Post by dulci on May 3, 2007 1:47:46 GMT -5
An opening scene: POV Qali
Plot points addressed:
<Begin Sequence>
The hente music pulsed over the open comm. The beat was mesmerizing, designed to keep the crew relaxed during landing. Qali Shayr was not relaxed.
“Transport Two, move into position behind the coupler. Tranport Two—“
“Transport Two moving,” the pilot acknowledged. Qali watched the human through the crew displays in his containment tube, her arms moving within her control harness.
“Trasport Two, engage grappling system.”
“Engaging grapples,” Qali answered in the human tongue. He moved in his own harness, guiding the grapple with his body. His wings brushed against the side of the tube and contrasted in reflex. The containment tube was always the hardest part of a landing for a motion-starved Kalorbi. But there was no other way—the transport ship was only a shell, a hull to carry the miners to the surface.
Qali shifted left, then right, positioning the transport’s grapple line to fire at the matching coupler on the city ship ahead. His outside view display was all but overtaken by the brown hulk of a ship, dwarfing the twin frigates just visible on its other side. Transports disengaged from the bulky hulls, leaving the frigates’ violet shields to patch the craters left behind. Thirty transports arched to take their places behind the city ship, a hundred miners cocooned in each—a delicate, orbital extraction.
The landing-operation officer spoke again: “Tow line ready for Grapple Two.” Qali maneuvered the line to completion and the two tow cables connected.
“Transferring system link,” he said, and did so. His displays fluttered as the transport’s power source shifted from the temporary cells to the city ship’s core.
“Transport Two connected, powered.”
“Acknowledged. Stand in ready.”
Qali leaned back in his in-state harness. He did not relax—the concept was human and unknown to his Kalorbi senses. Instead, he studied the displays projected on the containment tube’s curved wall. In his years among the miners, he had made five such landings as this. Even the planet that they orbited, the uninhabited NK-394, looked the same as the last three. But this landing was different. He had not told the Kalorbi Hierarchy his findings for this assignment. He endured years of their prattle—and years with the infuriating humans—to be on this ship, landing on this planet—
“Qali Shayr, report!”
Humans never ceased to annoy him. Qali clenched twin rows of teeth to open his comm circuit.
“Transport Two is in place, Sir.”
“And your security teams?”
An idiotic question. But then Miksa Pole was, in the most delicate of human terms, an idiot.
“Dispersed throughout the transports, Sir.”
“Good, good.”
Intelligent imbecile. Why the miners had chosen this man to head the operation’s first wave was beyond understanding.
“And your pilots?”
Qali didn’t need to glance at the crew displays to answer: “They are ready.”
“Good.” A pause. “Dial me, Qali.”
Qali opened visual comm. Miksa’s baby-head appeared in front of him.
“We are on private?” Miksa asked.
“We are.”
Miksa nodded. “There is a change in coordinates, Qali. You will direct the ship to land at the coordinates I am now sending you—“
“The landing site has already been plotted, Commander—“
“I am aware.”
Qali was silent for a moment.
“The reason?” he asked.
“Not your concern.”
“Surface conditions are optimal, Commander. The set landing site is the ideal—“
“I said not your concern, Major!”
Qali’s wings fluttered under their loose coverings. The coordinates flashed beside Miksa’s face.
So they were to move to another location. He should have expected that. He moved a finger, sent the new coordinates to the pilots.
“Acknowledged,” he said. The human catch-all word. It seemed to appease Miksa.
“Then your pilots will land us at the new location. We will break orbit one hour ahead of the scheduled departure—the other transports have already been notified.”
Qali blinked in answer. The new site was closer to their orbital position than the first. He nodded in human fashion. “This will be done.”
“You have the terrain charts. Plot your best course with the weather—“
“You have not done this already?”
“There is time to do it now.”
Qali fluttered his wings again. He leveled his gaze at the projection. “Yes. Sir.”
“That is all,” Miksa said. Indeed, it was.
The comm terminated, the commander’s head replaced by the outside view. The frigates were disgorged now, the transports clustered to approach the rear of the city ship. The transport pilots would be sweating—the formations were never this close.
Qali opened channels to his own pilots.
“Start plotting the new trajectory,” he said, “the previous coordinates have been abandoned.” He closed the channel. His pilots, the best in the fleet, would not argue. They would guide the mammoth mining city down with all the precision of their trade, and they would never understand why. Pilots were tainted when they knew anything but the lines and the figures.
Transports maneuvered above and below his own, some settling to the side, the grapple tow lines extending to connect them to the city ship. They would all ride the great ship’s fire-wake.
Qali looked beyond them to the deep blue and white swirls of the planet. He was not under any illusions of the clairvoyance that some humans claimed, but he knew what was ahead of him. The knowing was an entity of itself.
Images flashed before his eyes, images of the Relic, and the moment in which he would find and destroy it. Memories came too, most too suppressed by the logic-drug to completely surface. For most, that suited him fine. But one image stood in sharp relief, always before his eyes. He saw his wife and daughters, as he knew their end must have been. And with them, always, the cold, ancient steel of the Relic.
The hente music pulsed with the anger that fueled him.
He would have his revenge.
