Add yourself to the SF wordcount graph!

I don't exactly understand what you mean (my mascot stared at me until I met my quota yesterday, also, the election occurred alas, I am tired). But okay. Did I mention that I wrote the novel in German?

Ein verhängnisvoller Unfall

Es war einmal... aber das ist natürlich eine abgedroschene und nicht einmal zutreffende Startformulierung. Es wird einmal sein wäre wahrscheinlich besser, aber es würde das falsche Vertrauen erwecken, dass es genau so wird. Das Deutsche hat hier ein Problem da bessere Zeitformen fehlen oder nur sehr
umständlich klingen. Es könnte einmal sein, dass alles so passiert wie es hier beschrieben ist... oder auch nicht. Am Ende liegt es an uns allen, die beschriebene Welt zu verhindern -- oder zu ermöglichen.

Elly:

Ich konnte es nicht fassen, dass diese Klausur in den Teich gegangen ist. Ich habe doch so viel gelernt, so viele Tage und Nächte vor meinen Unterlagen verbracht und die für das Wohlbefinden doch so wichtigen Aktivitäten wie das Treffen von Freunden und das Besuchen des ImmersoPlex hintenangestellt. Dass ich jetzt durch die Hebräisch-Klausur mit Bausch und Bogen sowie Pauken und Trompeten durchgefallen war, dass die Klausur das Wunder der Bilokation wiederholt hatte da sie sowohl in den Teich als auch in den Sand gesetzt wurde, das wurmte mich. Natürlich ist Theologie ein schwieriges Studienfach, aber warum muss ich mich so verdammt dumm dabei anstellen? Ich hadere mit mir selbst und denke einmal wieder daran, dass mein Vater so gegen das Studium war. Er sagte, dass Frauen sich nicht mit dem Wort Gottes beschäftigen sollten, es wäre nicht ihre Aufgabe sondern die des Ehemanns oder des Pastors in der Kirche.

I've not really had anything all that interesting happen yet but this will do, I think;

"What are you going to tell Julia when you go home tonight?" the Private asked. "I can't imagine she'll be very pleased with this."

The other man sighed as he continued to play with his food. "No, I don't suppose she will. But I've only volunteered, that doesn't mean I'll be going." He replied with a slight Australian accent. He poked at his food for a bit longer before setting down his fork. "I don't suppose that'll be much of a defense though, will it? Any suggestions mate?"

"Hey, don't pull me into this Dalton, she's your wife."

"And your sister, Theo. Besides, she'll pull you in. She'll blame you for not dragging me into the locker rooms and stuffing me into a locker until they'd stopped taking volunteers."

Theo winced as he realized his friend was right. "Shit."

"Exactly, it's both of our asses on the line here. And you'll be the one putting up with her if I am selected."

"Well, damn. I say just give her the truth straight up. No shit, no pussyfooting, no candy coating, just the honest straight up truth. Explain to her why you felt like you had to volunteer and she'll accept it. She may not be too pleased but she wont try to kill you for it."

"Yeah, probably." Dalton agreed, picking his fork back up. "Brock hung back to volunteer too."

"Henderson?"

"Yeah."

"Ouch. His wife's pregnant, isn't she?"

"Yeah. And he's got two kids already. Probably why he did it, though."

Theo nodded. "Yeah, yeah, that'd be reason." He pushed his own untouched tray of food away from him and leaned back in his chair. "Damned Nephilim. We finally stop trying to kill each other, finally try having a go at world peace and all that, and those ugly fucks have to show up. As if the world wasn't screwed up enough with out them running around."

Title: Beyond the Veil
Genre: Sci-fi
Oz of Mountain Dew: 408
Progress: Excellent

Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most ~ Ozzy Osbourne

Okay then...
I'm writing all this in French, so all apologies to everyone who won't understand (just the way I don't understand German except for what is strictly needed to buy clothes on eBay "mittelalter gewand, farbe: schwartz").

