Cam – Scion of Ares

With glowing red eyes, the wolfspawn slowly stalked down the darkened corridor, sniffing at the air. “Come out little boy, I know you’re in here. I can smell you.” The creature’s gravelly voice echoed through the abandoned apartment building, it’s six-foot form nearly filling the width of the rubbish-filled corridor. Suddenly his quarry, a teenage boy in ragged clothes, burst out of one the rooms and began running down the corridor. He was clutching his arm, blood trickling from between his fingers. Baring its fangs in a smile, the wolfspawn began running after him, its paws pounding on the floor; the hunt was on.

The boy darted down the corridor, leaping over obstacles and gaps in the floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the wolfspawn was rapidly gaining ground. He appeared to change his mind, instead of continuing to run towards the stairwell, he jumped through a hole in the plasterboard walls into one of the apartments. The wolfspawn followed, making a hole of its own as it ran straight through the thin walls in pursuit of the boy. The boy scrambled across the floor, shielding his eyes from the flying wall fragments. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” He yelled desperately.

The wolfspawn didn’t answer and instead paced back and forth in front of the boy, savouring the smell of his blood. Without warning, it launched itself at the boy, its fangs bared and ready to strike. However, the boy quickly rolled out of the way, ducking under the wolfspawn and evading its jaws by a matter of inches. As the wolfspawn landed on the floor, the boy jumped to his feet and ran towards the boarded up windows. He brought both his arms up and leapt through the window, splintering the wooden planks. Sailing out the window, he plummeted towards the alleyway five stories below. The boy reached out and grabbed a telephone cable strung between the apartment building and its nearby neighbour. He grunted in pain as it arrested his fall but the strength of the cable wasn’t strong enough to take his weight and it snapped. Still holding onto it, the boy was swung down against the neighbouring building, slamming into the wall. The impact was hard, and try as he might he couldn’t stifle the yell of pain as he hit his injured arm. Watching from the window, the wolfspawn snarled as the boy let go of the cable, kicked off the wall, and somersaulted through the air before landing crouched on the floor. “You can run boy,” the wolfspawn called out, “but you can’t hide. I can smell your blood from a hundred miles away.” They locked eyes for several seconds, the boy panting heavily.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at running the last couple of years,” he yelled back before bolting down the alley.

Running into the deserted street, the boy jumped onto the bonnet of an abandoned car and used it as a launching point to leap clear over a chain link fence topped with razor wire. Landing on his feet, he quickly disappeared into the darkness of the junk yard beyond.

The wolfspawn howled in delight; this quarry was proving to be a little more elusive than he had first suspected. This was going to be fun. As the last echoes of the howl were lost to the wind, the wolfspawn leapt out of the window, bouncing from wall to wall on its way down to the ground. It ran across the road and used the same trick as the boy, using the abandoned car to leap over the fence. The immense weight of the wolfspawn crushed the car, causing the still unbroken side windows to explode outwards. It failed to clear the fence but the flimsy steel wire was no obstacle to the wolfspawn as it tore through it, buckling the fence as it chased the boy into the junk yard.

The air in the junk yard was a jumble of smells, oil, petrol and diesel, rusting metal, decaying rubber, decomposing body parts. From the smells, the wolfspawn knew that somebody had been busy in this yard, and not just in the scrap metal business. However, the many overlapping smells obscured the boy’s scent; he’d have to track the boy the old-fashioned way, by following his footprints.

Slowly, it began to creep between the mounds of scrap metal, keeping an eye on the piles of rusting cars. Any of them would make a good hiding place for the boy. A clatter of metal on metal echoed through the night, the sound bouncing around the junk yard like pulses of sonar. The wolfspawn could almost see the waves of sound as they swept past, tracking them back to their source and locking on to the boy’s location. It bounded up a pile of scrap, sliding down the far side into a cul-de-sac formed by three overflowing piles of scrap. As it landed, a miniature avalanche of scrap caused by its slide blocked the exit behind it and it looked over at the terrified boy, grinning a fang-filled smile.

The boy looked around, desperately searching for an exit and the wolfspawn watched as a look of terror passed over the boy’s face when he realised that he was trapped. He backed up against the pile of scrap behind him, trying to get as far away from the wolfspawn as possible. “Little boy, scared and all alone in the night,” the wolfspawn taunted as the boy nervously fiddled with an amulet around his neck, “got any last words before I feast on your heart?”

Taking down his hood, the boy looked up at the wolfspawn, smirking slightly. He grasped the amulet firmly, a wolf talon on an old leather string, the fear in his blue eyes gone and replaced by a mischievous twinkle. “Who said I was alone?” There was a burst of white light and a spectral form erupted from the talon, landing in front of the boy. The spectral form coalesced into that of a wolf, smaller than the wolfspawn, but no less impressive, it’s white and brown fur a stark contrast to the wolfspawn’s blood spattered grey. “Say hello to partner, Orin,” the boy said cracking his knuckles. A tattoo in the shape of a twisted four-pointed star on his right shoulder briefly glowed, its blue light shining faintly through the material of his hooded top. The light spread down the veins of his right arm before racing over the rest of his body, fading moments later. “You’ve hunted scions for the last time, spawn breath.”

Snarling, the wolfspawn charged at the pair, he wasn’t going to let some whelp and his mutt get the better of him. It was time to end this game.

—-

“How’s the arm Cam?” Orin asked, walking over to the boy as he sat on a pile of tyres with a small backpack at his feet.

“Meh, I heal quickly enough.” Cam took off his hooded top and inspected the gash on his arm. It had been hurt when he had allowed the wolfspawn to slash him with its claws whilst it chased him. He had done this in an attempt to appear weak and helpless. It had been a calculated ploy, luring the wolfspawn into the ambush; one that Orin had not accepted without argument. Cam could tell that his friend and guardian was still a little mad at him for not listening. The gash wasn’t deep and it was still bleeding. He reached into the bag and pulled a strip of “clean” cloth that he used as a makeshift bandage, wrapping it around the wound. A little bit of blood soaked through but the material stopped the bleeding. The gash would probably leave a scar, but it wouldn’t be his first; he had a few already. With his top off, the scar he had received from a wolfspawn three years ago was clearly visible, slashing across his belly and left side. It was the first time he’d seen a monster and it was a night he’d like to forget, if only the nightmares would let him.

Satisfied that his arm was okay for the moment, he put his top back on, hopped off the tyres and walked over to the corpse of the wolfspawn. The beast hadn’t taken long to defeat, little more than five minutes. Between the two of them, they had managed to do it without sustaining any injuries more serious than a few grazes and bruises.

Taking out a small knife tucked into his sock, he reached down and cut off the long central talon from each of the wolfspawn’s claws. The creature’s eyes had also solidified in its death becoming red crystals. “These should be worth a bit on the market,” Cam said digging them out with the knife, “this city does have a goblin market, right?”

“As far as I know.”

There was a squelching sound from the corpse and it started to sag. It had only been dead for a couple of minutes but it was already starting to dissolve into a black, oil-like ichor. In a matter of seconds, there was nothing left of the wolfspawn except a pool of ichor. Cam knew that too would soon disappear, evaporating in the dawn sun. “Let’s get out of here Orin, I’m beat,” he said, putting the talons and eyes into the backpack.

—-

What a sight they must make, Cam thought as they walked down the street. A scruffy homeless kid with dirty and ripped clothes, a blood soaked makeshift bandage around his upper arm visible through the torn sleeve of his stop, a scar on his face, and a large wolf-like dog following him like a loyal pet. Lucky for them it was past midnight and there was no one around to see them, at least no one who cared that is.

“You need to be more careful,” Orin said cautiously, coming up alongside him.

“What do you mean?” Cam asked innocently, knowing full well what Orin was going to say.

“Using yourself as bait like that, it’s reckless and stupid.” The wolf hopped in front of Cam, forcing him to stop. “The last time you faced a wolfspawn you were almost killed! This time you got lucky.”

“Last time,” Cam snapped, “there were four of them and I was just a kid.”

“You’re still a child Cam, and the only reason you survived before is that your father saved your life.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, I’m fifteen. And I asked you never to talk about that man!” Cam was almost yelling; his face flushed red with anger. He pushed past Orin and continued walking briskly down the street; his shoulders and back tensed.

Orin walked behind him for several minutes before Cam broke the awkward silence. “Sorry for yelling at you like that. You’re my oldest friend Orin; I know you’re only looking out for me.”

“You know, if you had been born in Ancient Greece, you would be considered a man by now,” Orin said, “and you would have been trained from birth in how to use your abilities.”

“Yeah,” Cam said smiling, “but the nearest I’ve been to Ancient Greece is Athens in Ohio. I guess I’ll just have to make do with what I learned in Ms McKenna’s seventh grade history lessons and watching way too many Jackie Chan movies as a kid.”

Orin laughed, which was a disturbing sight to those not used to the large wolf spirit. “I suppose that would explain your terrible form and lack of technique.”

“Did you just insult the fists?” Cam asked in mock indignation. “You do not insult the fists.”

Eventually, after nearly an hour of walking, they arrived at a sleazy motel. The sort of motel frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers and didn’t think twice about renting a room to an unaccompanied fifteen-year-old boy who paid in cash. He was sure the manager thought that he was some runaway kid or gang member and if wasn’t already involved in business of its two main group of clients, he soon would be. It was a dangerous place to stay, marginally safer than sleeping on the street, but only just. On his first night, he’d been accosted by a junkie attempting to steal what little money he had, probably trying to get his next fix. All that the man got of it though was a broken nose and a few bruises. Not long afterwards, he had been approached been a group of men decked out in bling and carrying poorly concealed handguns; their get up screamed gang members. They’d offered him a job, saying they could use a “scrappy little punk” like him. Cam had refused, politely but firmly; there was no way he was going to get involved with the drugs trade; or the sex trade for that matter, they had been disturbingly vague on what they wanted him for. He hoped they had gotten the message; he didn’t want any trouble from them.

With Orin close behind, Cam walked across the parking lot towards their room. The lot wasn’t deserted, even at this time of night; two men sat on the bonnet of a car, watching Cam closely. He kept his head down, watching the two men out of the corner of his eye. They were probably just lookouts for the gang that used the motel as a drug den and whorehouse, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Cam had been on the run for three years, hunted and tracked by monsters and individuals who wanted to kill him for what he was or wanted to use him for that same reason. He hadn’t survived this long by being complacent.

Cam didn’t relax until he was safely in his room; the door closed and jammed shut with a baseball bat. “I’m telling you Orin, if it weren’t for the fact that this is the only place we can stay without attracting too much attention, I’d seriously consider finding somewhere else.”

“Pity,” a voice said from the darkness, “this place has character.”

Cam span round, slapping the light switch and dropping into a combat crouch. Why hadn’t Orin detected someone was in the room? His heart was pounding, adrenaline coursing through his system. Then, he saw who the intruder was.

Sitting in a chair, with a bottle of beer in his hand, was a gruff middle-aged man in a leather jacket. Leaning against a wall shotgun and massive sword, its blade at least two meters hilt to tip. Cam stood up and fixed the man with a smouldering glare. “Ares, what the hell do you want?”

The Greek god of war sighed. “Just once, would it kill you to call me dad?”

Dragonstar – Part 8

For the second time in less than a day, Trace awoke in the ship’s medbay. This time however, he wasn’t handcuffed to the bed’s side rail and he didn’t have Tsukiko leaning over him, inadvertently giving the teenage boy a clear view down her top. If she had noticed his embarrassed stammering and red-faced nervousness, she had tactfully decided not to comment on it. At least this time he was fully clothed.

He sat up in the bed, wincing at the grenade-like explosion of pain in his head that the movement caused. The bright overhead lights made the pain worse as he squinted. Trace clutched the side of his head and felt the presence of a bump where his head had struck the cockpit window. He cursed himself over his stupidity. Forgetting to fasten the safety harness, how could he have made such a rookie mistake?

Opposite the bed was a large window running the full length of the medbay. Normally it would provide an impressive view of the space outside the ship, but right now all Trace could see through it was a featureless grey void. “I really hope that’s astral space.” Trace said quietly to himself, referring to the medium that ships using a starcaster travelled through, “and not limbo or something.”

His leg, although no longer broken thanks to his earlier healing attempt, was still sore and a little tender. A twinge would shoot up it every time he moved or shifted his weight. There was probably still a hairline fracture in the bone and running around the ship and crawling through maintenance ducts hadn’t helped it any. Concentrating, Trace was able to summon a little bit of his healing energy, the blue glow repairing the last of the injuries he had suffered in the jumper crash and at the hands of the ISPD agent. There was even a little left to soothe the headache.

Trace slid off the bed and moved over to the window, pressing his face up to the glass. He knew they were only skimming across the “surface” of astral space, rather than entering it completely. The starcaster, like nearly all forms of teleportation magic, converted the ship into a mana stream and transmitted it through astral space much like a radio signal. This way they could take advantage of the astral plane’s tenuous connection with time and space to travel vast distances in the material plane, the plane in which the “real world” existed. Although it would seem to take several hours to travel a few dozen light years, to an outside observer on the material plane it would appear instantaneous. Long ago, mages had believed that all teleportation spells and rituals were instantaneous. However, back then they never travelled more than a few tens of thousands of kilometres across the surface of a planet. As the distance travelled increased, the time delay became more pronounced and noticeable; a few minutes for journeys across a solar system, a few hours for interstellar trips.

Outside the ship, Trace could see nothing. It was as if the ship was enclosed by a sphere of uniform light grey. Ambient light filtered in from all directions casting soft diffused shadows and there was no sense of movement. The lack of anything to focus on out there unnerved him.

