C
camolot the creator
Guest
Original poster
i rolled my eyes; being made out of material that bent the laws of physics had it's advantages, i suppose, but using them to physically enact bad puns counted as an atrocity of science. as i left the room, i made sure to seal the door behind me; i was pretty confident that she wouldn't wake before i returned, but a long time spent in a lab had taught me a very important lesson: better safe than sorry, especially when your experiment might light a fire under your ass. i left Jack behind with Knight, partly because i could find my way around well enough that i didn't need a guide, partly so that Knight could be properly annoyed by Jack's sudden unwillingness to accept jokes, further ruining their relationship and forwarding my evil plot. not that Knight would actually care, but i digress.
i stepped out of the building, shielding my eyes for a moment as i listened to the fading sounds of the HU forces mopping up in the distance. my eyes having adjusted to the outside light, i looked around for a second before locating a sign, spray-painted in military stencil on a nearby wall and pointing in the direction of the armory and hangar, conveniently connected by a bast door. i supposed that i would visit the hangar first, then see what the armory had to offer that mine didn't. i walked through the wide doors of the hangar, examining the series of ADOMS and fighter ships contained there-within. having the keys to each and every one of them, i was willing to examine them all in detail before i noticed a canvas-covered shape in the back. suddenly overcome by curiosity, i tore off the covering to reveal what was beneath, then stepped back to examine it.
the shape in question was an ancient Mark I HU fighter ship, ancient at best and as much as four hundred years old. this fighter was covered in dust, but that did nothing to disguise it's inherently deadly nature, from the twin laser and ballistic cannons mounted near the front to the missile launcher concealed underneath a hazard striped hatch near the the rear, as well as the archaic power source. however, the more i examined this specific fighter, the more details stood out to me; when i checked over the boosters, i noticed that they had been updated to the current norm for HU ion drives, and the shielding systems had been replaced with the new, compact model that projected three layers of charged particle fields instead of just one. this fighter, typically interplanetary at best without using the dangerous "skip-and-jump" maneuver, had been jurry-rigged with a wormhole drive for interstellar travel, and even had newer QVEs installed in the ports reserved for the nodular ion shield projector, before the newer, more compact models. even the cockpit had been reworked to fit two people instead of the usual one that was the limit of this model judging from some of the updated equipment, some poor mechanic had begun an overhaul of the fighter's hardware about six or seven years ago, but had never finished it, probably having been pulled away to other places where his or her beloved antique could not follow.
i placed my hand gently on the terralite armor. "whoever you were, mechanic, rest safely in the knowledge that i will care for this fighter now." really, my mind had been made up from the moment i had seen it; most of the Mark I's had been destroyed in battle or moth-balled deep within the vaults on Osrisis, and i hadn't seen a functioning, non-gutted one for about a hundred and fifty years, and even then it had been part of a museum collection. i noted that the fighter had been marked to be decommissioned and disassembled a week from now, judging by a tag pasted to it's wing. frowning, disappointed in whomever had pasted the tag so heartlessly on something so priceless, i ripped the small label off and tagged the ship with my ID in the HU ship databases, ensuring that no one would mess with something like this. my work here done and my ride selected, i left the hangar and returned to the containment chamber were Knight and Jack awaited me.
i stepped out of the building, shielding my eyes for a moment as i listened to the fading sounds of the HU forces mopping up in the distance. my eyes having adjusted to the outside light, i looked around for a second before locating a sign, spray-painted in military stencil on a nearby wall and pointing in the direction of the armory and hangar, conveniently connected by a bast door. i supposed that i would visit the hangar first, then see what the armory had to offer that mine didn't. i walked through the wide doors of the hangar, examining the series of ADOMS and fighter ships contained there-within. having the keys to each and every one of them, i was willing to examine them all in detail before i noticed a canvas-covered shape in the back. suddenly overcome by curiosity, i tore off the covering to reveal what was beneath, then stepped back to examine it.
the shape in question was an ancient Mark I HU fighter ship, ancient at best and as much as four hundred years old. this fighter was covered in dust, but that did nothing to disguise it's inherently deadly nature, from the twin laser and ballistic cannons mounted near the front to the missile launcher concealed underneath a hazard striped hatch near the the rear, as well as the archaic power source. however, the more i examined this specific fighter, the more details stood out to me; when i checked over the boosters, i noticed that they had been updated to the current norm for HU ion drives, and the shielding systems had been replaced with the new, compact model that projected three layers of charged particle fields instead of just one. this fighter, typically interplanetary at best without using the dangerous "skip-and-jump" maneuver, had been jurry-rigged with a wormhole drive for interstellar travel, and even had newer QVEs installed in the ports reserved for the nodular ion shield projector, before the newer, more compact models. even the cockpit had been reworked to fit two people instead of the usual one that was the limit of this model judging from some of the updated equipment, some poor mechanic had begun an overhaul of the fighter's hardware about six or seven years ago, but had never finished it, probably having been pulled away to other places where his or her beloved antique could not follow.
i placed my hand gently on the terralite armor. "whoever you were, mechanic, rest safely in the knowledge that i will care for this fighter now." really, my mind had been made up from the moment i had seen it; most of the Mark I's had been destroyed in battle or moth-balled deep within the vaults on Osrisis, and i hadn't seen a functioning, non-gutted one for about a hundred and fifty years, and even then it had been part of a museum collection. i noted that the fighter had been marked to be decommissioned and disassembled a week from now, judging by a tag pasted to it's wing. frowning, disappointed in whomever had pasted the tag so heartlessly on something so priceless, i ripped the small label off and tagged the ship with my ID in the HU ship databases, ensuring that no one would mess with something like this. my work here done and my ride selected, i left the hangar and returned to the containment chamber were Knight and Jack awaited me.