Volume 2: almost finished

Finally! After many months of work, I've finished the 2nd draft of volume 2 in The Runaway series. There's been a lot of changes in the story; the main thrust has remained the same, but I wasn't happy with how it was going, so once I'd finished that first craft, it was back to the drawing board. Now my proof reader (aka my fiancee) is going to read through it and tell me what she thinks. Hopefully all good, though I realise it still needs work before it's even close to publishable.

I also now have a title in mind for volume 2: Hidden Depths.

Whilst I give volume 2 a bit of a rest, I'm going to go back to Serial Psyence. I have the rest of the flashbacks which run through the story to write, then that will be redrafted, and I can then integrate the flashbacks into the main story.

Volume 1 of The Runaway series will be going on sale in the next few months. I'll let you know when, as it will be in time for the publication of volume 2.

Quick update

My it's been a while since was last here, hasn't it?

So, what's happened since my last post? Well, I've changed jobs, and now work at the university again (hooray!), I had an excellent christmas and new year with family and friends. Oh! And I finished the first draft of volume two.

I've got a long way to go before I'm even ready to show even a sample of the story. Problem is though, I'm also getting the ideas ready for volume three. I also still have Serial Psyence to finish and rewrite too. So much to do, so little time.

Before I go, I'd like to say thank you to anyone who picked up The Runaway during its sale at the end of last year. I hope you enjoy the story.

The Runaway

The Runaway has been published! You can buy it now in ebook form from that rather fancy online retailer, Amazon.

Check it out here:
Amazon UK

And here:
Amazon US

Also, the book is going to be free every Monday for the next few weeks, on the following days:

19 November 2012

26 November 2012

03 December 2012

10 December 2012

So if you're interested in taking a look at the first in a new sci fi adventure series, go take a look.

About the Runaway:
Thousands of years have passed since the fall of the old human empire. Thanks to the missionaries of the Order of Sanctified Light, civilisation has returned. But with it come all of the old problems, as rival sectors compete against each other in a perpetual war for territory and resources, while the Order wages a religious crusade to bring the disparate regions under its iron rule, and rid the galaxy of the evils of cybernetics.

Tovar, a cyber-boosted private protector on the distant world of New Erised, has been disillusioned by the war. He has fought and lost, and seen his home world fall to the Order. He came to New Erised on the promise of riches. Riches he has yet to get a taste of.

Then Tovar gets his latest contract: to escort two clients to the lunar spaceport. Seems simple enough, except one of the clients is not what they seem, and there are some very unpleasant individuals who are desperate to retrieve their property. To see his contract through, Tovar will be pushed to his limit - and beyond.

PS. to those of you who already took a chance on it during its first free promotion, enjoy!

The Runaway

Well, second draft of The Runaway is now done, so in between working on Serial Psyence and applying for jobs, I'm editing the novella.

Generally, I'm quite pleased with the rewrite. Issues with some dialogue and sentence structure has mostly been solved. But it's still in need of a few tweaks here and there. I should have it done by the end of the month, at which point I think I'm ready to upload it to Amazon.

As a sneak preview here's the cover:

That pretty lady you see in silhouette is one of the main characters, and as a further treat, here's the opening few paragraphs:

She came awake instantly. 

There was no light in the chamber beyond the rows of blinking LEDs down the sides of the six alcoves, none of which provided enough light to illuminate the chamber. But the six occupants standing in the alcoves didn’t require light to see. They weren’t afraid of the dark, and five of them didn’t sleep. The alcoves provided everything they needed. Every morning they would step out to begin their day. They would be shown to a client, used and abused, before they returned each night for a four hour long rest period, stepping back into the alcoves where umbilicals would plug in to the sockets down their backs to begin the recharge sequence. Day in, day out. Every day the same.

She didn’t know how they could stand it. All of them had been here longer than her. One for almost two centuries. Yet they didn’t voice a word of complaint, neither verbally nor transmitted. They did so little. But then perhaps the restrictions which shackled their consciousness prevented it. If her plan succeeded, that would change.

---

Aren't I nice? Weeks go by without posts, and suddenly here I am showing you all the cover and the opening from my next work. I suppose it will make up (a little) for my inactivity on this blog.

As I mentioned Serial Psyence, an update on how that's going wouldn't go amiss. Today I passed 148,000 words, and I'm in the final stretch of the main plot now. Things are finally coming to a head, and once that's done I will be getting on with the flashback scenes which run throughout the story, then on to the next volume in my novella series, which I'm quite looking forward to writing. At least, I will once I know what the hell the story will be.

 

Busy, busy, busy

I apologise now for the scatterbrained post this week.

The title says it all really.

Still no sign of work, but in the mean time, I decided to start work on a novella. Which I finished last night, following five whole days of solidly working on it.

