Tag Archives: Silent Blur

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 #12

Rubin’s Trail Research Lab:

It had been about an hour since Chaeri Wu had someone call for Adrianne to return to the lab.  It was simple enough to get others to do what she wanted.  She knew why the young males around the lab looked her over so often.  Her position also gave her at least a small amount of power.  All she had to do was ask and whatever she wanted would be done.  She saw the intern dart for the office phone when she asked him to call Doctor Yu.

AD7’s brain activity was off the charts.  This was an incredibly important event for the research lab, even more so for Adrianne.  Doctor Yu should be here.  Is AD7 a threat?  Should they try to help her?  They needed to know what to do.

Chaeri knew Adrianne would have flown strait here as fast as she could as soon as she got the news.  However after all this time, there was no word.  Something was wrong.

Chaeri was Adrianne’s assistant though she simply refused to dress for the part.  Her baggy black blouse and matching pants did not do enough to hide her curvaceous figure.  Her pale yellow skin was covered in large golden yellow patches and a few pink spots.  There was a large golden yellow patch on her face but it only made her look cheery.  She was rarely cheery.

The door flew open and she rushed out to the lab floor.  She walked briskly to the intern that made the call before, startling him.  “Any word from Doctor Yu?” Chaeri spoke in her standard, to the point, tone.

“N… no ma’am,” the intern replied, “Do you want me to call her again?”

“No,” she said pausing for a brief moment, “Call the Sky Guard.”

——

Somewhere in Rubin’s Woods:

Adrianne was moving Silent Blur at average speeds, hopping from tree to tree steadily away from Rubin’s Trail.  Judging from where they were and the average range of jamming signals, she should be at least almost out of range.  She only had to get out of range and call Rubin’s Trail to get the Sky Guard out to help her.  That is, if she needed them.

If the gankers really wanted to find her, she had no hints.  No ship flyby.  No energy signatures on the short range scanners.  No pings for her location.  Now that she thought about it, they didn’t even turn when she dove into the woods.  They kept going towards Rubin’s Trail as though she were invisible.

Maybe she was imagining the whole thing.  She had no real evidence they meant to harm her.  They may not have even cared for her in the first place.  It was out of reflex that she dived into the woods.  She put some pieces together that made sense at the time.  Her reflexes had saved her often enough.  Every now and then, they made her look silly.

She looked on her short-range scanners again.  Nothing was there, only the wild beasts.  The beast usually got spooked when something noisy came near; they were calm.  She had nothing to tell her that there was anything going on, only her nerves.

She looked at Captain Bubbles as if to ask it where she should go.  The little sailboat inside pointed behind her to the city.  However, she decided to play it safe and go the extra twenty meters before calling.  That would put her well outside a radio disruption signal if they were not following her.

She continued a steady pace.  She was about to climb the tree to get a better view and a good signal for the city.  A sudden large energy spike appeared on her scanners; really close, really powerful.  Instead of wondering what it was, she instinctively moved with all her power to change directions.

“BOOOMM” A missile hit exactly where she would have been.  The blast shook the limb she was on, loosening her grip for a moment.

Time to go!

#1 – Awakening #11 – Awakening #13

Champions of Battle: AD7 – Awakening #11

Entering the canopy, Adrianne stretched her hands forward.  Silent Blur followed suit, obeying her commands perfectly.  In this position, the forward legs acted as a shield to protect the control cab from extensive damage.

While the Silent Blur was in this form, every part of Adrianne’s body was used to control the ship.  Her arms and legs controlled Silent Blur’s legs.  Her wings controlled Silent Blur’s wings if she still needed them for mid-air maneuvering.  Even her waist would twist Silent Blur’s mid-section.  Only the tail was controlled by the computers to correct Silent Blur’s balance.  In many ways, she was Silent Blur at this point.  She would look silly to someone watching in the cockpit.  However, with the split second decisions she was making it was necessary for controlling the ship correctly.

In years past, she had watched the squirrels in action.  They were nearly flawless acrobats, the best in the trees.  She modified Silent Blur so she could imitate them.  She had perfected a landing technique from watching them.  She had never tried it at this speed before but lacked the time for logical decision making.

The sensors gave her all the information they could, but at this speed they had trouble keeping up.  Their information fed into a holographic display that surrounded her.  It showed the woods around Silent Blur set to her scale.  Everything about the woods was there everything down to the shapes of the leaves and vision into the distance.  Usually in life-like detail, the objects were mere string outlines and simple shades at this speed.

She found many branches to help her slow her decent, crashing into one after another.  The frantic search took an agonizing fraction of a second.  She decided that any branch would do and grabbed at one.  It bowed heavily with Silent Blur’s weight, but Silent Blur’s sharp metal claws held fast.

The branch bent hitting another branch, then another.  The branches took a lot of the energy away from her momentum but not enough to satisfy physics.  She had to start moving or risk breaking several branches causing more problems.

The claws sunk deep into the branch shredding it as she and momentum worked around the unpredictable branches.  Soon she regained complete control and ran up to the thicker parts of the branches.  Reaching the trunk, Silent Blur’s claws dug deep into the bark as she ran around it a few times descending the tree.

By the time she reached the lowest strong branches, she was moving at regular speeds.  Much faster than a squirrels, but slow enough for her sensors to pick up the slightest details of the woods around her.

She stopped the ship to think.  Though counter-intuitive to escape, it was the smartest thing for her to do at that point.  She positioned Silent Blur into a position similar to that of a sitting squirrel.  This could fool the gankers temporarily.

No doubt they were finding their own way through the canopy by now.  Without her modifications, they would have to slow their ships and descend very carefully.  They would ping for motion just as she could, but this could work against them.  There was a good chance they knew about where she was, but they would not know exactly.  There were real squirrels in the woods too.  Without seeing her, the gankers could mistake her for one.

She ran a quick check of Silent Blur’s systems to make sure that she would not be unpleasantly surprised at a very bad time.  Everything checked out except her weapons system.  They were still in the weapons test mode she had set while experimenting with the missile.  In her haste to get back to Rubin’s Trail, she neglected to set the weapons back to standard mode.  Those adjustments could only be done from outside the ship?!

With no working weapons she had no way to hide in the woods and shoot them down one at a time, a plan that was just coming to her.  She was way too far to reach the city.  She had to get out of their jamming range to call for help.

She had a feeling the gankers could be near enough to almost her about now.  She had to make sure to stay out of their sight.  Though she moved like a squirrel, she certainly looked nothing like one.  Even a slight glance would blow her cover.  She had to make a quick decision which way to go.

They knew she was headed toward Rubin’s Trail.  Her sensors and Captain Bubbles agreed that the city was straight ahead.  However, only a fool would continue to head for the city at this point.  A tricky person would run left or right to try and approach the city from a different angle; she would have to do that but not now.  The only thing she could do to stay alive was run away from Rubin’s Trail.

#1 – Awakening #10 – Awakening #12