Brant yawned and sat up in his bed, awakened by the whooshing sound of his door sliding open. Keira padded into his quarters with a tray in her hands. A teapot, two cups, a jar of honey, and some spoons sat atop the platter.
Keira sat down gently on the edge of the bed, the tray resting in her lap. "Hey," she began with a smile, "you slept well, I hope?"
Brant rubbed his eyes. "I did. How'd you know I'd be awake just now, though?"
She shrugged. "It's been a couple hours, so I figured you'd either be awake already, or wouldn't be too bothered if I woke you up."
"Well, this time, your timing was impeccable. Now, what've you got here, tea?"
Keira nodded. "Yep! I've got green, black, and Aaron's favorite, Klovanian nettle."
"I'll take the nettle."
"Sure thing. How much honey?"
Brant shook his head. "I don't like sweet stuff."
"What kind of alien are you?" Keira asked with a giggle as she poured boiling water into his cup.
"We're all aliens to someone, aren't we?"
"I guess that's true. Speaking of which, where're you from?"
Brant smirked. "Klovania."
"Ah, so that's why you so readily...gotcha." Keira paused while she poured water into her own cup and stirred in a spoonful of honey. "So, what's Klovania like?"
"It's hard to summarize." Brant said thoughtfully, "Certainly not a land to breed quitters and wimps."
"Huh. Why's that?"
"Well, to put it simply, every plant and animal in the land is out to kill you. If you're gonna venture outside the town, you'd better know exactly what you're doing."
Keira nodded. "I guess I can see the deadly animals part, but how do the plants seek to kill you?"
"Every single one of them is covered in thorns, thistles, poison, some sort of mechanism to hurt or kill. And they benefit from heavy clustering, too. You can just walk around a single bush, but when you've got a hundred sprawling across a whole field, you've got a problem."
"Wow, that's insane!"
"It is." Brant replied, nodding gratefully as he took the steaming cup from her hands. "And where're you from? Somewhere more so-called civilized?"
"Oh yeah, for sure. I'm from Commercia myself. You ever been there?"
He nodded. "A few times, yes. It's not half bad."
Keira giggled. "Well, it's certainly more than half good, too! I do have to say though, it's a bit crowded for my liking."
"Well, when everybody wants to live in one place, things start to clog up."
"Yeah, exactly." She watched as he took another sip from his cup. "Remind you of home?"
"It does. Not the same as drinking it from freshly picked leaves, but still good."
"I'm sure." The brunette paused for a moment in thought. "So, do you have any siblings?"
"I do." Brant answered, slowly inhaling the aromatic steam, "Four sisters, three brothers."
"Woah, that's a lot. How did your parents even handle it?"
"Like any other parents would. Believe it or not, that's a pretty average size for a Klovanian family."
Keira's forehead wrinkled. "Really? I can't imagine! Where I'm from, hardly anybody goes beyond one or two."
"Well yeah, from my understanding, you Commercians have a very career-focused mentality, right?"
"You're right."
"Well," he said, "I can only imagine a lot of people think family gets in the way of success in their career field, especially women."
Keira nodded. "And Klovania's more...family focused?"
"Yeah, our communities are pretty tightly knit. I mean, since we spend most of our time bound together in one town, possibly even for our whole lives, we'd better hope we can get along with those of our households and neighborhoods."
"That makes a lot of sense." she said as she sloshed her cup around.
"Yep." Brant squinted and turned his ear toward the door. "Is that Aaron calling?"
"I think so." Keira replied as she slid to her feet. "I guess we can go check."
The two rose from the bed, stepped through the door, and rounded a corner. They traversed another corridor before making a left turn and entering a dimly-lit storage room. Sturdy metal shelves lined the walls and bore up under the weight of Aaron's many gadgets and weapons.
Aaron's eyes darted between Brant and Keira as they entered the room. Then he cleared his throat. "So, I kinda figured that since we're gonna have to work as a team on this, we might as well have some transparency. What's everybody got to bring to the table?"
Brant frowned. "I have no clue what you're talking about."
"I mean like, I wanna know what firepower everybody's got, what gimmicks they have, that stuff."
Brant shook his head. "Your question sounds dumb still. Why don't you start?"
Aaron smirked. "Me? Well, that's a bit irrelevant, as I'm not going down. Sila and I are gonna stay up here and be on call to pick you guys back up."
"Then why's it necessary to ask about our traits or whatever?"
"For your benefit, not mine!"
Keira cleared her throat when her brother's gaze rested on her. "I guess I'll start. I've got a sniper rifle—"
"It's collapsible." Aaron added.
Ace narrowed his eyes at Aaron from where he sat atop a black barrel. "How's that relevant?"
