Post by lexkx on Oct 4, 2008 15:33:15 GMT -5
I have a work in progress that is at one of those points where feedback is a good idea. (Very early on, as opposed to much later when it is discovered to be a bad concept.) This is the first chapter of a science fiction novel (hopefully a series) about the limits and applications of knowledge. I'm trying to poke holes in the weak points and anticipate the readers responses enough to keep the narration seamless. It's a first draft, so I apologize in advance for the profuse passive voice transgressions. Any thoughts, suggestions, or reactions are welcome.
Though it centers on a teen and her family, it isn't really intended for YA audiences.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Of all the things Dahlia Murray expected in her first year at the Kavidan Academy, becoming an alien never figured in her list.
She had planned, ever since her eleventh birthday, to become the next big innovator in information tech. All her courses centered around history and computers, and as a personal hobby she kept up with electronic engineering. She knew what she wanted – and a lot of that stemmed from her deep-seated desire to get off the barren rock of Callisto.
Because if she didn’t, she would wind up working the mines just like her parents for the rest of her life.
Dahlia didn’t mind her parents. They were decent. Living so far from Earth, the regulators had not blinked an eye at their large family – five children – and had duly increased their credit accounts by the usual fraction. She didn’t even mind her brothers, who traipsed off to work every day after school. Scott and Peter had stayed with the mine, knowing the dark vents of titanium better than most engineers, and Matt had left to become a pilot.
But her sister Lily?
“Have you seen my new skirt?” The Obnoxious One asked, bouncing into Dahlia’s room without permission. Again.
“Do I look like I’ve seen your stupid clothes?” she shot back, keeping her eyes focused on her viewscreen and her hand on her new shock toy carefully at her side.
“You look like a putrid wretched beast spit from the bowels of fashion he– YEOUCH!”
Dahlia loved her new shock projector. It convinced the victim they had been tazored in the ribs without actually doing any damage. The only downside was that its small size. It only worked from about half a meter away.
She sighed and shook back her black curls. “I’ve told you not to come in here-”
“Mom!”
Now Dahlia moved, tossing her homework aside as she raced after the evil spawn her parents had concocted in the labs. “Get back here, you little worm,” she hissed.
“You zapped me.”
“Did not. I can’t believe you.”
“Girls.”
Moira Murray barely raised her voice. She certainly didn’t look up from whatever was in the saucepan over the chemical burner. There were times when the clinical necessities of Callisto got to Dahlia.
“She-”
“All I did was-”
“Do not even get me started-”
“Right, like anything’s ever your fault-”
Their mother still didn’t shift her eyes from what smelled like supper. “Oh, look. Two teenagers with time on their hands. Maybe I won’t have to go back to the checkpoint tonight. Or hose the hallway down.”
Dahlia and Lily stopped sniping at the threat of chores.
“Better.” Moira smiled. “How did you two come to be in the same room?”
Lily instantly became fascinated by her cuticles. “I was looking for my new purple-orange splatter skirt.”
“And you thought this would be in my room – why?”
“Dahlia, I’ll ask the questions.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Their mother turned to look at the younger sister, folded her arms, and rocked her feet in a slow, rolling motion against the floor. Classic, dangerously recognizable Murray stance.
“I didn’t think she had it, but I thought she might have seen it.”
She couldn’t let that one pass. “And burned it?”
“One more,” Moira said. “Just one more uninvited thing out of your mouth, and you’ll be doing blood work for a month.”
Dahlia boosted lightly onto the cramped counter and shut her lips tight. She hated blood.
“And she’s so boring. She never does anything, and she’s so sneaky and – and then she electrocuted me! I wasn’t doing anything, I wasn’t touching-”
“You what?”
“It’s this new thing Trav and I built for his science project,” Dahlia said in defense. “It doesn’t do any damage – it just sends a focused anti-theta wave to the brain and convinces you that you felt shocked. Anyone who’s mastered the trick of sleeping through a solar storm can block it, and it leaves no after affects, regardless of whether or not it triggered a reaction in you. See, watch.”
“Don’t you dare,” her mother managed just before she pressed the button. “Give it here.”
Dahlia handed the small device over and bit her lip when her mother shocked herself.
“Mom?” Lily mewled as Moira danced around the room rubbing her side.
