Tag Archives: Champions of Battle

Champions of Battle: The Very Best – Opportunity #14

Brisa took a deep breath and turned on the hologram window.  Even though the walls were solid, passengers could view the outside with the press of a button.  A hologram of the world on the other side of the hull appeared to Brisa.  One look was all it took to take away all her worries.  The sky was beautiful.  It looked real enough that she could forget she was in the shuttle.

Even with all its troubles, life was going well.  She was on a glorious adventure.  This was the life that she imagined having; the life she always wanted.  It was scary but that made it all the more exciting.

She was really going to a remote part of the world.  A place riddled with danger.  Her stay would be short, but at least she could say she’s been to West Drop.  If anything, she would have pictures to send to her friends.  And a story they would never believe.

Now that she had calmed down a bit, she could take in her surroundings.  She had flown in shuttles like these before but Duard had always insisted on flying the first class cabins.  The scene in economy class was clean, but economic.

Her compartment was cozy.  There was just enough room for an opposing couch and a small walkway in between.  The couch and cushions were cheap.  One of them was discolored; the other was obviously brand new.

There was not a great deal to entertain the passengers besides the advertisements that displayed overhead if the passengers allowed them.  Between advertisements, brief bits of the news would show.  The Mech War still raged on but the new clans were making headway.  Hopefully, they would defeat the machines and bring peace to that area.  It all was too far away for her to give relevant concern.  The holograms changed back to commercials.  Some of them were quite funny but they were still commercials.

The set up in economy class seemed designed to push a passenger out to mingle with the other passengers.  They were to walk out and buy stuff in the shuttle shop and eat in the food court.  It was exactly the opposite of first class where the servers brought everything to the passengers.

There was the lingering urge to obey the commercials and go out to buy things.  Her will and her mission kept her in her seat.  The burning freezing discomfort in her chest reminded her of what would happen if she was caught.  It was too expensive.

She instead decided to keep her mind occupied by researching on her handheld.  She had this one chance to learn what she could about West Drop.

In her readings, West Drop was much more dangerous than she thought.  Reports of violence and lawlessness abounded.  If she was going to be there even for a short time, she would need to be very careful and stay away from the taverns.

There was a knock on her cabin door.

Opening the door Brisa sees a familiar looking lady.  She was only a small amount taller than Brisa which still made her really short. Her perfect skin was green with small tan spots that grew more defined down her neck.  She wore an ordinary red t-shirt, blue jeans, and red sneakers with white highlights.  Brisa couldn’t shake the feeling that she really should recognize this lady, but the memory eluded her.  She could have been someone in economy class that Brisa passed while boarding the shuttle?

“Excuse me,” she starts with a soft voice, “are you Brisa Gan?”

How did she know that?  “Um, yes,” Brisa said as calmly as she could muster.

“My name is Catlin, may I please come in,” she says with a very polite bow.

Brisa paused for a bit, but how could such a polite young lady cause any harm.  “Why sure,” Brisa said happily.  She bowed and opened the way for Catlin to enter the cabin.  This trip was getting even better.  Conversation and meeting a new person would really help the time go by.

#1 – Opportunity #13 – Opportunity #15

 

Champions of Battle: AD7 – Awakening #14

“Level head… level head… level head…” Adrianne repeated the words over and over again.  It sounded silly but it was one way to keep from focusing on the many negatives of her situation.

With Silent Blur’s weapons still set for her experiment, Adrianne had no choice but to keep running through the forest at far above recommended speeds.  Each tree was in the forward view for about a second before they were shrinking in the distance behind her.  In that time she had to twist and turn around several more trees while keeping track of what was happening on her scanners.  Captain Bubbles rocked and flipped around angrily with each twist warning her of her actions.

It was a shame she had to run.  The gankers avoided entering the canopy, so far.  The only weapons they seemed to use were the hover hunters.  The cloaking hunters never had thick armor.  They relied on surprise and disguise.  Their thin light shell aided their acceleration and battery life.  It also ruined their use in a basic fight.  One good hit from anything was all it took to break one.

If the gankers in the ships above needed the hover hunters to find her, she had a possible advantage.  The ships could outrun her, but the hover hunters already proved to have trouble when Silent Blur was at full speed.

As she was planning her next move, a rather large tree seemed to leap out of nowhere directly in front of her.  “What the… NOT GOOD,” Adrianne shouted to herself.  She twisted the ship and clawed at the ground.  She even used the rockets on Silent Blur’s wings to slow the ship.  She stopped mere centimeters from the tree, leaving scorch marks on the bark.  Full speed could be a little too dangerous.

She looked at the sensors again.  They showed her what she already knew.  The two cloaked ships were circling just over the canopy above her.  The hover hunters tried to keep up with her but were running out of power.  They were flying back up to the ships, perhaps to recharge.