« Bon sang, fit-il, qu’est-ce que c’est que ça ?
— Je n’en sais rien, c’est bien ça le problème. Ça a commencé à apparaître il y a une grosse dizaine de jours, je crois. Mais je ne sais pas d’où ça vient.
— Une grosse dizaine de jours, et ce n’est que maintenant que tu m’en parles ? »
Rima eut un sourire triste.
« Je croyais que ce n’était rien, que ça ne tarderait pas à disparaître. Mais au contraire, c’est de plus en plus visible, et si tu regardes bien, on dirait que ce ne sont pas simplement des marques. On ne s’en rendait pas compte au début parce que le contraste n’était pas suffisant, mais maintenant, on peut le voir : il y a des motifs nets, avec des angles droits.
— Maintenant que tu le dis… Oui, en effet.
— Ce n’est pas une maladie, ce n’est certainement pas naturel. Ça ressemble plus à un tatouage qu’à autre chose. »
Mathis prit sa femme par la taille et la fit asseoir avec lui sur le canapé.
« Ça va aller, Rima, je suis avec toi.
— Je sais, mon chéri. Mais j’ai peur de deviner d’où ça peut me venir et ça m’inquiète.
— Tu crois que ce sont des marques qui te viennent de ta vie d’avant ?
— C’est la meilleure explication. Je ne vois pas comment j’aurais pu les avoir, sinon. »

NaNo 2006 : Et pour quelques gigahertz de plus (Won)
NaNo 2007 : Les Deux Reines (Won)
NaNo 2008 : Le prix d'un mensonge (Won)

Huh. Last year we just had to reply to the thread XD

This is prologue-y - the bulk of my story is when my MC (Charlie) is thirty-seven, this is in 1972 when he and his best friend Jay are eighteen and in college.

Jay started explaining, and Charlie nodded as he listened - half concentrating on his friend's voice, half reading the notes. They were studying the history and possible future of space exploration, it seemed, including the New Dawn missions which Charlie hoped to become part of one day. The last Apollo mission was to take place in just over a year - the next month, December, would be the Apollo 17 mission, and Apollo 20 was exactly one year after than that. After that, it appeared, would be the Selene series, including possible construction of a moon base.

A moon base. And from there... he paused thoughtfully. "Would you do it?" he asked, ignoring the conversation, gazing down at the papers. "Would you go in to space?"

Jay gave him a startled look, the flow of his story interrupted. "Well, obviously," he frowned, "Why do you think I'm doing the program?"

Charlie nodded absently, drumming his fingers against the desk. "Yeah - the moon? Or Mars?"

"Mars."

It was answered with such finality that Charlie was slightly taken aback. He had spoken to Jay about wanting to go in to space, but it had always been speculative, half joking. "Wouldn't it be great to go in to space?" "What would you do on Mars?" "Would you flirt with the hot Martian babes?"

It had never been serious, but the conviction in Jay's voice was persuasive. Charlie had dreamed of Mars since he had been a child. He also wanted to go there, more than anything. The ultimate escape - another planet.

"So after we finish our degrees," he said quietly, "What then? Post-grad? On to NASA? On to training, then on to Mars?"

Jay nodded silently. "We're the luckiest generation," he said seriously, "We're going to be the ones who see space explored." His eyes were wide behind his glasses. "We might see permanent bases on the moon, or cities on Mars, or manned missions to... Jupiter or something!"

Charlie snorted. "Just as long as they don't name that mission the Discovery," he teased.

Jay rolled his eyes. "Be serious. Honestly, this generation is going to see it all." He paused thoughtfully. "Although imagine what it'd be like for, say, our grandparents. Say they're in their seventies. They would have lived through the turn of the century. My grandparents still traveled by horse and cart when they were kids, and now they've lived to see humans on the moon. This century will be the one that shapes how our future is affected for the rest of humanity."

"Assuming we don't blow ourselves up first," Charlie added. He had been only about eight when the world came close to nuclear annihilation. Only ten years ago... that was why he now wore pins that asked for nuclear disarmament.

"The value of L," Jay murmured.

"Hm?"

Jay shook his head. "Never mind," he said with a quick smile. "Just thinking out loud."

Charlie nodded, but didn't respond. He, too, was thinking hard.

--
2005 - The Tank Project - 33,550
2006 - Icuruzi Three - 50,402 - WIN!
2007 - The Rift Walkers - 51,851 - WIN!!
2008 - The Red Planet - 53,236 - WIN!

