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goldstonegolem64 · 5 years ago

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Book1 Hope returns Chapter 42 knowledge or death

By goldstonegolem64

Everyone was standing in the bridged.

“ Ok so do we have any idea whatever supposed to do when we get to wherever we're going “ Lance said

“ We just talk to them an see what they want from us “ Jay said then returned to reading to his daughter with Fitz, Bastion and Usamu just sitting nearby just listening to him read

“ Ok but still all we got from Uzla was co-ordinance” Hunk said

“ Yes but we can trust Uzla after all he did save Shiro “ Adam said

“ But he could just be playing a long con” Pidge said

“ that could be possible so don’t let your guard down paladins” Allura said as the castle of lions exited the worm hole and found themselves in from of two black hole

“ Is that a black hole?” Hunk asked

“No No No hunk it’s two black holes surrounding a star going super nova” Coran said

“ Well that not something you see every day” Lance said

“ Dear god that is a nightmare “ Jay said thinking about what it would do to them if they flew into that thing

“ He’s not wrong because if we go in side of it will be one/ millionth degrees above absolute zero but just out side of that it hundred of millions degrees Celsius” Pidge said

“ So it’s like a burrito that you placed in the microwave that is super hoy on the outside but super cold on the inside “ Hunk said

“ Now I'm just hunger for launch “ lance said

“ No hunk it’s like being give the choose between either freezing to death or burning to death “ Jay said

“ Well that just made it worst “ Hunk said

“ Coran have you found anything “ Shiro asked

“ Yes I have just in-between those three deadly Celestia objects there seem to be the same spatial disturbance as before when we meet Uzla” Coran said

“ Well that’s a dangerous to put a secret base “ Lance said

“ And it’s a perfect place to set up a trap” Allura said

“ Ok Allura lets not jump to conclusions here” Jay said knowing where this line of thinking was leading to

“ Your right but after the last i’m just a little on edge “ Allura said

“ In coming Message “ Coran said as a screen appeared written in Galra

“ Jay Your up ” Shiro said

Jay put on his reading glasses and started to read the message “ It’s asking who send you . I’m guessing they just want us to conform who we are which is dumb seeing as we are in the only Altea ship in the known universe but then again seeing how fast the empire works maybe they build a copy of the castle of lions. Shiro your up” Jay said

“ Uzla send us “ Shiro said

For a few seconds everyone watched the screen then a new message appears and jay read it aloud “Only two may entire unarmed they put emphasis on unarmed ” Jay said

“ But Why “ Allura question while crossing her arms

“ most likely because they don’t want usto shot up the place

“ But we have to go This the whole reason we came out here “ Keith said annoyed

“ We know keith but we need to look at are opinion so just be a little bit more patient for the time begin “ Adam said placing his had on keith should

“ Your right but still .” Keith lowered his voice for only Adam to hear “ They could know where and who my mother is “

Adam matched keith’s tone of voice “Alight well get the information as soon as were done figure out are plan here” Adam said

Keith nodded his head in agreement

Well your going to need to send someone who can keep their cool just in case thing get hot ” Lance said

“ Lance i love yea like a brother but i think someone else should go with Shiro like keith ” Jay said Everyone looked to surprised as jay said that

“But Keith is a shoot first asked second kind of guy “ Lance said

“It’s just a though i mean Galra respect a person's fighting sprite an keith as a lot of that. I mean have you seen him training But it’s all up to Shiro “ Jay said just remembering his time on the training deck and watching keith fight multiply galaitor bots at the sametime

“ And He better make it quick we have about three of what you would call hours before a solar flare closes of entries to the blades base for two day” Coran said

“ Alright then Keith your going with me “ Shiro said

“ But “ Lance was about protest then he stopped

“ Look lance the reason i’m talking Keith is the fact that the red lion can withstand the heat of that star the best out of all the lions and if this was any other situation i would pick you or any other member of the team that would fit in this kind of mission. So please don’t take me picking keith over you the wrong way ok” Shiro said as he place his hands on lances shoulder.

“ Ok i understand “ Lance still a little upset but he got the jist of what shiro was saying

“ Alright. Lets go Keith “ Shiro turn to look at his little brother then started walking toward the door that exited the bridge

“ Alright “ keith said then followed shiro out

In the hanger bay that had housed the no long functioning robeast

“ No matter how much I hate them. I have to admit the galra work fast “ La-sai said as he looked at the computer screen in front of him

“ You're not wrong but still it’s kind scary how fast my they can build this thing “ Ace said

“ Why don’t we could build some of are own” Rax said as he stood by La-sai looking over his shoulders trying to figure out what was going on the computer screen.

“ That’s a good idea Rax’s but we don’t have the resources to build them “ Rolo said

“ But hey when this whole war is over we could bring it up to Allura and we could have hundreds of voltron around the universe” Nyma said

“ that's not a half bad idea. If only Jay didn’t destroy the power core along with frying most of it circuitry. we could do a test run on it “ La-sai said kind annoy

“ Well just be happy jay decide to bring it aboard” Matt said

As everyone else was talking Shay was just walking around the robeasts head. She wonder what It would be like to pilot one. She imagined herself flying along side the Hunk, Fighting ,protecting from harm. no longer being on the side lines and watching while Hunk put his life in danger. As she thought of this she placed her hand on to the metal her hand used something inwards as this happened the sounds of decompression and the sound of air being jettisoned. She stepped back in surprise as the to of the robeasts head started to split apart. As she watched this everyone ran over to her.

“ Shay what did you do “ Rax asked as everyone

“ I don’t know i placed my hand onto and i pushed something inward and then this started to happen “ Shay said as the metal final stopped moving and revealed a pod shaped objects with a masked person sitting in side of it not moving.

“ Well Allura and the others might want to see this” Matt said

in the cockpit of the red lion

Keith and Shiro were still in total silences as they flow into the swirling storm before them. The flight itself was a little unnerving as they flew closer to the black holes. Keith tightened his grip on the control sticks as they entered the vortex and felt the pull of the black holes and followed the co-ordinance that were given to then

“ Keith can we talk for a bit ?” Shiro asked

“ Please let it not be dating advies.”

“ it’s not dating advice. I want to continue are talk from before i have See that you are improving but your going to need to control your a ” Shiro said

“ Wait you were serious about that i just thought you were delusional from pain ” Keith said a little nervous. “

“ But why are we even talking about this nothing will happen to you So let’s not talk about it ok” Keith said just not ready to talk about this

“ We need to talk about it Keith”

“ Shiro please I get it you want meet to be a leader. But about two months ago i thought you were dead and now we're fighting a ten thousand year war i’ve watch several of my friends nearly die,nearly die myself, Pidge as lost her foot, Jay was beaten to a blood plup the empire is making an Army of robeasts base off the Valkyrie and now were flying in between two black holes and a collapsing star. So please let’s not talk about what will happen if you die ok” Keith said his voice started to cracking a little

Shiro went quite an realized how much had happened in the passed week “Sorry keith “

“ It alright i know what your trying to say. An your right i need to work on control my temper it’s just a” Keith was cut off when the red lion started to shake violently as they both felt the red lion being pulled towards something. As Keith fought to bring the red lion back under his control . the red lion slammed into something and stopped moving. As keith regained control he looked out the red loin’s eyes and watch to massive ice covered rocks collide and break apart “ Ok that could have gone bad. Shiro are you alright?” Keith asked

“ Yeah I'm fine now what happened ?” Shiro asked as he started to get up

Keith looked over toward the red lions dashboard to see what had happened and saw that they had been pulled by a gravity well. As he looked at it another message a appeared. It took a few second for the computer to translate . An all the message when it was translated was Welcome.

“ Uh Shiro were here “ Keith said

“ Alright then let get going “ Shiro said as he exited the red lion not noticing that Keith had grabbed his knife and followed

as the exited the red lion they found themselves on a massive ice shelf

“ There’s nothing here “ Keith said as he looked around the empty space

“ Remember Keith The blade uses a space bending devise to hide their locations so just be ready if I just” Shiro was cut off when he disappeared with a huge distortion that rippled. Then Shire then popped back out. “Found it “ Shiro said .Keith quickly followed and passed through the weird distortion and found himself in front of a huge gray and purple building As they entered the build they noticed dozens of Blade members just standing there in two lines with one member stand on a elevated platform wearing a different uniform then the rest they both guessed he was the leader.

“ Welcome paladins of Voltron I am Kolivan leader of the blades of Marmora .” Kolivan said

“ I am Shiro pilot of the black lion “

“An I'm Keith pilot of the red lion.”

“ It is nice to finally to meet you but I must ask what did you disobey my request to come unarmed” Kolivan asked

Before Shiro could even responded a blade member descended from the roof right behind Keith and quickly pined him to the floor “ Keith!!!” Shiro tried to help his brother only to have another blade member stepped in front of him stopping him from interfering

“ He has one of are blades. Explain Boy “ The blade member asked

“ It was a gift from my mother” Keith said as he struggled to get out of the blade’s members grip

“Antok get off the boy and let me look a the blade ” Kolivan said as he walked calmly towards them.

Here you go master” Antok said as he handed over the blade to his master

Kolivan examined the blade. He know who it belonged to. But he wonder when If this was truly her son. There was but it would have it’s own set off consequences for the boy if he choose to take it” You have disobey my request and by the blades laws you should be put to death but seeing as your a member of Voltron we will let you pass it you give us the blade “

“ No!! That is the only thing my mother left me .I brought it here to see if you knew who she was. “ Kieth said

“ Well if you want that answer and to keep this then you’ll have to take the trail that all Blade members”

“Now Keith we need to -” Shiro was cut off

“ I’ll do it “ Keith said

Back In the castle of lion’ s bridge

“ Adam you alright bud you seem Worried ” Jay said

“ I’m fine it just I feel like something is off. Coran have we been able to contact Shiro or Keith yet “ Adam asked

“ Were trying to but the Solar flairs make it near impossible “

“ I’m starting to feel like this was a mistake coming” Allura said

“ I agree with you on that one. But then again we need all the help we can get at this point. With the Empire building an Army of robeast to fight against us .” Hunk said

“ As well as Harley, Quinn, that Skyver guy and that thing we still have to deal with “ Jay said snarling a little as he remembered that planet things face

“ As well as the Armada of warship that are protecting the command center and the fleets that are go there roaming the universe conquering other worlds” Pidge add

“ If only there was a way for us to just attack the command center with having to fight are way though all of that. “ Adam said

“ Yeah but the only away we could do is if we were to some how isolate the command center from it’s fleet but then we would have to find away to stop them from calling for help along with bringing down there defends” Lance said

“ That is not a bad idea but how are we going to isolate the command center ?” Hunk asked

Allura was about to speak up only to hear over the speakers Matts voice “ Everyone to hanger bay 4 we have something to show you”

“ Well that seem to be important Jay ,Adam, go see what they have found .” Allura said

“ Alright” Adam said leaving . While Jay just loaded revolver and followed Adam out

“ Well call you when shiro contacts us” Allura said as the two men left the room” Now Lance what was that again about moving the command center ?”

Back in the blade of Marmora

Keith was walking out what he assumed to be a dressing room in the blade outfit he was give an as he left the room he saw shiro Standing there wait for him.

“ Keith “

“ Shiro i know what your going to say. But i need to do this” Keith said

“ First i was going to say that looks go on you and second “ Shiro sigh “ look out of everything you’ve done this is the dumbest but then again i choose a mission to the moon of Pluto over the man of my dream so i have no place to judge . Just don’t die out there know when to call it quits we can’t lose you “ Shiro said with a look of worry on his face

“ Ok Shiro I'll try. I’ll try “ Keith said s the two walked toward another door “ Wish me luck “

“ Brake a leg” Shiro said as he left Keith in front of the door

“ Knowing me I might” Keith said as he as he steeled his nerves waited a few seconds before walking in to a big empty white room Then he heard a voice say

“You seek answers then survive the trail or die trying. knowledge or death” Kolivan said.

An he said that a tile in the room Keith was in opened up and Keith watched as a blade member slowly raised up into the room . the moment they stopped rising the blade member grabbed there blade and charged at Keith. Keith quick grabbed his knife and blocked the first strike and did his best to block the oncoming onslaught of blade strikes. each time their blade meet Keith could feel his heart start to race as he blocked another blow but as he did he felt the wind get knocked out of hit followed by a sharp pain in his should as the blade brought down the sword. Keith stumble back. He tried to swing his knife in retaliation only for the blade to grab the hand by the wrist and before he could do anything to get out of it. He was to kicked in the back and fell to his knees and felt his arm being putted back. He then felt the cold touch of metal on his neck

“ Give up the blade an the pain will end “ the blade member said

“ No I won’t “ Keith replied through gritted teeth

“ Then the pain will continue” the blade member said as he let go of Keith.

Keith got to his feet and looked toward the blade member an saw they were pointing to a door at the end of the room. Keith walk to the door clutching his shoulder. As he got closer to the door he felt like someone was watching him. he looked around the room for a few seconds before entering the next room and as he entered the room the door closed behind him and he watched as two blade member ascended for the floor to meet him. Keith readied himself and charger forward

in a different room Shiro and Kolivan were both watching Keith’s trial

“Is this really necessary?’ Shiro asked as he watch his brother get beat by the two blade members

“ He was the one who wanted this. But I will not lie I am I'm impressed with his resolve to keep pushing forward “ Kolivan said as Keith entered the third room

they both watch as Keith tried to hold is own against the three blade members only to be beat to the ground and asked the same question only to refuse and move on to the next room and fought off four blade members only to go through the same thing . An each time he entered the next room he was beaten and asked the same question and he refused again and again and again he limped into the next room. But just outside of the blades hideout.

Keith knew he wasn’t going to survive this if he kept going. But he refused to give up his mother’s knife. So as the Seven blade members started ascend and step off what ever they were using to entered the room. Keith quickly throw the knife and it jammed itself in between the metal floor and the metal tile. As the five blade members look at it. Keith booked it toward the exit he made and quickly slide pass all the blade members fell to the hole grabbing his knife on the way down causing the tile to close behind him. He slide down the tube faster than he had expected and when he exited the tube he slammed into the floor with a loud cracking noise . Keith lay there for several minutes before keith started to move again

Shiro was surprised by what just saw . "Is the trial over?"Shiro said worried about his little brother's life

“ Not yet the hardest part of the trial is about to begin “ Kolivan said

Keith tried to get up . His body was racked with pain " why are you like this Keith you could have just left the knife in your room or with Adam or someone else you trust. But no you needed to get your answer" Keith muttered to himself " You put a new alliance at risk for what a chance for what to know who your mother was. To find out if your galra . keith started to stand up and felt pain shot up his leg. “ Great now my be leg might be broken.” Keith said to himself as he limped toward the wall leaned against the wall and slowly started to blackout as he did he could heard someone walking towards him then he heard a soft female voices“ Rest now my sweet child it will be all over soon” Keith felt a warm hand on his face. and just before he completely black out he looked up and saw an bright pair of warm purple eyes looking at him. Then he blacked out

“Keith wake up” A male voice said

Keith slowly opened his eyes and recoiled from the lights that were on as he got up he found himself back home he looked out the nearby window and saw that he was back on earth” was everything just a dream” Keith said to himself as he got up from the coach he was on

“ Morning bud “ A deep voice said .Keith looked to see his father alive sitting in a chair.” Go to see you again you’ve grown so much. Since i last saw you. But that all i had to say now what did you come to ask me somethings “

Keith was surprised,happy and confused all at the sametime. but he quickly composted himself “ Ok Dad what was mom. What am i. Why can i use galra tech without hacking it or have a stolen galra prosthetic . Why was the blue lion so close to our home.Why did mom leave us.” Keith asked but in the back ground keith could swear hear a faint sound of he guest was screaming

“ We just have to wait a few more minutes and you will get your answers”

“ ok just a moment “ Keith said as the screaming got louder as well as the sounds of marching and blaster fire.Keith got up from the couch he was on an walked towards he dor and notice a red huew was overtaking the blue sky . So when he made it to the door and what he saw sacred hiim. It was a Galra warship with an army of sentries marching toward them and that was followed the sound of his teammate yelling for him . Keith quickly grabbed the doorknob and was about to leave

“ Wait keith if you go now your not going to get to see her “ Tex said “

"But their are people that need me" Keith said conflictly he wanted to know who is mother was but his team need him . But then again everything he went to get here would before nothing .

