posted
Warning: This story is rated PG-13 for profanity.
Here it is:
“Arthur, wait up,” Sora called as she sprinted down the tight corridor after him. Arthur swore under his breath and slowed to a halt, allowing Sora to catch up. She stood for a moment while catching her breath then looked up at him and grinned.
“What’s up, Sora?” He was feeling irritable and not really in the mood for whatever it was that Sora had in mind.
“Nothing, I just wanted to see how you were. You’ve seemed kinda down of late.” She still had that friendly grin on her face, it never seemed to leave it.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, then took a deep breath and gave himself a mental slap across the face. When he continued he simply sounded exhausted. “Just tired that’s all. The decarbonizer’s been giving me trouble again. The ship’s carbon dioxide content is rising much higher than I’d like. Not quite in the danger levels, but it’s making me uncomfortable. That’s all.”
“Ya want me to take a look at it and see what I can do?” There she went again, bubbly and cheerful as ever. Of course, why wouldn’t she be? She hadn’t stayed up the past few nights worrying about whether or not that blasted thing was going to finally give out. She hadn’t already tried all the tricks that had worked in the past to keep it running.
“Sure Sora go ahead.” Well, he figured, the worst case senario was she failed to fix it and then she’d just be in the same place he was. Then maybe that bubbliness would disappear. Best case senario: she fixed it. He had nothing to lose. Her grin widened.
“Ok, boss, I’ll see if I can’t convince that old thing to give us a few more months of good, clean air.” With that she gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder and took off down the corridor. If the hall wasn’t so small, she’d probably have been skipping down it.
Arthur sighed and berated himself for being so grumpy. Sora really was very sweet and caring. And a damned good mechanic too. He just needed some sleep that was all. With her working on the decarbonizer, maybe he could get that sleep now. He turned and headed down the corridor Sora had come from, going towards his room.
Gird swore viciously. How in the bloody hell had they gotten through?
"Harry get us the heck out of here, right now!"
"Yes, sir!" Gird just barely stopped himself from snorting in ironic disgust at Harry’s enthusiasm. Even in situations as bad as this that kid loved flying starships.
Harry went to work on the pilot’s board, his fingers flew over the controls as he changed their course and pumped power into the engines. Gird almost lost his footing as the sudden acceleration momentarily changed the direction of gravity. The Adarans had appeared out of the jump gate at random. No signal or warning message had preceded them. That worried Gird. What the hell were they doing out here? This gate was far down the line, that’s why it was only watched by his single outdated piece of junk destroyer. Gird chuckled quietly despite himself, Arthur and Sora would’ve been very indignant had he said that in front of them.
"How many of them are there?"
"So far? Just a single attack group. Two battle cruisers, six cruisers, eighteen destroyers plus various support craft. More coming through though, sir."
"What are they doing, Tim?"
"Can’t tell yet. They’re not formin' up in any sorta attack or travelling formation. A few ‘o the destroyers are splittin’ off from the main mass ‘o them. I think they’re comin’ for us."
"Shit. Tira, can you keep them busy long enough for us to reach Centauri?"
"I ain’t got no idea, Gird, but I can try. I’ve been sayin’ that we gotta upgrade the teeth on her for a while. I dun think we’ve got a lotta chance if they’re determined to get us."
"Even with upgraded weapon systems, we wouldn’t be able to do much against them. We’d barely be able to tickle their shields. Just keep them busy. Cally, Harry take us straight toward Centauri’s defense platform, if we can draw them in there we stand a chance. Tim call ahead to Centauri control and tell them what’s going on out here. Tell them to scramble everything they've got and then get me more information about that attack fleet."
"They’re still comin’ outta the gate. …my god, it looks like a whole battle fleet."
"What?" The bridge went very still. All eyes turned toward Tim Aryl.
"I count almost three attack groups so far, sir, and they’re still comin’ outta that thing."
"My god… where are they going?"
"They’re not…"
"Just tell me whether or not they’re heading for the goddamned Earth gate!" Gird yelled.