As a quick summary... This is a novel set in the near-ish future in our own solar system. We have colonies on Luna, Mars, and working stations for mining and shipmaking near some of the larger asteroids. Travel is faster, but still not "fast" from habitation to habitation.

A couple of decades ago, massive war from Earth spilled into space, and the moon was hit with kinetic weapons, killing hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and removing a major leg of our space operations, which had become vital to life on Earth. As a result, a Lunar Accord was created banning all weapons from space, with a penalty of death. For decades, that peace has held. But now, suddenly, ships are vanishing, and it looks like someone has been arming ships quietly. Mars and Earth are ill-prepared to face this crisis, with no armed ships to fight back with.

*******************

That shadow was something I first remember seeing when I was seven, and just starting to understand people a bit. I saw Dad sitting at his desk. He was just back from a long trip, it was late, and I was supposed to be in bed. I don't think he ever saw that I was sitting there watching him. He was looking through some data chips on his handcomp, and there was something about his eyes... I still remember it today.

Today, we were high above our adopted planet, and Mars Station was in chaos.

Floating in space in geosynch orbit above Olympus City, the station served as a lifeline to ferry goods into Mars's largest settlement from Earth and other parts of the solar system, and to ship out the tons of uranium Earth needed to continue supplying energy to the twelve billion souls still living there. So it was part port, part political networking center, with bits of whatever else was needed thrown in.

Today, it was being used as a military reaction center. The first in over thirty years. The Old Man's rolling gait carried him swiftly down the main hall toward the control center, the hub of the station and the nerve center of Mars operations, and I struggled to match his pace. That's what a lot of folks called Dad - “the Old Man”. Or in some parts, they still called him Admiral Nicholas Stein, USN. Less politely, I had heard some people whisper the name “the Mad Bomber” - but that was because he was the last man alive to authorize the firing of nuclear warheads at human beings.

Nifty, I shall do it! My SF Novel is called The True Story of Roswell, New Mexico (A Blatant Fiction) I'm not to happy with the beggining, but that can wait for December

“Crap, crap, crap ,crap!” Kitom said.

Kitom had been flying through space at probably illegal speeds when his ship’s engines decided to die right in the orbit of some planet. He was trying his best to start the engines up again, but nothing was working.

“Sir, the engines have gone off line,” The ship’s computer said.

“Thank you for that computer,” Kitom said. “Can you turn them back on please?”

“Attempting to initiate request…” The computer said. “Negative. The engines will not start up again. I’m sorry.”

Kitom let out a growl of frustration as he hit the dashboard. The ship rumbled a bit and started falling towards the planet. Kitom groaned.

“Sir, the ship is currently falling into the gravitational pull of the planet, please pull up.”

“I can’t pull up! The engines are dead!” Kitom shouted at the computer.

“Please turn on the engines so that you won’t fall to the planet sir,” the computer said.

“You just told me that they won’t turn on!” Kitom shouted.

“I am sorry for the misinformation sir.”

“Misinformation? So they can turn on?” Kitom asked.

“Attempting to restore power to engines…” The computer started. “Failure. Engines will not receive power.”

Kitom yelled again. He looked out of the front display and looked at the planet. It was so very blue. He hadn’t ever seen a planet that color before. If he was one of those nature hippies that plagued the fourth planet of the star Ashtron, he probably would have found it pretty.

“Sir, please don’t make impact with the planet,” The computer said.

Kitom wanted to chuck something at his computer right about now, except that would make his problems worse. “What do you propose I do about this problem computer?”

“Please turn the engines on first sir,” the computer said.

Kitom’s eye twitched for a moment. “The engines don’t work! Remember?”

“Attempting to restore power to engines,” the computer said yet again.

Kitom looked out the front display again. It was red. His ship was being pulled in fast, the hull was heating up. “Computer, stop giving power to engines! Turn on the atmosphere shields!”

“Confirmed. Atmosphere shields up and running.”

Kitom saw the Atmosphere shields going up. Hopefully they would be able to withstand this planets atmosphere. At least they slowed his decent considerably.

“Thank you computer,” Kitom said. “Do we have any information about this planet that we’re falling towards?”

