STD 2018- (Yamanouchi)
The discussion had quickly shown that while the Lowardians might have been freedom fighters, they certainly felt the ends justified the means. Raven had grave doubts about the means to which they were willing to go; and how casually they went there.
"Let me make sure I understand this situation," Raven demanded, "You are telling me that my father has created a device that can create a cosmic doorway between two places, millions of miles apart. You acquired his plans and a copy of his device, but can't make it work. The United States government has agreed to turn him over to you. However, out of the goodness in your hearts, you'll leave him alone if the Great Blue here," she nodded at Ron, "and I come with you and help you to free one planet from some oppressive regime?"
"Child," Warmonga replied, apparently oblivious to the glare from the dark-haired woman, "you do us an injustice. We are neither common thieves nor strong-armed bandits; we are simply a people who are desperate to gain any advantage against an Empire that wants us dead. I swear that if you help us free the people of Altair-3, we will ask nothing more of you or your world. We will even return you to this backward planet if that is what you wish. Do you really not know the work your father does?" The Lowardian noted that while her hair color was wrong, her face matched the girl in the photo with the scientist. They had to be one and the same!
"She hasn't been on speaking terms with her dad in a while, something about him disapproving this boy she wanted to see," The Great Blue almost sneered, "still, this seems like a good deal to me; you leave Mr. Dr. Possible alone, which satisfies any remnants of loyalty she has for him and gets her off this planet, which means she doesn't have to talk to him. How soon can we leave?"
"We can leave as soon as you are ready," Warhok was a little suspicious, this all seemed too easy. The two Lowardians had started this meeting telling the others that they were in a desperate struggle with an 'evil' empire, but they didn't have to make specific threats against this planet to coerce the Great Blue and his prospective mate to accompany them off-world.
"We'll meet you at your lander about sundown. I need to go wash my hair. Come on, Blue Boy, let's hit the baths…" Standing, Raven nodded to Master Sensei and the two left.
Warhok had little experience with the expressions on the faces of these people, but a face with no expression was universal. Turning to Master Sensei, he asked,
"Do you not approve of the Great Blue coming with us? We do have a prophecy of a Great Blue warrior coming to battle for the people."
"They are my students, not my servants. I advise but command is beyond my authority. Even the people who are supposed to obey me sometimes refuse." Warhok noticed the young woman at the old headmaster's side looked down with a slightly reddened face. The old man continued,
"In our prophecy, the Great Blue fights to protect his people, but he is not guaranteed to succeed or even survive. How does your prophecy end?"
"Living in a castle of gold and gems, standing beside his empress who rules from a throne built on the skulls of their defeated!" The Lowardian woman's eyes shone with excitement. Looking at Warhok, the crimson-eyed giantess, said, "Excuse me for a moment, my love. There is something I wish to check on."
Warhok watched his battle mate walk out of the room. For a nine-foot-tall woman, she could move amazingly quietly.
"Warmonga is young and has watched too many adventure videos. They have taken the original story and made it more exciting for the viewing public. The older stories tell of a darkness ravishing the lands of Lowardia. The Great Blue, with the Empress at his side, saves our people and banishes the darkness never to return for a dozen generations."
"Lowardia is ruled by a woman?" Yori asked.
"Not currently. The Emperor's daughter is young, but she has the aura of a great Battle Captain and the common people of Lowardia love her. Because the Emperor's health is failing, he is expected to step down in favor of his daughter for the sake of the Empire." The alien giant paused a moment, then continued, "the old story speaks of the Great Blue as a mature warrior, powerful in Mystical Arts and experienced in battle. The one we just spoke to seems like an untested youth. I believe he even told Warmonga that he wasn't fully trained. Something isn't quite right."
"Perhaps it is too early to take the Great Blue to Lowardia?" Master Sensei suggested.
