It wasn’t Grandpa as I knew him either. It was Grandpa from old newsreels and recordings. I had a few in the lab—accidental recordings from when Grandpa was tinkering with various versions of the sonic systems and test recordings that he’d used for years to assure consistency in the official Rocket suit voice.
It also wasn’t just Grandpa.
I also heard the rest of the team—Captain Commando, Night Wolf, C, the Mentalist, and Grandma. Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 9
If I’d been hoping to see what was inside, I’d have been disappointed. I hadn’t expected to see anything more than an airlock, but there was no airlock here.
Instead, what appeared to be glass with a hazy golden sheen blocked our view of the inside. Between experience with alien technology and years of consuming science fiction, I felt sure it wasn’t glass.
“Walk through the golden force field,” Rachel told us over the comms. “There’s an atmosphere in there. The Artificers usually set it to be similar to the atmosphere of the nearest planet with intelligent life, but it might have adjusted to the Abominators’ preferences. Those weren’t always breathable.” Continue reading Waning Moon: Part 8
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
“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
“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
“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
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
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
Thanks to the camera on Marcus’ suit, I could see what he saw—gray mountains covered in dust surrounded where they stood, all free of greenery and life.
The stars above hung in a black sky without clouds or a hint of water.
They were on top of a mountain. The surface slanted without turning into a sheer drop. It wasn’t a cliff there, but if he ran in any direction there would be a drop into the darkness below soon enough. Continue reading Moon: Part 12
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