RRR, v. 2007.2 (Science-fiction) – Part 2
Continued from https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=675 .
Date: April 10, 2007
Categories: Fiction, poetry, and fanfiction, Nonrandom Craziness
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Kermit the Tennis Racket
in April 10th, 2007 @ 17:181st post!
Kari looked at Jaa incredulously.
“YOU figured that out? That is, like, totally awesome! You look so much like a kid, no one would expect you to be that smart. No offense.” Kari said.
“Umm, Is there a compliment in there somewhere?” Jaa teased Kari.
“Let’s get on with it already, enough flirting.” Ian said. Kari blushed deeply. Jaa put his finger on the scanner. And nothing happened.
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Goku Son
in April 10th, 2007 @ 17:25FIRSTPOST!!!
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Goku Son
in April 10th, 2007 @ 17:26ahkay, now where were we on the previous thread? hmm… :confused:
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E2MB
in April 10th, 2007 @ 17:493 – Hold on, I’ll go cut and paste some text from that thread…
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E2MB
in April 10th, 2007 @ 17:57Here’s the last few installments of the story.
204. Prarilius Canix ?|? April 9th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
“Jaa,” the kid said, leaning casually against the padded seat next to him.
Funny he’s so young, Kari thought. JAA? He’s one of the J-series Containers. Even I’m only a K. He should be older. How many Containers do the Parents need?
Aloud, she said, “How did you get on this ship?”
“Snuck on. I reprogrammed the door to open under your fingerprints.”
“Wow. You shouldn’t have been able to hack into the system. This is state of the art.”
Jaa smiled. “So am I. The Parents designed me to be the best of the best. But I wasn’t happy, even so.”
He sighed, suddenly looking decades older. “Can I trust you?”
Kari thought for a moment, then rolled up her sleeve, revealing her ID number and blasted transmitter.
Jaa grinned. “So you’re a renegade, too?” He rolled up his own sleeve, revealing a destroyed transmitter, an ID number, and a birthday-
A birthday!!
Kari thought her eyes were playing tricks. She scanned the ID tattoo again. 1/8/ 2037. There was no denying it. This kid had been born before World War Last.
((Note- Jaa was the one who designed the gravitational engines. This will be a key turning point later on.))205. Alice ?|? April 9th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
“And who is this?” asked Jaa, nodding at Ian. “He’s not a Container, who is he?”
“Ian,” Kari said. “He’s a civilian that I dragged into this. I’m sorry now.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. Why did you?”
Ian perked up, hoping that he would get some answers, but Kari only sighed.
“I don’t know. I guess I was lonely, which was why I invited him in the first place, and he wanted to leave too. That was before he knew I was a Container.”
Ian felt a flush of guilt. He had said he’d like to come, and he’d been blaming Kari for all his hardships since then.
“Loneliness is-” began Jaa, but stopped himself at the look of horror on Kari’s face.
“Sorry, honestly, I am. It’s an old habit and dies hard. I am sorry!”206. Kermit the Tennis Racket ?|? April 10th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
“Hey guys,” Ian said, “Shouldn’t we be getting going?”
“Not now Ian. We’re talking.” Kari said in an exasperated voice.
“Umm, I really think we should go.” Ian looked with a meaningful glance behind him.
“Fine you scumbag, what is it?” Kari and Jaa looked at each other conspiratorially.
“Someone,” Ian said, “Is coming. And i don’t think It’s a good guy.”209. Earth2MuseBlog ?|? April 10th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Jaa looked around. He didn’t see anyone.
“All right,” he said, “What we need to do is to stop this plan from happening. They haven’t bothered to think about all the people who live on Ceres. Do you have any ideas?”
Ian suddenly felt a wave of shock. He lived on Ceres! If the parents had done this….
“Where are we heading anyway?” Kari asked.
“We are heading toward the main control room, with all the blueprints to the plans. I designed some of them, back when I wasn’t against these people.”
“What plans did you design?”
“Well, for one thing, I designed the artificial gravity that they plan to use. I could hack the system and redesign the plans that they have so that the gravity works backward.”
“How does the gravity work?” Ian asked.
“Actually, I’m one of the smartest people here.” said Jaa. “They don’t want to lose me. It works because neutrinos swarm to electromagnetism. If you have a big enough electromagnetic force, the neutrinos are attracted to it. However, I have also found that neucular force repels them. Even the Parent’s most brilliant scientists haven’t figured that one out!” He laughed.
Kari said, “But there are too many parents in the control room! They’d catch you, and us too!”
“We’ll have to work fast,” said Jaa, “because we’re here.”
The chairs stopped. A door appeared in front of them. “input fingerprint” a screen flashed. Jaa stuck his thumb over the laser scanner.
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E2MB
in April 10th, 2007 @ 17:58I’ll put post 1 down here so it will flow on the page.
Kari looked at Jaa incredulously.
“YOU figured that out? That is, like, totally awesome! You look so much like a kid, no one would expect you to be that smart. No offense.” Kari said.
“Umm, Is there a compliment in there somewhere?” Jaa teased Kari.
“Let’s get on with it already, enough flirting.” Ian said. Kari blushed deeply. Jaa put his finger on the scanner. And nothing happened.
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Kiki the Mindbogglingly Magnificently Great
in April 10th, 2007 @ 18:32I gave up on being Keeper. I’m not that type of person. Sorry.
Can PC do it? He’s been with the whole thing since the beginning.
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Goku Son
in April 10th, 2007 @ 18:43*chokechokechoke* i didn’ get first post? dammit. anyways…
6 ~ “Oh no”, Jaa said. “it must be malfunctioning. this scanner does that every so often.
“And this is the worst possible time, too”, sighed Kari. “can’t you fix it?”
Jaa replied, “well, i could, but it would take, maybe a few hou-
“A few hours?!?!? we don’t have a few hours!”
Ian tried to change the conversation. “what’s the big rush, Kari?”BTW, maybe we could try the syllable naming fr/ Gathering Blue. that way, it would really fit them. for ex., Kari and Ian both have 2 syllables, so they would be around 13-14. Jaa has one syllable (i think. how do you pronounce his name, anyways?), so he’d be a younger being. le’ts try it out! we can give more syllables as the story goes on and they get oldre. maybe we could even make a timeskip.
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 10th, 2007 @ 19:27Kari ignored him. Ian suddenly remembered something, “Hey, Kari? Remember when you blew up the door on Luna? Maybe…”
Meanwhile Jaa began to stab at the scanner with his finger. He could hear foot steps. The door flew open with such a jolt, that, had the walls been made o wood they would have wobbled. “Come on!”
The door slid closed behind them. As it did a rumbling filled the air. Jss looked up. “Oh no.” he moaned. “Figures they had to show up now.” muttered Kari. Ian had also seen the source of the noise. A ship tat looked as if it had been carved out of a single hunk of metal roared through the stratousphere. “Who?” He asked. “The Titans a grop of anti-Terra terrorists. There are always thirteen of them and the current ones happen to be resposible for some horrendous crimes.” said Kari, “the current ones are the leader who is always called the Thirteenth titan, Nightclaw, a monster dubbed the Ogre of 44th Street, the Blaster Frog the Granite Mole, the Guitarist of Doom, a Balrog, and a few others.” continued Jaa.
____________________
Incidently the Titans star in a Home movie me and my freind the extremely infrequent poster iro fiteonmademaking. Legos. Nightclaw is a long armmed/legged beast, the Ogre is similar but golden, the 13thttn (abbr for the 13th Titan) is a monsterous green beast with fou arms, the Blaster Frog is a heavily spined, two headed tank with legs, and the Granite mole is a brown thing with golden claws, the Guitarist is a very tall “guitarist” and the Balrog is a Balrog. I’ll try to get a picture of the Ogre, the best picture.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 10th, 2007 @ 21:39They were going to Io. Then it seemed as though they were on moving chairs that took them to a main control room. Now there is some sort of stratosphere. I’m sorry about being pedantic, but I hate inconsistencies. Let’s rewind to the end of post 206 on the last thread.
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Alice
in April 10th, 2007 @ 21:437- I might be “Acting Keeper”, but I’m not sure, and anyway it doesn’t matter as I still put the story in a text file.
But anyway, they were shooting through the black nothingness of space, right? Why are they back in the mothership?
8- If we do the name thing, what do Kari and Ian become? and why is Kerj sixteen?
I’m confused. Help me out!
????????????????
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Alice
in April 10th, 2007 @ 21:4510- Yes, let’s do that! *is relieved*
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E2MB
in April 10th, 2007 @ 22:0110, 12 – Okay. I’ll redo my post.
~~~
Jaa looked around. He didn’t see anyone.“All right,” he said, “What we need to do is to stop this plan from happening. They haven’t bothered to think about all the people who live on Ceres. Do you have any ideas?”
Ian suddenly felt a wave of shock. He lived on Ceres! If the parents had done this….
“Where are we heading anyway?” Kari asked.
“We are heading toward Io.”
“Do you know anything about the plans for redoing Terra?”
“I designed some of them, back when I wasn’t against these people.”
“What plans did you design?”
“Well, for one thing, I designed the artificial gravity that they plan to use. I could hack the system and redesign the plans that they have so that the gravity works backward.”
“How does the gravity work?” Ian asked.
“Actually, I’m one of the smartest people here.” said Jaa. “They don’t want to lose me. It works because neutrinos swarm to electromagnetism. If you have a big enough electromagnetic force, the neutrinos are attracted to it. However, I have also found that neucular force repels them. Even the Parent’s most brilliant scientists haven’t figured that one out!” He laughed.
Kari said, “Well, then if we could find the plans and put neucular force in the spot of electromagnetic force, that would keep the asteroids apart, instead of being smashed together.”
Ian suddenly thought of something. “Why are we going to Io?”
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Alice
in April 10th, 2007 @ 22:10Okay, in the last thread, Goku Son asked if my name is Alice as in Alice K.
Here’s my answer”
Who?
I’m Alice as in Alice is me.
Maybe this should have gone on Name Changes, but it doesn’t really matter.
Sorry about triple post.
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Alice
in April 11th, 2007 @ 12:15Alright, since E2MB has redone his thread, now I would like to know if the other posts that came after are still valid. I’m still pretty confused and I’m not using my computer, so I can’t read the un-cluttered version.
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E2MB
in April 11th, 2007 @ 14:0115 – They’d have to be slightly altered if the trio is heading to Io.
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Kermit the Tennis Racket
in April 11th, 2007 @ 14:04What is the ‘plan’ that you speak of in post 13?
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E2MB
in April 11th, 2007 @ 14:1617 –
201. Prarilius Canix ?|? April 8th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
At the end of the corridor, Kari stopped. They had entered a massive room with balconies ringing the walls. Hundreds of people, with the same white-blond hair and green eyes ((if Kari has already been described, replace that)) as Kari, were standing on the balconies, tapping control panels, staring at instruments, or just watching the screen in the middle of the room. It rotated slowly, affording a view to everyone of the man it showed.
“Good evening, friends,” he said. “You already know the details of Project Neoterra, but I will reiterate them for those of you who just came out of cryogenics and suffered some memory loss or modification. Using the gravitational engines designed by JAA, we will pull Ceres, Ida, Dactyl and these uninhabited asteroids…” An image of the asteroid belt appeared on the screen, with several dozen objects highlighted in green. “…out of their orbits and crash them on Mars. The resulting body will have a mass approximately equal to Terra…”
Ian gasped. “What do they think they’re doing? Thousands of people will die!”
“Do you think they care?” Kari whispered back. “Shush.”
“…superterraforming will commence,” the voice went on. “First, we will inject massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, setting up a global warming effect. We will then land the plants from the Preserved Terran Habitats, which will photosynthetically convert the new atmosphere into oxygen…”
“We have to get out of here!” Ian hissed.
“Wait,” Kari replied. “We need to find out where the gravitational engines are. I have information that they’re in the Jovian system… ”
“So that’s why you really wanted to stow away!”
“Of course. But I need more specific- Hang on, I think he’s getting to it…”
“… the gravitational engines are being constructed on Io, in the Experimental Mineralogy facility of Gigacorp, where we have allies.”
“I know where that is,” Kari whispered excitedly. “I’ve been on Parents motherships like this one- the hangar for the smaller ships should be down this corridor. Let’s go.”
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Kermit the Tennis Racket
in April 11th, 2007 @ 14:47Ok. I guess I read that one a bit fast.
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Goku Son
in April 11th, 2007 @ 15:0811 ~ for example, in Gathering Blue, a kid named Matt turns twelve (i think) and he gets another syllable, and so his name is changed to Mattie. Get it? maybe, Kari could get new syllable, so name changes to Karia or Karina or somthing like that.
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kt the gr8
in April 11th, 2007 @ 16:25and off they went into the vast wonders of a hanger which was full of
somebody add to minE
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Shadowkat
in April 11th, 2007 @ 18:22Wow, you guys have taken this story far…but it’s also really confusing…hope you can sort it out…sorry, but I haven’t been very creative lately…I feel like I just up and abandoned you…sorry.
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Alice
in April 11th, 2007 @ 20:1321- Hold on! Hold on! They’re in a ship, heading for Io! They already went through the hangar.
Here’s the hangar post:202. Alice �|� April 8th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
They hurried down another corridor, and then another, Ian always conscious of his dark hair and eyes that marked him as an outsider.
They reached the hangar without difficulty, and securing a ship was a cinch. Though Kari was a renegade, her fingerprints unlocked the door nonetheless, and soon they were flying through the black nothingness of space at a rate close to the speed of light.
“That was easy,” remarked Ian confidently, leaning back in his chair.
But Kari was frowning. “Too easy, almost. They didn’t notice you; I got a ship even though my prints shouldn’t do that anymore; Kerj let us through even though he should have just let himself die rather than help us; it’s all so unnatural.”
Ian’s confidence was shattered. He was no longer brave and intrepid, but a naive kid again, and he wished he was back on Ceres, sneaking into the library to look at Terran books, and scrounging for food in the tunnels. Back before he’d met this dangerous girl named Kari.But anyway, I think that everyone who posted after E2MB should redo their posts to fit the story, and then we can continue. Sound good?
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 11th, 2007 @ 20:5410-The door randomly opened.
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Alice
in April 11th, 2007 @ 21:1724- Huh?
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Prarilius Canix
in April 11th, 2007 @ 21:36contd. from 13-
Kari spoke slowly, as though talking to a dimwitted child. “We’re going to Io so that Jaa can deactivate the gravitational engines and, if we’re lucky, destroy them.”
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Prarilius Canix
in April 12th, 2007 @ 17:08“All right,” Ian said, “but…”
“But what?”
“Nothing.”
Ian wasn’t so sure it was nothing. He could have sworn he saw something out of the corner of his eye- some sort of ship that darted out of the viewscreen’s range as soon as he turned to look. He pushed it out of his mind and began scrutinizing the newcomer.
Then he noticed the birth date on Jaa’s ID number. Not only was it from before World War Last, it was before any permanent colonies had been set up on other planets.
Ian gasped. “You were born on Terra!”
“Yeah,” Kari said. “Don’t mind him, Jaa, he’s absolutely obsessed with anything Terran.”
The gibe would have stung, but Ian was too fascinated. “What was it like?”
Jaa smiled. “Absolutely beautiful. Even in the grip of the Warming Effect, it had more variety of animals and plants than on all the planets combined. Even Europa only has a bit of algae and these blind shrimp-like things. Terra had billions. The Preserved Terran Habitats are only a tiny slice. I remember days at the seashore, or climbing trees in my backyard… I was very young back then, before the Parents captured me. They go for orphans, people nobody would miss, and my own parents died during the Great Evacuation. They were victims of one of those “superbugs” that flourished even in the sterile environment aboard ships.”