Warhok considered that to be a real possibility, but he knew that Warmonga wouldn't hear of waiting and the pirate fleet they had attached themselves to were planning to attack the Great Blue's homeworld. Even if he and his battle mate wanted to have the Empire intervene on this planet's behalf, there wasn't time. No, it was best to take the Great Blue and his female to the fleet where he and Warmonga could keep them out of harm's way and control what news they heard.
"Perhaps he could finish his training with us. At any rate, they have decided to accompany us back to our fleet. If you will excuse me, I need to go check on our lander." The giant warrior stood, although not entirely straight as he was too tall for the room, then walked out.
"Master Sensei," Yori said softly, "This cannot end well. I believe that Ron-san and Kim-san need to remain here among their teachers and friends."
"As I said, I cannot command them, they are strong in will. They believe that there will be violence and they desire for that violence to be as far away from the people that they love as possible," the old headmaster sighed, "Please begin plans to shelter people in Nakano-Sensei's caves, they are defensible against any attack short of a nuclear strike. I am sending Teams Panther and Team Twelve along with most of our students to Nagasaki. I am trusting that a thousand kilometers away will be far enough from the mountain to be safe. Will you go with them?"
"Is that a command, Sensei?"
The headmaster looked with pride and affection at the student that he expected to take his place one day, "No it is not, Yori-san. Even a Master Sensei can learn a new lesson."
STD 2018- (Lowardian Fleet, Edge of Solar System)
(A/N While I know and you, the reader knows, that the Lowardians would not measure time in Earth-based time units, I have found it annoying to translate alien units in my head as I read novels by other authors who introduce that for 'realism'. If that really bothers you then multiply Earth days by .83 to get Lowardian days and then translate that back to Earth days as you read.)
"Can we trust Warhok?" the junior captain asked. "This Great Blue nonsense sounds like he's delaying if you ask me. It seems odd that such an experienced warrior would show up out of nowhere to join a raiding party."
"He goes where Warmonga goes and she's too eager for fighting and glory to have problems with raiding." The Captain of captains wasn't seeing a serious problem; raiders didn't have the discipline that Imperial Forces had. Still, raider pay was much better although their retirement plan sucked. He had enough loyal fighters to get the job done the way he wanted without Warhok's help.
"That's another problem, she thinks they've found the Great Blue. I can picture Warhok's reaction to finding she's spread her legs for this Great Blue."
"She's flighty, but not that fickle. At least I hope she's not. Best to get on with the looting on schedule. Are the kinetic strikes on schedule for five days from now?"
"Yes. I expect that Warhok will return in four days. The kinetic bombardment ships will be back and reloaded by then. I personally double-checked the target; the strike will hit islands on the other side of the planet from the continent with Dr. Possible's science labs and the Great Blue's home."
"Good," the Captain of captains was pleased, "then we can start to move the fleet to the planet if the scouts report conditions are profitable and if not, then we can see about bending this Great Blue to our will while on route to our next target. At the very least, the scouts should have collected Dr. Possible from the locals by then."
"My vote is that we pull out. My navigator says she has a bad feeling about this system," the junior Captain said.
"Is that the one whose mother was supposedly a witch?"
"Grandmother, actually. And say what you will, she found the last three profitable systems on 'hunches'.
"Maybe we should take our profits and run. We'll discuss it at the next all-captains meeting."
STD 2018- (Yamanouchi Baths)
"Hey, Ronnie, were you struck color blind?" Nyx called out from where she was soaking with Elsa, "This is the women's side."
"It's OK, ladies, Blue Boy here likes dick as much as I do. Besides, I need his help with my hair," A softly glowing Raven waded to the far back of the pool where there was a spillway where water from the pool ran out onto the rocks behind the building and down a gorge. Beside her walked a laughing blond, also softly glowing blue. Both were totally naked except for a small folded towel on top of their heads.
"I like the dick?" he quietly snickered, "I think I've been insulted."
"Not at all. You are what you are. Besides, Kimberly thinks you have a very nice one. You should be happy with it. You know, when you are all blue, you do seem a little… gay?"