“ But if you go now you’ll never know what you are” Tex said

KEith bit his lip and started to open the door “ I’m sorry dad but i have a job to and people to save “ KEith said

Tex smiled remembering that he would say that to keith whenever there was a fire he need to deal with “ Don’t be sorry your making the right. Now go save the universe “

“ Thanks dad it was nice to see you again “ Keith said as he fully opened the door and walked into a bright light.Keith awake and found himself lying down again but back in the blades base. He looked over to see Shiro talking to what keith guessed was the leader of the blade with his hood and mask off they had red fur that crossed their eyebrows and and on the top of his head,

Shiro turned to see that was up “oh you're finally up” shiro said

“it’s good to see your awake boy” Kolivan said

Before keith responded he pulled out the knife “here take it.” But as he it did this the blades started to glow and change shape into a scimitar like blade.

“ The blade took it’s true form that is only possible if there is galra blood in your veins so my theory was right ” Kolivan said

Keith felt a weight lifted from his shoulder as he looked at the blade.

Back in the castle of lions

“ Where can they be?” Allura asked as they were now looking for for the red lion the screen auto locked onto the red lion followed by the comms turning on

“ Sorry we took so long” Shiro said over the comms

Allura smile hearing that her friends were safe

Thirty minutes later after Both Shiro and KEith explained what happened as well as Allura explained that the rest of the team found the pilot of the robeast and that they were now in a cell in the detection level. They also discussed about a plan to End Zarkons Rule

“ So were in the end game now huh “ Jay said

“ Yes we are but when do we begin?’ Shiro asked

“ Now” Kolivan said

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thebiasrekkers · 5 years ago

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Edge of Forever [BTS Space!AU]

BTS Space!AU [ ♧ ✪ ✿ ☆ ❂ ☾✘ ] “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” The stage is set and the stars are the guide for the lost souls that have congregated to one point. A fixed constant in the universe for others to discover and fulfill their wishes but will it come to ruin for others?

Pairings: BTS X OC (s) Genre: BTS Space!AU Warnings: Graphic Violence, Heavy Language

AO3

Chapter 7- You

"There's a fire within, hate to admit it but always knew Violence and sin, keeps me fearless.."

“Are you sure it's out there? Looks like a trap..”

Yoongi squinted at the screen as they all viewed the scene before them of the asteroid field where the Antares was being stored for safekeeping. Nyala let out a soft laugh before walking up to Jin, letting him know where the docking bay was. Truthfully, she was also worried that it was a trap since there were so many people interested in them now. Her other worry was that the others would be targeted for helping her. During the second jump, Jin and Yoongi put those worries to rest, partly. Between the both of them, all of them would be able to keep under the radar but who was really able to escape the Armada?

Yoongi’s black eyes seemed to pick up on those worries as he looked at Nyala, a frown forming on his features again. He also seemed to know of the conversation between herself and Jimin, nothing being hidden between the both of them. He wasn’t happy with her that his friend had decided that but he couldn’t hold him back on what he wanted to do.

Jin nodded at Nyala’s words and positioned the ship to where they could board. All of them held their breath until the locking clamp secured itself to the seemingly unassuming piece of rock. Jimin announced that everything was secure and the breath that was being held by everyone was let out. They would be set until they finished what they were there to do. However, the trick was to do it all in zero gravity since the asteroid was in its natural spin as not to seem suspicious to others.

Jungkook, Nyala, and Vairuit started their work of helping to unload what they needed to in the zero gravity while the rest of them made sure that the systems were still going to work for flight. Jin, Yoongi, and Jimin saw to that as they floated into the main cockpit of the ship. It was spacious, at least three times bigger than the other ship and its design was something none of them had seen before. Once they came onto the bridge, lights suddenly turned on and soft beeping could be heard from the various controls. Jimin ran his hand over one such console, marveling at how it almost sounded like music to him.

Life forms detected. Please identify with encrypted code and voice activation.

The three of them looked at each other, speechless at what to do. The mechanical voice repeated itself again as more lights were being lit up as it powered up basic systems. After a few minutes of silence, the voice repeated once more but that time was tinged with hostility and even added a part about subduing the intruders should they not provide the information. Nyala soared right on in, just in time and settled at a station. In her hand was another device that interfaced with the console, giving the code before anything could happen.

“I don’t appreciate this, Nyala. This thing could have killed us—” Jin started in on one of his rants, speaking so fast that she almost couldn’t hear what was being said by the computer systems. Jimin bounced over to him and hugged him, sending the pair of them over towards Yoongi. The man clapped one hand over Jin’s mouth as he tried hard to listen to what was going on himself.

“Vibrissa Class, TLS 1420-SJP. This is Nyala, Second House of the Rajini. Please confirm voice activation.”

The voice that had been warning them suddenly quieted, the system working as the lights dimmed as it confirmed. The boys looked around in alarm and even Jungkook, who had come from the cargo bay with Vairuit, nearly protested when they both floated in. Vairuit was fine since her eyes would allow her to see in low-level light as well as darkness. Suddenly, the lights powered back up and a different voice presented itself to the compliment. It was a light-hearted sound, male but one that was pleasant to most ears.

Nyala of the Ifrit, you are welcomed back to the Antares. I see you have brought friends with you? Should I add them to the crew manifest? And where is Lirael? Is she still damaged?

“Kibeth, we have more things to worry about like getting the ship up and running?”

The voice hummed and new life was suddenly lighting up the entire ship, a couple of projections suddenly popping up for all to see. The screens showed the schematics of the ship and the various levels of each system as they booted up. Jin gasped and floated forward, disentangling himself from Jimin as he watched what was going on. Yoongi looked on with great interest as well while the rest of them looked on as the other consoles lit up. Vairuit floated over to a weapons console and checked the armament. Jungkook accompanied her, looking over her shoulder but the action caused the pair of them to start trading words.

He was suddenly flung away from her, a smirk on Jungkook’s face when it happened. He nearly sailed right into Yoongi, who put his hand on one of the offenders' shoulders--and squeezed. A yelp came from Jungkook’s mouth as the action, surrendering immediately. The voice, Kibeth, gave a soft hum at the antics as it watched from one of the cameras on the ceiling.

My, this might be one noisy complement of crew.

“Are you an AI?” Jimin piped up from where he was, his words directed to Kibeth. At the query, the voice hummed again before answering him. “You won’t suddenly decide to do things on your own?”

Yes, I am the AI that is also apart of ship’s systems. My designation is TLS-1420 but you may call me Kibeth. Do not worry, I have learning capabilities but most of my coding is restricted from having a will of my own. I am completely devoted to the Antares’ Captain and Lirael.

No sooner than the words echoed away did an alarm sound on the bridge. Kibeth announced that there was a ship that had dropped out of Drive Space on the long-range sensors, heading directly for them. It cut itself off mid-sentence to correct itself--there were three ships instead and they showed no signs of going anywhere else but there. Another announcement was made that the lead ship was hailing them and that he was patching it in through audio-only since the main screen wasn’t yet active.

“My, my, my. Nyala, you led us right to the Antares and even so kindly have the Android aboard. Well done. Now surrender or die.” The transmission was cut off before anyone had the chance to retort back. The Pirate had found them a lot sooner than they all had anticipated.

“You all may leave now, they only want me and the ship. If I distract them long enough—”

“Do you really think you can pilot this ship by yourself. I mean, I could but you’re no pilot.” Jin climbed into the pilot’s chair, strapping himself in as he got himself familiar with the controls of the ship. Nyala words were cut off by him but she couldn’t get another word in as Yoongi took a seat with Jimin taking the communications console and chair.

“Nyala, we’ll get all the cargo and supplies we can from the other ship while we still have zero gravity. We can move crap more quickly that way. You focus on getting this hunk of junk ready to fight.” Vairuit grinned at Nyala, bumping her shoulder before she floated away--calling out Jungkook’s name as she did so. The man sighed and followed her out so that way he could help, flashing Nyala a grin as he passed. The ships were still a good distance away so it would give them time to do what they needed to do. They, once in range of their target, could only go so fast and the asteroid field was giving them extra time. Kibeth announced that the ships would be on them in about 20 minutes, given the field was still in its current state. Fluctuations were common due to the high impact of the asteroids with each other. There could have been a sudden shift that would throw everything into chaos, should it happen.

“I have a plan but we really need everything out of my ship that we can possibly get before peeling out of here,” Jin announced, still in the thick of learning the controls. It caught the attention of everyone around him, seeing that his face had turned grim. “We can overload the engines on my baby, causing a significant shift in the field. Still, the reactor core will take 7 minutes to overload and they might be within weapons range by then.”

“So what you’re saying is—?” Yoongi snapped, looking at Nyala for confirmation. She sighed and looked back at her work. It was showing that they still had another 8 minutes left in booting up the systems, even with Kibeth’s help. However, the good news was that the Drive Engines were warming themselves up too. They would just have to clear the field to activate and get the hell out of there.

“He’s right, Yoongi. If we do that, it would give us enough time to clear the field and get out of here. Hopefully.”

Yoongi gritted his teeth and relented at their words. By his calculations, 8 minutes until system-wide re-boot then Jungkook and Vairuit would have only two minutes to finish up what they were doing before the ships were within range of firing. Another 5 for the core and two minutes left to get away safely. That was, if they weren’t blown out of the entire existence by then. Yoongi grumbled and rubbed his face as he started to make preparations himself.

“Kibeth, can you access the Persona’s systems?” Jin called out, nearly finished with what he was doing. The AI confirmed he could, it just had to break through the encryption matrix to take control. The Pilot agreed and let him do that while everyone worked in sync to get their plan going. Once the AI was finished, Jin was ready for flight or at least that he was prepared enough to start calculations that he would need for the hurried trip out of that sector.

The 8 minutes seemed to fly by as fast as Jin would and everyone was given the two-minute warning. The AI was keeping tabs on the ships and the surrounding asteroids, in case of any sudden shifts. The pilot called out to Kibeth to go ahead and fire the Persona’s thrusters so that way the ship could help them turn around. They were going to use the rock that the ship was attached to as a shield, hiding the other ship that would stay behind. Once Jungkook and Vairuit were aboard, the doors were locked as well as sealed. Now they just had to wait for their expected guests to get near them.

However, they had started to blast some of the rocks that were coming by them and causing all kinds of chaos with the asteroids. Everyone took stations, Jungkook and Vairuit at the weapons array; Jimin at comms; Nyala at navigations while Yoongi took up another station and Jin always at the helm.

Jin gave Kibeth the go-ahead for the core meltdown, releasing them from the docked position. Once free, he had the other ship attach itself to the asteroid and they pulled away. Shots were fired once in sight of the ships but the weapons on the Antares were better in all aspects. The rounds fired off as Jin increased speed, maneuvering through the field. They had to go a bit slower than they originally planned due to the debris flying all around them from the gunfire but they finally made it a safe distance away--just as the other ship blew up. The seismic reaction, as well as the energy released from it, took out two ships since they were closer to it and disabled the third. Once clear of the field, the Antares took off into subspace Drive and once again left them to tend to themselves.

#kmultiverse #bangtanarmynet #bts fanfction #bts fanfiction #space!au #bts!space #biasrekkers presents #Edge of Forever #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #kim taehyung #park jimin #jung jungkook

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lupizora · 6 years ago

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Castaways On A Foreign Planet (1/5)

It's already the ninth in my timezone so I went ahead and posted this. This was written back in July but with everything that happened RL wise since then and the launch of The Better Hero, I procrastinated into publishing it. But hey, it's the @kacchakobittersweetweek and I'm going to upload the two chapters I've written so far of this Space Pilots AU for it. This chapter is for the theme of Fall.

Genre: Sci-Fi/Romance

Pairing: Bakugou x Uraraka

Rating: T

Summary: Ochako thought she had settled into her job as a mercenary. Katsuki thought there was only one reason to fly. Together they thought they knew their place in this war. But all it took to question everything was find each other again.

Ochako resisted the urge to puke.

Her stomach still couldn't handle returning from stasis to full function after Light Road travel. She swallowed the bile. Tapping her fingers around the controllers, she waited until the wave of nausea passed. Outside of her Orca's windscreen, a vast asteroid field spread around the reddish-green planet like an impregnable wall. Ochako noticed little sparks of light glinting between the huge space rocks seconds before a shrill noise echoed through the intercom.

"Welcome, Fighter 2-7-3," The unemotional, computer-like voice said. It used to give Ochako the chills but the feeling had died down over time. "Are you in position?"

"Yeah," she said. "What's the plan?"

"Eliminate all targets."

Even if Ochako had never met the person talking to her face to face, she could swear they always smiled when they gave orders like this. It was a gut feeling she couldn't shake no matter how hard she tried.

"Roger that."

Her spaceship glided between the suspended space rocks, looking for a secluded spot. Head-on attacks weren’t Ochako's style. She preferred ambushing the unlucky fellows who would cross her path. When the field covered the spaceship from every side, she halted the engine and leaned back in her seat.

The hunt had just begun.

"Where are you?!" Kaminari cried out.

The Marlins swarmed around Katsuki like a school of hungry piranhas. His shields were keeping him safe for now as he flew through the asteroid field.

"Don't know. Can't see a thing with those fuckers on my tail."

"I'm barely getting your signal, dude. You have to get back here!"

Katsuki took a sharp turn around a big asteroid. Some of the Marlins crashed on it. He grinned despite anger burning hot in his chest. How these douches had lured him so deep into the asteroid field still escaped his understanding. The Peregrine's radar was going bananas the closer he got to the planet. Katsuki couldn't pinpoint where the fuck he was or how many enemies were out there. Such a classic move from the Alliance to set the game on their own terms. It pissed him off to no end.

"Bakugou!" Kaminari shouted through heavy static.

"Quit yapping, Drooly! I'll be there in a few."

He just had to make them lose him first.

Katsuki turned right, heading straight for where the concentration of the field was thickest. The Marlins followed; their iridescent wings shining under the light of the closest star. Two of them were orbiting the planet, which was twice the size of Earth as much Katsuki could tell. He had seen simulations of the Union's first home-planet, but never the actual thing. It was several light years away from this war to be concerned with it.

A blast ricocheted on his right wing, pulling Katsuki back to the fight. His shields were down. The Peregrine flew over and under asteroids, his pursuers always a step behind. Katsuki clenched his teeth as he avoided laser shot after laser shot. Ahead, two space rocks were on a collision course with each other. Katsuki zoomed between them but the smaller ships didn't follow. The other side appeared quiet. He slowed down the engines just a click, trying to catch his breath. His radar continued showing gibberish. The ship tilted left due to a strong pull from the planet's direction.

Damn the Alliance and its fucking ambushes, Katsuki thought, hardening his hold around the controls.

The intercom was dead. If someone decided to strike, this was the perfect opportunity. A sense of foreboding dropped on Katsuki like a bucket of ice-cold water. He spotted the irregular shadows on the nearby asteroids seconds before the other spaceship attacked.

Ochako ignored the feeling of blood rushing to her head. The Orca flew towards the Peregrine like a killer whale rising to catch an unsuspecting bird flying too close to the sea's surface. The pilot of this ‘bird' dodged just in time. The Orca's bottom scrapped the other ship's hull. Ochako turned her spaceship around, activating her guns; their barrels pointing at the Peregrine.

The onslaught started with the flick of a switch. Ochako heard and felt nothing more than a low rumble under her feet as the shots were fired. This distance made things less personal. It was just a job, and all she had to do for this to count was destroy the ship. With the signal gone, the Alliance thought they had one less pilot to worry about. But these pilots could survive for an hour in outer space and the Union never left soldiers behind. Ochako always counted on that fact. Killing former comrades was a line she would never cross; no matter how much was the payment.

Something glinted outside. Instead of avoiding her firing shots, the Peregrine flew towards the Orca.

Are they insane? She thought, horrified.

Her hands danced animated over the controls. The asteroids were packed closely together and the navigator was out of commission. It'd be hard to maneuver with her bigger ship. But she wasn't going to fall victim to a suicidal pilot. Not when she hadn't reached her goal yet.

Pulling at the controls, Ochako forced the Orca to retreat. Bullets ricocheted against the golden surface of the Peregrine as it filled her entire windscreen. She tried to dodge. Her body lurched forward from an impact. Lists of data started overflowing her side screen, indicating that half of the ship had been destroyed. The oxygen levels dropped rapidly. Ochako didn't want to leave the ship. It had served her like the best of comrades. But with a heavy heart and out of breath, she activated the emergency protocol. The pilot's seat tilted into horizontal position. Ochako pressed her arms on her sides as the seat dropped under the cockpit. Fluorescent bulbs flickered alive, illuminating the walls surrounding her with a purple light. The protective glass slid into place and the escape pod was launched into the void.