“Searching database, please wait,” the computer said.

>.> <.< >.<
http://laterrytheawesome.blogspot.com/

We add ourselves to the graph just by commenting on this post? Ok, I've commented! ;)

(No, you aren't getting an excerpt until my brain starts making my Sci-Fi novel actually sound like one... sigh.)

Ok, here we go - not very sci-fi yet, but it will be.

“Very nice, but what does this tell us other than the shooter was a damn good shot?” asked Barraclough.

“This.” Dyson pointed to a third spot on the image, behind the figure of Elsmore. “This is where the projectile entered the rear of the bar.” A second red line appeared, joining that point with Elsmore. Barraclough frowned for a minute, then looked up sharply at Dyson.

“It’s not in line with the entry trajectory.”

“Correct,” said Dyson. There is a fifteen degree discrepancy between the entry and exit angles. Futhermore, when forensics examined the rear of the bar, they found the entry point of the projectile, but no trace of the projectile itself. A faint level of alpha radiation was detected, but it was barely above background so could have been an anomalous reading. But the trace of the projectile leaves no doubt.”

“Smart rounds.” Barraclough paced around the room in frustration. “Someone is on the loose here, now, with a smart round rifle.”

“Correct,” said Dyson. “I had a look up on the roof, too. There were very, very few possible locations for the shooter as far as I could see, so they may have had a Platform as well.”

Please add me!

There's a novel excerpt on my author page, which will be improved from time to time. :-)

--
2009: TBD
2008: Alienation (NaNoWriMo winner)
2008: Born Free (ScriptFrenzy)
2007: Future History (NaNoWriMo winner)

Oh beginning, how your tone is so different from how its evolved!

It wasn’t so bad, Ada ruminated, being kidnapped by aliens; the food was, at the very least, edible, the drinks got you smashed quickly, and the anal probes were done when she was in a drunken stupor and seemed like a good idea at the time. Yes. Life was… cushy.
Being on the run from intergalactic cops for smuggling a golden apple, however, was not cushy. It was downright stressful.
Still, it was the little things she had to be grateful for: she had found a friend with a ship who was also on the run, and had been successful for the past couple of years; she wasn’t the only human wandering around the galaxy and so was less likely to be noticed, and she still had on her favorite shirt which had remained intact and stain-free.
They let the ship just drift in space for the time being; they had enough food and water to last them a week or two, so there was no need to do anything more than just exist.
Ada was slight, with long ginger hair, quiet, and never looked comfortable to where she was: she had the nervous habit of pulling on her hair, or scratching her arm, or tapping a foot. When she stood, she would sway or rock on her feet, as if she were preparing to dance or run.
The couch was not an unpleasant green color, with cushions already worn in by other people: people who weren’t on the ship, whom Ada never met in the two months of tagging along with Sable.
Sable, on the other hand, clearly came from larger stock. She stood up straight, and kept her brown hair cut short. If she was on the run from something, she wasn’t nervous about getting caught, as her very presence demanded attention, when she spoke, and it was rare that she did, no one could argue with her.
The ship itself was not what Ada had expected; the aliens who abducted her had a more Hollywood spaceship: it was sterile and shiny, and random parts would hum and whistle and she was never sure what was going, except they kept giving her food and booze. This ship, on the other hand, look lived in: there was recognizable furniture, throw rugs, pillows, music crackling over the intercoms; nothing was new, nothing glistened: only the motor hummed… sometimes it growled.
Ada paced around: she hadn’t figure out how to properly count days and weeks, but she knew it had been a while; the days would have been blurring into each other if she could figure out what actually constituted “yesterday”. She was getting antsy. She was getting nervous.
“Calm down” Sable yawned as she walked down the stairs from the cock pit to the common area. Old tunes that were t once familiar and alien, played a bit more clearly than usual. In a few strides, she had made her way to the couch and sat down.
Ada snapped her head towards Sable. She never noticed Sable enter a room: she was always barefoot.

~End Transmission~

Hi Tim !