"Straight for it."
The silence was palpable. No one said a word nor moved a muscle. The only way this could be so, the only way this battle fleet could have gotten this far was if it had destroyed the fleets covering the outer gates. The only reason they would do that was if they knew the location of Earth. This what they had all feared for years. Everyone knew that if the Adarans decided to attack, we couldn’t stop them. Their shield and weapon technology was far beyond ours. Humanity had prevented an attack by making it pointless. By making it more effort than it was worth. By using the gates to spread to as many worlds as possible and to keep spreading. By ferociously protecting and hiding the location of Earth. If they knew where Earth was, they would almost certainly decide that it was worth their while to invade it. And now they knew. Earth’s defenses wouldn’t stand for a day against a fleet like this. Harry finally broke the silence.
"Sir, what do ya want us to do? Centuari’s defenses…" Harry spoke very quietly, it was hardly above a whisper. Everyone could hear him.
"Run, straight for the Earth gate. Tim, call Centauri, tell them the invasion has come and we’re running to warn Earth. Tell them to scramble everything gateworthy and send it through the Earth gate after that battle fleet. Hopefully they can be of use on the other side. Tira, send everything we can at them. Pick a ship, one we have a chance of damaging, and pound it."
Arthur was brought jarringly awake by the blare of battle sirens. He moaned and screwed his eyes up trying to see the clock through the last vestiges of sleep. When he could finally recognize the numbers he yawned contentedly and then silently chided himself for oversleeping. He’d slept for well over twenty four hours straight. He’d very much needed it he supposed. The battle sirens continued to blare ferociously, demanding that Arthur notice them. Arthur grumbled. He didn’t think those sirens should want him to notice them considering they were what had so rudely ripped him from sleep. It was probably just another of the captain’s blasted drills anyway. He yawned loudly again, got up and pulled on the bottoms of his jump suit. Someone was pounding on his door.
"Come in." Sora already had the door open and was coming in before he’d said it. He chuckled quietly. She could try to disrespect his privacy all she wanted, but he was always too fast for her. Then he froze. She wasn’t smiling. Sora always smiled, but there was no smile on her face now. Just a look of abject terror.
"What’s wrong, what’s going on?"
"The Adarans came through the jump get. A whole battlefleet of them and then some."
Now it was Arthur’s turn to look terrified. So it wasn’t a drill. It was the real thing.
"I… I suppose we should be heading for the bridge then to see what the captain… where the captain wants us then. We’ll undoubtedly be taking damage and…"
Not again. Oh please not again. He’d asked for a transfer to this ship because he didn’t want to see any more battles. He was an engineer for christ’s sake! A mechanic. He wasn’t a warrior! The fear on Sora’s face increased three fold as she watched him. Arthur ran the gaunlet of swear words. When he’d exhausted the possibilities he got a grip on himself.
"Well, did you get that blasted decarbonizer working?"
Gird looked up from the display as Arthur and Sora came on to the bridge. Both were stone faced. For once Sora wasn’t smiling. Damn, they could use some of that indestructible cheeriness right about now. But no one could blame her for being serious at a time like this.
"I’d guess from your expressions that you already know what’s going on."
"Yea, we do. Where do you need us?"
"We’re going to need more engine power." Arthur’s eyebrows went up beyond his bangs. Gird always had to work hard not to laugh when Arthur’s eyebrows did that, it was a very amusing sight. "We’re running, Arthur." Arthur very visibly relaxed. "It’s a whole battlefleet and then some. They’re heading for the Earth gate. We need to get through ahead of them and warn Earth to scramble the defense." Arthur’s forhead scrunched as he thought. He glanced over at the still stone-faced Sora and gave her a questioning look. She didn’t respond or even to seem hear them.
"Hey, you listening, squirt?" He waved his hand in front of her face to catch her attention.
"…huh? Oh… yea… yes, I’m listening."
"What do you think?"