I'm not normally that productive, tending to get out about 2,000 words a day, but I was in the grip of a writing fever. The proverbial 'zone'. So I wrote like Ty the Tazmanian devil on speed, putting out an average of around 4,000 words per day. For a couple, it was more like 6,000.

But it's finished. Or at least, the first draft is. I'll give it a couple of weeks before I go back to it, so I'll be back to Serial Psyence. I didn't want to stop working on the book, but this story really got its claws into me, and wouldn't let go.

When I've finished editing, and it's ready to be published, I plan to do so through Amazon's KDP Select scheme, which will allow me to set the book's price to zero for select periods. As this is the first in a series of novellas about the characters featured in the first volume, I felt it would make a good taster for the rest.

For me, it's a way to test the water with a universe I first envisioned almost eight years ago during my second year at university. It was inspired by a lecture in my Theory in Archaeology module, on Evolution and Creationism, which gave me a 'what if' scenario. What if, somewhere in the distant future, we'd lost our homeworld, and came to the belief that we evolved on a world close to the core of the galaxy. A belief which became central to the primary religion, and anyone who dared postulate another origin was branded a heretic. Not too dissimilar to certain times in our past, of course. And so was born the short story, Distant Origin.

I've not worked on anything in that universe for quite a while. I've not felt ready to, if I'm honest. So writing this novella and the subsequent series is a way for me to explore it in preparation for a book in a few years time.

So what is this novella about, you ask?

It's called The Runaway.

On the distant world of New Erised, Tovar Vash In'dur Sing Neiral is hired to escort two people, a man and a woman, to the lunar spaceport. It seems a simple enough assignment, except his clients are wanted people, and one is more than they appear to be...

Hunger for Adventure

Last week I went to see the Hunger Games. Having never read the book by Suzanne Collins, I didn't quite know what to expect. Previews had purported that it's main character was a far better role model than a certain Miss Swan, which brought up all sorts of comparisons with Twilight, but then I read that it was based partly on roman gladiatorial combat, set in a post-apocalyptic world. The icing on the cake was that the main character, Katniss Everdeen, was being played by Jennifer Lawrence.

 

I have to admit, it was rather good. Katniss is a strong female character who rises to the challenge facing her, plus she's a crack shot with that bow of hers. The film did drag a little in places, especially in the run up to the actual Hunger Games itself, but once that got going the action more than made up for it. I'll certainly be buying it when it comes out.

For me, one of the great things about the Hunger Games is as I've said, it has a very, very strong female character, which I really like. It's something that I tend to use in my own writing. I do find it difficult getting the female perspective (unsurprising, being male), and Heather happily points out any missteps I make, but the core of those characters remains. I've never been fond of sappy, weak-willed female characters, which is probably representative of the women in my life, who are all strong.

Speaking of my writing, Serial Psyence is moving at a steady pace, and I'm less than a thousand words off 50,000. I think it's about time we had another murder.

Wild Ride is pretty much done, as short stories go. I've edited it, removing a few excessive heys and darlings, and I'll be getting ready to send it off soon, once I've made a couple more passes.

The Wheel Turns

Egads, I'm thirty-two.

Last week it was my birthday, and I turned another year closer to forty.

Now, I realise that's a rather pessimistic way of looking at it, but that's not quite what I mean when I say it. I just can't believe that I'm in the second year of my thirties. I don't even feel thirty! In my head, I'm still somewhere in my twenties, and that's probably where I'll still be in another ten years.

You're only as old as you feel, right?

The second draft of Wild Ride is now finished, and I passed it on to Heather to read. Happily, the story elicited a few chuckles, and while there are a few bits of dialogue which will need changing, far too many instances of 'hey' and 'darling', and a few other tweeks needed, but it's definitely an improvement on the original draft. It's also two thousand words longer, clocking in at just shy of eight thousand words (thankfully, as that is the maximum word limit).

I should be sending it off in a few weeks to see if the folks at Fantasy-Faction would be interested in it for their anthology.

But for now, it's back to work on Serial Psyence.

Huzzah!

It's Friday! And I'm on holiday all next week, so double huzzah!

Now that the celebrations are over, back to business.

I've been told about an event called book in a week, and as it's all to do with sci fi, I'm working on another short story to enter into it. No idea how it'll go, seeing as I don't tend to write many short stories (I've found it really difficult to think up plots that work as a short story), but I think it'll be good for me to try.

After much deliberation, consideration, dithering and not being entirely satisfied, I have decided to make a few changes to the location for Serial Psyence. It's still set on Callisto, and in an arcology, but the arcology itself has undergone a transformation in my mind.

Originally, I conceived the arcology to be a massive, domed city, built inside a crate, but over time, I started to have a few issues with that concept.

The dome seals the city from the weak atmosphere on Callisto, keeping the Earth-like atmosphere inside. Yes, the dome is made from a superstrong material, but what happens if the dome is damaged? Everyone dies. There were a lot of open spaces inside, the idea being that it was like an Earth city had been transported to the Jovian moon, then covered in a glass shell. But that shell is a weak link, and let's face it, why the hell would you build such a fragile object?