Katsuki's sole objective had been to scare off the other pilot so they'd crash. He hadn't expected getting caught in the explosion or the Orca’s remains to clog his engine. Without a way to battle the pull, the Peregrine started plummeting to the planet. The alarm screeched. Every light bulb inside the cockpit blinked red. Katsuki’s fingers around the controls were going numb. But the controls didn't budge.

Blue, so bright it hurt his eyes, replaced the darkness of space as he passed through the stratosphere. The cockpit was overheating and his spacesuit clung on his body like second skin. Pressure glued Katsuki to his seat. The wings had bent in front of him as if the ship was a real bird free falling. He had to open them. Katsuki steeled his feet against the front of the cockpit and pulled. The spaceship twisted like a spindle. When he faced the ground below, Katsuki pressed the buttons on his controls. The wings unfolded like a real falcon's followed by a loud groan. The ship started leaning more to the right. Despite his attempts to fix this, the Peregrine continued to balance like a seesaw in the air.

For an instant, he looked up from the control panel. Some sort of red area spread over the horizon. Katsuki darted past its border without problems, but he kept losing altitude. The ship dropped under the plates beneath him, revealing them to be trees. Branches and trunks pounded on the hull like it was raining stones. Something struck the ship from below and Katsuki's head crashed on the control panel. It left him in a daze, the rows of trees before him blurring the more he stared at them. The view cleared and the ship nose-dived. Metal screeched as the ‘beak' dug a line into the ground. Vibrations shook the cockpit like an earthquake until the stern settled down with a thud several meters later. Dust covered the windscreen, harsh light obscuring the view outside. His helmet's filters picked up a foul smell but Katsuki's body felt too heavy to move. A monotonous tune ringed in his ears. Black spots danced in front of his eyes. They covered his entire vision, and he was falling all over again.

Stars twinkled at the sky above when Katsuki woke up. He lay on his back, something soft supporting his head. The stench of smoke filled the air along with sounds of burning wood softly crumbling. Heat washed over him from the left. He turned his head. Someone had kneeled next to a small fire. It spurted flaming specks when the other person threw one more log inside, illuminating briefly their exposed arms and their bulky metallic boots.

Anti-gravity boots, Katsuki's tired brain concluded. Thieves and mercenaries were fond of these; a crowd he was better off dead than get caught mingling with it.

Whomever that person was, they hadn't noticed Katsuki was awake yet. It gave him the advantage of a surprise attack. He only needed a weapon. At an arm's length lay a belt like a dormant snake, the handle of a gun peeking from one of the pouches. Katsuki dragged the belt silently towards him. The Alliance's open palm insignia adorned the clasp. Propping himself on his elbow, he pointed the gun at the enemy's head. His entire body was shaking from the effort, but Katsuki clenched his teeth and cocked the safety.

The stranger turned abruptly. It was a woman. After the initial shock, her dark eyes zeroed on his face; her chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. Strands of hair from her side bangs clung on her round face like vines. Producing a knife out of nowhere in her hand, she raised it to defend.

A weird feeling rushed through Katsuki's chest, and for a moment he thought he'd pass out again. But he didn't break eye contact. It wasn't just her appearance. The way she was ready to strike without the slightest hesitation brought something from the depths of his mind; the memory of a girl who didn't back out from any challenge, and who had almost killed him once already.

"Uraraka?"

She furrowed her brows for a moment before recognition flashed in her eyes too. "Bakugou?"

He steadied the hand holding the gun. "Just my luck. Of all the assholes in the universe, it had to be you."

"Glad to see you too," she mumbled.

"So, you're making deals with those Alliance dicks now? What an upgrade."

"Oh, really? How many people you had to threaten to make it into the fleet?"

Katsuki gritted his teeth. "For your information, I landed this spot with my skills alone. Which is more than you can ever hope to land. Say, what's the score now? I bet it's at least ten ships you've crashed so far."

"You're one to talk.” Uraraka scoffed. “Did you forget how you tried to ram into me just a few hours ago?"

"That was an evasive maneuver. Did you forget how you crash-landed a Sparrow right into of the Academy's freaking entrance?!”

"I had it under control! It barely reached the front steps anyway."

Katsuki still had a hard time believing this. No one amongst the crowd had noticed the spaceship emitted a trail of smoke until it started falling. Trained pilots or not, they all scattered like frightened children. The Sparrow's turbines raised every blade of grass and stone in its vicinity as the ship skidded on the courtyard. When the terrible whine stopped and the dust cloud cleared, Katsuki had found the wing a breath away from his neck. He backtracked; glaring daggers at the cockpit as the Sparrow's pilot unfastened their seatbelts. After they had scrambled down from the ship, he approached them to demand an apology. But Katsuki had never expected Uraraka's defiant stare when she took off her helmet. His heart, already beating wildly from the near-death experience, skipped a beat. The effect only lasted a moment because she melted into a mess of apologies right after.

The present Uraraka sighed. "Can we forget about this for now? You shouldn’t be moving. Your wounds haven't healed yet."

Despite every joint of his body protesting in the process, Katsuki managed to stand. His head felt woozy, but his grip on the gun remained steady.

"I'm fine," he said.

Uraraka carefully stood up, keeping her hands visible. "You busted your head hard. The control panel of your ship had a decent dent on it." She paused. Her eyes flickered to the gun for a second, seemingly contemplating over her next words. "From what I managed to see in the smoke."

"Smoke?"

"Fortunately, the cooling system put the fire under control before anything exploded."

"Exploded?!"

Uraraka pointed somewhere behind him. Katsuki looked over his shoulder. His spacecraft lay like the carcass of a sea creature washed-up on an Earth's shore. The flames barely cast a light on it, but the charred front of the ‘beak' was visible.

Katsuki glared back at her, rage beating in his veins. "My ship."

"What about mine?" After thrusting her knife back to her boot, Uraraka placed her fists on her waist. "The remains are still floating up there."

"Not my fault you can't fly straight to save your life. No wonder they kicked you out."

She gasped. "I saved you and that's all you have to say?!"

"It’s your fault I was about to die in the first place. That doesn't make us even."

"Ugh… You're impossible!" Uraraka marched past him and scooped up the thing Katsuki's head had been resting. Flapping her jacket like freshly washed laundry, she put it on and stomped back to the fire.

"What do you think you're doing?" Katsuki asked.

"Leaving." Uraraka picked up a box from the ground. "I've had enough. Find someone else to blame for your shortcomings."

"Don't go playing the victim," he said. "Traitor."

"You don't know anything," she said. Her eyes were rimmed with tears when she looked up again.

The sight unnerved him, but his expression didn't falter. "I know enough to not wanna see your face ever again."

"Fine! Rot in your misery for all I care."

"Don't threaten me, you third-rate pilot!"

Uraraka held her head high, not bothering to give him another reply. She walked away until the darkness around them swallowed her form.

The minutes came and passed, but she didn't come back. All the rage and adrenaline Katsuki felt evaporated from his body, leaving behind a hollow husk that ached everywhere. He holstered the gun.

The waning moon rose from behind a rock complex on his right, shedding light into the hollow he had landed. Lanky trees grew out of the harsh ground behind the Peregrine, which was revealed in all of its destroyed glory. Scratches and bents marred the ship's golden surface; some of the hull's guiding panels were gone, exposing the mechanism underneath. The right wing was tilted in a weird angle too. Katsuki climbed on the ‘beak'. His muscles screamed in protest, but he balanced on the smooth surface without fail. Inside the broken windscreen, the cockpit was a mess of melted polymer. Sparks flew when Katsuki probed the control panel with his foot.

It could be worse, he thought.

The main engine was located in the middle of the ship, so it should have been out of harm's way. If it was still operational, at least he would have a slightly bigger chance of getting off this planet. But a closer inspection could wait.

Exhaustion dropped on his shoulders like a heavy blanket. Katsuki grabbed one of the windscreen's exposed bars, ready to slide down. But he caught sight of his reflection on the remaining glass. A rectangle shape was shimmering on his forehead. He leaned closer and poked the edges of it. Pain stung him like millions of needles.

"You busted your head hard."

Apparently, Uraraka had patched up his wounds along with getting him out of the ship. And what Katsuki had done in return? Called her names, demeaned her and stole her gun. He didn't like owning people, especially someone who had seen him vulnerable like this. Still, he didn't know where all this anger had come from. Was it because she was with the Alliance or because she had disappeared without even a goodbye? Words had always come out wrong when Uraraka was involved even in their Academy days. Whenever she was around, Katsuki would get this restless energy he didn't know how to handle. As if she lightened up a fuse inside him and if he didn't release it in some way, he would explode.

He dropped his hand. Next to the fire, his cracked helmet stood glinting like a lonely star.

#kacchako #uraraka ochako #bakugou katsuki #bnha #bnha fic #bnha fanfiction #boku no hero academia #kbsw #kacchakobittersweetweek #fanfic #fanfiction #space pilots au #wolfswriting #i love writing about space but I can't help getting all technical about it #this barely counts as soft sci-fi #and boy oh boy someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed XD #castaways on a foreign planet

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imjustthemechanic · 7 years ago

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The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment Part 18/? - Midnight Invasion Part 19/? - Elevator Fight Part 20/? - Courage Part 21/? - Unwelcome Back Part 22/? - Darkest Hour Part 23/? - They Are Here Part 24/? - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Part 25/? - Word of God Part 26/? - Avengers Assembled Part 27/? - The Houston Underground Part 28/? - Houston has a Problem Part 29/? - Onward and Upward Part 30/? - The Chi’Tauri Queen Part 31/? - Through the Wormhole

I’d hate to disappoint kiralamouse.

The first plan that occurred to Steve was the self-sacrificing wanker one – he could crash the Leviathan. That would probably kill them all, but it would take the queen with them…

That wasn’t what they were trying to accomplish here, though. Their whole purpose was to get back home alive. There was self-sacrificing, and then there was self-defeating.

Suddenly something moved on the console. The screen Steve had been using to navigate shrank into a corner, and another open popped up. This was the point of view of one of the remaining soldiers, and it was looking at a tablet, being held up by a terrified NASA employee.

The image was of Ochoa, standing in front of a metal door that Steve recognized as the same type in the tunnels of the Houston underground. She was still filthy and sweaty, but she had washed her face and was standing up tall, with Colleen and Kevin on each side of her.

“This is Ellen Ochoa, director of the Johnson Space Center,” she said, “and I have a message for you, visitors from space. You said we have no heroes, but you made two big mistakes. The first was assuming we can’t make our own wormholes. It just so happens that Dr. Kevin Farinas here is one of the world’s experts.” Next to her, Kevin held up her drawing of the inner workings of her wormhole machine. They did look very technical and impressive. “You may have some of the Avengers,” Ochoa went on, “but we have the rest!”

The metal door behind her rolled up, and a group of figures stepped out. They were brilliantly backlit and at first it wasn’t possible to see anything but their silhouettes, but those were in themselves familiar. The stuntmen representing Steve, Thor, and Natasha were not there, but Elizabeth Olsen was, and Jeremy Renner, and Colonel Rhodes, whose actor’s name Steve hadn’t caught. Spiderman was there – that must be Donny – and Sebastian Stan, dressed as Bucky complete with a special sleeve to represent his mechanical arm, and Pietro, who must have arrived late but there he was, alive and whole. And finally, Bob Downey, dressed in a tailored suit and red sunglasses that were perfectly Tony Stark. He stepped up beside Ochoa and took the glasses off.

“That second mistake she mentioned?” he said. “That was assuming we wouldn’t come for our team-mates. Avengers,” he turned and pointed at the others. “Assemble!”

With that, the video was over.

It would never work, Steve thought. Even with the re-write, the Chi’Tauri would know now that it was a bluff, a distraction. Just for a split second, however, the queen stopped, staring at the screen and trying to figure out what importance to attach to it.

A split second was all Natasha needed. She kicked out and hit the pink gem on the queen’s belt. The force field protecting her flickered and died. Loki grabbed the end of the staff weapon the queen had taken from him, its shaft still in her hand, and set it off. The bolt went right through her arm, severing it at the shoulder. She shrieked and dropped Thor and Natasha, and Loki jammed the muzzle end of the weapon into the bloody stump and fired again, directly into the queen’s flesh. This shot went right through her and out the other side, spattering Thor with blue-black gore, and the queen collapsed. Steve had to dive out of the way to avoid her massive body coming down on top of him. Natasha rolled under the console and curled up, preparing to be crushed.

The corpse hit the console, slid a bit, and pushed against the control stick. The Leviathan rolled over and went into a dive.

Steve dragged himself upright again and tried to push her off. Thor, on the other side, attempted to pull. Natasha, trapped under the edge of the console, joined Steve in pushing, and after a moment Loki dropped the staff weapon and did as well.

“You cannot blame me for breaking this!” Thor said.

“Don’t you two dare start!” Natasha ordered.

Warnings blared all around them as they dropped, but the queen’s body was literally dead weight, and it refused to move. Steve could barely believe this was happening. He felt as if he were outside himself, watching this all go on in slow motion from a million miles away. They couldn’t have survived everything so far, from the movie set to ruining their alternates’ lives and careers to fighting the Chi’Tauri, only to die in a stupid, stupid accident only moments after they’d won.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the screen with the starfield on it. There was an icon in the corner like a pulsating circle, spinning end over end. They had nothing to lose now – no harm in experimenting. He reached up and touched the icon.

It shrank to a point and vanished, and there was a flash of light. A blue sizzle passed through the cockpit of the Leviathan, bringing with it a prickling sensation and a metallic taste in the mouth, and then suddenly they were weightless.

Zero gravity was not a sensation Steve had felt before, and it was a deeply disorienting one. His gut told him he was falling, but the air around him was perfectly still. Loki, who’d still been pushing on the queen, was thrust backwards by his own efforts and set spinning in the air. Thor, pulling from the other side, could no longer keep his feet on the ground, and grabbed the queen’s arm to keep from floating away. Natasha squirmed out from under the console and hung there in midair, waving away globs of dark blue blood that were now floating freely.

“I think I just activated the wormhole,” Steve told her.

“Oh, really?” she asked, her face perfectly, sarcastically neutral.

“Yes,” Steve said. “As a matter of fact.”

The star map screen had now grown larger, to take the place of the front view. Steve couldn’t identify any of the stars they were seeing, but he wondered…

“Do you think we’re back in our own universe?” he asked.

“We’re certainly not back in our own bodies,” Loki observed.

Like the rest of them, the body of the queen was now floating gently, leaving the controls once again accessible. Steve took the column and flew the Leviathan in a wide arc, hoping for a look at what was behind them. He was out of the habit of formal prayer, but in the back of his mind he was murmuring please, God, please… please let him find himself looking down at Earth. His own Earth, where he was, or had once been, Captain America.

Stars rolled by.

Steve’s hopes sank slowly. It looked like there was nothing out here… just the black void in all directions. Then he realized that stars were winking out in one part of the view, and back in a moment later… there was an object there. Multiple objects. Multiple big, dark, symmetrical objects, floating out there in space.

The Leviathan’s computer recognized them. Outlines appeared on the screen of giant ships with smaller companions, and Steve realized they were looking at an entire armada. There were at least six of the big vessels and too many of the small ones to properly count… and here were Steve and the others with their one relatively tiny ship, in bodies that had barely survived four Chi’Tauri. Who knew how many thousands more were waiting for them out here.

Stark had said that he’d seen what was coming on the other side of the wormhole over New York. Was this it? No wonder the man was scared to death. Scared enough to do anything, even try to use the Mind Stone, if he thought it might save the world from this.

“Steve,” said Natasha, her voice calm but wavering very slightly, “whatever you just did, I think it would be a good idea if you did it again backwards.”

“What if we crash into the ground?” asked Steve.

“Then I guess we crash into the ground,” said Nat.

He reached for the circle icon, which had reappeared in the corner of the screen, but then suddenly the starfield flicked back to being a side image rather than a focus, and a different screen took its place. This one was for communication, and it showed another Chi’Tauri queen even more ornately armored than the last one, draped with metallic cloth and, Steve realized a moment later, much, much bigger. The tips of staves were visible on either side of her, and the tops of guards’ heads that barely came up to her waist. She was nearly twenty feet tall.

