........

Captain Piers Johnson looked down at the screen at his control console, angry at himself beyond reason. Apparently, the enemy fleet had outflanked them yet again. He combed fingers through his hair, thinking about what he should do, calculating options. If the Imperial Space Navy lost the battle for Procyon-4, all would be lost. He knew this; everything was riding on this mini-campaign. And an enemy victory in this sector would sever all civilian and military shipping routes through to Procyon-4, and then everything would disintegrate into chaos. He jabbed a finger on the button of his comm, "Lieutenant, I need to see you on the bridge immediately," he barked.

[edit: removed adjectives I had missed]

You need to check your syntax closely, "at the screen at his CC," doesn't parse correctly. You finish the sentence by claiming that he's able to judge that his anger at himself is "beyond reason", which doesn't make sense, that's something he wouldn't be able to judge himself (and it's serving the function of an adverb, "unreasonably"). The use of "outflanked" lacks clarity here, you probably mean "outmaneuvered". That would avoid calling notions of archaic ground combat to mind. A similar problem occurs with "mini-campaign", it's not very clear what you mean by saying that.

You should remember that the main reason for scrubbing overladen descriptors is to keep your sentances comprehensible. You have a lot of multi-clause sentences, which defeats your efforts. None of them are terrible, but they still have a distant feel to them. We have to read longer before having a chance to establish meaning units. That's good for certain kinds of prose, but less effective for immersive text.

I also note that it's likely, given his rank, that he'll be on a ship doing the fighting; that is, he could be killed. An admiral might be more detached and more likely to have anger rather than fear. (Although if he's angry, I won't believe he believes this is a major disaster.)

Otherwise, seems good to me.

I would drop "Apparently..." from the second sentence. I'd also drop "yet", and maybe change "them" to "him", because I'm working on the supposition that he is in charge.

I don't like the generic use of "the enemy". Give me a name, something to let me know if the enemy is human or alien, more or less technologically advanced. Something to inform me as to the type of threat this enemy represents. Why are they enemies? Who was here first?

This is fine as far as mechanics, but seems detached and carries some detailed information that doesn't contribute to the character, more specifically to the character's frame of mind, which seems to be where you are trying to start. (i.e. "...an enemy victory in this sector would sever all civilian and military shipping routes through to Procyon-4..." I already assume the battle is important, I don't really need all of this explanation.)

The word "barked" at the end says a lot about this character's sense of command, his urgency, and his frustration. Isn't it funny how good words convey so much, where entire strings of earlier words fell short? (I'm sure there are other readers out there who didn't like the word "barked", and want something more transparent there.)

Captain Piers Akscele shot a long, pained look down at his screen coursing with fluid alfanums and emission signatures. His fate branded itself in by the raw numbers: offense-strength stats streaming in from the hull arrays from the oncoming marauders. There were at least four...no, five dreadnaughts and their attending macrofrigates, riding on pillars of angry ion-plasma, their combined firepower able to vaporize a large planetesimal if they wished. This enemy strike group from Eridani had outwitted them yet again, for third time in the past few local star-cycles. He combed rasping fingers across his scalp, trying to mentally calc options, yet his neurons refused to even cough. He shook in place despite himself, an iron taste welling on his tongue. If the Procyonists

[This message has been edited by Nietge (edited June 18, 2006).]

I don't like the word choice, "His fate branded itself..." It sounds too arcane.

You've repeated a new preposition here, "from".

I do like the description of "...riding on pillars of angry ion-plasma...", but the following clause doesn't add much and introduces some jargon that distracts from the idea you are trying to convey. ("planetesimal" in particular)

Starting with "This enemy strike group..." things start to clear up, and I could follow the last part better than the first. (I don't like "rasping fingers" as a descriptor...I approach -ing words with suspicion, in general. They usually don't pull their own weight.)

I think you need to find a middle ground here, but I'd prefer one closer to the original post. You've added some appropriate details in the second post, but you dressed them up too much.

I like it, though. It comes out swinging.

You have a few redundancies that I would edit out.

* In "thinking about what he should do, calculating options", I would kill "thinking about what he should do".

* "all would be lost. He knew this; everything..." doesn't need "he knew this" because you're all ready in Captain Johnson's POV. We know he knew it because the narrator is thinking it for him.

* "all would be lost", "Everything was riding on this mini-campaign", "would sever all civilian and military shipping routes", and "everything would disintegrate into chaos" all refer to the same potential disaster, and I think a few deletions and rearrangements could improve this section.

Captain Johnson wouldn't be angry at himself beyond reason if the enemy had outflanked him. He'd probably be pissed off at being outsmarted and outmaneuvered "yet again", and his anger would be well within reason, even if the enemy had better technology and such.

I don't think you need the word "Apparently", and I might give the enemy a name: "The Robot Monkey fleet had outflanked them". (I don't mind the term "outflanked" even though its roots are in ground warfare, but when I hear it I assume that there are units in formation. If the only thing "outflanked" is a single ship, "outmaneuvered" is better.)

I'd try to say "Procyon-4" once in this paragraph rather than twice.

That seems like a lot of criticism, but you actually have a good opener there.

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I like the second one far less. If you were going for "writer's invisibility", the first was much better.

I don't know how to pronounce "Akscele". Unless that comes from some culture with which I'm unfamiliar, I'd say "Johnson" was better.

"shot a long, pained look" seems contradictory or redundant: either he's shooting a look, in which case it's short and not long; or "long" means something like "glum", in which case it's redundant with "pained". I'd say he "shot a pained look" or something like that.

I don't believe "alfanums" -- we've had computers around for 50 years, and most people I know call the things on the screen "characters" rather than something jargonish. For that matter, I feel like you're throwing jargon at me through this whole introduction, even with little words like "calc" and "stats", and it feels like it's at the expense of getting to know Captain Akscele.

Fate doesn't brand itself (unless maybe Clotho holds Lachesis down while Atropos wields the brand). He might see his fate coming in the raw numbers, though (but why are they "raw"?).

The Captain wouldn't track time using local star cycles. He's not on the planet, so the planet's star cycles have nothing to do with him. On a Navy ship they might use "watches", as in "John stood watch on the port side" or "three watches passed between Loch Ness Monster sightings" -- maybe you would use something like that here, too.

The one thing that I like _more_ about the second version is the deeper point-of-view penetration. "angry ion-plasma" and the last six words, for example, paint a nice picture of how he feels.