"No, not gay, simply no desire for any of that kind of thing. It's too much a distraction. Are you feeling ignored? Insufficiently lusted after?"
"Maybe a little. Figured that kind of stuff would come with having a boyfriend." Raven was a little surprised at the lack of snark from her companion. Either he wasn't totally charged, or perhaps his natural personality was becoming dominant?
"Maybe in the next turn of the wheel, your BF will be more completely functional when powered up. All teasing aside, I have no experience doing anything with hair. What do you need me to do?"
Raven sat down in the water then stretched out floating on her back with her head close to where excess water exited the pool. "I am betting that if you push extra MMP into me, the hot water and the minerals will help my hair and skin slough off the dyes. Maybe just swish me around a little?"
Ron looked down at his BFF's extra-pale body with its jet-black hair, the flickering of his blue aura reflecting his uncertainty, "The, uh, the carpet matches the drapes, that's a serious dye job. You sure you want to do this?"
"At the time, I really didn't want to be Kimberly Ann Possible. Now charge us both up and leave us charged, we don't have time for half measures. It's time for her to come back."
Ron looked a little sad as he gently caressed the bump on her midsection. He placed one hand on her face clamping her nose shut with his thumb and forefinger and his other hand over her pubic bone.
"Big breath," he said and when she complied, he pushed her under the steaming water while gently moving her back and forth. His eyes, which had hints of brown, became solid blue as his body lit with a sapphire glow. Blue streams of energy flowed down his arms, through his hands into her body. Her body was quickly covered in a layer of fine bubbles, causing her to press upward on his hands from the extra buoyancy. Clouds of inky black from her hair, along with chalky white from her body stained the water and were quickly whisked away, not affecting the other bathers.
Allowing her to float back to the surface with a gentle hiss of fine bubbles, he told her, "Breathe easy for a bit, once the water clears, I'll do another rinse. And tell Nyx and Elsa that you're OK before they try to cut out my liver," the young Monkey Master grinned.
A feminine hand lifted out of the water, flashing a thumbs up sign and a voice, muffled by the hand still covering her face was heard to say, "I'm OK, Ronnie's just helping me get the color washed out of my hair and off my skin." She imagined her two friends advancing with drawn blades, Elsa often quoted Kamchak of the Tuchuks: " Where weapons may not be carried, it is well to carry weapons."
Elsa had a different taste in novels.
Elsa and Nyx, in fact, did not carry blades in the baths, but Elsa retracted a garrote back into the bangle she wore on her wrist. Their dorm mates watched in fascination as the foaming, dark, cloudy water quickly flowed out the drain as if by magic. (Well, Nyx first admired the blond's firm butt, but it was only in passing like one might admire a rose without reaching out to pluck it.)
After giving her a command to take a breath and hold it, Ron again submerged his fizzing partner and gently swished her back and forth in the water as he pushed more MMP into her. There was no more dye released into the water, but when he pulled her up onto her feet, he could see that her normal hair and skin colors were back. He watched her blink water out of green eyes (when had she gotten rid of the dark contacts?) Her eyes focused on his for a second then closed as she burst into tears and clung to him sobbing almost uncontrollably.
"Carry her to the shower area, we need to do some serious conditioning on that hair, stripping out the color job she had done was pretty brutal," Nyx ordered the puzzled blond.
"But she's crying…" apparently even Zorpox had a strong dislike for young ladies sobbing when he didn't intend for them to cry.
"Much of a woman's self-image, a large part of her soul, is tied to her hair. She has just ripped away a large part of who she is. That can be very emotional even when it is what she wants. Now pick her up and follow us."
Carrying her out of the pool, he heard a soft, "Thanks, Ronnie, I'm me again. Well, not exactly me, I can't undo that day by doing something as easy as washing my hair."
Looking at his partner, he saw green eyes turn electric blue as she surrendered to the MMP.
Off in the shadows, red eyes scowled at the infantile display of the Great Blue's battle mate.
