Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (1-4) Read online

  “We’ve got to find a way to beat that punk.”

  8

  5 weeks later…

  “Oh man,” Dan said as the 2s walked into the southwestern aquatics bay and saw their fellow trainees motoring out the open door into the calm, sunlit ocean water, “5s beat us here.”

  “The 1s are out there too, along with a lot of challengers,” the bay master said from the counter. “Looks like it’s going to be a busy day. How long do you guys have?”

  “Two hours on the schedule,” Jason answered, “but this is the last session of the day so we can stay over as long as we want.”

  The bay master smiled. “I’ll make sure the refuelers are fully stocked. Go put up some new high scores…the water’s perfect for it.”

  “Will do, Hank,” Jason said as he and the others hurriedly walked past the counter and onto the narrow walkway that stretched out into the shallow swimming pool that held over a hundred jet skis. Two other pools were present in the bay, on flanking sides holding larger craft, but the jet ski pool was the only one that was elevated.

  A third of the personal water craft were multi-seaters, but the 2s went straight for the highly agile and fast singles with the activation keys already in the ignition. Jason hopped off the walkway and swung onto the seat of one of the 40 blue jet skis reserved for trainee use. The rest of the craft were available to the rest of the Atlantis personnel as both a means of training and recreation.

  Jason’s half inch thick padded wetsuit ended at the elbows and knees, doubling as a life vest and body pads. It also had a small tracking unit imbedded in the material that allowed each person in the field to be monitored by bay control, along with a panic button in the collar which, if pressed three times in succession, would call for a pickup crew with medics to be dispatched.

  Security and safety precautions aside, Jason didn’t bother to worry about such things. He rarely got tossed off his ride, though when he did he was more worried about getting eaten by the critters roaming the ocean than anything else. To date no one had experienced any problems in that regard, but every time he went out onto the ocean he was conscious of the fact that the Humans weren’t the only ones in the water.

  That wasn’t on his mind at the moment as he activated his jet ski and backed away from the walkway prongs separating each of the craft. He spun about then slowly maneuvered through the various lanes until he came into the only open section of the pool directly in front of a smooth ramp leading down to the commons area where the three pools met in front of the massive bay doors.

  Megan and Ivan beat him to the edge, ramping up their speed suddenly and sliding up and over the flexible ridge holding the pool’s water in. They skidded over the ‘dry’ edge and slid down the white slip ‘n slide into the ocean water below, then jetted on out of the bay.

  Jason followed them over and down the extra long drop, thanks to the current low tide, and accelerated through the short tunnel connecting the bay to the exterior of the city. He emerged into the bright sunlight and blinked away the glare as he followed the others towards the rightmost of three small ‘islands’ in the distance while the rest of the 2s split up to go their separate ways.

  Emily and Brian met up with them at the obstacle course start pad, bumping up and over the soft edge of the island and into the small raised lagoon where the control staff logged them in from an elevated control cabana on the far side. A group of ‘civies,’ as the trainees thought of them, were waiting for their turn while a group of staff reset the course, but they gave up their slots upon seeing the blue jet skis arrive, as was standard procedure. They looked a bit bummed to have to wait longer, but also a bit eager to see the rock stars in action.

  The five civies were familiar to the 2s and were regulars out on the water, having crossed paths with the trainees on multiple occasions.

  “We’re getting your record today, Mathis,” Jason taunted as they swapped places.

  “Go for it,” the off duty aquatics bay worker responded pithily as Jason slid his jet ski up onto the release ramp. “We’ll beat whatever you put up.”

  “With this crew?” Megan teased, gesturing to the others. “Overly optimistic, I’d say.”

  “New blood, new opportunities,” Mathis replied as the controller in the booth signaled that the course was set. “Give us something decent to shoot for, will ya?”

  “Happy to,” Jason said, gripping the handlebars as he looked back over his shoulder and nodded at the controller. A countdown tone sounded, and on the third electronic bleat the narrow ramps underneath the five jet skis fell out and dropped them down at an angle into the ocean, where they immediately jetted off, water spraying in their wakes.

  Large display screens on the walls of the cabana showed a diagram of the course with moving dots indicating the placement of the 5 teammates, along with a clock which would be the measure of their final score. The civies watched both the screens and the water as the group of trainees split up and headed for the various inflated obstacles tethered to the distant ocean floor below.

  Jason let the others veer off left and right while he continued straight on ahead towards a neon yellow ring on a breakaway cord suspended between two inflatable pylons, equally as yellow and standing five meters high above the almost perfectly calm ocean water. With the lack of waves to buffet his craft around, Jason raced towards the target at high speed, literally feeling the seconds peeling off the clock. They hadn’t had a day this calm since the aquatic bonus challenges had been added six months ago, and the past week had been so turbulent that none of the trainees had been able to get out on the water.