Ian nodded, sympathetically. The “superbugs” had evolved aboard ships with long-term voyages, where the viruses had to adapt quickly to infect the limited amount of people. Now, quarantine was much stricter, but thousands of people died back then. Evac Ship 39 was particularly infamous, but other ships had been struck too.
“I was lucky,” Jaa continued. “We lived south of the equator. When the first nukes fell, it was in the northern hemisphere. I think America and some country in western Asia were the first to go at it- Or was it China? Russia? I really don’t know, I was little back then. Anyway, when the South American countries finally got involved- my home was neutral until almost the very end- the evac ships were ready, and my family boarded them as soon as possible. We got off before everything started falling apart. I hear the last days were really horrible- people starving, dying of radiation sickness, killing each other for the last drop of water.”
Ian shuddered. Because of that, he thought for a moment that the ship’s sudden vibration was just a figment of his imagination, and not a laser shell striking the reinforced hull.
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pie parade
in April 12th, 2007 @ 17:24just a q: who was Kari talking to?
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Kiki the Mindbogglingly Magnificently Great
in April 12th, 2007 @ 19:408, 20- Nuh-uh. If we ever want to get this story published, which we might, then we’re NOT gonna plagiarize. But what I think we could do is that specific initials stand for diff classes. Like A-E could be high class, F-I could be middle class, J-L could be Containers, Parents, mayors, and government, etc. But Ian couldn’t know about this system, or else he’d have recognized Kari as a Container right away. Hmmm…. you guys elaborate.
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E2MB
in April 12th, 2007 @ 21:29ooh new posts!
29 – Your idea sounds fine. The thought of this getting published… *shudders with awe* All right. I’m going to get my gears grinding and see if I can add more. (If I’m not mistaken, we’re approaching the end of the story, with the climax coming very soon.)
~~~
“MEEP MEEP MEEP” bleeped the ship’s computer. “Curses,” said Jaa, “The Parents are after us!” He ran to the front room. A violent blast caused the ship to shudder as the computer screen flashed “Hull damaged 68%”.“We’ve got to eject!” screamed Kari. She stared at the hundreds of buttons on the control board. “Which button is it, Jaa?”
“I…don’t….remember…” Jaa said, as he grew sweaty.
Ian, realizing the impeding doom, started pressing random buttons on the keyboard, hoping to be the hero. He was knocked off his feet as another blast caused the screen to flash “Hull damaged 83%”.
As he struggled to his feet, he saw Jupiter in the distance. He knew Io orbited Jupiter, so if he could just keep the ship safe for another minute or so…
He noticed Kari was looking for the steering wheel. Jaa had passed out on the floor. Ian remembered that cold water on a towel for ten seconds on somebody’s head would revive them. He ran down the back hall to get a towel. He heard Kari shreik, “WHERE THE HECK IS THE DANG STEERING WHEEL?”
Just as he had reached the door to the ship’s bathroom, another blast shook the ship so voilently that Ian slammed into a door on the opposite side of the hall, promtly busting it in half. As he slid through the gaping hole, he noticed a steering wheel. “What’s it doing in here?” he wondered.
“Ian!!!” Kari yelled. “Where are you? The hull is damaged 95%! One more blast and the whole ship is going to blow up!” Ian struggled to his feet and hobbled toward the steering wheel. He had just reached it and started to turn the wheel when he heard the sound of another laser firing. He saw it shoot past his window and knew they had just missed it.
The second thing he noticed when he looked out the window was Io’s landscape. “Holy smokes!” he said. “We’re a mere mile from Io’s surface. He started to frantically turn the wheel. It was at times like this that he wished he were back in Cere’s library, reading about trees.
~~~
Sorry ’bout the cliffhanger. I have an idea for how they escape, but maybe someone else has a better idea.
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Alice
in April 12th, 2007 @ 21:5228- Jaa.
29- I was thinking of publication too. And even if I wasn’t, I still don’t like plagiary. Besides, Ian is not one syllable and never will be.
I like your idea, except that no one knows about Containers and Parents. When Ian fainted earlier in the story, it seemed like he knew, but then Kari had to explain, so maybe it was just cause of her being something weird and dangerous, or perhaps it was just stress.
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Alice
in April 12th, 2007 @ 22:01Noooooo! Not the end! But you’re right. *sniff*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He gave a last wrench to the wheel, and the wall opened, revealing a smaller ship, barely large enough for four people.
“Kari!” he yelled. “Jaa! I found an escape pod!”
He ran back through the hall. Kari was standing over the still unconscious Jaa, looking terrified.
“I think something’s wrong with him, Ian,” she said. “He won’t wake up, but he’s not dead.”
“Well, can we carry him?”
“Maybe,” Kari said with a sniff.
Somehow they managed to drag him down the hall, just as a blast from the Parents’ ship shook the hull.
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E2MB
in April 12th, 2007 @ 22:06Well, we have to end this thing sometime or it might be abandoned and will be doomed forever never to have a conclusion.
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Alice
in April 12th, 2007 @ 22:27I guess you’re right, and I’ve always got the other RRRs.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 13th, 2007 @ 16:50“The ship’s coming apart!” Kari yelled. She leaped through the airlock and into the pod, pulling Jaa behind her. Ian was last, scrambling in hurriedly. The walls began to shake and glow red hot. As the airlock sealed and the booster jets of the escape pod fired, Ian had a last glimpse of the ship’s interior. A reinforced hull plate ripped away, and the inner wall crumpled like tinfoil as the unobstructed pressure blew it out into the vacuum of space. Then the pod was soaring away over the volcanic rocks and sulfur vents of the Ionian surface. Kari clutched the controls like a lifeline, guiding the little ship farther away from the vessel of the Parents’ hired assassin.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 13th, 2007 @ 17:46Numb from the shock of the events in the past few minutes, Ian suddenly realized that he hadn’t eaten since- he didn’t even remember. After rummaging around for a while, he located the food locker and opened it. The white steam billowing out obscured the contents for a second, but when it cleared, Ian gasped. “What is this stuff?”
“Food,” Kari said. “Not just nutrition paste, real food. The Parents used the Containers’ memories to genetically engineer replicas of food crops and livestock. They have several illegal habitats orbiting Terra that they grow food in. They would have used the habitats around Mars, but those were mostly the pristine, undisturbed Terran ecosystems. Nobody cared about saving a plain old cow. Let me have some.”
She reached back and deftly pulled out something that, 200 years before, would have been called a TV dinner. A press of a button on the pack, and a tiny, built-in microwave generator warmed it up. Ian did the same to his, and cautiously tasted it.
His eyebrows shot up. “YEOW!!”
It didn’t hurt, but the overwhelming sensation that he didn’t have a name for was more startling than pain. “What happened?”
“It’s called flavor. I guess you’re not used to it, now that they synthesize all the food- Wait, that’s Gigacorp’s facility up there!”
Sure enough, a building loomed up on the horizon. A metal dome, matte black, with the Gigacorp logo embossed on it. Smaller capsules and pods were connected to it by long carboglass tubes that snaked through the almost nonexistent air, making the entire building look like a demented octopus with swollen tentacles.
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E2MB
in April 13th, 2007 @ 18:10(Prarilus Canix)
Just in case you didn’t catch it the first time, there’s a previous post about food.88. davidude ?|? March 5th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Then suddenly, his meal arrived. He had not excpected it, as he rarely ever ate (usually about once a month). However, it seemed that a computer had sensed he had not eaten in a while and had given him some food.
Ian slowly chewed the 48 carboprotien multivitamin tablets. They had no taste at all. Ian remembered when he had been safe, back at the library on Ceres. There, he had absorbed information about when food had been GROWN, not chemically assembled from raw protons, neutrons, and electrons in particle accelerators. He could not think of what taste would be like, because his mind could not comprehend it.
He often wondered what it would be like in a world where things just seemed to happen, as he had read about Terra, instead of being automated and fully predictable.~~~
Jaa stirred, then reawaked. “Where…where are we?” he said.
“We’re on Io, inside the ship’s escape pod.” said Kari. “We’re right next to Gigacorp’s facility. Do you know any way we could get in?”
Jaa thought for a moment. “We could try and bust through one of the carboglass tubes and enter that way. We don’t stand a chance against the security at the doors.”
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pie parade
in April 13th, 2007 @ 18:52“Well that’s better than nothing” Kari said. “If we know we cant get past the security then why try?”
“But the one problem is, to get through carboglass unharmed you need special suits” Jaa pointed out.
“Look over there! There is a whole rack of carboglass protection suits!” Kari exclaimed.
“Hmmm..” Jaa thought. The whole thing sounded kind of suspicious to him.
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agagabagabag
in April 13th, 2007 @ 19:39“Kari put on a carboglass suit.
“AAAGH! GIGACORP SUIT INTERNAL LASER TRAP!
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E2MB
in April 13th, 2007 @ 20:5539 – What the huh? Please elaborate.
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E2MB
in April 13th, 2007 @ 20:58(37) I’m not saying you didn’t get it correct, I was just showing you more information about their food.
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pie parade
in April 14th, 2007 @ 10:26like this is in the future and food isnt grown and theyre food is in the form of pills
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Alice
in April 14th, 2007 @ 16:4339, 40- Um, yeah. Huh?
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pie parade
in April 14th, 2007 @ 18:00the suits were a trap so an alarm went off when she put one on
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Alice
in April 14th, 2007 @ 18:1944- That works. Yet another dillemma.
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Alice
in April 14th, 2007 @ 18:21Only was that Kari saying that, or was it the suit? If it was her, how did she know? What kind of trap? Or is all that for the next writer to make up?
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Prarilius Canix
in April 14th, 2007 @ 18:51“What?” Ian screamed, leaping out of his chair.
“Just kidding!” Kari smiled. “Let’s go.”
“Never… do… that… again,” Ian grated out.
“Come on! It was just a joke. Put yours on.”
Several minutes later, three suited individuals leaped out of the airlock and drifted towards the tube in Io’s low gravity.
Ian knew that carboglass wasn’t actually solid, just carbon alloy atoms suspended in an electromagnetic field. With the proper suit, it could be passed through like a mirage. Still, it was a shock to seemingly hit the surface and then pass through.
It was still more of a shock when a magna-beam struck Ian in the arm. A horrible, numbing pain shot up to his shoulder. His head was buzzing. He knew he was on the verge of passing out.
"FREEZE, RENEGADES,"snarled a robotic-sounding voice. Jaa and Kari looked up, afraid of who they might see.
With a magna-gun in his hand and a coldly triumphant grin on his face, Kerj stood before them.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 14th, 2007 @ 19:28"I CAN SPARE THE BOY, EVEN THOUGH I WILL HAVE TO CRIPPLE HIM,"Kerj said."BUT YOU, RENEGADES, I WILL HAVE TO KILL."
Ian was on the ground, struggling against the heavy fog of pain. His arm was immobilized, and the paralysis was spreading to his torso. But his other arm was free.
Kerj discarded the empty magnacartridge. It fell to the ground with a clink that sounded even louder in the silence. Then he slotted an illegal laser cartridge into his weapon and placed the barrel against Kari’s forehead."YOU LED ME ON A MERRY DANCE THROUGH THE SOLAR SYSTEM. BUT IT ENDS NOW, SISTER. IF YOU CROSS THE PARENTS, YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE."
Sister? Ian thought. But there was no time to ponder the Container assassin’s choice of words. With a supreme effort, he grabbed Kerj’s leg and pulled hard.
Kerj jerked back, flailing wildly. His gun went off, its charge hurtling upward and striking the carboglass.
“Uh-oh.” That was all Jaa had time to say before cracks decimated the tube and the carboglass blew out into a vacuum.
((Note: they’re safe, because of their suits, but Kerj will probably die.))
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Prarilius Canix
in April 14th, 2007 @ 20:08The impossibly bright shower of shattered carboglass was the last thing Ian remembered before he lost consciousness.
“We need to get in there!” Jaa yelled over the suit’s radio. “The air in these suits will only last about ten minutes!”
“Then let’s go before the blast doors close!” Kari yelled. “They’re sealing them off to keep from losing oxygen!”
Jaa leaped upward, propelling himself toward the stranded side building. Kari followed, dragging Ian along with her. She absentmindedly heaved him through the closing gap before stepping in herself.
Kari wondered why he had saved her life. He thought that she was just a dangerous renegade who had intruded on his safe little existence, and therefore was better off dead. Didn’t he?
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E2MB
in April 14th, 2007 @ 23:08Wow, Prarilius Canix…you are contributing a lot to this story. Thanks!
~~~
Suddenly an alarm went off. For real.
“BLEEP BLEEP INTRUDERS INTRUDERS” a loudspeaker blared as video cameras over the door recorded their movements. “Run to the main room!” Jaa yelled as he grabbed a box labeled ‘gunpowder’, hoping it was something neucular. That’s where they have the gravity center set up so they have more gravity than Io’s weak pull!” As Kari and Ian scrambled to their feet, security guards rushed toward in every direction. They started to run toward a door, but Ian got there first and Kari was grabbed by six strong hands. “Curses” she muttered. “Why did I have to let him in first?”Meanwhile Jaa had reached the portal to the center of Io, where the machines were. He quickly leaped into the elevator, and the doors closed just as Ian came rushing in, just escaping the security guards. As soon as they got toward the center of Io, they saw swarms of white light coming from every direction. “Those are neutrinos,” Jaa whispered to Ian.
Jaa bolted out the elevator as soon as it stopped, and ran toward the mass of electromagnets attracting trillions of neutrinos from all directions. All that was needed was to get rid of the electromagnets and replace them with some sort of neucular thing. But first, he needed to unplug the cord that was powering the electromagnets, but the cord was too thick to cut. “Ian,” Jaa called, “do you have a knife?”
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 00:17“No,” called Ian. It seemed perfectly obvious to him. Civilians weren’t allowed knives. He stepped out of the elevator and noticed for the first time that Kari was missing. “Where’s Kari?”
“I don’t know,” replied Jaa, trying to find the end of the cord.
“She didn’t get into the elevator!” cried Ian, shocked. “She must have been captured!”
“How clever of you to figure it out,” said Jaa, outwardly sardonic, but with an undertone of urgency. “Can you go back to rescue her? How’s your arm?”
Ian ignored the last question and rushed toward the elevator.
“No! Wait!” yelled Jaa. “Don’t be an idiot! You can’t just go rushing off…” but obviously Ian could, for he didn’t slow his pace one bit.
Jaa fumbled in his pocket for an auto-spear, but Ian was already in the elevator, and Jaa forgot all else as his hand closed around the spear. It was better than a knife. Far better.
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 00:37Back in the elevator, Ian clutched his wounded arm to him. It hurt far worse than he would like to admit, and his head spun if he thought about it too much. He snuck a glance at it, and was shocked to see no blood. But of course. The magna-gun would leave no blood, or obvious injuries. However, the arm would be parylized for a long while, perhaps forever, and if it went without treatment, would spread throughout his body until he died. It occured to Ian that there was no way to rescue Kari with a three-quarters dead arm. The elevator came to a stop, but Ian still squatted on the floor, unmoving, with his brain full of images alternately of victory and defeat.
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 12:44Darn it, why is no one here?
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54
pie parade
in April 15th, 2007 @ 14:34im here
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 15th, 2007 @ 14:53Ian ran and hid in the corner as the door slid open.
"Rengrade Kari you must come with me."
“what makes you think I will?” snapped Kari.
Ian started. Kerj!! How?…
An explosion roked the roof as Jaa dropped to the floor.