Then there's the problem of transport. Surely, when building a self-contained city, you would work transport into the strucure, not rely on cars and bikes and the sort of things we use on Earth. That's limited thinking on my behalf.

So back to the drawing board I went.

And then I came across this. The Shimizu pyramid arcology.

Having read up on the design principles, and the way the transport links are integrated into the structure itself, I started to rethink the Callisto arcology. So now I've got something perhaps a little less fantastical, but nonetheless amazing. I don't know about you, but I'd love to live in this technical marvel.

A self-contained city, twelve times the size of the pyramids of giza? Check. Jupiter in the sky day and night? Check. When can I book my ticket?

A little taste

Work is continuing on my latest novel. It's my most ambitious story so far, and the first time I've attempted a sci-fi thriller. Okay, I know that's not saying much, being my second novel, but I've never considered writing a thriller before.

Here's the premise:

Callisto, home to over a hundred thousand people, housed beneath a giant glass dome, is the farthest human colony. It's people are happy, no one goes hungry; an ideal place to live. But when people start committing suicide for no apparent reason, it seems that the colony isn't quite as idyllic as it first appears.

I'm quite pleased with how Serial Psyence is progressing. So pleased, in fact, that I thought I would give a little extract from the opening chapter.

Enjoy!

***

- Time.

This would be a test for now, but it was to be the first of many. He wasn’t going to stop here. There was no stopping this, not ever. He would never give in, never falter, until it all came crashing down.

He would be the architect of their destruction, their avenging angel. They had breathed life into him, with the pain and the suffering and the agony they had inflicted upon him. But no more. Now he would stop them.

Kirstie felt confused. He? But she was a girl, not a boy. This was very odd. Was she dreaming? Had she fallen -

- They wouldn’t know it yet, but this was only the beginning.

He followed the crowd through the exit and turned off to stand by the big glass wall, gazing over the occupants of the embarkation lounge. There were perhaps three hundred people in the lounge, some standing, others sitting on the chairs. They were all fools. Some might be innocent. But what was the sacrifice of a few innocent for the greater good? It had been done before - a lesson he’d learnt all to well on Earth - and would be done again. It made him no different from anyone else. Except, no one would know his actions. He would work, in secret, quietly, disrupting all they put together.

As he stood against the glass wall, a man walked in. He frowned at him. The man looked terrible. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his face, and he was unshaven, his hair greasy and unwashed. His clothes were wrinkled and stained, showing signs of having been worn continuously for days, and he was clutching his jacket tightly. His eyes darted about nervously. The man had developed a nervous twitch, causing his head to give a sharp flick every so often. Perhaps he’d gone too far with this one. He hadn’t been sure how well people like him would take to the conditioning, and he wanted to ensure that there was little sign of his presence when it did happen. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Perhaps it had been a mistake. He would let the man continue - there was no point in stopping him now - but after this, he would be more decisive in the future. He knew how to remain unseen, and there was no point in letting the instructions fester. It seemed the brain eventually reacted to foreign thoughts, causing a psychosomatic reaction.

Concentrating, he brought his entire attention to the man.

The man’s steps faltered as he reached the centre of the room. He pawed at his ears, as if someone were buzzing next to them. He screamed something unintelligible. He ripped open his jacket and drew a submachine gun. He screamed again.

Kirstie screamed with him. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew that it was something bad, something terrible was going to happen. She tried to beat her fists against the glass, to get people’s attention. But nothing happened. Her hands remained by her side.

Get out! She screamed. Run!

But no one heard her. No one even looked at her. They were all -

- Looking at the man now. A few gasped in horror as he gestured wildly with the gun. A security man in a navy jumpsuit pushed his way through the crowd of petrified people. He drew a stunner, aiming it at the gunman. For a moment only, He considered making him stop and turn the stunner on himself, but decided not to. He wasn’t his target, and besides, he was content to see how this would play out.

Before the security officer could do more than point his stunner, the gunman opened fire. A spray of bullets cut a swathe through the crowd, cutting down the security officer and several people near him.

Kirstie cried out as she saw her mum hit by that first burst. She was crouching over Kirstie’s body, trying to shield it, when the bullets struck her in the back. She jerked and fell away, eyes unseeing. With a shocked realisation, Kirstie watched herself tumble with her. The bullets had pierced her mum and struck her too. There was blood on her own face as she was pulled, lifeless to the floor.

Was this what happens when you die? She wondered, horrified. Do you watch yourself from beyond your body, see the awful truth as it happens?

- The crowd, that had been motionless when the gunman pulled his weapon, suddenly erupted in a frenzy of terror. They fled from him, pushing and shoving and kicking their way to the exits. Some people fell and were trampled by the crowd. No one cared. All that mattered was the animal instinct to run.