“You have to point it away from you,” Dahlia said. “It magnified if it’s facing you and traveling up your arm. Here, give it to Lil.”
“I’m confiscating this.”
“It’s my science project. Trav’s picking it up. Lil, point it this way and try to zap me.”
Eager enough, and probably hoping to distract Moira from any discipline, Lily made a quick grab for the shock toy and buzzed her sister. Dahlia rolled her head around and concentrated on pushing back the theta waves. She did not think now was a good time to mention how easily the device could overheat and burn its operator. Not when Lily continued to press the button long after Dahlia proved her point.
Lily wouldn’t stop grinning. “Take that. And that. Ha. H – AHH!”
“What?” Moira stood up quickly.
“She shorted the circuit,” Dahlia explained, hiding a grin. “It backlashes on the operator point-four seconds before it overheats and shuts down.”
“Momma,” wailed Lily.
“Oh, please.”
Moira pointed at her and patted the Cloying Brat on the hand. Dahlia shrugged off the jealousy – what did she care? – and tapped her foot.
“Can I have it back now?”
“You did it on purpose.” Lily stamped.
“Hey,” she said. “Dumb on your part does not equal cruel on mine. Trav and I have to finish calibrating it tonight. He’ll be here any minute.”
Her mother said “Don’t-call-your-sister-names” the exact moment the brat screeched, “Trav is coming and I look like this?”
Dahlia shook her head and picked up the shock projector from where Lily had thrown it when she bolted for the family quarters. “God, what a moron.”
“Dahlia Shannon,” Moira said.
“Right. Watch the language and don’t call your sister names. Sorry.”
Her mother assumed the Murray stance again and narrowed her eyes. “Try meaning that one. And finish making dinner. If Trav is coming, I’ve got to fix my hair.”
Figuring she deserved that, Dahlia nodded and got to work. As a safety precaution, she turned off her new gadget before she tucked it into a zippered knee pocket of her overalls. She wiped her hands with sanitizer and dug into her mother’s pot. Freeze-dried lizard stew. Again.
Like everything else around here.
She grated some hard white cheese into the pan. Peering around to make sure her mother really had gone down the hall after Lily and she had one precious minute alone, Dahlia took a deep breath and did a little dance to loosen up her shoulders. Trav was coming. And while she didn’t have a crush on him – she didn’t – like every other female on the moon, his impending arrival did stress her some.
Trav was as close to perfect as most people came, and she knew that wasn’t the voice of limited experience. Trav was beautiful (yes, even for a boy) and smart and well-mannered. Dahlia’s mother never had to worry about her with him. Not that “Trav and Dahl” ever existed. They weren’t a couple.
The control panel by the door chimed and a voice came through the tinned speaker. Since her hands were clean, she reached with one foot and tapped the “open” button with her foot. The eyes of a sandy-haired Adonis traveled from her ankle up her leg to where she stood stirring her mother’s saucepan.
“Hey,” he grinned.
Dahlia dropped her foot so fast her momentum spun her towards the cooling unit. She opened the food side and rummaged for the vegetables her mother would have prepared this morning. “Hey, Trav,” she said, clearing her throat so she wouldn’t squeak.
She knew perfectly well he didn’t mean that look.
“Oh.” Trav glanced at the pot. “I didn’t mean to get here before your family ate.”
“Yes, you did,” she said, knowing her friend’s constant, gaping hunger. “Wash up and set the table.”
“Right,” he said just before Lily came back breathless from a quick change and make-up refresher.
“Hi, Trav,” the young girl cooed. “Oh, put the dishes down. You don’t have to do that.”
“He does if he wants to eat.”
Lily tossed her well-tamed hair. “Ignore her. Come on.”
“Hey,” Dahlia snapped.
“Lighten up,” her snotty sister laughed. “He’s a guest.”
“He’s-”
Too late. They were over in the sound-proofed part of the quarters. That section of the open area had a line of small holes around the walls, floor, and ceiling which emitted a steady stream of forced oxygen. This provided a fresh, moving air supply, as well as a measure of privacy between the two parts of the room. Dahlia watched them through the air curtain and tried – once again – to separate out her feelings.
Travlan Warkowski. The heart-stopping, faintly Slavic god who drove Dahlia bonkers. They were the same age, in the same class, both wanted to go to the Academy – they had plenty in common. And he was so cute. He tipped his head whenever he thought, frowning with his eyebrows while he smiled with his mouth. Women all over Callisto – not just from this mining colony – would line up to kiss him. Or stare at him. They weren’t picky.
