User blog:Gracchus Mccarthe/Benson and Roister: Aartis Space and Air Base III

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     Rex stayed ahead of A.J. without difficulty. “This’ll be so easy!” Rex thought. “I’m way too fast for him!”

     Rex kept up his swift pace for a few minutes, but then he had to stop for a little bit. When he glimpsed A.J. behind coming up behind him, he shook his head and started moving again.

     Rex ran pretty hard for another few minutes, but he began to tire again. “There’s no way… the TLF… is only two miles… from the gym.” he gasped to himself.

      Rex waited for A.J. to get pretty close before starting to run again.

     “You sure you can handle it?” A.J. called as he came up beside Rex. He didn’t seem to be having a hard time at all.

     “I’m just makin’ you feel good.”

     A.J. laughed. “Right, riiiiiight. I’ll feel pretty good when I get to the TLF before you.” With that comment, A.J. pulled ahead of Rex. He stayed in front until the two of them recognized the TLF in the distance.

     A.J. glanced behind and then began sprinting towards his destination. Rex yelled, “Oh no you don’t!” and sprinted after him.

     Both soldiers ran hard, and soon they were gasping and puffing. Rex was still behind, but he was catching up quickly. With a final burst of speed, he extended his hands towards the door.

     A.J. and Rex both reached the door and both yelled, “I win!”

     Rex bent over, gasping. A.J. was also breathing hard. After a few seconds, he drew in a long breath and then said, “I think we tied.”

     Rex nodded. He caught his breath and replied, “Yeah. That was too close to call.”

     A.J. held the door open, and entered the TLF after Rex. They started laughing.

     They were laughing pretty hard, even though they didn’t really know why, as they walked through the lobby. After they had regained their composure, A.J. said, “You have plenty of speed, but you don’t have much stamina. That’s something you should consider working on.”

     “Can I help you with something?” the receptionist inquired as Rex and A.J. came close to the desk.

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. shook his head. “No, we have rooms already.” He and Rex walked up the stairs.

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. opened his room’s door and walked in. Rex went to follow, but A.J. stopped him. “You have your own room, remember?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Oh yeah, duh. Sorry about that.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Ih, don’t worry about it.” A.J. replied. “You’re probably just used to following other soldiers into a barrack’s sleeping quarters. I did some stuff sorta like that just after finishing boot camp.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. closed his door and Rex went into his own room. The two soldiers showered and then went to bed. Rex fell asleep quickly, but A.J. was up for a while. He thought anxiously about the outbreak on the Kurios Space Station. He also felt uneasy about one of the technicians he’d seen on the base’s runway. “I know I’ve seen that guy before.” he said in his mind. After a while, he too fell asleep…

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex woke up before the sun was out the next morning. He got out of bed and decided to go for a jog. Exiting his room, he could here A.J. snoring. “Man!” he thought. “A.J. is a loud snorer. I wonder if the guys he bunked with in training ever got any sleep!”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex went out of the TLF and began jogging. He didn’t really know where to go, so he decided to just run along the road for a little while and then turn around and jog back to the TLF.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The air was cool, and there were few clouds in the sky. The sun began rising and threw a golden shine all over the landscape.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex gave a sigh of pleasure, “Ahhhhh.” He thought about his harrowing escape from the Kurios Space Station. It seemed to have happened a long time ago, even though it was only yesterday morning. Rex pushed the thought of zombies from his mind and focused on running.

<p class="MsoNormal">     He was out for well over an hour before he returned to the TLF. He went up the stairs to his room. “Great!” he muttered. “Forgot my key.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     He returned to the lobby and approached the desk. After hearing Rex’s problem and checking to make sure he was registered in the TLF’s occupancy base, the receptionist went with Rex to his room and opened his door with a backup key card.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex said “Thanks.”, and the receptionist went back downstairs.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “I’m bored.” Rex thought as he sat in a chair. He looked over and noticed for the first time a computer on the desk in the room. “How’d I miss that this whole time?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Then Commander Morris’ words rang in his mind: “Critical Mass has been playing around with the idea of a rifle that shoots rounds that go over 220,000 mph…” Rex stroked his chin. “Hm, I’ll have to try and look into this.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     He turned on the computer waited for the holo-screen to come up. Then he pulled up the Inter Planetary Network of Information, or IPNI (called Ipnee) for short. “OK, Ipnee. Let’s see whatcha got.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex opened up a military database on weapons. He logged in with his name and soldier ID. Though he searched many lists, he didn’t find what he was looking for. He decided to do a general search. After typing in “Critical Mass Industries experimental weapons”, he opened several pages.