"…about what?" Gird gave Arthur a worried look. Both he and Arthur had seen this before. Combat panic. It happened to a lot of rookies. "About getting more out of our engines. We’re not fighting, we’re running." That did it. She came to and a smile crept back on her face. She considered the idea for a moment then made a suggestion.
"Well… We could transfer power from the plasma cannons. Those are short range cannons, we won’t be using them much if we’re running."
"That could work. It would need some serious rewiring, and be a little tricky to undo in a hurry if we needed the cannon’s. Sir, if we do this you’d need to warn us at least half an hour ahead of when you need those cannons. I dunno how much extra speed it would give us, but I’d bet it’ll give a fair amount. And with that extra speed… hopefully we wouldn’t need the cannons at all."
Arthur looked to Gird for approval of the idea. Gird pondered the option. He didn’t like the idea of not having those cannons. But then, if he needed them he could warn them ahead of time to undo it.
The bright points of light were spread out amoung the stars. They seemed like nothing more than falling stars moving slowly through the black void of space. Every so often one would flare more brightly than the others then vanish. The small creature watched the points of light with interest as it floated silently through the void. It had seen space battles before. As always the planetary creatures required massive contraptions to travel the black. When they faught they would spend hours swooping, twisting, turning and diving through some meaningless point of the void. They would pound each other with small metal or energy projectiles until one side or the other was reduced to space dust. It was often quite a show to watch from a distance. Something about this battle though had caught the creatures attention. It decided, after some deliberation, to risk a closer look and headed off in the direction of the brilliant points of light.
“Arthur, can you get me any more out of these engines?”
“No sir,” came the reply through the intercom. “That’s all she’s got in her! We’ve rerouted all the plasma cannons, there’s no where else to draw power from!”
Gird was running out of swear words. That was the least of his worries. The engine boost hadn’t been enough. He’d been counting on their speed as an advantage. But it had turned out to be one they didn’t have. The Adarans must have upgraded their engine technology. They were gaining fast. Harry was having a hard time avoiding the waves of missiles and rockets that were swarming them and Tira was unloading everything she had and doing next to nothing. Gird doubted they could keep this up. Adaran missiles had damned good tracking systems. Eventually one of those missiles would hit, and then it was curtains for them.
“Tira, give me some more damned counter measures,” Harry yelled.
“We out. I ain’t got anymore. An’ I’m runnin’ outta missiles in the rear arc. Get ‘em reloaders moving faster, damn it!”
“Tira, our missile stores aren’t endless, they’re moving as fast as they can. Work with what you’ve got. Can you do anything with the long range lazers?”
“We ain’t got any in the rear arc.”
“Harry’s swooping all over the place, the side arcs have to be coming into shooting range some of the time. When that happens, use it!”
Harry yelled over their argument, “Gird, tell Arthur and Sora to get the chem boosters back online!”
“Arthur, Harry needs the chem boosters ASAP.”
“Sora’s working on it, I’m going to help her now, its hard to move through these corridors when Harry’s driving like this you know!”
“Better we’re bounced around a bunch than blown to pieces.”
“Can’t say I don’t agree with you, but if he could be a little more smooth I’m sure we’d all appreciate it back here.”
“He heard you and he’s flipping you a bird over his shoulder.”
As the little creature neared the battle it became more clear what was happening. The bright stars slowly grew into bright metal star ships. Those contraptions the landlubbers needed to swim through the black. Some of the points grew into the tiny projectiles that they threw at each other when they were fighting. Some of the projectiles were energy and some were metal, the creature could see that. None of them were very long lived. Poor little projectiles, the creature thought, you never see the beautiful black for long before you join the hydrodust.
“Harry did you...” Gird didn’t get to finish the sentense before the sudden acceleration threw him from his feet and slammed him into the bridge bulkhead. He could hear the grav drive straining as the pressure reached 10 G’s. He prayed it didn’t give out like it had the last time they’d tested the chem drive. He’d been belted in then and it still hadn’t been fun.
