Tag Archives: Cassie

Arc 14.2.5: Waning Moon

Waning Moon: Part 7

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I let the jet drop toward the ground, landing on the red dirt of Mars, thinking again that I could have visited purely to visit at any time, and that I was now only here because of this.

Behind me in the cabin, everyone set their suits to full coverage, helmets reforming over their heads.

I checked outside. The circle-shaped structure that ascended from the ground, seemingly made of Martian dirt, felt taller now that I’d landed. It wasn’t quite a mesa, but it was at least 20 feet taller than it appeared when we sat inside the jet. Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 7 →

Arc 14.2.5: Waning Moon

Waning Moon: Part 6

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“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. Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 6 →

Arc 14.2.5: Waning Moon

Waning Moon: Part 5

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“Look,” Rachel said, “Accelerando said that my vitals aren’t showing anything unusually wrong. If we’re going to go to Mars, let’s go. I’d rather take my chances with alien tech. Except maybe for Magnus, we may be Earth’s greatest alien tech experts now. We’re not the greatest experts on the Nine. Let’s go. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we meet with Paladin.”

“That,” Marcus said, “she’s right.”

Jaclyn shook her head, “I don’t like it, but you’re making sense. I’d still like to look at Rachel before we get to Mars.” Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 5 →

Arc 14.2.5: Waning Moon

Waning Moon: Part 4

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“You’ve got an inventory list?” I asked.

“Close enough,” Cassie said. “I’ve got multiple inventory lists, all of them protected from the different Abominator clone lineages by security that we’d never get through—except now everyone’s dead. Thanks to Abominator inheritance law, the property, including intellectual property, reverts to the eldest clone lineage within the same group of sublineages. With everyone dead, all of it reverts to the control of anyone left with a Citizen’s Mark. As the last remaining representative of the Abominator civilization, I inherit everything.”

“Unless Victor’s still here,” I said. Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 4 →

Arc 14.2.5: Waning Moon

Waning Moon: Part 3

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Abominator Moonbase, Present

“I don’t know what happened after that,” I said.

We all stood in the lab next to the Starplate. Jaclyn had placed Victor’s body there. It hadn’t seemed right to leave it out on the surface. It didn’t feel more right to bring him back here, but there were things I could do here that I couldn’t do there.

“I mean, I know loosely, but not in detail. They scared the Soviets into leaving—not that it was too hard. Abominator booby traps killed a few of their men. The crazy thing is that Grandpa did say he fought a time traveler once, but he didn’t say anything that made me think of Victor. At least, not until now.” Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 3 →

Arc 14.2.0: Moon

Moon: Part 13

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As I flew, Cassie contacted Jaclyn and I, “After you help Shift, get back here. We’re okay, but the stupid monkeys and their boxes reformed already.”

She live-streamed a snippet of her firing at the weird, sludgy “monkeys” while Rachel, stumbling but walking, phased in and out, cutting any monkeys that got close to Cassie into pieces with her axe. Cassie focused her attention on the creatures that weren’t close.

They looked like they’d be okay for now, but the way the monkeys reformed, they’d be outnumbered sooner than I wanted to imagine. A little damage to their suits and exposure to the wrong Abominator device had all the wrong kind of potential. Continue reading Moon: Part 13 →

Arc 14.2.0: Moon

Moon: Part 11

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Activating my rocket pack, I flew toward them as Jaclyn raced across the ground, moving slower and more carefully than usual to avoid launching herself into the ceiling.

I’d done the same with the rockets without thought.

The Xiniti implants helped with that, implanting that skill along with all the other knowledge we had available.

As good as that was, it meant we weren’t moving as quickly as we could on Earth, giving us time to watch the inevitable. Continue reading Moon: Part 11 →

Arc 14.2.0: Moon

Moon: Part 9

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Plan b was to use an object that the Artificers had designed to end civilizations. It wasn’t a question of whether that would be bad for us, but whether the effect would be to empower Victor or to infect us.

“Not good,” Jaclyn muttered and her hands twitched, activating a new feature of her suit, which I’d described as “essentially a gumball dispenser.”

With a hand motion, she could cause dense balls of an alien-designed alloy to roll out of her suit and land in her hands. Then she could throw it. Continue reading Moon: Part 9 →

Arc 14.2.0: Moon

Moon: Part 8

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Over the comm, I asked, “Was that you?”

“Me?” Marcus shook his head, “No. I just connected.”

Victor stared at me and looked over at Rachel. Then he shouted, “I see you for what you are—avatars of the Artificers. Die!”

Then all the lights winked out as the doors on the boxes that Cassie called “psychotic monkey boxes” opened. For the record, they weren’t monkeys. They were bipedal, but they had two extra arms compared to regular monkeys. They also had tails, but that wasn’t weird.

What was weird is that they didn’t have fur. They had dark, gray skin, glistening with what I assumed to be moisture, but didn’t have to be water. My gut feeling was that it was some kind of oil. Continue reading Moon: Part 8 →

Arc 14.2.0: Moon

Moon: Part 7

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Cassie didn’t hesitate to respond, treating a conversation with a time traveler (I guess) trapped on the Moon like a normal thing.

“We need to get into the equipment in this room. Someone’s shut off access and I’m assuming it’s you.”

Victor eyed her, “Who sent you?”

Furrowing her brow, Cassie said, “Sent us? No one. We’re here on our own.” Continue reading Moon: Part 7 →