Finally got around to this. It was only sent out before Thanksgiving:
-
Digital River
By Rob Barba
In space, just clear of Jupiter�s gravity well, a miniature star
suddenly
flared into being.
It's 2010 all over again. ^_^
The small ball of light suddenly became a disc, a
calculated cut in the fabric of space as the opening of the wormhole began
to elongate. It elongated
Two uses of elongate a bit too close together for my taste. Perhaps using
'stretch for one of them.
The starcraft, a FA-221 StratoMiG, was the primary fighter in a number
of planetary navies� arsenals. About twenty-two meters long, three meters
tall, and with a wingspan of 15 meters, the twin finned, Earth-built
fighter
was designed with one purpose in mind: aerospace superiority.
Regretablly, it succeeded in bieng first in an altogether different field:
Very Easy to Shoot Down Slow-Moving Targets
[[3WA starfighter, this is Mars Control, Callisto station. We�ve got
a
freighter that�s broken down in the path at the moment, and it�s going to
take twenty minutes to free. Sorry about the delay. If you follow the
info
we�re downloading to you, that�ll keep you on a path that will bring you
back to the corridor in time to continue.]]
"Nah, I'll just shoot it out of the way. Thanks anyway," Kei said into her
mike again.
�Understood, Callisto station. Thanks for the info.� In truth, Kei
I'd drop the 'In truth' bit. It feels uneccesary.
((Shit. Wraiths. And a flight of them, too.))
Don't let them touch you. They'll drain your levels. (Oops. This isn't D+D.
Never mind. ^_^)
moved in precision, so that would mean professional mercenary pilots or
the
like. And there was nowhere to flee except into the asteroid belt, but
without a clearly marked path, such as Callisto, it would be suicide.
And for Kei, this would be a reason to stop because?
Kei�s fighter barreled around a large, unnamed asteroid, then spun and
raced through a second, before heading towards one of the sizable ones
Two 'one's too close together. Might change the second to 'sizable chunks
of rock' or something.
The result was a massive explosion that ripped apart the Robobase,
sending chunks of metal and rock in 1080-degrees, the burning explosion
being shaped into a spherical blossom by the demands of space and physics.
Nice move.
starcraft collided with it. While the planetoid was only scarred
superficially, there would forever be a metallic stain on its surface, the
graveyard for an unlucky pilot.
Nice fight.
craft weren�t out there, ready to attack her. Furthermore, Kei really
didn�
t feel comfortable about talking to military starjocks, anyway.
They'd just scream in terror about how one of the 'Dirty Pair' were around
and they were all going to die anyway. ^_^
Although she wasn�t too happy about having to be escorted, she did manage
to
get a couple of comm numbers for a date or two while she was here,
deciding
that maybe starjocks weren�t so bad, after all.
Meaning she's thought one of them was cute, eh?
The good news was that in light of the situation, while the local 3WA
didn�t show too much concern, the AZPD was more than enthralled once she�d
entered their jurisdiction. Once she�d completed her reports to the TSN
and
the local 3WA, she was ushered in to see the station chief, who
immediately
issued her the use of an unmarked police vehicle. Anyone though
tough
There was a knock at her door a few minutes later, with a soft call of
�Room service, ma�am, compliments of the hotel staff.�
((I think I could get to like this,))
Ohh. Come on. You think that as often as bad things happen to her and that
she was jumped once already, that she'd realize this is a set up.
Kei thought as she reached for the
door to open it, allowing a cute young woman dressed in a chef�s outfit to
push a hovercart in. Showing a level of elegance, the meal was encased in
chromatic shielding, to keep the food warm, similar to tray covers from
old
Earth�s past. �So, what�s the meal?� Kei asked.
The girl�s eyes narrowed as she snarled, �Fried 3WA Agent,�
"Blech!' Kei made a rude gesture. "I hate that. It's always too salty for
my taste."
Meanwhile, the �hovercart� had completed its reconfiguration, and the
warbot stood on its boxy legs, turning its head sensor array left and
right,
searching for its target.
