User blog:FleetCaptainT/Song of the Swans Rewrite

I have decided that Song of the Swans required a rewrite of its early parts.  This is necesarry because there are many plot fragments that must be deleted and I am a bit blocked towards continuing to write newer parts.  More typically, I have writ this story over some long period of time, a year or six months, I can't remember right now, but my writing style has changed over this time... or it's changed over the fifty+ chapters of the story.  I like consistency.

Watever.

Here's the Prologue and First Chapter.

Prologue

  Charles remembered Crux Prime differently.   With his eyes shut he pictured swaths of infectious mist, calcified shrubbery, and scattered debris for miles outside the shield barrier around Nexus Tower.   With his eyes open, as they were now, he saw in all those miles around the magnificent Tower a clear, clean expanse.   The shield was deactivated.   Flat, windswept stone made up the undisturbed ground between his vantage two klicks from the Tower’s northeast to the crags around Sentinel Point Zeta.   Even though the cliffs were high and he could not see that was beyond, he knew what was not.

  The old Crux Prime was gone.   The Maelstrom Quarry, Rivendark Canyon, even the Mars had been cleaned as a liberated Block Yard.

  Charles took a deep breath of the cold air.  There was a welcome chill, like fresh water.   No infection, not even the slightest sting of Maelstrom influence remained on the ground… except what remained in him.

  “Breathtaking,” a man said and Charles turned to him.  It was unusual for his friend, a proud Venture League Buccaneer by the name of Cheerful Power Rover, to dress casually, but they were all taking time off from active service.  This was a special occasion.  Still, Rover maintained his Faction colors with a warm green sweatshirt and plain brown jeans.  A monkey sat on Rover’s shoulder eating from a snack pack.

  "Good to be back, huh?" Rover sighed.

  Charles snorted.  "For the fifth time; it's better to see you again, Cheerful Power Rover!”

  The monkey jumped off when Rover drew Charles into a hug.  "And me you, Gallant Strong Cyclone!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Song of the Swans
The Sequel to the Stromling Saga

 

One

  Charles was better known by his Nexus Force given name, Gallant Strong Cyclone, so that was the name his friends and teammates, Rover, Kate, and Blade, called him.  Eventually, meaning a few weeks, it became the name he knew himself by.

  Two years trapped in another universe changed that.  Again, a long period of time.  Cyclone was not a name to the people of Earth, so he reverted to Charles Bradfordson, his birth name.  Kate Dekairie, who was with him the entire time, naturally hadn’t the issue.  She had a Nexus Force name but didn’t use it.

  Maybe that was why she reverted to their old life so quickly.  It was easier for her.  She was always called Kate.

  "Cyclooone!" her voice rang through Cyclone’s earpiece.  "You should be up here with us!"

  “Kate.” Cyclone acknowledged, and both he and Rover craned their necks to the top of Nexus Tower.  Where the metal tower ended began another spire ten times as high, formed entirely of light.  The Imagination Nexus.  A double-cockpit Pod Rocket, so far up and shiny enough that it resembled a star, followed a mostly elliptic path around the Nexus, and… Cyclone squinted and he did a double take.  It was not alone.

  “Are those… those are dragons.” Cyclone stated.  He must not have looked that high up before to see them, black and red dots that also circled the Imagination Nexus.  Despite having a slower speed than the rocket piloted by his friends, a dragon and the rocket kept getting close together.  It wasn’t any intention of the dragons, Cyclone realized.

  Kate’s laugh confirmed it.

  His friends were buzzing the dragons.

  The rocket did an aileron roll in front of a particularly purple dragon and attracted it to pursue.  Its pilot then poured on the throttle to all three of its engines and it blasted towards another dragon, then it twisting up into a corkscrew.  The pursuing dragon collided with the other one and both fell a couple hundred feet downwards in the sky before regaining control, still high above the ground.  If dragons had expressions, these ones had to look annoyed.