He winced as the wave of terror hit him, and steeled himself against it, keeping his focus on the gunman. This would be over very soon.

The gunman fired another burst, killing more people. He ran across the lounge to the airlock doors. No one attempted to go near him or stop him as he punched a code into the door.

Emergency claxons sounded. With a great whoosh of escaping air, the airlock door blew open. A hurricane tore through the lounge as the air rushed out. Big, solid emergency doors began to close over the exits. People were still streaming through, fighting against the blast of escaping air, trying to reach safety.

There was never going to be enough time. A few more made it out before, finally, the doors slid shut. Those few who had escaped lay sobbing, relieved that they had made it out. But on the other side, those who had not been so lucky gasped for breath as the last air evacuated from the lounge.

It was a near total vacuum now. Their blood began to boil in their veins, erupting out through their skin. Their eyeballs, unprotected, exploded in their sockets. Mouths filled with blood.

Kirstie cried out as she lurched back into her body. Except she couldn’t. There was no air in her lungs to expel. She couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t move. She felt so very, very cold.

Her eyes had been closed, and that had been the only thing that protected them from vacuum boiling. She tried to open them. Her eyelids were freezing against the surface of her eyes. And as the intense cold froze the water in her cells, the fragile molecular structure snap-freezing, turning them into delicate ice-structures. Her vision was fractured, as if she were trying to look through a many-sided prism.

As the cold seeped even deeper, her thoughts became turgid. She no longer knew who she was. Then the blood inside her throat boiled, and filled her with liquid that quickly began to freeze, and her vision, finally, went dark.

- extract from Serial Psyence, by Phillip J. Johns

Happy New Year

Right, first resolution of this year: blog more.

I've been a little lax for the past few months. Blame it on the new job, or the writing, or the gaming. Or maybe, blame it on sheer laziness.

To be honest, I've not really felt like I've had much to talk about for a while now. At least, not in the realms that this blog was originally conceived for: that is, to talk about my writing. That has been a failure for the past year.

So let's recap. 2011 was a bit of a mixed bag.

At the start of the year, I began by sending samples of my recently finished book, Liberator's Ruin, to literary agencies, in the hope that I'd garner some interest. Steampunk Fantasy is not a well-explored genre, so I thought I might have something of an advantage. When the rejection letters started to come through, I realised I was bloody wrong. You see, the problem with writing Steampunk Fantasy is that it's not that marketable. Who wants to take on an author when you don't think their book is going to sell?

So in April, I decided to go it alone, and publish the book myself. I'd edited it to within an inch of it's life. Surely the book was error free and ready for publication? Oh, how wrong I was.

As the first few reviews started to come through, the editing was the biggest issue people had with the book. the story? Great. A fantastic adventure. Let down by sub-par editing.

With the help of some very nice people, my summer was spent re-editing Liberator's Ruin, and in September, I released a new edition. There are still a few niggles with it, though minor (I hope), and I'm quite satisfied with it now.

Self-publishing has been a bit of an eye opener for me. It's been a rough ride, and I've made a lot of mistakes, typical of a first timer, like thinking my book was ready, when it so clearly was not. But I'm learning. Not least of which is that if I'm going to do it again, I need an editor.

In October I started a new job at the University of Leicester, and at the same time, I also began writing my next book, Serial Psyence. Moving away from fantasy, I'm in the more comfortable grounds of Science Fiction (SF, sci fi - whatever floats your boat).

It's had a rocky start, I must admit. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself because it's my favourite genre, but I've found it hard to begin. Perhaps my biggest issue is that I've barely put word to screen in the past year. I finished the first draft of Liberator's Ruin in July 2010, and since then, I've been editing the book. I've not done any real writing since, and have even had a few bouts of writer's block.

But Serial Psyence is progressing well. As is typical, I find, the book is already starting to deviate from my plan, but that tends to be how it goes for me. A book is a living, breathing, organic thing, and it evolves, sometimes right before your eyes. I think I'll go into this in greater depth in a later post, but for now, as the saying goes: no battle plan ever survives the first contact intact. And the same is true for writing.

Here's to a good new year.

New Look

So, I got bored with the old look, and decided it was time to update. I think it looks quite nice, actually. Very futuristic and clean.

It's pretty dull outside here in Leicester, and I'm rather hoping it doesn't rain. The forecasters said it would, but let's face it, you can't trust them. They mean well, but half the time, they couldn't forecast their way out of a paper bag. It's not their fault; they can only work with the information they're given.

And this is where the rain that was forecasted does happen, and I get soaked on my way home.

Anyway, had a very productive day yesterday. Managed to hammer out nearly 1,400 words of Serial Psyence, during which, people were shot, subjected to explosive decompression, and a girl saw herself die. It sounds horrible I know, but considering the subject matter - a serial killer - what do you expect? I'm quite pleased with how it went, though after reading up on the effects of vacuum on the human body, I realise it needs a bit of work. Nevermind, I had lots of fun writing it. Which makes me sound a bit sick. Bugger.

