For all my glib jokes about it bein' a long walk home, for all the times I have been in bad situations a long way from help, not until now had I really been convinced of my own mortality.
Irene was going to kill me and I wasn't even sure why. Maybe silence wasn't the best policy. "Irene--" I squeaked, started over, geesh, think, "Irene, how can I make things better?" It sounded fake even to me.
"Oh, do shut up." It hadn't gone over well with her, either. "You grubby people, with your grubby ships and your miserable, uncivilized planets. There is dirt everywhere! You have no idea; Wiitherspoon Processing was clean. It was orderly. Things made sense. This is all chaos and barbarism." She emphasized the important parts by yanking on the lanyard attached to my wrists."It's a good thing I kept up my militia training. Those contractors--" She meant Mil/Space. The Federation of Concerned Spacemen is as close to a real government as the Edgers get but it's not that close. "--They are good enough for routine but I have always known it was just a matter of time before you people attacked us again."
Right over the edge. I am dead, just as dead as Katrina. "They should have just let your 'Federation of Concerned Spacemen' kite off with an entire Moonbase?" She snorted and gave the lanyard another painful jerk. Geez, I'm so good at this. Gotta calm her down. It was hard to think what to say. "Irene, they pretty much did. All that was over a long time ago. We're all friends now."
"Friends? Friends? You're helping take our Founders back to the dirt and carrying Nazis right beside them, too!"
[CONTINUES HERE]
Update
2 days ago
8 comments:
Cool! Nice ending to the novella, and leaves me still craving more of course. Plus backstory, star atlas, unclassified starship drawings, etc etc etc...
Well done miss, thanks for sharing with us and looking forward to the next bit when you get to it.
I'm sure others have said it along the way, but I love the radio serial feel of the whole thing.
Wonderful!
Can't wait for the next one.
It's still pretty rough but I am not terribly unhappy, considering I spent more than ten years with writer's block bad enough that I could barely stand to make a shopping list. I'm pleased to get words on paper.
I write most of these on my lunch breaks at work. I used to read at lunch but after I got the Eee, I thought, "why not write?" About one episode or so per week, which may be why it has that radio serial feel..
Sounds like our Thanksgiving. :(
A very nice yarn, m'dear. I eargerly await the next storyline.
If I might make a suggestion, "flashbacks," or prequel would be interesting.
One idea would be Starship Bobbi working on some device, with the story flashing back to when the device was new(er). Then you could have parallel story lines around or about the device, past and present, or a continuation of said storyline.
Just a thought.
I have, I think, mentioned working the 'Drives in the ore tug Schramm.
Flashbacks are tricky, especially writing in half-hour chunks; we'll see.
Clap clap clap! And that's not some polite, pro-forma clap, either. Your writing goes down smooth, and the universe you write about is thoroughly believable and engaging.
Thank you, Wayne!
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