'I will be a proper Empress,' she thought. Looking carefully at the Great Blue, she decided, 'Better keep Warhok as a concubine, the Great Blue's human body isn't going to be much use for my physical pleasure.'
STD 2018- (Shady tree by baths)
Ron was sitting in the shade of an old oak, waiting for Raven to appear from the baths. After leaving her in the hands of their dorm mates, he had soaked in the baths (on the men's side!) for about half an hour, rinsed off, and dressed. Now he was sitting in a cool breeze trying to meditate. It was hard because being charged with the blue made his mind race like he was juiced up on caffeine. In the past few days of training, he would dissipate the blue before meditation. Now, he knew that Raven was right, they would have to stay charged up all the time. At the very least, he was now able to suppress the occasional outbursts of maniacal laughter.
"Beep, Beep, Be-Beep"
Even in deep meditation, with every cell in his body charged with the power of the MMP, that was the one sound guaranteed to get his attention. Looking up, he saw a familiar redhead wearing cargo pants walking out of the baths holding up a Kimmunicator.
"Hi Wade, what's the sitch?"
How many times had he heard her say that? Wade would have a lead on a bad guy with some evil plot, then say something like 'Your ride will be out front in fifteen.'
He was broken out of his reverie by her telling their tech genius,
"You take care Wade, I don't know when or even if we'll be able to contact you. You've always rocked Wade, we didn't tell you that enough. Oh, and one last thing, watch out for that Katsumi girl, she seems way too eager to hop into young gentleman's showers…"
Ron took the Kimmunicator she held out to him,
"Hey Wade, we're not taking Rufus with us on this mission, I kinda think that he's really become attached to Hana. Can you help watch out for the both of them please? … Great, say, we gotta run. Love you man."
Ron hit the off button and handed the device back.
"Didn't want to get all weepy and maudlin there, Raven."
"My name is Kim Possible, but one person is allowed to call me KP."
"OK, KP. We've got about an hour till sundown, let's swing by the dorm and pick up a change of clothes, some of your girl stuff and see if we can go to the kitchens and get some snackage before takeoff."
"Not going to tell anyone goodbye, Ron?"
"Nope. Either we come back and then we would have been all emotional for nothing, or we don't come back and nobody can complain to us. Anyone you want to talk to?"
The green-eyed girl thought for a few seconds.
"No, you're right. There's only one person I want to talk to and he's coming with me. This time there shouldn't be any snakes to interrupt our conversation…"
The Kimmunicator buzzed. Kim pulled it out of a pocket and looked at the screen. Frowning, she read something twice before handing it to Ron.
Ron read the message on the screen. The Kimmunicator's transmissions were quadruply encrypted but for really secret information, Wade could send a prepared text message to them that was hidden using spare bits in the protocol layer of the voice transmission data. It took extra time to reassemble, authenticate and decrypt the hidden message, but Wade apparently had information for their eyes only. Ron read,
Middleton Space Center was raided by aliens that emptied out Dr. Possible's lab including his FTL prototype and his computer workstations with all his designs and computer files. Dr. Possible was unable to explain to the Air Force how his prototype worked. The Air Force brought in another engineer to take over his project. We believe that didn't work because they are frantically looking for Dr. Possible. We are working with Ninja Teams and some Special Forces types in case the alien raiding parties return. Current Rules of Engagement from politicians forbid meeting future raiding parties with deadly force. We are preparing quietly anyway.
Please plan to survive. We will do our best to make sure your home will be here when you get back. I love you both and it has been my greatest joy to work with you.
Wade
Ron thought for a moment, "We need to stop by the kitchen for supplies, maybe we can convince them that we can show them greater riches than they can dream of getting by looting military bases and science labs."
STD 2018- (Middleton)
"Wade-san, since the conversation is over, so is your break." Katsumi was running on the treadmill next to him, her machine was set at a faster speed and higher incline.