“Harry... damn it... let me... get... belted... in... before you... DO THAT.” The last part came out as an almost uninteligeble yell as Harry cut the chem drives and the gravity returned to normal. Gird suddenly found himself lying flat on a verticle wall, and down was not to his back. He fell the four feet from his position on the bulkhead back to the floor. It took him a moment to regain his breath, however the long stream of explenatives didn’t wait that long. Harry was too busy flying the craft to hear half the things Gird breathlessly called him. Probably a good thing Gird thought as he finished and climbed to his feet.
“Not now, dear, dodging another missile wave.” Harry was sweating profusely as he turned the ship this way and that, weaving through the missiles as they swarmed past.
Gird heard the comm crackle slightly and then Arthur’s voice came through it at a yell. Arthur had managed to think of some adjectives for Harry that Gird had missed apparently. Harry ignored him.
“Art, when you done cussin’ up a storm back there would ja mind increasin’ the fire rate of the long ranged lazers?” Tira’s voice was the pinnacle of calm as she asked.
“Of course not, and would you like me to pick up some milk, butter and eggs for you while I’m at it back here?”
“Would be kind of ya.”
“Sure, no problem, right on it.” Arthur swore once more and then cut the comm. Gird shook his head, he’d forgotten how the normally mild mannered Arthur could get during combat. It had been a while.
He sat back down in the command chair and eyed the screen. This time he remembered to buckle up.
The little creature realized what had caught its attention as it got close. This wasn’t really a space battle. This was one little ship fleeing for its life. And boy was that small ship putting up a fight. The creature couldn’t help itself, it always went for underdogs. As it watched the ship frantically dodging wave after wave of projectiles launched by the mass of other ships following it, the creature decided to help the little underdog. It determinedly pushed forward through the black.
“What is that?” Arthur stared at his screen. There was something on the scan that was heading straight for them. It wasn’t a ship, it was far too small. It wasn’t a missile, it wasn’t registering any sort of engine signature. What the hell was it? “Tim, can you get a closer look at it? Maybe a visual?”
“Not yet, sir, it’s still too far away. Runnin’ some scans on it.”
“Ok, tell me what you can about it.” For the moment, they had a reprise from the barrage. Harry’s use of the chem boosters had gotten them just far enough ahead of the Adarans that they were now out of range. For the moment. It wouldn’t last long and they didn’t carry a whole lot of fuel for the chem boosters. Chem boosters used various forms of liquid rocket propellant. Hydrogen and oxygen being the best. But they only carried a little, they were for emergencies only. Hydrogen... and oxygen. What the... He was an idiot! Of course! Gird’s mind raced. Hydrogen and oxygen could be relatively easily isolated from water. And they carried, litteraly tons of water. If Arthur and Sora could set up some sort of electrolysis system that fed directly into the fuel tanks... it was worth a shot. “Hey Arthur, you got a moment back there?”
“I guess, what do you need Gird?”
“More fuel for the chemical boosters.”
“You want me to set up an electrolysis system from our water stores and feed it into the fuel tanks don’t you?”
Gird sat for a moment dumbfounded. It had taken him hard work to come up with that idea, and Arthur had easily guessed it off hand. Then again, that’s what Arthurs job was. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want.”
“We’re way ahead of you, as usual, already working on it. It’ll be ready to start up in about half an hour. Tell Harry to try and keep our ride smooth until then, setting this thing up is kinda tricky you know and I’m not a fan of solder burns.”
“I’ll tell him, and he’ll do what he can.”
“Sir, I just got a read on that thin’ an’ well... it looks like its a biological.”
“What?”
“Its alive.”
“Is it in a very small ship or something? Is IT very small or something?”
“No, ship, no metal at all. Just... life.”
“In hard vacuume?”
“Yep.”
There was silence on the bridge again as they soaked that all in. The thing was alive, and it lived in hard vacuume. Whats more it could move of its own volition in hard vacuume. And it was coming straight for them.
The creature settled in behind the underdog. It liked this kind of ship. It ran on a plasma drive, and fired off high energy hydrogen ions out its back. Travelling behind one was always extremely pleasant. The energy and warmth were nice and it never had to search for high hydrogen concentrations to recharge when it got tired. It was going to need that hydrogen and energy for what it planned.