Steve and Natasha, Loki and Thor all pulled themselves off to the sides or ducked under the edge of the console, hoping they would not be seen. Perhaps they were not, but there was nowhere to hide the dead body of the smaller queen. It was plainly visible, floating inertly along with its own severed arm.

Other screens lit up, and Steve heard noises as machinery came to life. The bigger queen vanished again and the star map returned, but this time it had a blinking crosshair on an outer corner of the nearest mother ship. For a moment they seemed to be standing still, and then Steve saw a few more stars vanish behind the outlines. They were moving towards the armada.

The group exchanged some glances. They were all injured to various degrees, beaten and bruised and exhausted. Nobody felt capable of another fight.

Loki reached out and retrieved the staff weapon, which was floating nearby. He checked it, and then nodded. “Still has a charge,” he said.

“Thor,” said Natasha. “Let’s get some more weapons.”

“I’ll see if I can disengage the autopilot again,” said Steve.

He’d done that before just by pushing hard enough on the steering column, so he tried it again. It was much more difficult now. In the lack of gravity he couldn’t push against the floor, so when he tried to rotate the controls he ended up rotating himself. He had to tuck his knees under the edge of the console for leverage, and then pushed as hard as he could, but it did nothing. The mother ship had control and was not going to relinquish it.

Thor and Natasha returned, and Nat handed Steve a plasma rifle. It was, as Loki had discovered on the ground, surprisingly heavy. If Steve had been fighting humans, he would have wanted to use it as a club rather than a gun. His arm was just barely long enough to reach the firing mechanism inside, and he understood why Loki had found it so awkward to aim.

“Where’s that force field switch?” asked Nat.

“Here.” Loki showed it to her, on the bottom of the device. “Just remember that it will not fire with the field activated.”

“Got it,” said Nat.

The mother ship was looming very large in the viewscreen now, like the Death Star dwarfing the Millennium Falcon. Steve wondered how big it was. It had to be at least the size of Manhattan. If one of these had come through to Earth, SHIELD’s helicarriers would have looked like mosquitos buzzing around it.

“My friends,” said Thor, “it will be an honour to die by your sides.”

“I would have counted it a greater honour not to have died at all,” Loki observed.

“Same,” said Nat.

Distant sounds echoed through the structure of the Leviathan as it docked. Steve heard metal scrape on metal, clicks and thumps of things sliding into place, and then with a final dull, reverberating clang, the gravity came back on. The queen’s body hit the cockpit floor with a sound like dropping an enormous leather coat, and Steve squeaked as he came down on his bad ankle, but quickly silenced himself again. Everybody double-checked their weapons, and Steve observed that he was proud of them – all of them, including Loki. They had no fight left in them, but they were going to keep fighting anyway.

Something below them rumbled. It must have been a door open. Perhaps it was the Leviathan’s mouth.

Heavy, leathery footsteps were heard, very loud now that the motion of the Leviathan had ceased. The ladders creaked.

The first soldier poked its head through the entrance on Steve’s left. Natasha took aim and shot it in the face. It dropped out of sight again, with a series of cries and thumps that suggested it had fallen on top of several of its fellows. A second soldier popped up on the right. Loki blasted it with the staff weapon.

The Chi’Tauri were not stupid, though – the next ones that appeared had their force fields on. That meant they couldn’t shoot, but they also couldn’t be shot, and Steve and the others would have to take them on hand-to-hand. Thor tried Steve’s move from the foyer at the Johnson Space Center, throwing himself at a Chi’Tauri’s legs to knock it down. This worked, but the next alien behind it grabbed him and held him off the floor by one leg. Loki slashed with the staff weapon’s bladed end and stabbed one Chi’Tauri in the belly, but another one wrested it from his hands with ease.

It didn’t take long, just a few desperate, panicky, painful seconds. None of them were capable of putting up a decent fight in their current state. Steve, too, was lifted off the ground. His captor snarled at him, and Steve could only hope that wherever he was now, Chris Evans would forgive him.

#fanfic #steve rogers #natasha romanov

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manyblinkinglights · 7 years ago

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@solluxisms I play Elite: Dangerous, which is a space sim that’s just really fun for me to fly the ships in. And for space sims, you need two sticks plus at least two more analog axes (foot pedals, or twist sensors on each stick) to have good, analog control over all your ship’s thrusters/zero gravity movement possibilities. This is important in Elite, because a lot of the noncombat gameplay is going places and docking softly there. I flew with an xbox controller for a while (after sadly but firmly leaving mouse+kb behind) and probably would have stuck with it if flying my ship with it didn’t leave me without any fingers free for shooting my weapons in combat!

And then, for me the tech upgrades started with, well my first two sticks were physically very light, so they’d slide around the desk. So I drilled holes and strapped them down, but then (omitting dead-end jaunts into lawnchair modification) the sticks themselves had button issues so I passed them on and got different more-mainstream ones. But sticks are kind of made to be installed in cockpits, that’s where they’re from; they just plain aren’t super comfortable sitting up on a desk by your keyboard. You’re meant to be comfortable in a reclined seat and in it for the long haul, with them easily to hand—not perched in an inadequate computer chair, reaching forward at them. So, a lot of people mount their sticks (and throttles, for people who fly stick-and-throttle) on the ends of their chair arms...

Seeing people’s various sort of shitty office chair modifications was really inspiring for me because I felt there was potential for me to do it RIGHT, that I could find the MOST ELEGANT SOLUTION to this, that I could... MOUNT THE HALVES OF MY SPLIT KEYBOARD ONTO THE CHAIR ARMS TOO, and be twice as cool as my competition. But I spent a lot of time thinking and the right chair never came along, and eventually someone besides me perfectly solved the office chair + monitor arms HOSAS (hand on stick and stick) setup, by getting two of their arms just like mine modified by a friendly blacksmith to clamp to one another around the central pole beneath their cheap office chair, perfectly proffering their sticks to hand. So now someone else had solved the HOSAS chair, and I didn’t know a blacksmith...

My lil strongback chair (LOWER BACK SUPPORT, INFINITE VARIETY OF LEG BRACED ON FLOOR COMFORT) turned out much too small to accept one of these arms with like a kb tray, unfortunately, but once I had the arm in hand it was obvious that I could clamp it to the desk instead, and solve a ton of chair-related problems at the same time. AND this setup just needs a desk with legs, which is the kind I prefer anyway—ANY style of chair will work! AND there’s room and structural support for plenty of arms, so now I have ALL my input devices to hand, while I comfortably recline in a chair with GREAT back support with my legs doing whatever, and 0 butt numbness. I’m physically comfortable!!!!! I love the computer SO much but I’m SO uncomfortable in chairs, I’m just too big and weakly inflexible to have developed any truly bizarre seating habits like lots of other adhd kids.

So now I’m COMFY, basically, no more fixated hunching, only a pleasant and supported lordly sprawl, with my shoulders open and back nice and legs provided for and just, free and easy deep breath, HMMMM.

#ok I guess cockpit seats aren’t RECLINED but like #everything’s at arm’s reach! In an arc of like your natural reach #it’s a control environment made for YOU #not just you putting all your shit on a desk and then leaning over at it forever #in a cockpit you sit BACK and the controls are still THERE

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zackgardner · 7 years ago

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Dead Space

Dead Space - Zack Gardner - SciFi - 3742 words - 2017

The breakneck pace that the Impervious365-X4 had maintained for the past three billion lightyears suddenly pulled back to a lurching crawl, its final destination within sight. The Impervious365-X4 shifted into a comfortable orbit of the blue planet, hissing precise bursts of compressed air to adjust its calculated course. Screens long dark flicked on, back-up systems powering up with a sleepy whine. Cool blue wall panels slowly illuminated the cockpit of the cumbersome vessel.

The A.I. system powered up all of its resources, leaving its hibernation state and returning its CPU and processing speeds to normal. It reinserted its empathy drive along with its short term RAM and ran a SYS check. There was something that needed to be done; something primary. Something urgent. Full interior and exterior cameras and mics rebooted, giving the onboard A.I. its senses back, just as the SYS check completed, flooding the AI's human-esque mind with feelings and memories.

"Oh dear," the A.I. stated aloud. Strapped to main control chair in the cockpit was one of the Portsuits, inhabited. The A.I. activated the control chair's functions, connecting with the Portsuit. It began to recount the events from three billion years ago, before the jump to lightspeed, as data simultaneously poured from the Portsuit into the onboard AI.

"Oh dear." It stated again to itself.

It was dark and he couldn't move. Panic wasn't far behind, but at least he knew it wasn’t far behind, so there was solace in that, right? He couldn’t even tell if it was darkness, or his eyes were shut. Everything felt fuzzy and off. He tried remembering how he got here and came up blank. He tried remembering the most basic of things and came up blank. Panic arrived just in time. If he could have made himself scream, he would have.

"Oh dear." He heard, his mind instantaneously clearing of the panic. He could hear - that was a start. There were the humming and soft grinding sounds of computers, the buzz of fluorescents.

"Now Master Fiore, I'm going to have to ask you to stay as calm as possible while I try to reconnect your senses." The voice held a thick British accent, prim and proper, but with the softness and monotone obviously making it a computer system. Aside from that, the voice was oddly familiar. Comfortably familiar.

Reconnect, he wondered? And suddenly there was blinding light and clarity, as vision returned to him. The luminescent of the control panel screens, brushed steel and plastics of the cockpit and the dull glare of the thick glass viewport. A massive blue and green planet took up half of the window, the other half a quick atmospheric fade to the stark black of outer space. He gasped at the beauty in spite of himself, hearing his intake of breath through the mic in the Portsuit.

"That should do for visual. And audio input/output should be up as well." The same disconnected British voice. "Can you hear me, Master Fiore?"

Fiore. That sounded right. There was a familiarity to that as well.

"Y-Yes. I am… I am having some difficulties." He said with a shaky voice, tinny over the Portsuit's microphone. “M-motor functions and… and I my, ah, my memory is - is blank.” He tried lifting his hand, looking down at his arm slowly responding, the sleeve of the Portsuit fading seamlessly into its bulky glove.

“Well, Master Fiore, you are a doctor of cybernetics returning from a long-haul run to an outrigger colony. Your full name is Amadeus Fiore, no middle name, the ship you are currently on is called the Impervious365-X4, and my name is-”

“Pervy!” Fiore almost shouted. “We called you Pervy!”

“Very good sir.” The A.I. stated dryly. “We had some complications upon the initiation of cryosleep whilst cycling up the hyperdrive. In response to that, you donned one of the ship’s Portsuits to use its hibernation function. Rather bold move, I do say, but at the time, the best option you had, Master Fiore.”

“Well thank you… Pervy.” Fiore chuckled. “I’m still having some issues with this suit. My mobility is shot. Can we maybe run a recalibration to the suit’s servos?” The Portsuit was a fitted spacesuit, meant to protect and enhance those on the longer trips into deep space. It was a fully enclosed suit, visor and helmet that could protect against the extreme negative temperatures, pressure differences and strains of zero gravity that travelers would come across. Not only that, the models that the Impervious365-X4 was equipped with also boasted full musculature support, full sensory support, full temporal uplink, and even a basic cryo-hibernation option. When equipped, the suit could jack into the brainstem access port all of the crewmembers had had surgically embedded into the base of their skull, at the hairline. All of the suit’s options, or whatever piece of equipment the suit was ported to, could then be controlled cerebrally.

“Certainly, Master Fiore, I have it running now. You should be mobile momentarily… But, sir, there are some other concerns that I should bring to your attention.”

“Oh yes, Ama, there are other concerns,” came a female voice, sultry, and as though whispered into his ear. He recognized the voice and the moniker. A memory of a feeling. On the tip of his tongue. He jerked his head towards the sound, of course, just the empty cockpit. Just him and Pervy.

“Of Course, Pervy. I-I appreciate your concern.” Fiore said, shaking it off. “It’s nice to know I have a friend such as you, if I know nothing else!”

“Sir, need I remind you, I have no real emotions or emotional attachment. I merely act on one of my prime directives as to the safety and welfare of the crew…” The A.I. responded cordially.

“Well that’s good to know too, Pervy, but it would have been better if you’da just taken the compliment.” Fiore laughed exasperatedly. Maybe he should have the A.I. run a SYS test on his access port. Or maybe the temporal uplink needed recalibrated? Who was that girl??

“Alas, sir, undeservedly so. It was all your idea to use the Portsuit – when all of the cryochambers were full.” The A.I. responded. “But, sir if you don’t mind, can I ask what happened just now? Your vitals spiked off the charts for a moment there…”

“Nothing, Pervy… Nothing.” Fiore knotted his brow and pinched his eyes shut trying to put it out of his head. “I’m fine now-wait!!! Chamber-s?! Pervy, cryochambers plural?! There’s more sleepers onboard??” Fiore shouted, leaping up from the chair. Was she there? Was there a She? “Show me!” He exclaimed, slapping the Portsuit’s gauntlet against the Open panel and rushing out the porthole as it slid open.

“To the left up here, Master Fiore,” The A.I.’s voice paced him as he ran down the curved-walled corridor. “Our course has us maintaining orbit for the next three hours until we reach our descent/landing trajectory… I will directly be beginning the rejuvenation cycle for the other passengers, but first, sir, I really need to-”

“Pervy!” Fiore shouted, halting suddenly in front of a labeled portal. “Open this damned door!”

“…yes sir.” The A.I. answered, the door sliding open.

Fiore scratched the back of his neck where the jack had been wired. It was still sore, having pulled the bandage off a day early. Kaela had gone with him, had had the same procedure. She sat beside him on the blanket, bare legs basking in the warm sun, her black hair tied back showing fair shoulders, olive skin kissed pink by the sun. He felt the heat, his shoulders already freckled and red, his auburn-red hair sweaty and tucked under a baseball cap. They would have to leave tomorrow, and she had so much left to tell him.

“Sir?” The A.I. asked, a note of concern in his voice. “Your vitals, sir!” Fiore shook his head to clear it, the tinted visor of the fitted helmet shaking in tandem. His vision making the dull blue lighting of the ship leave trails in the air.

“It’s nothing. I… I think it’s just a side effect from the long-term hibernation in the suit.” Fiore clutched his head and staggered into the hibernation room. The room shone antiseptically metal and white. Shower stalls and mirrored sinks lined one wall while the opposite wall housed personal lockers, airtight and secure for travel. Lined side-by-side the length of the room were the cryochambers, ten in total. All occupied.

“Master Fiore, there’s-”

“There is more Ama. You’re going to just love this.” The voice said teasingly inside Fiore’s head. He righted himself, shaking the helmet, trying to clear his head.

“Master Fiore, I must insist you pause for a moment.” The A.I. began. “Your vitals keep spiking, and there is a matter you must be made aware of post haste!”

“Pervy, I’m fine!” Fiore insisted, more to himself than to the motherly A.I. Was she in here? Was she in his head?! He headed towards the line of cryochambers, not sure which would be worse. “I just need to reacclimatize to being out of hibernation. Once that’s complete, my friend, I can doff the confines of this stuffy old suit and I will be as right as rain.”

The A.I. was silent for a change, to Fiore’s surprise. He glanced up at the row of dull blue illuminated tiles that ran the length of the ship (where they would all look when speaking to Pervy, as though needing a face for the disembodied voice) awaiting any sort of response. Having none, he shrugged and moved on.

Fiore stepped to the first chamber, peering into the translucent upper half of the brushed steel and glass sarcophagus. He didn’t recognize the middle-aged man in the chrysalis, nor the woman in the next, nor the next, or even the one after that. He stumbled to the next and stopped short, taking a second and longer look.

Grant took Kaela’s hand, interlacing their fingers and rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. They sat hand in hand on the public bench outside of the guest barracks, watching a stream of meteors flow in a belt around a titanic gaseous planet. Kaela glanced at the cybernetics guy as he passed, giving her a half-wave. That one was odd. He’d have to keep an eye on him. They were maybe a month into their sabbatical aboard the deepspace station, there to provide support, repairs and maintenance for the growing crew of the station. The crew of the Impervious365-X4 would be stationed there for just over a year, so he had better make sure to keep clear of the two of them.

“James? No, Grant. Grant!” Fiore said, slapping the glass of the cryochamber in triumph. “I remember that prick.” He slid his hand down the chamber and headed to the next.

The news had devastated him. Kaela had told him on the picnic they had shared, the day before launch. She had cried, and so had he, in spite of himself and perhaps in spite of her. She had said they could no longer see each other and begged him not to talk about it; not to talk to her any more. Despite that, they met again that night, in secret, and made love on the couch of his small rental, sparse of furniture and on its last day of the lease. She left as she had arrived, without a word, eyes sad and on the verge of tears.