Spacer legends had it that astral space was full isolated planetoids and the remains of forgotten, dead gods. Some also said that entire worlds that had been thought destroyed by the release of apocalyptic magical weapons during the Dragon War could be found here. There were rumours that the Imperial Navy and some megacorps had developed astral drives that allowed ships to physically cross the barrier between planes and enter astral space. If any of these experimental ships actually existed, no one was talking about them.

He shivered as he recalled some of the stories about astral marauders he’d heard told at the guild when he was younger. Huge beasts, the size of in Imperial Dreadnaught that inhabited astral space and could attack unwary travellers in mid-starcast. Trace laughed nervously and turned away from the window. He was too old to believe in those sorts of stories, only children were scared of phantom monsters that don’t exist, right?

Thinking about the stories he had heard as a child at the guild brought the recent events back to the front of Trace’s mind. He could barely remember his life before he was brought to Jurrika by Dorga; even remembering the faces of his family had become difficult in the last few years. They only seemed to come to him now in nightmares. Ten years of threats, beatings and worse was finally over, he was free. Dorga had never been much of a father and now he was dead, killed by the son he had abused and mistreated.

Trace still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. That Dorga had been an evil man was without question. In a universe where good and evil, order and chaos were definable and quantifiable aspects instead of vague philosophical concepts, that much was clear to him. His death was certainly deserved; he had caused a great deal of suffering. Not just to Trace either; many other people had had their lives destroyed by Dorga’s pursuit for power and wealth. Innocents like Toby and Samantha. Although again he’d had no choice about it, he had taken another life and the words that his “father” had said to him in that dream were ringing in his ears.

His train of thought was interrupted by a rumbling, this time not from the ship but from his own stomach. Trace became acutely aware at just how long it had been since he’d had a proper meal. “I’m not going to get anywhere on an empty stomach,” he said to himself. Pulling himself together and pushing the images of Dorga’s death from his mind, he left the medbay in search of something to eat.

“This is a noble’s ship, there ought to be some decent scram on board somewhere.” If he remembered the layout of the ship correctly, the galley should be just off the midship foyer. The foyer was a chamber located at the centre of the ship with a number of corridors and doors leading off from it. The stairs to the lower and upper decks also connected to it, making it the hub of the ship’s layout. Forward of the foyer was the ship’s forward lounge and the corridor to the rear lead to the crew quarters, the launch bay and the engine room. There were four doors leading out of the foyer. One led to the medbay he had just left and another opened into the storeroom that had been used as makeshift cell to lock him up in earlier. Of the other two, one had the universal sign for a washroom. Through a process of elimination, that meant that the remaining door must lead to the galley.

The galley door was unlocked and it opened onto a room of gleaming metal work-surfaces, lit by soft overhead lights. Trace looked around with a small amount of awe. The state-of-the-art galley was a far cry from the rusty and ancient appliances in the apartment he had shared with Toby and Sarah, and even further from the filthy kitchen at Dorga’s bar. In the corner of the galley was an autochef nestled in its standby alcove; a robotic cook that hung from a track fixed to the galley’s ceiling; it could prepare any dish whose recipe was programmed into its databanks as long as the ingredients were available. At the far end of the galley was a set of metal roller shutters covering a serving alcove that Trace suspected opened on to the forward lounge.

Eagerly, Trace opened one of the cupboards in search of food. His face fell as he saw that it was full of plain white cardboard boxes containing generic brand ration bars. “Aww come on, there’s gotta be better stuff than this.” After a minute of searching he found what he was looking for, opening up the door to the huge walk-in fridge that was home to a veritable grocery store’s worth of fresh food.

Trace’s eyes lit up and he grinned. He’d never seen so much fresh food in one place before, not at such high quality either. “Jackpot”

Korodo found him ten minutes later, sitting on one of the kitchen counters and stuffing his face with fresh fruit and cold cuts of cooked meat. The half-dragon looked at the boy with a raised eyebrow as he walked into the galley and headed towards the fridge. He took a cold bottle of beer from the fridge and closed to the door, leaning against it and twisting the bottle’s cap off. Trace sat opposite him, a chicken drumstick sticking out of his mouth and looking back with suspicious eyes.

“So,” Korodo said, breaking the awkward silence, “I see you’re feeling better.” He gestured at the bloodstains on Trace’s borrowed t-shirt. “You had us worried there for a while.”

“Meh, I’ve had worse,” Trace said around the drumstick in his mouth.

“And it seems you certainly got your appetite back.”

Trace shrugged. “Dorga threw me out on to the streets when I was eight to ‘toughen me up’. Back then, I’d go without food for days at a time while I tried to beg and steal enough to survive. I nearly died of starvation more than once. I guess because of that I don’t like feeling hungry, it brings back bad memories.” Embarrassed at what he had said, he looked away for a second. He didn’t know what had made him admit to that. “How’s everyone else?” He asked anxious to change the subject.

“Thanks to you, the only other thing that got damaged was the ship.”

“Erm, thanks, I think.” Trace blushed, unused to hearing sincere praise or gratitude directed at him. “How bad was the damage?”

“Well, the hull breach in the port cargo bay has been repaired, but the breach in the launch bay can only be patched. The spaceframe in that area was buckled so we’ll need to get to proper dock facilities to repair it. But, that’s the least of our problems. Apparently, the fuel transfer intermixer was destroyed by the missile blast and without it, both the main drives and the combat drives are out of action; we’re down to just our manoeuvring thrusters. Our only spare was in the port cargo bay.”

“Ah,” Trace said, realising what Korodo was getting at, “the one that got breached.”

“Exactly.”

“So what happens now?”

“Actually,” Korodo said, smiling a little, “I wanted to have a word with you about that. While you were out, we programmed a jump to the Primogen system where we’re going to put in for some repairs.”

Trace scratched his head. “What’s that got to do with me?”

Korodo finished off the rest of his drink before continuing. “When we land, I want you to stay on board. No ‘going exploring,’ no sneaking out or running off.”

“Even after saving their butts,” Trace thought to himself, “he’s still going to treat me like a prisoner.” Trace narrowed his eyes and glared at the half dragon. “And what if I don’t?” He said aloud, taking the drumstick out of his mouth and using it to point at Korodo.

“Simple, you’ll get arrested for illegally crossing into Domain Noros.”

“Huh?”

“No disrespect intended Trace, but commoners like you are not allowed to cross Domain borders without proper transit papers. The Primogen system is in Domain Noros; if you leave the ship, they’ll arrest you. You’ll be charged with illegal entry into Domain Noros and if I remember correctly, that’s at least five years hard labour. That’s assuming that those black dragons don’t make up a few charges just for fun. Afterwards, they’ll send you straight back Mazorgrim where you’ll face similar charges for leaving their Domain illegally plus the fallout for that chaos back on Jurrika.” Korodo walked over to Trace and placed a hand on his shoulder, which the boy quickly shrugged off. “I know you don’t have a reason to trust us, but please, don’t go running off just yet.” He stepped away from Trace and turned to leave.

“After everything I’ve done,” said Trace, “why do you care if I get arrested or not?”

Korodo stopped at the door. “Well,” he said, speaking over his shoulder, “I can’t have my new pilot getting himself thrown in prison now, can I?” With his back to Trace, the confused boy couldn’t see the smirk on the half dragons face as he left.

“Well, that was weird,” Trace thought. One minute the noble was threatening to hand him over to the cops, the next he was trying to keep him out of jail. Not to mention the fact he had actually paid him a compliment; he couldn’t figure the guy out. It was also the first time that Korodo had called him by his name since they had met, instead of just calling him “kid” or “elf boy.” Trace laughed and stuck the drumstick back into his mouth. Crossing Domain borders without transit papers was the least of the things they could charge him with; with his rap sheet, especially after fleeing Jurrika and skipping out on certain legal restrictions, he would be lucky if he got less than twenty years. Trace hopped off the counter and went over to the fridge, searching for one of the bottles of beer he had seen. “Wait a minute,” he said, spitting out the drumstick as his eyes widened in sudden realisation, “what did he mean by ‘new pilot’?”

—-

Standing over the body of the guild member, Caldrin wiped the blood off his knife. It’s clear crystal blade briefly assuming a red hue as it absorbed some of the blood of the victim. The second assassination attempt on the noble had failed. Unfortunately, his ploy to convince the guildmaster that the boy had betrayed him and was working with Lord Korodo to bring down the guild had backfired. He had fundamentally misunderstood the connection between Dorga and Trace; the guildmaster had been more concerned with getting personal revenge on the boy for some reason, than on killing him and the noble by simply destroying the ship as the drow had suggested. It seemed that the intelligence on the Jurrika Thieves Guild was not as complete as the ISPD had believed.

Nonetheless, the damage was already done. The assault on the noble’s apartment, the chase and fire fight through the skies of Jurrika City and the battle in orbit around Seastyl, all of it had attracted too much attention. It was time to burn everything and cover their tracks, literally.

The men under his command had stormed the bar the guildmaster had used as a cover for his activities. At the same time, strike teams had assaulted several other known guild locations. Along with a bombing campaign against guild-affiliated business, the assassination attempt would be masked by the apparent wave of violence sweeping across the city. Already the media was portraying it as a coordinated series of strikes by one underworld organisation against another, a dirty “black-war” spilling out onto the city streets. That another criminal syndicate would undoubtedly move in take advantage of the decimated guild would only add to the believability of the cover story.

“Sir,” his assistant said holding a communicator to his ear, “the probe team has returned from tracking the Chimera’s mana stream.”

“And?”

“They were able to track the noble’s yacht to a position two light years outside this system,” the assistant said, relaying the report from the probe team on the other end of the communicator, “but there was no sign of the ship… There was a mana stream heading galactic east… but it was too faint to get a fix on their starcast destination.”

Caldrin looked around as his men mopped up the last of the guild members. “Set up a domainwide watch alert for the Chimera, Korodo and his staff. Extend it to the neighbouring Domains of Esmer of Osorus, they have to show up eventually. In the meantime, we’ll evacuate the staff from the office and set the demolition charges. When you’ve finished up here, I’ll meet you onboard the Nodachi.”

—-

“Will the patch hold?” Barak asked Bolts as they studied the ship schematics being displayed by the holographic projector embedded into the centre of the table.

“It should last for one atmospheric re-entry,” the soulmech said, “but I wouldn’t want to chance a second. We really need to get that breach properly sealed when we get to Primogen.”

Tsukiko reached into a pocket and pulled out a small computer chip that she slid into a slot on the table. There was a beep as the built in computer read the data from the chip and a window opened up in the holographic display. The window showed a scrolling list of items, some of which flashed in red. “We’re running low on some supplies, mainly because we left port early but that breach in the cargo bay didn’t help. The ones in red are the ones I’m really worried about though.” She looked at the two men. “If we get into any more trouble, we’ll start running out of critical supplies, especially medical supplies.”

As she spoke, the door opened and Korodo walked in, a smile on his face. The half dragon held up three fingers and slowly began to count down. “Three … two … one …”

On one, Trace ran in through the open doorway. The boy looked at Korodo and then at the three adults sitting around the table. “Just what did you mean by ‘new pilot’?” He asked carefully.

Korodo walked over to the table and pretended to inspect the holographic projection. “Well, we need a pilot. Barak and Bolts both have a license and can handle basic manoeuvres, but if we get in to trouble again, we’re going to need more than just someone with a little training and a piece of paper; we’re going to need someone talented at piloting. Until we’re able to get in touch with our allies, you’re the best candidate.”

“Are. You. Insane?” Trace asked, striding over and turning the half-dragon around to face him, “there’s no way that I can be your pilot!”

Tsukiko smiled and leaned forward. “Are you saying that you can’t do it?”

“Yes … no wait, no … argh! I don’t know.”

Korodo placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. Unlike last time, Trace was too confused to shrug it off. “I saw the way you threw this ship around during combat; and the way you handled that jumper beforehand. We don’t need a ‘by-the-book’ chauffeur, we need someone one can pull off moves that the manual says this ship shouldn’t be capable of doing. That certainly describes you, doesn’t it?”

“Not having a little piece of paper didn’t stop you earlier,” said Bolts.

Trace sighed and took a deep breath before responding. “That was different; people were trying to kill us. Even if I wanted too, and I’m not saying I do or don’t, I can’t be a pilot for you; I’m only fifteen. I’ve got another year before I can get a provisional license and even then, I’m limited to non-commercial shuttles and orbital transfer pods for two years. If I was caught landing this thing at a starport, you’d just get a fine but I’d get arrested. I’ve been in prison enough times because of someone else that I never want to have to go through that again.”

Korodo looked at him for a few seconds before turning to the others. “Guys, do you mind giving us the room for a few minutes?” Once they were alone, he motioned for the boy to sit down. Trace hesitated, torn between staying to hear the man out or storming off. Then he realised that until they landed at Primogen, he couldn’t just keep avoiding him. The ship was small and there were only so many hiding places. Reluctantly, he sat down.

“I don’t need charity if that’s what you’re thinking,” Trace said, “I can take care of myself.”

The half dragon smiled. “I can see that,” he said before his face fell serious. “How are you doing though? It’s been a rough couple of days.”

Trace looked out of the window opposite; but it wasn’t the featureless grey void of astral space that he was seeing but the moment that Dorga’s shuttle had exploded. Korodo didn’t notice his faraway look, or the shudder that passed through his body. Trace blinked his eyes and shook his head, banishing the image from his mind. “I’m doing fine, why shouldn’t I be?” He forced a cocky smile, hiding his unease as he changed the subject. “Look, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m ungrateful or anything. Like I said before, you guys saved my life and if I’d never met you, I’d probably still be working for Dorga. He’s controlled my life for so long but now I’m finally free. Free to do whatever I want, free to decide what my future will be, everything. I might not know what I wanna do with my life now, but I know that I want to be one in control of it from now on.”