Wade groaned but resumed huffing and puffing on his treadmill. He wasn't sure how it happened, but Katsumi had convinced him to put a pair of treadmills in his ops/bedroom. Granted, there were two keyboards, a mouse pad and three screens mounted on the front of the treadmills, but his typing while walking was crap and typing while jogging wasn't going to happen for a long time.
His parents practically gave 'Kat' a standing ovation when she set up the treadmills as part of the Ninja training program she created for him that she called the "Newt Course". His body felt like he had been beaten, but his holo-room was now permanently a hot springs bath house. They started shifts so that Team Orange could monitor the net while the Team Possible tech genius and his new partner ate dinner and had a soak together. Wade was honest enough to admit that he liked Katsumi a lot. The holo-baths weren't exactly private as they were popular with his parents and off-duty Team Orange and Team Cobra members. Once an Admiral named de Mellivora and some leadership types from U.S Special forces had dropped by for a coordination meeting held in steaming hot water with cold beverages. That time, the virtual view of the porch with mountains projected on the back wall was changed to a map of Middleton.
On the one hand, Wade was having the time of his life. Katsumi had only appeared a week ago and his life was totally changing. The creation of Team Indigo along with working with the other Teams was keeping them busy. Mostly for the better, although he privately mourned for the apparent loss of Team Possible; he expected that Ron and Kim would never return.
STD 2018- (Small inn near Yamanouchi)
Anne looked up from her soak in the steaming mineral bath to watch the tiny craft rise in the sky and vanish.
"Do you think Ronald and Kimmie-cub are on that rocket?" James put his arms around her and pulled her onto his lap.
"Yes, I do."
"Will they be back?"
"I don't know, honey."
James held his crying wife. His first reaction to Anne's mentioning that Kimmie-cub and Ronald expected to go on a "mission" to see these aliens at their fleet at the edge of the solar system was to rush back to the Middleton Space Center and install his wormhole/FTL prototype into the current version of the Kepler to prepare to back them up. A call to Wade told him that the Space Center was pretty much shut down due to the reaction to the alien raid. In addition, U.S Customs agents had a 'Take into Custody' order on James. Thinking to work with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, he had talked with Erica, who had his files, but the bottom line was that he did not have access to a PDVI. Their equivalent of the Kepler wouldn't be ready to fly for another seven months. Once again, the couple was forced to just wait while their daughter and her friend were off on a mission.
Even with the concern over the youngsters, the last few days had been a repeat of their honeymoon. Heck, it was better than their honeymoon. Instead of forging new connections that would bond them into a couple, they renewed the connections that were already there, making them a stronger couple than ever. They had romantic meals in the inn, a romantic private hot spring connected to their room, they took romantic walks in the countryside by the inn. Such delight in each other's company was too good to last. The day after their daughter set off into space, Anne got a request from Tokyo General for a consultation on a medical case that was over the heads of their neurosurgeons and Jim and Tim called James for help with a power storage problem they were having with their morphing synthodrone 'elderly assistants'. The Yakuza assigned two young soldiers to each for protection and in Anne's case, to make sure they were treated with the proper respect.
STD 2018- (Tokyo, Okonomiyaki shop)
"Welcome, Gekai-sama! Come this way, please, the room in the back is ready for you, your husband and those fine sons of yours," the older woman smiled as she welcomed the Possible clan and their bodyguards into her okonomiyaki shop.
Anne was meeting up with James and her sons after a full day at Tokyo General's Surgery Center. Her two young toughs turned out to be nearly impossible to shake since one was a woman, not even the bathroom was a hiding place. They were most polite (to her) and did a good job of staying out of her way, but between their scowls at anyone who even looked like they were thinking disrespectful thoughts and the quality of her work on Dia Bosu's nephew, her meetings and consultations went very smoothly. She had been pulled into an emergency trauma surgery for a young girl who had been in an accident and was scheduled to assist in a tricky tumor removal tomorrow morning. Tim and Jim were nearly as famous for their work with the syntho-maids and their on-going work on syntho-companions. James had spent the day with them working out a new power storage system.
