Riter jolted awake with his usual sense of alarm. Asleep at the console again, he berated himself, trying to blot the weariness from his eyes with a quick rub of his knuckles. With a distressingly familiar apprehension, he studied the instrument panel before him and groaned at the course corrections it indicated. The Hazmat Seven was another six light years off course.
Pushing his seat from the console with an agitated motion, he sat a moment, jaw clenched, hands gripping his knees, dark thoughts whirring through his mind. There had to be someone else on board. A computer glitch wouldn’t occur only when he slept. But he’d searched the ship — three times — and found no one.
The course corrections, each more difficult to undo than the previous one, were taking him beyond the known universe. Already he was out of subspace transmission range. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, deliberately, trying not to focus on the bad joke aspect of this trip.
I'll even say thanks in advance for any comments.
[This message has been edited by Rocklover (edited March 28, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by Rocklover (edited March 28, 2005).]
Referring to a "bad joke" aspect makes his situation seem trivial to me, which I don't think you'd intended.
He also doesn't seem terribly alarmed for his physical safety, despite believing there's a stowaway on board who's causing bad things to happen.
I don't know the story, but I imagine this might work: start with the POV character's awareness, and fear, that there's possibly a stowaway on board. And the stowaway is breaking into the computer and altering the course, and who knows what else? That would scare me!
Meanwhile, I'll mention two things that came too mind. The first might just be me, but "Riter" resonates with "Riker" from Star Trek the Next Generation for me.
The second I'm bringing up because I see a fair number of people on the board doing this:
quote:
Pushing his seat from the console with an agitated motion, he sat a moment, jaw clenched, hands gripping his knees, dark thoughts whirring through his mind.
In the same sentence, "with an agitated motion" has a lack of specificity which makes it almost meaningless. It's the word "motion" that throws me. What is an agitated motion that one does while pushing? If you had said that "he pushed his seat from the console in agitation" I'd have been fine, but as it is, by adding the word "motion" I assume that he's doing something else in addition to pushing, but I can't imagine what.
Yours, too, wbriggs. And Mary's. HSO, GZ & Mary, I'll e-mail you shortly with the story. I'm making a couple adjustments as per some of the aforementioned advocations. 
Yanos, if you're willing to read, I'd be pleased to have you do it. Let me know if I may send the story.Hmmm...HSO has a background in hazardous waste. I may not only get a bona fide offense, but a radioactive zinger to boot.
Readers here are quite astute, although -- and I'm sure I'm alone in this -- I hate it when they point out where I know I'm wrong.
quote:
HSO has a background in hazardous waste. I may not only get a bona fide offense, but a radioactive zinger to boot
My background with hazardous waste isn't what it may seem. Rather, it was standing in a huge container that would eventually be buried in the ground, opening and spilling out the contents of 55 gallon drums that held oily rags, used motor oil and hydraulic fluid, degreasers, and who knows what else... A very nasty task, but we needed to salvage the drums. Anyway, all of that stuff was considered Hazmat. I guess the worst part about it was knowing it would be buried in the ground somewhere -- festering, perhaps seeping out of the container and contaminating the soil and underground water. I don't like thinking about it much, and I wouldn't say I'm pro-environment either... I just find it shameful that we can't dispose of things more adequately and just as inexpensively.
However, (as I mentioned in my crit), I had training in dealing with NBC (Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological) Warfare. I was the NBC NCO for my shop, which meant that if an attack happened, it was my responsibility to secure the area, move/isolate the injured, affected, and dying, and tell/teach the others how to clean up the affected site/persons/gear.
Let me tell you, the training was awful. Wearing that full NBC gear for one week every day, in the middle of a humid, North Carolina summer, while practicing and learning how to all of the stuff required to get signed off on it, was fairly unbearable. And, the movies they show of what happens to people in certain chemical attacks (so you can recognize they symptoms) still haunt my dreams to this day.
Of course, in typical military screwball fashion, I was the only qualified NBC person in my shop, so if I got killed in an attack, then the rest of fellow Marines would possibly be ass out, too. Though, I suspect others had had training at some point. Maybe.
Oh, and getting back to the topic, I'd certainly like to read this story.
On the subject of Rocklover's comments, there are some clarity issues that are highlighed by the misinterpretation. I see this form of travel as taking place in some kind of hyperspace or possibly by discrete teleportation, but perhaps you need to clarify it (possibly by giving it a name). I think Hazmat Seven is supposed to be some kind of scout or picket ship, and is supposed to be almost entirely automated, but I don't know how clear that is to other readers.
One particular thing that Wbriggs mentions, the things that happen when he's asleep aren't "course corrections". They're deviations, and they could have a name that would help indicate something about the mode of travel and why it's difficult to correct them.
Anyway, I like what I see so far.
But I do thank you. And for the great crit. (More on that in e-mail.)
quote:
there are some clarity issues that are highlighed by the misinterpretation
Survivor, that's what I surmised, so I know I have some tweaking to do.
Deviations! How did I not latch onto that word? Yes, yes. Good point. Thank you.
I'll send you the story shortly. Appreciate your willingness to read it.