<p class="MsoNormal">     After roughly two minutes of searching, Rex noticed that a few of the pages he’d opened all shared a common feature: somewhere in each of them, the name “Ultra COM Rifle” could be found.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex decided to search for “Critical Mass Ultra COM Rifle”, but oddly enough, he didn’t get any results. He sat back and sighed, thinking. Then he searched the same thing on the SAS weapons subwebsite. One result said “Airburst Rifle”, and he decided to check it out.

<p class="MsoNormal">     When the page finished loading, a window popped up. “High-level security access required to proceed.” Rex knew he wasn’t anywhere near high-level security, but he put in serial number anyway. “Access denied.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “No surprise there.” Rex thought. “I already entered my info when I got on the site.” Then he heard movement in the room next to his. “I guess A.J. finally got up.” Then Rex snapped his fingers. “Maybe that’ll work!”

<p class="MsoNormal">     He opened his room’s door (but he grabbed his card key first) and knocked on A.J.’s door. The occupant opened up. “What.” he asked blankly.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “I need a favor.” Rex answered.

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. rubbed his face with his hand. “What kind of favor?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Security clearance.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. gave him a cold look. “Yeah right.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Before the door closed, Rex said, “Look, I just want to know about CM’s megasonic rifle, whatever it’s called.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “No.” A.J. said, and he started closing the door again.

<p class="MsoNormal">     Desperate, Rex asked, “Your machinegun is classified, right?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “What?” A.J. replied, scratching his head.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “If I looked it up on the SAS weapons subwebsite, I’d need special clearance to look at its page, right?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Yeah. So what?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Then I already know classified info.” Rex stated.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Yeah. So what?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Well then, what’s wrong with knowing about another weapon… that I probably shouldn’t know about…” Rex trailed off.

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. looked up and shrugged as if to ask, “Why me!?” Then he said. “Fine. I’ll try it. But I don’t even know if I have the clearance for it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. got his key and then followed Rex into his room. He went to the computer and entered his name, soldier ID, and his serial number (Rex closed his eyes when A.J. put it in) and hit “Confirm”.

<p class="MsoNormal">     The box disappeared and the result astounded both soldiers.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Sub-Light COM 1.” A.J. read aloud. “This rifle is capable of propelling its round to a speed of nearly 60,000 m/s. Smart target round activates high speed event when target is within one meter. Uses Center of Mass Displacement to suddenly release a large amount of energy in a quickly-dispersing beam. This sudden energy spike causes instant expanding of the surrounding air. The bullet then causes instantaneous cooling, which creates a super powerful vacuum that has as much pull in comparison to its size as a neutron star!” Rex and A.J. looked at each other, wide-eyed. “This vacuum is so small, it affects nothing besides the bullet. The sudden speed burst paired with wind resistance causes the bullet to expand from a .50 cal round to a 5-inch cone. This projectile can pierce virtually anything. This rifle is still under development, though it is likely to be finished in just days and dubbed ‘Sub-Light COM 2.’”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Whoa.” Rex said. “I think I need that in my life.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “This info isn’t quite current.” A.J. pointed out. I think this bad boy is finished by now.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “A weapons shipment is coming in soon.” Rex said. “One of the guys playing Grid told me about it. Maybe I’ll be able to get my hands on one of those monsters.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Yeah. Maybe.” A.J. replied quietly.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Something wrong?”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. sighed. “I just broke military regulations… We can’t give this info to anybody, or we’re in BIG trouble.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Um, OK. I won’t talk, I swear.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “And neither will I… I’m going downstairs for breakfast. I’ll probably see you later.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “OK.” Rex said. Then A.J. exited.