“I can respect that,” Korodo said. “I guess if I was in your position, I’d be hesitant too. Although I meant it when I said we could use you, I don’t want you to do it out of a sense of misplaced obligation.” He got up and leant against the table. “How about this? It’s going to be at least a week or two before we get to our final destination. Depending on how long it takes to get repairs on Primogen that is. If you’ll give us a hand with the piloting until then, I promise that if you still want to go your own way after that, none of us will stop you.”

Trace cocked his head for a couple of seconds, thinking it over. “Kinda like a trial run thing?”

“Precisely,” Korodo said, nodding, “for both of us. In addition, the people we’re going to see might be able to help set you up with a place to stay and a legitimate job. Or transit papers to wherever you want to go if that’s what you want.”

“Okay,” Trace said standing up and walking over to Korodo, “I’ll do it on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

Trace looked Korodo in the eye as he spoke, his expression deadly serious. “Tell me why the snakeheads want you dead.”

Dragonstar – Part 07

Trace scanned the controls trying to hide how much he was impressed. Rotational control thrusters, multi-vector tactile control sticks, holographic heads-up display, is that an overburn supercharger? Nice. There were a few controls he didn’t recognise though; like the arcane oscillator, his grandfather’s old dropship hadn’t had one of those, neither did any of Dorga’s shuttles. Still, the layout was identical just as he said it would be; he could do this.

Grasping the twin control sticks, Trace felt the ship respond to his command. Compared to a jumpcraft or one of Dorga’s shuttles, the Chimera was a lumbering giant. Looking at the readouts though, he could tell that the Chimera was faster in straight-line flight.

“Stop drooling over the controls and get with it!” Korodo’s voice focused his attention back on Dorga’s shuttles. Remembering how his grandfather had shown him, Trace jabbed at the holographic controls and brought up the ship’s external cameras. A series of windows appeared in the HUD showing the video feeds from the cameras and giving Trace the ability to view what was happening around the ship.

“Where are they?” Korodo said as he cycled through the various sensor systems at his station. “They’re not showing up on the sensors.”

“I know; they’re Guild shuttles, they’ve all got stealth mesh on their outer hulls.” Glancing at the various camera views, he spotted three shuttles. They may be masked on radar, but they couldn’t hide from the visual cameras without major technological and magical assistance. “Got ‘em, seven o’clock high, four o’clock low and six o’clock level. Each of ‘em are armed with twin laser cannons and four externally mounted missiles, radar guided. Top combat speed 22 thousand kph, but they don’t have starcasters. We can outrun them on our main engines, but on combat drives they’re faster and more manoeuvrable than us.” Trace knew they couldn’t switch to their main engines whilst they were still engaged; their manoeuvrability would drop drastically and they would be sitting duck for the shuttles who would have a clear shot at them for a least a minute. If they tried to take evasive action while accelerating, the immense stresses involved in the violent manoeuvres would tear the Chimera apart. “They’ve got no shields, and their polymeric armour plating is weak around the thrusters.”

“And how do you know all that?” Korodo asked, slightly impressed that the boy could rattle off such information so calmly in the middle of combat.

Trace glanced over his shoulder at the half-dragon and smiled. “Heh, you forgotten who I used to work for?”

“Okay, since you’re the expert at this, what do you suggest?”

Trace was thrown for a second, expecting to detect a hint of sarcasm in what Korodo had said; but there wasn’t any. Was that actually a compliment from the noble? “Erm … give me a second. This isn’t like getting away from police jumpers, it ‘aint as if I can dodge between skyscrapers and loose ‘em in the sprawl.” Glancing at the camera feeds, he saw one of the shuttles dart forward, aiming a strafing run at the Chimera’s side.

Korodo nodded and pulled on a headset. “Bolts, what’s the status of the starcaster?”

—-

The soulmech braced himself against an overhead beam as the ship rocked. He was in the small engineering compartment at the rear of the ship. On either side of the cramped room lay the ship’s main engines. Although currently idling, the hum from the giant electromagnetic coils around their particle impulse chambers created a charged atmosphere, the air smelling of ionised oxygen molecules.

“Bolts, what’s the status of the starcaster?” Korodo’s voice crackled over the intercom. The engineer glanced over at the transparent crystal sphere nearly a metre across at the back of the room. Smaller, fist-sized hexagonal crystals orbited it, sparks of magical energy drifting from them and into the central crystal.

Bolts activated his internal transceiver and connected to the ship’s internal communication network. “It’s going to take some time,” he said looking at the holographic readouts encircling the starcaster, “when main power was shut down, the caster dumped its charge. It’ll be a few minutes before the mana levels are restored.”

“Is there any way you can speed it up?” The ship shook as another round of laser fire struck the ship and alarms starting to wail.

“I’ll try,” Bolts said, “even if I have to shovel mana into the caster myself.”

—-

Tsukiko stumbled as the ship rocked, almost dropping the dermal regenerator she had been using. Barak caught her as she stumbled, catching her with his arm. “Careful Suki,” he said playfully, “I’ve got enough battle scars as it is without a new one on my forehead.”

“Pity,” Tsukiko said as she passed the regenerator over the orc’s head wound, knitting the flesh back together, “I like some of those scars.”

A particularly violent jolt shook the ship; the two of them felt the ship shudder as it sustained a direct hit. The deck plates beneath their feet transmitted the vibration of something exploding elsewhere in the ship and alarms started to sound. “Alert, hull breach in port cargo bay. Decompression contained.”

Barak sat up. “Please tell me we didn’t leave Korodo in charge of the ship?” The orc swung his legs of the side of the medical bed. “And don’t give any me any of that ‘you need rest’ doctor-speak.” He said when he saw the look that Tsukiko was giving him as he clipped his sidearm holster to his belt.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Tsukiko said handing him his pistol, “but I need to give you something first.” She reached forward as Barak looked up and kissed him.

—-

“Echo two,” the shuttle pilot said into his headset, “swing around and attack the left flank. Echo three drop back and execute a flip six three in case the Chimera gets past echo two.” Dorga watched the man at work, manoeuvring the various shuttles around in an effort to engage the rapidly evading ship. Grinding his teeth in anger, he recognised the flying style of Chimera’s pilot. Although it appeared wild, chaotic and undisciplined, it was anything but random. He should know; he had watched as the young boy had developed his piloting skills over the years.

Earlier, Dorga had told Trace that the boy had been born to be a thief; that it came to him naturally. However, the guildmaster knew that he had been lying when he had said this. Trace may have been a good thief, but he was a better pilot. It was in his blood; this was what he had been born to do.

—-

As the alarms rang, Trace scanned the video feeds, committing the position and flight path of each shuttle to memory. “Hang on,” he said over his shoulder, “this might get … a little rough.” He jammed the left control stick forward and pulled the right stick all the way back. In response, the starboard engines went into full reverse as the port engine went to full thrust; the Chimera began to swing around. At the same time, Trace rotated the control sticks within their gyroscopic mounts, triggering the rotational control thrusters. The Chimera twisted and turned, rotating in all three dimensions and scattering the three shuttles, its superstructure groaning in protest over the violent stresses.

Korodo gripped tightly onto the armrests of his seat, thrown about by the rapid and wild manoeuvres. The gravity field generated by the starcaster could barely keep up. The half-dragon could only watch as young boy in the pilot’s seat threw his ship through a series of seemingly random manoeuvres. Earlier, he had accused Trace of being reckless and insane. But watching him now, he had to admit that he had been wrong. In the reflection in the glass, Korodo could see the determined expression on the boy’s face, the depth of his concentration visible in the motion of his eyes and the set of his shoulders as he gripped the controls, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead.

Trace’s eyes flicked from the video feeds to the various system readouts to the view outside the cockpit window, all in rapid succession. Taking in all the information and processing it rapidly, he integrated all of it into a series of quick-fire manoeuvres. He wasn’t even consciously aware of what he was doing, barely even aware of the presence of Korodo. Trace was “in the zone,” a place he always went to in these situations, a place where all conscious consideration was replaced by acting on pure instinct and adrenaline. However, this time was different; this time he wasn’t trying to evade police jumpers who just wanted to stop and arrest him. This time people were actively trying to kill. His heart was thundering in his chest.

Jerking on the control sticks, Trace fired the RCS thrusters and halted the Chimera’s movements, its bow pointing directly at one of the guild shuttles. A single tone sounded and a flashing targeting box appeared over the shuttle in the HUD, the ship’s forward cannons had locked on using the visual cameras for targeting.

Trace hesitated; he knew that the shuttle in his sights was the one that Dorga was on, the one containing his father. There was no way he could possibly have known this, each of the shuttles was identical, but it was as if he could feel Dorga’s presence aboard it. His thumbs hovered over the firing switches on the control sticks. With just a push of a button, he could fire the cannons and destroy the shuttle. They were locked on, at this range there was no way that he would miss, no way that the shuttle would survive. All he had to do was push the switch.

“FIRE!” Korodo yelled from behind him, seeing the same targeting information as Trace.

The sweat dribbled from Trace’s brow, his knuckles white from his grip on the sticks. Even after everything that Dorga had done to him, the things that he had forced him to do over the years, the hatred he felt for the man, he hesitated.

Closing his eyes, he remembered the piercing sound of the alarm as the airlock on his family’s colony was breeched; watching from the balcony of the main house where he had been playing as men poured into the grounds of the compound, gunning down everyone they came across; men, women, children, it didn’t seem to make any difference to them. There was an acrid smell of gunfire in the air and the dull thumps of subsonic ammunition designed not to pierce the colony’s dome seemed to be everywhere. There was a crack and a white streak of tracer fire as a spray of gunfire lanced up from the men towards the balcony. Something warm and wet splattered across the side of his face, followed by the thud of something hitting the floor. Turning around he saw his cousin Carric lying on the floor, blood pooling around his bullet-mangled head. Killed instantly by the burst, he hadn’t even had time to scream as the bullets tore through his face, spraying his blood on to Trace; they had been best friends, the same age, sharing the same birthday, they had done everything together. He just stood there, staring at the body in shock, even as the men began storming the house. His mother came onto the balcony, scooping him up and carrying him into the house, holding him tightly. She tried to shield him from seeing the bodies, but there were too many of them. Cut off from garage and small hanger, they were forced to retreat to the bedrooms. She made him hide under his bed, telling him to be quiet and that it would be all right. Although he was scared, he nodded and tried to smile bravely. If she told him that he would be safe and that the bad men wouldn’t find him, then that’s what would happen; she wouldn’t lie to him. There were gunshots from outside his room and he heard voices, his mother and another man. He couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were speaking in the human language Common, but he only spoke Elven, the language of his mother and her family. She was begging with the man, pleading with him. There was a single gunshot; he didn’t hear his mother speak again. The door opened; from underneath the bed he saw his mother’s dead body lying on the other side of the doorway. A man walked into the bedroom and knelt by the side of the bed. The human looked under the bed and saw him cowering in the shadows. His mother’s blood was still on the man’s face, a face he would grow to hate over the next ten years; a gloved and bloody hand reached towards him as the man smiled cruelly.

“What are you waiting for?” Korodo yelled out, his voice breaking Trace out of the flashback. “Fire the cannons!”

Trace’s eyes snapped open and he retightened his grip on the controls. Screaming a wordless cry of rage and long suppressed grief, he jammed his thumbs onto the firing switches and opened fire.

—-

Red warning lights flashed, a shrill alarm filled the shuttle. “Lock on warning!” The pilot yelled, “we’re being targeted!”

Dorga stumbled as the pilot rolled the ship to the side. “Evade, get us out of here!”

“Too late!”

—-

The railgun rounds from the Chimera’s forward guns tore into the shuttle, the hyper-accelerated metal slugs vaporising on impact and obliterating the target. Trace didn’t turn away as the shuttle’s power cells detonated, the flames of the explosion reflected in his tear-streaked eyes. Hull fragments scattered away from the explosion, pattering like hailstones on the hull of the Chimera. The other two shuttles peeled away to regroup.

Korodo leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder. “Great shot kid, you got them!”

Trace swallowed. “Yeah … I … I got him, them.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes.

The half-dragon heard the shakiness in the boy’s voice and saw the glisten of moisture on the boy’s arm, where he’d wiped his eyes. It was at that moment that Korodo realised who might have been onboard that shuttle. “Are you okay?” He asked carefully.

There was a pause before Trace responded, his voice still a little unsteady. “I … I’m …” Before he could finish the cockpit door and Barak walked in, stopping when he saw the boy sitting in the pilot’s seat.

“Okay,” the orc said scratching his head, “can someone explain why the kid’s sitting at the controls?”

“There’s still two of them out there,” Trace said quietly, focusing on the video feeds and the controls. The other two shuttles had fallen back but hadn’t left completely. Trace had a feeling that they were going to retreat to missile range and attempt to destroy the Chimera while staying out of range of the ships guns.

Korodo turned around and fixed the orc with a firm look. “Barak, can you take the other station and man the guns.” His eyes were saying “drop the subject and leave the kid to get on with his job.” The orc shrugged and sat down, fastening his safety harness.

Trace sat at the flight controls, staring rigidly forward and ignored the two men behind him as he piloted the ship.

“Bring us around to heading one eight zero mark six,” Barak said diverting weapons control to his station. “Did you hear me kid?” He added when Trace didn’t answer.

“I heard you,” Trace muttered, “and my name’s Trace, not kid.” Cutting the engines, he used the RCS thrusters to swing the ship around before reengaging the engines to reverse their heading. The two surviving shuttles had regrouped and were charging towards them. Another tone sounded, this time accompanied by a warning message.