  Cyclone heard Rover laughing next to him, but he turned down his own smirk and Rover stopped.  Their antics were amusing, but Cyclone was not keen to forgetting caution.  "What are you doing up there?" he asked.

  A boy’s voice responded most nonchalantly.  "We're getting a closer look at the Imagination Nexus."

  While Rover decided to laugh again, Cyclone took a moment to identify the name behind the voice of the rocket’s pilot.  Intrepid, he remembered with a nod.  Intrepid Fusion Eclipse for long.  He was a loyal teammate, Cyclone supposed.  Loyal described Intrepid well.

  After all, he had rescued Cyclone and Kate.

  “It’s not safe.” Cyclone radioed up after three dragons suffered a midair collision.

  “Fine.” Kate acceded.  “Take us down, Intrepid.”

  “Yup.” the pilot responded, and the rocket dove to the ground.  It levelled out to settle on a plateau where three other rockets were parked that belonged to Cyclone, Rover, and Kate.  These were conventional single-seats unlike Intrepid’s Pod.

  “It’s a shame Blade couldn’t make it.” Rover commented as he and Cyclone hiked over to where Intrepid and Kate landed.  Blade, or Master Blade Nine, was the fourth teammate and dependable joker in their quartet three years prior.  He had responded long-distance to the news that Cyclone and Kate had returned, but they hadn’t managed to set any reunion plans with him into motion yet.

  They arrived on the plateau after the two had climbing out.  Like Cyclone and Rover, Kate was dressed in faction-neutral attire, a sleeved leather jacket and a denim skirt over leggings, and an astronaut helmet from their flying exploit she was in the process of pulling off.  Intrepid obviously was wearing Bat Lord gear, his dark pants gave that away, but over his top was a dark gray sweatshirt zippered all the way up.  October was a cold month and Crux Prime was a cold world, so they were all dressed to be warm and fuzzy.

  Cyclone and Rover waved.  [[|[u1]]] “Are you hungry, flyboys?” the Buccaneer called.

  “We can stop at Nexus Tower.” Intrepid suggested.

  “We could, but I brought sandwiches.” Kate said and she paused pulling on her helmet to drop her backpack to the ground.  “Care for a picnic?”

  Cyclone shrugged.  “Fine by me.  Can’t say I ever… I never thought we’d have a picnic on Crux Prime of all places.”

  “Yeah, if I can get this helmet off.”

  “Want help?” Rover asked.

  “Just like the launch area.” Intrepid said suddenly.

  “What launch area?” Rover asked.

  “The Avant Gardens one,” Intrepid explained, “we have rockets and we’re the picnickers.  Including your monkey.”

  “Oh, right.  George isn’t my monkey, he’s my friend.”

  Kate’s helmet came off with a final yank that added a smidgen of color to the gray world.  She had red hair.

  After remembering their sandwiches were cold, the quartet went back to their rockets and headed to Nimbus Station, and from there by train to Nimbus City.

  Nimbus City was a young project and along with its suburban developments, perhaps premature with the war still going on, but with more battles taking place in space and more Nexus Forcers looking for places to live, the motion to build the City ultimately won.  They lived now in a high-rise in one of the completed sections of the city where Intrepid had rented a flat with his own money, since Cyclone and Kate had to wait on the Nexus Force to unfreeze their vault assets.

  Their flat was twenty floors up and while not particularly big, they were as comfortable as they could be with six people.  Two colleagues of Intrepid, the cousins Luke and Mara Mercury, got the twin beds in the bedroom.  The rest of them had been crashing in the living room at night, either on the floor or on the couches.  Also living with them was a peculiar character called Calm Thoughtful Tornado.

  Tornado unlocked the door when Intrepid, Cyclone, and Kate returned from their day trip to Crux Prime.  He had orange hair in a buzz-cut and a perpetual scowl on his face.

  "What's for dinner?" Intrepid asked immediately.

  "We're hungry." Kate added.

  "I dunno, no one's ordered anything." Tornado reported before he looked down at a smartphone.

  "What’s ‘no one’ doing?" Intrepid asked about his colleagues.