<p class="MsoNormal">     After a few seconds, Rex said, “I’m hungry too.”, and he followed A.J.

<p class="MsoNormal">     After they ate, they went to the gym to see if a Grid game was being played. There was indeed a game in progress, though different people were playing. Nonetheless, Rex and A.J. joined, playing on different teams. A.J.’s team won by 2 points, largely because he would run with the ball on many plays, and he was hard to tackle.

<p class="MsoNormal">     When evening came, Rex and A.J. returned to the TLF. Rex ordered pizza and he and A.J. spent that night trading stories about growing up, and A.J. recounted some of his adventures with the SAS.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Man, A.J., I cannot believe you ate that much pizza. I guess you were right after all: we did need three of them.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Ahhh, yep.” A.J. replied. “BRUUUUUHP!!!”

<p class="MsoNormal">     Rex busted out laughing when someone in another room exclaimed, “What was that!? An explosion?”, and A.J. facepalmed.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Well, it’s late, and I’m going to bed.” A.J. declared. “G’night, Rex.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Goodnight. Y’know, you’re kinda like an older brother. I don’t know exactly how or why, but you just are.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Uh, thanks?” A.J. said doubtfully. When Rex assured him it was a compliment, A.J. responded, “Ah, I see. Well, see ya tomorrow.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     “See ya.” Rex said, and A.J. exited and went to his own room. “He’s not as hard-nosed as he seemed when we were on the space station.” Rex thought. “I wonder why he seemed so irritable? Oh well, zombies aren’t exactly calming, so I guess that sort of makes sense.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     After Rex showered, he went to bed.

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. walked around his room. He went to where he had left his armor and picked up his helmet. He opened a secret compartment of the helmet and took out a piece of paper from it. Physical photos weren’t extremely common in this day and age, at least on Trans-Fed planets, but something as special as this needed to be set apart.

<p class="MsoNormal">     “Don’t worry.” A.J. said, though he knew the people he was talking to couldn’t possibly hear him. “I’ll see you soon enough.”

<p class="MsoNormal">     A.J. put the picture back in his helmet and went to bed…

So, what do you think?

Were you surprised by the outcome of the race?

Why am I asking these questions?

Who knows!?