“It was never meant to be – what we had.” She whispered bitingly.

He saw Kaela at launch, of course, but the formalities and preparations kept them apart. After the journey and the recuperation aboard the deepspace station, Fiore would see her in passing, usually with Grant. Her fiancé. Her fiancé. He had stewed about it for weeks on end, almost a month into their yearlong stint in deepspace. But then came the neuromail message, anonymous, that they should meet. That she needed to see him, now more than ever. That she had to see him in private; had to tell him something.

Fiore stroked the clear portion of the cryochamber with his thickly gloved hand. She slept peacefully under the glass, the memories falling back into place haphazardly. She was a beauty, silken raven-black hair down to her shoulders with contrasting olive skin, fair and smooth. Even after all she had done his heart still wrenched, trying to pull itself out of his chest, when he looked at her. There was only one more chamber left. His. Fiore plodded on, the Portsuit’s thick rubber bootsoles shuffling on the grated metal floor.

There had been the usual issues during the return trip takeoff, nothing serious, but now that they had cleared orbit and chartered a hyperspace course, chaos had ensued. The countdown had begun, and the cryosleep chambers were all but full, chemicals pumping and setting stasis for the crew. The last three pods were still open, hissing compressed air and other gases into the hibernation room. All three pods were buzzing warnings, touchscreen controls warning the occupant to initiate cryo stasis as soon as possible. The A.I. was there, obviously, and trying to placate the remaining crew. Kaela sat in her open chamber, shimmying up to the front in order to hop back out, shouting indecipherably. Grant stood over Fiore’s chamber, hands flying over the access screen. Fiore picked himself back up off the grated floor, rubbing his already-swollen jaw, murder in his eyes.

“I didn’t know though. You have to believe that I didn’t know what he had planned.”

Grant stepped away from Fiore’s cryochamber, the pod door closing and setting its locking mechanism. He roughly pushed Kaela back into her pod, initiating her pod as well. Fiore stood and swayed – he had not been punched in years, not since primary school... And never like this. The suckerpunch had knocked him down, his head connecting with the metal floor almost as painful as the surprise hard right from Grant. Grant looked at him contemptuously and sneered as he walked slowly to his own pod. Fiore staggered toward him, the room still spinning. Everything was muffled and fuzzy. He probably had a concussion from hitting the floor, and the throbbing in his jaw wasn’t helping. He could hear Kaela screaming at him, screaming at Grant. He could hear his heart beating inside his ears, competing for his attention. He could hear Pervy insistently in the background, urging him to do something, warning him of something… And there was another sound. Another sound most foreign to him.

“You’re almost there, love. Remember.”

The droll accent of the A.I. finally broke through the throbbing pain.

“Master Fiore, the jump into hyperspace is imminent. You need to prepare yourself. Your chamber has been tampered with, and I can no longer access it.” Fiore squeezed the bridge of his nose and pinched his eyes shut trying to push the pain away from his brain to make room for thinking. Grant had a smug smile on as his cryochamber latch locked into place, and Kaela kept screaming and beating on the curved glass of her pod. And that other sound... That other sound.

“Pervy, power up the cockpit support controls.” Fiore shouted, turning and running out the hibernation room into the curved-walled corridor. The A.I. paced him, a flash in the bluelit panel. “I don’t care about ship controls, but I want full access to UI protocols and Portsuit protocols.” He spun a corner, equilibrium still off, banging his shoulder into the wall.

“I want my Portsuit opened and powering up by the time I get to it!” He shouted, running full-tilt and leaping through the open port doors as they came. He was out of breath and panting wildly by the time he arrived at the Portsuit locker.

“Yes, but that sound. The other sound. Remember the other sound? Not me screaming, not the silly computer, not your half-assed survival plan… The other sound.”

Fiore had the suit on in no time and was doggedly running again, sprinting for the cockpit, attempting a software hack of the access screen on his left forearm that controlled the amenities of the Portsuit. He was already temporally jacked into the suit, but he would need a little time to create the uplink to the ship’s CPU. The A.I. had reverted to a calm countdown until the jump to hyperspace initiated. It would be close, if anything. It would be—

“The sound, Ama. Please.” She begged.

Fiore stood at the foot of this cryochamber, afraid to move to the head and peer inside. Afraid, and he didn’t know why. He gritted himself and prepared to move forward.

“Master Fiore.” The A.I. cut apprehensive silence so suddenly that Fiore jumped. “The matter we need to discuss. It will not wait.” Fiore sighed and stepped back from the pod.

“Go ahead, Pervy. Let’s have at it.”

“Your Portsuit, sir.”

“I know, Pervy, but everything seems to be intact. We’ll have to write the company a letter of commendation when we’re back on the ground, if they even still exist.” Fiore laughed lightly, trying to clear his mind of worry. “Who knew these dinky suits could hold out for that long, eh?”

“That’s the problem, sir. The support systems of the Portsuit such as the musculature support and the sensory support have maintained nominally, along with the temporal access port. However, the-”

“The hibernation function?” Fiore finished.

“…Yes sir.”

“Ama, please… It’s going to be okay.” Kaela whispered in his ear.

Fiore spun away from the line of cryochambers, making a beeline toward the shower area. The floor seemed to be swaying, like the old-time ships, the ones that floated on water. He almost fell onto the nearest sink, gauntleted hands gripping the white porcelain. He looked in the mirror at the Portsuit helmet, staring back at him: Tight-fitting helmet, airlocked at the neck, black visor, miniature auxiliary cameras at each corner.

“Pervy, what did you do?!”

“Master Fiore… Master Fiore, the hibernation sequence could only be held for a definitive amount of time. It was never meant-” The A.I. stopped speaking, hushed by Fiore slowly reaching for the visor release, a small catch at the base of the helmet.

“Master Fiore, perhaps-”

“Shut up!!!” Fiore shouted through clenched teeth, the mic gritty and screeching with his outburst. The A.I. fell silent again, and waited as the thick fingers of the Portsuit flicked the visor’s catch.

The visor slid up into the top of the helmet smoothly, revealing the interior of the helmet. Fiore gripped the porcelain hard, spiderwebbing the sides of the sink. An old blackened skull was nestled snugly in the confines of the helmet, dark gray and pitted with age. No flesh remained, just dusty bone. Fiore pinwheeled his arms, falling backward and landing with a thud on his rump. A skeleton. His breathing labored over the microphone. I’m all but a skeleton.

“Sir, perhaps I should…” The A.I. began. “When you were in stasis, I ran diagnostics on your Portsuit and found its… limitations. The temporal link to the suit allowed me to reverse engineer a new partition in the suit’s mainframe… Once that was complete and I could add to that partition with extraneous parts we had in the repair bay…”

Fiore was barely listening. He got back on hands and knees and began crawling back toward the line of cryochambers. Towards the last one. Towards his.

“Ama… Please, you need to understand. You need to remember.”

Fiore pulled himself up against the pod, and dragged himself toward its head. A skeleton!

“It took an extraneous amount of time, but I managed to copy over your entire memory catalogue, emotion directory and synapse response directory. And after that, it was quite easy to set up the musculature and sensory systems of the suit to respond to the suit’s cerebral controls.” The A.I. said proudly, as though expecting a pat on the back. Nothing but a bag of bones, in other words. Fiore cringed and pinched his eyes shut, realizing that he was not actually pinching his eyes shut.

“Ama, you need to calm down and think. Ama, please!” The voice crooned. But it was only a voice. Another ghost in his machine. Fiore took a deep breath (aware that he was not in fact taking a deep breath) and peered into his cryochamber.

A child, or a baby more like, was swaddled in a blanket sound asleep, frozen in time. It had smooth olive skin, an obvious attribute to its mother… And it had a light wisp of auburn-red hair, barely enough to be noticeable in the blue light of the hibernation room. The sound now echoed clearly in his memory as everything fell into place. Not Grant’s threatening rhetoric. Not Kaela’s panicked shrieks. Not the A.I.’s monotone warnings.

The baby cried, confused and frightened until the vapors from the cryochamber initiating its hibernation sequence lulled it into a doctored sleep. Fiore’s fingers flew over the access screen of the Portsuit, overwriting and rewriting new commands. He barely heard the damned A.I. begin the last minute countdown. He hashed out code and commands he knew by rote. His mind a million miles away. The baby. The baby was his.

Fiore fled from the room, before the rejuvination cycle could begin. He fled from the impending confrontation. He fled from the future he obviously could have no part in; from the past that he had just so recently discovered. He fled from the memories that were painfully searing into what his conscious still considered his brain. Fiore prayed that from the depths of the ship where he would hide that he would not be able to hear the cries of his baby as it awoke to a life back home. He fancied he could feel tears running down the pitted cracks in his ancient skull.

Once the Impervious365-X4 reached its target location, it began its trajectory descent back to Earth. The rejuvenation cycle began automatically, restoring the crew and awakening them - acclimating them back into normalcy. The crew of the Impervious365-X4 returned to Earth with the same number of human travelers it had left with, all those years ago.

#dead space #science fiction #scifi #scifi writing #scifi story #scifi fantasy #horror story #zack gardner #fiction writing #writing #plugsuit #space epic

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mincepiechallenge · 5 years ago

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Issac Asimov - Christmas in Space

As modern technology accelerates, the days of humans being limited solely to the earth grow shorter. Even at the most conservative estimates, it can't be more than 10 or 20 years before we set out to colonise the stars. And what better food for the journey than a mince pie!

But how would a mince pie fare in space? Daring to answer the question that has plagued the physicists of NASA for decades is Issac Asimov's short story ‘Christmas in Space'.

As astronaut Louie Martland journeys towards his interstellar destination, a mince pie mishap places his mission in the most dire peril...

Martland released the forward drive and placed the craft into assisted piloting. Handing over to the central computer was a relief and after navigating the short meteor field he felt ready for a break.

Inside the zero-gravity of the ship he swung his body through the cockpit opening and into the main atrium. Lights pulsed along the plastic ridges. He pushed through to the eating area and punched in the instructions for a heated pouch of coffee.

He drank his coffee slowly, picking up some of the latest signals from back on Terra. Something occurred to him. He checked the calendar onboard, on Earth it was Christmas Day. So what if he was completely disconnected from earth time, as his ship raced through the cosmos, what were the holidays but a state of mind. Happy memories of holly wreaths, snowy windows, and open fires flooded in.

"Computer: let's have some Christmas music."

Moving to the strains of the traditional carols he'd grown up with, Martland moved back to the vending machine and punched in a new number. A mince pie dropped into the hatch. He smiled, it had obviously been left as a treat from HQ.

Careful to keep the pie as intact as possible, he enjoyed the taste of jammy mincemeat and the crumble of the pastry. But he was eating too quickly. A mistimed cough sent a spray of crumbs flying through the zero gravity.

Panic. Cold blood surged through him. He swiped to gather the crumbs before they could work into corners of the electronics. But his movements were clumsy, sending the crumbs careening into new directions.

Behind him he heard a fizz and crack. He turned to see a curl of smoke emerging from the canteen's control panel. The lights dropped, plunging him into darkness - a crumb of mince pie doing what the meteor belt couldn’t, bringing him to the edge of oblivion.

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teamgensokyo-blog · 7 years ago

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EVENT REPORT ~APCC Shoji Kawamori's Workshop: THE CREATION - Songs, Transformation and Deculture Shock-

AsiaPOP Comicon Manila 2017 brought a lot of special guest and I was really thrilled that they invited Shoji Kawamori as one of their guest. Fans were able to meet him personally and have their merchandise signed at his booth at the Hall of Fame area. I was lucky enough to have my Macross items signed by him on Saturday morning because the line grew longer and longer the whole day and even on Sunday! The highlight of his visit in Manila was his workshop which happened on last Sunday, August 27th. I'm glad to share some highlights of this workshop.

The workshop started with an image of Megumi Nakajima. Kawamori-san mentioned that the artist has Filipino lineage and praised her for being a great artist. With the help of a translator, he gave us a brief biography of himself. He was born in Toyama, Japan. His father was an engineer and deeply influenced him. As a child, he nurtured his creative mind by playing Fischertechnik or German Block. He also showed a photo of the design he made as a kid.

He started drawing pretty late and sometimes have difficulty in drawing. Character designer, Haruhiko Mikimoto is his best friend since high school. He said that Mikimoto was the one who made Lynn Minmay's design. He also shared this college experiences. Kawamori said "When I was in college, during lunch time, we (with Mikimoto) always talk about Macross and have a meeting with what we will do with it in the future. Eventually, my professor found out what we were doing and kicked my ass out." He also mentioned that he worked part time for animation studio during high school and college and it help him stay in the industry for 40 years. Aside from mecha designing, he also do concept making, story writing and other multiple job.

After that, a short media presentation was shown as an introduction for Kawamori's past works and projects. Kawamori-san talked about how to make concepts and applying it. He mentioned that the important detail of this creation is it's originality. There are 2 things to remember in concept creation: first is Inventive Originality, which is creating something out of nothing and second is Unique personality. Changing your point of view is important as well. He mentioned, "Sometimes you need to see things in different angles to create". He said that it's like going up on the tree where your view changes every time you go up and your view is also different when you are looking at the tree itself. He also showed how he turned a tape dispenser into a space ship.

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Kawamori also mentioned that he and Kazutaka Miyatake were colleagues before and had competition in animation. Miyatake worked as a mechanical designer for Space Battleship Yamato. Kawamori-san said that he challenged Miyatake but he was defeated for a year. So, what he did was he asked for a vacation from his company and went skiing where he got inspiration for creating Gerwalk. (his main inspiration was how people bend their knees to ski and how you slide in the snow).

Upon creating Gerwalk, he presented the design to his company, at the same time, Miyatake-san presented a new design, similar to what he has. The only difference was Miyatake's design has 4 legs. Kawamori-san said that in animation, simple designs are needed. Since Miyatake-san has 4 legs and Gerwalk has only 2, he won that round. He also mentioned that it was hard to sell his design before because it was the era of humanoid robot designs. Even his company said, they need to make humanoid robot. Creating Diaclone Car Robot was his first 6-month project, which became the design for Transformers the first generation. He mentioned that he found it funny that when robot transforms the chair, the interior and even the machine is gone. So in his next design, he wanted it to be realistic where the cockpit and engine were still there.

He looked back on the manga he created with his friends back in highschool. He mentioned that it was the first creation of Macross, where there was a robot with multiple forms and functions.

His father also took him to military bases and Aircraft f14 became his favorite. He said that while observing the aircraft, he noticed that there are some space in between the aircraft and maybe he can put some arms there. At first, he designed the arms above the aircraft then later placed it in the sides. For creating designs, he used to work on papercraft but now he uses lego to create new designs.

People always tell him that aircrafts won't sell but his motto is "When someone disapproves your idea, it means there's a big chance in it!" So, whenever his boss, tells him no, he still push with his idea. When he heard Lynn Minmay singing in Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, he got an idea of "solving war using songs". The only problem was when he present this idea, they (his bosses) immediately said no and said singing songs will not solve the war. But he still pursued his idea and will take full responsibility for it. Since he was still in university when making the anime and took all the responsibility with it, they kicked him out.

He also mentioned he feels bad for professionals copying work of others that's why he created animation that no one will copy. So, he taught "What If I design a pilot who is also singing? He just there singing but not fighting." Thus, Basara Nekki (Macross 7) was created. Basara's guitar was the mecha's maneuver and he sings while moving the mecha. He also mentioned a fan who told him that "why is your pilot singing, you idiot!" and after couple of months, he let Basara shot a missile and that fan said "Why is he shooting missiles now?!"

He also shared his experience riding an aircraft. He said that the experience was very different when you are playing a pilot game. Inside the aircraft, you can see everything and in time, the gravity goes to your neck. What he experienced and saw, he applied it in Macross Plus. She also talked about Sharon Apple. His director told him that a computer cannot sing and make music. But today, we got Miku Hatsune, he said. He also mentioned the projection mapping idea he used for Macross Plus and after couple of years, projection mapping became reality. After Macross Plus, he showed visuals for his other works like Macross Zero, Macross Frontier and Macross Delta. He also announced the upcoming Macross Delta film and his upcoming next project. Kawamori said that further details and official announcement for the new project will be announced this October. The teaser trailer was showed to the audience as well and told everyone that this is just the 2nd time he showed this.

youtube

He also gave the audience a chance to ask questions. I'm glad that someone did ask if he's going to make a movie/anime about the fate of Megaroad 01 and it's location. He answered that he still thinking about it and what will happen but eventually he will work on it. Someone also asked about Lady M's connection to Lynn Minmay and if she will be there in the upcoming Macross Delta film, he didn't give a definite answer but he loved how fans are creative in ideas about the series. The workshop ended with a group selfie with everyone making the Walkure sign. It was a fun workshop and everyone had a blast! Thank youso much APCC for bringing the master here.

