Star Force: Trailblazer (SF4)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “You ok?” he said when he got to her several seconds later.

  “Peachy,” she said, grabbing the edge of his craft. “Grab my ring.”

  Jason dragged her through the water and over to her jet ski before circling back around and grabbing the blue ring out of the water. Before he could give it back to her, Megan zoomed off towards the next gate, intend on not wasting any more time.

  Jason smiled and attached it to his stack, then raced off towards the next gate, grabbing another red ring before spinning around and making a direct line to the last giant green gate. He met up with Emily there and deposited all of his rings, then spotted a nearby blue gate that hadn’t yet been plucked and went for it while the other three were still a good distance away.

  It was another submersed blue ring, but Jason didn’t come up with it when he emerged from the water this time. He coughed his lungs clear and spun around, setting up for a second dive attempt when he heard Emily yell at him.

  Grateful, he let the gate go and sped back over to the others as they were putting their captured rings on, meeting the required amount with a red to spare. The gate pulled up and revealed a set of navigational buoys that they raced through in a giant turn that sent them back towards the start area at full speed, thanks to the calm water.

  The five of them zipped past the finish line in close formation, stopping the clock at 14:32.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mathis muttered, seeing his team record smashed by 54 seconds.

  “They really ate up that calm water,” one of the staff in the cabana noted.

  One of the others in the control booth glanced over at him. “Yeah, the water. Right.”

  “Alright boys, there it is,” Mathis said, pointing at the stopped clock. “That’s what we’re beating today, so get yourselves psyched. It’s going to be one wild ride…”

  9

  When Paul left the aquatics bay with the others he headed for the middle ‘island’ far out away from the city, which stood like a gigantic metal mountain behind them, rising up dozens of stories above the water with a mass of tiny towers on top. The outer face was almost sheer, with just a bit of an angle going straight up, with a relatively small hole at the base that was the tunnel back into the aquatics bay.

  Jack pulled up and paced beside Paul as they made the long haul out to the group of race courses facilitated by the artificial island more than a mile away, keeping between the navigational markers to avoid drifting into any of the competition zones. Everywhere around them were moving craft and thousands of inflatable markers, making for an amusement park feel to this part of the ocean surrounding Atlantis.

  There were eight aquatics bays in total, but this one was reserved for Star Force personnel only, while some of the others would be made available to the public on a limited basis once the tourists started to arrive en mass. For now though, all those out on the water had legitimate business zooming about as they honed their skills for their occupations or just for the challenge of it.

  When Paul and Jack got out to the island there were several dozen other jet skis and riders milling about in the raised lagoon, but this island was far larger than the one servicing the obstacle courses. There were six cabanas overseeing the race courses along with a few other buildings to service the riders given how far out they were from the city, along with gigantic display screens showing live images of racers currently out on the courses.

  Paul ramped his jet ski up into the lagoon and motored through the shallow water to where some of the 1s and 5s were milling about as they watched the screens. “Anyone gone yet?”

  “Sara’s on course 2 right now,” Zak answered, pointing to one of the screens on the left.

  “How’s the water running?” Jack asked.

  “Smooth as silk,” Aaron said. “The civies have even broke a few of our records.”

  “Which ones?” Paul asked as Zak and Erin moved up towards the starting blocks as some of the courses cleared.

  “Yours, Jason’s, and Morgan’s,” Aaron told him.

  Paul frowned. “All of Morgan’s?”

  “No, just course 6.”

  “Who’s the culprit?” Jack asked, curious.

  “Some new guys, just arrived a couple weeks ago for the opening ceremonies.”

  “Where are they?” Paul asked, wanting to see who’d broken their records.

  “Umm…I think one of them is still out here. Yeah, course 3. Looks like he’s going to be close to Kerrie’s mark.”

  “Not for long,” she said, waiting in line a few meters over.

  “Looks like we’ve got some work to do,” Paul noted, looking at all of the starting blocks. Most had two or three people waiting in line, but there were a pair that stood empty.

  Jack and Paul exchanged glances. “Wanna try?”

  “Why not?” Jack said, trolling over to the open slots. “Consider it a warmup.”

  “I’ll take 12,” Paul said, heading over and ramping up into the starting block. He gripped the handlebars tightly and stood up a few inches over his seat, then signaled to the nearest cabana. A moment later his countdown tone started.

  “Here goes…” he said, feeling the ramp fall out from under him.

  As soon as he hit the water he jetted off at maximum acceleration, then took a hard right/left S-curve around some boulder-sized spherical buoys before hitting the first obstacle on the Mario Kart-like course…a small ramp set between gate markers that he had to pass through. He backed off on his speed just before contact to diminish the amount of air he’d get, for as soon as he landed he had to make a hard left turn and begin zigzagging between several dozen ‘posts’ sticking out of the water like street lights.

  Usually Paul preferred to stick to the flat water courses and had some of the best times there, but at the moment he felt like racing instead of sitting around and waiting, so he might as well play a bit on the ‘interesting’ ones…which had a habit of knocking off their riders. He really didn’t feel like tasting salt water again, but it was worth the risk just to get some racing in right away.