However, he knew he was that cute. Even when he was out with the guys, he still moved with the swagger that said “Look at me, I’m gorgeous.” He depended on his looks to get him out of situations he didn’t like and into ones he did. Combine his charm with his ultra-religious beliefs, and Dahlia knew she wasn’t interested.
Well, her head knew that. Her hormones weren’t getting the message.
Her family was another matter entirely. On a certain level, she loved her sister. Lily was a beast, but Dahlia would probably go for help if she were trapped in a mine shaft. But that – that brat, she sighed. She could understand wanting to get off this cold rock. She wanted that for herself, and a similar drive had taken Matt off to flight school. Lily, though, spent all her time thinking about boys and clothes, hair and make-up. She acted like she didn’t live in space.
The door chimed, breaking her thought pattern. It was just as well, because Dahlia was half convinced her father could read minds.
“Hey, Dad,” she said over her shoulder.
“Hey, yourself,” answered Walter. “Where’s the carbonizer?”
She turned and talked at the same time. “Oh, are you – yeah,” she said, catching sight of the filth-streaked suit that clung to her father. “Spraycan’s in the second drawer of the shower cubicle. Wait!”
Walter folded his arms and rolled the soles of his crusty boots. Dahlia hurried to unseal the door and open the inside panel for him. If any of that mine residue touched the fiberglass in their quarters, the chemical reaction would cause the fiberglass to crumble to dust within a week.
One clever budding-scientist had come up with a solution: a spray canister of C-60, which would trap the reagent compounds and wash safely into waste and sewage. Dahlia would have been proud of the invention if that had been her field. Instead, she was just grateful it garnered the attention of the Academy’s selection process.
“Go get your brothers,” her father said from inside the C grade titanium shower. (The mine only shipped A and B grade metal off-world. Anything else was fair game for colonists.)
Indignation fused Dahlia’s spine straight. “Mom said-”
“She can make dinner a far sight better’n you can, Dahl.” He annihilated her argument in a heartbeat. “If they’re not here now, they’ll be late for dinner, and we’ve got to load that new batch as soon as the ship in port finishes with discharge, which means overtime.”
“Who’s in? Humans? Arhnyins?”
“Gremblers, I think. Tell the boys we need to eat. Move.”
Dahlia knew when she was defeated. “Yes, sir,” she said to the closed door.
Lily ignored her gestures to get her attention, so she yelled to her mother as she grabbed her inner suit and left home. Dahlia bounced on one foot at a time as she scrambled to get inside the thin polymer that provided sufficient protection from the semi-openness outside the living quarters and held a 30-minute oxygen supply in the seams.
She had lived as a colonist long enough to know why people said necessity was the mother of invention, but that didn’t mean she’d ever like mothers.
Dahlia frowned as she pulled on her mask and sealed the suit opening over it. Her own mother was acceptable. She just didn’t want another one. The airlock at the end of the family quarters’ hallway sucked open, and she forgot about thinking as her mind filled up with the need to stay firmly on the ground.
Eighty feet above her, the wind howled across the hangar door to create a mild vacuum that, combined with the low gravity of Jupiter’s second-largest moon, tested the micro-suckers on the soles of her suit. A compact ship tinged with the signature pale green of oxidized copper took up most of the space in the large, sparse dock while colonists gutted her for supplies. Dahlia grinned, because Gremblers today meant new fruits in the market tomorrow.
One of the workers waved at her. Instead of joining them, she signaled for her brothers. Someone else – Trav’s father, from the white stripe on his blue outer suit – indicated that they were due back from shaft 37092.
Dahlia said thanks and motioned a smile.
Gauging her distances carefully, she turned towards the 370 section and made a small jump. Rule one of The Colony Survival Appendices applied even inside a compound: “Never underestimate a danger.” Four small jumps brought her to the threshold of the mine. A rolling dive sent her through the wide walkway and into the door of Ninety-Two.
Something sharp on the back of her left shoulder threw off her landing, though.
She hit hard on her side, forcing her breath stead in light of her limited air supply. Dahlia reached behind her to check that her suit wasn’t breached when the sharp pain came again, only this time it was cold. Her hand clawed at her neck where a throbbing pain crippled her left arm. She jerked around as the hurt became a world of tiny screaming nerves everywhere and angry sparkles that made her scream herself hoarse without a sound as she was thrown into an exploding galaxy of stars.