Anne was not conceited, but she knew her own worth and the worth of the rest of her family. That they were becoming well known to at least the people of this part of Tokyo suggested that the Yakuza were doing public relations on their behalf. She was wondering why when a stray comment from one of her sons brought her mental wandering to a screeching halt.
"You did what to your sister?!"
Jim and Tim were like deer frozen in headlights...if the headlights were the landing lights on an incoming 747 jumbo jet. Even James was nearly frozen, his mental gears jammed.
"P-p-pregnant? Kimmie-cub is pregnant?" the rocket scientist stuttered.
"No Dad!" started Tim.
Eww! We didn't do anything like that!" finished Jim.
"Boys, start at the beginning and explain to me what happened," Anne stared coolly at her son, then narrowed her eyes, "Feel free to use technical terms, I'm a doctor."
"OK, there was some kind of prophecy dream thing, you were there, right Mom?" Tim started.
"Yes, I was there on at least two occasions, go on…"
"Well, Kim said that in one she was a little girl and told to go play with dolls instead of fighting bullies with Ron," Jim added.
"But the doll she was playing with had tentacles like an octopus,"
"in her dream, she called it 'Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds'. But that"
"sounded, to us, a little more like Cthulhu, 'cause Shiva"
"is usually represented as humanoid with extra arms…"
"Boys, stay on track…" Anne growled.
"So, then she said that the MMP's Avatar told her that her the Destroyer baby was not a symbol,"
"Yeah, it said something about how Westerners couldn't be expected to understand anything symbolic, that we had a hard enough time with literal stuff."
"The octopus in the dream reminded her of the demo toy we made to show off our morphing syntho-goop technology."
"She said that as soon as that thought occurred to her, the avatar patted her on the head and told her she was a good girl."
"After it dodged a punch, she started to ask it about how to do the destroyer"
"part, but then she thought, 'Doy! It's Jim and Tim making it!"
The twins fist-bumped, proud to be the go-to supplier for tools of mass destruction for their older sister.
"Boys, how did you turn Kimmie-cub's doll into the Destroyer of Worlds?" James was back into territory that he felt comfortable enough to join the conversation.
"Not so fast James," Anne interrupted, "the boys haven't told me how Kimmy is smuggling it into the Lowardian fleet."
The twins couldn't meet her eyes,
"It was Kim's idea, Mom, honest!"
"Kamiko was there… and Rufus!"
"Just spit it out boys, where is your syntho-baby?" Anne was guessing some sort of false stomach made from syntho-skin or something, but her boys would think that was funny. Needing the help of the physician's assistant was troubling, but Rufus?
"It's, uh, where babies normally go, you know…" Tim was trying to live to see tomorrow.
"It's in her uterus." Jim decided to lay the cards on the table. Surely his parents wouldn't actually kill them. Maybe their Yakuza bodyguards would prevent that?
"How?" Anne's voice held traces of doom. Normally she knew better to ask a question when she didn't want to hear the answer, but she was hoping against hope that their answer didn't involve surgery, either conventional or mystical.
"The baby is in octopus form. An octopus can squeeze through any opening that its beak will fit through." Tim was trying to calm down as he reminded himself that his parents were not violent people.
"Ours has no beak, but there are some memory circuits, it can squeeze through a one-inch opening."
"The one we made for her was about the size of a grapefruit when in a sphere shape."
Anne winced, remembering how much having an IUD put in hurt and that her IUD wasn't anywhere close to an inch in diameter.
"Kamiko gave Sis painkillers and some stuff to help her muscles stretch,"
"Rufus used his MMP to help her body adjust. Tim and I sat by her head holding her hand,"
"and gave her someone to yell at. Kamiko helped the syntho-octopus slide in and watched for,"
"signs of muscle tearing or bleeding. She didn't see any real damage."
"Did you see any blood?"
"Mom! She's our sister!"
"We didn't look down there!"
