This year I am trying something far more science fiction for NaNoWriMo than last years fantasy efforts. This is early in the story where Marick, the Captain, and main character, finally hears from the man he planted on board his target. Just an initial encounter to help determine relationships
Marick dragged the creature aboard his ship and left it in the docking bay for Harwick to examine later. Once the airlocks were sealed and he was again breathing the ships recycled air, he took the respirator off and plugged it into one of the bay’s consoles, checking the toxin levels that it had collected.
According to the readout, the air was ninety eight percent free of toxins and the two percent that were considered toxins were well below the acceptable threshold. He unplugged the respirator and brought it too Harwick just to be sure, and the android concurred.
“Good. I hate wearing those damned things.”
Taerinia handed Marick a mug full of straight whiskey and he sipped it as he watched the replay of the creature crashing to the ground in front of him. The ship’s camera’s did not catch what had happened to the bird, despite his watching it three times from every angle.
“I don’t like it,” Taer remarked.
“Perhaps it crashed into one of the trees?” Harwick suggested, but neither of the humans believed him, and the Captain doubted that the android believed it either.
“Captain, Jaffa is checking in.”
A large bald head appeared on a nearby panel. Taer shuddered at the scarred visage, the man’s piercings not helping her view of him. Three platinum rings hung from his right ear. A gleaming metal horn curved from the man’s labret, touching the underside of his chin and a jagged scar marked his left cheek.
“Nice to see your ugly mug,” Marick greeted the man on the screen.
“You’re looking as pretty as ever, Captain.” The man, known as Jaffa, closed one of his pail green eyes, winking towards Taerinia. “And how are you?” He asked.
“Fine, how goes it so far?” She replied, ignoring his question.
“And how is my favorite android?” He ignored hers.
“Well Jaffa. Have they treated you well?”
“Yeah, they keep trying to remove this scar.”
“Well, they have the technology, you should let them.”
“I earned this scar.”
“I know. I did my best to patch you up after that brawl.”
“The man called me a cheat. I wasn’t about to let him get away with that.”
“Enough!” Marick stopped the two from their idle chat. He had heard the story before, in fact, he had been there. He had been the one that called Jaffa a cheat.
The scarred visage chuckled. “They’re cracking this egg tomorrow at oh six hundred, sending out two teams of ten men each. I managed to get myself selected for one of them. Just a recon, nothing but weapons.”
“Ok, report back as soon as you can. And be careful! I think there’s something out there.”
4 comments:
During the conversation it took two reads to get that Taer, Marick and Jaffa were the ones talking. Other than that, interesting so far.
Ok, by that I think you mean who is speaking which part? I am trying to keep conversation flowing a little more swiftly with this piece, but there is always room for improvement : January, I will begin rewrites (assuming I actually finish it in the 50k words)
Yep, thats what I mean. Sorry, I can't even help in a way that is easily understandable.
I understood without you having to explain, I got a comment about it from someone else too so I was just clarifying for my sake that this was a consistent issue, not two separate ones. Thanks for the help!
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