The creature shook a little with the strain of the channelling. Summoning a hole was always straining, even when it had a convinent energy source like this. The summoning was something it had done more times than it could count though, and it was used to the strain.
“I don’ believe what I’m seein’. These instruments hav’ ta be wrong.”
“What, what’d it do now?”
“It just... created a wormhole. An’ now its makin’ it bigger.”
No one moved, no one said anything. Harry turned slowly around, his eyes wide and stared at Gird. Tim started fiddling with his pannel, trying to confirm what he’d just seen in another way. Cally pretended to be not listening and kept charting a course to god knew where. Tira just sat back and stared at the ceiling. She was the first to break the silence.
“So while yer all standin’ thar dumbstruck, would someone mind tellin’ me what we plan ta do about the whole Adaran battlefleet tha’s still followin’ us?”
“Uh... at the moment I’m still trying to process the whole creature that moves and apparently lives in hard vacuume and can channel and amplify energy to make wormholes. Not to mention the fact that there’s one making a wormhole using our wake!”
“Harry, I think we’re all trying to process that information.”
“Well... there’s nothin’ wrong with my equipment. I’m certain o’ that now.”
“I never suggested there was anything wrong, Tim.”
“Yea, but I thought... well never min’.”
Silence fell for a moment, but only a moment before all the pannels in the entire bridge started lighting up and flashing every warning that was on the books. Gird wasn’t surprised, it now appeared the Adaran fleet was back in range, and had sent a little greeting for them. That added with the increasingly large and energetic wormhole entrance forming about three hundred yards behind their tail, and following them, created quite a lot of noise on the bridge.
“Oh, shit,” was all Harry said before diving back into his pilots pannel. Tira swore and then turned to her own control pannel.
“We outta missiles an’ rockets in the rear arc, I ain’t able ta do nothin’ ‘till Harry turns us ‘round an’ I can use the side arc laser cannons.”
“We’re still out of our range anyway right now, so just hang tight. Besides, I think it might be a bad idea to try and shoot through that wormhole back there.”
“Well, that don’ seem ta be stoppin’ the goddamned Adarans. These trajectories ‘ave all o’ their missiles going right through it!”
Out in the vacuume of space behind the ship, the creature watched contentedly as the missiles sored harmlessly through the hole and disappeared. Handy things holes were. It decided it was going to have to deal with the hole fleet, and not just what they were shooting though. The creature glowed brighter as it channeled more energy into the hole, causing it to grow larger and larger.
“Holy shit! That wormhole is the size of a small moon now! In diameter anyway, its flat.”
“Provides a good shield though. I’ll have to remember to thank that little guy if we get out of this.”
“Are we even sure its intelligent.”
“Nows not a time I want to have an argument about it. Lets just get the hell out of here. Harry, get on that.”
“Already am, sir, we’re about an hours flight at this speed from the jump gate. If that things so kind as to keep the wormhole there for us I think we should make it alright, just as long as they don’t catch up and get around it. But I think the occational chemical boost should prevent that.”
That should about do it, thought the creature. The wormhole was the size of a small star in diameter now and flat as a disk. Now all the creature had to do was give it a little push and it should catch the entire Adaran fleet. It did just that. In the blink of an eye the Adaran fleet vanished. Shortly afterwards the creature cut the stream of power it had been feeding to the hole and watched the hole collapse in on itself. Content that the underdog was now safe it decided to go take a look at its occupants. It opened its mind and entered the minds contained with in the overlarge hunk of metal. Ahh, they think of themselves as human. There was a view port in the front of the ship. That would do well for what it had in mind. It formed itself roughly into the shape of a human face and made its way around the font. Sure enough, five humans were in the metal room on the otherside. It pressed itself up against the view port and made itself glow to catch there attention. After a moment one of them looked up. It got very excited and made the others look up as well.
“Tim, what happened to the little creature, where’d it go?”