“Ja-..”cried Kari.
“Shut up!” he hissed.
"Rengrade JAA... a pleasure."smirked Kerj.
“Pleasure is an emotion- something you’re not capable of, traitor.” hissed Jaa.
Ian suddenly realized that Kerj must have implanted life support. Then he noticed that there was no trace of the bulky metal studs that singnafied a LF system. Odd… unless… unless-unless the carboglass never shattered!Kari’s mind was racing. she had been grabbed by elite gaurds and hauled away, whrn to her infinite shock Kerj appeared and had ordered the gaurds to hand her over. this also puzzled her. Wasn’t revenge emation based?
_____________________53-I’m here.
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 15:0455- Why is Jaa in the elevator? I’ll write more soon.
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 16:42Alright, I’ve been thinking about this, and I decided to write a piece that could be inserted between my paragraph and Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage’s paragraph, to make the latter work better. (No offense. It’s not that it doesn’t work, it’s just that Jaa wasn’t in the elevator.) Here it is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Slowly Ian raised himself off the floor and pressed the button that took the elevator down. When the doors slid open he stepped painfully out into the room with the engine.
“Did you get her?” asked Jaa.
“No,” replied Ian numbly.
Jaa said nothing more, but bent himself to the task of cutting the cord with the auto-spear.
Suddenly Ian gave a shout. “The elevator! Someone’s coming!” Jaa, hearing this, hastily shut down the auto-spear and clambered up the rough wall, agile as a monkey.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, definitely not the best piece of writing, but it does the trick.
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E2MB
in April 15th, 2007 @ 16:50As soon as I get the new posts figured out, I’ll post some more.
55 – Why is Jaa in the elevator?
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E2MB
in April 15th, 2007 @ 16:51Okay, post 57 was just moderated. That’s good.
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pie parade
in April 15th, 2007 @ 17:43why is that important
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 17:5360- Because it doesn’t make sense if it’s all strung together like a story. Jaa is trying to shut down the engines, Ian is going to rescue Kari, and he’s in the elevator. All of a sudden the elevator door opens, revealing Kari and Kerj. Jaa drops from the ceiling of the elevator. Everyone goes, “huh?”
See what I mean?
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 18:14“,” said Kerj seriously. “
The Parents cannot get rid of emotion, no matter how hard they try. As a result of what my sister did, now I must feel fear and pain and joy and love. But they haven't killed me. I am an experiment.”
“Sister?” asked Ian, forgetting that he was hiding. This was the second time Kerj had used that word. “You have a sister?”
“Me,” said Kari. “I’m his sister, and I’m anything but proud of it. He was my older brother, until I was stuck in cryogenics for a shorter period of time. Then he was still just seven and I was nine, and I took him with me when I ran away.”
“And now I will be avenged on you,” said Kerj.
“Did you say you could feel love?” said Kari, as she wrenched herself from his grasp. “Hardly.”
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 18:17Gahh! It ate part of my post! Anyways, this is what Kerj said:
"On the contrary, renegade JAA,"said Kerj seriously.The Parents cannot get rid of emotion, no matter how hard they try.”
You know the rest.
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E2MB
in April 15th, 2007 @ 18:26Jaa suddenly had inspiration. “Hey Kerj!” he said. “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”
Kerj stopped to think. He had never felt love, and had often wondered what it felt like. He felt angry, and, lifting his fists, shouted ”
Don't you question me like that!” Kari, ungripped by Kerj’s hands, ran.
~~~~~
Sorry, I really can’t think of something more clever to wrap up this scenario.
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 19:25She ran into the elevator and stopped. She couldn’t leave Jaa alone to fight Kerj with only Ian to help in the best of circumstances, and this was certainly not the best of circumstances. Ian, unaware that she was watching, was clutching his injured arm to him and his eyes were closed tight. Jaa was staring, horrified, at his auto-spear halfway across the room. Kerj had out his magna-gun and it was pointed at Jaa. Kari was not going to stand in the elevator and watch Jaa be killed by Kari’s own brother.
But on the other hand, she couldn’t fight her own brother, either.
Kerj caught sight of her indecision and swung the gun round at her. Ian’s eyes flew open. Jaa dived for the auto-spear. Kerj fired.
But when the pandemonium ceased, it seemed that he couldn’t kill his sister any more than his sister could fight him. Though Kari had been the perfect target, he had moved the gun at the last moment so that instead of hitting Kari, the bolt had hit the very cord that Jaa had been trying to cut. Though it remained intact, the neutrinos were floating around the room, no longer pulled to the electomagnets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That isn’t ending the dilemma too soo, is it? I mean, they still have to replace the electromagnets and Kerj is still there, so the story isn’t over yet.
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I-Man
in April 15th, 2007 @ 21:14Star Wars is cool. Who here would have gone to the Empire to become Darth Vader’s apprentice(s)?
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 21:4166- Um, what does Star Wars have to do with this story? I slept through quite a bit of it. Anyway, either write or read, but don’t talk about Star Wars!!!!
Are you new? Because if you are, I forgive you. This thread is for writing a story. We take it in turns to write bits of it so that by the time we’re done, wwe have a novel. Or at least a short story.
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E2MB
in April 15th, 2007 @ 22:09~~~~
Suddenly there was very little gravity.
~~~~
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 23:4568- Wow. That’s – brief. Write more later. The GAPAs are probably asleep anway, so my post won’t be moderated till the morning.
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Alice
in April 15th, 2007 @ 23:46That is, I will write more later, I’m not telling you to.
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E2MB
in April 16th, 2007 @ 10:30I couldn’t think of anything else, so I threw that little fact out there.
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Alice
in April 16th, 2007 @ 11:06Alright. It’s not a lot to work with, but it’s enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jaa was having an extremely hard time getting to the engine with the box of gunpowder. ((Gunpowder isn’t nuclear, E2MB)) He hadn’t figured this into his calculations, though it was simple logic. That was one of many problems with being a renegade- you became flawed, if only slightly. The plans did not work quite as well without the Parents to execute them. And the parents had kept Jaa as young as possible, so that he was easier to manipulate. All his strength lay in brains.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That answers the question of why he’s so young.
Did we decide how old he was? Kermit the Tennis Racket said “not yet 14” but she (he? sorry if I got mixed up) also said that Jaa was younger than Ian and Kari, and they’re 13. Or maybe 14. So I mentally switched it to “not yet twelve.” Could someone tell me which is true? Preferably Fishing for Dreams, formerly Kermit the Tennis Racket. But if anyone else knows that’d be great.
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Alice
in April 16th, 2007 @ 15:55Hello? I said into the empty room. Predictably, no one answered.
Wow, that should go in one of my books. It’s rather poetic, almost. Anyway, I guess I’ll write the next bit of the story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Or I guess not, since I can’t think of anything.
Wouldn’t Jaa know that gunpowder isn’t nuclear? He is a Container, after all.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 16th, 2007 @ 16:48Jaa finally pushed off the floor and floated up to the electromagnets. He pulled the box open and began detaching the rivets that held the first magnet in place. Unfortunately, he lost his balance. He floated down and the box floated up just as Kerj fired again.
The next moment, a wave of heat and smoke struck him as the box exploded. It isn’t nuclear, but it still explodes, he thought before he smashed into the floor headfirst. He didn’t lose consciousness, but it felt as though someone had driven a red-hot poker into his temples. The autospear spun upward and away. Kari yelled “The coolant- ” before her voice was drowned out by an eruption of flame from the wall.
“What happened?” Ian gasped.
“The coolant’s burning. Without that, the electromagnets will overheat.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Anyway, the circuit’s broken, and the magnets can’t work at all.”
“No to your first statement. If the magnets overheat, the gravity engine will go wild. And your second statement is also wrong. The backup circuit will probably come on in a minute.”
Kari’s assumption was correct. With a loud hum, the neutrinos began whirling around the room again. This time, however, a high whine, increasing in intensity, rose up until it drowned out the hum. Alarms flashed on, their strident whooping adding to the general chaos.
“By the time anyone gets here, it’ll be too late for them to stop it!” Kari shouted. “Io could very well blow up! We have to get out of here!”
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Alice
in April 16th, 2007 @ 17:49Jaa stumbled towards Ian and Kari, as fast as his legs would carry him, his head banging far louder than the alarms. Kari seized his arm and all three kids ran toward the elevator.
Ian jabbed the UP button far more than was necessary. The elevator seemed painfully slow. “Faster, faster,” said Ian under his breath. “Oh, please go faster.”
They reached the surface after what seemed a hundred years, though it was closer to a hundred seconds.
“A ship!” cried Kari. “We don’t have a ship!”
“The escape pod. Hurry!” They raced across the room. There was no sign of the Parents. At the door, Kari stopped dead. “No oxygen,” she murmured, her face a chalky white. “We don’t have oxygen suits. We’ll never make it.”
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 16th, 2007 @ 22:04Isn’t anyone going to question my holographic glass shaterring trick?!
75-why is there no Oxygen?
Oh and Jaa blew the floor up to get down to I,K & K. He wasn’t in the elovator.
___________________________
“Jaa,” said Ian hoarsly,”are you sure you over-heated the right circuts?”
“Uh….”
____________________________
I just realized this would make a great movie.
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Alice
in April 16th, 2007 @ 22:1876- I haven’t questioned it yet, because they’re not in that room yet, I don’t think.
There’s no oxygen because when they go outside, they’ll be in the room with the shattered carboglass, unless, of course, it was holographic after all.
What are you talking about? I, K & K? Oh, I get it! Well, it’s a little late for that now. Sorry.
Plus, Ian, Kari, and Kerj, were in the elevator. Next time you do something like that, please explain, because if you don’t, I get mixed up and make amends that aren’t needed.
I’m really sorry.
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E2MB
in April 16th, 2007 @ 23:0572 – I know. He grabbed it as a mistake, as I didn’t think boxes of neucular weapons would be lying around.
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E2MB
in April 16th, 2007 @ 23:34Have some inspiration.
~~~
Suddenly, with a big flash, all light and heating mechanisms ceased. They were suddenly in the dark, with cold rapidly attacking the air. “I may have heated all the circuits by mistake.” Jaa mumbled. “We’ll have to hold our breaths,” said Kari, “and make a run for the escape pod.”Kari opened the door and took off running, followed by Ian and Jaa. They barely made it to the escape pod without passing out. Just as they had secured the door shut, Io suddenly blew up, rocketing the pod into the sky.
~~~
Where should they go?
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Alice
in April 17th, 2007 @ 10:1776- It would indeed make a good movie. Maybe when (if) we publish it, some producer will read it and want to make o movie out of it.
79- It seems like a good idea to end it soon, but their future isn’t exactly secure, and did they manage to destroy the gravitational engine? Now, if only they could somehow get to Terra. That would be god sort of ending… Or the Preserved Terran Habitats?
Only, as I said earlier, Ian will die eventually if his arm isn’t treated, they ought to go somewhere with a doctor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ian leaned back against the wall. “That was not easy,” he said shakily.
“Where to now?” asked Jaa.
“I don’t know.” Kari sat down on the floor. “Did we even destroy the engines?”
“It hardly matters now,” said Ian. “Even if the magnets didn’t blow up with Io, what good would they be just floating around in space?”
And for once, he was right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No, I’m not trying to write the ending here.
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Alice
in April 17th, 2007 @ 13:34Oh, that’s me. Hello, everyone! Just dropping in to bug you about returning to this thread!
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Prarilius Canix
in April 17th, 2007 @ 16:50Kari walked over to the viewscreen, looking back at the ruinous cluster of asteroids that was once Jupiter’s volcanic moon. Already some of the battered hunks of stone were swinging out into a new orbit, forming another ring around the gas giant. Then Jaa raised the engines to full power, and the image blurred as their ship shot forward at 90% the speed of light.
~~~~~
The escape pod slowed down when it reached the asteroid belt about an hour later. Ian’s arm was now encased in an electron gel sac, which was slowly healing his fried nerves. Jaa twisted the control joystick, and the ship dropped into orbit around Ceres, hovering at the very edge of the artifisphere.
“Well, Ian, I guess this is goodbye,” Kari said. “I hope you can manage on Ceres.”
Ian looked around at the former Containers. “Where will you guys go?”
“I don’t really know, but that old smuggler who took us to Luna told me a lot about some of the illegal markets in the solar system. This escape pod has a few canisters of Ionian mineral fuel, and that will be a rare commodity now that Io is gone. We’ll probably trade that for some other things, and then make a living in space… ” She trailed off.
“I’m coming with you.”
“What?” Kari ejaculated.
“That life sounds a lot better than mine was on Ceres. Besides, you guys are my friends. Did you think I was going to want to let you have that much fun without me?” Ian joked.
Jaa settled the matter. “Right. Where’s the first market?” he asked.
A slow grin rose over Kari’s face. “Well, I hear a Betwer colony has discovered massive peridot deposits on Deimos, and the Solar Trade Service has gone to check it out. We’ll beat them to the punch. Those Betwers will pay through the nose to get this fuel.”
“That sounds great, except for one thing.” Ian said.
“What?” Jaa inquired, looking apprehensive.
“Do Betwers even have noses?”
Everyone burst out laughing. It wasn’t that much of a joke, but after the strain of the past few hours, it felt good to release the tension.
“One more thing,” Ian said. “Can we stop at the Preserved Terran Habitats on the way?”
Jaa grinned. “Sure. Let’s go.”
The tiny ship pulled out of orbit and shot out into the starry vista like a stone from a sling, heading toward Mars.
((This sounds like a good ending point to me. I know the Parents aren’t defeated, but we can always write sequels.))
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 17th, 2007 @ 18:24I, K & K-Ian, Kari and Kerj.
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84
Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 17th, 2007 @ 18:56SEQUEL! SEQUEL! SEQUEL! SEQUEL!
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Alice
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:1782- Yes, let’s end it now. For now. heheheh.
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Alice
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:26Here’s the whole story, as was kept by me. If the GAPA’s think it’s too long, they can break it up into chunks, shorten it, or make a whole new thread to accomadate it; whatever is normally done with this sort of thing.
[Edit deleted 4/20/07 to save space and load time. Newer versions are available. –Robert]
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Alice
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:38You know what’s weird? In the beginning, Kari was all like saying how similar Ian and she were, but then she turns out to be a Container. Also another inconsistency is Ian fainting when he heard Kari was a Container, then not knowing what one was.
Oh, and sorry Insane Moose for changing that bit about Jaa’s age to twelve.
And it turned out that I forgot to C/P the end bit.
Actually I didn’t. It just ate part of my post, that’s all.
Here’s the rest:[Edit deleted 4/20/07 to save space and load time. Newer versions are available. –Robert]
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E2MB
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:41All right, here’s a final segment.
~~~
Ian watched Jaa and Kari zoom off into the utterly black sky. He began to walk across Ceres, thinking about all that had happened in the past 50 hours. He had been all across the solar system, captured by the parents, heard the plan to destroy the planetary body he was walking on, been to the center of Io, and had actually come close to landing on Terra. He was overwhelmed by all the thoughts swirling in his mind and decided to ease them. He walked toward Cere’s library and sneaked inside, the building where he had first met the regenade Kari.He looked around. People were calmly taking disks off the shelf and projecting the information into their minds. Ian walked toward the carboglass case where the three paper-and-cloth books had held. He looked one of the titles, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe , of which he had always asssumed that it was filled with legends from the ancient Terran culture. He hoped he would, perhaps, get to read it someday.
THE END
~~~
Any good?
