Unofficial Tex Murphy

It was a fuel line failure aboard Michaelangelo Station that set events in motion towards the unknown. Plans had been laid. Schemes were plotted out. The pieces on the board were in motion. But because a drunken dockworker called 'Two-by-Four' tripped two red wires out of their sockets, the Freefall didn't make it to the DCDS summit aboard the Sergio Leone on time. And as such, when the government station blew apart, the ambassador from New Eritrea, Martian Territorial Space, Tomiko Tae, became President of the DCDS. She was a fastidious woman, and refused to see anybody but her personal secretary, a man named Nicholas Vincent, for the first half hour after the news about the Sergio Leone arrived in the form of security videos from buoys surrounding the station. It had been gutted from the inside out. It was effectively gone. No survivors.
"Ma'am.." Vincent began. "We need to see the bigger picture here. A Prison Station rioting around the Mercury-Venus Line." He ticked the events off on the fingers of his left hand. "Lunar City 1 being bombarded by anti-insurgency torpedoes by our own fleet to save the rest of the moon." Two. "A large-scale hostage situation aboard the Trafalgar Shipyards." Three. "We've lost contact with the Donahue near Dyson Station out past Neptune..." Four. Her face was in her hands, but he continued nonetheless, as if he were kicking her when she was down. He didn't enjoy it. He showed the back of his hand, fingers outstretched, and continued.
"...We're unable to reach Admiral Gechenkov on Da Vinci Station, they can't seem to locate him for some reason."
Finally, when he was about to start on his right hand, she lifted her face to meet his eyes. She was weary. No small wonder. Nobody could be expected to just accept sole responsibility for humanity in stride on the best of days. This was far from one of those.
"Tell whomever we have on Comms to tell Da Vinci to cough up the Admiral, or his whereabouts. I need him. Threaten them if you have to. And." She rose off her desk and sat back in her chair, neck back, staring at the ceiling. "Contact Bill Plane aboard the Penchant and tell him to stand down for now. Direct order. I can do that now, right?" She looked at Nick without tilting her head forward. He nodded.
"Do that then. And we're declaring martial law. All of this needs to be brought under control, fast. And we need military muscle for that, as much as I hate the very idea. Oh, and Nick?"
He was looking at her with those innocent eyes very few men possessed. He'd been a decent secretary, he had a mind for politics, a sharp and keen one. And so far he'd been a terrific lover. Her mind was wandering.
"How would you like to be vice president?" she smiled wanly. She could see he faltered, he hadn't seen this coming. Keen mind aside, the events of the last hours had turned his world upside down as well. She finally smiled a little.
"Nick? Get moving. You've your orders, mister Vice President."
He didn't hesitate. He left without another word.

Too perplexed to fully contemplate his own situation, Vice President Vincent walked onto the Freefall's bridge. He walked over to the Comms-officer, a man named Banson, and forwarded Tae's orders. Find Gechenkov. Halt the Penchant. Declare martial law. On Vice President's Nicholas Vincent's command, following President Tae's orders. Martial law. Martial law, for heaven's sake. He informed the bridge commander, the command second, in fact, that he'd been declared VP. The command second smiled and promised Nick to forward the word to his captain, and he would be sworn in as soon as it could be arranged. Turning to leave the bridge, two large men with MP-badges on their uniforms grabbed Nick by the shoulders.
"Please Sir. Walk this way. It's for your own safety."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"President Tae has been assassinated."
No. No. No. No. NO!! This could not be happening. Not now. Humanity needs her. Needed her. I need her. A thousand thoughts flew through his head at once, not one of them hindering the large MPs from dragging him toward the general direction of the brig.
As they passed by the forward escape pods, someone ran into them, sending the MPs and Nick tumbling. Nick caught himself on the bulkheads, one MP caught the floor with his face. A hooded figure was keying the pod door. As the door opened, Nick Vincent performed what would be the luckiest bad move in his life, and threw himself instinctively at the masked individual framing the doorway to Escape Pod 5. They both fell through the airlock as one of the MPs got to his feet and unholstered. Only the warning klaxons that suddenly sounded throughout the ship made him miss, and then the door was closed. Nick took one solid hit to the head and passed out. He had no idea that around him, Escape Pod 5 ejected from the ship, only seconds before the reactor powering the backup systems overloaded, ripping the Freefall apart at the seams.

