SNAPCRAFT | Ch. 31.5 - Rocket Fuel
Added 2024-01-22 10:06:08 +0000 UTCAuthor's note:
This is a bonus chapter I wrote to end the first volume of Snap Craft. I wanted to share it with you all to thank you for taking the time to leave your opinion on the first volume of Snap Craft on Amazon. It really helps me get the book off the ground and to pay my bills as a writer.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support. You guys are the best.
In case you haven't left your opinion on the first four battles of the Daisy Exams, could I ask you to do so now? Just click this link.
Enjoy this bonus chapter.
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353rd Daisy Exams, Round of 64.
As her form materialized in the factory, Cassie looked around, confused. For a few brief moments, it almost felt as if she had been transported back to the hangar. The high ceiling, metal beams, and industrial feel reminded her of home, but the rust, litter, and disrepair she saw around her brought her back to reality. This was no hangar. She was still in the exams.
Now that the moment of disorientation had passed, Cassie found her bearings. The first thing she noticed was the window that offered her a glimpse of the night sky. She could still discern a few dots of light signaling clear skies, indicating that her upgrades could achieve maximum effectiveness if she managed to make it outside. Looking up, she frowned at how the ceiling obscured the rest of the sky.
After the pine woodland, the quarry, and the woodland desert, she hadn’t anticipated Daisy bringing them to an indoor space for photography. This threw a serious damper on her plans and could potentially limit the value of all the expensive upgrades she had acquired. Knowing the outside lay beyond it, she turned toward the wall with the window. Approaching it, she hit an invisible wall and furrowed her brow. Perhaps Daisy intended to keep her away from the night sky.
The realization soured her mood. Daisy was a ruthless warden who constantly dangled a carrot just beyond her prisoners’ reach while poking them with sticks. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she just didn’t give them the fuel and let them go on their way. Facilitating their leave would impact the planet’s environment less than letting them be stranded here. She took deep breaths and focused. Anger wouldn’t help her.
More aware of the arena’s boundaries, she turned her back to the wall. Her plan was simple: reach the center, and if it wasn’t outdoors, proceed to find a way to view the night sky.
The location where she had spawned seemed like a type of factory. The remnants of machines and rusted parts were too corroded for her to discern their original purpose. It paled in comparison to the great hangar in her sector.
She took off, looking for the center of the arena.
“Inventory,” she spoke as she ran. She grabbed two glass spheres from the floating window and threw one randomly as soon as the clock hit 1:59:00.
The glass sphere broke with a bang and a flash of light. This would blind her opponent and buy her some time. When the clock hit 1:58:30, she threw the other glass sphere. With this, she bought herself a full minute to get to the treasure trove first.
Soon, she found the laboratory and felt right at home. She spent more time in her lab than anywhere else, developing a fuel powerful enough to propel a rocket and environmentally friendly enough to pass Daisy’s inspection. When the second criterion wasn’t met, Daisy stormed the hangar with her cyber monkeys and confiscated the fuel. She knew. It had happened more than once.
Cassie could humbly say this lab was a joke compared to theirs; all the machines and tools were broken. It seemed as if bandits had ransacked the place, leaving it devoid of anything useful. Another perfect analogy for what Daisy had done to the planet.
Spotting a toolbox, she attempted to open it, but her hands passed right through it. Undeterred, she grabbed a camera and took a picture of it, uncertain of its purpose but confident she would find a use for it later.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 19 of 20.
Toolbox (Uncommon)
1 of 4
Hp: 3
Vp: 1
Thankfully, her opponent hadn’t yet found this place. She’d better hurry while that was the case. Continuing her exploration, she discovered another room in the lab. At its center was a silvery engine on display, encased in glass. The sight of the engine both excited her and angered her.
The arrangement of spark plugs, the presence of an exhaust manifold, and the intricate fuel injection system were unmistakable indicators of an internal combustion engine, a technology she had extensively studied as part of her work on rocket fuel development. Why would Daisy display a technology she had banned and her people craved? Was Daisy trying to get inside her head? Was she mocking her?
No. She might even be helping her. Cassie knew the technology and could make the most of this opportunity. She grabbed her camera and started taking pictures.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 18 of 20.
Combustion Engine (Rare)
1 of 2
Hp: 5
Vp: 2
Capture successful!
Tries left: 17 of 20.
Combustion Engine (Rare)
2 of 2
Hp: 5
Vp: 2
The victory points weren’t that great, but she would work with it somehow. Surely, there had to be something that would synergize with this card in this factory somewhere. She looked around the lab for more useful cards but only found barrels with radioactive waste. Just in case, she took two pictures of it.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 16 of 20.
Radioactive Waste (Uncommon)
1 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Capture successful!
Tries left: 15 of 20.