“Alert, missile lock.”

Both of the shuttles fired their entire missile complement and eight missiles began to streak their way towards the Chimera. The missiles shot away from the two shuttles, scattering in all directions before arcing around to attack the Chimera from multiple directions. “Not good,” Trace said, twisting the control sticks and sending the ship into a barrel roll. Barak set the railguns to rapid-fire mode, targeting the heat blooms caused by the missile’s rocket engines. A barrage of hypervelocity slugs struck out at the missiles as the guns automatically tracked the incoming targets. First one, then two missiles were shredded by the guns. One after another, the missiles were intercepted and destroyed.

As the Chimera was buffeted by the exploding missiles, Trace struggled with the controls trying to keep the ship clear of the detonations. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flare of rocket exhaust as missile broke through the railgun barrage. “Hang on!” He yelled yanking desperately at the controls in an attempt to twist the ship out of the way but it was too late, the missile was already locked on and struck the rear of the ship. It penetrated the hull punching through the metal and ceramic hull plating into the launch bay before detonating. The blast shook the ship, destroying the small shuttle in the launch bay, rupturing fuel and power lines and triggering secondary explosions.

Alarms screamed and the ship rocked violently. Only their safety harnesses kept Korodo and Barak in their seats as the ship was thrown to the side by the force of the explosion, the extreme g-forces created completely overwhelming the starcaster’s ability to compensate. “Shiv!” cursed the orc when the ship stopped spinning as the RCS thrusters automatically stabilised the ship, “weapons control is out, the combat drives are offline, we’ve got a decompression in the launch bay and the damage control system is down.”

“My board’s down too,” Korodo added, readjusting his headset. “Bolts, Suki, you two okay?” He received affirmatives from both of them, although the engineer had some strong words in regards to Korodo’s flying skills. The half-dragon smiled as Bolts continued his tirade, wondering what the soulmech would say when he found out that Korodo hadn’t been at the controls. “Kid, what about you?” When there was no immediate answer, he turned around in his seat and looked over at Trace.

The boy was slumped over the controls, lying bodily on top of them with his upper body resting at an uncomfortable angle against the cockpit window. His was face covered in blood, streaming from a gash on the side of his head; the hair around the wound matted with blood. On the glass of the cockpit window was a bloody mark where his head had struck it violently. The safety harness, which Trace had forgotten to fasten, dangled uselessly at the side of the seat.

“Suki, get up here now!” Korodo said into his headset as he slapped the release button on his harness. He jumped out of his seat and reached over to Trace, pulling him gently back into his seat. The boy was unconscious and the head wound probably looked worse than it actually was. Still, he was bleeding quite heavily. Korodo tore of the sleeve of his shirt and pressed the material against Trace’s wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding, checking the video feeds. The two remaining shuttles were circling around for another attack run. This time, with the Chimera a sitting duck, it would be a killing blow. “Bolts, we could really do with that starcaster right now!”

“Field strength is at 87 percent,” Bolts said of the internal comms, his voice crackling over the bad connection, “and the mana flow is at six point two gans per second. That’s as good as we’re going to get until I make some repairs.”

“It’ll have to do,” Barak said, “punch it!”

Korodo leaned over the pilot controls, accessing the starcaster controls and programming the jump. There was no time to select a destination, all he could do was programme a blind jump and hope they didn’t emerge inside a planet or sun. Setting the starcaster for a 2 light year jump, he uttered a small prayer to the gods and pressed the jump button.

An Unlikely Hero – Issue 5

Todd cursed as another wave of Zombie Ninja’s stormed the barricades. Glancing at the ammo counter, he saw that his weapon was almost empty. At this rate, they would breach the compound and overrun the small group of defenders within minutes.

“I’m out!” A J called out over the headset. His friend was in one of the watchtowers manning its turret-mounted machine gun. A J jumped out of the turret and switched back to his assault rifle, using the under slung grenade launcher to send a barrage of frag grenades into the enemy. Explosions ripped through their ranks, shredding the undead horde. It was never going to be enough though, there were just too many of them. Then, just as he was about to give up, he heard a cracking voice over the radio.

“November six-three-six incoming, prepare for evac.”

“Fall back!” Todd said over the sounds of gunfire, “Protect the helipad.” The soldiers retreated from the wall and surrounded the helipad at the centre of the compound. Almost immediately, the Zombie Ninjas scaled the wall and began to pour into the compound. They were met by the concentrated fire of the soldier’s weapons as a battered helicopter swooped into the valley hovering over the compound. Although the paint was peeling and its hull scarred by battle, Todd could just about make out the faded logo of Overwatch, the organisation that had tried and failed to save the world from the undead invasion. The arrival of the helicopter caused the remaining defenders to cheer.

That moment of celebration would cost them. One of the zombies leapt from the wall on to one of the soldiers, tearing his throat out before anyone could stop it. There was a screech of tearing metal as one of the watch towers began to collapse. Todd saw A J fall from the top, plummeting to the ground. Acting without thinking, Todd switched to the gravity gun and fired. The energy beam struck A J mid-fall, arresting his descent. “You gotta love the gravity gun,” Todd said swinging his friend around and setting him down gently. The helicopter landed and the soldiers began to back towards it, firing as they moved.

“This is just like the Battle of Pittsburgh,” A J said as they covered the retreating soldiers.

“We’re in the middle of the Nevada Rad-Lands, how is this anything like the ruins of Pittsburgh?”

“Hostile terrain, surrounded by the enemy, chopper evac while under attack? This is just like the last three missions.”

Todd sighed and took another bite of his lunch, the plate balanced precariously on his knee as he jigged the controller around. “You’re right, this new downloadable content sucks.” He fired the last of his ammunition at the zombies and boarded the helicopter, followed closely behind by A J’s character. As soon as they were both on board, the helicopter took off and the “Mission Complete” screen appeared.

“Yeah, the Broken Arrow mission pack was better,” A J said as soon as they were back to the online lobby screen, his voice crackled as he adjusted his headset. They had been playing Zombie Ninja Assault over the internet for the last hour ever since A J had instant messaged him about one of their homework assignments. “Hey, did you tell your dad about what happened at the gas station this morning?”

“Are you kidding?” Todd said laughing. “Dad’d go mental. After everything that’s happened already, if I told him some gang member nearly shot me this morning, he’d yank me out of school and pack me off to the same fancy boarding school my cousin goes to in Europe. We lived in New York for 12 years, and the only time I saw a gun was on a cop’s belt. I’ve only been here for two months and I’ve already been shot and got caught up in an armed robbery! I thought Key West was supposed to be a safer place to live.”

“It is, you’re just a magnet for bad luck.” Todd heard a muffled over the headset calling up to A J. “I gotta go, mom say’s dinner’s ready. See you at school tomorrow?”

“As long as I don’t have to stop a bank robbery on the way.” There was a beep as A J logged off and Todd switched off the console. He was about to get up and take his plate downstairs when the nanobots chose that moment to “speak.”

“ANALYSIS OF TACTICAL SIMULATION COMPLETE. 26 STRATEGIC ERRORS NOTED. A REPORT HAS BEEN MADE WITH RECOMMENDATIONS INTENDED TO INCREASE COMBAT EFFICIENCY. DO YOU WISH TO REVIEW THE REPORT?”

—-

Sitting in front of a bank of computer screens, the man watched the house across the road as he eat the re-heated instant noodles, grimacing at the taste. Although he had not been able to enter the Marshall’s home, his boss had specifically forbidden that, he had managed to plant listening devices and hidden cameras in the grounds. The listening devices worked by bouncing an invisible laser off the house’s windows and measuring the vibrations caused by sounds from within. Sounds like people talking. Small cameras were also pointed at the windows so he could see as well as hear what was going on inside the house. He had also managed to tap the phones.

Although boring at first, he knew the assignment would soon become more interesting. While he was making his report earlier that evening, he mentioned the incident at the service station. His boss had found the information interesting and had decided to move the operation on to its next phase. He was to arrange an “accident” for Todd to test the boy’s newfound abilities. So far, he had it narrowed down to either a car accident or a fire at school. The car accident option would be the easiest, he would have no trouble making it look like a simple hit and run. A major fire at school would be a much more wide ranging test, testing more than just the boy’s resilience.

There was just one thing bothering him. So what if the kid was some sort of mutant with accelerated healing; it wasn’t as if they were rare. He couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about; or his boss’s fascination with the kid, not with their operation on Sentinel beginning to enter its most crucial stage. At least he didn’t have to spend all day babysitting a drugged kid in a basement like the rest of the team. As he thought about what he was going to do, he didn’t notice the women watching him from the shadows at the back of the room. There was little chance that he would have seen her even if he had been looking directly at her; she was only visible when she wanted to be seen. Had he been able to see her, he would have been surprised see that it was his target’s homeroom teacher.

If she stayed any longer, she knew that she would be tempted to interfere, to stop him from putting his plan into motion. That was against the rules. In fact, interfering in such a way would violate one of the highest rules of the oath she had sworn. Miss Gunderson sighed and closed her eyes. The darkened room shifted and blurred until it was replaced by a tranquil scene. Rolling hills covered in green grass stretched from horizon to horizon, dappled here and there with white snowflake-like flowers. The blue sky above was flawless, broken by streaks of wispy high clouds that only seemed to cement its perfection, not detract from it. A short distance away was a small folly resembling an idealised version of a small Ancient Greek temple.

Her surroundings weren’t the only thing that had changed. Gone was her short brown hair and green eyes and in their place was long blond hair and blue eyes. Everything about her had changed, her appearance, her height and build; in every way she was a different person.

As she walked towards the folly, she saw that she was not alone. Sitting down inside the folly on a stone chair was a Hispanic man in his late thirties. He was hunched over a chessboard on a marble plinth, his brow furrowed in concentration. When she walked into the folly, a second stone chair materialised on the other side of the plinth. One of the unique features of the folly was that it automatically adjusted its layout and the amount of seating in order to accommodate as many people as were inside it. The man looked up as the appearance of the chair broke his concentration. “Hola Helen,” he said smiling until he saw the clouded expression on her face and winced sympathetically, “bad day huh?”

Helen slumped down onto the chair. “You have no idea. Some sweaty, over-muscled brute plans to test my son’s abilities by either burning down his middle school with him inside or running him over in a car. I’m supposed to just stand aside and watch.”

“It’s difficult when your charge is your own kid. Trust me, I know how you feel; but you can’t interfere or act on their behalf.” He knew that there was little that he could say that he hadn’t already said over the last few months.

“I know I know, we’re only supposed give ‘advice and guidance’ and allow our charges to ‘fulfil their destinies’ on their own terms.” She said testily, “I swore the same oath as you did Matthew, remember? But it’s not that easy. My first charge was an eleven-year-old English boy who had just discovered his mutant abilities. He was a good kid with a loving family, and I gave him all the advice I could. But none of that helped when the soldiers came for him in the middle of the night. I did nothing as his family was murdered and he was whisked away. What can you say to a scared little boy, locked away in a government research lab to be experimented on like a lab animal?”

“He escaped in the end though.”

“Two years later, with blood on his hands from fighting his way out. Just a kid and he had to kill half-dozen people with his bare hands. He’s fifteen-years-old now and a wanted criminal on the Overwatch list of suspected terrorists, accused of stealing government research data because the British government didn’t want to admit to what they did to him. I feel useless just watching the same chain of events happen again, this time to my own son.”

Matthew got up, walked over to the edge of the folly and looked out over the green fields. He reached in to his pocket and took out a small photo from inside his wallet. It was of a young boy in dirty overalls sitting astride a battered dirt bike. There was a proud grin on his oil-streaked face as he started its motor. “Do you know why The Watch was created?”

Helen turned around in her seat and looked over at him. “To guide the next generation of heroes.”

“Well, yes, that’s the ‘party line.’ But do you know the real reason?” Helen shook her head in confusion, wondering where he was going with this. “It’s because they’re getting younger.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your brother was what, twenty four, twenty five when he volunteered for the Paragon programme?” Helen nodded. “That’s the average age when most heroes become active. I was a few weeks short of my eighteenth birthday when my father had his accident and passed on the role of Defender to me. I was one of the youngest of our generation.” He sat back down opposite her. “But now, mutants are getting their abilities at a younger age, metaprodigies get enrolled in accelerated learning programs before they’re even out of pre-school. My son was only 14 when he found the prototype battlesuit that I’d been working on just before I died and decided to use it himself. I would’ve killed dad for not stopping him if I was still alive. Ask any other member and they’ll tell you the same thing. They’re getting assigned to younger and younger charges. Our living peers may not have realised it yet, and when they do they certainly won’t like it, but the next generation of heroes are barely into their teens and Destiny is already picking them out.”

Neither of them spoke following Matthew’s speech. “How’s Jared doing?” Sarah asked, changing the subject.

“He’s doing great.” Matthew said turning back around. “He turned sixteen this summer, and he’s got his first girlfriend. No one has any idea that for the last year and a half, LA’s most prominent superhero has been a high school kid in a suit of power armour.” The smile on his face showed how proud he was of how much his son had accomplished, but is also showed a hint of sadness. He knew that his son was growing up without him and that soon, he would no longer need the advice of ‘Mr Cooper’ who had shown up mysteriously a few months after his father had died. When that happened his son would no longer be his charge, Mr Cooper would vanish and no one would remember he even existed.

—-

Todd sighed and pinched the brow of his nose in annoyance. “It’s not a ‘tactical simulation’, it’s a video game.”

“WHAT IS A ‘VIDEO GAME’?”