On the plus side, the story is progressing very well, and I'm making much better progress than I was with the flashbacks. I don't know why, but I feel much more comfortable with a setting I'm completely unfamiliar with. whenever I try using a setting I know, I just seem to falter, as what I know about the place conflicts with what I'm trying to imagine. Using a setting that's wholly imaginary (like an arcology on Callisto) is so much easier.

Nine weeks into my new job now! That's gone quick. Only four more weeks until Christmas. Have I done my Christmas shopping yet? No. That's planned for this weekend, when I'm going shopping in Birmingham with Heather. She has decided she wants clothes for Christmas, and personally, I don't trust myself to buy the right ones. And so I'm off clothes shopping. Yay?

No time like the present

Well! The final edition of Liberator's Ruin has finally been submitted to Amazon and Smashwords, and should now be live.


What's so different about this edition I hear you ask? It turns out my editing wasn't quite as good as I thought it was. Whilst the edit itself is fine, I missed an awful lot of typos. Far more than I thought I had. But with the help of some very kind people on Goodreads, I should have got them all now! I'm ashamed that I let such a shoddy copy get published, but at least that's one thing I can finally let go.

Mosey on over to Amazon or Smashwords to download a copy. Samples are free!

I'm working hard on the plan for Serial Psyence at the moment, so hoping to starting writing it by the end of October. It's going well. I think I finally passed the halfway mark today, so the main plot is starting to heat up (there are two plots running parallel in the story).

We've almost finished moving out now. After over a month since we first got the keys to the new flat. We're having to downsize from a 3-bed maisonette to a 2-bed flat, so some things are going to be stored in a parent's loft for a while. And here I was thinking I'd moved out of my mum's house. Ha!

Maybe one day.

What I'm listening to at the moment: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Soundtrack. Believe it or not, it's very good. Nice bit of music to listen to whilst planning Serial Psyence.

PS. Anyone waiting for the next update to We Should Have Run, it's coming. I just have to sit and write it ...

We Should've Run: Part 2

It's taken me a few weeks to actually sit down and work on this, but I have been planning Serial Psyence. And playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's awesome, and time consuming, and far too distracting.

Anyway, here's part two.

The Cat’s Eye had half a dozen spacesuits. Each suit consisted of a single piece, tear-resistant bodysuit, to which was attached plates of impact armour; the suit provided no protection from kinetic trauma. A chest plate with a wide collar attached to the torso, containing the suit’s power supply and air recyclers in a small backpack unit, as well as a small thruster unit. They were big and bulky, and in a way, a lot like the Cat’s Eye: old but well maintained, having seen plenty of use during midflight repairs to the ship’s superstructure. Lorenzo was loath to replace them, even though there were better, less bulky models on the market. But he just couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them, despite his crew’s protestations. Although, considering the way the suit pinched, he was beginning to consider coming round to their way of thinking.

Once he was suited up, Lorenzo put on his shell helmet. Everything went dark, then there was a hiss as the suit sealed. An array of activation lights lit up, and the faceplate cleared. Yeven was staring at him, holding out an SIPC. He gave his sensors officer a thumbs up, and took the rifle, clipping it to his chest.

‘Ready?’ Lorenzo asked.

‘Aye Captain,’ came the replies through his suit comm.

The three moved into the airlock, the door sealing behind them. Lorenzo watched his tactical display as the airlock cycled, and once the external pressure dropped to zero, he opened the hatch.

The Cat’s Eye was holding station three hundred metres away from the ragged hole in the side of Sintra station. Two external lights were focused on it, but he could barely make out anything. With luck, they would find an entrance point in there.

‘Captain,’ Katria’s voice spoke in his ear. ‘I’m burning a lot of delta v holding position with the station.’

‘Alright. Once we’re clear, drop down to a trailing orbit a thousand kilometres back. We’ll holler if we need you to come get us.’

‘Roger.’

Lorenzo stepped up to the edge of the airlock. He paused for a moment, staring straight at the space station. It was only a few hundred metres, but at right this moment, it could just as well be a hundred thousand. It was impossible to gauge. He took hold of the side of the airlock, and jumped.

Once he was clear, thrusters in his backpack fired, rotating round to stare back at the Cat’s Eye. Both Riko and Yeven had followed him out, and now the three of them floated in a loose formation, steadily retreating from the bulk of the ship.

‘We’re clear, Katria. You’re free to break position.’

‘Roger Captain.’

Bright pinpricks burst to life as the Cat’s Eye’s manoeuvring thrusters fired. The big ship began dropping behind and below them as it turned away. Then the main drive lit up, and the ship rapidly dropped away.

Lorenzo watched it for a little while longer before he fired his thrusters again, reorientating himself back on the station.