  After passing through the posts, Paul approached a gauntlet of water cannons spraying laterally in a specific pattern. If he timed it right he wouldn’t get hit, so he slowed down and began mentally counting. When the moment came he ramped up the jet ski’s engine and darted headlong into the long stretch of water between two floating walls, seeing nothing but water jets crisscrossing in front of him.

  Just before he hit the first one it cut off, right on time, and he cut back on the throttle. If he exceeded 80% then he’d outrun the gap and hit the water jets ahead of him, which he’d learned from watching Jason on previous days. Patience and precision were the key, though a lot of riders just tried to blast their way through, with about 2/3rds of those getting knocked off in the process.

  Paul came through cleanly then hit another small ramp at the exit, coming down at a bad angle and bouncing him off his seat, but he held on and quickly righted himself as he entered a stretch of flat water racing that reminded him of going through the double corners of Indy…in video games anyway. He’d never actually driven on the gigantic motor speedway.

  Cutting close to the buoys, Paul ran through that section of the course as quickly as possible, enjoying the waveless water and knowing he was making excellent time as he came to a section of ‘moguls’ and hit the tiny ramps at half speed, bouncing up and down in sequence to avoid bubble-like inflatables blocking the clear water in between. This also caused him to have to weave left and right, for the ramps weren’t set in a single line, and hitting them from an angle made the jet ski wobble a bit on landing, from which he’d have to execute another quick turn in the opposite direction.

  Paul lost half his speed in the process, but maintained a semblance of rhythm and got through the washboard-like moguls without tipping over…which was no small victory. He proceeded to go through three more small obstacles then another flat water section leading up to the final jump on the course, and the biggest of
them all, which was the primary reason no one had been waiting in line.

  Paul caught his breath on the flat water and lined up his approach, which was easy without the waves buffeting him around. He accelerated up to 75% speed and hit the 5m high ramp dead on, launching him way up into the air, giving him a clear view over the top of the cabanas and down into the lagoon just off to his left.

  Paul stood up on the jet ski and braced for the impact, using his body to reposition the craft beneath him as flat as possible, but it still hit a bit nose down, cutting into the water and dragging him under. He ducked his face down into the side of his arm just before the wall of water washed over him and he disappeared beneath the ocean’s surface.

  With his eyes closed and his head disoriented, he used the hand controls and accelerated forward underneath the water, pushing his legs down and with them the back of the jet ski which began to rise nose up towards the surface.

  Paul popped out of the water, gaining a bit of airtime in the process, then splashed back down, banging his butt on the seat as he coughed out some water that had, as usual, gone straight up his nose. He shook more water out of his hair and eyes and spied the finish line just ahead of him, so he ramped up the engine again and jetted forward, only able to half see where he was going. When he crossed the finish line’s motion sensor a loud tone sounded, along with a triumphant musical blast that he recognized as the audible signal of a new course record.

  Paul spit out the last of the salt water from his mouth and slowly moved back over to the lagoon, gently ramping back up and over the lip that separated the elevated pond from the rest of the ocean and motored back over to the clump of trainees that now included a couple of the 8s who had just arrived.

  “I can’t believe you just beat the nut cracker!” Sara yelled at him as he pulled up, using the name for the course given to it by some of the male staffers who worked the control cabanas.

  “That was me?” he asked, half thinking that the sound had been for one of the other courses. He hadn’t expected to be anywhere close to the leaders.

  Sara pointed up at the scoreboard, listing the top 25 times for each of the courses. Paul’s name now held the top spot, a good 4 seconds better than the previous record, held by Morgan no less.

  “Wow,” he said, realizing what he’d just done. “That calm water works wonders.”

  “Morgan’s going to be pissed,” Rafa said, laughing slightly. “I don’t think the 6s are going to get out here today.”

  “Really?” Paul said sarcastically, with a smirk forming on his face. “That’s a shame,” he said as a jet flew by overhead.

  Air traffic wasn’t uncommon over Atlantis, with planes coming and going at all hours of the day now that the final construction had been finished, but this jet was lower than normal and not a transport…it was military.

  “That’s an F-35,” Sara pointed out as it circled around the city. Another identical one was visible in the distance, also circling. “What’s it doing here?”

  “Guarding that,” Paul said, pointing up into the sky as a large jet was making a landing approach to Atlantis…with two more of the fighters flying in escort formation around it. “I’m pretty sure that’s Air Force One.”

  “Guess the big wigs are starting to arrive for the grand opening,” Rafa noted as the American President’s plane disappeared over the mountainous edge of the city. “I hear Davis is hosting one hell of a party.”

  “With heads of state?” Sara asked indignantly. “Bet that’ll be loads of fun.”

  “I was referring to the festival,” Rafa clarified. “It’s supposed to last more than a month and draw in over 2 million tourists.”