And then there was nothing.
Though it centers on a teen and her family, it isn't really intended for YA audiences.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Of all the things Dahlia Murray expected in her first year at the Kavidan Academy, becoming an alien never figured in her list.
She had planned, ever since her eleventh birthday, to become the next big innovator in information tech. All her courses centered around history and computers, and as a personal hobby she kept up with electronic engineering. She knew what she wanted – and a lot of that stemmed from her deep-seated desire to get off the barren rock of Callisto.
Because if she didn’t, she would wind up working the mines just like her parents for the rest of her life.
Dahlia didn’t mind her parents. They were decent. Living so far from Earth, the regulators had not blinked an eye at their large family – five children – and had duly increased their credit accounts by the usual fraction. She didn’t even mind her brothers, who traipsed off to work every day after school. Scott and Peter had stayed with the mine, knowing the dark vents of titanium better than most engineers, and Matt had left to become a pilot.
But her sister Lily?
“Have you seen my new skirt?” The Obnoxious One asked, bouncing into Dahlia’s room without permission. Again.
“Do I look like I’ve seen your stupid clothes?” she shot back, keeping her eyes focused on her viewscreen and her hand on her new shock toy carefully at her side.
“You look like a putrid wretched beast spit from the bowels of fashion he– YEOUCH!”
Dahlia loved her new shock projector. It convinced the victim they had been tazored in the ribs without actually doing any damage. The only downside was that its small size. It only worked from about half a meter away.
She sighed and shook back her black curls. “I’ve told you not to come in here-”
“Mom!”
Now Dahlia moved, tossing her homework aside as she raced after the evil spawn her parents had concocted in the labs. “Get back here, you little worm,” she hissed.
“You zapped me.”
“Did not. I can’t believe you.”
“Girls.”
Moira Murray barely raised her voice. She certainly didn’t look up from whatever was in the saucepan over the chemical burner. There were times when the clinical necessities of Callisto got to Dahlia.
“She-”
“All I did was-”
“Do not even get me started-”
“Right, like anything’s ever your fault-”
Their mother still didn’t shift her eyes from what smelled like supper. “Oh, look. Two teenagers with time on their hands. Maybe I won’t have to go back to the checkpoint tonight. Or hose the hallway down.”
Dahlia and Lily stopped sniping at the threat of chores.
“Better.” Moira smiled. “How did you two come to be in the same room?”
Lily instantly became fascinated by her cuticles. “I was looking for my new purple-orange splatter skirt.”
“And you thought this would be in my room – why?”
“Dahlia, I’ll ask the questions.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Their mother turned to look at the younger sister, folded her arms, and rocked her feet in a slow, rolling motion against the floor. Classic, dangerously recognizable Murray stance.
“I didn’t think she had it, but I thought she might have seen it.”
She couldn’t let that one pass. “And burned it?”
“One more,” Moira said. “Just one more uninvited thing out of your mouth, and you’ll be doing blood work for a month.”
Dahlia boosted lightly onto the cramped counter and shut her lips tight. She hated blood.
“And she’s so boring. She never does anything, and she’s so sneaky and – and then she electrocuted me! I wasn’t doing anything, I wasn’t touching-”
“You what?”
“It’s this new thing Trav and I built for his science project,” Dahlia said in defense. “It doesn’t do any damage – it just sends a focused anti-theta wave to the brain and convinces you that you felt shocked. Anyone who’s mastered the trick of sleeping through a solar storm can block it, and it leaves no after affects, regardless of whether or not it triggered a reaction in you. See, watch.”
“Don’t you dare,” her mother managed just before she pressed the button. “Give it here.”
Dahlia handed the small device over and bit her lip when her mother shocked herself.
“Mom?” Lily mewled as Moira danced around the room rubbing her side.
“You have to point it away from you,” Dahlia said. “It magnified if it’s facing you and traveling up your arm. Here, give it to Lil.”
“I’m confiscating this.”
“It’s my science project. Trav’s picking it up. Lil, point it this way and try to zap me.”