#event report #apccph2017 #apccmanila #asiapopcomiccon2017 #Shoji Kawamori #macross #macross 7 #macross delta #macross frontier

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scriveyner · 8 years ago

Text

shining like the stars p91

Shiro's head bumped gently against the ceiling of the cockpit. He squinted into the darkness, disoriented; his only light was the dim teal glow emanating from his Paladin armor. Shiro touched a hand to his helmet, feeling that it now completely ensconced his head. The automatic life support system of the suit had taken over, despite Shiro's sudden blackout. He exhaled, and then put his hands flat against the ceiling and pushed off, floating back down toward his seat.

It was absolutely silent inside the cockpit without the rumble of the engines or even the barely-perceptible electronic noise of the Lion's computers processing. He could hear his own breath in his ears, his heartbeat in his chest. What had happened?

A blue beam of light blinding him, Black thrashing around him in pain, so much pain – Shiro winced against the memory as he settled himself down in the pilot's seat. With the Black Lion completely offline the magnetic restraints were no longer active, just like the artificial gravity, the internal compensator, the life support system, the communications array….

Fortunately, the Paladin armor had its own internal communications system. The suit's connection with its Lion bolstered its broadcast range, so with Black being offline it was a crapshoot if anyone would be able to hear him but it was worth a shot. Shiro flipped over to it anyway, tuning the system to the frequency most often used by the Castle of Lions and the other Paladins. “Coran?” Shiro said. “Anyone? Do you copy?”

“Shiro!” It was Allura's voice that greeted him, the others must be nearby. A flood of relief washed over him, he probably wasn't captured. “Are you all right?”

“Black's completely offline.” He touched one hand to the flight control stick and didn't get any response. “I can't seem to raise her, how do I manually reboot?”

“You were hit by an ion blast, that usually fries the central processing crystal,” Matt's voice this time, somewhat strained. Shiro put both his hands on the flight controls and frowned, because even when the Lion was off and resting in her bay there was still something there. “I have no idea what the computer systems are like on these things, they almost seem alive.”

“That's because they are alive,” Pidge said. “Matt, bring Green closer, I'll jump over and help Shiro reboot Black, I've done it before. Keith needs backup, you can't hang around here.”

“What?” Matt was incredulous. “Absolutely not, you're hurt! You're not leaving me alone in this thing, Katie.”

Shiro closed his eyes, halfway tuning out the argument that sprang up between the siblings. Black was quiet, still as death … but it wasn't like she was sleeping. There was still something there, something on the barest edges of his perception. It was like catching a flicker of a shadow out of the corner of his eyes; he couldn't focus directly on it or else he'd lose it.

“We're sending Pidge over, Shiro,” Allura's voice this time, it brought him out of the trance-like state he had drifted into. Pidge must have won the argument.

Not that it mattered. “Negative,” Shiro said, his eyes still closed. “Black's completely down, I can't manually open the jaw to let Pidge in. You'll have to talk me through rebooting her over the comm.” There it was again. Shiro winced a little and tried to follow the spark but lost its thread again. Suddenly the entire craft shuddered as Shiro felt the Black Lion take a direct hit.

Without the magnetically locked restraints active, the impact shot Shiro out of his seat. He was awake this time though, and managed to brace himself, half-turning so that the impact led with his shoulder against the wall and not his head. “What was that?” he yelled.

“Company,” Matt said, his voice a little scrambled, the Green Lion must be moving out of range. “Sorry, Shiro, hang tight-”

The rest of what he said was lost in a scramble of static and Shiro muttered something into the open comm channel that he usually wouldn't say in front of cadets. He looked at the small display over his arm and saw that he hadn't lost the comm channel at all; bright red letters overlaid the information. “Jammed,” Shiro said out loud, as if anyone was listening now. “Hunk took out those dishes on the frigate first to avoid that happening, why would it kick in now?”

Shiro pushed off against the wall with one hand and floated in zero-G for a moment, the realization staggering. The battleships that had entered the system earlier had finally made it from the far reaches of the warp point and were in range. If they didn't get out of here quickly, Voltron would be captured.

This time, with his eyes open, he saw the spark. A dash of purple on one of the dark viewscreens; and when Shiro turned his head to follow its trail he lost it in the reflected teal light of his suit. “I know you're here,” he said out loud. “We have to work together on this, but I don't know how to help you. Can you tell me?”

Nothing, for a long while. Shiro kicked off the wall and floated directly to the pilot's chair, pulling himself back into the seat with his hands tight on the flight controls. He wouldn't let go again, no matter what. Then there was a flash of something, and Shiro closed his eyes, a small smile on his face as he focused. “Ah,” he murmured. “I suspected as much...”

The Black Lion floated helpless in space, almost invisible against the infinite black canvas unless you were right up on it. There was a new wound to the Lion's exterior, carbon scoring from the starfighter that had sniped past before Matt whipped Green around so fast that the craft didn't have time to realign its sensors before the plasma bolt from Green's tail blasted it into space dust.

Coran was up on visual. “We've just launched from the moon, Princess,” Coran said. “We can warp once the Lions – and yourself – are back in range of the castle.”

“Thank quiznack, something's finally going right,” Allura said, and looked to the other screens as Coran's shrank away. “Keith, Hunk, did you both get that?”

“Copy that,” Keith's voice was strained. The Red Lion was flying a tight corkscrew around the aft of the frigate, and a wing of drones were swarming him; never mind the bevy of turbolaser fire that the Lion was drawing. “How's Shiro?”

Matt glanced to the viewscreen that showed the Black Lion hanging limply, running lights still extinguished. “We'll get back to you on that,” he said. “Head back this way, I can help knock a few of your groupies off your tail.”

There wasn't a response to that and Pidge looked to the communications display; red circles with slashes through them now occupied all the active slots. “What the hell?” she said. “How are they jamming us now?”

The view outside the Lion spun as Matt juked the Green Lion around, blasts of turbolaser fire lighting up the screen on all sides. Between them and the waystation where the prison ship was still docked was a massive Galra battleship. “Holy shit,” Matt yelled, and yanked back on the flight controls, looping the Green Lion up and away.

“Shiro!” Allura yelled, but the Black Lion was already completely off their screens. “We can't leave him, turn around this instant!”

“Yeah, so we can get friend just like he did?” Matt said, stomping the rudder pedals and turning the Lion on a dime. “Hang on, Princess!”

Both Pidge and Allura clung to the back of the pilot's seat as Matt spun the Green Lion, avoiding the rain of plasma fire expertly. “Jawblade,” Pidge said, and Matt nodded. The Green Lion ran up alongside the battleship, jawblade out and carving a large swath of destruction along the side of the ship. It wasn't enough, but the explosions that littered their path was enough to cut the battery of turbolaser fire for a few brief moments.

“We have to get back to Shiro,” Allura said. “And tow the Black Lion back to the castle!”

“What about Hunk and Keith?” Pidge said. “Did they both get Coran's transmission too?”

“I have no idea,” Allura said grimly, as the Black Lion appeared in their forward view again. This time, though, the emergency lights on the exterior of the Black Lion were lit, but it was still hanging helplessly in space.

“He's got her running again,” Matt said, relieved.

“Not entirely,” Allura said. “He'll still have to reboot her.” Pidge started to move toward the back of the cockpit, intent on making the jump to the Black Lion to help. “No, Pidge,” Allura said. “Let me out here, I can help him get it rebooted. Your brother is right, you're injured.”

“I can still help,” Pidge said, and Matt glanced back at them for a second.

“Katie,” he said.

“You two, find Hunk and lead him back to the ship, we'll get Keith once we get moving,” Allura touched her helmet and it completely covered her head, making her suit vacuum-resistant.

“I'm not leaving you while the Black Lion's incapacitated,” Matt said, focused on the forward view. “We're staying until it's moving under its own power again.”

“Bring her in closer,” Allura said as they pulled alongside the Black Lion. “Go and find Hunk,” she repeated, as the floor opened up beneath her to allow Allura exit from the Green Lion. “That's an order!”

Pidge stared at the spot on the floor that closed up behind the Princess. “That's an order,” she repeated in a higher voice, imitating Allura's angrily. “We're not leaving until they're mobile.”

“Damn straight we're not,” Matt said, and they watched as Allura kicked off the Green Lion, one hand outstretched toward the Black Lion. “We can't afford to lose both the Black Paladin and the Breath of the Lions.” He glanced at his screen and at the Galra battleship, which was starting to roll, likely to bring the undamaged weapons on the other side to bear on them. “She doesn't have a lot of time, though.”

“Where's Hunk and Keith?” Pidge asked out loud, and as Matt started to respond that he didn't have any idea, two small screens overlaid the jammed visual comm and he realized she was asking the Lion, and not him. Hunk was too far out of range for the exterior cameras, so it showed the HUD with a small yellow lion's head for Hunk's location – on the other side of the battleship and moving away all the while. “What's he doing?” she said, and slammed her good hand against the back of the pilot's chair in frustration. “Dammit, Hunk!”

“He's looking to see if there's an ejected pod from Ilya's starfighter,” Matt said softly. “On the off chance she punched out in time.”

Pidge bit her lip and glanced away, looking at the battleship again. “Yeah,” she said, her gut twisting. “Fat lot of it will do him if they both get captured.”

The head's up display had marked the last coordinate transmitted before the small Galra-made starfighter stopped broadcasting its location and was presumably destroyed. Hunk kept one eye on it, the coordinates moved to the main screen of the Yellow Lion's cockpit; the point still distant. She had been close to the prison ship, and there were still drone starfighters about, even if there weren't as many as had been protecting the frigate.

“Come on, come on,” Hunk said, desperately scanning the wreckage of starfighters as he flew Yellow with thrusters wide open. A ping rang off his sensors and Hunk's attention flew to it, fingers flying over the console to bring up its information. The ping was remote-activated; no actual communications were sent with it but Hunk almost laughed in his relief. It was an automated ping from an ejector seat. The Yellow Lion's tail thrashed as Hunk reoriented toward the source of the ping, flying quickly through the debris field. He opened the comm, hoping to raise her but was met with static. He frowned and jabbed at the controls, then glanced up to the visual comm and saw that they were all offline, with blink red sigils covering the open transmission lines.

“That doesn't make any sense,” Hunk said out loud, and the Yellow Lion twisted in its flight path as the new, large threat loomed behind him. “I know I took out the – ohhhh no.” The battleship took up nearly all the viewscreen. “Oh, no. Oh no no no, that's not good.” He flipped the Yellow Lion expertly and pushed the Lion to its full speed, headed toward the ping. “Hang on, Ilianya,” he said. “I'm coming for you!”

The Black Lion's mouth was slightly open now, which allowed Allura to float in and board. She ignored the ominous dim glow of the plasma cannon that sat behind the boarding ramp and pulled herself into the cockpit. Some of the Lion's internal systems were back online and operational, but apparently the artificial gravity was not one of them. “Shiro, are you all right?”

There was no answer.

Allura swallowed hard and floated into the cockpit proper, pushing off the door with her feet and catching onto the back of the pilot's chair with both hands. Her first fear – that she would find the cockpit, and the pilot's chair completely empty – was allayed by seeing Shiro there, although he was slumped forward and clutching both flight controls tightly. “Shiro,” Allura said, relieved, but he again didn't respond.

She kicked around the chair, hanging onto it with one hand so that she could see him properly. Shiro was leaned over, his helmet tilted down and she couldn't see his face. Allura reached out to touch him tentatively, and Shiro jerked back but did not lift his head. “We don't have time for this,” Allura snapped, and Shiro reacted to her words and finally lifted his head.

His eyes were open wide, staring at nothing and glowing a soft purple.

Allura stared at him for a moment, her mouth open. Shiro's face was entirely blank. “Oh, no,” Allura said, softly at first. She released the pilot's chair and instead put both her hands on Shiro's helmet, turning his face up. “No, don't you dare,” her voice was angry now. “You let him go.”

Shiro let out a strangled noise, a choked cry. The purple glow seemed to be spreading, but Allura wasn't having any of it. “I command you,” she hissed, and slammed Shiro bodily back into the seat. He made another pained noise, and the purple glow got brighter for a split second before it went completely out. At the same time, all the monitors and view screens around them lit to their full capacity, and the artificial gravity kicked back in. Allura fell with a hard thud, banging her helmet off Shiro's thigh and sprawling back. She swore several phrases in straight Altean as her helmet helpfully went partial now that life support was back on.

Shiro was panting in the pilot's seat, almost wheezing like he couldn't catch his breath. He tilted forward a little, still hanging tight to the flight controls and staring straight ahead like he was looking through what was in front of him. Allura pushed herself upright. “Shiro,” she said authoritatively, and he jumped in his chair and looked at her instantly, startled, as if he had no idea she was standing before him. She exhaled heavily and asked, “are you all right?”

“What happened?” Shiro said, his voice thick. “What just happened?”

“I will explain later,” Allura said. “I promise.” Shiro stared at her wildly, and she continued, “are you able to fly?” He better be, because she sincerely doubted that the Black Lion would let her pilot if he couldn't. Especially after that.

He nodded his head and wet his lips, swallowing. Shiro took a very deep breath and held it for a moment, then sat back in the chair and squared his shoulders; the fear seeming to melt off him as he assessed where they were at. “Are visual comms still down?” Shiro asked, glancing at the array of blacked-out boxes at the side of his screen.

“The battleship is jamming us,” Allura said. “The Green Lion should be headed for Hunk, to let him know we're to head back to the castle. I don't know why Lance isn't here, we need him to form Voltron and without Voltron there is no winnable scenario here. We must flee.”

Shiro nodded his head and glanced up, seeing the explosions lighting up the frigate on their other side. “Keith?”

“Yes,” Allura said.

“Let's go get him,” Shiro said, and pulled back on the controls. The Black Lion roared, its engines surging to life. It shot forward, heading toward the frigate, and the Red Lion.

#voltron #slts #omegaverse #we're almost done here #ALMOST

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yupsopone · 8 years ago

Text

Sunset

A hiss.

A beep.

Then a pause.

A long pause.

Another beep.

A pause.

A beep.

Then...

A thud.

A rumbling wave of heat and noise, unseen frequencies and immeasurable shifting.

Slowly, I came to be. Granted, I wasn't “not” before, per se, just not awake. Not conscious. But then I was. A long sleep in cryo, my body held in stasis while my ship traversed The Slip, a realm of nearly unquantifiable shifting physics and spaces. Once it had been discovered it furthered the exploration of space. The Slip was, as of yet, impossible to map internally in any sort of “normal” way. The entry and exit points could be, counter-intuitively, mapped very precisely.

This is what allowed me, and hundreds of thousands of other Cartographers to thread our way through a universe formerly unseen. As my body slowly stirred, the subtle vibrations of my ship, normally unnoticeable, came into focus. I laid there, my body in the cryo bed, and just felt my ship. Her purring, subtle voice, all around me. She's kept me alive, and I, her.

Pressing a button down by my side, I braced my eyes for the outside world. The lights were dimmed – after months of zero light and zero use, my eyes would be very sensitive. The light would slowly increase over the next 4 or so hours, and as it did I'd slowly be able to see more and more clearly.

I tried to sit up, eager to get started on my work, but it was slow-going. Electro-stimulation electrodes placed around my body slowly worked some of my muscles, keeping them at least somewhat in shape while I was in stasis. Once I finally managed to sit up, I smiled. The work was soon to come.

I loved my work. It took me a few months to train myself just to call it “work”. Exploration, science, spaceflight, reports and paperwork and data! Since I was a small child, living on the space station Centralis. It was a large station designed for scientific research, and it was where I discovered the joys of science. Being trapped in what is basically a box in space is why I think I found my love for exploration. There's only so many places you can explore in a space station, but an infinite number of planets out in the universe. I wanted to leave my mark on history, and I could do it by traveling and researching.