I’m starting to transfer the text over to a Word Document, and I’ll post the whole thing when I’m done. I’ll number paragraphs and sections so we can point out errors, decide where chapters should be, make changes, etc. Should be done by Saturday.Here’s an idea for the title:
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E2MB
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:42Oh wait, someone just posted the entire text. Cool!
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E2MB
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:43I’ll use that text as a starting point and complete it.
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E2MB
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:57I’ve transferred the text to a word document and have started editing it. I’ve broken it up into sections, each about 1 paragraph big. Our story looks like it might end up being at least 70 pages long. Stand by, this is taking less time than I thought it would since Alice helped by compiling most of it. Expect it within 3 days.
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Alice
in April 17th, 2007 @ 19:59E2MB, Prarilius Canix just posted that Ian was going with them. I like the title, though.
I mostly corrected spelling, but not grammar, for the most part, because Word is on my computer, not the main computer, and that’s the best grammar check I know of.
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E2MB
in April 17th, 2007 @ 21:07Whoops! Well, delete that last segment.
I’m slowly going through the text, fixing grammer errors and correcting stuff like “see” in the place of “seek”, which your spellcheck didn’t catch. It’s taking a while, but I’ve completed a considerable portion of it so far.
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E2MB
in April 17th, 2007 @ 21:14My worcount counts 14,675 words. We have a decent-sized story here!
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 10:25When you say seventy pages, do you mean seventy printed-out pages, or seventy book pages?
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E2MB
in April 18th, 2007 @ 11:05Judging from the size of my word document, this story would make a 70-page long paperback book. On Microsoft Word, it only fills about 40 pages, but that’s because the size of the page is a standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper.
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 12:15Hmm, I’ve done an expiriment before. I typed out a page of a hardcover on Word, and I think it was about a quarter of a page long. So if the story was forty pages (I pasted it into Word just to see, and it came out 37, but that was with no editing at all,) so there might be about 160 pages on a hardcover. I’ll do that again, just to make sure, but it could actually be a short-ish novel if I’m right.
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 12:20No, your estimation is more likely.
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E2MB
in April 18th, 2007 @ 12:25Thanks, Alice, for collecting it all!
Here is my slightly edited version. I have numbered it into 111 sections, so if you see errors you can tell me which section it is in and I can correct the error.
[Edit deleted 4/20/07 to save space and load time. Newer versions are available. –Robert]
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E2MB
in April 18th, 2007 @ 12:27It zapped the end of my post! Here’s what I said:
Maybe we could have a seperate “editing” thread with this text at the top and people can make comments on it.
~~~
[Edit deleted 4/20/07 to save space and load time. Newer versions are available. –Robert]
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 13:30In paragraph 3, “isles” should be “aisles”.
Alright, this isn’t in any specific paragraph, but we need to fix it. Kari can’t go on thinking that she and Ian are so similar, and then it’s revealed that she’s a renegade Container! We could stand to make her a litle older when she was kidnapped by the parents, because then she can thing’sa like “Mom’s gone”, but we should take out or edit the bits were she says that Ian and her have the same background story.
26-27. Why did Ian faint if he didn’t know what a Container was?!?! I mean, it makes sense that he doesn’t know what a Container is, but we should put in something like:
“Ian had no idea what a Container was, but yet another surprise from Kari was too much for him after the events of the past four centidays, and he fainted.” What do you think?
Oh, and in 27, “Master race,” should be in apostrephes, not quotation marks.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 18th, 2007 @ 16:47The first RRR to actually have a conclusion. Mundocoolio.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 18th, 2007 @ 16:58As soon as we have this edited up, can we write a sequel?
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Cat's Meow
in April 18th, 2007 @ 17:38102-Cool! And in only 1 1/3 threads, too! =o
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 18:41102- What?! You’re kidding. Well, actually, you probably aren’t. If that’s true, I will have to personally conclude anything I write on, if no one else does. I can’t stand loose ends like that.
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 18th, 2007 @ 18:47103-I’ve been editing it.
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 19:39Aw, darn, according to Wiki, our story doesn’t even qualify as a a novella, much less a novel. However, it’s a bit longer than your average short story. Sigh. But at least it has an ending.
Anyway, back to the proofreading!
paragraph 39. It ought to be “you’re making a fool of yourself” instead of “your making a fool of yourself”. paragraph 42 made the same mistake. 32-44. If there are hundreds of moons in the solar system, then Ian shouldn’t know what Kari means when she says “we’re going to the moon.” 45- the word said is used twice in a row. 68- Ian can’t have seen a parrot in books, because all the photos were taken out. 71- Same thing. 72- “There eyes could make out a man.” it should be “their eyes”.
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Cat's Meow
in April 18th, 2007 @ 19:56107-Where does it say the qualifications?
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Alice
in April 18th, 2007 @ 20:09108- Short Story- “Determining what exactly separates a short story from longer fictional formats is problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting, a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846). Other definitions place the maximum word length at 7,500 words. In contemporary usage, the term short story most often refers to a work of fiction no longer than 20,000 words and no shorter than 1,000.”
Novella- “A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. While there is some disagreement of what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000 or 85 to 300 pages.”
See?
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Prarilius Canix
in April 19th, 2007 @ 16:55Well, it’s cool that we even finished it. We don’t have to get it published (though it would be really, really froody.)
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 17:52Or here’s an idea! You know how we’re gonna write a sequel? Well, we could write a couple of sequels (you know we will), stick ’em together, and have a book! TERRA: formed (is that how you write it? I don’t really get it, though it sure sounds cool) could be part one, TERRA: (insert here) could be part two, and TERRA: (once again insert here) could be part three. Or we could just call the book TERRA, and the parts could be formed, ?, and ?.
I like that idea. What do you guys think? Could we get started as soon as poss? No rush though, E2MB.
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 18:04111-Oh! That would be a cool idea! Like, you could write three books and then you could have Parts I, II, and III within that book! That would put it at about 400 pages, which would put it within novel status.
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 18:05Typo in the past post: Three PARTS, not three books.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 19th, 2007 @ 18:26111- I totally want to get started on that!
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Prarilius Canix
in April 19th, 2007 @ 18:47One problem that has to be resolved. What are betwers? I think they should be silicon-based life forms that pre-World War Last scientists genetically engineered to provide cheap labor around the colonies, especially the ones with no atmosphere. Now, they are recognized as an independent, sentient species. Most of their colonies are on airless worlds that are completely unterraformable. They are somewhat between robots and living things, hence the name. (Originally betweener, but shortened to betwer after they’d been around so long that hardly anybody remembered where they came from in the first place.)
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 18:48Oh, yes! Let’s! I don’t think E2MB is still working on editing this one, because he posted the whole story.
Here’s a mistake that’s made throughout the whole thing. Nuclear is spelled nuclear, not neucular.
So, GAPAs, will you make a new thread? Pretty please?
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 18:51115- I like.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:03(116) There’s no reason you can’t begin the next part on this thread. It’s still on the main page and not much over 100 posts. You could start the new section in bold-faced lettering or otherwise make the demarcation line clear.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:11RRR, version 2007.2, Book 2, part 1
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Insane Moose (FfD)
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:15Betwers have black, hard, metallic hides, and are crab shaped.
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:30Alright, so I have an idea. I shall begin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Five betrens. And that’s final,” said Kari firmly.
“Seven,” said the betwer.
“FIVE.”
“Six,” said the betwer, but it’s argument was weak, and within minutes Kari was gripping the can of food paste tightly as she, Ian and Jaa walked back to the ship.
Less than a week had passed since Io exploded, but the three adventurers were already much richer than they ever had been. Kari could easily have spent twice as much on the food paste and still have been well off.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:30Just got back after almost two days! Haven’t fixed any errors (yet)
but I will now! *opens Word Document and begins to correct errors*All right, in the sequel, do we pick up where we left off, or start a new thing? If we pick up where we left off, we can start writing right away.
(By the way, this story does have a rather abrupt ending. If we think this story and it’s eventual sequel go together, we could merge them together so they’ll be big enough to qualify as a novel.)
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:38119- Book 2? Did I miss a whole previous book? Oh my god, the world is crumpling around my ears! Or maybe we’re just interpreting it differently.
122- We’re going to. See, I just wrote the first post of Part 2.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:43Made all the grammer and clarity changes Alice mentioned, and added a phrase when it was necessary to do that in order to make the change.
New question: Where should the chapters be? I want to have some input before I decide anything myself.
The annoying thing is I can’t keep posting the further-edited versions because they’re too long. Perhaps the GAPAs could snip the previous version when I post a new edited version?
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:48124-Either that or a thread where the story is posted, and then the GAPAs could change the first post at will as people post edits on the rest of the thread. This one could be for writing and the other one could be for editing.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:53Spell-and-grammercheck is super useful. Now I have completely wiped out any spelling and grammer errors from our story. It still took a while, though.
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:56125- Like that idea.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 19:57All posts after 120 have just been moderated, so I can just now see them.
123 – He was announcing that we shall now begin to write the sequel.
121 – Wait! Isn’t that cutting ahead a bit? Or maybe that could be a future-flash and then we describe their adventures and how they got rich.
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:00127-I think it would be convinient because we could see our edits minutes after we make them.
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:03Thank you, E2MB. I can do that in the future if you’re tired of it, but if you’re not, then I’d just as soon not do it.
Actually, to tell the truth, I rather like doing that to my own stories, but I feel awkward taking such liberties with other people’s, plus I’m a control freak and like to change things where they don’t seem to fit together or where I think something else would sound better. That last isn’t a big issue if I’m not taking dictation. Instead of doing that, though, I will compile a list of all the people who worked on this, because I’m a list freak too.
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:05130-Keep in mind that thus far I haven’t worked on it. I’ve just read it and made random comments about the editing process. xD
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:05128- I was actually thinking they got rich from selling that fuel that the betwers would pay through their non-existent noses for.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:11E2MB, there’s a new thread when you’re ready to post the complete draft.
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:15133-Would it be possible for the GAPAs to edit that one post at our request so that we don’t have to repost it every time?
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:21Okay, here’s the list of people who contributed. These are only people who actually wrote a scrap of the decided-on story so far, which is why there are some people who aren’t on here. I’m really sorry Cat’s Meow, but you’re not on here quite yet. When you post some bit of story, then you will be.
*Prarilius Canix
*Kiki the Great
Pheobe
*Shadowkat
i bet that you look good on the dance floor
*twilightswordsman
*Amanda
kt the gr8
burnzkid
*Pentatonikk
*Insane moose
*E2MB
*Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
pie parade
agagabagabag
*Alice
Some of these people have posted hardly anything. The people who posted more than once have stars by them.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in April 19th, 2007 @ 20:34(134) Can you just post the edits themselves? If E2MB keeps the numbered sections, it shouldn’t be too difficult to do. Then we’ll see whether we’re able to bring the full version up to date from time to time.
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Kiki the Mindbogglingly Magnificently Great
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:01Erm, E2MB, paragraphs 21 and 22 need to be expanded. A lot. FYI, you know.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:11137 – Yes, those sections are a bit rushed. I’ll see if I can write a longer version, and if anyone else can, that would be great.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:13135 – I don’t see Fishing for Stars on there. She’s contributed a few times.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:13oops I mean fishing for dreams.
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:21135-Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t want to be on that list unless I’ve actually contributed.
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:34I will change the beginning of book 2.
Or maybe it will be a prologue.
____________________________
Things were not going well at the Parents headquarters. Ever since renegade KRI and JAA had escaped security had tripled over night. Some systems were simple, but others were devastatingly complicated. In one corridor an image was captured when someone entered. If it did no match the records on the database huge steel triangles slid up from the floor, quickly unfolding into squares of metal origami. At others the floor rose up and portcullises slammed down trapping the intruder. Every door was fitted with a scanner that detected sulfur. If gunpowder was detected an alarm would go off and high speed cameras would make sure the face did not go unnoticed. The beauty of the alarm system was that it went off in every room except the room that had activated it. A break-in was hardly possible…
((any good? I think it should be an intro))
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:46142-Gunpowder? They still use gunpowder that far in the future? Maybe we should change it to “If an autospear was detected an alarm would go off and high speed cameras would make sure the face did not go unnoticed.” to make it fit with the era more. Is that okay?
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Cat's Meow
in April 19th, 2007 @ 21:47But I do like that intro. Would we skip straight from there to the marketplace where Kari, Jaa, and Ian are?
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 22:05130 – I sort of feel the same way, but not to as much of a degree as to not want to do it.
143 – Sounds okay.
Maybe we could put both segments together. Have Alice’s first, the LR’s second.
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Alice
in April 19th, 2007 @ 22:15139, 140- Fishing for Dreams is grnqwn0112 (or something like that) as well as Kermit the Tennis Racket and Insane Moose.
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E2MB
in April 19th, 2007 @ 22:27Ah, she’s Insane Moose. Forgot…
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Prarilius Canix
in April 20th, 2007 @ 16:32((Contd. from the marketplace.))
“Hey, Kari!”
Kari spun around. Across the hangar, she saw Ian waving from on top of their tiny ship, the Victory. Jaa was only half visible, his upper torso, head and arms buried in the ship’s innards behind an open panel. Muffled Terran curses came from deep in the wiring, usually accompanied by loud clanks.
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Alice
in April 20th, 2007 @ 16:41“I got some food,” said Kari when she reached the ship. Ian looked dolefully at the food paste, remembering the flavor of the Parents’ food, but he did not complain. It was food, after all.
The fuel had proved remarkably tricky to sell, despite the fact that the betwers obviously wanted it, and at one point they had been forced to flee Deimos for a day or two and land elsewhere, after Kari had demanded a most exorbitant price for a can of the fuel. As a result of these relatively minor incidents, it had been some time before they had managed to get food, and the Parents’ stash of TV dinners had gone quickly.
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chocokoko
in April 20th, 2007 @ 16:43didnt we finish this already?
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Prarilius Canix
in April 20th, 2007 @ 17:48150- We are doing a sequel.
Kari caught Ian’s expression. “Don’t worry. I have an idea.”
Jaa emerged from the ship, his white-blond hair stained an oily black. “What is it?”
“The Parents are probably paying more attention to their headquarters after Project Neoterra failed, and less to their other outposts, such as the illegal habitats that they have orbiting Terra.”
She paused, waiting for the penny to drop.
Ian gasped. “You don’t seriously mean… ”
Jaa grinned. “Why not? If we capture one of them and move it into a different orbit, we’ll have a home base and somewhere to get food. Real food, not just this paste.”
“But there are only three of us! And our only ship is an escape pod! It’s minuscule!”
“Don’t worry,” Kari said. “I sold one canister of fuel to the Betwer for the food, and three others for a little addition to the ship. Jaa?”
“Everything’s ready for the linkup,” Jaa replied. “Come on, let’s go over to the maintenance dock.”
“We’re going to attach more powerful engines, a storage module, and maybe a couple of weapons,” Kari explained as they boarded. “I sold the canisters to a guy who runs the best illegal ship upgrading business in the inner planets.”
“Illegal???”
“Sure. We would never be able to afford a legal one. And we can’t go gallivanting around the solar system in a tiny little pod like this. After the upgrade, we can call ourselves proper traders.”
“But the ship still won’t be able to haul an entire habitat! Those things are almost a mile around!”
“It has its own engines, and Jaa and I are Containers, so we’ll be authorized to operate them.”
“But you’re renegades!” His voice dropped to a whisper here. “They’ll have erased your DNA from the database.”
“Nah. They’re too busy trying to keep Project Neoterra afloat to attend to little details like that.”
Et cetera, et cetera. All the way to the maintenance dock, Kari ruthlessly crushed Ian’s objections. By the time they reached the dock, he actually thought it was a good idea.