  "Playing Brick Clicker while they pretend to hack the Nexus Force vault, y’know, for Sclone and Kate."

  “What did you call me?” Cyclone asked but Tornado paid too much attention to his phone to answer, or he ignored him.

  Intrepid's brows furrowed.  "And what have you been doing?"

  Tornado shrugged.  "Playing Brick Clicker."

  Next to Cyclone, Kate dramatically facepalmed.  When no one said anything about it she asked with a sheepish grin, "That's still a thing, right?"

  "Clicking flash games are the thing now." Intrepid said.  He pushed past Tornado, as did the rest of them, then he headed to the dinette to survey the refrigerator.  "We have cereal, but that’s cold, so."  He ended his sentence abruptly.

  "I'll order takeout," Cyclone volunteered and went a pile of some twenty prepaid I-bricks plugged into charging hubs on the dinette’s table.  He grabbed the first one off the top to call Sue Shi's Sushi when suddenly all of the phones rang at once.  Cyclone jumped back, surprised.  Kate, Tornado, and Intrepid all looked at him, and Intrepid ran over.

  "It wasn't me." Cyclone said while Intrepid inspected the phones.  Then their host turned to one of the bedrooms and screamed.

  "Luke!" Intrepid shouted.  "You gotta fix the programming, they're not supposed to be doing this!"

  Luke’s blond head popped out of the doorway.  "Yeah, that's wrong.  Just ignore them."

  "So...  loud..." Tornado groaned.

  Kate got up.  "We should go outside."

  Intrepid pressed OFF on one phone and the ringing stopped.  "No need." he said.  He read the caller idea.  "It was my brother.  I'll call him back."

  "You have a brother?" Kate asked.  "Why'd he do that to us?"

  "His calls are supposed to have a higher priority.  Someone interpreted that to mean they should ring on all the phones."

  Cyclone raised an eyebrow.  "I don't think prepaid phones are supposed to work like that."

  “Of course not." Intrepid said.  “Did you think these are normal phones?”  He took one I-brick and stepped outside into the apartment hallway.  The door closed behind him so they couldn’t hear what he said.

  "I'm still getting some air." Kate said and headed for the apartment's balcony.  "You coming, Cyclone?"

  "In a second," Cyclone said.  Intrepid was gone, Luke was quiet from the bedroom, where presumably he and Mara were programming, and Tornado sat around doing nothing.  Cyclone finished ordering a shipment of takeout then went to join Kate outside.

  Kate had her hands hanging over the edge and the rest of her leaned on the railing when Cyclone stepped out.  Nimbus City in its partially constructed state, the rest of Nimbus Station, and the sea between them was theirs to overlook.  He took a place next to Kate just as the wind picked up.  Kate’s hair kind of rustled while Cyclone’s slapped him in the face.  He grabbed at his brown bangs and sighed.

  "I need a haircut." he decided.

  "Me too." Kate agreed.  She still looked out at the city while Cyclone turned to see what she meant.  He wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to say that in the moment, but with her face reflecting the city’s glow from below, Kate looked especially beautiful.

  "Assembly sure builds fast.” she pointed out.  “There wasn't a Nimbus City last time we were here."

  "We lived in Brick Annex." Cyclone said.

  "That was nice, wasn't it?” she said wistfully.  Though Nimbus City seemed nice enough to Cyclone, maybe her concern had something to do with their flat mates.

  “Yeah, a flat like this definitely fits four better than six.” Cyclone agreed.

  “Maybe, when I get my stuff back, I should buy a house.” Kate said.

  “Same.” Cyclone echoed.  He peered across the cityscape, past the industrial buildings and the grassy hills that separated the urban streets from the suburban developments, where the houses were built farther apart and there were more trees.

  “You know, we can buy the same house.” Kate suggested.

  The balcony door opened again and a younger teenage girl with garnet red hair, neatly thinned and shoulder length and probably highlighted, stood in the doorway.  “Hey lovebirds,” Mara Mercury said.

  “Dinner is served.”