Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 4

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On a Saturday morning two weeks later Haley and I drove to Chicago. It was early March, and February’s snow melted on each side of the freeway, brownish near the road.

Two weeks seems like an awfully long wait when you consider that there may be aliens out there who want to cause all of humanity to die horribly. It’s more understandable when you think about the logistics of it all. Initially we didn’t know exactly what we were looking for. All the ship knew was that a suspiciously large number of objects that used materials common to alien technology were going through the postal service, UPS, Fedex and other mailing services in or near Chicago. They were being picked up from P.O. Boxes, and delivered to empty buildings, and from there they disappeared.

Except we’d found a common name between a couple of the post office boxes, and a signature—Chancy as in Chancy Smith, Chancy Jones, and Chancy Sirianni.

I had a hunch, and I’d directed the ship to search whatever it could find that had Chancy in the name, and it had. Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 4 →

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 3

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I looked over at Haley. She’d sat down again, pulled her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around them. It likely felt more comfortable to her than it looked to me.

“You heard all of that, right?”

She colored a little. “Sorry. I didn’t try to. It seemed private.”

“I’m sure it was, but Daniel’s not in a position to complain.”

Haley let go of her legs, and they touched the floor in one fluid motion that wasn’t quite human. She could have followed it up by leaping to grab one of the ceiling’s support beams, but didn’t.

“It’s sad,” she said. “I don’t know her very well, but she seems nice. She’s a little shy, but maybe he can draw her out.” She paused. “Not that Daniel’s any kind of party animal, but he’s comfortable with people.”

“I guess,” I said, knowing better. Daniel was extremely comfortable with people.

Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 3 →

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 →

The Legion of Nothing: A Series of Online Superhero Novels (Updates Monday and Thursday)