"Because," Keira answered, "it can be concealed if need be, by putting it in holsters for much smaller guns."
"Cool." Ace said dismissively.
Brant coughed. "Anything else, Keira?"
"I also have a grapple gun, and can put up a decent fist fight too."
"Feisty." Sila said.
Aaron chuckled. "That she is, you're right."
Ace's brow furrowed when all eyes landed on him. "I've got stuff."
"I know that," Aaron said with a laugh, "but what stuff?"
"That's for me to know and you to not find out."
Keira smirked. "I know you have a machine gun, at least."
"Yeah."
Brant inhaled. "Well, as you know, I have above average strength, along with enhanced vision."
Ace leaned forward. "Can you see in the dark?"
"I can. Why do you ask?"
"Nothing, just curious." he replied, leaning back into the shadowy corner.
"Resistance to tranquilizers, apparently." Keira muttered.
Brant nodded. "Yes. Though Albatross has greater resistance than I do, I do have a higher than normal immunity to toxins, drugs, and the like."
Aaron snatched up a screwdriver and began turning it over in his hands. "Do you have any weapons, or did they take that away from you?"
"Well, I used to have a mace and a battle axe, but lost them when I got trapped in the bog. And I haven't been allowed to lay hands on anything since."
Aaron smirked. "Well, fret no more."
Brant extended his arms and caught the pair of gloves Aaron threw at him. He frowned down at them. "How're these supposed to help me—" he abruptly stopped as he turned them over and noticed circular metal plates fastened to the palms. "What're these for?"
Aaron stepped forward with what appeared to be a black earplug. He inserted it into Brant's ear canal before taking a step back. "Think of a weapon, and imagine it in your hand."
Brant gave him a sideways glance with a squint. "Alright..." he said, closing his eyelids and sinking into thought.
A moment later, the handle to a weapon materialized in Brant's hand. He watched with widened eyes as fingers of dust-like particles crept upward, forming the rest of the handle and continuing on to form a sharp axehead. He weighed the weapon in his hand and grinned at its hefty weight.
"Tell me, how does that work?" he asked.
Aaron laughed. "Glad you like it. The earpiece takes a signal from your brain and instantaneously creates a model that it then sends to the gloves. The plates are essentially 3D printers in miniature, to simplify it."
"So, I'm creating a weapon with my mind, and the glove prints it." Brant thought aloud. "Surely this thing has limits, right?"
"Oh yeah, of course. For one thing, you only have a finite number of creator particles, so if you create too many weapons without recharging, you'll run into a problem."
Brant nodded. With his gaze fixed on Aaron, he waited for him to continue.
"And then another thing," Aaron continued, "you can't make effective throwing weapons. The particles need the magnetism of the plate to bind together, and if they're thrown any distance away from it, they fall apart."
"Makes sense. And what if I'm done with it, but don't wanna waste particles?"
"Oh, well then, you just imagine having nothing in your hand. The earpiece will take that signal and have the plates retract the particles back inside."
Keira giggled. "I'm sorry, I just had a random thought. Could you make a gun with that?"
Aaron bit his lip. "You could, but only if you had a thorough knowledge of the parts involved. The model created is only as advanced as your knowledge of your creation, if that makes any sense."
"Perfectly." Brant said with a nod. "Thank you."
Aaron grinned and patted the taller man's shoulder. "No problem. Alright Sila, let's head back to the cockpit."
"Yes." the robot called after him.
After the pair left the room, Ace and Keira stood silently and watched as Brant experimented with several different weapon creations.
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A/N: Alright, so there you have chapter 17! We got to learn some more about Brant, and got to see a new weapon I'm excited to show you the capabilities of! So if you enjoyed it, don't forget to vote and comment. 😄
I guess I've never asked anything like this before, but what's your favorite location so far in this series?
(Oooh, for me that's hard, because I think my favorite is a spoiler for later. But so far...okay, the Sand Dollar doesn't count, so I'll pick Pistoldraw Canyon from the Iron Hallway, and more specifically that restaurant, Granny's Meet, Greet, and Eat, I believe it was called. That was just so much fun to write. And I guess a lot of the great locations in this book are yet to come, so maybe I'm asking a bit early, but whatever. 😆)
Okay, so for a random question...what were you doing half your life ago?
(So I'm 18 now, so I was 9. Hmm...I was basically doing kid stuff, I guess, although at that time, my parents were starting to talk about the move from California to Washington we did do when I was 10. So I may have been gearing up for that and getting concerned about what we would leave behind. But yeah. XD )
And I think that's it for me this morning. Have a great day, and I hope to see you tomorrow!