Previous chapter: [http://   Rex stayed ahead of A.J. without difficulty. “This’ll be so easy!” Rex thought. “I’m way too fast for him!”    Rex kept up his swift pace for a few minutes, but then he had to stop for a little bit. When he glimpsed A.J. behind coming up behind him, he shook his head and started moving again. Rex ran pretty hard for another few minutes, but he began to tire again. “There’s no way… the TLF… is only two miles… from the gym.” he gasped to himself. Rex waited for A.J. to get pretty close before starting to run again. “You sure you can handle it?” A.J. called as he came up beside Rex. He didn’t seem to be having a hard time at all. “I’m just makin’ you feel good.”    A.J. laughed. “Right, riiiiiight. I’ll feel pretty good when I get to the TLF before you.” With that comment, A.J. pulled ahead of Rex. He stayed in front until the two of them recognized the TLF in the distance. A.J. glanced behind and then began sprinting towards his destination. Rex yelled, “Oh no you don’t!” and sprinted after him. Both soldiers ran hard, and soon they were gasping and puffing. Rex was still behind, but he was catching up quickly. With a final burst of speed, he extended his hands towards the door. A.J. and Rex both reached the door and both yelled, “I win!”    Rex bent over, gasping. A.J. was also breathing hard. After a few seconds, he drew in a long breath and then said, “I think we tied.”    Rex nodded. He caught his breath and replied, “Yeah. That was too close to call.”    A.J. held the door open, and entered the TLF after Rex. They started laughing. They were laughing pretty hard, even though they didn’t really know why, as they walked through the lobby. After they had regained their composure, A.J. said, “You have plenty of speed, but you don’t have much stamina. That’s something you should consider working on.”    “Can I help you with something?” the receptionist inquired as Rex and A.J. came close to the desk. A.J. shook his head. “No, we have rooms already.” He and Rex walked up the stairs. A.J. opened his room’s door and walked in. Rex went to follow, but A.J. stopped him. “You have your own room, remember?”    “Oh yeah, duh. Sorry about that.”    “Ih, don’t worry about it.” A.J. replied. “You’re probably just used to following other soldiers into a barrack’s sleeping quarters. I did some stuff sorta like that just after finishing boot camp.”    A.J. closed his door and Rex went into his own room. The two soldiers showered and then went to bed. Rex fell asleep quickly, but A.J. was up for a while. He thought anxiously about the outbreak on the Kurios Space Station. He also felt uneasy about one of the technicians he’d seen on the base’s runway. “I know I’ve seen that guy before.” he said in his mind. After a while, he too fell asleep…    Rex woke up before the sun was out the next morning. He got out of bed and decided to go for a jog. Exiting his room, he could here A.J. snoring. “Man!” he thought. “A.J. is a loud snorer. I wonder if the guys he bunked with in training ever got any sleep!”    Rex went out of the TLF and began jogging. He didn’t really know where to go, so he decided to just run along the road for a little while and then turn around and jog back to the TLF. The air was cool, and there were few clouds in the sky. The sun began rising and threw a golden shine all over the landscape. Rex gave a sigh of pleasure, “Ahhhhh.” He thought about his harrowing escape from the Kurios Space Station. It seemed to have happened a long time ago, even though it was only yesterday morning. Rex pushed the thought of zombies from his mind and focused on running. He was out for well over an hour before he returned to the TLF. He went up the stairs to his room. “Great!” he muttered. “Forgot my key.”    He returned to the lobby and approached the desk. After hearing Rex’s problem and checking to make sure he was registered in the TLF’s occupancy base, the receptionist went with Rex to his room and opened his door with a backup key card. Rex said “Thanks.”, and the receptionist went back downstairs. “I’m bored.” Rex thought as he sat in a chair. He looked over and noticed for the first time a computer on the desk in the room. “How’d I miss that this whole time?”    Then Commander Morris’ words rang in his mind: “Critical Mass has been playing around with the idea of a rifle that shoots rounds that go over 220,000 mph…” Rex stroked his chin. “Hm, I’ll have to try and look into this.”    He turned on the computer waited for the holo-screen to come up. Then he pulled up the Inter Planetary Network of Information, or IPNI (called Ipnee) for short. “OK, Ipnee. Let’s see whatcha got.”    Rex opened up a military database on weapons. He logged in with his name and soldier ID. Though he searched many lists, he didn’t find what he was looking for. He decided to do a general search. After typing in “Critical Mass Industries experimental weapons”, he opened several pages. After roughly two minutes of searching, Rex noticed that a few of the pages he’d opened all shared a common feature: somewhere in each of them, the name “Ultra COM Rifle” could be found. Rex decided to search for “Critical Mass Ultra COM Rifle”, but oddly enough, he didn’t get any results. He sat back and sighed, thinking. Then he searched the same thing on the SAS weapons subwebsite. One result said “Airburst Rifle”, and he decided to check it out. When the page finished loading, a window popped up. “High-level security access required to proceed.” Rex knew he wasn’t anywhere near high-level security, but he put in serial number anyway. “Access denied.”    “No surprise there.” Rex thought. “I already entered my info when I got on the site.” Then he heard movement in the room next to his. “I guess A.J. finally got up.” Then Rex snapped his fingers. “Maybe that’ll work!”    He opened his room’s door (but he grabbed his card key first) and knocked on A.J.’s door. The occupant opened up. “What.” he asked blankly. “I need a favor.” Rex answered. A.J. rubbed his face with his hand. “What kind of favor?”    “Security clearance.”     A.J. gave him a cold look. “Yeah right.”    Before the door closed, Rex said, “Look, I just want to know about CM’s megasonic rifle, whatever it’s called.”     “No.” A.J. said, and he started closing the door again. Desperate, Rex asked, “Your machinegun is classified, right?”    “What?” A.J. replied, scratching his head. “If I looked it up on the SAS weapons subwebsite, I’d need special clearance to look at its page, right?”    “Yeah. So what?”    “Then I already know classified info.” Rex stated. “Yeah. So what?”    “Well then, what’s wrong with knowing about another weapon… that I probably shouldn’t know about…” Rex trailed off. A.J. looked up and shrugged as if to ask, “Why me!?” Then he said. “Fine. I’ll try it. But I don’t even know if I have the clearance for it.”    A.J. got his key and then followed Rex into his room. He went to the computer and entered his name, soldier ID, and his serial number (Rex closed his eyes when A.J. put it in) and hit “Confirm”. The box disappeared and the result astounded both soldiers. “Sub-Light COM 1.” A.J. read aloud. “This rifle is capable of propelling its round to a speed of nearly 60,000 m/s. Smart target round activates high speed event when target is within one meter. Uses Center of Mass Displacement to suddenly release a large amount of energy in a quickly-dispersing beam. This sudden energy spike causes instant expanding of the surrounding air. The bullet then causes instantaneous cooling, which creates a super powerful vacuum that has as much pull in comparison to its size as a neutron star!” Rex and A.J. looked at each other, wide-eyed. “This vacuum is so small, it affects nothing besides the bullet. The sudden speed burst paired with wind resistance causes the bullet to expand from a .50 cal round to a 5-inch cone. This projectile can pierce virtually anything. This rifle is still under development, though it is likely to be finished in just days and dubbed ‘Sub-Light COM 2.’”    “Whoa.” Rex said. “I think I need that in my life.”    “This info isn’t quite current.” A.J. pointed out. I think this bad boy is finished by now.”    “A weapons shipment is coming in soon.” Rex said. “One of the guys playing Grid told me about it. Maybe I’ll be able to get my hands on one of those monsters.”    “Yeah. Maybe.” A.J. replied quietly. “Something wrong?”    A.J. sighed. “I just broke military regulations… We can’t give this info to anybody, or we’re in BIG trouble.”    “Um, OK. I won’t talk, I swear.”    “And neither will I… I’m going downstairs for breakfast. I’ll probably see you later.”    “OK.” Rex said. Then A.J. exited. After a few seconds, Rex said, “I’m hungry too.”, and he followed A.J.    After they ate, they went to the gym to see if a Grid game was being played. There was indeed a game in progress, though different people were playing. Nonetheless, Rex and A.J. joined, playing on different teams. A.J.’s team won by 2 points, largely because he would run with the ball on many plays, and he was hard to tackle. When evening came, Rex and A.J. returned to the TLF. Rex ordered pizza and he and A.J. spent that night trading stories about growing up, and A.J. recounted some of his adventures with the SAS. “Man, A.J., I cannot believe you ate that much pizza. I guess you were right after all: we did need three of them.”    “Ahhh, yep.” A.J. replied. “BRUUUUUHP!!!”    Rex busted out laughing when someone in another room exclaimed, “What was that!? An explosion?”, and A.J. facepalmed. “Well, it’s late, and I’m going to bed.” A.J. declared. “G’night, Rex.”    “Goodnight. Y’know, you’re kinda like an older brother. I don’t know exactly how or why, but you just are.”    “Uh, thanks?” A.J. said doubtfully. When Rex assured him it was a compliment, A.J. responded, “Ah, I see. Well, see ya tomorrow.”    “See ya.” Rex said, and A.J. exited and went to his own room. “He’s not as hard-nosed as he seemed when we were on the space station.” Rex thought. “I wonder why he seemed so irritable? Oh well, zombies aren’t exactly calming, so I guess that sort of makes sense.”    After Rex showered, he went to bed. A.J. walked around his room. He went to where he had left his armor and picked up his helmet. He opened a secret compartment of the helmet and took out a piece of paper from it. Physical photos weren’t extremely common in this day and age, at least on Trans-Fed planets, but something as special as this needed to be set apart. “Don’t worry.” A.J. said, though he knew the people he was talking to couldn’t possibly hear him. “I’ll see you soon enough.”    A.J. put the picture back in his helmet and went to bed… Aartis Space and Air Base II]

Next chapter: Coming next week! ;)