Tag Archives: AD7

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

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 #10

Adrianne tried to call for help but the gankers were too smart for that.  Her communications, even her radio failed to function properly.  She would have to get out from the range of their jamming signal before she could call anyone.  This looked very bad.  She was so far from civilization that by the time help could arrive, they would have pillaged Silent Blur and left.

Who knew what they wanted?  No doubt they saw her test the incendiary missile.  If they stole the plans before Rubin’s Trail got hold of it, they could make a fortune.  It burned hot enough and stuck long enough to melt metal.  They could disable or forcibly enter a ship without completely destroying it, leaving more plunder for them.

They could have seen her defensive devices.  With her modifications, they were better than the best on the market.  Three were capable of warding off even the larger predators.  She had twenty four.  Now that they were in storage mode they could be reprogrammed by any tinkerer.  They’d be worth quite a bit on the auctions as would Silent Blur.

Maybe they just felt like killing something.

What they wanted was trivial.  If they caught her, they would kill her without a second thought and take whatever they could.  It would be forever and five days before she recovers in a rejuvenation center.  And that’s only if she remains undigested by some wild beast.

She has to escape.

Adrianne had a slight advantage.  They were counting on her to remain ignorant of their attack until it was too late.  She possibly had a few extra seconds to prepare for the long sprint to Rubin’s Trail.

She also had a fairly extensive knowledge of these woods.  She had run all around this place to test the Silent Blur’s leg modifications and Captain Bubbles’ functions.  She has a good chance of outfoxing them leaving them with little more than wasted fuel.

She unlocked the vehicle legs.  Outside the ship, they rattled in place waiting to be activated.  Inside the cockpit, her seating changed as well.  She was strapped tightly into the chair but as she activated the legs, her seat flipped forward so that she was in a crawling position.  The ship was designed to run like a squirrel.  In this position she could control things so much better.

As soon as Silent Blur’s legs were activated, they hung loose.  They caught wind, slowing the ship considerably.  As she expected, the gankers knew that something was wrong.  They picked up speed to catch her before she did anything too smart.

There were in fact four of them.  They were catching up to her quickly.  She pinged their vectors again.  Each of them was easily faster than Silent Blur.  There was little room for error if she was to get out of this alive.  Timing was everything, even now.

The trees looked beautiful flying above them.  Diving into them was always a different story.  The beautiful leaves had many healthy branches holding them up.  There was no way to be fully prepared for entry at high speeds, but they were approaching weapons range.  She was running out of time.

She rolled the ship and deactivated the wings.  The hydraulic legs were extended and ready.  With her sensors set to gain as much information as possible, she dove in.

#1 – Awakening #9 – Awakening #11