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 20th, 2007 @ 21:46151-is ‘Et cetera, et cetera” supposed to be there or are you just saying that?
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E2MB
in April 20th, 2007 @ 22:47This sequel, so far, is totally awesome. I won’t be able to add much to the story, though, because I’m still editing the first story.
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Alice
in April 21st, 2007 @ 11:07Gah, I have writer’s block!
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E2MB
in April 21st, 2007 @ 11:49I can compile the second story. I won’t edit it, I’ll just record it.
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E2MB
in April 21st, 2007 @ 12:13Inspiration! (where’s that light-bulb smiley when you need it? sigh)
~~~
As they reached the matinence dock, Kari pulled out her list of upgrades they wanted to get and which ones they could afford.
“First things first,” said Kari. “We need a bigger ship.”
Ian glanced at the escape pod, which was roughly the size of a small room. [If people have said it is bigger, correct me.]
Kari looked at the upgrades availible. “We’ll take that one,” she said, pointing at a drawing of a storage module that could be added easily to the side of any ship. It would almost double the size of their escape pod.
“Second things second,” Kari continued. “Better engines. Can we have size 4, please?” Ian looked at their own engines, which were size 1. Everything on an escape pod was the cheapest availible, as the pods probably wouldn’t be used anyway.
“Third things third,” said Kari. “We need some weapons.” [I don’t have inspiration here. Somebody else will need to continue it.]
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Prarilius Canix
in April 21st, 2007 @ 13:35Et cetera, et cetera is indeed supposed to be there.
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E2MB
in April 21st, 2007 @ 14:47Is somebody else the keeper for Part 2 or can I do it?
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Alice
in April 21st, 2007 @ 15:40I’m going to keep some of it, but I don’t want to be officially keeper, since I use two computers and it’s awkward to be on one and then remember that the rest of the story is on the other.
You be keeper.
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E2MB
in April 21st, 2007 @ 16:23Okey-dokey then.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 21st, 2007 @ 18:18Kari turned to Ian and Jaa. “Any suggestions?”
“Well,” Jaa said, thinking, “we don’t want to kill anyone. I’d say a couple of high-power magnabeams- they’ll shut down ships and knock people out, but nothing fatal.”
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Alice
in April 21st, 2007 @ 20:20“Nothing fatal?” Ian nearly shouted. His arm was still not back to normal, and he was very sensitive to any mention of magnabeams.
“The good ones aren’t,” Jaa explained. “It’s the low-quality beams that can kill.”
This didn’t much sense at all, and Ian said so.
“They were only designed a few years ago, to stun but not kill.” By a few years ago, Jaa meant a few decades ago, but being frozen had messed up his sense of years and decades. “They were mostly used by the top government ships. Then the weapons manufacturers realized that magnabeams would be a huge hit among traders and so forth, and started making them. But the originals were very fine-tuned, and it was something that couldn’t be duplicated. I guess even the Parents couldn’t get their hands on real government magnabeams.”
“But if they couldn’t, how could we?”
“As it happens,” replied Kari, “This particular maintenance dock has some. Second-hand, of course, but it will do.”
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E2MB
in April 22nd, 2007 @ 15:46Dangit! Three new threads and bye-bye to this being on the main page!
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Alice
in April 22nd, 2007 @ 16:27Well, it being on the main page hasn’t exactly helped it.
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Cat's Meow
in April 22nd, 2007 @ 16:31Sorry, I’ve been wanting to write but I’m currently lacking inspiration. So, of course I’m dedicating my time to editing part 1. I’ll try and get something in, though.
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E2MB
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 10:30This page now has a link on the lost threads page, but I’m out of inspiration too.
I’ll try and think of something.
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E2MB
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 11:35Ahem.
——————————————————————————–
Ian figured as they had already been doing so much illegal stuff anyway, it wouldn’t matter if they got some smuggled weapons on their ship.
After the upgrades had been installed, the trio climbed aboard their new, improved ship. “Which habitat do you think we should try and take over?” Kari as the started up the powerful engines. “The one orbiting at 14 degrees latitude has a good variety of life in it,” Jaa replied.
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Alice
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 11:47Look, what’s the point of writing 2 books if everyone promptly runs out of ideas? I will write as much as is necessary so that this book doesn’t get abandoned, but if this doesn’t pick up then we should just stick with what we’ve got.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several hours later they were blasting off from Deimos on a test run. Jaa and Ian wanted to leave right then (well, mostly Jaa,) but Kari was firm. They had to see how the ship worked first, because who knows what could happen?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s not much, but hopefully it’s enough to get things moving again.
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Alice
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 11:48Hmm, let’s use E2MB’s.
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E2MB
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 20:10We both wrote before each other’s comments got moderated? Unusual.
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Alice
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 20:16Yeah. It’s just us here. This is sad.
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E2MB
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 20:40I think both of our posts make sense together if there’s a chapter break inbetween them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They got a relatively bumpy ride, but Jaa was pleased with the speed of the ship. “We clocked 70 minutes and 22 seconds over 148,800,000 miles,” he proudly announced as they pulled into Ganymede’s dock. “That’s almost 1/5 the speed of light!” Kari exclaimed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wait. I just thought of something. They’re going to hijack the things orbiting Mars. It doesn’t really make sense for them to test drive exactly where they’re going to go. Let’s change that to Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. Does that work?
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Alice
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 20:59Ian said nothing. He was a proper trader now, supposedly, as well as an outlaw, but even though traders often bent the law, and outlaws outright broke it, he still felt uncomfortable doing anything illegal. He voiced something that had been bothering him since Io.
“Guys?” he said uncertainly. Kari and Jaa turned. “You both burnt out your microchips, but I didn’t. I’m still trackable. And probably being tracked, too.”
“No, you’re not,” said Kari. She pushed up his sleeve. There was the green pinprick of light that signified a microchip. “It’s still there,” said Ian bluntly.
“That doesn’t mean you’re trackable,” replied Kari. “Remember the magnabeam? It struck this arm, right? That would have shut it off as effectively as if you’d died. And you have the bonus of it still looking like it’s there. Much less conspicuous than a gaping hole in your arm. “
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Prarilius Canix
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 21:47173- That was the exact purpose I had in striking Ian’s arm with the magnabeam, only I never got around to writing it. Muserly minds think alike.
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Alice
in April 23rd, 2007 @ 22:03Cool! Cool-ly weird.
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Alice
in April 24th, 2007 @ 11:00We should go to Mars at some point.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 24th, 2007 @ 16:48176- The only places they haven’t visited are Mars, Phobos, Europa and Callisto.
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Hydropastrican Grand Admiral Prarilius Canix, Captain of the Black-footed Ferret and the Zommer Vaycayshun
in April 24th, 2007 @ 17:25((We know Mars is war-torn, because of a mention in the first part of the story. Let’s visit there at some point.))
“Wow.” Ian suddenly felt as though a huge weight, one he’d had all his life, had lifted from his shoulders. He still couldn’t comprehend it completely- no microchip!- but he knew it was good.
“We’ll need to refuel this,” Jaa said. “I’ll drive it over to the fuel tanks.”
“No, I’ll do it,” Kari said. “I’ve seen Ganymede five times. You guys, if I’m correct, are new to this place. You might want to look around.”
Jaa grinned. “Sure, why not? I hear the Great Cavern is breathtaking.”
As Ian and Jaa got off the Victory and stepped into the elevator leading to the lower levels, Ian tried to remember all he could about Ganymede. Cavern City, where they were now, consisted of two main parts. The first was the Spire, a massive tower that loomed up seven hundred feet from the icy, barren surface. Docks lined the walls in a spiral pattern, and all of the spacefaring businesses were crammed into capsules on its inside.
Below the Spire was the Great Cavern, a huge cave half-filled with water. A triple volcano, its lava generated by the constant gravitational pull of Jupiter, kept the subterranean sea from freezing. In the low gravity, fantastic towers and crenelations of ice had formed on the cavern ceiling as the water melted and refroze. The rest of the city’s population dwelt in living units anchored to the icy stalactites. Ian was looking forward to seeing it.
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E2MB
in April 24th, 2007 @ 20:00Prarilus Canix, you are a very good writer. Those words painted such a dazzling, vivid picture in my mind that by far pwned every description in part 1.
Is Victory the name of their ship?
~~~~~~~~~~~
When the elevator door opened, Ian was more facsinated then he could have imagined. All the lights flashing off the stalactites across the ceiling created an eerie feeling, while the water contrasted the greenish-white ceiling with black and dark blue. There were shops everywhere, buying and selling, and people traveled around the underground sea on personal hovercrafts.
Ian and Jaa had a fair bit of time to look around, while Kari would be negotiating fuel prices on the Spire. As they both walked out onto the steel platform, they approached a hovercraft rental. The price was steep, but they had plenty of money to pay with.
Ian, in the midst of sheer excitement in the depths of Cavern City, almost rammed his hovercraft into a wall. “Slower,” said Jaa, “We can’t run into people or we could cause a disturbance and get thrown out.”
But a disturbance found them first. As they rode through an empty section of sea closer to the main part of the city, they were forced to turn around by a mob of people going the opposite direction. Apparently something had happened.
Meanwhile, Kari was looking for some good fuel. She had almost found what she needed when she found out that it was some of her own canisters of fuel she had sold a while ago. The spire was a crowded place, and it took a great deal of time to move from one place to another. She eventually found another fuel dealer.
“I’d like some canisters of something between quality 100 and quality 110 fuel,” she told the woman who was at the front, hoping to be more specific than last time. “We have 4 canisters left of quality 108 fuel.” said the woman.
Kari did a quick mental calculation. Their ship would be able to travel 1 AU on one canister of quality 100 fuel. Mars was a little more than 2 AUs away. Would that be enough?
“Do you have any more in that range?” she asked. “I’m afraid not,” said the woman. “A lot of private ships have been asking for fuel lately and we’re just about out.” Sighing, Kari paid for the fuel and started to return toward the ship.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know this is a lot to add in one post, but I know we need to keep this story moving and I had some inspiration.
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Hydropastrican Grand Admiral Prarilius Canix, Captain of the Black-footed Ferret and the Zommer Vaycayshun
in April 24th, 2007 @ 20:13“What’s going on?” Ian gasped.
Jaa looked around. Then his mouth dropped open. “It can’t be… ”
A sleek, black hovercraft was powering over the water toward them. At the controls was a young woman, her features obscured by the shaded carboglass windscreen. Another one, a man, was standing upright, holding a magnabeam in his hand. He had the unmistakable white-blond hair and green eyes of a Container.
Ian pulled the hovercraft around in a hard right. A slash of white spray cut the dark water as the small boat powered up and shot forward.
Jaa knew what they wanted. They needed him to reconstruct the gravitational engines for Project Neoterra. And they didn’t care what they did to get him.
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Alice
in April 24th, 2007 @ 20:49180- It’s blue eyes. See the edit, paragraph 20-some, when it says Kari’s eyes are blue. Your later post had to be modified. But I think that green eyes are more- I don’t know, something. Maybe we should modify it back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kari was halfway back to the Victory when she heard a commotion behind her. She turned and saw, beyond all the people, two hovercrafts racing across the water. As she watched, a thin pulse of magnetic energy, visible only to Kari, with her superior vision, shot out from the black hovercraft towards the smaller one. Which held Ian and Jaa. Her vision zoomed in almost of her own accord. That wasn’t just any man, it was a Container. And not just any Container…
“Oh, God, no,” Kari whispered. “Is he invincible?”
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Alice
in April 24th, 2007 @ 20:50Oops. “Her vision zoomed in almost of its own accord” I meant to say.
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E2MB
in April 24th, 2007 @ 20:56181 – Yea. Green just sounds…better, I guess. I’ll change it back on my draft.
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Kiki the Great
in April 25th, 2007 @ 08:52Naah. If she’s a Container, wouldn’t it rule to have her eyes be purple or yellow?
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 09:55Yellow? *shudder* Amber would be okay if she was darker, but with white-blond hair? And purple ditto.
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Kiki the Great
in April 25th, 2007 @ 10:47Aww. It’s okay. But green is to Potter-y.
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 13:28I don’t see that, actually. For one thing, she has light hair; for another, she’s not talented, she’s genetically modified; for yet another thing, lots of people have green eyes; and if you want ANOTHER thing,(even if you don’t want it) this is nothing like Harry Potter.
Sorry for the rant.
Can we get on with the story?
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E2MB
in April 25th, 2007 @ 15:37Yes. Let’s do that.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was Kerj.
Kari quickly ducked out of sight, as if Kerj saw her, all three of them would be doomed.
After the ship had passed, Kari sprinted to Victory and quickly set the controls to follow it. There was something that puzzled her, though. The ship was heading toward Saturn and beyond. All the planets and dwarf planets back there were too cold and had not been terraformed. What could Kerj want there?
~~~~~~~~~~
Is that what Alice had in mind? It being Kerj, I mean?
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 15:54It most certainly was. Not sure why. Kind of because of the carboglass, I think. That’s very un-wrapped-up. Besides, he’s a good character.
Hey, has anyone else seen that there’s a planet in the constellation Libra that is habitable? Off topic. Sorry. I don’t have any ideas right now though.
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E2MB
in April 25th, 2007 @ 16:08189 – Check out the random thread for more information.
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 16:13189- I did.
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Hydropastrican Grand Admiral Prarilius Canix, Captain of the Black-footed Ferret and the Zommer Vaycayshun
in April 25th, 2007 @ 16:56The hovercraft is inside the Great Cavern, not out in space. I’ll put a post in between the two to make it work.
~
(post 181)
Jaa pressed a button marked EMERGENCY DOCK on the hovercraft. It rose dramatically, the acceleration flattening them on the floor, before it snapped into place in the dock. Ian and Jaa leaped out and dashed into the elevator.
The other hovercraft’s windscreen extended into a wraparound canopy, and it shot upward with a roar of rockets. It smashed into the bottom of the elevator shaft, which ruptured like tissue paper. In exactly three seconds, it blasted out the top of the Spire with a screeching of tortured metal. The elevator was balanced on top of it. The good news was that the elevator was airtight, had its own electrolysis unit (which would convert the carbon dioxide back into oxygen), and was magnetic, so it stuck to the hovercraft-turned-ship’s hull. The bad news was that Ian and Jaa were still in the elevator, and the ship was rapidly accelerating out of Ganymede’s thin atmosphere.
“Oh no,” Kari muttered, running back towards the Victory. She’d recognized one of the Containers in the hovercraft.
(post 188)
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 17:04192- But she’d already recognized him! (181) Oh well. It’ll come right in the end.
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E2MB
in April 25th, 2007 @ 17:05192 – It still doesn’t quite make sense.
Kari was halfway back to the Victory when she heard a commotion behind her. She turned and saw, beyond all the people, two hovercrafts racing across the water. As she watched, a thin pulse of magnetic energy, visible only to Kari, with her superior vision, shot out from the black hovercraft towards the smaller one. Which held Ian and Jaa. Her vision zoomed in almost of her own accord. That wasn’t just any man, it was a Container. And not just any Container…
“Oh, God, no,” Kari whispered. “Is he invincible?”
Jaa pressed a button marked EMERGENCY DOCK on the hovercraft. It rose dramatically, the acceleration flattening them on the floor, before it snapped into place in the dock. Ian and Jaa leaped out and dashed into the elevator.
The other hovercraft’s windscreen extended into a wraparound canopy, and it shot upward with a roar of rockets. It smashed into the bottom of the elevator shaft, which ruptured like tissue paper. In exactly three seconds, it blasted out the top of the Spire with a screeching of tortured metal. The elevator was balanced on top of it. The good news was that the elevator was airtight, had its own electrolysis unit (which would convert the carbon dioxide back into oxygen), and was magnetic, so it stuck to the hovercraft-turned-ship’s hull. The bad news was that Ian and Jaa were still in the elevator, and the ship was rapidly accelerating out of Ganymede’s thin atmosphere.
