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"If you don't want me to cut the door down, how do you expect me to get in? It's not like the access codes are going to work after sitting in the dust for fifty years." I said over the video link.

"Lance, that's not my problem, I'm not approving your request until you provide me with some real alternatives." William said.

William was Director of the Lunar Historical Society but in my mind he's the first human-flatworm hybrid. Three years ago he came in undetected through a Terran job transfer program. In that larval stage he sank deep into the government bureaucracy living off bits of undigested power.

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Revision 2

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From the crater's edge the ghost town was a clump of dull metallic eggs in a steeped nest of gray sand and rock.

The rover extended six small thrusters and calibrated them at a slight upwards angle. It emitted a small warning message then a sudden rush of gravity pushed me back against my seat. While ascending the rover rotated the thrusters forward, a motion that propelled us out from the lip of the crater and down into the basin in a single powerful leap. We landed with a jarring crash that kicked a tail of dust in the air and would have sent me sprawling had I not been connected to a safety harness. The rover pivoted on its wheels and sped towards the ghost town.

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Revision 1

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From the crater's edge the ghost town was a clump of dull metallic eggs in a steeped nest of gray sand and rock.

Six small thrusters extended from the sides of the rover and rotated skyward. A sudden rush of gravity pushed me back as we rocketed into the sky. The rover stopped accelerating at a hundred meters and began a controlled descent into the crater. We hit the ground with a jarring crash that sent a pile of dust and rocks into the air. There was a pause as it calibrated, pivoted and sped towards the ghost town.

Fifty years of dust piled against the decaying steel domes like polluted snow drifts back on earth.

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This is for the Return to Luna Challenge. I thought I would post here before posting to the group.

Thoughts on the first 13? Initially this was around 5500 words and I began hacking away at unimportant bits. I don't know. This is more of a meandering "Day in the life of" sort of story. I'm not sure if it works or not.

[This message has been edited by halogen (edited May 26, 2008).]

It was hard to visualise the scene without re-reading it a few times. Did the rover approach the crater and have to "jump" over the rim to roll then across the floor of the crater to the ghost town?

We started at the crater's edge so why did we have to launch ourselves a 100 meters high? And if we can fly, why not fly right up to the ghost town?

Assuming that energy is scarce on the moon, why do the thrusters extend? Why not save energy and just bolt them in position, with enough rotational capability for directional and stability control? And with a jarring crash, the descent was barely controlled--why give themselves such a hard time?

A meandering "day in the life" kind of story might appeal to the newly formed "Mundane Movement"--more at
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/05/the_really_exciting_science_fi.html

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Assuming that energy is scarce on the moon, why do the thrusters extend? Why not save energy and just bolt them in position, with enough rotational capability for directional and stability control? And with a jarring crash, the descent was barely controlled--why give themselves such a hard time?

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This is the majority of the 2000 words I cut out. I was getting to a point where I felt like I had to stop the story and start explaining every aspect (how his visor works, why the rover was using thrusters, why the rover was stopped at the crater, why dust had piled up on the domes) and when finished one big chunk in the first 13 was just "telling".

What I'm thinking of doing is going back and adding some of these explanations back in except when the guy is leaving the site (pages 3-4). At that point the rover has to repeat its steps anyways so I can just toss in a little bit o' description. I can explain why the rover is using thrusters, why the movements are jarring inside the vehicle etc etc.

"From the crater's edge the ghost town had looked like clump of dull metallic eggs in a steeped nest of gray sand and rock. Now, as the rover neared the decaying steel domes, <MC's name> gazed at the fifty years of dust piled against them, like polluted snow drifts." (I don't think you need the "back on Earth", introduces an irrelevant image of Earth.)

I like the image of the ghost town and am intruiged to find out what happened to it. The business with the ascending and crashing seems irrelevant, and the crashing (without knowing how rover works) seems somewhat incompetent, and therefore unattractive.

From his response to Lance's request it's clear that William is a bureaucrat, so you don't necessarily need the last para about his history. It damps down the action; you could feed it in later, and instead perhaps establish the setting on the moon--which isn't clear from this opening.

Nits:

William was ... in my mind he's (mixing past and present tenses).

The access codes themselves won't be affected by the dust, but the keypad and the door opening mechanism might.