Mechanized Warfare Specialist 2nd Class Albion Reeves had recently read somewhere that most Army and Navy guys bought it by age sixteen. For the Marines it was an appalling fourteen. Those numbers were skewed since the Marines were forced to use twelve year olds now. He would be fifteen soon. Some were calling fifteen middle-aged. Reeves had to laugh at that. Who lived to be thirty anymore? An enormous loader arm picked up Reeves’s Dominator with him in it and eased it into its slot aboard the Kodiac drop ship. The Kodiac’s launch door closed behind him with a heavy armored thud, shutting out the bright light of the Coronado’s hanger bay. The Coronado had been his home for three months and chances are he’d never see it again whether he survived this mission or not.
Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :
It's perfectly competent in its own way (so far as I can judge - Military SF isn't my favoured genre), but I'm afraid there's nothing here yet that hasn't been done many, many times before.
Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :
I'd probably turn the page here because there's promise of danger, I like the concept of a Dominator though I'm not quite sure what it is (mech suit?) and he's on his way somewhere.
I'm a bit wary that we're going to lapse into a battle scene, which would probably turn me off.
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited August 22, 2008).]
Posted by satate (Member # 8082) on :
I liked it and I would turn the page. One thing made me wonder though, if no one ever lives to age thirty who does the society reproduce and if they do who raises the kids. I'm not recommending putting how the society reproduces in the first thirteen or in taking out the part about how no one lives till their thirty. I liked that part, but if it's never explained I would be disappointed.
Posted by firemonkey (Member # 7955) on :
tchernabyelo has a point, the age thing probably isn't enough to grab me (maybe because I'm not fifteen?) The second paragraph grabs me more, because I like action, but I still do want to know why they're so young and why "the Marines were forced to use twelve year olds now"
Is Reeves a Marine?
Good work.
Cheers,
Andy
Posted by Palaytiasdreams (Member # 8154) on :
I'm not a fan of this type of work, but I did very much enjoy what you wrote. It was written like a person of his age would...think and that's what I like.