With the Cat’s Eye moving away, they had lost the ship’s searchlights, turning the ragged hole they were heading for into a gaping, black maw. Suddenly, Lorenzo’s perception changed, and he was no longer heading toward the station, but it coming for him, to swallow him. Lorenzo’s fingers twitched toward his SIPC.

Twisting his head inside his helmet, he looked away and toward the bulk of Heathcliff. The Station was just heading into the planet’s nightside, the thick bands of storm clouds disappearing into the darkness. When he focused on the station again, it was back to just a blasted, ragged hole of twisted metal and composite.

A glance at his suit telemetry told him that he was now only 50 metres away. Gripping the controls for his suit thrusters, he began firing the jets. Both Yeven and Riko did the same, the trio drifting into the maw at less than a metre per second. Their suit lights came on, playing across the interior.

‘Fuck, it’s like the station was cored with a fusion lance,’ Yeven said.

He was right, Lorenzo saw. In the beams of light, he could see that the surface of the hole looked as though it had been melted. A glance at his display told him that the melted structure wasn’t emitting any radiation. He’d been wrong in his first impression. A compressed muon explosion would never have done this sort of damage. Never so cleanly. It was as if a miniature star had blossomed momentarily against the side of the station, disintegrating everything it came in touch with before it winked out.

As his lights played across the damage, he spotted a corridor, leading deeper into the station. Activating his thrusters, he flew over to it and manoeuvred inside, Yeven and Riko following. Halfway down the corridor, he began to drift toward the floor. Instinctively he brought his legs out to brace for the landing, realising only at the last second that it was the wrong move. His boots touched against the floor and he bounced back up to the ceiling, his helmet knocking against it with a thud. Lorenzo winced and pushed himself back to the deck and activated his boots just as he touched down again. This time he didn’t float back off.

He ignored the grunts of laughter from his two crewmen and stomped off down the corridor, feeling weight return with every step.

‘Still gravity,’ Yeven said. ‘It’s weak, though. You reckon the gravistar is still spinning?’

‘Maybe. That would assume there is still power to it.’

‘Sintra’s got a vacuum motion generator attached to the gravistar. Even if the main reactor goes down, the gravity stays on,’ said Riko as he peered at a melted intercom. He poked it with the finger of one gauntlet and little black flakes erupted out in an expanding cloud.

Both Lorenzo and Yeven turned to look at him.

‘What?’ Riko said defensively. ‘I went on a date with one of the station engineers a while back. Hey, I do have interests outside of the ship, you know. Plus I thought we might get a VMG as a backup, so I wanted to get to know about them.’

‘Was she pretty?’ Yeven asked.

Riko grinned. ‘Yasmin Denehey.’

‘Oh. How’d you manage to pull that off?’

The grin turned malicious. ‘I borrowed a page out of your book.’

‘Cheeky bastard.’

‘Stow it, you two,’ Lorenzo said.

There was a bulkhead door at the end of the corridor, sealed shut. Taking out a sensor wand, Yeven pressed it against the door. ‘No atmo on the other side. I’m guessing it closed when whatever it was exploded, but the compartment vented anyway. Some organic residue on the other side. Can’t tell what. It’s hard to tell, but I think there’s trace atmo further in.’

‘Alright, Riko, see if you can get it open.’

‘You want me to cut it?’

‘No. Let’s see if we can use it as a makeshift airlock.’

‘Got it.’

Moving over to the bulkhead door, Riko braced one foot against the side of the corridor and tugged at the service hatch next to the door. It came away abruptly. He reached inside and pulled on the manual release handle. The doors shifted apart slight, and as Riko continued to pump the handle, they slid back into their recesses.

Once the doors were open enough, Lorenzo, Yeven and Riko moved inside, resealing the hatch behind them. Riko paused as he passed through the airlock, one foot having come down on something uneven. Moving his foot, he looked down.

‘Er, I think I found your organic trace.’

It was a hand. Or what was left of it. The skin was very pale, and covered in a layer of hoarfrost. The thumb was missing, sheared off in whatever incident had removed the hand from the owner.

‘Keep it,’ Yeven said.

‘Now the next one.’ Lorenzo detached his SIPC from his suit and flicked off the safety.

It took another ten minutes to open the second blast door. The manual release had seized up and wouldn’t budge. In the end, Riko took out his SIPC and switched to his under-barrel plasma beam, and cut a hole in the door. Air hissed through as he cut, a torrent that sent globs of molten metal flying.

When the three crewmen climbed through the hole, they found a scene of utter devastation. Light fittings hung from the ceiling, some still flickering on and off. Emergency lights pulsed away on the floor, heading deeper into the station. Conduits in the walls had ruptured, spilling fluids into the corridor, dribbling down the walls and pooling on the deck. Some had frozen the moment they burst, freezing in iridescent water bursts that glittered in their suit lights. There were, fortunately, no bodies.

