Second Chances-First FanFic

[TheN00b]

Second Chances

Part 1

The dart whistled through the air, and Nik grinned in triumph. �Lesse here, that�s� forty-one in row?� I grimaced. �Sounds about right,� I said. Never, ever play against someone with genetically modified reflexes, in any sport. When someone can drill a sixty-yard basketball shot or bank a foosball off the walls seventeen times and into the goal, it�s time to quit. �I think I�m turning in for the night,� I announced, a bit sheepishly. �I, uh� don�t want to beat Sergeant Major Illiovich any more badly than I have to.� Beside me, �Sergeant Major Illiovich� grinned. It must be nice, I thought wistfully, to have everything perfect for you. Nik reminded me of those Old Earth movies I had once adored, where the suave, debonair James Bond fellow waltzed into diabolic plots and beautiful women with ease. The best Nikolai could figure, he was around 117 years old. Of course, the respawn tech made time meaningless, so he really wasn�t sure anymore. Being myself at a youthful 68, that meant that he had established the clich�s and bad old jokes of my time, and that gave him a measure of rueful respect from the others that I would never have. As well as being socially adept, he could hit a Loyalist�s eyeball from 300 meters with his trusty Gauss rifle, and pilot a Mosquito through just about anything you could name. I wasn�t too shabby with weapons and techie stuff myself, but I envied his social ease. None of which changed the fact, of course, that social ease meant exactly nil when you had a tank shooting at you. I slid away from the dart board, and off to the familiar comfort of my quarters along with some well-deserved sleep.

*Beep, Beep, Beep*
I rolled sleepily out of bed, the alarm ringing in my ears. Annoyed, I was about to slap at the alarms delay button, but I suddenly noticed the color of the alarm: Flashing crimson. We were going on a raid.