by,
-Fred

As always, all your responses are welcome. Hope you enjoy it. It'll be the last piece I post on this story. See them as a kind of foreshadowing to the main story, whenever I get around to actually sitting down and getting through it.

The story's already there, I just need to sit down and tell it

-Fred

I must admit I am really enjoying this story. My advice! Keep writing!

Thank you Jim. That really means a lot to me!

-Fred

I just finished it, and while the iron is hot, so to speak, I'll throw out my $.02.

"Humanity had always excelled at killing mosquitos with cannons."
That is a damn fine snippet of prose. It's something that will stick with you long after the story is done.



"Four days ago, a transmission went out from Earth's moon's satellite array, general broadcasting. The message was a simple statement that in one week, the artificial atmosphere of the moon would be ignited, and the Lunar Cities would be purged. An organization called the Earthborn had taken the responsibility, and they were known for committing such acts off-world. And known to be capable. So some eggheads at Da Vinci Station off Earth's orbit managed to trace the origin of the transmission back to it's point of origin, an apartment block near Pillar 42, Lunar City 1. That had taken 48 hours. Four hours after the message was sent, someone tore a hole in the Caelwyn Research and Development center, engaging the complete and total lockdown of Lunar City 1, making it practically impossible to enter or exit. 24 hours ago, the word came down to reassign the Penchant, as well as the destroyers Precursor and Penultimate to Lunar orbit. High Command was not taking chances with the Earthborn. Around the same time, the Lunar Satellite Array was blown to shreds, severing communications from inside the city. 20 hours ago the bombing started. Terrified members of the public, along with at least two squads of Plane's fellow navy-men had been hammering uselessly at the walls surrounding them, trying to escape their fate."

Wow....it's a really dense paragraph. And a lot of tightly packed information. It's a bit overwhelming to understand such a huge chunk at one time. I would break the info out a little more.

Jupiter Tremmel is an amazing idea for a character. The whole idea of running it in a prison is novel and intriguing. He could be a Hannibal Lecter type character, a genius, turned to violence when nothing else worked, pulling strings, etc. An excellent antagonist, or if you're playing it anti-hero, protagonist.

Everyone is a hero in their own story, it would be fascinating to get his POV driving the tale. Grand idea.

The last piece, is great potiental rushed. I barely learned about the President, and then bam, gone.

Someone gave me a great piece of advice with an earlier piece of my fiction. It was that things were happening too quickly. That there needed to be an ebb and flow to it. That's when I did some digging, and learned about 'pacing'.

It's something I still struggle with. I find when I start, I can slow it down, fill in with character description, set the backdrop, and hopefully get you to connect and empathize with the protagonist. But towards the end, the story takes over, and I'm just running with it.

I'm hoping to get some quality feedback, and help with that myself.


All of that being said, I think it's a great idea, and a fascinating story. Flesh it out, expand it, and lock on the Spider. Memorable characters are a treasure, and I think you've got one here.

My suggestion. Seriously. Go back and read your favorite author. And really take a look at their style. How many sentences does it take to describe a character? How much on background. Emulate it, just as a test. We all have our own voice, but why reinvent the wheel.

I hope you'll keep at it. The more you read, and write, the better you'll get.

I would love to read more, so please post it when you continue.

I'm sorry I took so long to read it, but, I'm glad I did!


Jen

Thank you so much for the feedback Jen. I guess there's only one thing to say...