Please add me to your sci-fi graph. I've started a little slow, but I'm gathering steam. Here's my excerpt:

"Hey, O'Bryan, d'you know what an 'Alligator clip' is?" Frank O'Bryan's hobby, as of late, was primitive electronics. He knew what an 'Alligator clip' was, but of course his brother, Hathwood, or Hathwy (his nickname), did not. Hathwy finds this interesting because his own career interest has to do with the steampunk engines used by spacecraft.
"No, O'Bryon, what is a 'Alligator clip'?" Hathwy responded.
"Well, O'Bryan, it's like a 'Fahnestock clip,' only it will also bite your . . . ." Frank was just about to use a common, but rather crude, word meaning the lower posterior part of the human anatomy, when the Chime interrupted. Hathwood, equally sharp to his brother's sometimes caustic humor, was getting ready to throw another pillow, but at the sound of the Chime, they both stood at attention.
"Commander Engineer O'Bryan from General Commander North." The intercom crackled.

Cetlan was never supposed to be an MC, but he seems to have high-jacked the first 10000 words....

"If I fall asleep with a pen in my hand, don't remove it - I might be writing in my dreams." ~Danzae Pace

"This is where we are now," I said. But Barzillai shook his head.

I let the process continue, until there were only a handful of dim points of light left. Some were so weak that I initially failed to see them altogether, and I found that I had to walk a great length until I came across one that would blossom out as they all once had.

"This is where we are now," Barzillai said.

"The projection takes us no further?"

He shook his head again. "It will, but there is nothing to see after this. I'm sure you understand."

I did. This was not simply where the projection stopped, this was where we stood: on the cliff's edge of the death of the extant.

"I want to see it," I said.

And Barzillai nodded, and the process continued, and soon we were standing again in utter darkness.

"“No, you cannot go to him,” Alice explained tiredly for a thousandth of time. “How many times must I tell you?”
“You know where he is, don't you,” Michael accused her. “You just ain't telling me. Why?”
Justice sighed. She was about to lose her patience with the boy. “No, I don't. And if I did, I would not tell you, indeed. Why? Because you are no equal companion to him, but a mere kid who doesn't even know when to shut up.” Her irritation was almost palpable.
“I want to go to him,” Michael insisted. “Tell me. Then you can get rid of me. I know you hate having me around. I can see that. Tell me, where he is and I'll leave you be.”
“I do not know where he is,” Alice hissed. “I've said it. I'm not lying to you. And if you don't shut up, I'll kick you out and let's see how well you fare on the streets with no place to go. Or maybe you want to go back to the Brothers? Go tell Shawn Brock you're sorry and if you ask real nicely, maybe he will forgive you.”
“You don't give a shit if I did go,” Michael brooded. “You know, I thought you were a hero, but you don't care about anyone but yourself, do you?”
“Of course not,” Alice replied. “Now will you leave me be?”
“No. Tell me – you found Logan, didn't you? You found him, and you're not telling me of that, either.”
Alice shrugged. “Why should I? It is none of your business.”
“I heard you speak on the phone,” Michael whispered. “I heard you speaking to the government. It was someone from M, wasn't it? And you were telling them to make him a spy, because then he could be useful. You know... I no longer even know which side you're on or whether I can trust you. You work for the government, don't you, Justice?”
“You don't understand,” she answered. She was so tired of this. It was bad enough without the boy at her neck like a bloody vampire.
“You work for them, don't you? You're no solo hunter. You're their hunter.”
“What do you care if I was,” she asked him.
“But I do,” the boy replied, his voice wavering. “I believed in you. I always believed in you.”
She smirked. “And now you don't?”
“I don't know what to believe,” the damned boy admitted bluntly. “You confuse me. You tell me nothing. I don't understand who you are or what you do, or even why you do it. Why do you?”
She sighed. “You're driving me nuts. Go to bed, Michael. I know nothing of your leader.”
“You could well be lying to me, you know, and I wouldn't know, cause you're too good at it.”
She nodded. “Yes, I could. But I'm not. Go, and I'll see what I can find out.” Because I need him, too. More than you can know, little boy. Life is not black and white, little boy, it's shades of gray and red of blood. By my attempt to save two innocent souls from their doom I might just have placed a much more venomous curse on them. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing else I could have done. Perhaps they would have been better off dead, but I just couldn't let them die, either. I couldn't have lived with that, and now I'll have to live with this. Trading a greater evil for a smaller one, but evil is always masked and its bottom unmeasurable.
I am no hero, little boy. Last heroes died in the Last War, if ever there was any. I doubt there were. All heroes die young, because soon enough they learn to sacrifice and compromise. And poof! They're gone, they're dead, they just do what must be done and can never be sure there wasn't a better, fairer way. There probably was, but they no longer had eyes for it.