“I don’ know it vanished after it sent that wormhole inta the Adaran fleet. I... wait... accordin’ to my sensors... it should be...” He looked up at the view port. “Righ’ there.” They all looked up. Floating in the viewport was a redition of a human face, glowing bright white. As they all looked up at it, it gave a rough immitation of a wink to them and then vanished from sight.
The End
Its a little long, 15 pages in apple works single space. I congratulate you on making it through it if you got this far. So what'd you think? Any sort of critique is most welcome, good, bad, whatever.
posted
Um. There's a forum for this kind of thing in the writer's workshop area of this site. And generally the way it works is you post your first 13 lines and ask for critique and possibly readers for the whole thing. Then you email them the story. Posting the whole story this way can mess you up if you want it to be published somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure the moderator will edit this post anyway.
Posts: 232 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
You need to make a decision about what language you're going to use. You can't have people saying things like "Get us the heck outta here!" and then have them curse casually the next paragraph down.
There were a couple problems with plot. As I understand it, the human population spread out so as to make them less vulnerable to extinction. So, why was keeping Earth hidden MORE important than the safety of the other settled worlds? If the safety of earth was paramount, the human ship should have at least considered destroying the Earth gate. And don't get me started on the idea of having FTL gates that lead right back to the place where you don't want your enemy to go.
Tira's dialogue was tiresome. If you have a character who speaks in brogue, or with any type of strong accent, you can effectively convey the effect with a FEW 'canna's' or whatever.
Get rid, get rid, get rid of the little alien who saves the crew's lives. I beg you. Or at least, make him a part of the crew's daily workings. I felt cheated with the alien's interference; it would have been much more satisfying if the crew had figured out how to beat the enemy to the gate.
The crew's reaction to the alien ("I'll have to thank the little guy. . .") was unbelievable.
I can't really speak to the science angle of your story-- but I find it a little unbelievable that a society that can create warp gates (or whatever they are) can't find a way to compensate for evasive manuevers during combat. One solution, in your specific story, is to have Arthur and his sidekick work on the engines via remote control robots; it isn't as aesthetic as having them in the grease and sparks themselves, but it's more realistic and practical. They can strap themselves in during a battle and do their work without fear of Harry's manuevering.
In any case, a combat spaceship that has engineers dedicated to engineering would also have some safe way for them to engineer in the middle of a battle.
Your story suffers a bit from multiple POV characters. My suggestion is that you find a character that will be intimately involved with the story, and stick to that character's point of view.
“Are we even sure its intelligent.” This line must die. In the middle of a battle, where an unknown creature flying around unprotected in the middle of space just saved your tin can of humans by opening a wormhole, and you want to debate its SAT score? More believably, someone should have asked if it was an angel. Or a monster come to eat them all. But NOT its intelligence.
You've got a good swashbuckler here-- my main nitpicks are the charitable little alien and the POV problems; fix those, and you're on your way.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Scott's suggestions are excellent. Let me add my own: you're cutting between scenes too fast. You have too many short snippets of action following around too many potential viewpoint characters, which makes your story read more like a short film script.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: “Arthur, can you get me any more out of these engines?”
“No sir,” came the reply through the intercom. “That’s all she’s got in her! We’ve rerouted all the plasma cannons, there’s no where else to draw power from!”
This just hit me as a classic Scotty/Captain Kirk moment.
quote: Do you realize that you just published this story and can no longer sell it as unpublished? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If he deletes it now he likely can.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Um. There's a forum for this kind of thing in the writer's workshop area of this site. And generally the way it works is you post your first 13 lines and ask for critique and possibly readers for the whole thing. Then you email them the story. Posting the whole story this way can mess you up if you want it to be published somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure the moderator will edit this post anyway.
As I recall, the writers workshop got shut down becuase people weren't exactly being civil or mature on it. Unless its back up again now. And this story is for a high school creative writing class, as you can see its not very good. I really don't expect to publish it at all. Also its not that uncommon for people to post here and ask for critiques, I've seen many posts of the sort in the past.
quote:You need to make a decision about what language you're going to use. You can't have people saying things like "Get us the heck outta here!" and then have them curse casually the next paragraph down.
