So I started a new story. I'm not really sure what it's going to be yet, but I am aiming to write my first ever short story. A story that I can write out, edit once and publish for a low price on kindle or kobo or nook or any of those e-readers.
It's a Science Fiction story about an Imperial Admiral named Wren who's been exiled to the far reaches of Imperial space. At the moment it's a part of the Galledar universe set a thousand or so years from the events in Ghost of Galledar. However it's so loosely connected to those events that it could quite easily not have anything to do with that universe. so far I've had no reason to even mention their elemental abilities, I've not had to mention the feline race though I have sort of forced that in there at some points when it probably didn't need to be. Pretty much the only thing that I've used the Galledar books for in this story is the names of things.
So far I'm enjoying reading it, but it is taking me away from completing TLC. However I'd started to grow annoyed by that and needed a break. I think this is a good thing to do while I'm getting back in the mood for TLC. It keeps my mind creatively active and works on a genre I'm not particularly well versed in, while simultaneously doing a little to put myself on the author map. right now I'm a single point so tiny that it might as well not be there. Hopefully after a few short stories I'll be able to point to them and say 'see, I can write and sell it' when trying to publish. And if not then I'll be able to self publish and already have a small following to read the new books and point them out to others and then they will point them out to others and so on... maybe.
But enough about what i hope to do with it; for your reading pleasure (I've decided to start talking like I'm a good writer, not someone who is inconveniencing people) the first small part of;
Wren.
“The elf known as Draegon kneels atop the building and aims down
the scope of his rifle. A smirk slides across his features and he pulls the
trigger, sending the sniper rifle’s bullet soaring straight down at the target.
It hits him dead between the-” Dylan narrated.
“Wait,” Wren said.
Raising a hand to his elven friend. “Roll a dee-ten on whichever’s higher; Dex
or Luck.”
“What? Come on,
it’s a gun, not a sword. It doesn’t take skill to use, it’s got targeting
systems,” Dylan argued, waving a hand at his elf assassin character sheet as it
floated above the holo-projector.
Wren raised an
eyebrow. “This is set in the twentieth century, or the technological equivalent
of Galledar’s twentieth century. They didn’t have targeting systems for rifles
back then. Just like they didn’t have laser pistols or commercial space travel.
Your character looks down the scope - which really isn’t anything more than a
zoom lens – and fires when he thinks that the bullet will hit the target.”
“Ugh…” Dylan
groaned. “Fine.” He pressed a finger to the dice menu on his holo-display and
dragged down to the ten sided die. He released and a short animation of a
rolled die appeared, landing on a one. “Aw crap. Eight on Luck”
“Ok, you fire the
gun and it misses the Orc president, hitting the elven president next to him….”
Wren reached for his own holo-display and rolled a dee-six. It comes up as a
two. “In the arm.”
“Dammit,” Dylan
curses again.
“At least you
didn’t kill him,” the youngest of their group, Magnus - a scrawny felie boy
with shaggy black fur that had a lynx like quality to it - consoled, sitting
forward, to get a good look at the pieces on the table. “Okay,” he says,
looking up at Wren behind his Quest Master divider. “I look around and see if
there are any security bots-”
“No security bots,
not invented,” the fourth member of their group, Charlie, reminded his friend.
“Right.” Magnus
nodded, looking around the table’s figures. “Sorry.”
“Try helicopters,”
Charlie offered. He turned to Wren. “Am I saying that right?”
“Yeah.” Wren
nodded. “You want to look for helicopters?” He asked Magnus. The youngster
nodded. “Ok, roll a dee-ten on perception.”
Magnus rolled his
holo-dice and it came up as a nine. He looked up at his Dwarf investigator’s
character sheet and read out his perception total. “Sixteen,” he said.
“Ok, cool. You
don’t see any helicopters, they’re not allowed in the area because it was
considered too dangerous with the Orc and Elven president appearing. You do,
however, see a government sniper on the opposite building.”
“Why didn’t we see
him before?” Dylan asked, frowning.
“You didn’t look.”
Wren shrugged. “He’s looking around for the shooter and turning to look in your
direction.”
“I use a cloaking
spell to cover all three of us,” Charlie said quickly, reaching for his dee-ten.
“Rolling against intelligence…” he looked up for confirmation that it was ok.
Wren nodded and Charlie let the dee-ten roll. “Five,” he announced, scrolling
through his human wizard’s character sheet. “Plus my seven; twelve.”
“Okay, the shield
goes up over you, but it doesn’t extend to the others,” Wren describes.
“If we stand behind
him what happens?” Dylan asks.
“They see through
him and see you,” Wren responds. Dylan frowns and looks down at the map.
“Is the sniper’s
building higher than ours?” Magnus asks. “How far away was he?”
Wren smiles.
“Marginally higher and pretty far.”
“Okay, I lay down
by the lip of the building, where he can’t see me.”
“Me as well,” Dylan
says.
“Ok, roll against
either; Dex, Int, Perception or Luck.”
“Dee-ten?” Dylan asked.
Wren nodded. The two of them rolled dee-tens and both came up as tens. They
rolled again. Dylan got sixteen and Magnus got eighteen. “That’s twenty-three
on luck.”
“Twenty-five on
perception,” Magnus responded.
“Both of you manage
to hide from the sniper and he passes over both of you.”