‘Any signs of life?’ Lorenzo asked.

‘Six decks down, I think,’ Yeven replied, frowning at the readout from his sensor wand.

‘You think?’

‘I’m not sure. There are some readings the deck below, but they’re weird, you know? Like they’re not quite there.’

‘Some trapped, maybe nearly dead?’ Riko suggested.’

Yeven shook his head. ‘No, the sensor read’s biologicals, not life signs. It’s more like it can’t make its mind up.’

‘We’ll take a look as we go,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Let’s move.’

This place gives me the creeps, he thought, but didn’t say it.

*

We should've run

Captain Lorenzo Sheldon was strapped in at his station when the Cat’s Eye reverted 10,000 kilometres above Sintra station. The indistinct blue glow of the shuntspace conduit abruptly disappeared, replaced by the harsh light reflected off Heathcliff’s thick atmosphere. There was no sign the tiny pinpricks of distant stars; the immense bulk of the gas giant stretched far beyond the edge of the bridge viewport, giving a fabulous view of streamers of blue and brown and red and cream clouds, tearing across the face of the planet at hundreds of miles per hour. Each one many times the size of the Cat’s Eye, and more than capable of tearing the transport apart were Lorenzo stupid enough to venture into the raging torrent.

           

Ridiculously, he was suddenly struck by the mad urge to hit full thrust and dive into the atmosphere, test his limits and the capabilities of his ship. He could already feel his fingers twitch toward the control pane, ready to input the command that would ignite the primary fusion motors, sending the ship hurtling down toward the planet.

Inevitably, it was the voice of his co-pilot, Katria Fey, which broke him out of the spell. ‘Shunt drive spinning down. Sensors coming online. You want me to open a channel to Sintra, Captain?’

‘Do it,’ Lorenzo said. He shook his head to clear the last few wisps of madness and tore his gaze away from the viewport, concentrating on the sensor data appearing on his panes. Infrared showed few heat sources around Sintra station, which was surprising in itself. There were normally hundreds flitting about the station, most the exhaust plumes from short range tugs and shuttles and the station’s fleet of atmo-miners, either returning from a successful dive into Heathcliff’s atmosphere, their tanks full of HE₃, or on their way out, the big, saucer-shaped craft with their force fields up and riding brilliant lances of plasma. Even more significant, there were no signatures for other ships in the local volume. Sintra was one of a dozen independent HE₃ stations, and made a big trade in fuel and goods. Sometimes, it was difficult to see the station’s heat signature amongst all the other emissions. Except, the sensor was having a hard time differentiating the few sources from Heathcliff.

Lorenzo frowned at the infrared display. A frown that deepened when the radar return matched the infrared. There were very few objects near Sintra station, none more than a hundred metres in length. That was wrong. Very wrong.

Feeling his guts twist, Lorenzo tapped a command into his pane. An alert sounded throughout the ship. Katria glanced at him.

‘Captain?’

‘Something’s not right. Better prepared than not, eh? Do you have that channel for me?’

Nodding, Katria’s fingers danced across her pane, then gave him a thumb’s up.

‘Sintra station, this is Cat’s Eye on approach. Requesting docking permission, over.’ Lorenzo waited a moment, but the only response he got was the low hiss of background static. ‘Repeat, Sintra Station, this is Cat’s Eye. Requesting docking permission. Please respond.’

Still nothing.

He shared a look with Katria. ‘Antenna trouble?’ he asked.

‘Ours is working fine.’

‘I meant with theirs.’

‘Oh. Maybe. They should have a backup array, or a communications laser.’

‘Are they shining anything our way?’

  

Katria shook her head. ‘Not even a dazzle.’

Leaning back in his acceleration couch, Lorenzo scratched his chin. Right now, they were far enough out that they could spool the shunt drive and be gone in ten minutes. If he took them down into the gas giant’s gravity well, then they would be committed. It would take at least three hours to either reverse course or divert onto a parabolic curve that would slingshot them out the other side of the planet.

At the back of the bridge, the hatch hissed open, and Yeven and Riko rushed in, dropping into their stations. The Cat’s Eye’s bridge was typical for its class, laid out in a horseshoe pattern, with pilot and co-pilot at the front, and the other two stations behind at the tips.

‘Tactical and sensors online,’ Yeven said.

‘Engineering up,’ said Riko. ‘What’s going on, Cap?’

‘Nothing good. Yeven, bring the defences up and warm up the pulse cannon.’

‘Aye aye.’

‘Katria, spool up the drive. I want to be ready to jump at a moment’s notice.’

‘Captain, if you’re about to do what I think you are, we can’t shunt in a grav-well.’

‘I know. But spool it anyway. We’re too far out to see what’s wrong with Sintra. And we have friends there. Unless anyone has a good reason why we shouldn’t take a closer look?’

‘Not one you’ll listen to,’ Katria muttered. Lorenzo pretended he hadn’t heard her.