Well now. at least they didn't rely solely on the human agent.
itself. Passing through the door, a sort of sixth sense called out to
her,
forcing her to leap back as a pair of thick energy beams, white as the
daytime sun and thick as poles scorched through the location where she
would
have been a split-second later.
Yeesh. Whoever it is really does want her dead.
window and jumped the bike into it, crashing through the expensive,
actual-glass fa�ade and raced the hawg through the lobby, heading at
lightning-fast speeds for the hotel�s second exit. A few seconds later,
she burst through the glass panes on the other entrance, a few meters
down,
and barreled towards the road, headed away from the hotel.
Another nice action sequence.
The resulting explosion, occurring right over the car�s fuel cells,
not
only obliterated the car and its passengers, but also tore it in three.
The
front- and rear-most portions of the car were propelled through the huge
marble pillars that held up the covered driveway, knocking out the support
and bringing it crashing down. Wires, fashionably attached to the top of
the awning, like a cable spider web snapped, flailing in all directions
and
cutting through ferrocrete and transparent aluminum alike.
Ah, standard DP collateral damage.
doubt it. No one vacations on Earth since the Nanoclysm. More likely,
they
may have found our base of operations here, and are attempting to deal
with
us in a quiet manner.]]
Ah so. Paranoia is going to cost this lot.
The building was made completely of, according to the videoplaque
nearby, actual marble and not the cheaper ferromar substitute. That made
the building very expensive and a true monument. The city, utterly
dedicated to the memory of the Carson family, wasted no expense to build
the
monument to the final resting place of he and his family.
Too bad it's probably going to end up destroyed.
thought was immediately shut down by a reminder that this man was probably
one of her ancestors, and that she should stop acting like Yuri.
heh
The monitor chimed once, followed by, DNA SCAN PASSED. PREPARE FOR
RETINAL SCAN. Kei blinked in surprise, only to be hit in the face with a
quick burst of a scanning laser, emanating from what she thought was a
routine anti-vandalism security camera. The display on the screen changed
suddenly and enigmatically to PROCESSING SCAN DATA for a second before it
read, SCAN COMPLETE � ACCESS AUTHORIZED FOR CARTER, KEIKO.
Now we're getting somewhere.
There was a low rumbling joined in duet with the whir of mechanics,
and
as a stunned Kei turned her head as the supposedly sealed door on the tomb
slid open with a click, revealing a doorway, and stairs that led down into
the actual place.
that's a bit of a run on, I think.
The better half of eternity seemed to pass, and she still continued
down
the stairs for what seemed like hours, even though her wristcomp confirmed
a
timespan of five. Maybe six minutes. The air was musty and dank, the only
illumination were inset lighting panels in the wall that gave off a faint,
ghostly light. There was a faint whir of well-kept technology, thought
though
what
would keep this technology in this relatively good condition was beyond
her...as was the fact that a tomb like this had fairly recent technology.
Finally, she reached the bottom, and where the graves were kept.
Still
feeling uncomfortable, she turned the corner and stared at the three
coffins
of the Carter family. Two large ones, assumedly
'presumably' would be better, I think.
for an adult, and the
smaller one, for a child that had only been a few weeks old when it had
been
killed. Something in Kei�s heart reached out for
'to' instead of 'for' I think
That in turn set off something, as buttons began to whir and the
sounds
of isotronic equipment began to come online. On the side of a wall, a
recessed panel opened, revealing a dusty video screen that began to light
up
and tick off information. On the coffin�s side, smaller panels and
displays
began to click online, as a light turned on in the coffin itself,
revealing
its contents: a woman not much older than Kei, lying down on a stasis bed,
covered by a stasis sheet.
I knew she should have checked the contents of the coffin before freaking
out.
�Cryo? What the fuck!?!?�
My my. Someone has a foul mouth.
�WHILE TIMES HAVE BEEN HARD,
THIS PROBLEM�S NOW PAST--
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
NOW UNITED AT LAST.�
Heh. Cute.
Nice work. I bit of action, and a quick solution to Kei's identity problem.
I thought it would last longer than that, truth be told. Still, it means
the story is moving along quickly.
D.B. Sommer