  The 2s’ team challenges had been winding down, now that they were approaching the final stage of their training, and given the fact that they were way ahead on their naval challenges and had just completed the last of their vehicular ones, they’d started using their extra daily team challenge time to double up on the remaining ones, as well as go back and try for higher scores on those that allowed repeats after completion.

  They also had begun spending more and more of their time going after bonus points in the voluntary challenges, such as this water course. If they finished under par time, they’d receive a small amount of bonus points, enhanced through time brackets, but even if they totally rocked the course there wasn’t a lot to be gained, but they were eager to grab whatever they could to pad their points lead, especially with so few big point scoring opportunities left.

  Jason slowed to half speed as he approached the inflatable gate and reached up with his right arm and grabbed the bottom of the ring, yanking it off its tether and collecting it over his shoulder as he turned hard to port and accelerated towards the next gate. Once he straightened out his line he reached back and attached the ring to a small clipped hook behind his seat, freeing his hand and arm from his bounty.

  His teammates were likewise collecting rings from dozens of gates along the first segment of the course. The yellow ring Jason had collected was considered an easy grab, and therefore only 1 gate point. The red gate he was headed towards now was a medium one and had its ring suspended higher above the water…too high to reach up and grab.

  It did however have a small ramp on the north side of the gate, which Jason had to swing a bit left to get in front of, then pulled a hard right turn to line himself up properly. A few hard seconds of charging later and he was to the ramp, decelerating just before he hit it so he could have a smooth jump.

  He didn’t slow down enough though and overshot his mark, catching the red ring on the front nose of his jet ski and pulling it off as he flew through the air and started to head nose first into the water.

  Jason stood up, pressing the rear of the craft down with his legs and managed a half decent landing, but he had to brake hard and then reverse a meter or so to get the ring off the nose. It floated up on the water in front of him where he quickly picked it up, leaning way over the side as he motored by and sped off across the water.

  He met up with the other 2s at a
primary gate…which was actually a ‘gate’ gate. Two pylons, each twice as large as their smaller cousins, were connected by a solid wall of green padding blocking access to the other side. Each pylon had a hook near water level, which the 2s quickly deposited their captured rings on. Tiny chips imbedded in each ring were scanned on the hooks, determining their point value and number, and after a sufficient amount of points had been deposited the main gate raised up, allowing the 2s to cross into the second section of the course.

  Here there were less yellow gates, along with a few blue ones, indicating the hardest to capture and worth 3 points each. Jason immediately roared ahead while the others fanned out again, as was their agreed upon plan to keep them slip apart and not headed towards the same targets and wasting valuable time.

  The nearest gate to Jason was a red, but this one didn’t have a jump. Instead, it had a mount suspended above water with a ring half imbedded into its surface. He decelerated heavily as he approached and slid his jet ski up the short ramp, hoping not to overshoot or cut it short, which would leave him sliding back down into the water.

  Fortunately this time he did neither, sliding up the ramp and coming to a halt on the flat top next to the ring. He had to get off his seat and take a large step to his right to grab it, stretching out his safety cord, but otherwise he had timed the ramp perfectly. Hooking the ring on the back of his jet ski, Jason gave the watercraft a strong shove then ran and jumped back up on before it could pass all the way over the edge.

  He bounced around on the seat awkwardly until it slid back into the water, then righted himself on the pommel and raced off again to collect more rings and more points for the next big gate, which required twice the points of the first to pass through.

  Jason eventually arrived at the gate with four reds and a yellow, but saved one of the reds when the green padded barrier opened before all the rings had been placed on the hook, meaning they’d grabbed more than they needed, but that was ok because they could use the spares on the last gate, which required four times the points of the first.

  When they moved through and fanned out again there were no yellow inflatable markers visible, only a spattering of reds and a lot of blues…

  Jason snagged another red, having to maneuver through a marsh of poles that required precise movements, then headed towards one of the blue gates with its two inflatable pillars showing, but without a ring in between them.

  “Here goes,” Jason said to himself as he slowed to a crawl and positioned himself carefully before ramping up the engine and yanking on the handlebars to launch him into the air…where he pulled some impressive aerobatics to get the jet ski to come down nose first and penetrate the water. Both he and the craft disappeared below the surface for a few seconds, then reappeared on the other side of the gate, bursting up out of the water with a blue ring in hand.

  Jason coughed some water out of his mouth and nose as he slowly turned about and got his bearings, adding the three point ring to his stash. In the distance he saw Megan fly off an angled ramp doing a corkscrew, rotating an entire 360 degrees and managing to grab the suspended blue ring just before she hit the water.

  Her hand hit the ring and knocked it off, but she couldn’t keep hold of it, nor the jet ski as it landed at an twisted angle. She flew off the seat, pulling the activation key out with the long bungie attached to her left wrist, and hit the water hard. Jason, still coughing up a bit of water, motored over to her position.

  “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, intending 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.