Now that the immediate threat was on pause for a bit, she had to choose the best path back to Rubin’s Trail.  Only two ships were on her scanners.  The other two had to be around somewhere.  These gankers have proven to be well prepared before.  How they got so prepared, she didn’t know.  However, she didn’t want to run into any traps.

By now, she was running again and had reached Rubin’s River which flowed north from Rubin’s Mountains towards Rubin’s Trail.  There was little point in trying to hide from the gankers.  They already knew where she was.  She ran north along the river and conducted another long range scan of the known cloaking frequencies.  She also pinged for motion to see where all the ships were and where they were going.

They were leaving.

It took Adrianne a little time to trust that what she saw was real, but it was.  They were all turning around and heading back towards Rubin’s Mountain.  Surly nothing she had done caused them to fly away in such a hurry.  So what was it?

The answer came with the roar of the mighty sky guard fighters.  These ships didn’t hide their presence at all.  Even if they wanted to they’d have trouble.  There were at least eight of them flying in formation.  Apparently, the gankers were running away before they had a chance to lose the fight.

Adrianne heard a call on her ship communicator.  “This is Sky Guard Es-Gee-Five-Twelve calling Silent Blur,” the voice called calmly, “Greetings Dr. Yu.  Are you in need of any further assistance?”

#1 – Awakening #13 – Awakening #15

Champions of Battle: AD7 – Awakening #13

Did I just dodge a missile?  Adrianne thought to herself.  She had little time to reason it all out.  Whatever shot at her would shoot again.  As much as she wanted to see what it was, stopping to look would be fatal.  She had best run now and figure things out later.

Tree bark and branches fell where she had just been.  She picked up the debris on her scanner.  Just then she realized she was moving in a straight line away from something that was going to shoot at her soon.  It had only been for a split second but that’s all it takes to aim.  She activated Silent Blur’s wings and their rockets to sharply change direction.

As Adrianne was committing to the maneuver, her instincts kicked in again as she activated her Kin-Po and Aura talents.  She was wearing a gravity suit similar to what the racers wore, but her maneuvers were just a little more intense and desperate than the suit was designed to handle.  With her life on the line, even getting a little disoriented could be the end of her.

Blaster bolts followed her as she swerved behind a tree.  Thankfully, the attacker could not keep up with her acceleration.  The blaster fire trailed her hitting the tree a few times before it stopped.

Using Silent Blur’s wings again, she quickly whipped the ship around to a position fit for climbing.  Metal claws dug deep into the tree as she scrambled up.  It was a long shot, but just maybe she could shake it off her trail.

It almost worked.  The attacker moved very quickly around the tree to get a good angle for a shot and found her.  Adrianne saw something move and began to corkscrew up the tree to avoid the blaster bolts.  It fired mindlessly as it tried to keep up with her climbing around the tree.  Adrianne stayed ahead of it, but it was not easy.  She was going fast enough to launch the ship off the tree.  She had to use Silent Blur’s wing rockets to press Silent Blur against the tree as she climbed.

At this point, the attacker was having a hard time keeping up while shooting.  It also showed little intelligence.  It kept following the shortest path behind her instead of cutting her off.  It had to be a machine.

The machine continuously fired and it continuously missed.  At this point, she was surprised that the woods were not catching on fire.  She was thinking of a way to end this impasse without getting shot down but couldn’t think of a solution.  Her confusion increased when the continuous rain of bolt fire suddenly stopped.

She thought it was a trick at first.  Then her short range motion tracker caught a parachute opening.  Her motion sensors found the device in her data bank.  Even without the data bank the device looked familiar to her.

It was a hover hunter, a small droid designed to search and hunt for a designated target.  She knew them very well.  She modified her defensive droids from them.  They had exactly one missile and a short battery life.  They had a cloak but the device was small enough that it avoided most scans.  They were invisible unless you looked for their particular frequency.

They could be reused.  Once the droid was retrieved, the missile could be reloaded and the battery recharged.  Each droid had a camera and a tracking device so the gankers probably knew exactly where she was.  They could surround her before she saw them.

Hunter hovers were very expensive to say the least.  These gankers were very well funded.  She had to be very careful to get back to Rubin’s Trail alive.  Now that she knew the weapon of choice for her enemy.  She searched for the frequency to allow her to pick up the little deadly drones.

She wasted no time stuck in the tree waiting for the blips to appear.  She knew they had found her.  She knew they would overtake her in the air.  The best she could do is to run along the ground hoping to escape the danger.

And so, she jumped out of the tree towards the ground and let Silent Blur’s wings soften the fall.  Heading west, she hoped to avoid any hover hunters they may have released from their ships to track her since the first one had failed.

The frequency scan was short.  When the scan was over, she was in no way pleased with what she saw.  Five cloaked hunter hovers in her vicinity and two cloaked ships circling directly above her.

#1 – Awakening #12 – Awakening #14