Me: Hey there guys! Alright I know this is nothing new but I've made a few edits. The first major edit is that I changed the main character's name! Please don't kill me for it. I like what she's got now much better. Also I've made some edits to the piece itself. Just little things like grammar mistakes of the wrong word being used here or there. I hope you like the new changes and look forward to seeing the rest of them. Please read and review!
"Ice, you are a total genius," a tall bald man complimented from the driver's seat.
"Thanks, Jamie. I thought you already knew that though," came the reply from the back seat.
"She's right, Jamie. We did know," Jamie's twin brother Michael commented from the passenger seat.
"I was being sarcastic Michael. Does anyone know when I'm being sarcastic?" Jamie said to no one in particular.
A soft snickering in the back confirmed that both the leader of this little team and the financier knew what he was talking about. Glancing up in the rear view mirror Jamie sent the blue eyed brunette in the back a look. She smiled back, as innocent as can be. It was actually her fault that his brother wasn't able to tell when someone was being sarcastic. Circie Icetalon, one of the smartest and richest people in the world. She was famous for having completed high school at eight and then going straight to collage. Now she was out of collage after only four years and was helping NASA with a top secret project; trying to make the technology from the extremely popular Star War series real.
So far she had only managed to create the legendary hyperdrive that was used constantly in the series. Today was the practical test day. Three of them had been selected by Circie to board a special space shuttle that was equipped with the experimental hyperdrive. It was a little nerve-racking but they had been assured that nothing would go wrong and that the special suits they had would protect them. The suits were made of a light-weight but dense material. It was designed to be able to take a beating from just about anything and still be easy to move around in. Colored a dark gray with a dark blue stripe on the shoulders, outer arms and legs the suit was completed by a charcoal gray belt and dark gray knee high boots. The suit was divided into a skin tight shirt-jacket with a black seam covering the sipper and a high collar and skin tight pants that went inside the boots.
They all looked rather imposing and different, but that wasn't the point. No matter what they looked like the suits were to keep them safe.
Jamie easily pulled up to the large staging building which was where they would change into the suits before heading to the shuttle. He killed the engine as the others piled out. Circie looked like a kid on Christmas, bouncing around and spinning in circles her long braid whipping around and threatening to hurt anyone who go too close. She was bright eyed and the first into the building. There was no stopping her once she got really excited. As it was she would probably end up being the first on the shuttle. When they walked into the changing room the found it completely empty, a small trail of excited workers left in Circie's obvious wake.
The guys changed quickly and headed out to the shuttle. Since this project was top secret the spectators were kept as far back as they could be. It was impossible for them to see the differences in this ship and all of the others. As predicted Circie was already strapped into her seat and waiting impatiently for her pilots and quartermaster.
"What took you guys so long?" she asked, her slight irritation barely visible in her voice.
"We don't have your energy, ma'am. You have more energy than we do so we don't move as fast." the quartermaster replied pulling himself into his seat.
Circie huffed and shifted in her chair to look at the twins, "Do you two have an excuse?"
"We wanted to give you time to look things over before we shipped out." Michael replied, appealing to her more obsessive side.
His words worked; Circie flashed them both a bright smile turned back to the computer screen in front of her. The twins sighed and looked at each other before pulling themselves up to the pilot seats. Easily the team ran through the standard launch procedures. When it came time to really buckle down for the actual thing Circie and the quartermaster swiveled their chairs so they were facing forward. The launch progressed smoothly and as soon as they were in space Circie checked the hyperdrive controls and punched in a set of random coordinates.
"Jamie, all hyperdrive systems are working and I punched in the coordinates. You guys ready to kick it in gear?" Circie asked turning in her chair.
"Let's kick it, boss." Jamie replied.
"Alright. Hold on boys, this might be a little bumpy." the brunette said turning back to her computer and activating the device.
True to her word there was a bit of turbulence but it passed quickly. Michael and Jamie shook their heads and stared straight ahead, stunned. One minute they were staring at a flat starry sky and now they were looking down a long blueish tunnel that was moving at incredible speeds. Circie smiled and unstrapped herself from her chair. Getting up she pushed forward to grab the back of the pilot seats. The twins looked up at her with awe and amazement.
"Pretty cool, huh boys?" she asked with a bright smile.
