word and two separate sentences.
“Marcus raised his hand, “Not a limb.”
Change the comma after “hand” to a period. This is really two separate sentences.
“I’m taking this down.”
“this” would probably be better as “us”.
Hey, can’t they just get the Xiniti to nuke Rook from orbit? They were aware of what happened on the moon base, surely they’re aware of what’s going on on Mars, and they don’t like people fucking with Abominator tech. Have I forgotten the reason they haven’t asked the benevolent alien overlords anything? Is this something humans need to handle themselves? In that case, why don’t they start off by blowing up the space ships and stranding the guy there? I know they don’t wanna commit cold blooded murder, but that seems like a good compromise.
Well, part of the reason they’re there is to grab an object or information that will help them find Lee’s device. So nuking from orbit won’t help.
The other piece of this is that the Xiniti aren’t the ones who care about the issue of technology getting out. The Xiniti are a mercenary force hired to protect borders and observe in places where the Alliance’s regular military would prefer not to be. While willing to exterminate all life on Earth if necessary, the Xiniti aren’t afraid of humans to the degree that the Alliance is and quietly look the other way where they can.
The Xiniti’s own policy is humans should be left alone. So the Xiniti won’t intervene unless there’s a clear and present danger to the Alliance.
Still seems like big Lazering the enemy space ships is on the table…
That’s a reason our MCs don’t want them attacking the base, but not really a motivation for the xiniti to be hands off. In the flash back they explicitly reached out to Rocket One, either to stop the Russians from harvesting the moon base or to talk about the time traveler . The League just released, fought and killed the same time traveler, and Rook has been set up on Mars for who knows how long. Why are they being so much more passive this time around, when they have a better relationship with Nick and could say “hey someone’s screwing around on Mars, go handle it”? Is a planet wide cabal of Abominator powered mind controllers not as big a threat as…Russia, 50 years ago?
Sorry for being naggy about this.
Well, destroying it on the way out is a good idea.
Doing it on the way in would be counterproductive to why they’re there in the first place.
Alright, lemme phrase it like this: why DID the Xiniti contact Joe, and why HAVENT they contacted Nick?
Also, if I’m gonna be nitpicking worldbuilding stuff like this, why is the base still there at all? Like, for the last 60 years every government has known that there are places in space that’ll cause the aliens to destroy earth, and they just let em sit there? Whether it was preventative destruction or someone actively trying to get the earth blown up, seems strange to me everything has just been chilling. It doesn’t seem THAT classified, maybe I’m just overestimating what common knowledge is. Still, a speech at the UN isn’t exactly low key.
Also also, I was saying they should blow up the space ships, not necessarily the whole base. Teleportation technology is still finicky right? They could strand Rook on Mars by destroying his method of transportation, conveniently parked on the run ways right in front of them? I know right now they’re trying stealth, so it’s not an immediate concern.
I don’t know if I said it in so many words, but the UN session was secret. So, it is classified, but also, enough of the world’s leadership knew that it had to be addressed.
As for why the tech is still there, the world’s leaders didn’t think it should be destroyed. They wanted it for later.
The Alliance wants Earth not to have alien tech. Earth wants it.
Also, the Xiniti know that blowing up Artificer sites doesn’t always work as intended. So they’re not in a hurry to try.
Blowing up ships on the way out also possibly kills Rook because there’s no guarantee that there’s enough food and water for even a short term stay.
As for the Xiniti not contacting Nick, it’s quite simple—I didn’t think of it. He was already going anyway, so it was redundant.
It might be a better way to get him to go, though.
I wasn’t looking at the Xiniti messages as a lever to move the plot, I was looking at them more as “what is the temperament of the Xiniti, and why are they acting like this?” sort of way. Seriously, I was trying to come up with background theories in case you REALLY decide you don’t want to mention them in present day, and so far I’ve got “well apparently a new faction has taken control of the Xiniti forxes and they now longer notify honorary citizens of world ending threats cuz they hate humanity.”. And everything about Xiniti I’ve seen makes me think they’re mostly lawful neutral, maybe lawful good depending on how black and white the dichotomy between alien forces are. The fudge the rules a little, sometimes. But they WILL blow up the world if Abominator relics get released, and there ARE Abominator relics on the moon and there are Destroy faction relics on Mars. That’s like, a constant looming threat to humanity, just by virtue of someone someday doing something stupid.
Again, just cuz I still feel like we’re not really on the same wavelength: in the past, the Xiniti called Joe. They knew his location and why he was there, and gave him some tips. Today, with their much closer relationship to Nick, they have not said a word. Not about Nick’s recent moon escapades, and not for however many months or years Rook’s been dicking around on Mars. I’m not sure if making the Xiniti be Nick’s impetus to get to Mars is the better choice, truly I don’t know, but I do think it’d be much easier just to make them not contact Joe.
Alright be honest, how much faith do you have in your government? Now, how much faith do you have in every human government? You really think that over the course of 60 years, no one from ANY human government would have let slip that aliens will destroy us if we pick up the wrong space rock? If they’re the same people who heard “an ancient species made tempting technology so that species destroy themselves, and we blow those species up”, and started salivating, I do not have a lot of faith in their information security.
Also, I know they’re heroes and they don’t like killing people, but somehow I feel like removing their enemy’s vehicles isn’t the same as cold blooded murder. Marcus I guess might over compensate cuz he’s shaken after killing Victor, but it really seems like a pretty practical choice to make. They’re gonna leave the bad guys the tools to chase them back to earth? If nothing else, planning to come back in a couple days when they’re dehydrated seems like it’d make any fight easier. Plus, it’s a moot point with Victor there, or can he not teleport that far?