I will

-Fred

edit: I should add that none of the main characters in the story have been so much as mentioned. These are all just side-stories that foreshadow and flesh out the main events. These stories will feature in the book when it is done, in some way or other. Rewriting is probably due. You'll know more when I feel satisfied about my work. Speaking of which - back to it!

BTW Fredster....you never gave me feedback on my little tale.

A famous author said this regarding writing - Write, Write, WRITE! If you get hung up, stop that story and start writing another. Doing that will trigger impulses and ideas and you can always go back to your original story. In the meantime, write, Write, WRITE!

I'm ashamed to say I started it and didn't get to finish it. That is - until now. I stubbornly sat myself down and went through the entire thing in one go. Least I could do.

And I really suck at giving out constructive criticism, so I'll just say this - You're good. Keep it up.

And thanks for teaching me about pacing. I never saw it like that before.

-Fred

ps: Jim? It's very weird you should say that, because my sci-fi story is me taking a break from a different tale altogether that I may at some point return to. Here's hoping. Also, thank you both.

Fred Buer wrote:I'm ashamed to say I started it and didn't get to finish it. That is - until now. I stubbornly sat myself down and went through the entire thing in one go. Least I could do.

And I really suck at giving out constructive criticism, so I'll just say this - You're good. Keep it up.

And thanks for teaching me about pacing. I never saw it like that before.

-Fred.

Wow Fred, that was quite the trick. I was making mention to James earlier in the week that converting to the new BB software made the story damn near unreadable. The punctuation was ALL screwed up. The ironic thing was that 15 minutes before you posted, I uploaded a new version that fixed the problem.

To Jim, I concur. A writer that stops writing will never become a better writer, not to mention said writer will not finish anything, which I think is the trick to all of it. Starting something is nice, continuing it is divine, finishing it is next to godliness. Right now I'm hitting a, hopefully, short term case of writers block. If and once that's done, and I finish this next chapter, which will mean the first third of the book I'm attempting to write will be finished, then I might post the first chapter. If someone's interested.

Took me awhile, I'll admit, and I did wonder about the weird stuff around certain words, but I got the gist of it and ploughed through it. A few minor spelling errors aside, I couldn't really find anything to put my finger on that I didn't like. As previously mentioned, you're good. Keep going!

I only wish I'd read it *after* you fixed the thingy

Also - Vracar, what's your story about and good luck trying to quash the writer's block. I only write in my spare time (I work shifts, four weeks working, and two weeks off) to avoid becoming entirely pooped. I hate writing when I'm tired, sleepy or otherwise have my mind preoccupied. I need mental elbowroom

And only one more shift to go until I've got some spare time!

-Fred

First, a critique on your three pieces, as I haven't done that yet.

1. I don't worry about grammar. That's what editors are for. And second drafts. And final drafts.
2. A lot of the exposition could probably be better told through dialogue. It would allow you to introduce multiple characters and cover the key points. Like...have one guy watching an old, Vietnam War movie and the Commander says his poignant analogy involving massive weapons against mosiquitos. Either way, a rule a lot of people use is show, don't tell.

The author, Elmore Leonard, encourages people to use dialogue over exposition as much as possible, especially when describing characters.

3. Are all of these part of the same prologue? Or are you kind of freewriting to get a sense of the kind of world you're building?

Either way, it's an interesting start. I don't know where you're planning on going with it, but I'd willingly follow.
__________________________________
As for my story, I call it "The Adventures of Oswald Trumpet". To put it simply, it's essentially "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" in a fantasy setting, rather than a science fiction. It's about a photojournalist trying to make an honest living in a large, fantastic world. Him and his goblin friend, Wesley, that is.

And I've managed to get over the blockage! Writing goes on as planned.

Glad to hear it! Sounds great man, I'm looking forward to seeing it!

As for your point #3, the answer is it is merely foreshadowing to the main events. I am currently in the process of putting that into written form nowadays.

Time will tell how that turned out.

-Fred