Eager enough, and probably hoping to distract Moira from any discipline, Lily made a quick grab for the shock toy and buzzed her sister. Dahlia rolled her head around and concentrated on pushing back the theta waves. She did not think now was a good time to mention how easily the device could overheat and burn its operator. Not when Lily continued to press the button long after Dahlia proved her point.
Lily wouldn’t stop grinning. “Take that. And that. Ha. H – AHH!”
“What?” Moira stood up quickly.
“She shorted the circuit,” Dahlia explained, hiding a grin. “It backlashes on the operator point-four seconds before it overheats and shuts down.”
“Momma,” wailed Lily.
“Oh, please.”
Moira pointed at her and patted the Cloying Brat on the hand. Dahlia shrugged off the jealousy – what did she care? – and tapped her foot.
“Can I have it back now?”
“You did it on purpose.” Lily stamped.
“Hey,” she said. “Dumb on your part does not equal cruel on mine. Trav and I have to finish calibrating it tonight. He’ll be here any minute.”
Her mother said “Don’t-call-your-sister-names” the exact moment the brat screeched, “Trav is coming and I look like this?”
Dahlia shook her head and picked up the shock projector from where Lily had thrown it when she bolted for the family quarters. “God, what a moron.”
“Dahlia Shannon,” Moira said.
“Right. Watch the language and don’t call your sister names. Sorry.”
Her mother assumed the Murray stance again and narrowed her eyes. “Try meaning that one. And finish making dinner. If Trav is coming, I’ve got to fix my hair.”
Figuring she deserved that, Dahlia nodded and got to work. As a safety precaution, she turned off her new gadget before she tucked it into a zippered knee pocket of her overalls. She wiped her hands with sanitizer and dug into her mother’s pot. Freeze-dried lizard stew. Again.
Like everything else around here.
She grated some hard white cheese into the pan. Peering around to make sure her mother really had gone down the hall after Lily and she had one precious minute alone, Dahlia took a deep breath and did a little dance to loosen up her shoulders. Trav was coming. And while she didn’t have a crush on him – she didn’t – like every other female on the moon, his impending arrival did stress her some.
Trav was as close to perfect as most people came, and she knew that wasn’t the voice of limited experience. Trav was beautiful (yes, even for a boy) and smart and well-mannered. Dahlia’s mother never had to worry about her with him. Not that “Trav and Dahl” ever existed. They weren’t a couple.
The control panel by the door chimed and a voice came through the tinned speaker. Since her hands were clean, she reached with one foot and tapped the “open” button with her foot. The eyes of a sandy-haired Adonis traveled from her ankle up her leg to where she stood stirring her mother’s saucepan.
“Hey,” he grinned.
Dahlia dropped her foot so fast her momentum spun her towards the cooling unit. She opened the food side and rummaged for the vegetables her mother would have prepared this morning. “Hey, Trav,” she said, clearing her throat so she wouldn’t squeak.
She knew perfectly well he didn’t mean that look.
“Oh.” Trav glanced at the pot. “I didn’t mean to get here before your family ate.”
“Yes, you did,” she said, knowing her friend’s constant, gaping hunger. “Wash up and set the table.”
“Right,” he said just before Lily came back breathless from a quick change and make-up refresher.
“Hi, Trav,” the young girl cooed. “Oh, put the dishes down. You don’t have to do that.”
“He does if he wants to eat.”
Lily tossed her well-tamed hair. “Ignore her. Come on.”
“Hey,” Dahlia snapped.
“Lighten up,” her snotty sister laughed. “He’s a guest.”
“He’s-”
Too late. They were over in the sound-proofed part of the quarters. That section of the open area had a line of small holes around the walls, floor, and ceiling which emitted a steady stream of forced oxygen. This provided a fresh, moving air supply, as well as a measure of privacy between the two parts of the room. Dahlia watched them through the air curtain and tried – once again – to separate out her feelings.
Travlan Warkowski. The heart-stopping, faintly Slavic god who drove Dahlia bonkers. They were the same age, in the same class, both wanted to go to the Academy – they had plenty in common. And he was so cute. He tipped his head whenever he thought, frowning with his eyebrows while he smiled with his mouth. Women all over Callisto – not just from this mining colony – would line up to kiss him. Or stare at him. They weren’t picky.