Little boy, could you lend me your eyes?"

I dream of carving my dragon.

She was still deep in thought, trying to figure the situation when the man entered the public room from the street. Further thoughts of the nights events, the tavern owner and a dead assassin would have to wait.

The target had just arrived.

One last check of the sanction data.

Identity check confirmed, this was definitely the target.

Kill type was to be fast, specifics up to her, privacy not an issue.

Special conditions, target was here to transact business, the transaction must be allowed to proceed unhindered, she was not to make her move until the business was complete.

The data notably did not say what the business type was or with whom it was to be conducted. How helpful, but to be expected for this sanction, what with it being under the [phrase]. Expected or not does not mean I have to bloody well like it though she thought. Why make life difficult for the sake of it. A mental shrug and she let it pass. No sense brooding over things like that whilst she was hunting, it just got in the way. Time for all that stuff later. When the job was done.

She studied the man and sipped some more wine. Not from this section, not even this district, the clothes were made of a shimmering black material that seemed to absorb light only to reflect it back again at odd angles not in keeping with the available light sources.

The material was formed into an upper body covering akin to her robe but falling only to the mans waist. Below this individual leg coverings made form the same material as the top. The leg coverings extended fully to the ankle where they met foot coverings fashioned from leather and with thick soles. Little if any gap was seen between the foot and leg coverings.

Face mostly obscured by the half robes cowl, she could still just make out the tell tale contact points implanted either side of the man tear ducts. From there, she knew, they would join the optic nerves and connect to the very heart of the mans mind.

Only one kind of person carried such rare implants. The man was a member of the Courier Guild. He was one of the elite Mind Couriers.

She was to kill a Mind Courier!

At least she began to see why this sanction was under the [phrase]. Mind couriers held special status. Trained in the sanctums of the MiraMundi since birth, they were only sent out when vital information was at stake. Able to carry the thoughts and memories of a subject and to deliver them intact to the recipient. It was a sacred office they held, private organizations had tried and failed to match their abilities.

If you wanted information passing in the most secure way possible you hired a Mind courier.

Her internal alarm was sounding again ...

Works for me:

Tim scrawled his name in the tiny window and accepted the package. It was hard to make out the sender's name because the overhead light had gone out again. The brown man trotted away, down the stairs, and Tim returned to the safety of his undersized rooms, locking the door behind him.
He pulled his pocketknife out and slit the top of the envelope, spilling the contents out on an end table.
The forms to renew his health insurance fluttered to the table's surface, atop a pile of old 3V Guides. The origin was easy to determine because of the rather large company logo on the back of each page. He looked in vain for the little vial to put his urine in. "No pee test?" He asked of the air. "Weird."
He snatched up the documents and returned to the couch for an examination of the contents.
It turned out that the company was asking him to make an appearance at a doctor's office, there to undergo an examination. The results of that examination were to determine which insured pool he was to be a part of. The doctor would also scan his genome at that point, in order to make no mistake about his physical condition. That information would then be made a part of his permanent record.

He mumbled to the artifact he'd been so dutifully exposing, “Hey little guy, where do you live? How'd you get way down here in these Cretaceous aged rocks?”
At this point, only maybe an inch of the object had been liberated. A few feet from where he sat were the outlines of what appeared to be an entire skeleton. On any other day, he would have been pouring over the skeleton, which, being appearing at first glance to be a complete one, is practically a geologist's dream-come-true. Not even the intact skeleton of what would later turn out to be a new species related to the dinosaur could draw his attention. What he couldn't leave alone was this small exposed fragment of what he knew couldn't, not in a eighty million years, be pottery.
“Who am I fooling? I'm not an archeologist.” He mumbled, brushing away the last few crumbs of his sandwich.
He stood up and stepped as far backwards as the narrow trench would allow.
“We're going to have to do more digging. That's for damn-sure.” His eyes traced the base of the trench laterally to an area where the digging was slightly deeper. There was an peculiar thing that stood out about this slightly-deeper area; the sandstone stopped at this point, sitting on top what appeared to be an uneven surface of lithified soil. “Well, if this isn't an unconformity, I don't know what is.” He reached out and touched the boundary between the ancient soil and the sandstone, “This bored represents a gap in time; the point at which this temporarily ceased to be a depositional environment,” His hand slid upward until it touched the sandstone, “until this point, when it was turned back into a depositional environment.”