“Oh no,” Kari muttered, running back towards the Victory. She’d recognized one of the Containers in the hovercraft.
It was Kerj.
Kari quickly ducked out of sight, as if Kerj saw her, all three of them would be doomed.
After the ship had passed, Kari sprinted to Victory and quickly set the controls to follow it. There was something that puzzled her, though. The ship was heading toward Saturn and beyond. All the planets and dwarf planets back there were too cold and had not been terraformed. What could Kerj want there?
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Alice, who is fond of grey, white, black, brown, and multicolored rabbits, but not pink ones. Or at least not the pink ones that inhabit this blog.
in April 25th, 2007 @ 17:16How about instead of “she’d recognized one of the containers in the hovercraft. It was Kerj.”, let’s say “The Container that she’d recognized ought to have been dead by now. It was Kerj.”
That way it’s not as redundant. Quite. You can substitute some else if you think it would be better, E2MB.
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E2MB
in April 25th, 2007 @ 17:47Waaack. I totally misunderstood something. Let’s replace the first line of 181 to “Kari had put the fuel in their ship and had gone to the underground part of cavern city to tell Ian and Jaa that they could get going to Mars when she heard a commotion behind her.”
And I’ll redo post 188. That way we won’t have to use post 192.
~~~~~~~~~~~
It was Kerj.
Kari quickly ducked out of sight, as if Kerj saw her, all three of them would be doomed.
“Gangway!” screamed Jaa, as he turned the hovercraft onto full speed in a desprate attempt to break free from the grasp of the magnetic pulse when he ran into a cavern wall and found himself tunneling through Ganaymede’s rough soil, the magnetic sheild pushing the dirt out of the way.
“YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE ME,” roared Kerj, “AND YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR DESTRUCTION OF THE ARTIFICIAL-GRAVITY MACHINES.” And with that he released the magnetic sheild, just as Ian and Jaa’s hovercraft burst through the surface of the planet.
~~~~~~~~~~~
We could continue off of that. Does it make more sense?
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 20:31Okay. It would make more sense, if I wasn’t already confused and dizzy from staring at the screen. In other words, it makes more sense.
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Alice
in April 25th, 2007 @ 23:32The hovercraft’s engine gave a little gargle and died.
“I think we’re safe,” said Jaa. “For now.”
“‘Gangway’?” asked Ian, half amused.
“Terran,” gasped Jaa.
“Right. You’ll have to teach me Terran sometime. In the meantime, I thought these things only worked in the water?”
“Apparently not,” said Jaa.
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 12:09When the pair reached Victory , they found Kari already there, just about to blast off. “Wait!” called Ian, and Kari stopped. “I thought you had been captured by Kerj!” she said, suprised.
“We escaped,” breathed Jaa. “It’s a long story.”
They both clammered aboard, while Kari was still in a state of shock. “Turn the engines back on,” said Jaa, “We’ve got our fuel and we’re off to Mars!”
They had just blasted off when Kerj climbed out of the hole the hovercraft had made. He glanced at the sky and saw their ship. He knew who was in there. And he had no intention of them getting away…
[They are out of reach for Kerj to stop them, but Kerj can still follow them.]
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 12:11We need some more writers. Three is barely enough.
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Alice
in April 26th, 2007 @ 17:43200- No kidding.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 26th, 2007 @ 18:38Back in the Victory, Ian and Jaa were recovering from their horrifying encounter.
“How did he survive?” Ian said incredulously, referring to Kerj.
“My best guess,” Jaa replied, “is nanobots. At least three in every cell, to provide oxygen and sheathe his body in a pressure field. The Parents must have worked obsessively on him, but it paid off. He would be able to survive in up to 500 degrees Kelvin, absolute zero, or a total vacuum. He’s what they would call a perfect Container.”
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 18:47“Oh great,” groaned Kari, “He’s practically invincible.”
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twilightswordsman
in April 26th, 2007 @ 18:52you called? anyways…
“the nanobots can even protect him from some Terran weapons if necessary”, continued Jaa. “he’s the kind of container you don’t want to get on the bad side of. Unfortunately, that’s right where we are.”
“well, he can’t be too dangerous, can he?” asked Ian. “it’s not like the nanobots gve him superstrength or anything. Right?”
“uhh…well…that’s the other thing.”
“oh, no.”can u take it from there?
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twilightswordsman
in April 26th, 2007 @ 18:56i didn’t see your post, E2MB. sorry. i think mine kind of adds on to it, though.
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Cat's Meow
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:00Well, the fantastical pirates one only has 2-3 as well…and, ironically, they’re practically the same ones.
Sorry that I haven’t been helping with the writing. I’ve been trying to get Part 1 edited.
And, on a nearly irrelevent tangent, the version I’m working on just exceeded 15,000 words! With paragraph numbers, of course, so it’s probably about 100 less than that, really, but it’s improving!
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Rogue Volleyball (GQ)
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:17“Actually he does have a sort of super strength. He can see through anything, and is invincible, and can break any kind of natural element. Of course, now that Terra is gone there aren’t as many natural elements.” Jaa’s explanation was lengthy, but it helped Ian understand. Sort of.
“So, we can’t defeat him? Isn’t there something that can hurt him?” Ian asked incrulously.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll let someone else finish this, it sounds to much like Superman. You can change it, if you want.
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:39206 – You’ve added 250 additional words to our story!
207 – It does sound a little bit extreme. No offense. Maybe we could change it to:
~~~
“He is quite strong,” said Jaa, “and the nanobots can cure him of whatever injury he obtains except death. The only way we could ever get rid of him would be to kill him very quickly.”
Kari sighed. “Then we’d better get away from him,” she said suddenly, turning the speed on the Victory up a notch.
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:41“But,” said Jaa, “Pain still hurts him. So he avoids it when he can. It was one of the only things that the Parents couldn’t help him with.”
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:43Thank you people for coming back!
Btw, Cat’s Meow, the sequel is so far 2,759 words long.
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:45I’m back!!
207-Curse Superman. What’s the point if he is invincible.
______________________________
“Not tha-”
Yeah, ” said Kari, “If we could send a powerful enough electraic charge through him it would over-heat the nanobots.”
_______________________________
Maybe we could turn Kerj back into a renegade…
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Lord Ragevuire the Shadow Mage
in April 26th, 2007 @ 19:47Aack!!!!!!! Sorry. those Posts were moderated after the page reloaded….
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Alice
in April 26th, 2007 @ 20:11I’d love to write right now, but my sheep are out of sight of the house, so I have to go.
Later, I promise.
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Kiki the Great
in April 26th, 2007 @ 20:15continued from 209-
“Wait!” cried Ian in realization.
“What?” asked Jaa and Kari in unison.
“If pain hurts him, and the only way for him to be killed is to do it quickly,” he mused.
“Yes?” said Kari.
“I read this book back on Ceres about the Marsgarden Discovery,” said Ian.
Kari and Jaa looked at Ian quizzically.
“You, know,” sighed Ian. “In 2099, Terran scientists discovered a system of methane, hydrogen, and other assorted poisonous gas caves under the surface of Mars. These caves are easily accessible from the ruined Base 1, and will immediately kill any carbon-based lifeform that enters unprotected.”
Jaa still looked confused, but a look of understanding dawned upon Kari’s face.
“So,” she began.
“We throw Kerj in the Marsgarden!” announced Ian.
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 21:02“Hmmmm,” said Jaa, “He’s always trying to destroy us, so maybe we could lure him in by – ” He was interrupted by a flash from the advanced radar system, indicating that they were within 400 miles of some object. Traveling at nearly 30 miles per second, they wouldn’t want to risk slamming into something that quickly.
Kari looked at the screen. “It says there’s an object recognizable as a spaceship of some sort 38.23 miles away. It seems to be following us, as it does not get any closer or farther away while we are moving.”
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Cat's Meow
in April 26th, 2007 @ 21:13208-Yeah, and other people might have added more. Most of my stuff is just random description and corrections to stuff that doesn’t make sense. I haven’t dramatically changed anything, really.
210-Wow! ^^ We’re at a good pace! Just 5 times this and we’ll have a great Part 2! *reads eagerl*
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Cat's Meow
in April 26th, 2007 @ 21:13Sorry, eagerly.
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Alice
in April 26th, 2007 @ 21:27In 208, they already said they’d have to kill Kerj quickly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Kerj, do you think?” mused Jaa.
“Wouldn’t Kerj try to gain on us?” asked Ian. “His ship can probably go much faster than Victory.”
Kari smiled. “Not necessarily. I think you underestimate our little escape pod.” Her smile turned fierce. “Let’s see how effective those new engines were, why don’t we?”
Ian turned pale. “This is only our test run!” he remembered. “Shouldn’t we go back.”
“Not possible,” said Kari shortly. “We paid the man, so now we can do whatever we like. Anyways, we already did our test run. It worked fine, didn’t it?”
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 22:06“But the ride got pretty bumpy when we turned it up to the higher levels of speed,” said Jaa. “We may want to strap ourselves into some seats if we want to turn it up to full speed.”
—————————-
I’ll post more later.
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E2MB
in April 26th, 2007 @ 22:52“Whatever you say,” said Kari, sitting down in a chair behind her. “Now let’s turn the rockets onto full speed!” She pulled down the speedshift lever all the way to the bottom.
A force of 8 G’s crushed all three of them into their seats as the rockets flared up. The speedometer said they were approaching 80% of the speed of light. “My… vision… is… bluuury…” Ian shouted as well as he could, it required so much energy to move his mouth.
“At…. this….. rate….” said Jaa, “We’ll….. reach…. Mars….. in… minutes..”
Kari, unable to take the pressure any longer, pulled the speedshift lever up two notches. The ship slowed down some.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 10:19“it didn’t used to do that,” said Ian limply.
“That’s because this ship isn’t built to take it. We could do that in the old rescue ship easily, but Victory‘s just made for getting away.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just thought I should explain why it went all weird when the could go 90% in the rescue ship.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 10:53Scientifically speaking, going 90% of the speed of light is very unrealistic.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 10:56~~~~
“Well, it did get us away.” said Kari. “That other ship is no longer in our radar.”
~~~~
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 11:29I find it peachy keen how the three main character’s first names begin with the letters i,j,k.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 11:32222- I wasn’t the one who wrote that. It does sound unikely; maybe we should edit it.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 11:39224- Good point.
“Peachy keen”. Now there’s something you don’t hear every day. I think I like that phrase.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 12:12I had never really used it before, and it looked like it fit my word needs, so I said, “Why not?”
Does peachy keen meen it’s so sweet hot it works like that, or that it’s so keen it’s a little cheesy?
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Prarilius Canix
in April 27th, 2007 @ 12:49I was the one who wrote 90% c. You’re right, maybe we should edit that to something (relatively) more realistic. Like 1/5. I just thought that to get from the Moon to Mars to Terra in such a short time, you would need speeds unheard of today.
~
Mars appeared in the distance, first as a bright point, then as a rusty dot, then as a rapidly enlarging blood-red ball. Kari reflected that when the ancient Terrans had named that planet after their god of war, they hadn’t known how apt it would be thousands of years later.
When Mars had been subjected to the primitive terraforming techniques of the olden days, it remained uninhabitable except for a fertile belt around the equator. Several dozen colonies had already been set up when it happened, so there wasn’t enough space to go around. The only “solution” apparent was war. And war had been the zeitgeist on Mars for the past century. As such, the Red Planet was not a popular tourist destination.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 13:02228 – All this interspace travel is a bit streched. It would take at least 24 to travel 1 AU.
~~~~
As Kari slowed down the ship and began entering the cloudy atmosphere, she noticed a landing site right next to the Capitol of Mars02, the second country founded on Mars. Mars02 had bragging rights to some of the primitive Terran robots sent to Mars in the previous millinium, and it had a huge museum of these and Mars artifacts. It would have attracted more tourists if Mars01 hadn’t always been fighting Mars02, claiming it should own the peices of Mars history because it was founded first.
“Looks like some sort of riot down on the streets,” said Jaa, who knew that Mars02 citizens were relatively violent.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in April 27th, 2007 @ 13:05According to my calculations (using the handy v = v0 + at formula from physics), you could reach 90% of the speed of light by accelerating at one gravity for 318 days. Relativistic effects would make it harder.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 27th, 2007 @ 14:03We may have to put some editing into the space travel. Perhaps they have developed some sort of gravity pulse engine which warps the fabric of space in short bursts, allowing the ship to “skip” across spacetime.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 14:13231- That sounds good. I have to go now. Bye!
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Prarilius Canix
in April 27th, 2007 @ 14:21“Then why are we here?” Ian said nervously, looking down at the rioters.
“If we don’t want Kerj to chase us all around creation for the rest of our lives, we have to let him catch up to us, then get rid of him,” Kari explained. She had a catch in her voice as she said this. Ian wondered if she still had some lingering affection for her brother.
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Kiki the Great
in April 27th, 2007 @ 17:44229- Who cares? This is SCIENCE FICTION!!
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Prarilius Canix
in April 27th, 2007 @ 18:06234- Science fiction has to strike a balance between science and fiction. The almost-lightspeed travel was a little too far to the fiction side. But then again, the fiction side allows us to actually HAVE travel between planets. We just wanted an explanation for how it would move so fast.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 18:33I still can’t write, because I’m not inspired about this at the moment, but I will get back to it.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 18:58236 – I’ll write instead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As soon as they landed, a citizen of Mars02 walked up. “What in the weirdness are ya doin here?” the person barked.
“Um…” said Kari. Since they were outlaws, they couldn’t tell too much.
The strange person continued. “Well yer weird ship and such need to pay before you can park here.”
Kari went to the storage room and brought back 1 betren. “Here,” she said, handing it into this Marsican’s (that’s someone who lives on Mars, I thought Martion would sound too distracting) hand. “Hee hee,” the person shouted as he ran off. “Now I can pay my rent!”
“Cursed Marsicans,” said Kari, “I should’ve known better. Always cheaters and frauds.”
“From what I remember,” said Jaa, “The origional bases are about 170 miles north from here. The entrance to MarsGarden is at base 1. All the bases were abandoned several decade ago because they got too cold, so we should be able to sneak in.”
Ian started bounding north, soon followed by Kari and Jaa. They were able to run very quickly, as Mars’s gravity is not very strong and the air is relatively thin.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 19:01Ian looked down at the screaming mob again, weaving their way through the round domes of the buildings.
“We don’t have to go down there right away, do we?” he asked.
“No,” said Kari, but Ian’s relief was short-lived. “After all, we want Kerj to see us before we go rushing off.”
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 19:02Oh, i just wrote, but we can use yours since it came first.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 19:14We did it again! *slaps forehead*
I’ll make a transition.
(post 238)
She flipped on the radar, and set it on it’s biggest scannable setting, and then told it to look for a ship.
After 13 minutes, Kari said, “There’s a ship approximately 4,000,000 miles away from us and heading toward us at 522 miles per second!”
“Then we have about 7,660 seconds until Kerj gets here. That’s more than two hours,” said Jaa.
“What if that ship isn’t Kerj’s?” said Ian.
“We can’t take the chance,” Kari replied as she steered the ship closer to the landing pad.
(post 237)Does that work?
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 19:16.
Change that to
“Then we have about 7,660 seconds until Kerj gets here. That’s less than three hours,” said Jaa.