You are very right about this.
quote:There were a couple problems with plot. As I understand it, the human population spread out so as to make them less vulnerable to extinction. So, why was keeping Earth hidden MORE important than the safety of the other settled worlds? If the safety of earth was paramount, the human ship should have at least considered destroying the Earth gate. And don't get me started on the idea of having FTL gates that lead right back to the place where you don't want your enemy to go.
Humanity didn't make the gates, nor did the Adarans. This story has already been through a couple of iterations, there was a line in earlier ones explaining that, but I may have lost it in this one.
quote:Tira's dialogue was tiresome. If you have a character who speaks in brogue, or with any type of strong accent, you can effectively convey the effect with a FEW 'canna's' or whatever.
Okie dokie.
quote:Get rid, get rid, get rid of the little alien who saves the crew's lives. I beg you. Or at least, make him a part of the crew's daily workings. I felt cheated with the alien's interference; it would have been much more satisfying if the crew had figured out how to beat the enemy to the gate.
The crew's reaction to the alien ("I'll have to thank the little guy. . .") was unbelievable.
I'm sorry you felt cheated by him. I rather like the little guy, but then I have kinda a weird sense of humor and he appeals to it. I suppose he was sort of a way to get around the crew having to figure out how to win, he just sorta wandered in when I was stalled on it. But then, in previous iterations the ending was simply having them all die. Personally I think the creature escape is better. And the nice thing about the creature escape is that I could potentially use it to drag them on a long adventure across the galaxy (they go through the wormhole instead of the Adarans). If I want to continue this story later, that is.
But you're right, the crews reaction to him is unbelievable. I'll have to work on that.
quote:I can't really speak to the science angle of your story-- but I find it a little unbelievable that a society that can create warp gates (or whatever they are) can't find a way to compensate for evasive manuevers during combat. One solution, in your specific story, is to have Arthur and his sidekick work on the engines via remote control robots; it isn't as aesthetic as having them in the grease and sparks themselves, but it's more realistic and practical. They can strap themselves in during a battle and do their work without fear of Harry's manuevering.
Again, they didn't make the gates. An ancient and long disappeared race left them scattered across the galaxy. Both the humans and the Adarans have been using them to colonize. Becuase of this, the colonies aren't very big or advanced, and most of humanities population and resources are still concentrated in the Sol system. I'll have to find a way to add that information back in, it seems to have gotten cut at one point. Hmm... I don't like this idea so much. I'll think about it, but I enjoy the comedy that comes of not being able to compensate for it too much to fix that Difference of opinions I guess. The story is not entirely serious (I thought the creature gave it away).
quote:you're cutting between scenes too fast. You have too many short snippets of action following around too many potential viewpoint characters, which makes your story read more like a short film script.
Hmm... good point. I'll work on that.
quote:Do you realize that you just published this story and can no longer sell it as unpublished?
Again, wasn't planning on selling it as unpublished. Or selling it at all for that matter. Its for a high school creative writing class.
quote:This just hit me as a classic Scotty/Captain Kirk moment.
Maybe it was intended as such...
Well I am something of a Star Trek original series fan
Thanks everyone who critiqued it Whether I'll use them or not, the critiques were very helpful.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: And the nice thing about the creature escape is that I could potentially use it to drag them on a long adventure across the galaxy (they go through the wormhole instead of the Adarans).
Don't do this. People hate the Great Gazoo for a reason.
That said, I like the idea of humans taking advantage of stargates they don't understand in order to spread across the galaxy even before they figure out how to use remote waldos to repair their ships. While it's a theme that's been touched on before -- most memorably, I think, in the Heechee books -- it's a plausible source of conflict.
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Let me add my own: you're cutting between scenes too fast. You have too many short snippets of action following around too many potential viewpoint characters, which makes your story read more like a short film script.
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