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Another Jet story.
Another Jet story.
#1
One of two I'm working on right now. Rather needs a title.

Set in a period of Jet's life after she's left OGJ, and is living dirtside.

Quote:The drive back from the machine-shop was interminable. Jet cursed LA traffic. The little switch behind the gear-stick marked ‘high/low’ was so tempting. Just flick it to high, engage the flight-drive, and scoot on over the traffic. And draw attention from every single Government agent in a hundred mile radius.

Jet cursed the stealth-waved F-150 to a rusting grave.

It was hot, cramped and bloody slow.... at least from the perspective of a space-flight capable cyborg. From the perspective of the local Highway Patrol, it was dangerously fast. Jet accumulated speeding tickets faster than the windscreen accumulated bugs.

It didn’t help that hardsuit feet really weren’t the best for throttle and brake control. At least it was an automatic. No broken gearsticks.... again.

“I hate driving,” the cyborg murmured to the steering wheel. The ‘check engine’ light flickered on, drawing her attention to an LCD display under the speedo. Line-by-line, it read out

“A boy played in a sandpit with no one to mind him,
When quietly a cement truck pulled up behind him.
He peeped not a peep, cried not a cry —
Just his sandals stuck out when the concrete was dry.”


When waved, the PowerStroke became a PowerJoke. God knows where it got them from. Jet smirked, appreciating a little black humour.

“Thanks,”

I should’ve gotten this stuff delivered, she thought, pulling off onto another ‘Freeway’. She always suspected that the name was reall just an ironic joke. In fairness, it seemed like a good idea to pick it all up at the time.

In the bay, were a number of duct-taped boxes, the contents of which had cost Jet more than a small amount to get machined.

It took two hours to drive back to the apartment. She could’ve flown it in three minutes.

------------>>

“Sierra’s Independent Ford Mechanics” read a proud sign, over a small garage. Inside, a shining Mustang was parked over an inspection pit, light flickering from underneath.

Jet pulled the truck in, jerking to a halt as she stood too-hard on the brake... lunging forward... then jerking to a halt again. She got out, slamming the door behind her.

“Hey Jet,” Sierra’s voice called out from the pit.

“I’m back,” Jet announced, redundantly

“Get your parts?”

“Yup,” she answered “And they cost me a pretty penny too thanks to all the tools they had to go through. Battle steel is tough stuff y’know.”

“You actually got some of that stuff down here. Damn!”

Jet shrugged “Worth the effort. How’s the car.”

“Still being a bitch,” Sierra spat. “It’s pissing transmission fluid everywhere. Fucking thing.” There came a frustrated thunk of spanner on gearbox casing. It’d been out of the car three times and still resolutely refused to stay oil-tight.

Jet sighed. “I’ll cook dinner then.”

“Beef’s defrosted in the sink.”

Jet peered the car, wearing a goofy grin. “Too bad there isn’t a way you could just wave a hand and have this thing fixed.....”

Sierra answered with an oily rag to Jet’s face, leaving a stain down her cheek. “After the last time? Not a chance in hell.”

“Joking...”

“I know,” said Sierra. “Oh.... and there was a phonecall for you earlier.”

“Cameron again?”

Oh please not Cameron again.

“No,” she shook her head, “Someone from down in ‘frisco wondering if you could do a few supersonic passes for them on camera.”

“What?” Jet quirked an eyebrow. “Why would they want that?”

“Didn’t say,” Sierra shrugged. “I said you’d call them back since you were out,”

-------->>

Jet unloaded the truck. Boxes full of battle steel parts were little trouble for a cyborg capable of up-ending a car. She fetched her blades from the apartment upstairs.... the deadly weapons legally permitted as ‘ceremonial implements of a martial arts practitioner’.

They cut through Zwilniks pretty good. They also made short work of all the wrapping. Inside, hidden among polystyrene peas was a shining metallic helmet. With all the excitement of a two year old on Christmas, she pulled it out.

It was beautiful. Jet could see her own warped, grinning reflection smiling in it’s milled surface. It’d been polished to a mirror shine, then coated with a corrosion resistant laquer. In a few places, Jet could still spot traces of toolmarks, especially in the interior. There were visor parts, and some elements from the collar in the bottom.

Each one exquisitely machined, glinting in the evening sunlight coming through the window. Machining like this didn’t come cheap, but it was worth every cent she’d paid the machinist just to hold the parts in her hand.

