Short Story 2 - In the Dark (Part 3/?)

[This is part 3. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.] 

"Of course they had to take the front seat". Franka couldn't help but getting annoyed at almost anything Halis did.

For one reason or another, she had found herself cramped in the aft-right seat of the small shuttle that barely held the three of them. Farley supplied a pre-flight list of materials, that he was now going over, loudly calling out every single item. "Can't be sure of what we'll find, so better plan for everything!" he said with a big grin. Franka thought he was being optimistic. Sure, we could see some friendly humanoids. We could also find a crazy bunch of hive-mind insectoids that would just consider us nourishment for their offspring. To Franka, Farley looked like he was going to do a university science project with some wishful thinking sprinkled on top. She on other hand, felt like she was walking into a dark underground cave that could contain beings that haven't stirred in centuries. The thought gave her a shiver. Halis made sure to bring her back to reality.

"Farley, you're just about done there?'' they said, not even turning around from their pilot's seat. 

Short Story 2 - In the Dark (Part 2/?)

[This is part 2. Read part 1 here.] 

The Captain went on for a while after that, informing the rest of the ship's Heads what he knew, but after selecting two more people, Franka was asked to join the Captain in the Ready Room. In a daze, Franka just followed. Once inside, Franka almost missed noticing how little this room was used. Its interior was spartan, to say the least, but aside a quip forming in the back of her mind about cleaning drones forgetting about this room, she just sat down.

''Thank you all for clearing your schedule. As I'm sure you know, you've all signed up for this mission. When you signed up for the job, you all noted and signed what is commonly known as the ''E.T. Clause''. And since we just found out we lost contact with the drone we sent out, that clause now enters into force, at least where it concerns you three.''

This made Franka snap back to the present moment. ''The what now?'' she thought.

Short Story 2 - In the Dark (Part 1/?)

A new short story made especially for you. This one is an exercise in freewriting and using the ''seat-of-the-pants'' style. That means I will be doing little revision and have nothing planned out further than whatever is in each part. In other words, I have no idea how long this story will be either, nor how it will end.

Enjoy! (And leave me a comment :-) ) 

It felt like only a few hours had passed since Franka had put down her head on the pillow after another bullshit-filled shift when the alarm blared. 

''Goddamn drills'' she muffled under her breath while wiping the sleep from her eyes. The Captain had been running regular security drills. ''Space is a dark place, but this sector is about as pitch-black as they come,'' he had said. What he meant to say was that this part of space was rather pirate-infested. The Garun Syndicate was not much more than a marauding group of pirates and were known for some very dirty tactics to take what they pleased. The Captain's answer to that was to plough on the drills. Franka often wondered how one can exactly prepare to defend oneself from a small armada of heavily armed boarding ships dropping in from behind a moon in this patch of space devoid of any major star. It was like trying to swat a fly in the dark, except the fly has modular plasma guns and you won't see the discharge until it hits your eyeballs. The ShipSec team usually did a pretty good job though. Not too many people died. The drills' only saving grace, however, was that they would often come on the most opportune moments, such as in the middle of Franka's shift. All she had to do was hole up in the engineer emergency chamber and let the security people handle it. 

Right now though, she wasn't too pleased.  

''Every department head is to report to the Captain's ready room on the double. Everyone else is to follow standard security protocol.''

''Well, that's unusual,'' Franka thought. 

Novel 4: Attunement (from the Lost and the Found)

 ‘’Anya, can we count on you?’’

It’s a cold night in the Moscow snow and Anya is standing in a dark corner of an abandoned train station. While the cold wind is seemingly blowing through her, it’s the eyes of the woman across from her that are piercing her. The searing cold does not seem to affect her as she’s only wearing a light jacket, as opposed to Anya’s thick faux-fur coat. ‘’Why isn’t she cold? It’s below freezing.’’ Anya couldn’t parse it.

‘’Hello? Egghead, you there?’’

Anya was just wondering why she was wearing sneakers. A fresh pack of snow had fallen last night. ‘’Sneakers? Really? Why? And what’s with all the bio-fluorescent tattoos?’’

‘’What? An egg? Where?’’ Now Anya was really confused. ‘’First, it’s winter and she’s not wearing any winter clothes. Now my head is an egg?’’

‘’I thought we were here to discuss a job?’’ Anya responded.

The woman sighed. 

‘’Yes. Yes, we were. I need access.’’

‘’Access to what?’’

The woman sighed again. 

‘’You know what? Never mind. We thought we could count on you.’’

Review 34: The Gone World

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a veritable mind-bender, or, put differently, the way hard sci-fi is supposed to be, in my humble opinion. Our main character Shannon Moss is thrown into a weird-as-hell murder mystery, involving ships made of nails, copies of people and many other things too close for comfort. Oh, did I mention Shannon is a time-traveller?

Yeah, dig in people, this is a thrill-ride.

Aside from the mind-bending possibilities, this book brings to bear, the amazing way the science is portrayed and how it is being used to drive the story forward, not everything is perfect. There are basically two sides to this story and they don't always mix. Yes, they merge together towards the ending, but for most of the story, they feel disjointed, making for a jarring read, taking away from the otherwise engrossing story world.

In the end, you'll have to make the decision for yourself whether you want to sink your teeth into this one. It's a tough read, with high science concepts being dropped around like snowflakes. If a more low-key sci-fi is your cup of tea (think time-travel the way Back to the Future did it), then this may not be for you. If you enjoyed True Detective, 12 Monkeys and don't mind having your mind thrown in the blender then this is definitely for you.

View all my reviews

Short story 1: Inferno (part 7)

Jake's first impression was that the midgets were asleep. Their regular-sized heads on their under-sized bodies were hanging slightly forward. Either they were looking at their bellies or they were asleep. 
'What are you doing here?!?' a voice boomed. 
Jake at first figured they were awake. He was wrong. The group was already ahead of him.
'What?! Where is it coming from?!' the group responded in different tones of surprise. The midgets remained unmoved, their eyes closed.
'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!!?!' the boisterous voice rang out once more.
Then Jake noticed. It was the left elephant of the two that demanded an answer and he did not look happy.

Prompt 4: Busted

You come to your senses with a shock. The bright lights of the oncoming car is a shock to your system and you are suddenly present like a wide-eyed deer caught in headlights. With a last split-second pull, you manage to avoid a full, head-on collision and with millimeters to spare you miss the other car. Your heart is beating  like the pistons of a race-car, the breaths you take shallow, fast.

'What the flying fuck is happening?' you hear yourself screaming, your voice strengthened by the adrenaline pumping through your body.

You check the speedometer and see that you are blasting along with an uncomfortable 145 km/h. Your feet never used to get this heavy and with an unfamiliar unease you take your feet of the gas and come back to a respectable speed of 100 km/h. Outside it's pitch-black and nothing seems even remotely familiar. While you switch back the gears you feel the cold steel of the gear shift contrasting sharply with your warm, sweating body. Your heart skips a beat. You distinctly remember your gear shift to be made of leather, not steel. It's hard to see but you squint your eyes and look around the car.

The realization hit's you harder than any head-on collision could have done.

You are not in your own car.