And travel I did. 16 planets, registered to my name, scattered throughout space. 12 rich in resources, 3 barren, and 1 ice world. The ice planet was a mixture of both water and carbon dioxide ices, but it was baked with deadly radiation; there wasn't going to be any life there. A large gas giant and an unstable star filled the system with radiation belts, fluctuating constantly. As I learned later, some of the belts were millions of degrees.

But! Of those 16 Registered Planets, not a single one was viable for terraforming. Humans would not be living on them in any other way than small, isolated outposts. They'd also never be able to leave space suits or habitats. It was my goal, and every Cartographer out there, to find a planet to terraform, something out there that did, or could, support life. Terraforming was a massive undertaking, lasting dozens to hundreds of years. It was the process of changing the environment on a planet such that it could sustain a certain type of life, whether it be human or not.

As I hauled myself out of the stasis room, I heard a familiar voice. A soothing, soprano voice that would warm you right up.

“Good Morning, Captain.”

“Hello, Mara.” “I take it you slept well?”

“So well I didn't notice your terrible driving.”

As I smiled over my response, I tripped, and fell to the floor painfully. Mara was laughing, she'd disabled the gravity generator for a split second – causing me to fall on my face. She was the eyes and ears of my ship. And also the voice. And also the brain. And frankly the whole ship was her. She was a 7th-generation Artificial Intelligence, she helped control the ship and helped me with my work. The ship was, technically speaking, her body. A series of distributed and duplicated computers within the hull were her “brain”, carefully placed to ensure maximum survival potential in the case of damage.

“So tell me, Mara, where are we? Any planets nearby?”

“Location: Cygnus AX-12-B-MV-K4. Star type: G2. At least seven planets are present. Good score.”

“Dang! What a catch, eh?”

It wasn't often that such large systems were found, so hopefully there would be at least one planet of high value.

I reached the bridge, and sat down I nmy favorite chair on the whole ship. My command chair slid forward, spinning 180 as it entered the central command station, the displays that surround it shifting downwards to wrap around me. Looking out the windows, I smiled. More science to do, more adventure. The windows weren't actually glass, but high-resolution displays, much more useful than useless glass.

I pulled up the basic telemetry data, examining the estimated orbits of the seven planets in the system. I decided to name the system “Egrava” after my neighbor's dog back on my home station. She was a rambunctious and excited puppy who was always getting into trouble, and we frequently found her stuck in ventilation shafts, or in our cabinets.

“This system has quite a lot of potential, Roderick.”

“Thanks for reminding me. We need more data, of course, always the case.”

“Shall we use any more Bloodhounds?”

Bloodhounds were a type of reconnaissance drone, fired from ships by high-powered railguns. They were used to gather data from multiple points without having the ship need to visit too many locations. A ship could only carry so many, so they were a precious commodity.

“But of course, this is a promising system.”

On the outside of the ship, four armored panels split apart, and from within came pairs of rails. At the inside ends were the Bloodhounds, one on each railgun. Small adjustments on the rails directed the drones, and an electric charge shunted through the rails caused the drones to be shot at high speed from the ship.

“Bloodhounds are on the trail.”

Light.

Wind.

Distances untraveled.

Heights.

Depths.

Riches untold.

Vast cities.

Then…

A day later, the first Bloodhound started sending back telemetry data. While it was gone, I compiled my initial scientific reports, began my personal logs, and did a general rundown of my ship, The Teravaeus. Engines were fine, maneuvering capability was 100%, sub-light drives were in pristine order and the Slipstream drive appeared to be in perfect condition.

My communications system, both the local system and the connection back to the Cartographer's home station, “Geographia”. The link back home was an interesting one. Data could be sent back before a Cartographer returned home, although it was a very slow process. It was above even my scientific knowledge, but it was based on a series of comm relays scattered throughout space and The Slip, broadcasting to each other using a brand new form of transmitters. The signal was about 80% reliable, but the time it took to make it back to Geographia was somewhat random and hard to predict. You could be certain your message would reach home, but not when it would get there. As a result, the Ansible, as it was known (despite not communicating instantaneously), was commonly only used for sending back small messages to let the Cartographer's guild know one was still alive, or to request rescue. I'd never needed rescuing, but there's always a first time.

Life support was fine as well, and Mara was in good shape. One of her smaller and less important processing centers was operating somewhat slower, but it wasn't much of a problem since she had dozens of other centers that were fine. I asked her how she was doing, and she merely replied “nominal”. I'd hoped everything was okay with her, sometimes it's hard to understand AIs, even if they were modeled after humans. Some things got lost in translation.

The maintenance had taken most of the “day”, so it wasn't until the next day that I started examining the results of our probes. Three gas giants, 2 rocky worlds, 1 probable ice planet, and...happy day! A likely terran world! This might be the time I finally discover an earth-like planet of my very own! I almost jumped out of my seat I was so excited.

“Mara! Set a course for the terran planet! I'll be in the garage, prepping the rover.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The Teravaeus was equipped with a small garage that could slide down from the ship, allowing the rover to drive out. This allowed the ship to stay above the ground on its stilt-like landing gears, keeping it hopefully out of danger. It also meant that anything trying to get into the ship would face the challenge of trying to get 15 feet into the air and then into an armored space ship.

As I ran yet more tests, this time on the rover, I struggled to contain my excitement. With each twist of my wrench, my mood grew. I was sort of rushing headlong into things, normally I'd wait longer before going to touch down on a planet, but this was my first time. A bit of eagerness is allowed.

“Sir, destination set. We're on course, all that's left is to wait.”

“Love ya, Mara. Are you as excited as I am?”

“Of course I am. Do you think I fly thousands of light years through the strangeness of The Slip just because?”

“Technically speaking you do that because I tell you to.”

“Smartass. But yes, I am very excited. This is a first for me too you know.” “Yeah, yeah.”

With the rover tuned up, I ran back to the cockpit, taking the controls of the ship in my hands and steering the ship down towards the planet. My heartbeat was faster than I'd like, but I didn't care, I was gonna make the most of this trip. The ship started to rumble, shake, and roar as it punched through the planet's atmosphere. Blazing plasma, around 1,650 degrees Celcius, formed on the tip and underside of the Teravaeus as it hit the planet's atmosphere going about 38,000 kilometers per hour. The molecules in the air slammed into the ship, generating heat. While the impact of a few molecules wouldn't do anything to the ship, the amount of air you go through during reentry is huge. Thus, the plasma cone around your ship!

A few minutes later though, the ship had bled off enough velocity that there was no more plasma and it could transition to normal atmospheric flight. I gazed out through the displays down to the planet. Trees! Water! Thing I hadn't seen for a long time, even longer if you considered the months I'd spent in stasis. Clouds floated over oceans and forests, mountains lie covered in snow. This was a perfect world for the history book, and it was gonna have my name on it!

As I flew, high in the sky, Mara spoke up.

“Sir, take a look at those mountains. Do they look unusual to you?”

I followed her advice, and looked down. They seemed like normal mountains, until I looked at the surrounding landscape. The mountains looked normal, but then I noticed that they were at an intersection. Three massive circles were faintly visible in the landscape. Craters. The mountains were caused by the overlap of three craters.

“Those are...craters. What do you think from?”

“I'm not sure, but, there are more craters visible in different wavelengths. Whatever happened here hit this planet hard.” I felt a knot in my throat.

“There's not any meteors headed our way, are there?”

“No sir, nothing at all. Besides, the life here could not have thrived if these craters were recent. We should continue to observe the planet from up here.”

She was right, and I calmed down a little. A few hours of flying later, though, we discovered what we thought were ruins. Flying further down for a look, I put us into an “orbit” so to speak, and we circled the location. Mara's powerful sensors continued to beam the site, gathering as much data as we could before landing.

Worry.

Despair.

Commotion.

Blinding flashes.

Flash upon flash upon flash.

Walls of heat.

Life smashed, irradiated, and torn apart.

Matter replaced by energy.

Clouds, storms, winds, thick as solid rock.

A crushing shadow, strangling the world.

Darkness.

Death.

Genocide.

We landed around 40 minutes later, having gathered all the data for the location we could from the air. I donned my envirosuit, the life-protecting suit I wore when exploring planets. On top of that I wore my exoskeleton, a set of artificial muscles, pistons, and thrusters that allowed me to exert superhuman force and speed. I could jump 12 meters straight up, and leap 15 horizontally. I could lift stuff weighing up to 1,000 kilograms. And most fun, I could run 50 kilometers an hour.

I left the ship, keeping my comms connection to the ship, and to Mara, on full power. As the airlock hissed open, it was quiet. The sound of my breath, at first. In. Out.

Then I heard the wind. Quiet, and despite the (alien!) vegetation, it felt lifeless. Almost mourning. As I took the first few steps out of my ship, my laser rifle at the ready, my heard pounded inside my chest. This planet could be very important, but with all those ancient craters, it was hard to tell. It might be a deathtrap.

The ruins were in fact actual, honest-to-god ruins! Signs of intelligent alien life! I jumped for joy. I couldn't examine them myself, I didn't have the permits nor the equipment, but I did survey the surrounding area. I went on a bit of a trek. Just a couple hundred meters from Mara. I scoped out the ruins with my rifle sight.

They were definitely former structures, though I couldn't tell exactly what. A strange, nearly purple-grey color with a rough texture. They looked to be walls, consisting of a series of interlocked latticework. It would have made for an impressive sight during, say, sunset, as the light made its way through the patterns.

I would have kept walking, until a I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked up towards the sky to see a blazing fireball headed straight for me.

“Mara, get outta there!” I screamed as I turned around, my exoskeleton augmenting my muscles and spinning me around in an instant. Its muscles and pistons propelled my legs, and I took off like a bullet. Micro-thrusters scattered around its frame rocketed me forwards, and soon I was running 50 kph. I managed to disable the safety lockdown and soon was running 70kph. If I made even a single mistake and the computer couldn't fix it, I would smash into the ground, probably breaking my neck in the process. Then I'd get hit by a meteorite.

I heard the roar of Mara's thrusters kicking in, and while I couldn't turn to look, I'd hoped she was making it clear of the impact site. Trees blurred past me, becoming fuzzy shapes. Despite the incoming meteorite, I heard nothing out of the ordinary. It was going super- or hyper-sonic right now, traveling faster than the sound it made. A boom meant Mara had made it supersonic and thus stood some chance of making it out safely. I, however, stood less chance.

I leapt up entire rock walls, my suit and muscles working overtime to get as far away as I could. If there was even the smallest chance of tripping on something, I'd just jump over it, clearing 5 story buildings in a single bound. Faster, and faster. I'd never been moving faster in my life, and I hoped it would be enough.

I'd been running forever, but in reality only about one minute had passed. My whole body started to ache terribly, the human body wasn't meant to move this fast. But move it did, biology and technology working in tandem to save my life.

Trees, rocks, bushes; everything was a tiny blip in my vision, anything not critically important was swept aside by my brain. Tunnel vision started to step in, the center most portion of my vision remaining clear while the rest went hazy. I didn't care; I only needed to see straight ahead. I only needed to run forwards.

My heart was crippled with pain, not designed to handle the blood flow or stress it had succumbed to now.

I couldn't hear anything, the portion of my brain dedicated to that had been shunted to staying upright as I ran.

Darkness.

Malice.

Avarice.

Isolation.

Subjugation.

Discussion.

Consideration.

Preparation.

Annihilation.

I slowly woke up. My limbs were sluggish, barely moving at all. This must be death, or purgatory. I couldn't see past the end of my helmet, I was wrapped in an inky darkness. My heart hurt, my head was dizzy, my muscles were dust. It hurt to breath, it hurt to see. It hurt to even think.

But if this truly were the afterlife, the scientist in me couldn't let it pass me by. If I was dead, then at least I wouldn't have to deal with the meteorite; it had already killed me. I struggled to stand up. It was almost as if I was...underwater. That explains it all. I'm underwater, though I'm not sure how I got there. The last thing I remember was running, and then...well, this. I figured if I'm underwater, I might as well try to get to the surface, so I just started walking forwards.

I cleared the surface, glad to see the light again. Well, what little light I could see. Most of it was blocked by dust. The surface looked like a warzone. The sky was blocked out by dust, the air filled with burning embers and dirt-brown smoke. I looked around. I was at the edge of a lake. The blast wave must have blown me into the air, and my body skipped across the lake before sinking to the bottom. I heard a voice call out to me. Mara had survived the impact too!

“Mara, where are you?”

“I'm, uh, well I'm on the ground.”

“Are you okay?”

A pause. “Yeah. Mostly.”

“Give me a signal to follow. I'll be there soon.” “Okay captain.”

“Hey Mara, I've got a theory. I don't think those craters were accidental. They were intentional.”

“I'm starting to think the same sir.”

“I've got an idea though.”

When I finally reached Mara, I was heartbroken. The Teravaeus, and thus her body, was crumpled and mangled, buried into the ground. There wasn't much chance we'd get rescued. Her computer cores would slowly degrade and she'd fade away. I couldn't get inside the ship, and the atmosphere wasn't breathable and the vegetation was probably poisonous.

“Mara, get one of our bloodhounds to land far away. If it gets hit by a meteorite we'll know what's up.”

The coldness of space.

A silent protector.

A sudden target.

“An enemy!”

Eager eyes tracking, hands busy.

An asteroid is loaded into a gravity sling by a defense satellite.

It's loosed at the surface and the threat.

Another enemy down.

“I am protecting. I am good.”

The bloodhound touched down. A few moments later, we watched as another fireball descended. The sky flashed as it hit. Mara giggled. Her mind was going. I couldn't last much longer without food, water, or air.

“Mara?” “Yes-s-s-s?”

“We're not gonna make it back home.”

“That is reGRetabl...” Her speech centers were obviously dying.

“Can you do something for me?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed. “Can, would, you land another bloodhound here? Right next to us?”

“Do you wish it?”

I hesitated. “I do. If I'm going to die, I want to die with you, and I want us to die on our own terms. None of this fading away or starving to death. If we're going to die, we'll do it quick.”

“I...am scared. I do not wannT to fAde away-y-y...”

I patted the side of her battered and scorched hull.

“Neither do I, girl. Neither do I.”

I recorded a message, a warning. A quarantine procedure. No one could come back here until the defense system, or whatever it was, was gone. I added what little personal stuff I could; the most important thing in my life was Mara. She was stuck here too.

We called down the bloodhound. It's thin, dragonfly like body cruised through the sky before landing near us. I patted its “head” and sat down, my back against Mara. The sun was setting.

“The skkY is...pretty.”

A tear rolled down my face.

“It is,” I said, choking down tears.

“But-t-t we are toGEtherrr...”

I couldn't hold them in anymore.

“That we are, baby, that we are. Together.”

My voice sounded strange to me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried.

And there it was. The now-familiar blazing fireball, headed straight for us. It wouldn't be much longer before we were atomized with its impact.

“Mara?”

“Yes, RooderiCk?”

“I love you.”

A pause.

Please.

Say something.

“I l-l-love you too.”

Our last few moments together were spent watching the sunset on an alien world.

#writing #short story #Sunset

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ecotone99 · 6 years ago

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[SF] Night Shift

I stepped out of my sleeping chamber. It took my eyes some time to adjust to the darkness, but I made sure to turn on my flashlight before they did. I silently made my way to the cockpit, looking into the other sleeping chambers as I went. All the crew members were slumbering quietly, almost looking sedated from the pill they had to take every night. It was advertised as a wonder-drug to ensure peaceful sleep and realign circadian rhythms in the darkness of space. If only they knew what it actually did.

I checked every chamber to make sure the fourteen crew members were inside. I liked to think it was just my duty, but I felt an attachment to each and every one of them, even though they barely knew me. It was my job to keep them safe. It was my job to watch over them.

The beginning of my shift always made me feel this way. I was saddened, not because of all the crew of the Sigma IX had to go through, but because of how little they knew. Because of how heroic they thought they were.

My intercom sounded as soon as I reached the front.

“Everything look good with the crew?”

“Yeah, boss. All accounted for. Running diagnostics now.” I always answered this way. The medicine had worked flawlessly for six months now, and the loyal crew never failed to take it. I hoped that we’d have the same luck for the remaining two years of the trip. There are a lot of things that can go wrong aboard the Sigma ships, and people waking up at the wrong time isn’t one I wanted to have to deal with.

A red flash on the computer almost startled me.

“Everything good there?” My boss again.

“We had a window malfunction in Bay 2. It’s fresh. I doubt the crew noticed it.”

“Well I’m glad we did. Get over there.”

