This is an excerpt from chapter 10 of the first draft of the book. I chose to post this snapshot for several reasons. It covers a lot of details without really giving anything away. contained within this segment is a short summary of the previous 10 chapters, viewed from a slightly different perspective than you get in most of the rest of the book. This means that the point of view character here is not one of the main protagonists of the story. So the main characters can still feel new to you if you read this and were not part of my initial reading group. and lastly, I chose to share something from the first draft because, while the major plot points remain the same, even this chapter has seen significant revision to the point where it is hardly recognizable in the new version. so either you were part of the first reading group, will be part of the second reading group. or are just interested. you can freely read this section, and not feel like you will be robbing yourself of the experience of seeing the world through the more refined versions.
The downsides to this excerpt. It is rough and clunky, with its fair share of errors, and what in hindsight is actually really bad writing. But I had to start somewhere so I try not to be too hard on myself. one of the major downfalls here is that there is no context given for the alien races who appear in the story. unfortunately describing them here is beyond the scope of this post. I will be doing follow up posts that will help clarify things.
Finally, the ship had dropped out of hyperspace, at last Kurt would be able to get off this tin can. The only reason they had contracted the Shade was because they were in a hurry, it was fast and available. After having been on it for five weeks, Kurt was surprised the thing could even fly. It didn’t even have a fusion core! Kurt let out a sigh
Talia pated his back. “At least the cook is back.”
“Right.” Kurt groaned. “The cook, and his unexplainable ability to prepare food that shouldn’t even exist out here.” If it was just the food Kurt wouldn’t have a problem, but this whole ship was one sick joke after another. Instead of using a fusion core, it ran on an old school ion drive, paired with an antimatter coil, and a backup solar array. The cargo deck looked like it had been spliced together from an old TTS 232 and a SCH 96. The bunk bay was from an old enforcer 215 that not even the alliance military used anymore, and the mess hall was built from the cargo hold of a TTS 378!
The ship itself Kurt could handle, it was the crew that pushed it over the edge. The half Dra’k half Fingalin first mate seemed to be the one running the show, because the Dra’kor captain couldn’t be bothered to care. Though on second thought Kurt actually preferred it that way, the captain gave him the creeps. The tactical officer was some kind of Alliance prodigy who got bored and dropped out. The navigation officer was a runaway from the outer colonies, and the cook was a pure blood Fingalin pretending to be human. The whole crew was a bunch of misfits brought together in some great cosmic joke. The doctor was the only normal one of the whole bunch, which made him that much more abnormal in comparison to the rest of the crew.
Things had started out just fine. The lack of gravity in the ships corridors took some getting used to. Kurt had expected that, it was common on the older ships that relied on artificial gravity, rather than the true gravity generated by a fusion core. The beds were a pain, but you got used to them too. Everything was going fine, then that Descendent ship showed up. None of them really knew what happened with that, the crew was pretty hush about the whole thing. That was the first alarm bell for Kurt, he didn’t want to be stuck on a ship on the wrong side of The Descendants. They must have worked it out though, seeing as how the Descendants had let them go.
“Hey you think about the offer to stay aboard longer?” it was Jacks. Fetu, the first mate, had offered some of the engineers a two month commission, decent pay, three days in the engine room, with one day’s bridge duty per week. Three days shore leave at the next planet, and a shuttle when you got dropped off.
“Yeah I thought about it.” Kurt said.
“And?” Talia asked.
“There’s no way I am staying on this ship, first chance I get, I am getting on that crane!” Kurt was so done with this ship, and its crew.
“I think I might do it.” Jacks said. “You never know when a little extra experience with one of these older engines will come in handy. Heck I already know of two or three sticky situations a little time on this ship could have gotten me out of.”
That right there was the other problem Kurt thought. “After what happened on DSI 3122? Not a chance.” DSI 3122 had not been what they had expected when they arrived. Kurt had volunteered to go with some of the crew to check it out. Once on board the first mate had led them straight to the engineering deck. Someone had striped the fusion core of its energy regulator, and it had burned up more than half its coolant. Kurt had managed to gain them a couple of hours by dumping life support runoff into the core. It was a trick he picked up on a TTS 950. Then the energy regulator had straight up failed, the captain had gone for a cheap model and got what he paid for, using water from life support gave them the extra time they needed to get planet side and replace it.
On DSI 3122 however, the team did not make it out on time. They had managed to shelter in the green house. What happened after that was a little fuzzy. The first mate had told them that the captain got them all out on an emergency escape pod he found. Talia said the green house must have held just enough atmosphere for it to all work out. Jacks even claimed to remember getting on the pod before he blacked out. Kurt didn’t buy it, the pod in the cargo bay did not come from DSI 3122 and Kurt had been in vented atmosphere before, what he experienced after DSI 3122 was not cellular depressurization. It was hyperspace fatigue.
That didn’t make any sense of course, the whole green house would have had to be moved, and there simply wasn’t that much space on the ship. No, the captain did do something though. Kurt only vaguely remembered the last few moments on the station, there is nothing quite like thinking you are going to die to screw with a man’s brain. Kurt remembered the captain and Talia arguing, the captain had shoved her to the ground and ordered them into the fetal position. That was it. Kurt had been sure that’s how they were all going to die, like cowards waiting for the end to come.
But they hadn’t died, instead the world turned itself inside out. Kurt had thought it was the station folding in on itself, he had not managed to remain conscious. When he had awoken in the med bay he had been sick with hyperspace fatigue, and the first mate spun him that story about the escape pod.
Kurt shook his head. No the whole thing didn’t make any sense, and he was determined to find out what was going on. But he couldn’t do that stuck on this ship, he just didn’t have enough access, he needed more resources.