"This is cool! I can't believe that this is actually working." Michael said looking back out the front window.
"Now I just need to work out the initial activation kinks. If you need me, I'll be in my room." the woman said pushing back and floating to the door.
"I need to go unpack some of the food. I'll be in the back." the quartermaster said also getting up.
"Have fun you two. We'll hold the fort." Jamie said with a smile.
Circie stuck her tongue out at the bald man but smiled none the less. Jamie may be the more serious brother but he had a sense of humor. Pushing down the corridor Circie and the quartermaster split paths at the intersection. The brunette glided easily down the hall to her room and the door slid open as she touched the panel beside it. Slipping into the room she moved right over to her bed, grabbing her laptop computer as she did. Managing to sit herself on her bed the teen cracked her knuckles.
"Time to work on getting the kinks out of the hyperdrive designs." Circie thought booting up her system.
As soon as it was logged on she opened two programs; Media Player and an engineering program she designed herself. Clicking around in Media Player for a few moments Circie soon had bright soundtrack music blaring through the speakers. Smirking she pulled up the other program and started working. The initial problem seemed simple from the outside but once she blew up the design the genius brunette discovered that the problem was a lot more complex than she had originally thought. Making a face and wondering how she had missed such an obvious problem she got to work. It was a slow process but Circie had all the time in the world. She reasoned that by the time they reached the appropriate coordinates she would be finished with the hyperdrive and could move on to something else.
Meanwhile Jamie and Michael were looking at their instrument, feeling a little worried. The radar and other scanners all seemed to indicate that a battle of some kind was going on at the proposed coordinates. That would prove to be a serious problem; their ship had no weapon systems what-so-ever. The only thing they did have was a state of the art preservation system. If one part of the ship was damaged, say the engines, the system would seal off the rest of the ship and eject the damaged section to prevent the destruction of the rest of the ship. That was mostly meant for asteroids through. If there was a battle the system might not kick in if something got damaged.
"Jamie, should we tell Circie?" Michael asked his brother.
"No she has enough to worry about without us telling her that the scanners might be wrong." his twin replied his brown eyes flicking back and forth between the screens.
"But what if they aren't wrong? What if we are going to end up in the middle of a battle field?" Michael asked again, also looking back at his screens.
"Then we have a problem. There won't be much that we could possibly do except dodge a bunch of bullets." Jamie snapped back looking at his brother.
Michael just nodded and looked back at the screens. Suddenly he noticed that the signals from the supposed battle field were getting stronger by the second. Reaching out he poked his brother in the shoulder. The bald man looked over a little irritated until his attention was redirected at the radar. His eyes widened in surprise; Circie's speed calculations seemed to be off. They were supposed to have about three hours of travel time but they had only been going for about one and a half hours. This was a serious problem, that and the fact that the signals from the supposed battle field were getting stronger and not fading out.
"Strap in Michael. This is about to get really bumpy I hope you're prepared to dodge bullets!" Jamie shouted as he strapped himself down before grabbing the steering wheel.
Michael nodded and strapped himself down. Almost as soon as he had the shuttle dropped out of hyperspace. Bright laser blasts of blue and red lanced across the windshield. Jamie had full control of the ship before a stray laser blast hit the side of the ship. The whole thing was thrown into a spin and even in zero gravity all the loose components went flying. Michael took to shouting at his brother when things got too close. It was only thanks to his brother's quick reflexes that they avoided getting turned into Swiss cheese. Despite that the alarms were going off signaling that the ship had sustained heavy damage. They didn't have time to run a full damage assessment before Circie's face popped up on the com-link.
"What the he'll is going on up there?!" she al but shrieked.
"It seems your calculations were off and we just dropped out of hyperspace!" Jamie shouted back.
"I gathered that! What is beating the shit out of my ship?" was the irritated reply.
"Lasers. We seem to have warped right into the middle of a battle!" Michael supplied before shouting at his brother.
Before Circie could reply Jamie jerked the ship to the right. Unfortunately, it was too late; the laser blast hit the engines dead on. They were destroyed in an instant and the self-preservation system kicked in. The rest of the ship sealed itself as the engine block was ejected. Too bad the shock of the engines being hit caused some major damage inside the ship already.