Prior to this, they’d existed solely in a CAD program on a computer upstairs, and now she was holding them in her hands. She brushed the surface against her cheek, the metal shockingly cool and perfectly smooth.

Jet placed them down on her workbench.

In another box was the plastron, also machined from a single block of metal. Getting that much billet battle steel had taken more than a few called in favours from up above, but it was worth it. Ordinary mild steel just didn’t have that same blueish lustre.... or strength.

In another box was the powerpack and back assembly. Another solid-milled block of metal. Each arm and leg came in it’s own box, all the parts individually labelled. Jet laid them out on a workbench in their proper positions.

There was certainly a satisfaction from it, even if Jet knew it wasn’t something she wanted to spend her whole life doing. She could understand why some people did.

It had taken eight months to get things this far.

At the end of the bench, the humanoid skeleton of a suit hung by it’s back from specially built support, engines, electronics and actuators exposed to the elements. It was essentially a Stingray hardsuit, taken from the Whole Fenspace Catalogue, with a few light modifications to make it airworthy. Being almost entirely hardtech... save for the engines, it kept the FAA happy.

The computer systems were Linux-based, running on an A11 ARM system, with some custom firmware Jet had managed to code herself, and a Catalogue-based expert system that sort-of worked.

It was a hell of a lot of work to say the least. And all of it had to be logged and recorded if it was to be properly registered and certified as airworthy. The intent was to come back to the apartment after flying it.

-------->>

“Who that feels....” Sierra stopped, her mind not really able to put words to the sensations. She held up her now armoured fingers, looking at her own reflection. She clenched and released her hand... her natural hand, listening to the metal fingers clack-clacking against the steel palm.

“Weird?” Jet finished for her.

“Unh,” nodded Sierra. “Hard to describe. It really doesn’t feel like it’s myself.... if that makes sense.”

Jet smiled softly, “It does,”

“I mean, I know it’s me in here,,, but look at me,” she held up her arms, “It should be heavy, but it feels so light.”

So, all those hours spent adjusting the actuators came good.

“It’s not binding, or going stiff?”

“Not that I can feel. Maybe if I try walk around,”

Carefully, she took one step forward. The solid-ankle boots matched the source material... the heels making enough room for some light thrusters bought second-hand. A bulge along the back of the calf formed the intake and compression stage of the engines, giving the lower legs an oddly bulky look, compared to Jet’s own.

Sierra took another step, looking down at her toes. “It’s like wearing stilts,” she mumbled to herself. Carefully, one foot in front of the other, she moved forward.

Tak-tak-tak went her feet on the concrete floor.

“Just be careful,” Jet warned, her voice soft. “You really don’t know your own strength.”

Sierra picked up the helmet, turning it over

“It feels like.... power steering. All light.... there’s no feel or anything. It’s like the helmet’s made of styrofoam or something.”

It was absolutely and utterly alien.

Jet held up her hands, a wry gleam in her eye. “Don’t put that on just yet,”

“Why not?”

Carefully, she placed the polished metal helmet on the workbench.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,”

Jet was oddly direct about it.

“What?” Sierra looked a little uneasy.

“This.”

Jet’s sheer strength startled Sierra... her first instinct was to push and fight back. She quenched that fast, feeling Jets arms lock tightly around her back...oddly distant through the armour be still reassuringly firm.

It was when Jet gently pressed the warn skin of her cheek against her own that Sierra finally figured out what Jet was doing.

She was hugging her.

For the first time since they’d met, Jet was finally able to really hug her.

The other story I'm working on.... is a prequel to the Boskone Prime story of sorts, introducing the Destiny Nova, and showing Jet 'In-Action'. I'm going to at least finish it, because I'm curious about something, but it may be a little bit beyond the genre directives.
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#2
Dartz Wrote:The other story I'm working on.... is a prequel to the Boskone Prime story of sorts, introducing the Destiny Nova, and showing Jet 'In-Action'. I'm going to at least finish it, because I'm curious about something, but it may be a little bit beyond the genre directives.
If you'd like, you can email it to me (my board handle at gmail) before posting it. I'm pretty sure I understand the genre directives well enough to say whether you've crossed them...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#3
Thanks. I will when it's done, been playing around with it quite a bit to try get it right.

And I'd really like to thank Yuku for hiding the reply...
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