Radioactive Waste (Uncommon)
2 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
The next order of business was to go outside. She left the laboratory and headed toward the outer rim of the arena, using her map and compass to guide her. This arena seemed to be a circle within a square, but there had to be a place with a good enough window or a hole in the ceiling large enough for her to do her thing.
She went through what seemed to be an old cargo bay with piles of garbage everywhere and then an old office space. Finally, she phased through a wall and found herself outside. All around her, there was scrap and signs of abandonment and neglect. She ignored all that, though, and looked up.
It was early morning, a good time to find Mercury in the sky. She looked at the horizon, grabbed her camera, and activated the telescopic lens. She searched the sky for the planet and finally found it.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 14 of 20.
Mercury (Legendary)
1 of 1
Hp: 0
Vp: 10
Mercury was the hardest planet to photograph, so she had known it was probably the one worth the most points. She had grabbed most of the other planets but was missing Jupiter, which should only come earlier in the night at this time of year. It wasn’t anything that she couldn’t fix, though.
“Inventory,” she called calmly.
She grabbed the glass vessel with two connected bulbs filled with sand. She got this upgrade in the previous round, and it was time to let it shine. She turned the hourglass over, letting the sand flow. The sky began darkening, and the time flow reversed at an accelerated rate.
The moon, almost gone, became increasingly bright against the black background, and the small dots of light became visible again. She waited until the time on the stage was set back to the middle of the night, and nodding approvingly, she grabbed her camera.
Studying the night sky, she determined that the stage was emulating someplace in the northern hemisphere. In the last stage she had collected different planet cards, and it was time to see if she could complete her collection.
She positioned her camera and looked for the Aries constellation. Finding it, she pointed the camera downward until she could see the bright planet. She zoomed in as much as she could and took a photo.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 13 of 20.
Jupiter (Uncommon)
1 of 1
Hp: 0
Vp: 4
All planet cards could only be captured once, and she suspected that she could unlock an incredible upgrade once she managed to photograph all seven of them. Satisfied with the photograph, she decided to experiment with taking photographs of constellations. She got the camera onto the Aries constellation again and took a photograph.
Capture failed.
Cassie clicked her tongue. Why could she capture planets but not constellations? She thought the whole thing was unfair, but Daisy obviously didn’t want trial runners to spend all their time looking at the night sky. If Cassie wasn’t mistaken, some upgrade would unlock the possibility of taking photographs of the stars down the road. Who knew? Perhaps that upgrade was the prize for photographing every planet.
Cassie walked back toward the factory’s wall, and her attention was drawn to a white geometrical pattern reflecting the moonlight. She approached it and found a spider sitting on its web. Cassie grabbed the camera and pointed it at the spider.
Capture failed!
“What? Another failure?” This was the second one this round. Could it be that her opponent had been here already? Biting her lip, she looked for anything her opponent might have missed and found the glistening drops of dew in the spider’s web. She zoomed in on one of them and took a photograph.
Capture successful!
Tries left: 10 of 20.
Water (Uncommon)
1 of 3
Hp: 3
Vp: 1
Capture successful!
Tries left: 9 of 20.
Water (Uncommon)
2 of 3
Hp: 3
Vp: 1
Sighing in relief that this photograph had worked, Cassie looked at the web one last time. Seeing it, she couldn’t help but think of Alex, that handsome boy from the sector across the wall.
When she first met him, she felt sorry for the boy. He lived according to Daisy’s rules without knowing the wiser: He could try to break free. They had had many conversations, and Cassie had tried to open the boy’s mind. She remembered one night when she tried to explain to Alex that Daisy was like a spider trapping humans in her web. The flies fell on the web because they couldn’t see it. She then told him that he, too, couldn’t see the web and that he was choosing to live life as a prisoner. The look on the boy’s face when she’d told him that!
He didn’t take offense, though. Alex came often to visit, and they had had many conversations about life and Daisy. She had to admit that she enjoyed the boy’s company and had grown attached to him. When he told her that he loved her and that he was going to risk it all and ask for asylum, hoping that he was exiled to her sector, she could hardly believe it. That’s not what she wanted! It was lunacy! Despite her protests, he followed through on his plan. She had never seen him since that day.
She kept returning to the wall for a few weeks, hoping to see Alex, and that’s when she’d seen the boy’s friend again. Thinking of what Kai had said to her on that night, she blushed, ashamed. He wasn’t wrong. She had never imagined that their conversations would lead to such an outcome.
She missed Alex. Where had he ended up? Could he really have forgotten her? Was he happier?
She quieted the bitterness in her heart and tried to focus on the exams again. Having a good result was crucial; the spaceship project demanded manpower, and their workforce dwindled. They needed to replenish their numbers. They needed more engineers, mechanics, chemists, and physicists. They needed to finish building the spaceship that would let them leave this forsaken planet, and the burden of bringing more workers to the hangar fell on her shoulders this year.
Cassie turned around and disappeared into the abandoned factory.