The topic was changed when the Yakuza guard, who was demonstrating her mother's style of making okonomiyaki nearly caught it on fire while listening to their conversation instead of paying attention to her griddle.
STD 2018- (Somewhere in the general vicinity of Saturn)
Kim reclined on their acceleration couch and looked at Saturn using an external camera view on the display projected on the ceiling. The Lowardian lander had no windows to avoid weak spots in the structure. Structural strength was critical in a craft designed to accelerate at rates exceeding 125 Earth gravities. Should the acceleration compensation systems fail, the inhabitants of the lander would be turned to paste, but the craft itself would survive.
The interior was cramped, with two couches in the control area, a tiny galley, and a large couch that she and Ron shared. There was an enclosed toilet, the seat was higher off the floor than she was used to, but thankfully, fairly Earth normal otherwise. Ron was taking up most of the floor space simply by cooking at the tiny two burner stove.
For the last 36 hours, he had spent most of his waking moments taking the Lowardians on a culinary tour of the world. Well, not all the world, he seemed to focus on the Southern half of North America. He had convinced them that allowing him to pack about a hundred pounds of groceries, mostly dry goods and spices, would let him show them sources of profits that they had never dreamed of. Right now, he was fixing pupusas, a street food from El Salvador that was basically a thick corn tortilla that was filled with something. Being they were in extremely close quarters, He skipped the spicy bean filling and prepared meat and cheese plus non-standard fruit filled ones. His initial offering of fresh tortilla chips and various dips had been well received, it appeared that if Warhok and Warmonga were typical, Diablo sauce would be a valuable commodity.
"Here ya go, KP," a glowing blue Ron handed her a bowl with small golden-brown pillow shapes wrapped loosely in a towel.
"Thanks," she replied, "How's the sales pitch going?" She looked over at the two aliens talking and laughing as they munched on their little corn pillows.
"Better than I hoped," he said, slipping into a quiet maniacal laugh, "He who controls the Spice controls the universe! Wait until I can show them a Naco!"
She finished her snacks while watching her partner standing by the aliens' couches talking. She couldn't hear what was being said over the general rumble and noise from the lander's drive and acceleration compensation systems.
Later, dressed only in Ron's old football jersey, she slept draped over the warm body of her partner as the lander raced toward the Fleet. The blue glow from their bodies danced and intertwined as its power was strengthened by feedback provided by dreams of earlier, happier days of a young girl and her best friend forever as they played together.
As they slept, a swarm of solid metal bars roughly the size and shape of Greyhound busses coasted past them on a trajectory towards earth.
CREDITS
All characters are the property of the Disney Company. This is a work of fan fiction.
If it's a Ninja then it's a safe bet that it was directly copied from or inspired by Sentinel103 and his "Once Again" stories.
Mea Culpa: There is roughly a 12-hour difference between Japan and the United States. That means that early morning in one spot is early evening in the other. So, don't pay too much attention to the concept of simultaneity in this story.
Authors Note: Thanks to CajunBear73, Daccu65, and Sentinel103 for basically being beta readers, editors, and plot bunny wranglers.
Author's note on space travel at the "speed of plot". Unless you have an FTL system like Dr. Possible wormhole, the solar system is a really big place. Using basic Newtonian physics, consider traveling to the edge of the solar system (14.9e+12 meters or 9,258,000,000 miles) assuming constant acceleration for half the trip, turning around and decelerating the rest of the way:
Acceleration = 1G, time = 28.5 days, max speed is 4% speed of light.
Acceleration = 5G, time = 12.8 days, max speed is 9% speed of light.
Acceleration = 10G, time = 9.0 days, max speed is 12.8% speed of light.
Acceleration = 100G, time = 2.9 days, max speed is 40.3% speed of light.
In this story, the Lowardian's landing craft must be pushing 100Gs of acceleration to meet the times that are happening in the story. Note that a speed of 40% of the speed of light only slows time as observed on the lander by about 9%, so while it would be easy to test, for the purposes of this story, it's down in the noise.
Published Dec 22, 2018