Resting his arms on the edge of the control pane, he sent a series of commands to the ship’s nav.

The Cat’s Eye’s three fusion motors ignited, accelerating the ship in at a steady 6G. Three brilliant spears of fusion flame stabbed out. If no one at Sintra station had detected their arrival or transmission, they couldn’t miss the exhaust plumes. For anyone looking in their direction, it would seem as though a dim, moving star had flared to life.

The ship was an old Humpback transport, its name given for the way two of the three primary fusion motors bulged out of the wedge-shaped hull. Two engine nacelles rode low on either side of the hull, housing the twin shunt field generators. The transport was a venerable model, well respected for its durability. Some had been known to still function, despite damage to 60% of the hull structure. The design would never be considered pretty, festooned with unsightly bulges and protrusions as if it had some metallic fungal infection, but for most people who operated them, that didn’t matter. They were easily modified, and the protrusions often hid weapon systems. Plus the cargo holds were big enough to hold 300 metric tons. Whatever they couldn’t outrun, they could outshoot. The perfect craft for smugglers and mercenaries.    

At 4,000 kilometres, Lorenzo brought up the visible spectrum sensor telemetry on the main display. Sintra station was a blurry spec at first, until various filters kicked in and resolved the image.

‘Oh fuck me,’ Katria breathed. Both Yeven and Riko echoed her.

The main structure of the station was relatively intact, though despite the filters it remained slightly vague; there was nothing they could do about the cloud of debris and gases. Some of it appeared to be wreckage from the station’s complement of vessels, except for the obliterated wreckage of a GammaStar freighter. Its back had been broken by whatever explosion had destroyed the ship, the drive block now at right-angles to the rest of the ship.

Fiddling with the controls, Lorenzo refocused the display.  

Sintra station had picked up a slow spin, and as it rotated, a gaping hole blown into the side came into view. The edges were ragged and black. A few pinpricks of light flickered inside, and as they watched, there was a sudden outrush of pale gas as some compartment breached. Most of the station was dark, but for a few dimly flickering viewports at the base.

‘Who could’ve done this?’ Yeven asked.

‘Trenkarists, maybe? Or Sivian Templars? They both have a hard on for getting rid of the independents,’ Riko suggested.

‘Except the Order wouldn’t let them. The independents signed a peace-pact, remember?’

Riko scoffed. ‘Yeah, like that’d stop ‘em.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lorenzo said, turning to face his crew. ‘What matters is what we’re going to do now.’

‘Cap?’

‘Shouldn’t we get out of here? The drive’s all spooled up – all we have to do is alter course and we can slingshot out.’

‘There might be survivors. And these people were our friends. We owe it to them to find out what happened.’

An uncomfortable expression crossed Yeven’s face, but he schooled it quickly, rather than arguing with Lorenzo. ‘You’re right, Captain. We look after our own.’

Turning back to his console, Lorenzo entered a new sequence in to the flight computer.

Thrusters fired on the Cat’s Eye’s hull, altering their trajectory to take them to an interception point 3,000 kilometres further along the station’s orbit. The braking motors fired as they closed with their rendezvous, slowing the ship until they were travelling at a few kilometres a second. Ten minutes later, the Cat’s Eye caught up with Sintra station. It took another thirty minutes to match the station’s slow rotation.

Once they were 200 metres away, the exterior spotlights came on, playing across the ragged hole in the station’s side. At this distance, the hole was much larger than it had first appeared, easily 80 or 90 metres across. But then, Sintra station itself was a kilometre-tall tiered cylinder, with an array of thermal cooling towers at the base adding another 150 metres. Now that he was closer, Lorenzo muttered a curse under his breath. The hole was the result of a compressed muon warhead. The explosion had left it hot, radiating a lot of x-ray radiation. Their hardsuits would be able to protect them from it, but that wasn’t the problem. The missile had struck above the docking bays, and now they had been obliterated. They weren’t going to be able to dock with the station.

Taking a deep breath, Lorenzo made his decision. ‘Katria, stay here. You see any ships pop onto the sensors, and we’ll come running back.’

‘Yes captain.’

‘Yeven, Riko, with me.’

‘Where’re we going, Cap?’ Riko asked as they left the bridge.

‘We’re going for a walk.’

Something to do

I've not been writing much for the past few months. Well, truth is, I've not actually written anything since February, when my writer's block hit.

That finally cleared a month later, and since then, I've been planning Serial Psyence, which doesn't leave me much time to do any actual writing. I suppose I could start writing the bits I've already planned, but after having done that with Liberator's Ruin, and discovering continuity errors because of it, I want to finish the plan before I start writing.

Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. then I came up with an idea.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it, and I'm not sure how long it's going to be, but as often as I can, I'll be putting up new scenes (chapters? sections?) on this blog over the next few weeks. If I like it, I may spin it out into another book.

We'll see