Category Archives: The Legion of Nothing

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 2

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I typed back, “That’s just for recon, right? If you’re talking just the two of us.”

It didn’t take long for Daniel to reply. “Recon first, but not just me and you.”

His next text said, “Haley and Izzy too. A good combination. Intelligence gathering. Muscle.”

I paused to think about it, looking up from the phone, aware of HQ again, and of my monitor—which still showed the words “Conference ended.”

Haley stood up from her chair. “Who are you texting?”

“Daniel,” I said, realizing that I had Vaughn’s attention too.

I felt a little weird about that. The moment Haley asked what we were talking about, I’d have to tell her, or lie. This wasn’t one of those things that I’d be able to hide though. Everybody would know when we were done anyway. Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 2 →

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 1

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The price of maintaining a group is meetings—two hour long, soul sucking meetings.

We’d landed in the mid-afternoon, a little later than two. I’d sent everyone a text on their League phone saying what we’d done and that I planned to email them a report of what we’d found.

I got replies from just about everybody that hadn’t gone—essentially saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

And that led to an online meeting where we all got to discuss what we’d learned and decide what to do about it now. Worse, not all of us were in one room. Most people were attending via online video, which meant that everybody had to attend via online video in effect.

Haley, Vaughn, and I sat at the main table in the middle of HQ staring at our monitors while everyone else sat in their dorm rooms, bedrooms, or in Travis’ case, his car.

Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 1 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 10

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I gave the ship more speed, but not to the point where I risked damaging the engines.

On one of the screens appeared the words:

[There is no sign of pursuit, but their passive scanning systems should have no trouble tracking us back to Earth.]

“Oh?” I thought about that. “Let me know if there’s any sign of action.”

I glanced back toward Lee and Vaughn. “They won’t really do anything right? They like the Heroes League. They feel like they owe us.”

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 10 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 9

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“No idea,” I said, “except for the last ship they’ve all left people in our system, and I’m using ‘people’ pretty loosely so I can include the machines.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that a small ship had left the “pirate ship.” It shot off at high speed, and disappeared behind Earth. I didn’t see any signs of battles, but on the other hand, could I have?

Vaughn watched the small ship disappear. “Huh. Could be that one.”

Haley shook her head. “Maybe.”

This wasn’t getting easier. “Lee said something that made it sound like he expected it would be pirates, or at least look like pirates.”

Vaughn turned his head toward me. “What do you suppose he meant by that?”

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 9 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 8

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Vaughn turned around the room, staring at the spaceships. “Wait, I thought you had to go through the jump gates.”

“I guess not,” I said. “I kind of knew that, but I wasn’t sure how far I could trust the information. Basically, jump drives are really big, and they need a big power plant to run them. That means they’re mostly found in the really big spaceships. Capital ships, and some of the larger cargo ships.”

Haley eyed me through her mask. “So a capital ship is a big ship?”

“I think. I may have it wrong, but generally they’ve got the most armor and firepower.”

Vaughn stopped looking around, and looked directly at me. “So how do you know?” Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 8 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 7

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With a sinking feeling, I followed the path. Low, blueish-green light illuminated the hall. Given the hall’s liquid metal material, bioluminescent light seemed unlikely. On the other hand, the Xiniti were aliens. They might easily light their halls with lifeforms outside my experience.

Collecting a little bit to analyze would have been interesting, but I had a bad feeling that the Xiniti wouldn’t approve. They were here to prevent us from gaining more technology unless we developed it on our own, and had the authority to commit genocide to prevent it if necessary.

The Xiniti felt like they owed the League somehow, but I wasn’t going to push it.

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 7 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 6

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We didn’t have time to say any more about it as I let the ship float into the landing bay. I kept my mind on coming to a full stop, turning on the external anti-gravity to use what little gravity there was, and also lowered the landing gear.

Behind us, the force shield went up, followed by huge doors rolling out of the floor and shutting, and finally their artificial gravity slowly turning on.

That gave me more gravity to work with, meaning that I didn’t have to use the maneuvering rockets inside the bay. Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 6 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 5

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Next to me, Haley paused as she’d been turning back toward the dashboard. “A pretty good time?”

Lee smiled wider. “The best. In moments like that people stop worrying about how you get things done. They need it done, and they don’t have time to care how. Say you have a Skerrish battle station orbiting the planet. Normally you’d try to talk them into leaving, but if you’re in the middle of a battle, barely anyone cares if you ram them with one of their own heavy cruisers. As long as the battle station’s out of the fight, no one complains.”

Haley turned back to the dashboard without saying anything, and we took the jet out the underwater airlock into Lake Michigan, the engines humming as we traveled underwater. Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 5 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 4

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“That, and I suppose when you kill as many people as he has, the enemies add up.” Plus he wasn’t exactly nice about it. The few times I’d seen him fight outside of training, he’d pushed people’s buttons deliberately.

That’s the kind of guy who would end up on the run from his entire species, leaving them pissed off enough that they destroyed any planet they found him on. Granted, it wasn’t just because of that, but it put things in perspective.

Normally they committed genocide over the long term. When they found he’d influenced a planet, they did it immediately.

“Exactly. You need someone to balance out the crazy.” She sounded amused.

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 4 →

Arc 6.1: Intergalactic Sherlock

Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 3

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By Wednesday night I had a response from the Xiniti—yes. I could take the League “jet” to the jump gate and go through their logs. They’d be happy to help investigate. In fact, they were already doing so on their own.

Not that they told me so directly. Lacking an official Xiniti email address, I’d emailed Isaac Lim, and he’d sent it on through appropriate channels. I had no idea how much bureaucracy “appropriate channels” involved, but the impression I got from Lim was “too much.”

Whatever the case, I’d gotten my reply within twenty-four hours of asking Agent Lim, so I wasn’t in a position to complain. At least I wasn’t in a position to complain about that. I was in a position to complain about what they’d done with the Xiniti’s reply.

Continue reading Intergalactic Sherlock: Part 3 →