As dawn's early light broke between the lush rolling hills that concealed the estuary common, Zeba noticed a sparkling glint high in the eastern sky. Blocking the dawn sunlight with his hand he scanned the azimuth realizing he had to look slighly away from the glimmers to see them, but yes, the glint of chrome was undeniable.

Zeba shouted, startling his canine companion. The boy dropped his fishing pole, and sprinted towards the villiage, the dog running after him.

"Momma! Momma!" Leah was in the garden when she heard the frantic calling of her son. "Momma! The plane's coming. We're getting deliveries today."

Leah smiled. "The plane only comes once a month, sweetie. You'll have to wait until next week."

"But I saw it! It's flying this way from the sea."

Leah stood up. Deliveries usually came from inland. "That's odd. Show me this plane dear."

Out on the grassy decline, the shining speck was now clearly visible, perhaps just over the coast. "See! The deliveries are coming!"

Leah frowned as she held her hand to the rising sun. It was not one, but five separate specks, shining in the morning light, on a fast approach. Leah felt her heart plummet into the ground. "Zee, we need to go."

"What's wrong, momma?"

Leah grabbed the boy by the arm, dragging him along in a dead run. "The shelter. NOW!"

Zeba had just opened the storm shelter doors, and Leah was still gathering her daughter when the first bomb detonated over the village, and fire, shock and awe ripped through the house. In shock from the concussion, she lost consciousness as the scorched ruins collapsed upon her.

Zeba, down in the shelter would survive to hear the surface impacts of the second barrage, before the heat and pressure would overtake him.

== == ==

"But have you ever fought against Romans? They're brutal, dude. I'd so rather be here."

"I've heard about week long orbital bombardments. I've heard their terminator squads are invincible. I'd rather fight an enemy I can see than be sifting through rubble for booby traps and suicide ambushes."

"Man, I'm telling you. We have it easy. There's a reason Romans don't bother with camo. They're that badass. They don't need it. Terminator squads ain't even human, dude. They're android to make you think they're human. It's to psych you out. It works."

"Yes, but they still shoot regular bullets. You know how most recons die on this front?"

"They get blown to shreds by IEDs."

"You watch too much news. No. Most casualties live long enough to put a bullet in his own brain pan, but only after he ices his family, his friends or his CO."

"That's bullshit, dude...Is that a dog?"

"I'll check. It's not bullshit. Check the stats. You have a higher chance of berzerking on your mates than you do dying outright in the field. Bugger, it is. Fed standard labrador."

"It's got a serial number. ARA436596."

"Bollocks. She's registered all right. This isn't a insurgent training camp, it's a terraform colony. One of ours. This whole mission's a botch."

"Bummer. Uh, TOC this is team two. We're staring at a licensed Fed dog. Yes. A dog, as in 'woof, woof.' Looks like the tops goofed on the target. Alright. We're pulling out."

"I hope someone gets their arse turfed for this one."

"On the other hand, we skate. Beats being shot at."

"We just razed a civilian village!...You can be a real bastard sometimes."

"Yes. But a LIVE bastard."