“You know what?” Todd said sitting down at his desk and opening one of his textbooks, “it’s getting late and I’ve got homework to do. Go look it up yourself.”

There was a noticeable pause before the nanobots responded. “UNTIL BIOHOST INTEGRATION IS COMPLETE, UNIT IS UNABLE TO ACCESS THE PLANETARY COMPUTER NETWORK TO UPDATE LANGUAGE LEXICON.”

“Yeah, and we call it the Internet, not ‘planetary computer network’.”

Again there was a pause before the nanobots responded. “UNTIL BIOHOST INTEGRATION IS COMPLETED, UNIT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO OPERATE AT MAXIMUM CAPABILITY.”

“Don’t get snippy with me,” Todd snapped, using one of his father’s favourite phrases. Despite the fact that the nanobots only “talked” to him through text, he definitely detected an attitude, a faint insistent tone in its “voice.” He got up from the desk and flopped facedown onto his bed. Todd screamed into his pillow, his cry of frustration muffled by the material pressing into his face. “You really think I’m gonna let some alien nano crud hack apart my insides? How do I know you know what you’re doing? You weren’t even designed for a human being!” That, as far as Todd was concerned, was the end of discussion on the matter. Until he better understood what the nanobots had planned, and until he was sure that they were capable of doing it without turning him into a pile of twitching organic goo, there was no way that he was going to give the nanobots the permission they needed to proceed.

“I should probably tell dad about all this,” he thought to himself as he flipped over and lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. “He’d probably freak out though.”

—-

Moored a little way off shore, the man watched the bridge from a small powerboat, squinting in the morning sunshine as it reflected of the water. After following Todd for several days, keeping him under surveillance, the man now had a good grasp on the boy’s movements and habits. He knew that after school, he had a habit of stopping off at a local electronics store to drool over the latest video games. On the odd morning that he was running late, he would get the school bus and when he didn’t, he usually met up with a friend as he cycled in. Whether on bike or on bus, Todd entered the city from the same direction; crossing the bridge in to Key West from Stock Island.

The man checked a handheld computer, looking at a series of status indicators on its screen. All of them glowed green; the explosive devices attached to the bridge’s supports were armed and ready. With a single button push, he could send the bridge crashing into the waters of the channel.

After a great deal of consideration, this was where he had decided to stage the “test” his boss wanted. In the end, both a simple car “accident” and a fire at Todd’s school might appear to be targeted attacks aimed at the boy. This way, it will appear that the boy was caught up in a terrorist attack just like everyone else.

—-

As Todd looked out of the window, he sighed; today wasn’t exactly turning out to be a good day. He’d woken up to find that vandals had gone down their road during the night and slashed the tyres of the resident’s cars. Even his bike hadn’t been spared with both its front and back tyres slashed. The depth and variety of his language when he had found out had surprised even him, it had certainly shocked his father when he came stomping back into the house, cursing the vandals with every insult that he knew. He had been forced to head down to the main road to catch the school bus.

The bus lurched again as the traffic moved slowly forward. With Key West being located on an island at the end of the Florida Keys, the Overseas Highway was the only road in or out of town. Crossing over the deep channel that separated Stock Island from Key West, traffic often crawled to stand still during rush hour. The junction across the bridge where the highway met Roosevelt Boulevard, the road that encircled the island of Key West, was often gridlocked. Today was no different and a queue had formed, tailing back across the bridge.

Todd hated the school bus; it was slow, noisy, stuffy, and even with the windows open, it was always hot. The seat belts that they had to wear were tight and uncomfortable. He turned away from the window and looked around the bus. There were only a dozen or so other children on the bus, most of the students at Horace O’bryant lived in Key West itself. This school bus was for those children like Todd who lived outside the city limits.

His mobile started vibrating in his pocket, its small speaker pumping out a tinny rendition of his favourite song. He took the device out of his pocket, looked down at the small screen and smiled; it was a text from A J.

—-

From his vantage point offshore, the man watched as the distinctive yellow school bus inched its way onto the bridge. His fingered hovered over the red “detonate” button. “Just a few more feet,” he muttered as he started to sweat.

—-

Todd jumped as a series of bangs rocked the bus, the loud retorts causing him to flash back for an instant to the night he had been shot. Clouds of smoke billowed up from beneath the bridge, enveloping the bus. Before anyone could react, the bus driver cursed as he looked out of the front window. A crack was racing across the width of the road where the join between two sections of the roadbed was failing. The bridge creaked; there was a moment of stillness as if time itself had paused and held its breath. Then with a loud snap, the last piece of steel reinforcement broke sending the road section crashing into the channel below at a steep angle. The bus driver threw the bus into reverse gear and slammed down on the accelerator in an attempt to prevent the bus sliding down the slope into the water. Its tires squealed and the children on board screamed. An SUV behind the bus lost traction and crashed hard into the back. Todd was frozen in fear; he was gripping on to the seat in front of him, his knuckles turning white with the pressure. He was thrown forward as the bus was shoved off the end of the broken road and only the tight seatbelt around his waist prevented him and the other children from being thrown out of their seats. The driver wasn’t so lucky, slamming forward and striking his head on windscreen as the bus pitched into the water.

The front of the bus sank into the channel, its rear sticking out and resting against the bridge. Water started to pour in, rapidly flooding the front of the bus. The other children started to panic and scramble over each other to get to the emergency exit at the back, but the incline the bus was leaning at was steep, almost 90 degrees. A shrill cry jolted Todd back to reality and he turned around just in time to catch one his classmates who had lost their grip and was sliding towards the water. “Thanks,” the boy said holding onto Todd tightly as he pulled him up.

Todd looked around the bus and realised with a start that he couldn’t see the bus driver. “Hey, where’s Jeffers?” The boy glanced towards the front of the bus; the driver was slumped over the wheel, the water already over his head. He unbuckled his seat belt and dropped into the water. The water was cold and the salt stung his eyes as he struggled to remove the driver’s belt. Just as his lungs began to scream for oxygen, the belt popped open and he dragged the unconscious driver to the surface, gasping for air.

The water was rising fast, pouring in through open windows and around the door seal. There was a shudder as the bus shifted, settling further into the channel’s silt bed as it slipped against the shattered bridge support. “Someone give me a hand,” he yelled out over the screaming. Someone, he didn’t know who, helped him drag the unconscious driver up the aisle. As they did so, a green wireframe representation of the school bus appeared in his field vision. Complex calculations began to flash by until the familiar green text appeared.

“AT PRESENT RATE OF WATER INGRESS, VEHICLE WILL BE COMPLETELY SUBMERGED IN APPROXIMATELY 63 SECONDS.”

Todd looked up at the emergency door, which still hadn’t been opened. Through the glass, he could see the SUV perched precariously on the edge of the bridge, threatening to fall onto the bus at any second. “If that car falls, we won’t even have that!” He muttered out loud.

The boy helping him with the driver looked at him confused, “You what?”

“Nothing,” Todd answered, “we gotta get that door opened.”

“It’s jammed,” said one of the younger kids, crying in panic. “It won’t open!” Once Todd got to the back of the bus, he could see why. The frame was buckled and warped, the metal damaged by the earlier impact with the SUV. “We’re gonna drown!” The panic spread as the bus shifted again, the water coming in even faster, already filling half the bus. His own pulse was racing as panic threatened to overwhelm him too but he took a deep breath and looked around, this wasn’t the time to lose control; he needed to remain calm.

“Maybe if we tried together,” he said trying to sound optimistic, “we can force it open.” However, even with four of them, the door wouldn’t budge. He thumped the glass in frustration.

“UNIT CAN ENHANCE BIOHOST’S STRENGTH TO THE NECESSARY LEVEL REQUIRED TO FACILITATE ESCAPE.” Todd could tell there was a “but” coming. “HOWEVER, ENHANCEMENT CAN ONLY BE PERFORMED AS PART OF FULL BIOHOST INTEGRATION.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Todd thought at the nanobots.

“MUSCLE AUGMENTATION OF UPPER LIMBS CAN BE PRIORITISED AHEAD OF ALL OTHER PROCEDURES. NECESSARY ENHANCEMENT LEVEL CAN BE ACHIEVED IN APPROXIMATELY 5 SECONDS.”

Five seconds. In just five seconds he could be able to get the door open and they could all escape. The only catch was that he would have to agree to something that he had been resisting since the nanobots had first started “talking” to him. Looking around at the fearful, desperate faces of the others, he realised that there was really no choice about it. He had to do this; he was the only one that could. Closing his eyes, he silently gave the nanobots the consent that they had been pestering him for.

Todd waited for … something … anything. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but he expected to feel something. When the nanobots told him that the muscle enhancement in his arms was complete, he didn’t feel any different. “Well,” he thought to himself, “he goes nothing.”

He flexed his fingers, took one look at the other children, and punched the door with all his strength. The metal buckled under the blow, the door bulging outwards. Another punch, followed by swift kick and the door was ripped from his hinges and sent flying. Todd looked down at his own fist; despite the punishment the door had received, the skin on his knuckles wasn’t even grazed.

The other children were stunned into silence, but only for a second and they soon began to scramble towards the open door. “Hey, no shoving,” Todd said as he effortlessly picked up a fellow eighth grader that had been climbing over a sixth grader, holding the surprised boy up the floor. “Get away from the bus as fast as you can, those who can swim help those who can’t.”

“Who died and made you the boss?” The boy said as Todd but him down. Todd glared back at him.

“You saw what I did to that door;” he said pointedly, “imagine what I could do to your face. Now help me with Jeffers.” Scowling, the other boy grudgingly helped him lift the driver out the door.

By now, people on the bridge and on the shore had seen the school bus in the water. A few of them had started swimming towards the bus to help the children in the water. As Todd climbed out onto the back of the bus, he saw that many more people were just looking on and had taken out their mobiles. They were either taking pictures or recording videos of the scene. His blood began to boil as he watched them. “That’s great,” he yelled at the spectators, standing on the back of the bus, “just what viewtube needs, videos of drowning school kids. You know, you could’ve helped you selfish…”

The screech of metal interrupted his shout, the SUV slid of the end of the bridge, its underside scraping across the broken concrete. Todd barely had time to look up as the three tonne vehicle slammed into his chest. He felt his ribs crack and break under the force of the impact and he opened his mouth to scream in pain, but before he could utter a sound, the bus slipped down into the water submerging him. The tepid salt water flooded into his mouth, choking him as he was forced underwater, pinned between the bus and SUV.

Kam

This is a character I’m planning on playing in a 4th Edition Eberron game. He’ll be a 3rd Level Shifter, either Fighter or Monk class.

Born into a small tribe of shifters in the Eldeen Reaches, Kam spent his early childhood in a village deep within the forests. As the Last War raged elsewhere in Khorvaire, the Black Talon Tribe was mostly untouched by the war. Kam filled his days with fishing, playing with his friends and exploring the woods around the village. Kam was an only child and was very close to his parents. His father, the village chief was very protective of his son.

Towards the end of the war, the fighting began to move towards the borders of the Reaches. The village’s warriors left to join the other villages in order to repel the invaders. They believed that their village was safe, far from the frontlines. They were wrong. While the village was left relatively unguarded, raiders snuck over the border and attacked. Most of the women and children were able to escape, but Kam and his mother were not so lucky. As Kam hid, he watched as the raiders butchered those that hadn’t been able to escape. Then they reached his hut. From his hiding place, he saw one of the raiders kill his mother. Enraged, he leapt out of hiding and attacked the man, killing him. Before he could do anything more, another raider struck him on the side of the head knocking him unconscious. The leader of the raiders stopped his men from killing Kam, recognising the boy’s natural fighting ability was worth more than a few coin. He took the boy prisoner and left with the spoils of their raid. That was the last time Kam saw his home.

Kam was sold to a particularly cruel master. He beat and tortured the boy, chaining him up like an animal and forcing him into caged fights withmonsters and other slaves. After one particularly gruelling battle which Kam lost, his master lost a lot of money and ordered the boy whipped as punishment. However, tired of hearing Kam screaming for mercy, he strode into the boy’s cell, grabbed the boy’s tongue and cut it out, yelling at the boy that “speech is for people, not beasts like you!” Afterwards, Kam’s mind retreated deep within itself, unable to cope any longer with the abuses. The primal part of him, the part that is within all Shifter’s, took over and in order to survive, he became little more than an animal.

The years passed slowly for Kam who rapidly moved up the pit-fighting circle as his combat skills improved. Eventually, he was traded to an organised crime syndicate from Sharn in order to pay off a debt. Slavery and deathmatches of the type that Kam was forced to fight in were illegal in Sharn, but very lucrative. Thousands of gold pieces could be on every fight, and a fighter like Kam was worth a lot of money. Now fourteen, the boy began to be used as a deterrent by the syndicate. “Pay your debts or we’ll put you in the cage with the kid and let him go wild.” The bloodlust of the crowd was insatiable and the desire for blood and ever more violent battles drove the syndicate to abduct citizens from Sharn’s lower levels. This was what led a small band ofadventurers to the syndicate’s door. They had been investigating the disappearance of one of their comrades who had vanished while visiting the lower levels. They followed the trail to the arena but they found that their friend had already died in the pit, killed by a young Shifter slave, Kam. Luckily, one of the adventurers managed to convince her comrades not to take their revenge on the boy, but on the slave masters and owners of the pit. They freed the slaves and shut down the pit for good.