  “As long as they stay out of our way,” Paul said, looking at the waiting lines. He wanted to get back out on the water as soon as possible.

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” Sara told him. “Our sectors in the city are fully secured. We’re ghosts here as far as the public is concerned.”

  “Hope it stays that way,” Rafa said, wheeling his jet ski around. “I don’t want to share the water with a bunch of bratty kids on vacation.”

  “Speaking of which,” Paul said, seeing course 4’s line drop down to 1 person. “Let’s make sure we get our records back from the civies before the day’s over. We might not get this good of weather again for months.”

  “I already got one back,” Sara boasted, moving off towards the lines with Paul. “Looks like they’ve still got four others.”

  Paul looked up at the score board and frowned. Sara now had the record on his best course.

  “You know, I am going to have to take that one back from you…”

  “Feel free to try,” she challenged with a smile, darting ahead of him towards the waiting lines.

  10

  Four days later…

  “I’d like to welcome all of you to this pre-festivities summit,” Davis said congenially as he looked out at the national leaders and representatives filling the medium-sized amphitheatre set beneath a dome of semi-transparent glass in one of Atlantis’s many towers, “and I apologize for the lack of media access, but given the matters I will be disclosing, I felt it best that we keep things behind closed doors until you have a chance to consider all of your options.”

  A subtle murmur swept through the crowd. Davis had extended invites to thousands of celebrities, making the next day’s opening ceremonies the social hot spot for the planet, with many more unsolicited requests for VIP status flowing in over the past 12 months in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tourists already present in the city, with many times that scheduled to fly in over the next week.

  A second, more subtle invite had been extended to each nation on the planet, along with a summons to the heads of the prominent corporate entities that typically did business with Star Force, stating that he would be making an announcement concerning matters of national security and the future colonization of space. Follow up requests for more detail had been denied, reemphasizing the need for each invitee to be represented in person. Given that level of secrecy, and the profitability that Star Force afforded the planet, none of the invitations had been declined and many heads of state who were here for the opening ceremonies were also in attendance.

  “It has always been Star Force’s mission to facilitate the colonization of space. To make it affordable, productive, efficient, reliable, and above all else…viable. A few decades ago, many people considered space exploration to be a waste of time and a capital black hole. I believe we’ve allayed those fear by now, but in truth we’ve barely scratched the surface of potential colonization. Today, with the opening of Atlantis to the public, I’m proud to announce that Star Force is taking the next step forward.”

  Using a number of large, wall-mounted viewscreens placed above and behind him, Davis brought up a series of schematics and images of spacecraft and space stations.

  “To date, Star Force has allowed your countries and corporations access to leases of portions or entire space stations, as well as transit contracts for both personnel and cargo using our fleet of dropships and starships. I believe most of you have found the arrangement to be mutually profitable, especially the smaller nations and companies who could otherwise not have fielded any space infrastructure on their own. I don’t believe it is an exaggeration on my part to say that Star Force has succeeded in granting virtually everyone access to the orbital economy.”

  A soft, but widespread round of applause followed his statement, and he paused a moment to let it die out.

  “Many of you, however, have requested more autonomy for your space programs, wishing to purchase craft and stations for your exclusive use. We have, categorically, denied such requests, insisting that if you wished to pursue that endeavor you would have to build such infrastructure and transportation yourselves. A few other startup space enterprises have offered you limited services in that department, but the truth is they are not sufficient to the task, nor are any of you capable of producing bot
h the numbers and quality of equipment that Star Force currently fields.”

  “There are two announcements that I have to make today. The first of which is the privilege of informing you that Star Force has grown to sufficient size that we now have adequate orbital construction capability to build our own equipment along with servicing external orders.”

  Davis pointed up at the images behind him.

  “These models we are now making available for purchase. They will be built on demand and delivered to a location of your choosing for your exclusive use. Star Force will not require any oversight or control of said ships and stations. They will be yours upon purchase, to use as you see fit.”

  A much louder round of applause broke out, following by a standing cheer from all those assembled. This move by Star Force had been long overdue, so they attested, and had been lobbied for heavily. That lobbying had met a solid wall, angering many who resented Star Force’s resistance to corruption and the usual back door deals/arm twisting that planetary politics was plagued with.

  Davis waved off the applause so he could continue. “Orders will be met as resources are available, and I imagine a backlog will develop quickly. I’ve designated one of our primary shipyards to handle your orders, so I promise you won’t have to wait an inordinate amount of time. Also, as we continue to expand our orbital infrastructure more shipyards will be coming online to handle the increased demand. We project our construction capabilities to triple over the next five years, which is why we’re now opening up our manufacturing division to outside orders. Until now, there was simply no way we could have kept up with the demand.”

  “Now, as to who’s orders get filled first…that’s up to the construction schedule, though we will give some level of priority to first time orders so that you can establish an orbital foothold as soon as possible. Meanwhile, our leasing program will continue as it has been. If you wish to continue with that route of colonization, the choice is yours. Star Force maintains that we will provide you with options…the path you choose is your own to decide.”