“Awesome,” Magnus
exclaimed.
A ringing sounded
on Wren’s holo. He frowned at it, time was up. He pressed it off. “Well I guess
that’s all for this week. Meet back here next week?”
The ringing sounded again, this time it sounded
higher, less like a ring more like a siren. He frowned at it again and pressed
the off button, but it wouldn’t turn off. He started shaking and he realised
that Magnus was holding his shoulders. The table was gone, Magnus was in its
place, shaking him. “Wren, snap out of it,” he said.
Wren frowned at the youngster and watched as he
rapidly aged. He blinked and the room was gone. Young Magnus was gone. Young
Wren was gone. He was aboard Kino-class
Imperial War ship ‘Relentless’, and
it was under attack.
“Sir, you’re alive. Good,” Magnus said, stepping
back as Wren blinked.
Wren took in a few deep breaths and forced himself
back to his feet, getting his bearings. The circuits in his command seat had
blown and he’d been sent flying. He had blood dripping down his face, but
Magnus seemed fine. His XO and his oldest living friend patted him on the
shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Are you good to go, sir?”
Wren nodded. “Report.”
“Sir,” Magnus responded, saluting and turning to
face the holo-displays. “Three pirate war ships including the supposedly
destroyed Imperial Hunter-Class destroyer, Jeopardy,”
Wren’s eyes widened and he looked up at the screens. How the hell did they get
a hold of Charlie’s ship? It’d been six years since Charlie and his crew had
been blown out of the sky… and yet there was the ship they had been flying in
when it’d happened. “Six cruisers and five carriers remain; they have a hundred
and fifty fighters. Their assault has taken us down to only a handful of
fighters-”
“Sixty, sir,” a junior officer called from his post.
The man stood in front of his console, chair knocked away from him in the
assault.
“Sixty fighters remain,” Magnus continued. “We’ve
lost the Indomitable and the Victory and only one of our carriers remains.”
“How the hell did they amass such a force?” Wren
cursed, looking up at the holo-displays. He watched fighters explode, watched
the last carrier get attacked. “Dammit, we can’t win this.”
“Sir?”
“Sound the retreat,” Wren sighed, shaking his head.
“Sir, the carrier only holds thirty fighters and we
have-” Magnus’ eye flicked to the holo-displays. “Fifty seven still out there.”
“Tell the others to clamp onto the outside of our
hull,” Wren ordered. “It won’t be a fun journey for them but they’ll survive.”
“Yes sir,” Magnus agreed, nodding to a junior
officer.
“Set co-ordinates tee-zee. Via New Xelaren,” Wren
ordered, watching allied ships explode on the holo-displays as they peeled off
and attempted to latch onto his ship.
“We’re returning to the core sir?” Magnus asked.
Wren nodded. “On the off chance that this isn’t a
fluke and the pirates have become more organised; the King needs to know.”
His eye twitched as he watched a strafing run across
the side of his ship blow seven of his defenceless fighters to pieces. It wasn’t
a good plan. It wasn’t a smart plan. It wasn’t an honourable plan. It was
survival. “Ready, sir,” Magnus said.
“Make the jump.”
“Sir.” Magnus nodded to a junior officer and the
ship shuddered. The holo-displays showed the Carrier zip out of existence and
then Relentless did the same. A
couple of fighters that hadn’t clamped on properly peeled off and were
disintegrated by the kinetic energy that rippled off of the ships high speed
motions.
He cursed and closed his eyes, turning away. “Full
casualty report,” he said, placing his hands on his hips.
“We don’t have it, sir,” Magnus apologised. “We
won’t have it until we drop out of the jump and link with the Carrier.”
Wren nodded. “An estimate then?”
Magnus took a breath and, after letting it out slowly
responded, “Full crew of the Indomitable, one-thousand-two-hundred men. Full
crew of the Victory, one-thousand-two-hundred men. Full crew of the Obsidian,
the Hematite, the Amethyst and the Jasper,
Two-thousand-six-hundred-and-Fifty-Six men. One-hundred-and-seven one man
fighters. An estimated twenty-five percent death rate aboard the Quartz, though
we’ll have to wait for their report.”
“And on Relentless?”
Wren asked, already cursing himself for his failure.
“Lower three decks have hull breach, we had an
explosion in the med bay and the weapon engineering. Reports are still coming
in, but I’d estimate that we lost three-hundred men,” Magnus responded.
Wren cursed. Magnus’s estimations were usually
accurate. He really had failed. An estimated five-thousand-six-hundred-and-seventy-five
out of seven-thousand-and-seventy lives lost. More than an eighty percent death
rate. He hadn’t had such a crushing defeat since his simulated battles against
Charlie at the academy.
“Estimated time to arrival at New-Xelaren?” He
asked.
“Two hours,” Magnus responded.
Wren nodded. “Very well. Send the holo of the battle
to my cabin, make sure the spaced levels are sealed, get the fires out and
contact me when we have an exact casualty rate.”
“Very well, sir,” Magnus nodded.
“XO Magnus, you have
command,” Wren said before turning and walking off of the bridge.
---
Well I hope you enjoyed that, it's still the first draft so I have a fair way to go, but there you have it. Enjoy your weekend everybody!
In-recognition-of-UK's-new-stance-on-gay-rights-laws... probably-not-appropriate-but-fuck-it.
- James