After being freed with the rest of the slaves, Kam’s future was uncertain. Traumatised by the years spent fighting in the pit, he was feral and barely able to communicate with anyone. He couldn’t remember anything about his past or where he had come from; nor could he remember his own name. “Kam” was the name given to him by one of the adventurers. Luckily, his rescuers took pity on the boy and allowed him to “tag along,” if only to keep him out of trouble. Over the next few months, Kam slowly recovered as his new companions learned to communicate with him through sign language. Everything was new to him, and he was often left wide-eyed with wonder when taken to a new place. Kam’s fighting abilities proved useful to the party, even if his newfound personality disappeared during combat, being replaced by his old animal self. A savage and uncontrolled fighter, he preferred to fight unarmed or with the aid of spiked gauntlets, a weapon that seemed particularly well suited to his unorthodox fighting “style.” Still, mentally he was on the mend. Kam is loyal to a fault to his new friends, showing them the same kind of devotion that a loyal dog might show to his master. He still has a lot to learn about how to behave in public, often acting shy or defensive around strangers. If anyone threatens him or his friends, his gentle nature is quick to disappear, and he once again becomes a savage attack dog.

Legends of the Second Age: The Wiki

I spent most of this weekend setting up a TiddlyWiki for the Savage Worlds. TW is an awesome piece of “software” that you need very little experiance to use. It is simply a single html file that contains an impressive piece of javascript that handles all the mechanics of the wiki. Because it’s a single html file that needs no server stuff, it makes it ideal for use as an offline wiki for most purposes. It’s extendable through the use of macros, themes and plugins. I spent a while configuring mine to more closely resemble the way that wikipedia looks and works and the result can be seen here.

Legends of the Second Age

Genre: Cinematic (Anime-style) Fantasy

Long ago, when the world was still whole, the land and the heavens were wracked by a titanic conflict called the Godswar. A war between the Gods and Titans. In the final stages of the war, as they neared defeat, the Titan’s took revenge on the world they believed had betrayed them. They directed all of their power at the world, all of the hatred and anger, and the world itself was shattered by the force of the magic unleashed. The world broke into a thousand pieces, each drifting through the skies. Scattered across them were the survivors of the Godswar. Slowly, the mortal races began to rebuild under the guidance of the Gods. Two thousand years have passed since then and war once again threatens the world. A prophecy has arisen; five young individuals will join forces to reunite the shattered pieces of the world. But there are those willing to go to war to prevent any change to the status quo.

This is an action adventure style fantasy game, with just a hint of animé or Japanese-style fantasy CRPGs. There’s a mixture of technology and magic present. Alchemical steam turbines, early firearms, clockworks and rifles, cannons, crystal power sources, and intelligent constructs. In some cases, magic will be used to duplicate modern day technology.

All the characters (who are between 14 and 16) have grown up together on a small sky island, having lived on the island for most (if not all) of their lives. The island itself is small and peaceful, far away from the bustling heart of civilisation. There is only a small village on one end of the island and a small cluster of farmhouses (where the character’s live with their families) on the other.

The characters are:

• Kael – a 16 year old Skyboarder
• Daedalus – a 14 year old rookie mage and tinkerer
• Maddie – A 15 year old blacksmith’s daughter
• Kenichi – a 15 year old trainee ranger only a few months away from taking the guild exam
• and Victoria – a 15 year old “bad influence”

Character creation took two weeks due to player absences. This worked to the game’s advantage since we only had one copy of SWEX (and a copy of the old hardback). It meant that we could take time to create the characters and be sure they all fit into the game.

A couple of changes were made to character creation. Because character’s in anime tend to be more powerful than they ought to be, I allowed players to ignore any rank requirement other than Legendary for their free Human edge (its a humans only fantasy setting). All other requirements still stood. We also decided that the Boating skill referred to any skyship or flying vehicle that used wind as a means of lift or propulsion. Piloting referred to powered flight that used mechanics, alchemical steam turbines or straight up magic. Character creation went well. Two of the character’s started off with an Arcane background. Kael’s Skyboard was determined to be a product of “Weird Science” and Daedalus took Sorcery.

One thing was kept from the players and that was that each of the character’s would begin play with a custom Arcane Background called “Exemplar” on top of anything they bought at character creation. The Exemplar edge gave them 2 powers selected by me and 10 power points (which stacked with Daedalus’s sorcery but not with Kael’s Weird Science). Each Exemplar edge was themed towards one of the five elements of the setting.

• Kael – Metal (Wall Walking, Intangibility)
• Daedalus – Water (Analyse Foe, Healing)
• Maddie – Metal (Armour, Warrior’s Gift when using bladed weapons)
• Kenichi – Wood (Entangle, Shapechange)
• Victoria – Fire (Leaping, Quickness)

Any Exemplar power that had a range of touch was changed to Self (with the exception of Healing)

The week between the end of the chargen and the 1st session, I printed of DnD4E style powercards using the Magic Set Editor program (PDF of cards found at http://www.box.net/shared/ra4n6y2i8r). I did a card for each power, each Arcane Background, and a couple of the custom items that player’s requested at chargen (a sunstone and spellstone for Daedalus, and a Krull-style glaive for Kenichi)

Once all that was done, all that was left was to actually run the game.

[EPISODE STARTS]

Game started off early on a weekend morning and the character’s got to describe their morning routine. Maddie went down in to the village to open her father’s smithy, Kenichi went hunting down in the small woods that ran along the side of the island. Daedalus (who is Kenichi’s cousin) got breakfast. Vicky went off in pursuit of Maddie and Kael went for a morning “run” on his board.

[OPENING CREDITS]

About 11 o’clock they all met up at the smithy for one reason or another. Daedalus looking for some scrap to tinker with, Kael was after a new bracket for one of his board’s lifter crystals, Vicky and Kenichi just to hang. Maddie’s father came down and took over the shop (throwing Vicky out at the same time). They decide to go down to the wooded plateau where Kenichi goes hunting in order to explore some of the old crystal mines. At this point, Daedalus casually mentions that Jenny heard that Kenichi likes Vicky. As in “likes likes.” Oh the teen drama.

At this point, I was asking them to make periodic notice checks whenever they got near the edge of the island. A small craft was “orbiting” the island from within a cloud bank. However, no one seemed able to roll above a three (except of couse for Kenichi’s pet hawk which unfortunately couldn’t speak to tell anyone).

They get to a likely looking cave and light their various light sources and enter. As they explore, they find lots of little crystals left embedded in the walls and ceiling, the mines haven’t totally played out but are still disused. Vicky notices that the wooden supports don’t seem exactly strong just as Daedalus sees a really cool looking crystal in the ceiling. Before he can be stopped he reaches up and yanks on it. The roof rumbles, the supports groan and the cave begins to collapse. AGILITY rolls are made to see who gets out. Everyone but Kael and Daedalus makes it. Maddie gets a raise so I rule that she was able to grab D and pull him out of the way in time. It takes several seconds for anyone to realise that their group of 5 has become 4. Just as K walks THROUGH the collapsed mine entrance coughing and spluttering. Kael had just manifested his first elemental power, Intangibility.

At this point, it should be mentioned that although the PLAYERS knew about their elemental powers, the character’s didn’t. At the start of the session I told them that after two weeks of trying to come up with a way for them to manifest their powers spontaneously, I had given up. It was up to them to figure it out.

After some humourous stone throwing, and skydiving into the ground, he rematerialised. K couldn’t wait to show this new power off at the next Stormjumping competition (an extreme sports version of skyboarding). Realising they were all covered in dirt and dust, they retired to a nearby pool for a bit of swimming. Cue some spirit rolls from the three teenage boys as their female friends got wet and splashed each other in a perfect fanservice moment (Kenichi failed and promptly got a nosebleed).

It was at that someone noticed (finally!) the ship circling the island. It was a few miles off and was generating great gouts of steam. This must mean that it was a Commonwealth ship (Common Knowledge rolls for the win) as they were the only country that uses Alchemical Turbines as a power source. Curious as to what a Commonwealth ship was doing so far from its home territory (and so close to their mortal enemy, the Empire) they decided to try and find out what type of ship it was. Daedalus remembered that there was a ship recognition guide in the school library and so the plan was made, for the first time in history a bunch of teens would break into school on a weekend to do some studying.

This was Vicky’s time to shine, easily picking the lock on the door to the small village school. The book was found easily and they identified the ship as a Kestral Class – Command and Control ship used by the Commonwealth to rely instructions to other ships engaged in fleet actions. An impressive feat of mental arithmetic from Deadalus showed that that the ship was circling the island once per hour and if his calculations were correct, they should be able to see it from the school by now. Grabbing the school’s one and only telescope they climbed up onto the rough and located the ship. It seemed to be signalling something using semaphore and flashing lights. None of the group can understand the signals so they decided to find someone who can. Naturally, this means breaking into the harbourmaster’s house to steal his book on semaphore signals which he obviously has.

As they cross the village, a small tyke runs up to Daedalus and tells him that their mum’s want them all home. Ignoring this they continue to the harbourmaster’s house. While Kael provides a distraction by showing off his Skyboarding in the market square, they break in. A quick search found the book but clumsly Daedalus struck again, knocking over a vase and smashing it in an almighty crash. The group fled the house.

Meanwhile, Daedalus was in the square showing off. On one of his more aerobatic manoeuvres, he spotted several shadowy shapes hidden in the clouds just below the island. Curious, he dived into the cloud narrowly missing crashing into the armoured hull of a skyship. As he frantically dodged out of the way, he peered through an open gun port and saw ranks of men readying their weapons and armour. There were at least 6 Commonwealth warships hidden in the clouds, each with over 50 armoured soldiers preparing for battle. In panic, he rocketed up out of the cloud and streaked through the market square screaming “The Commonwealth is coming!” Behind him, as one, the ships rose up out of the cloud and opened fire on the village.

Seeing the normally over confident Daedalus running away, and with cannon fire exploding around them, the rest of the group decided to “screw this for a game of soldiers” and ran too, jumping onto a horse and cart and fleeing. Sadly, no one had either the Drive or Ride skill so it was a short journey. After narrowly missing plowing through panicked villagers, the cart struck a low wall and flipped over several times, sending the group flying. They each took damage (a single wound), except for Maddie. As she flew through the air, liquid metal engulfed her body creating a protective layer (manifesting the Armour power). D’s leg was broken (although only taking one wound, a severe injury was good flavour for what happened next) with the bone sticking out the side. Clutching the wound, his hands glowed and he manifested the Healing power, completely healing the broken bone. He was able to repeat this feat on the gash to the head that Kenichi had suffered. However, despite repeated attempts he was unable to heal Vicky’s fractured rib. Behind them, one of the ships had landed at the docks and was unloading troops.

Kael, having calmed down, came back at this point and the reunited group heading down onto the wooded plateau where they hoped the tree’s would provide some cover. They plan was to follow the plateau along the side of the island, climbing up at the other end next to the farm compound where they all lived. Unfourtunatly, the cliff path down into the plateau was in full view of one of the attacking ships which opened fire. The cannon balls struck all around them, showering them with rock chips but causing no injuries. However, one of the cannonballs struck the cliff just below the path and just below Kenichi. The explosion threw Kenichi off the path and off the side of the island, he plunged into the clouds. Kael dived off the path after him but lost him in the clouds. Fearing that they had just lost their friend, they were surprised when a hawk flew out of the cloud, landed on the path and turned into Kenichi. He had just manifested the Shapechange power.

They hurried down the path, across the plataeu and climbed back up to the farm compound.

It was deserted, there was no sign of their parents, the horses were gone. A note tacked to the back of the front door told Daedalus to gather his friends and head to the old barn. Look under the straw. Kael found a small leather pouch containing a crystal with a hexagonal cross section and strange runes etched on it. A note said that he might need this and “not to wait for us if we’re not back in time.” They headed to the old barn and looked under the strawpile. They found a trapdoor that led to a curving stone staircase. The staircase opened up into a large chamber beneath the barn, the roof of which was made up of the wooden floorboards of the barn above.

Inside the chamber they found a small skyship, no sails, no steam vents, no gas bag, only a pair of slender crystal turbines on outriders. An imperial design. The nameplate along the side read “HMS Hurricane” and Kael remembered that a ship called the Hurricane had been stolen from the Imperial Fleetyards 14 years ago and never recovered. If he remembered correctly, it was a prototype for a fast courier ship. The front and back loading ramps were down and by the rear one were several bags waiting to be loaded the contained clothing and a few possession. On the ship itself was a few crates of food. Apart from that this ship was empty and unfurnished. There was no sign of their parents. Looking around the chamber they say that machinery was connected to the roof and it looked like it opened or retracted. Along one wall was a heavy metal door. On the bridge of the ship was a hexagonal slot just next to the controls. The crystal that Kael had found looked like a key.

They heard voices above, and the sounds of people moving around. Keeping quiet, they realised that it was Commonwealth soldiers and they were looking for THEM. Kael put the crystal in the slot and the ship started to power up. Displays lit up and one of them reported that an unknown ship was blocking the drydock exit. It asked him if he wanted to use the “Emergency Egress System”. Without hesitation he clicked on yes. The metal door groaned open revealing a darkened tunnel going down at a 45 degree angle. The cradle the ship was resting on started to tilt upwards, lining the ship up with the tunnel. As the crystal turbines reached full power, the clamps were released and the ship began to accelerate down the pitch black tunnel.

[End Credits]

Defender

Say hello to 16-year-old Jared Sanchez in his role as the armoured superhero Defender.

Physical Description & Appearance

Jared is just over 1.72 meters (5′ 9″) tall and weighs 65.77 kg (145 lbs). He has a muscular build and his hands and skin are rough from working outdoors helping his grandfather in the scrap yard. He has brown eyes and blue hair. His skin colour is slightly darker than Caucasian and is indicative of his Mexican origins. He also has a single gold ring in each ear.