That makes it sound like that’s not a whole lot of time, as before it sounded like a lot of time.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 19:23Oh, thanks. Sorry I haven’t contributed more. I’m working on a story of my own, and it’s distracting.
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Red-tailed HAWK
in April 27th, 2007 @ 19:35ALICE!!! I’ve been looking for you on the blog, so I’m sorry this is really not the right place to put this. We should really have a thread where you can post telling someone about something. Anyway,
check 
out the riddles thread again. through this link!!!
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 20:15I’ve got all my homework done and I’m bored……but I have an RRR to work on!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As they got within sight of what was formerly base 1, some winds suddenly picked up. “This is making it hard to run,” said Ian, pushing against the oncoming air.
Jaa looked up. A cloud of dust was rising in the distance. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“It’s a sandstorm!” exclaimed Kari. “Those things can last for days!”
A voice shouted, “FREEZE!” just as the cloud of dust hit them.
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in April 27th, 2007 @ 20:32243- Why bother having a whole thread? You could just put someone’s name in capitals on a oft-frequented-by-them thread, and you’ll get their attention.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Oh, great, is it Kerj again?” moaned Ian, covering his head.
“How could he get here so fast?” asked Jaa frantically.
Kari was the only one of the three who had turned around, having had the good sense to turn her back to the storm. It didn’t help much, but she used her Container vision to see through the cloud of dust. “He didn’t,” she replied. “It’s not Kerj. It’s not even anyone I know.”
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 20:39“That must be Kerj!” said Jaa, right before he bumped into a building.
“You can’t see anything!” said Ian, groping around.
“Shh!” said Kari. “If we don’t speak, then he can’t find us!”
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 21:03Did we do that thing again?
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in April 27th, 2007 @ 21:33Yes! *slaps forehead again*
Let’s use yours. It’s more unpredictable.
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in April 27th, 2007 @ 21:51Off of post 245 –
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Even if it’s not Kerj, it still could be someone dangerous,” said Jaa. “Let’s head toward what remains of base 1 and hide there until we can figure out what this guy is doing here.”
“They wouldn’t be able to find us very easily, as you can’t see 5 feet in front of you right now.” said Ian.
“IT’S THEM, KERJ!” the unknown person called.
“Oh, great,” said Kari, “I think that person is Kerj’s scout!”
Jaa groped around until he hit a building. “I think I found base 1!” he hollered.
Kari turned around to look at the unknown person. A second body had joined the first. Kari saw that it was Kerj.
At that moment, she also realized an advantage they had. Kerj could not look at them or else sand would hit his eyes and cause them to hurt painfully, but Kari could look back at them and see where they were because the sand would only hit the back of her head. At least we have a chance , she thought.
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E2MB
in April 27th, 2007 @ 21:54Our sequel’s word count so far: 4,149.
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Alice
in April 27th, 2007 @ 22:21249- Change that to KRJ. Kerj and Kari are renegade names, originally KRJ and KRI. What their names were before, I have no idea. And neither do they, since they were only like 3 and 5 when the were kidnapped by the Parents.
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in April 27th, 2007 @ 23:59~~~~~~~~~
Ian walked in the direction that Jaa had called from, and soon banged against the building too. “KARI!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“We’ve got to be quiet,” said Jaa, “because we don’t want Kerj to figure out where we are.”
Running his finger along the wall, he started walking.
~~~~~~~~~
Midnight MuseBlogging is strangely irresistable. :guilty grin:
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 10:35~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ian didn’t know what to do, but he didn’t want to stay where he was, so he followed Jaa.
Pretty soon they hit a corner in the wall and Jaa had to turn. Then the wall ended, though it felt like part of it had been destroyed. Jaa and Ian went over to the other side. Jaa let Ian walk first this time, out of fairness or fear Ian didn’t know.
Suddenly as Ian was taking a step he stopped. There was no ground. He felt along and found he was at the rim of what could be a huge hole. “Jaa,” he whispered, “I’m pretty sure I’ve found MarsGarden!”
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 10:54“Great,” said Jaa. “Too bad we can’t see anything. How are we going to make this work with a raging sandstorm going on?”
“No, no,” said Ian excitedly. “This is perfect- hang on. You can’t see anything? But you’re a Container.”
“Never mind. What’s your plan?”
“You, me, and Kari all have to get to the other side of this. Then we’ll holler and yell like mad, and Kerj’ll go charging across the hole- right into the Marsgarden.”
“That would be great, except for the fact that we don’t know where Kari is.”
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 11:17But in truth, Kerj was not focused on capturing Kari. He wanted Jaa more, because the gravitational machines needed to be reconstructed and Jaa was the only one who knew how to design them.
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 11:47Kari shrank against the wall, hoping against hope that Kerj didn’t use his Container vision to find her through the sand. Using her own, she saw Kerj and the other Container- the woman who had been in the hovercraft, she presumed- walk around the building. She could see Ian and Jaa crouched over something maybe fifty yards away. Suddenly Jaa stood up. He seemed oblivious to the Containers so near at hand. Why didn’t he use his vision? Kari was practically frantic. She tried to sharpen her hearing, but Ian and Jaa were silent now. They began to walk away from Kari and the other two, following an odd pattern. The sandstorm blurred even her vision, so that Ian and Jaa were only two shadowy figures.
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 14:36Kerj pulled out a magnabeam from a concealed pocket in his coat. The sand stung his eyes, but nanobots swarmed about them, replicating the optic tissue, so he felt no need to blink or turn away. Taking precise aim, he fired, striking first Jaa, then Ian.
He turned to LAQ, the female Container."GET THEM. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DO WITH THE IMPURE ONE. I NEED JAA."
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 14:57Kari could only watch in horror as Jaa was carried away, insensible. Ian lay on the sand by the side of the Marsgarden. Kari didn’t know what to do. It would take hours to get an unconscious Ian back to the ship so that they could rescue Jaa, and by then it might be too late for both boys. It all depended on what kind of magnabeam Kerj had used…
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 15:04If he had the right equipment, he could get away with using the second-rate, dangerous, kind, and still be able to keep Jaa alive. In that case, Ian was doomed. If the Parents had been worried about the danger of killing Jaa, then they would have used the government kind. If that was true, then Ian would wake up in a few hours, confused but alive.
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 15:18Kari waited until Kerj and LAQ had vanished into the whirling sand, then ran over to Ian.
(Sorry, brief, gotta work)
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 16:12Ian woke feeling gritty and dazed. He opened his eyes, and was surprised to feel sand in them. He closed them again.
“No! Ian!” said a voice. “You have to wake up THIS MINUTE!”
Ian opened his eyes once more. “What?” he asked blearily. Kari was squatting near him, her face dirty with dust and sand. “What happened? Where’s Jaa?”
“Kerj caught up with us, remember? He shot you and Jaa with magnabeams.” “And Jaa-?” “Yes. Lucky for you the Parents wanted him alive. They didn’t use the really nasty kind of magnabeam. But now we have to rescue him.” She stood up and helped Ian up. ‘C’mon. Let’s go.”
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 16:44The sandstorm had abated, so Ian could see as well as Kari. What he saw, though, puzzled him as much as if he had been unable to.
“Kari?” he said. “Where’s the Victory?”
“Oh, no,” Kari breathed. “That other Container must have taken it.”
“And we don’t know which one Jaa is on, even if we could get off Mars!” Ian exploded, finally recognizing their dire predicament.
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 16:55237, 262- We need to work something out. E2MB, how could they run 170 miles in less than 3 hours? Don’t you think that’s pushing it a bit? Prarilius Canix, Victory was parked at/in Mars02.
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 16:56Oh, I get it. Sorry. They’re at/in Mars02 as well.
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 17:19263- He explained it. Mars’s gravity is less than half of ours. The Martian colonists’ bodies have adapted, making for a tall, rather weak people, but Jaa, Kari and Ian* are used to heavier gravity, so they can go much farther and faster. However, it does seem like stretching it a bit. Maybe reduce it to 20 miles or some such.
*I know Ian grew up on an asteroid, but Ceres has an artificial gravity generator, because nobody could function in such low gravity. So Ceres has about the same gravity as Earth.
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 20:36265 and simaler – I shall explain the math.
Mars is has only the mass of 0.11 earths. So you’d weigh about 1/3 of your weight. So you could run faster x3.
The distance: 170 miles. The time: 3 hours or less. MPH needed: 57.
That would mean if they could run for three hours at 19 miles per hour they would make it. That sounds a bit streched, but I read in a book about the moon missions that Buzz Aldrin found he could rest during the leaps and bound while running. So they should have been able to make it.
Now, let’s add more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jaa, meanwhile, was in Kerj’s main ship, chained to a wall in the control room. LAQ was piloting the Victory by their side.
“WAKE UP!!!” Kerj demanded, shaking Jaa violently until he stirred, and woke up. “Wha – who is this?” said Jaa.
“YOUNG REGENADE JAA,” said Kerj furiously, “YOU HAVE BEEN CHOKING OUR THROATS WITH YOUR DANGEROUS ANTICS.”
“Kerj!?!?” Jaa was suddenly wide awake. He looked around at his surroundings, and he fell into despair. He had not been in the power of the Parents for several weeks, and he knew what they did to traitors.
“LISTEN TO ME!!!” Kerj screamed in Jaa’s face. “YOU HAVE DESTROYED THE GRAVITY MACHINES! YOU NEED TO RECONSTRUCT THEM!”
Jaa’s face was filled with a mixture of anger and fear. “No,” he said quiety, “I – I forgot.”
Kerj grabbed Jaa around the neck. “DO NOT LIE TO ME BOY,” he said coldly, “OR YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!”
He continued, “I HAVE DECIDED TO BE MERCIFUL ON YOU. YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY IN NEED OF A COMPLETE REPROGRAMMING. BUT I WILL GIVE YOU A CHOICE.”
“YOU CAN EITHER REBUILD THOSE GRAVITY MACHINES,” Kerj paused, “OR YOU CAN GO TO RACK 50!!!” Jaa shuddered dreadfully. Rack 50 was one of the most horrible forms of torture ever invented.
Kerj suddenly let go of Jaa’s neck, and laughed as he hit the floor in a bundle of chains. I need to figure out how to get out of here, Jaa thought. If I do nothing else with my life, I must escape the parents. Suddenly an idea dawned on him. Nothing else with his life…
Jaa reached into his pocket and pulled out an autospear. It wouldn’t harm Kerj, but it would harm him. He held it up in a position to slit his wrists. “Let me go, and I will not commit suicide,” he said, with a smirk upon his face. He knew he was too valuable for the parents to let die.
“PUT THAT SPEAR DOWN, JAA,” Kerj said, with a look of worry, “OR I’LL NOT GIVE YOU A CHOICE AND SEND YOU TO RACK 60!!!”
Jaa held his auto-spear closer. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill himself, but he had to scare Kerj. “Auto-spear,” he whispered, “Attack…”
In an instant, Kerj lunged at Jaa and tackled him. “gaaaaack…” Jaa sputtered, as he was thrown to the floor. Kerj lifted his fist menacingly. “Kerj!” said Jaa. “Wait!”
But the auto-spear interpreted that it was supposed to attack Kerj. It immediately used motor skills to lift Jaa’s arm quickly and stab Kerj in the chest.
Kerj fell over in pain, and struggled to get up, but he couldn’t. He watched Jaa run to the center of the control room as he waited the eternity of 10 seconds for him to heal.
Jaa quickly jumped into an oxygen suit, thinking he’d need protection, and just as Kerj got up, revived by the ever-useful nanobots, cracked the glass in a window with his auto-spear. He squeezed through the opening just out of reach from Kerj.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He has to escape sometime.
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Alice
in April 28th, 2007 @ 21:03Ian slumped to the Martian ground. “I don’t believe it,” he moaned. “Jaa gone; the Victory gone; us trapped here… I don’t believe it.”
“I do,” said Kari. She was staring up into space with a look of extreme annoyance on her face. Nothing more than that: she had learned to control her emotions long ago.
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in April 28th, 2007 @ 21:37“But still, we have 5 betrens. That’s enough to live on for a while.”
“Is that enough to buy a ship?” Ian asked half-heartedly.
Kari would’ve laughed if they weren’t in such a state of anguish and despair. “Even the cheapest escape pods cost at least 10 betrens.” she said.
“Maybe we could earn the money,” said Ian, walking toward the main part of Monopolis, Mars02’s capitol.
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E2MB
in April 28th, 2007 @ 23:16He walked up toward a buisness’s building and went inside. It appeared to be some sort of high-tech gadget shop.
“Whyhellothereyoungman” said an employee, appearing as if from nowhere. “Wouldyouliketobuyabrandnewautospear?”
“Um, no thanks,” said Ian. “I already have one. What I’m looking for is a…”
“Pocketorganizersareveryusefulasyoucancommunicateacrossthe planetswithaminimumthirtyminutedelaythey’rethebestthingavailible forau’saroundandinstocktoowannabuyone!”
Ian spoke a bit louder. “What I’m looking for is a job . ”
The reply came quickly. “Wedonotneedyougetoutgetoutscram” and within seconds, Ian was out the door and back on the street. He made a mental note not to live on Mars when he grew up.
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Alice
in April 29th, 2007 @ 10:42“No luck there,” he told Kari.
“I thought not,” she said. “I hate Mars.”
“But you were born here.”
“I still hate it.”
~~~~~~~~~~
That was a pathetic entry, but I can’t do better at the moment.
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Cat's Meow
in April 29th, 2007 @ 11:04“Okay, so what do we do now? Sit here and mope?” Ian groaned. “I never should have left Ceres!”
“But then the Parents would have had an even easier time,” Kari said sharply. “Ian, you HAVE helped.”
“I sure don’t feel very helpful right now…” Ian whispered. “Jaa’s in trouble and I just have to sit here and feel sorry for myself. What’s worse, YOU feel sorry for me. You and Jaa could have stopped the Parents alone. I didn’t change anything.”
—Woohoo! I actually wrote a section! (Believe it or not, it’s the first time. o_0)
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 15:47271 – I applaud you contributing! You’re now on our list!!!
Continuing,
“Ian, you saved the ship from blowing at the last minute by finding the steering wheel,” Kari said. “If you hadn’t done that, we’d be dead.” Ian thought for a moment. He had forgotten all about that close shave.
“No,” he said finally, “I’ve had enough. I can’t go on like this. One of these days we won’t get so lucky and we’ll all die.” He got up. “I’m going back to Ceres.” he said. “It only costs 2 1/2 betrens, so we could both go back.”
“But what about Jaa?” said Kari. “We can’t just leave him in the hands of the parents. They’ll make him suffer beyond comprehension for all he’s done against them.”
—————————————————————————
At that moment, Jaa was floating in the middle of space. He watched Kerj’s ship and the Victory blast across the huge vaccuum of space. He would have to get onto another ship fast, as the oxygen suits lasted only 32 hours. But this was a common space route, so he expected that some sort of transportation ship would come soon.
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 15:54Sequel’s word count so far: 6041.
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Alice
in April 29th, 2007 @ 16:21273- Cool!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ian stared out the portal of the space shuttle. They were on their way back to Ceres. Ian had convinced Kari that they could concoct a plan just as well on Ceres as on Mars, and Kari hadn’t taken much convincing. She hated Mars. Ian was still in the throes of despondency, and Kari imagined that it would just be her rescuing Jaa this time.
Then Ian nudged her. “Look,” he said, “What’s that?” Kari looked. “That” was a small white figure floating in space, right in the path of the shuttle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sorry it’s a bit stilted.
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 16:39Oh that works fine. I wasn’t expecting that, and that’s good. You want to suprise readers.
