Tag Archives: Travis

Arc 7.9: Demo

Demo: Part 15

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In my peripheral vision—which included almost everything behind me—Samita opened up a box and threw the dirt inside it into the air. It hung in the air like a cloud, and then in one burst dispersed, spreading across the entire field.

That’s when things got weird.

All the grass on our side of the field drooped, and spread across the ground, covering the dirt in green. As it did, the green became darker, and shinier—like glass, or ice.

Jaclyn and Meteor both fell. For the little that it’s worth, Jaclyn did better, turning her initial stumble into a jump that threw her into the air. She landed only ten feet past our flag, but it didn’t matter. She was still traveling at two hundred miles per hour. Along with Meteor, she slid past our flag pole and toward the obstacle course—depending on the angle. The ground wasn’t level. It wasn’t impossible that they’d slide into the parked cars off to the side of the course. Continue reading Demo: Part 15 →

Arc 7.9: Demo

Demo: Part 3

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“The tournament will work like this. You’ve got four teams. In the first round, there will be two fights and the winners will fight each other in the second round. It’s quick and simple, and it will have to be. We’ve got the VIP’s for the afternoon, and not longer than that. With luck, it’ll be exciting and get everyone back here in time for supper.”

Lee’s mouth quirked in a half smile. “Does anyone have any questions?”

Patriot Jr’s hand shot up. “I’m not trying to second guess you, sir, but why these groups? There are enough upperclassmen alone to fill the exercise, but you sprinkled in a few second years. I’m not complaining. They’re powerhouses, but why?” Continue reading Demo: Part 3 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 6

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An SUV came soon after that. All black with tinted windows, it was obviously used for carrying people who didn’t care to be seen. To the Rocket suit’s senses, it was also obviously armored, meaning it was just as obviously used by people who expected to be shot at.

We all got in–Rachel, Travis, Sean, Vaughn, Izzy, Jaclyn and I.

Izzy leaned against the wall in the back. When Travis turned back from the second row, and asked how she was doing, she barely opened her eyes, but said, “Fine. I’m tired, but there’s nothing wrong with me.”

Then her eyes shut, and she fell asleep.

Continue reading Glory: Part 6 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 5

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That was interesting, and not necessarily good. It wasn’t necessarily bad. It didn’t automatically mean Sean was planning to take out his fear and anxiety about his sister on me.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t either.

Vaughn saw him as Sean got closer. “Hey, he’s coming back–”

And then Sean was there, landing on the sidewalk with exactly the force required to stop, and not a bit more or less. I’d come to envy that. Sure, I’d worked out a landing command that did the same thing, but it wasn’t flexible. I needed to do manual landings a lot, and when I did, it was all too easy to drop a foot, or have to run a few steps before I could fully stop.

Despite the control he’d shown when landing, Sean slumped when he hit the ground.

Continue reading Glory: Part 5 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 4

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I took the call, and Kayla’s voice came over the comm. “Rocket, Night Cat wanted me to tell you–” my stomach tightened, “–that we won. We survived. She’ll call you herself in a little while. We saw you popping in on our channel and thought you might want to know.”

I let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Everyone’s okay, then?”

Kayla’s breath caught. “No. It was terrifying. Sydney’s in this clinic Night Cat knows about, and she’s hurt. She’s not the only one, but she got it the worst. They’re talking about moving her to the hospital.”

I thought about Haley. Having her friend get hurt while she was leading the team would be awful. I knew I shouldn’t assume that she’d been leading, but it had sounded like she was in charge.

Then I realized something else. I’d have to tell Sean what had happened to Sydney. I knew now, and this wasn’t the kind of thing you hid. Continue reading Glory: Part 4 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 3

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“Redirecting?” I turned toward her and raised an eyebrow—which was completely hidden by my helmet.

“Pushing on the escape pod’s controls at exactly the right moment to keep him from going where he wanted to, and getting a message out to Lim. Lim called in one of the New York teams that didn’t get sent into space, and what do you know? One more captive alien.”

Rachel grinned below her white mask.

“Wow,” I said. “None of the aliens are supposed to be contacting us in the first place. The moment this gets out, the Hrrnna are in major trouble.”

Rachel shook her head. “Doubt it. My bet is they play the ‘we don’t know anything about that’ card, and pretend the Hrrnna here were acting on their own.”

Travis nodded. “That’s how it works.”

Continue reading Glory: Part 3 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 2

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“Blue strained herself,” Jaclyn said, using the codename we’d used for her last time we’d gotten desperate for a codename.

Her current costume was actually a costume, and it did have some blue and yellow on it, but more black. It reminded me of Native American designs—which fit. She was at least partially Mexican, and a lot of them descended from native tribes.

“Whoa,” Vaughn said. “Her powers, you mean? She doesn’t look hurt.”

He landed near us. I felt the pull of the wind that kept him in the air stop.

Sean landed near him, and the Rocket suit didn’t miss a beat—no static, errors or anything. Either he was getting better at controlling himself, or the suit’s shielding worked like it was supposed to.

Continue reading Glory: Part 2 →

Arc 6.5: Glory

Glory: Part 1

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I felt Travis grab my arm as I stepped toward the door, and said, “Hang on!”

Jaclyn and Travis jumped with me as I gave the rockets fuel, and that was all for the best. The Rocket suit wasn’t meant to carry people. Sure, you could carry people. You could carry several people, but let’s put it this way—if a car were falling off a bridge, and I was the only chance for the people inside to survive… well… those people were likely to have a very short life.

This was bad for a whole lot of reasons, but mostly because it wasn’t at it’s best maneuvering while carrying three people, two from my right arm, one with my left. The right rockets had to compensate by putting out more force on that side just to keep us from listing to one side or the other.

This made all turns a little sluggish. If you hypothetically happened to be flying above the Hudson River while pieces of a spaceship fell from above, this was more than a little inconvenient.

The HUD said, [COLLISION ALERT].

Continue reading Glory: Part 1 →

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 37

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My helmet adjusted to the lack of light at about the same time the ship dropped a few feet. A warning beeped, and I dropped a few feet, preparing for a landing. The Hrrnna must have had effective night vision because many of the remaining ones turned to aim their weapons at me.

I opened up everything I had at them, putting the few remaining killbots into efficiency mode—which meant that instead of exploding upon entering a body, they’d make holes in opponents initially and only explode if the opponent wouldn’t go down, or if they were nearly out of fuel.

I’d created a really elegant algorithm to calculate the best use of a group of bots on multiple targets. I felt proud if its efficiency, but I’d felt a little sick when I thought about what it actually did. Continue reading Stardock: Part 37 →

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 36

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All of us looked at each other. I don’t know what the others were thinking, but in that moment I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know how much force Vaughn and Sean could create between the two of them, but I doubted they could stop the ship from hitting the ground—not if it were under power at any rate.

If we knocked the power out, it was still an open question.

Not to mention that I remembered how they handled a ship during the training exercise. It wasn’t the same situation, but it was still a disaster with a big ship.

For a second, it seemed like the best option might be to see if the Hrrnna would give us a second chance at letting them go. Continue reading Stardock: Part 36 →