Clothing wise, Jared prefers loose fitting garments that are easier to move around in. He wears a full motocross helmet when using his dirt bike, which, unlike the bike was not salvaged and was bought new.

Defender Armour

The new Mk 1 Defender Armour is a vast improvement over the prototype model that Jared used previously. The Z-Neutrino energy projector, which was capable of molecular disintegration has been replaced by a shoulder mounted missile launcher armed with 5 Particle Impulse missiles. The warheads cause localised gravitational stresses at the impact point which ignore armour.

A 9 terrawatt particle beam forms the armour’s main offensive ranged weapon. Since it is capable of being modulated to a non-lethal frequency, Jared prefers to use it over less subtle attack methods.

Sonic dampners and smart liquid crystal coating give the armour an impressive stealth mode. Although it’s not possible to render the suit completely invisible, it comes damn close to being invisible in poor lighting conditions.

One of the improvements that Jared made was to the helmet. Making it much easier to remove in an emergency. Since the suit is environmentally sealed, it is air tight. A fatal vulnerability when the suit is struck by an EMP. Something that Jared discovered by accident when fighting a smarter than average bank robber.

The armour plates and skintanium undersuit are impervious to normal gunfire.

Finally, the “production” model has two features that his father never thought to include in the prototype. An XM Satellite Radio with MP3 playback capability. And air conditioning.

Background

Jared is the most recent incarnation of Defender. A position he inherited when his father, the previous Defender, died. He himself had inherited it from his father, Jared’s grandfather.

From an early age, Jared was mostly raised by his Grandfather. Both his mother and father had full time jobs that often involved lengthy overtime. Consequently, Jared would often go to the scrap yard owned by his grandfather after school until one of his parents (usually his mother) picked him up.

His father’s night time activities as Defender prevented him from spending a lot of time with his son. When his mother was killed in a car crash shortly after his 7th birthday, Jared’s grandfather increasingly began to look after the boy during the week. Because of this, father and son began to grow apart.

Although Jared now knows the reason behind his father’s frequent absences, at the time this caused some friction between the two of them. It is ironic that Jared had an unofficial poster of Defender printed by a comic book on his bedroom wall. Jared looked up to the hero but his father never felt it was right to tell him the truth. He was still too young.

When Jared turned nine, his father bought him a dog as a birthday present. Jared named him Bucky and the two have become inseparable. When his father died, Jared refused to come out of his room for two days and Bucky was the only one he allowed inside.

The presence of his grandfather was a stabilising influence for Jared growing up and he instilled in the boy a strong sense of right and wrong. Since he spent much of his time at his grandfathers scrap yard, Jared became interested in mechanics and, encouraged by his grandfather, he spent two months restoring a dirt bike someone had dumped at the scrap yard.

18 months ago, Jared’s father was seriously wounded during a battle. Although he defeated the foe he was fighting and handed him over to the police, the wounds he had sustained were ultimately fatal. He had lost a lot of blood and was suffering from major internal bleeding. Sam made it home before finally succumbing to his wounds, dying on the kitchen floor.

Jared was not home that evening. He had been at the inaugural game for the city’s new baseball team, the Liberty Rockets, with his friends Mark and Lee. The only person home at the time was Jared’s grandfather. He realised that if Defender’s real identity was ever revealed it would place his grandson’s life in danger so he stripped his son of his costume and made it look like he was the tragic victim of a home invasion. Jared came home to find police cars surrounding his home and his father’s body being loaded into the coroners van. Since his grandfather was his only living relative, Jared went to live with his grandfather at the scrap yard.

Two months later, Jared discovered a hidden workshop inside several connected boxcars buried beneath a pile of rusting cars. Inside he found his grandfathers old costume, his father’s bloodstained bodysuit and the prototype BattleSuit built by his father. After Jared confronted him, his grandfather admitted that his father had been Defender and that he had been Defender before him. He had concealed the truth as he felt the boy would not understand and would do something foolish like use the BattleSuit to pick up where his father was left off. Being Defender had robbed him of his legs, taken his son and he’d be damned if he would lose his grandson too.

Of course, there was no going back now. Jared wouldn’t take “you’re too young” as an answer. He’d carry on the “family business” either with or without his grandfather’s help. Therefore, to ensure that he didn’t get himself killed, he began training Jared to use the suit and the various gadgets that he had built with his son. As far as the media and the public are concerned, Defender is back. No one knows that Defender is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and no one suspects that he is really a 16-year-old kid in a suit of power armour pretending to be his father.

Recently there has been a dramatic increase in gang violence in North Edge, and the neighbourhood has been described as a “virtual war zone” by some in the media. With the team scattered, Jared has been left to deal with the situation by himself and has quickly become overwhelmed. His grandfather is increasingly worried that his grandson is pushing himself too hard. The team’s base was badly damaged during the Battle of Liberty City and was abandoned. Since then, Jared has taken to expanding the hidden bunker under the scrapyard, hollowing out the ground and building a garage and workshop. With his grandfather’s help, Jared has also been able to correct some of the design flaws in the original Defender Armour. Its obvious that his father never intended the prototype to be used “in the field”.

Friends

Casey Jones (15/F)
Best friends since kindergarten school, Casey and Jared have grown up together, each looking out for the other and getting each other in trouble with their parents. Jared is unfortunately having an iPod moment when it comes to Casey. Over the years, she has developed feelings for Jared that he is completely oblivious to. She has recently discovered that the Defender is really Jared.

Mark Robins (16/M)
When Mark’s parents moved to Liberty from the East Coast two years ago, Jared was the first kid at school to speak to him, since then they have remained close friends. Mark’s parents don’t know that Jared got him into dirt bikes. They would be shocked to know that the two often take to the hills on a weekend on bikes. Mark hides his bike at Jared’s.

Lee Tyre (15/M)
When they first met in elementary school, Lee and Jared fought like cats and dogs. Every week they were sent to the principal for fighting. Eventually they both gained a grudging tolerance of each other and soon a mutual respect. Lee is a big animé fan and a huge Megas XLR fanatic, despite its cancellation.

Bucky (6/M)
Jared’s pet dog.

Warp – Sarah Jenkins (15/F)
A student at North Edge High that gained teleportation powers after taking drugs at an illegal rave. Afterwards she began a short-lived career as a “super” villain. However, she soon began to rethink this decision and took on a different persona as a night time hero. Sarah took shop class with Jared and it was there that he recognised her as “Pest” (as he called her while she was still a villain). For some reason he didn’t turn her in and eventually persuaded her to change sides. Sarah is currently Jared’s girlfriend.

The Eye (??/M)
He’s terribly mysterious. He’s also Jared’s history teacher and “partner in crime.”

“Mr Cooper” (37/M)
Shortly after Jared’s father died, Jared was badly beaten in a fight with Robin, North Edge High’s biggest jock and biggest jerk. After picking himself up off the floor, Jared met a stranger who offered to teach him how to defend himself properly. Over the next few months, Jared regularly met with Mr Cooper at a gym and after Jared found out the truth about his father, Mr Cooper was there to offer advice and guidance. Jared has always felt that he could tell him anything and be sure of complete secrecy.
Cooper is a Watchman, a member of a secret society formed entirely from the spirits of dead heroes given the chance to return to the mortal world in order to guide the next generation of heroes. He is also Jared’s dead father. Sam is taking the opportunity to be there for his son, something he always assumed there would be time for while he was alive. Eventually, Jared will no longer need Cooper’s guidance or advice and when that time comes, Sam will return to the afterlife and all memory of Mr Cooper will fade from the mortal realm.

Rogues Gallery

The Masked Bandito (?/M)
Other villains shun him, heroes detest him. The Masked Bandito is an embarrassment to the costumed villain world. A self-proclaimed “Protector” of the “oppressed Hispanic peoples of the south west.” Unfortunately, his “protection” seems to consist of armed robbery, petty crime and vandalism. He has been arrested and deported back to Mexico a number of times. Each time he comes back to the US to cause trouble. He is an incompetent pest with a inflated sense of his own importance and ability.

Amy Chang, Action 5 News (29/F)
Action 5’s crusading reporter and a minor celebrity in Liberty. When the crap hits the fan, Sharon Chang is often on the scene before anyone else in the Action 5 News Chopper. For some reason Chang has it in for Defender and she is determined to discover who the Defender really is.

Carlos Mendez (15/M)
Carlos and Jared used to be friends. Carlos was always the wilder one of the pair. Their friendship faltered when Carlos began to hang with the wrong crowd and get involved in petty crime. When Carlos joined a street gang, he tried to get Jared involved. Jared refused and their friendship further deteriorated.
Last month Carlos turned up at the scrap yard asking for Jared’s help in hiding some stolen drugs. Jared refused, unwilling to break the law that he had been brought up to respect. However, he didn’t report the incident to the police or tell his grandfather. Jared is torn, on one hand he feels that he let their former friendship get in the way of doing the right thing, but on the other, Carlos asked for his help and Jared has always been loyal to his friends. It doesn’t help that Carlos has been missing now for two weeks.

Doppel (?/?)
Human or otherwise, the entity known as Doppel is wanted in 39 US states and 3 Canadian Provinces for multiple counts of murder and identity theft. He is number four on the FBI Most Wanted List. No one knows what Doppel looks like or whether he is male or female. This is because of the method of his crimes. By “absorbing” one of a victim’s internal organs, he gains the ability to alter his appearance to an exact likeness of his victim. He also gains complete access to their memories. An organ absorbed by Doppel replaces his own and he can use that victim’s likeness as long as he keeps the organ. Doppel is capable of absorbing hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs so he can morph to 6 different identities as well as his own. He poses as his victim long enough to drain all financial accounts and wreck the person’s life.
Recently he has begun to choose his victims more carefully in order to work his way up the corporate and government chain of power.

Lucian Carvelo (56/M)
Once one of the biggest crime lords in Liberty City, his criminal empire came crashing down in the early 90s when thanks to the actions of the second Defender, he was convicted and incarcerated. Lucian swore revenge on the man (or woman) that had ruined him and he spent the next ten years gathering any scrap of information on Defender that he could get his hands on. Shortly after his release, he finally gained conclusive proof who Defender was but by that time it was too late, Sam Sanchez had died two months earlier. Although Lucian was aware that Sam had family, Lucian was a throwback to an older type of criminal. One that believed that an enemy’s family members were not legitimate targets.
Then, Defender reappeared after an 8-month absence. Lucian studied this new Defender and saw that his fighting style was the same as the previous and that the new BattleSuit seemed to be an evolution of the second Defenders body armour. Even the energy weapon used by the armour shared similarities with the old Defender Rifle. Could Sam Sanchez have faked his own death?

An Update

Writing
Well, it seems to have been a busy month. Uploaded three chapters, each for a different story.

An Unlikely Hero has been a pleasant surprise for me. So far it’s turned out quite well and the latest chapter (Chapter Four) has really advanced the plot. In fact this was the chapter in which I really worked out what the plot was going to be. When I first started writing AUH, all I had was in my head was the image of the main character being brutally killed in the first chapter yet somehow miraculously coming back to life.

Chapter Six has been a long time coming. The last chapter was posted way back in August of last year. I got pretty bad writer’s block at the start of the chapter. I knew that Trace (the main character) was going to save the day, I also knew that there was no way he could take out Dorga and his goons in combat. Unless of course it was in an extended “Home-Alone” style guerilla campaign. In hindsight that would have been kinda cool but would’ve taken ages to write. This chapter also revealed the final bits and pieces of the kid’s backstory and exactly what the relationship between him and Dorga was.

After taking a break to write four chapters of AUH, I returned to RS with The Tattoo. I’m glad to return to this story, as its the longest I’ve every written and there’s still so much I want to write. I really want to finish this some day. This particular chapter pretty much has nothing to do with the plot of the story, so it could be seen as filler. It does however ramp up the tension between Ryan and Boris.

These two almost came to blows in this chapter and only the timely arrival of Daniel prevented a knife fight from breaking out. This chapter also introduced Bucky. A last minuted inclusion, I never intended to introduce a dog but somehow, that section just wrote itself.  Bucky is in fact the dog owned by my Mutants and Masterminds character, Jared Sanchez. Ryan’s little joke about the reason behind Bucky’s name is painful in origin, as it was originally the reason why I called my character’s dog Bucky in the M&M game. I pretty much got the same reaction from the GM and other players as Ryan did. As I said, its painful.
University
Exams are starting this week in programming and computing, as long as I don’t freeze up they should be a cake walk. Maths next week I’m less confident about.

Dragonstar – Part 06

Bolts glanced around the room, analysing everything he saw. They were in the forward lounge, sitting on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs. A mixed-species group of men armed with blaster rifles standing guard over them. The intruders had surprised him in the corridor near the stairs to the upper deck. He had been on his way to the engineering room next to the cockpit to check on why they had just lost power when they had burst from around the corner and opened fire. The stun blasts had hit him first but the intruders had quickly moved to stun the others. Within minutes, they had been over powered. Tsukiko was lying on her side, still groggy from the stun blasts. Korodo was awake and alert, his larger body mass helping him to overcome the stun effects. Barak should have been awake to, but the orc had fought with the intruders and he had taken a particularly vicious blow the head. He was unconscious, blood dribbling from the head wound onto the floor.