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Prarilius Canix
in April 29th, 2007 @ 16:45“Good Lord,” Kari gasped. “It’s Jaa!”
She dashed out of their compartment in the shuttle, running along the antiseptically clean corridor until she reached the cockpit. The doors slid open to admit her.
The pilot swiveled around in his chair. He looked out of place in the clean environment. A mass of greasy black hair hung down over his barely visible, grimy face. “What is it? And make it quick, this here is a dangerous part of the route.”
“There’s someone out there!” Kari exclaimed. “He looks like he’s stranded in space. We have to stop the ship!”
The pilot deliberately looked the other way. “No can do.”
Desperate, Kari slammed the remainder of her funds onto the control panel. It only amounted to 2.5 betrens.
“Got anything else?” the pilot asked. “If not, vamoose.”
Kari’s response was eloquent. It consisted of a punch in the face, a shove off the chair, and a quick jerk of the retro-rocket lever. The ship shuddered to a halt.
The pilot looked up from his position on the floor, propping himself up with an elbow. “You’ll be fined for that. Probably do some time in jail, too. Striking a ship official, piloting without a license, endangering crew and passengers-” He was cut off abruptly by a kick in the nose. Kari knew that she, Ian and Jaa had broken dozens of laws already. A few more wouldn’t make any difference.
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 17:14Jaa saw the shuttle heading toward him. He swam through space to try and get in a position where he could grab onto the vehicle, but it stopped right in front of him, with only a few feet to spare.
The driver tried yelling something to Jaa, but Jaa couldn’t hear it as sound doesn’t travel in space. Jaa took it as a cue to climb aboard, so he reached out, scrambled onto the shuttle roof, and climbed down through an emergency escape hatch. There was an airlock, so Jaa did not cause the shuttle to blow up. When Jaa got inside the airlock it opened, sending him right on top of the seats where Ian and Kari were.
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 17:25Two different storylines arrived at the same time AGAIN . *reads PC’s post* That one’s better. I’ll add onto it.
~~~~~~~
“Get him to pass out,” said Kari quickly, as she got a peice of rope and scrambled into the emergency exit’s airlock. Ian didn’t know what to do. He was fine with breaking laws that were made by the cruel Parents, but he didn’t feel he could hurt another human being.
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 19:20The pilot, whose nose was bleeding, started to recover from seeing stars. Ian didn’t have much time to make a choice.
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Alice
in April 29th, 2007 @ 21:16Okay. Lots happened while I was away. You didn’t expect that, E2MB? I thought it was obvious. Oh, well, plot twists are good. Really good, in fact.
278- I don’t think the Parents make laws. Unless they’re a government thing, which I have mentioned previously (on the edit) and no one replied to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ian rapped the pilot lightly on the crown. The man looked up at him contemptfully. “That all you can do, kid?”
Ian hit him a little harder, but not much. The pilot seized his arm and twisted it. Ian, whose nerves still hadn’t healed entirely, collapsed in shock.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We should change it if that seems to implausible. I’m not so sure how magnabeams effect someone, so if necessary we can change it so he just collapsed because it hurt. Same outcome, different reason.
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E2MB
in April 29th, 2007 @ 21:43Kari had gotten through the airlock and had thrown a rope to Jaa. They couldn’t talk to each other as sound doesn’t travel in space, but Jaa understood that he was getting rescued.
As soon as Jaa and Kari had gotten into the air lock and it was beginning to close, Jaa took off the top part of his oxygen suit. “How did you get here?” he said, still shocked that Kari herself would be the one rescuing him from floating in space.
“Ian and I got a shuttle to Ceres, and I hijacked the ship so I could rescue you.”
“You hijacked this shuttle?” Jaa marveled. “You aren’t a warrior Container for nothing.” The air lock opened, and they dropped into the control room. Ian was lying on the floor. The pilot was standing up, his nose dripping blood, and he didn’t look happy.
“Um…Kari,” whispered Jaa, “I thought you hijacked the ship…”
That Ian. thought Kari. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 16:24“You are in big, big trouble,” began the pilot. He picked up a pocket organizer. “Guards! I need some guards!” he barked. “Control room!” Instantly a pounding of footsteps could be heard.
Kari realized she was out of time. She ran forward, grabbed the speed throttle, and pulled it down to top speed. The force blasted everybody in the shuttle backward. The pilot fell backward and his hand slammed hard on the floor, while Jaa got pushed into a file cabnit and Ian just rolled across the ground and bumped into the door.
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 16:28“Now that all three of us are together and we have a good transportation vessel,” said Kari as she steered the shuttle right, “We can go and rescue our ship!”
She had forgotten one small detail, though: there were passengers on board who needed to get to Ceres.
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grnqween2011
in April 30th, 2007 @ 16:32The ship, now rocketing through space, had little room to maneuver in. The guards, who’d come out of nowhere, were nothing more than small robots, easily defeatable by Kari. When everyone surrounding the three outlaws was knocked out or broken, Kari felt it was OK to slow down. They were near Ceres anyway, and they didn’t want to hurtle toward the planet too fast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If i took that too fast then by all means change it.
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grnqween2011
in April 30th, 2007 @ 16:45Whoops. E2MB, whose do you want to use?
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Prarilius Canix
in April 30th, 2007 @ 16:54As they reached the artifisphere of Ceres, Kari jettisoned the passenger compartments. Air-filled cushions enveloped screaming interplanetary commuters, and parachutes blossomed over them, carrying the steel rooms down towards Ceres’ surface. The shuttle was now just a cockpit and some engines.
Kari wheeled the ship around and pulled the throttle. She hadn’t, however, accounted for the fact that the shuttle’s engines had been designed to move about three times the mass of the cockpit. A slight touch on the lever, and the ship leaped forward like an eager panther.
Kari seized the throttle. “Let’s see what this bucket can do.”
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 17:37Okay, just junk 283.
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 18:32And she pulled the lever down all the way.
The image in the front window became blurred as they approached 10,000,000 miles per hour. Kari set the autopilot on [insert planetary object where Kerj and Laq are heading], and they sped off through the vast chambers of space.
~~~~~~~~~
I think it should be Callisto, Jupiter’s moon.
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 19:28Gaah! I want to write, really I do! I heard/read somewhere that writer’s block is just an excuse not to write. If so, it’s an involuntary excuse.
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 20:02I am uninspired at the moment also. *thinks hard*
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 20:30“Ouch,” said Ian quietly. “That hurt. A lot.”
“That,” Kari returned icily, “is why you knock him out.”
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 20:38Ian was confused as to whether he should cause suffering to another human being or draw the suffering upon himself.
After about 2 hours of cruising at nearly 1/4 the speed of light, they recived a matter transmission. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. HALT OR WE WILL USE MAGNABEAMS.” Kari looked at the radar. Several ships were following her 60,000 miles back at speeds slightly greater than her own.
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 20:40She looked at the weapon options for the shuttle. It had two low-quality magnabeams. “The low-quality magnabeams don’t stun, they kill,” said Jaa. “I’m not sure we want to get ourselves into the position of dangerous murderers or they’ll send a sheriff ship after us.”
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 21:13“I’m not sure that a sheriff ship after us would make the situation much worse,” said Kari fiercely. “We can’t let them capture us!”
“Why in Solana not?” said Ian, who would gladly have gone to jail in exchange for something normal. And to him, who had been there so many times simply for being an orphan, jail was ordinary. “It’s not as though they know about the Parents.”
“They don’t know about them,” said Kari. “But they’ll pull up mine and Jaa’s biosignatures, which will be easy to find, due to everything we’ve done – especially mine. The biosignatures will say we’ve escaped from a high-security prison, and that we must be put back there. There isn’t really a high-security prison though, it’s the Parents’ headquarters. So we’ll be back to square one.”
Jaa nodded.
Ian didn’t like to think what would happen to him if they were caught. Kari would be frozen, Jaa mind-wiped and put back to work re-designing the engine, and Ian- he would never forget the day Kari had told him what would happen if he was caught. He shuddered.
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:29Please, let’s not send them back to square 1. It was hard enough getting them back up from square 2 when Jaa had been captured and Ian and Kari were stranded on Mars without a ship and barely any money.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Why, oh why didn’t I stay on Ceres?” Ian mumbled to himself. “My quest for knowledge about Terra just got me running around the solar system with 2 Containers so bent on bringing down the Parents they put all moral and ethical issues behind!”
“All right,” said Kari, “I’m going to blast our first magnabeam. If we don’t fire first, they will!”
Ian realized he was stuck on the last moral issue he had just faced. Should he kill others to save himself or risk his life to save others?
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:38I’m not trying to send them back to square one. I was just saying that. What is square one anyways? Ian on Ceres, Kari running around the galaxy, Jaa working for the Parents? Or is square one them captured? Nah, that’s more like 2. I don’t know.
To heck with moral issues! Of course, that’s just the kind of thing Ian would get hung up on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He decided, in the short run, just to close his eyes quite tightly and pretend that Kari was not about to kill who-knows-how-many-people.
Kari swore. Jaa echoed her with a less brutal curse-word. Ian opened one eye a tiny bit.
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:39Make that, “Jaa echoed her with a slightly less brutal curse-word.”
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E2MB
in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:39I have a big plot idea. Just stand by while I type it, please…
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in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:51He realized he didn’t have much time to make a choice. Killing innocent people is not right, he decided, and I need to stop Kari. He walked up to her.
“Kari,” he said, “You are not going to blast them with your metabeam.”
“Ian!” said Kari, maneuvering the ship as to not make an easy target. “Hold on! I’m steering for dear life!”
“Well, you don’t seem to appreciate the dear life those police have,” said Ian. “You’re about to kill them all just to prevent yourself from being captured.”
“Do you want to die?” Kari said. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll just keep driving.” She wondered why she had brought this boy along with her on her quest to stop the Parents.
“Look,” said Ian, “Why don’t you save your magnabeam to blast the parent’s headquarters to smithereens? We’ll be at Callisto in minutes!”
“We don’t have time for that!” said Kari. “The police will get us before then!” She put her hand on the lever.
“Wait!” said Ian. “You have two. Could you fire this one off aim, to scare them, and save the other one for blasting the Parents?”
Kari thought for a moment. It could work. She decided, in a breif instant, that if she didn’t do what Ian said, he would keep arguing until they got hit. She swerved far left and fired the first magnabeam. It missed the police by several miles. “There’s more where that came from!” she yelled into the pilot’s pocket organizer, which had fallen out when he fell over into the passenger room.
Back in the police ships, one of the captains, Becca, was worried. She hadn’t know that this shuttle had magnabeams. But when she looked at the aim, she decided they weren’t very good operators of ship weapons and that they were still safe. “I’m going to fire if you don’t stop!” she yelled into her pocket organizer.
“What the–?” Kari did not get it. Weren’t they scared? “Only 90 seconds until we reach Callisto,” said Jaa, who could see Jupiter as a blotch of orange-red in the window.
Kari swerved frantically to hold them off just as Becca opened fire. The shot missed by half a mile. “That was too close,” said Ian, extremely worried.
Hoping to demoralize the police, Kari shouted into the pocket organizer, “You police can’t shoot for beans!” “Beans?” said Ian. “Oh never mind!” Kari said, exasparated.
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in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:52Do you think your segment fits inbetween my segments?
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in April 30th, 2007 @ 22:54Oh wow! Are we going to have an RRR, v. 2007.2 (Science-fiction) – Part 3?
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 23:21Delete mine. It doesn’t work.
~~~~~~~~~
“Lot of good your plan was!” shouted Kari, dodging another magnabeam. “Now will you let me hit them?”
“Only 60 seconds,” said Jaa. “And now we need to keep that magnabeam for the Headquarters. Sorry, Kari.” He grabbed her wrist as she reached for the lever that would launch the beam. Too late she saw the police’s magnabeam, and though she swung the wheel frantically with her free hand, the magnabeam hit the stern of their ship. Ian crouched on the floor with his eyes closed tight, thinking of the library on Ceres. That was his fondest memory, and he wanted to take it with him when he died. Well, he didn’t really want to die, in the first place.
~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s not back to square one, it’s just a near-death experience.
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 23:52300- Not really, no.
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Alice
in April 30th, 2007 @ 23:55301- Yes. And considering how it’s going, probably a 4, and 5, too.
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Alice
in May 1st, 2007 @ 10:31But if he had to die, he would rather be thinking about the library than the two renegade Containers who would stop at nothing to destroy their “Parents”.
“Don’t be an idiot, Ian!” Kari’s voice broke through his thoughts. “We are not going to die! They barely grazed us. We still have air. Now get up; you’re in the way down there.”
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Alice
in May 1st, 2007 @ 12:01Where is everyone?
Where’s the new thread?
Where…
Where…
Etc.
Yeah. A new thread actually isn’t really necessary. But other writers are. Oh well, I think anyone else who would write is at school or something.
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Prarilius Canix
in May 1st, 2007 @ 16:35Ian cracked one eye open. “Why are we going to Callisto?”
“The Parents headquarters is there, under the guise of a research facility. That’s why I wanted to stow away on a ship to Jupiter when you first met me. The ship I took to escape was shot down by Parents fighters, and I barely got to Ceres without blowing up.”
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Alice
in May 1st, 2007 @ 16:53307- Actually, she wanted to stow away to the Jovian moons, but I just edited that out a few minutes ago, so that’s alright. You ought to read the edit thread, because that’s where the original story is, and reading it prevents inconsistencies. Of course, for all I know, the Jovian moons are near Jupiter.
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E2MB
in May 1st, 2007 @ 16:54A magnabeam shot past them. “AAG!” screamed Jaa, before realizing it hadn’t hit them. “Why do the police keep shooting all these magnabeams off target? Magnabeams are expensive!”
“Just 18 more seconds before we can blast the Parents…” said Kari, trying to stare at the liquid-crystal clock and keep swerving at the same time.
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in May 1st, 2007 @ 16:57The clock seemed to take forever in changing digits. 7….6….5….4….
“Dangit!” said Jaa. “The ships are getting too close to us! Next time they could get a good aim!”
“To !@#$%^& with clocks!” said Kari furiously. “I’m firing now!” She aimed at the grey splotch on Callisto, which was now only 100,000 miles away, and fired.
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Alice
in May 1st, 2007 @ 17:05Predictably, she missed. In a city several miles away from the headquarters, a troop of people died. Luckily, Ian didn’t know that, and Neither did Kari or Jaa. All they knew was that it didn’t hit the headquarters.
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Prarilius Canix
in May 1st, 2007 @ 17:28The Jovian moons ARE the moons of Jupiter. People just call them that because some people called the Roman god Jupiter Jove, and Jupiterian is awkward to say.
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Alice
in May 1st, 2007 @ 17:44I know that now. Sorry.
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in May 1st, 2007 @ 19:49Kari swore again. “I’m going to crash the ship into the Parent’s headquarters!” she said. “Get in the escape pod!”
Ian and Jaa climbed into the escape pod. It was exactly like the Victory , except it had none of the upgrades they had bought at the repair shop. Ian sighed. “Stuck in a steel ball for a ship again,” he muttered.
Kari carefully guided the ship until it was heading dead straight for the Parent’s headquarters. Then she jumped into the escape pod and ejected it.
As they descended toward the ground, they viewed the ship deading straight toward the Parent’s headquarters. It was pulverized by a magnabeam right as it hit the mass of buildings, but the three were safe from it’s effects.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GAPAs, this thread is working overtime. Please?
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in May 1st, 2007 @ 19:55(314) You’re right, E2MB. Sorry. The new one is up.
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E2MB
in May 1st, 2007 @ 20:44Thanks!
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