However, he knew he was that cute. Even when he was out with the guys, he still moved with the swagger that said “Look at me, I’m gorgeous.” He depended on his looks to get him out of situations he didn’t like and into ones he did. Combine his charm with his ultra-religious beliefs, and Dahlia knew she wasn’t interested.
Well, her head knew that. Her hormones weren’t getting the message.
Her family was another matter entirely. On a certain level, she loved her sister. Lily was a beast, but Dahlia would probably go for help if she were trapped in a mine shaft. But that – that brat, she sighed. She could understand wanting to get off this cold rock. She wanted that for herself, and a similar drive had taken Matt off to flight school. Lily, though, spent all her time thinking about boys and clothes, hair and make-up. She acted like she didn’t live in space.
The door chimed, breaking her thought pattern. It was just as well, because Dahlia was half convinced her father could read minds.
“Hey, Dad,” she said over her shoulder.
“Hey, yourself,” answered Walter. “Where’s the carbonizer?”
She turned and talked at the same time. “Oh, are you – yeah,” she said, catching sight of the filth-streaked suit that clung to her father. “Spraycan’s in the second drawer of the shower cubicle. Wait!”
Walter folded his arms and rolled the soles of his crusty boots. Dahlia hurried to unseal the door and open the inside panel for him. If any of that mine residue touched the fiberglass in their quarters, the chemical reaction would cause the fiberglass to crumble to dust within a week.
One clever budding-scientist had come up with a solution: a spray canister of C-60, which would trap the reagent compounds and wash safely into waste and sewage. Dahlia would have been proud of the invention if that had been her field. Instead, she was just grateful it garnered the attention of the Academy’s selection process.
“Go get your brothers,” her father said from inside the C grade titanium shower. (The mine only shipped A and B grade metal off-world. Anything else was fair game for colonists.)
Indignation fused Dahlia’s spine straight. “Mom said-”
“She can make dinner a far sight better’n you can, Dahl.” He annihilated her argument in a heartbeat. “If they’re not here now, they’ll be late for dinner, and we’ve got to load that new batch as soon as the ship in port finishes with discharge, which means overtime.”
“Who’s in? Humans? Arhnyins?”
“Gremblers, I think. Tell the boys we need to eat. Move.”
Dahlia knew when she was defeated. “Yes, sir,” she said to the closed door.
Lily ignored her gestures to get her attention, so she yelled to her mother as she grabbed her inner suit and left home. Dahlia bounced on one foot at a time as she scrambled to get inside the thin polymer that provided sufficient protection from the semi-openness outside the living quarters and held a 30-minute oxygen supply in the seams.
She had lived as a colonist long enough to know why people said necessity was the mother of invention, but that didn’t mean she’d ever like mothers.
Dahlia frowned as she pulled on her mask and sealed the suit opening over it. Her own mother was acceptable. She just didn’t want another one. The airlock at the end of the family quarters’ hallway sucked open, and she forgot about thinking as her mind filled up with the need to stay firmly on the ground.
Eighty feet above her, the wind howled across the hangar door to create a mild vacuum that, combined with the low gravity of Jupiter’s second-largest moon, tested the micro-suckers on the soles of her suit. A compact ship tinged with the signature pale green of oxidized copper took up most of the space in the large, sparse dock while colonists gutted her for supplies. Dahlia grinned, because Gremblers today meant new fruits in the market tomorrow.
One of the workers waved at her. Instead of joining them, she signaled for her brothers. Someone else – Trav’s father, from the white stripe on his blue outer suit – indicated that they were due back from shaft 37092.
Dahlia said thanks and motioned a smile.
Gauging her distances carefully, she turned towards the 370 section and made a small jump. Rule one of The Colony Survival Appendices applied even inside a compound: “Never underestimate a danger.” Four small jumps brought her to the threshold of the mine. A rolling dive sent her through the wide walkway and into the door of Ninety-Two.
Something sharp on the back of her left shoulder threw off her landing, though.
She hit hard on her side, forcing her breath stead in light of her limited air supply. Dahlia reached behind her to check that her suit wasn’t breached when the sharp pain came again, only this time it was cold. Her hand clawed at her neck where a throbbing pain crippled her left arm. She jerked around as the hurt became a world of tiny screaming nerves everywhere and angry sparkles that made her scream herself hoarse without a sound as she was thrown into an exploding galaxy of stars.
And then there was nothing.
It's a first draft, so once the story line is established there is no better time to find the weak spots.