Plot points addressed:
- Establish the ticking time-bomb, possibly in a prologue
- Introduce the protagonist, Qali Shayr
- Also introduce the Relic and Qali's dedication to finding it and destroying it
<Begin Sequence>
The hente music pulsed over the open comm. The beat was mesmerizing, designed to keep the crew relaxed during landing. Qali Shayr was not relaxed.
“Transport Two, move into position behind the coupler. Tranport Two—“
“Transport Two moving,” the pilot acknowledged. Qali watched the human through the crew displays in his containment tube, her arms moving within her control harness.
“Trasport Two, engage grappling system.”
“Engaging grapples,” Qali answered in the human tongue. He moved in his own harness, guiding the grapple with his body. His wings brushed against the side of the tube and contrasted in reflex. The containment tube was always the hardest part of a landing for a motion-starved Kalorbi. But there was no other way—the transport ship was only a shell, a hull to carry the miners to the surface.
Qali shifted left, then right, positioning the transport’s grapple line to fire at the matching coupler on the city ship ahead. His outside view display was all but overtaken by the brown hulk of a ship, dwarfing the twin frigates just visible on its other side. Transports disengaged from the bulky hulls, leaving the frigates’ violet shields to patch the craters left behind. Thirty transports arched to take their places behind the city ship, a hundred miners cocooned in each—a delicate, orbital extraction.
The landing-operation officer spoke again: “Tow line ready for Grapple Two.” Qali maneuvered the line to completion and the two tow cables connected.
“Transferring system link,” he said, and did so. His displays fluttered as the transport’s power source shifted from the temporary cells to the city ship’s core.
“Transport Two connected, powered.”
“Acknowledged. Stand in ready.”
Qali leaned back in his in-state harness. He did not relax—the concept was human and unknown to his Kalorbi senses. Instead, he studied the displays projected on the containment tube’s curved wall. In his years among the miners, he had made five such landings as this. Even the planet that they orbited, the uninhabited NK-394, looked the same as the last three. But this landing was different. He had not told the Kalorbi Hierarchy his findings for this assignment. He endured years of their prattle—and years with the infuriating humans—to be on this ship, landing on this planet—
“Qali Shayr, report!”
Humans never ceased to annoy him. Qali clenched twin rows of teeth to open his comm circuit.
“Transport Two is in place, Sir.”
“And your security teams?”
An idiotic question. But then Miksa Pole was, in the most delicate of human terms, an idiot.
“Dispersed throughout the transports, Sir.”
“Good, good.”
Intelligent imbecile. Why the miners had chosen this man to head the operation’s first wave was beyond understanding.
“And your pilots?”
Qali didn’t need to glance at the crew displays to answer: “They are ready.”
“Good.” A pause. “Dial me, Qali.”
Qali opened visual comm. Miksa’s baby-head appeared in front of him.
“We are on private?” Miksa asked.
“We are.”
Miksa nodded. “There is a change in coordinates, Qali. You will direct the ship to land at the coordinates I am now sending you—“
“The landing site has already been plotted, Commander—“
“I am aware.”
Qali was silent for a moment.
“The reason?” he asked.
“Not your concern.”
“Surface conditions are optimal, Commander. The set landing site is the ideal—“
“I said not your concern, Major!”
Qali’s wings fluttered under their loose coverings. The coordinates flashed beside Miksa’s face.
So they were to move to another location. He should have expected that. He moved a finger, sent the new coordinates to the pilots.
“Acknowledged,” he said. The human catch-all word. It seemed to appease Miksa.
“Then your pilots will land us at the new location. We will break orbit one hour ahead of the scheduled departure—the other transports have already been notified.”
Qali blinked in answer. The new site was closer to their orbital position than the first. He nodded in human fashion. “This will be done.”
“You have the terrain charts. Plot your best course with the weather—“
“You have not done this already?”
“There is time to do it now.”
Qali fluttered his wings again. He leveled his gaze at the projection. “Yes. Sir.”
“That is all,” Miksa said. Indeed, it was.
The comm terminated, the commander’s head replaced by the outside view. The frigates were disgorged now, the transports clustered to approach the rear of the city ship. The transport pilots would be sweating—the formations were never this close.
Qali opened channels to his own pilots.
“Start plotting the new trajectory,” he said, “the previous coordinates have been abandoned.” He closed the channel. His pilots, the best in the fleet, would not argue. They would guide the mammoth mining city down with all the precision of their trade, and they would never understand why. Pilots were tainted when they knew anything but the lines and the figures.
Transports maneuvered above and below his own, some settling to the side, the grapple tow lines extending to connect them to the city ship. They would all ride the great ship’s fire-wake.
Qali looked beyond them to the deep blue and white swirls of the planet. He was not under any illusions of the clairvoyance that some humans claimed, but he knew what was ahead of him. The knowing was an entity of itself.
Images flashed before his eyes, images of the Relic, and the moment in which he would find and destroy it. Memories came too, most too suppressed by the logic-drug to completely surface. For most, that suited him fine. But one image stood in sharp relief, always before his eyes. He saw his wife and daughters, as he knew their end must have been. And with them, always, the cold, ancient steel of the Relic.
The hente music pulsed with the anger that fueled him.
He would have his revenge.