A burst of static washed over his vision, his optical sensors still a little frazzled from the stun blast. Despite his human appearance, Bolts’ nickname was a reference to more than just his chosen profession. He was a Soulmech. A living soul contained within a cybernetic chassis. Although advanced robotics had been in use since before the founding of the Dragon Empire, artificial intelligence continued to elude imperial scientists. Theologians claimed that the reason for this was that for something to be sentient, it must have a soul and the creation of souls was the province of the Gods alone. Whether it was true or not, it meant that self-aware robots and computers were still the stuff of science fiction. However, like many such limitations, a way around it had been found using magic. At the heart of each Soulmech was the Soul Matrix. An enchanted crystal into which the soul of a, sometimes unwilling, volunteer is placed. In their new body, they are effectively immortal and immune from the daily needs of an organic body. All they need to do is replace the power cell for their robotic chassis every five years. Most Soulmech’s had an artificial appearance with pale plastic like skin and hairless bodies. Bolts’ chassis was different. Covered in a biosynthetic skin substitute, his “flesh” was warm to the touch with hair and imperfections designed to give a realistic human appearance. The stun blast had barely affected him but he chosen to act like it had when he realised how outnumbered they were. If the intruders had found out that he was a Soulmech, they would have used an EMP to disable him. As long as his systems still functioned, he could be off use. As it was, the electrical energy of the stun blast had knocked some of his systems offline but his self-repair routines had quickly repaired them.

“Don’t play games with me,” Dorga growled holding a bloodstained hooded top, “we got this from your sick bay and it has his DNA all over it. Where is he?”

“The kid?” Korodo said, “When he wouldn’t talk, my associate here got a little too rough with him.” The half-dragon shrugged, “we flushed his body out of the airlock hours ago.”

Tsukiko’s empathic abilities picked up a stab of anger from Dorga. However, beneath that anger, only barely suppressed, was an emotion that surprised her, concern. For a brief second, she felt the guildmaster actually concerned for the boy before he got his emotions under control again. Given what she had picked up from Trace and what the boy had told her, she found it surprising that the man who had spent more than half the boy’s life making it a living hell might actually care for him.

Suddenly, the lights flickered back to life intermittently. At the same time, computer screens around the room filled with static and garbled text. A siren started wailing, spluttering and stuttering before quickly dying. “Intruder Alert,” an electronic voice announced, “Warning: Computer Core at 45 percent.” The message repeated in draconic. “Athilal Aralath, Valathath: Kathar Kela ath kalathath 45.”

“What the hell is that racket?” Dorga barked at one of his men.

“I think the main computer is trying to reboot itself, probably some sort of disaster recovery system,” the gnome replied uncertainly.

“You think?” Dorga said pointedly. “Don’t you think you should find out? After all, this is what I pay you for.” The gnome began tapping away at a forearm-mounted computer, walking over to the console by the wall and plugging in a few leads. “Well, I’m waiting?”

“This isn’t right,” the gnome said nervously, “the access protocols have been scrambled; someone’s locked everyone else out of the system and activated the emergency systems. We’re broadcasting an automated distress beacon.”

“Well,” Dorga said coming up behind him, “fix it.” The gnome nodded and left the lounge heading for the upper deck.

The guildmaster sneered at Korodo. “You might be a red, scale face, but I somehow I don’t think that torturing a kid for information is your style.”

“Apparently you do it for fun,” muttered Tsukiko in retort.

Dorga heard her and he pulled his fist back and punched her. She grunted with the impact but looked back up at him defiantly. Snarling, he prepared to punch her again. Before he could do so, there was a noise from behind him followed by a grunt of pain.

“Hey boss,” one of his men said, a muscular dwarf carrying an assault blaster, “look what he found crawling through the ventilation ducts.” In front of the man, on his knees with his hands on his head, was Trace.

The guildmaster took a step away from Tsukiko, aiming his blaster at Trace. The red dot from the gun’s laser sight hovered over the boy’s head. “Well if it isn’t my favourite mongrel.”

“Screw you Dorga,” Trace spat.

“After everything I’ve done for you over the years,” Dorga said ignoring him, “this is how you repay me? By betraying the Guild to this noble scum.”

“Oh my gods,” Trace laughing out loud, “are you high or are you really that stupid? Is that what you think happened? They way I hear it you sold me out to the snakeheads so they could whack the scale face over there.” Ignoring the fact that he had a gun pointed at his head, Trace stood up and glared at Dorga. “I’ve a had a real bad day,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’ve been shot, tortured and nearly killed by a snakehead, and to top it off, been set up to take the fall for a murder. Right now, the Guild can go to hell for all I care.” To Tsukiko, Trace’s mind was a storm of conflicting emotions. She could sense the anger and hatred that the boy felt for Dorga. At the same time, there was fear and reluctance. She could tell that it had been some time since Trace had openly defied the man in such a way and he was scared of the consequences. In his mind, he was still a slave to guildmaster, a mentality that he was struggling to break. That was when she picked up something else, something beneath all the raging emotions. “49 dragon scales, 48 dragon scales, 47 dragon scales.” It was almost as if Trace was counting down to something in his head. “You killed my mum, my grandparents, my cousins, my aunts and uncles; you butchered my entire family in front of me. For ten years, you’ve made my life hell, beating and starving me to force me to become a thief. Well, I’m through working for you!”

The Guildmaster strode over to Trace and struck the boy’s face with his gun. Trace was knocked to the floor by the force of the blow, spitting a glob of blood on to the deck plates. Dorga bent down and picked Trace up by the collar of his top, shoving him against the wall. “And I’ve just about had it with you,” Dorga said jamming the blaster under Trace’s chin and switching off the stun mode. “It’s been fun watching you squirm and suffer, but I’m beginning to think you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Leave him alone,” Korodo yelled from the other side of the room.

“Any last words,” said Dorga, “before I put you out of my misery”

Trace looked down at the floor. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill everyone and leave me alive? What did we do to deserve that?”

Releasing his grip on Trace and pushing him into the arms of one of his men, Dorga stepped back from him, a sly smirk on his face. “How many times have I told you I own you? You’ve been the property of the guild since before you were even born. Your mother knew that when she fled. It may have taken five years to track her down, but no one steals from me and gets away with it.”

“I’m not your property,” Trace muttered under his breath before looking up. “I was never your property, I was your son!” He yelled the last part at Dorga, his eyes red with tears.

Tsukiko gasped, she knew that there had been something between Trace and Dorga beyond a simple Guildmaster to Guild member relationship. However, the idea that Dorga had been the boy’s father and had still done all those things to him made her sick. Judging by the shocked looks passing between Dorga’s men, the fact that Trace was the Guildmaster’s son obviously wasn’t common knowledge in the Guild either.

“And that’s the only thing that’s kept you alive until now,” Dorga yelled back, “that witch fled because she didn’t want her child growing up to be a thief like its father. That and she knew I would’ve had a half breed like you killed at birth.”

Trace wiped the tears from his eyes and in his mind, Tsukiko could hear the same countdown continuing. “22 dragon scales, 21 dragon scales, 20 dragon scales.” This time however, she pushed a little too hard and Trace felt the psychic intrusion. The only sign he gave that he had noticed were his eyes flicking towards her and a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If that’s how you felt, then why didn’t you kill me when you found us?” Trace said focusing his attention on Dorga. It was at this point that Tsukiko realised that Trace was stalling, buying time and waiting for something.

“When I found you hiding under your bed I was going to do just that. But then I thought, what better revenge than to turn her darling little boy into the thing she hated the most, a thief.” An unfriendly smile came across Dorga’s face. He stepped in front of Trace and roughly grabbed his chin, forcing the boy to look up at him as Dorga looked down. “And you know what, despite how hard you tried to resist it, it came to you naturally. It’s like you were born to be a thief. Your mother would be so disappointed.”

“Shut up!” Trace yelled half-heartedly.

Dorga jammed the blaster into Traces gut, dialling up the power to its highest setting. The blaster emitted a high-pitched whine as it charged and upon hearing it, the man holding Trace’s arms let go and stepped aside. Suddenly the siren started wailing, this time strong and steady. Red emergency lights on the ceiling began to flash and they were accompanied by an announcement spoken in both common and draconic. “Alert, integrity of reactor controls compromised, magnetic containment field failing. Core breech in two minutes. All hands abandon ship.” Everyone looked around for a second in confusion. Everyone that is, except for Dorga who was studying Trace’s face intently. The boy was muttering “crap” repeatedly and as well as looking extremely nervous, he also looked slightly guilty. His eyes narrowed, Dorga unclipped a communicator from his belt. “Is that alert genuine.”

“I think so,” said the voice of the gnome, “I found something attached to the main computer, looks like a shuttlecraft power module. The whole setup looks like an improvised power source and they’ve used it to screw up all the safeties. There’s no way I can fix this in two minutes.”

“What did you do?” Dorga hissed at Trace.

The boy smiled mischievously. “I kinda set the reactor to explode.” Bolts and Korodo looked at each other. The half-dragon mouthing the word “What?” while the engineer shrugged in return. “I figured,” Trace continued, “in the chaos I could boost the shuttle from the launch bay and make a run for it.”

“Leaving these people here to die,” Dorga said waving a hand towards Korodo and the others.

“It’s not like I owe scale face and his lackeys anything.”

“Hey boss,” one of Dorga’s men said nervously, “shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” The guildmaster looked around and reluctantly realised that the man was right.

“Pack and pull out,” Dorga said to his men as he took out a pair of handcuffs and turned to Trace. He dragged the boy over to the wall and yanked one of his arms up, cuffing it to an overhead pipe.

“Hey,” Trace said pulling at the cuff as Dorga walked towards the exit, “you’re leaving me here? You can’t!”

“For once,” Dorga said standing at the door, “I’m a believer divine justice. You set the reactor to blow up; it’s only fair that you stick around for the fireworks.”

“90 seconds to reach minimum safe distance,” the computer announced.

“Say hi to your mother for me.” The door slid shut behind him. Trace yelled after him, pleading for mercy and one last chance. However, the smile on his face didn’t match the desperate panic in his voice. As soon as the door closed, he began to fiddle with the cuff.

“All right, what’s going on?” Korodo asked.

“Yeah,” Bolts agreed, “the Chimera doesn’t have a ‘reactor’, she’s powered by a mana tap.”

Trace looked over as he slipped his wrist out of the unlocked handcuffs. “But they didn’t know that.” He ran over to where they were sitting and started unlocking their cuffs with the key he had lifted from Dorga’s pocket.

“30 seconds to reach minimum safe distance.”

“I hoped that the alert would send Dorga and his goons running,” Trace had unlocked Tsukiko’s handcuffs first and she was already checking on Barak. “Of course, getting caught in the vents wasn’t exactly part of the plan.”

Korodo looked at the boy, a small measure of respect on his face. “You used the shuttle’s power module to jump start the main computer?” Trace nodded as he freed Bolts, “but you could’ve used the shuttle to escape. Why did you stay and help?”

“You saved my life, consider the favour returned.” Trace finished up by freeing Korodo.

—-

Dorga’s shuttle streaked away from the noble’s ship, the guildmaster keeping watch on the rear scanners. The cramped cabin was silent; no one spoke as the pilot attempted to put as much distance as possible between the ship and the shuttle. Dorga’s reputation as a ruthless man was well deserved, but the fact that he had left his own son to die unnerved them.

“Boss,” the pilot said hesitantly, by my calcs, the Chimera’s reactor should have gone up by now.”

—-

“Suki, take Barak to the medbay and get that head wound checked out,” Korodo said helping the orc to his feet. “Bolt’s see if you can get the starcaster up and running.” Everyone hurried out of the forward lounge leaving Trace standing there by himself feeling slightly out of place. A twinge of pain shot up his leg and he slumped down onto a chair. He concentrated again, trying to summon his healing energy but all he got was a weak flicker. As he sat back in the chair, he thought of the shuttle in the launch bay. It still had two out of its three power modules and that was more enough to get back to Jurrika. But, did he really want to go back to that planet. Dorga would find him again, no matter where he went and there was nothing left for him there anyway. He had no family, and his friends Tobs and Sammy would be halfway across the sector by now.

He was still trying to decide what to do when the ship bucked to the side, rocked by a sudden impact. Alarms sounded, this time real, as weapons fire struck the ship. Trace was knocked to the floor by a particularly violent impact. A blur sped past the window. In the split second it was visible, Trace recognised it was one of Dorga’s shuttles. “Not good,” he muttered under his breath.

Trace picked himself up off the floor and shuffled across the floor, holding on to the wall for stability. The stairs up to the upper deck were hard on his injured leg, but he gritted his teeth and forced his way up, stumbling onto the cockpit. Korodo was sat in the pilot’s seat. The cockpit was rather cramped with only two other seats. Hearing him enter, the half-dragon turned around. “What are you doing up here?”

“Let’s see,” he said smiling tiredly as he leaned against one of the vacant seats, “I’m where I shouldn’t be, we’re being shot at by bad guys, and by the way you’re looking at the controls, you can’t fly. Anyone else feeling déjà vu right now?”

The half-dragon scowled at Trace. “And I suppose you know how to fly a starship?” Korodo asked sarcastically.

Trace shrugged. “My grandpa taught me how to fly an old Kelenbaum dropship. It’s a bit smaller than a Kestral-Class but all of Kenelbaum’s ships have identical controls. That’s why they get all the big imperial contracts.”

Against his better judgement, Korodo slid of out the pilot’s seat and let Trace sit down. The kid was a reckless pilot, wild and undisciplined. Right now though, that recklessness is precisely what they needed. However, he wasn’t exactly confident about entrusting a 15-year-old with the controls of a two and a half thousand tonne starship. “So,” he said nervously, “your grandfather let you fly.”

“Are you kidding,” Trace said laughing, “what sort of person let’s a five year old kid fly a spaceship. But I watched him operate the controls.” Korodo stared at him in horror as he brought the engines online. The half-dragon was thrown back into one of the seats by a thrust of acceleration and he quickly buckled himself in as he realised that his life, and the lives of the others, were now in the hands of a kid who had never flown a starship in his life.