Tag Archives: Vaughn

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 15

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I’d noticed clouds forming since the fight started, and as I was about to press Theo on exactly how bad he felt, lightning erupted in front of the building.

Travis had told the glass cannons (mobile artillery, if you wanted to be formal) to help us, and now they were. I’d have taken help earlier, but Daniel was in the group, and he’d probably been responsible for the timing. That meant that this was probably the best possible moment, whatever I might think.

Thanks to my observation bots, I had three different perspectives available. All of them showed essentially the same scene.

As our group dived behind the old factory to get out of the machine race soldiers’ line of fire, the remaining robots split into two groups, some of them heading for the building that we’d started at, and the rest spreading out as they aimed for our building. No matter what direction we turned toward we’d be in some robot’s sights.

At least that’s the way it would have gone. Continue reading Stardock: Part 15 →

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 3

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Jaclyn followed Izzy in through the door. Izzy said, “Hi” as she moved out of Jaclyn’s way, and met people’s eyes as she did it–including Daniel’s. I didn’t hear any anger in her voice either. She did talk quietly, but she always did that when we were together as a group. My theory was that she still didn’t quite feel comfortable with everyone.

All the same, the fact that she was here at all hinted that whatever they’d talked about last wasn’t irreparable.

She’s not just nervous about being with the group, Daniel thought at me. It’s more complicated than that.

He glanced over at her. What’s going on with us is complicated too, but I don’t want to go into that right now.

Jaclyn lifted up her print out of the plan, a small sheaf of paper. “We’re here to talk about this, right? What did you think of it?”

She caught my eye, “What do you think of it?”

Continue reading Stardock: Part 3 →

Arc 6.4: Stardock

Stardock: Part 2

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Isaac led us through the facility, explaining generally what was going on on each floor. I would have asked a lot of questions except I knew better. He didn’t know anything worth knowing about how anything worked. Sure, he could tell us what the major activities on each floor were, but I could guess that.

What I wanted to know was what techniques they were using and if they’d made any advances over the Alliance’s standard ships.

I didn’t need Isaac to figure that one out either. All I had to do was to observe. The spaceships around me in various stages of construction weren’t quite designed to human specifications. Take the big spaceship at the bottom of the hole. When we walked through it, it was obvious to me that whatever race it had been designed for was on average about seven feet tall. Bearing in mind variation, they’d designed the size to allow people (beings?) as large as eight feet tall.

Continue reading Stardock: Part 2 →

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 16

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Talk about loaded questions, and not one I could lie about either. Haley could tell when I was lying by smelling my reactions and hearing my heart speed up.

Izzy, I knew, had a sense of hearing that could substitute for sight, and not just sight—X-Ray vision. I couldn’t lie. I also couldn’t tell the truth. This was Daniel’s relationship. He should talk about it with her.

As I thought about it, my heart sped up. Haley gave me a sidelong glance, and frowned.

I said, “He’s talked about you. I can’t say much about it since he told me in confidence, but yes.”

That was pretty much the ideal response. She couldn’t demand I tell her what he’d said. Well, not politely anyhow.

Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 16 →

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 →