I walked briskly to the section of the ship in question to survey the damage. It wasn’t bad, at least, to a night shift worker. I’m sure the crew would be freaking out. Amidst the vastness of space outside was a thin crack of blue light; barely noticeable at first glance but fatal to the success of the voyage if left for too long. I quickly unscrewed the window frame and- popped the window out.

Behind it was not the empty void, but a complicated network of circuits. And a thin line of them had visibly burned out.

“Dead pixels,” I muttered. I had some replacements with me, and popped them in. After that I went back to the cockpit to check for any other problems with the ship. A green light told me everything was fine. I reported this to the boss and started walking back to my sleeping chamber.

I passed by the crew again. My job was easy, theirs was not. And it was about to get a lot harder. But I couldn’t tell them, no, the mission depended on my confidentiality. Sometimes knowledge really is a burden.

I stopped at Chamber 01, the Captain’s residence. I made sure he was snoring like usual, and then walked in. I suppose what I did next is the hardest part of my job.

I took out a long needle and a syringe from my toolkit. I cleansed them in alcohol, then rinsed them in the nearby sink. Then, slowly and meticulously, I stuck the needle into the Captain’s forearm.

He barely moved a muscle. I then pierced a tiny bit of tissue, broke it off, and sucked it out into the syringe. A laser device healed back the puncture in the skin. Good as new. I headed to the lab and placed the tissue sample under the microscope.

“Well, how’s the sample?” The boss asked.

“Zero-G tissue deterioration is on schedule. I think we’ll still be able to start cell tests next month.”

“Good. We’ll also be beginning psychological tests. See how the trauma affects human cell reconstruction. Get back to your chamber when you finish.”

I didn’t answer. Things like that were hard to think about. I was just happy I was getting paid consistently. The regular crew only got paid when the vessel reached it’s destination. They often didn’t. Especially when the company couldn’t afford it.

I cleaned up the lab and walked back to my sleeping chamber. It was different than the others. It had another hatch, hidden underneath the bed. I made sure my chamber was locked behind me, put the dummy on my bed and opened the hatch.

I was instantly flooded with light. The unnatural, white light of the Sigma Human Testing Facility.

I walked down the stairs leading up to the ship, and took a look at the rig. It was a diabolical but clever setup. Gravity generators, motion-imitating pistons and lifelike screens. The ship looked like a box from the outside. But from the inside, it looked just like what those fourteen people had spent their lives preparing for. A voyage to space.

I signaled the all-clear for the generators to come back on. And then I looked down the line.

I sighed. “Nine down, eleven to go.”

submitted by /u/theonlyjeshurun [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/32T87nM

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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America’s newest crew capsule rockets toward space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — America’s newest capsule for astronauts rocketed Saturday toward the International Space Station on a high-stakes test flight by SpaceX.

The only passenger was a life-size test dummy, named Ripley after the lead character in the “Alien” movies. SpaceX needs to nail the debut of its crew Dragon capsule before putting people on board later this year.

This latest, flashiest Dragon is on a fast track to reach the space station Sunday morning, just 27 hours after liftoff.

It will spend five days docked to the orbiting outpost, before making a retro-style splashdown in the Atlantic next Friday — all vital training for the next space demo, possibly this summer, when two astronauts strap in.

“This is critically important … We’re on the precipice of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil again for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. He got a special tour of the pad on the eve of launch, by SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk.

An estimated 5,000 NASA and contractor employees, tourists and journalists gathered in the wee hours at Kennedy Space Center with the SpaceX launch team, as the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the same spot where Apollo moon rockets and space shuttles once soared.

Looking on were the two NASA astronauts who will strap in as early as July for the second space demo, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. It’s been eight years since Hurley and three other astronauts flew the last space shuttle mission, and human launches from Florida ceased.

NASA turned to private companies, SpaceX and Boeing, and has provided them $8 billion to build and operate crew capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. Now Russian rockets are the only way to get astronauts to the 250-mile-high outpost. Soyuz tickets have skyrocketed over the years; NASA currently pays $82 million per seat.

Boeing aims to conduct the first test flight of its Starliner capsule in April, with astronauts on board possibly in August.

Bridenstine said he’s confident that astronauts will soar on a Dragon or Starliner — or both — by year’s end. But he stressed there’s no rush.

“We are not in a space race,” he said. “That race is over. We went to the moon and we won. It’s done. Now we’re in a position where we can take our time and make sure we get it right.”

SpaceX already has made 16 trips to the space station using cargo Dragons. The white crew Dragon is slightly bigger — 27 feet (8 metres) tip to tip — and considerably fancier and safer.

It features four seats, three windows, touch-screen computer displays and life-support equipment, as well as eight abort engines to pull the capsule to safety in the event of a launch emergency. Solar cells are mounted on the spacecraft for electrical power, as opposed to the protruding solar wings on cargo Dragons.

“It’s an incredibly sleek looking vehicle from the inside and it’s very easy to operate,” Hurley told reporters just hours before liftoff. He marvels at how the Dragon has just 30 buttons and touch screens, compared with the space shuttle cockpit’s 2,000 switches and circuit breakers.

For the test, the Ripley dummy was strapped into the far left seat, wearing the company’s snappy white spacesuit. The other seats were empty, save for a small plush toy resembling Earth that was free to float once reaching zero-gravity. “Super high tech zero-g indicator added just before launch!” Musk tweeted.

As many as seven astronauts could squeeze in, although four will be the norm once flights get going, allowing for a little cargo room. About 450 pounds (200 kilograms) of supplies are going up on this flight.

The capsule is designed to dock and undock automatically with the space station. Cargo Dragon must be manoeuvred with the station’s robot arm.

Like Ripley, the capsule is rigged with sensors. Engineers will be carefully watching sound, vibration and other stresses on the spacecraft, while monitoring the life-support, communication and propulsion systems. Some of the equipment needs more work — possibly even redesign — before serving human passengers.

“We’re going to learn a ton from this mission,” said NASA’s commercial crew program manager, Kathy Lueders.

Flight operations team members — some of them new to this — also need the six-day trial run, according to Kennedy Space Center’s director, Robert Cabana.

The objective is to make the next demo flight, with Hurley and Behnken, as safe as possible. The more immediate goal is to avoid harming the space station and its three occupants: an American, Canadian and Russian.

Despite SpaceX’s success at recovering and reusing its rockets, NASA is insisting on brand new boosters from SpaceX for the crew capsule flights. The first-stage booster used Saturday aimed for a floating platform in the Atlantic, following the predawn liftoff. SpaceX plans to recycle the newly flying capsule for a high-altitude abort test this spring, along with a booster launched and retrieved a week ago.

——

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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mariosairlines-blog · 7 years ago

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squadaloo · 8 years ago

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My year in games - 2016

So for the past few years, I’ve been recapping the games I’ve played for the first time in the past year. I was going to do things differently for 2017 as the first 6 months of this year were full of absolutely amazing games and the second half of the year is looking just as good. However, I realized I actually never posted my 2016 games here, so let me do that first! Here are the games I played in 2016 and what I thought of them:

The Witness (PC) - I actually wasn’t that big of a fan of Braid, but I like puzzles so I picked up Johnathan Blow’s latest game. Quite fun with a lot of great puzzles, but suffers from indie art game syndrome where it thinks it’s more amazing and profound than it actually is. Beat the main ending, didn’t beat every puzzle.

Star Fox Zero (Wii U) - The controls in this game get a lot of hate, but outside of a couple of circumstances, I thought the gyro controls made the game way more fun and with some practice became extremely rewarding. However, the game is insanely short, and I had pretty much tired of the limited content after just 5 hours. It has less content than even Star Fox 64 which is unacceptable for a supposedly major release in 2016. Beat the game, didn’t get every medal because I’m not a completionist.

Star Fox Guard (Wii U) - The tower defense game that came with Star Fox Zero. I’m not a big fan of Tower Defense and only played it once for about an hour.

Uncharted 4 (PS4) - Being tired of Nintendo not supporting the Wii U, I decided to pick up a PS4 and so Uncharted 4 was the first game I played. Personally, the only other Uncharted I really liked was 2 (1 was shit, 3 was mediocre) so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The game has an excruciatingly slow beginning, but picks up after a while. Never reaches the heights of 2, but ends up being a fun enough adventure by the end. Beat the game.

Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4) - I like this game way more than I should. The plot sort of falls apart in the second half and the gameplay can be very repetitive, but this is mitigated by the fact that flying around with control of gravity is a blast. It also helps that it has an excellent soundtrack. I actually delayed beating Uncharted 4 so I could play this all of the way through. Actually got sad when I got the Platinum trophy (my first!) since it meant there was no more game left. Beat the game.

Batman Arkham Knight (PS4) - The Batman Arkham games are pretty much all great including, IMO, the non-Rocksteady developed Origins which I feel actually has the best story. Arkham Knight is no exception, although it does have one notable weakness: the Battank. Driving around with the Batmobile is fun, but as soon as it goes into tank mode, the combat becomes repetitive and boring: two things this series has typically done a great job of avoiding. Beat the game, didn’t get all of the Riddler trophies and see the true ending, though.

No Man’s Sky (PS4) - I…actually liked this game? I wanted a relaxing game I could just waste time doing meaningless (but somewhat fun) tasks in for a few weeks, and that’s what I got. I wouldn’t recommend it for normal people though, as it’s lacking content, but by now you’ve probably read about that Didn’t get to the center of the universe because I don’t like losing progress.

Journey (PS4) - I know everybody and their mother loves this game, but I just didn’t. I do not care for games that put storytelling way over gameplay unless they go full in (more on that in a bit), and I really don’t care when the storytelling isn’t very compelling. I felt like I knew where the game was going from the moment I turned it on, and got more and more bored as I was continuously proven right. The multiplayer aspect however, was a very good idea. Beat the game.

Shantae Risky’s Revenge (PS4) - A rather fun platformer. It’s pretty short (I beat it only a little over 2 hours) but it has some fun ideas. There’s two areas that feel like the platformer equivalent of Zelda dungeons which were extremely good, but they only made up about 30% of the game. The rest was more standard (but decent) fare. Beat the game.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (PS4) - A much better platformer than Risky’s Revenge. It has similar Zelda-ish dungeons but more of them spread throughout the game. The presentation is better with lovely HD artwork, and the game’s sense of humor is excellent. Highly recommended. Beat the game.

Transformers Devastation (PS4) - A PS+ free game which I otherwise wouldn’t have played since I don’t give the slightest care about Transformers. I didn’t make it very far into the game, but it was a pretty fun and very challenging action game from what I had played. Didn’t come close to beating the game as I got a PSVR the next week.

Playstation VR Worlds (PSVR) - And here’s where we get into the wild and crazy world of VR. I bought a PSVR because I was curious about VR and had cash to burn, but I really didn’t try it until this game. VR Worlds is really a collection of 5 tech demos I MEAN FULLY REALIZED GAMES MOST DEFINITELY NOT TECH DEMOS BEING SOLD BY SONY, NOPE. Some are good. Some are not. I’ll go into each game in a bit, but let me just say if it had not come in my PSVR launch bundle, I would not recommend buying it for $40.

Ocean Descent - A simple experience in which you stand in a shark cage in the ocean. At the end of the main dive, a shark attacks the cage. This is the first thing I played in VR and judging by the fact the game comes with the headset in the launch bundle and the fact that it always defaults to Ocean Descent on bootup, it’s basically designed to be a first experience…and succeeds massively. Within seconds, I was giggling like a little boy at how awesome it was. VR is the real deal! There is no gameplay, so it’s a very easy thing to show to non-gamers. I also showed this demo to my parents who are not gamers, and they loved it as well.

Luge VR - It’s street luge you control with your head. The graphics look horrible and blurry, even after properly callibrating the headset. I played it once, and that was enough.

The London Heist - A 40 minute interactive experience in which you help steal a diamond. It’s split between about 70% interactive cutscenes and 30% shooting action sequences. Cutscenes are far more effective in VR and I don’t mind them as much. The shooting sequences are great. However, outside of a choice right at the end of the experience, there’s not much of a reason to replay it other than just for fun. It does have a shooting gallery mode which is somewhat neat.

Scavenger’s Odyssey - A FPS in which you pilot a mech. So far, this is one of the only times I’ve gotten VR sickness. VR sickness, for those who don’t know, is basically what happens when your eyes tell your body it should be moving when it knows it isn’t. This is why most VR games either use teleporting for movement or give you a fixed point of reference while moving (like being in the cockpit of a mech) instead of just giving you standard FPS controls. While this game does try to sidestep VR sickness by putting you in a mech, it also involves jumping and flipping gravity which is what pushed me over the top. I quit for a while but eventually came back and finished it. It’s...ok. Nothing really special.

Danger Ball - An arcade game that’s effectively like cooler PONG except your opponent is in front of you (like in actual ping pong) and you move your paddle by looking in a direction. It’s kind of fun, but in order to put spin on your ball, you have to flick your neck which kind of hurts because I am out of shape and spend all day on a computer. It’s kind of fun, but not something I’d really return to.

Batman Arkham VR (PSVR) - It’s a Batman game in which you don’t fight and it only lasts 40 minutes to run through the story. While this is disappointing, it’s not as much as it would seem for two main reasons. First, the game is only 20 bucks. Second, VR is awesome and being Batman is awesome. The story is somewhat interesting and the VR is probably the most immersive out of any title. The suiting up and entry into the Batcave sequence is honestly one of my favorite experiences I’ve ever had in a game entirely because VR sells it. As for the game itself, I liked that they emphasized the detective aspect of Batman and would have gladly wanted a longer game with more cases even if it still didn’t have combat (although it would be nice). The game has optional Riddler challenge upon completion so the full amount of gametime is probably more like 3 hours, which isn’t too shabby. Love the experience, despite its length.

Rigs (PSVR) - I’m not much of an FPS person, but after playing the demo of Rigs, I decided to go ahead and buy it. Rigs is a team-based FPS in which you drive giant mechs and compete in a sort of sports league. It’s probably the most complete experience currently available in PSVR as it has single player offline modes and online play. It could use more modes and maps (which is why it’s a good thing they’ve announced another map is coming soon) but it’s still pretty fun. I’ve always hated shooting with control sticks on consoles which is why I like that you can aim with your head. VR also makes the scale of the game feel massive which I love.

Windlands (PSVR) - A first person platformer where you use grappling hooks to get around. This is the first VR game I’ve played with full locomotion with no static frame of reference and I thankfully did not get sick. The game itself is pretty decent. There’s some fun platforming but it’s a bit bland as there’s no enemies or major obstacles: just you vs. the geometry of the level. Overall, probably not the best use of VR.

Job Simulator (PSVR) - A game in which you visit the museum of jobs run by robots in the year 2050. The robots don’t exactly know how these jobs worked which leads to…let’s just say inaccurate emulations of Office Worker, Chef, Convenience Store Clerk, and Mechanic jobs. This is a good example of a game that would suck if not for being in VR. There’s something that’s a ton of fun about throwing crap around and screwing with people in VR. The game has a great sense of humor as well. However, the game is light on content (a major pain point with most early VR games) and some of the jobs get repetitive. Still, it’s a good game to show to people who are new to VR and want to see what it’s like to use motion controls to interact with the environment.

Call of Duty Jackal Assault (PSVR) - A free game in which you pilot a ship in space and shoot down other ships. The detail in the ship is great and space combat is way easier when you can look separately of aiming thanks to VR. However, it only lasts about 5 minutes, which I guess is fair given it’s free with no strings attached…outside of the massive terms of service you have to read prior to playing.

Star Wars Battlefront (PS4) - I bought this on sale for less than $8 because of the VR experience coming soon. I never bought it originally because it seemed like every other modern shooter I don’t like where only a couple of shots can kill you and you have regenerating health…and that’s exactly what it is. It can be fun from time to time, but I just suck at it and given the offline AI is stupid, I can’t really get any better either as there’s no good way to train. The VR mission is pretty nice, but only 20 minutes long and features some absolutely horrible voice acting for your playable character that tries its best to ruin the mission.

Bound (PS4/PSVR) - I bought this because it was 50% off at the same time I was picking up Battlefront and it’s got a VR mode and I’m starving for VR content. It’s very artistic like Journey, but the more platformy gameplay makes it feel more gameplay based. Also, the fact that it’s very immersive in VR really helps. Hell, I’d probably have liked Journey a whole lot more if it were in VR as well. I haven’t finished this, however, because the VR camera was kind of rough at launch. They’ve since patched it but I still haven’t returned to it because there’s been pretty much nonstop games I want/put tons of time into this year.

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