"You have a ship on your grid. Section eighteen.” Schuller pointed to the wall vid. “That is Haversty territory. She’s nearing the buoy channel. What do you want to do?”
“What does council say do?” Not that Pondeen cared, rather asked since Schuller was his ears in the council.
“They won’t permit the ship if that’s what you think you’ll hear.”
“We have more of a chance, if we can confront the ship straight on. Captain y captain. And we have already seen what a mistake can lead to if we don't. If that ship, the Orstar of the Fynes had a chance to tell us they were a peaceful race, we would not be sitting on an eggshell in space, waiting to be blown out of it by a whim."
His aide Brice held his ground, bless him.
Schuller looked at Brice. “Have you tried to reason with him?”
Brice shrugged.
Schuller didn't look too happy. "You welcome that ship, we'll lose Central's support."
"I think you're right. So what? We never had their support."
Brice's face changed. Almost humor. Schullers square face turned dark pink, his eyes narrowed and his mouth formed in almost a circle.
"No great loss there, is it?"
Brice snickered.
Schuller huffed. “It’s your neck.”
“That’s right. I’m Nigent. I say we talk to that ship.” To Brice he said, See if we can connect to that ship’s satellite.
Brice hesitated. He moved his jaw like he might as a question then walked out.
Schuller looked at Brice. “You have your orders, man. Get on it.”
Brice double-timed out of his office. Pondeen chuckled to himself.
Schuller gave one last look to Pondeen with a shake of his head and walked out.
Quade ducked into the office and plopped into a chair opposite of Pondeen. "That went well."

As I was paging through alternate theories and reading it explained that while a neutron bomb does kill people without destroying the city they're in, it would destroy the buildings where it was deployed and would not in any way disintegrate the bodies of the people it killed, a red light began to flash at the corner of my screen. I clicked it immediately and looked at the alerts it was reporting. Someone had launched a major MiniTru attack on my reputation.
In Orwell's 1984, MiniTru was the Ministry of Truth, which is to say the people in charge of censoring the history books. These days, the history books are all online, and ever since the the Charunagar Algorithm cracked integer factorization, there's really no such thing as a secure system online. I've earned more than a little bit of money over the last few years doing a job that is, at its core, explaining that fact to people. But although about five hundred trillion dollars worth of bank and credit card fraud over one weekend pretty much put an end to naive e-commerce, people still use the web for research and other informational tasks. And all of those sites, and their archives are vulnerable to attack by any sufficiently motivated hacker. I'd been subject to an attack like this before, when a group of Albanian college students who I'd managed to boot out of the state government's servers decided the most appropriate form of revenge would be to splash my name and picture across three year's worth of archives at a few dozen different web forums devoted to sexual perversions involving live rabbits. I wondered why they didn't go all the way and make it sexual perversions involving dead rabbits, but I suspect that particular fetish was not yet sufficiently represented on the net for that to have worked. It didn't take more than a few hours to counter-hack and revert the pages.

2005 Novel: Inheritance
2007 Novel: Infernal Designs
2008 Novel: Multitudes

For my snippet: The reader's introduction to the CEO of the nearly omnipotent WME Corporation and Magnificent Bastard Corven Magnus.

The first time I saw the Savior of Mankind was in Michener Pawn Shop just off Michigan Avenue. It was the Christmas season, and I had dropped by there on my way to Watertower Place, shopping for an old cigarette lighter for my brother, Rex. Rex collects lighters, as well as many other things. I usually don’t get him much, but what the hey, it was Christmas.
I remember that evening, because I thought it was eerie that a gangly, pimpled teenager would spend so much time staring at handguns. You need a permit to buy a handgun in Chicago, and there’s a two-week waiting period on top of that. I didn’t think the kid was old enough to buy one, either. In any case, it creeped me out.
But he stood there in his torn red hooded sweatshirt and dirty jeans, staring at the glass case that displayed the snubnosed Smith &Wesson .38 right next to the nickel-plated Beretta 9 mm automatic, which in turn was below the Colt .45 long barrel. Any one of those guns were enough to shatter a padlock, hold up a 7-Eleven, or blow the top of the kid’s head off, depending on what his intentions were. And I was beginning to wonder what his intentions were.

The first time I saw the Savior of Mankind was in Michener Pawn Shop just off Michigan Avenue. It was the Christmas season, and I had dropped by there on my way to Watertower Place, shopping for an old cigarette lighter for my brother, Rex. Rex collects lighters, as well as many other things. I usually don’t get him much, but what the hey, it was Christmas.
I remember that evening, because I thought it was eerie that a gangly, pimpled teenager would spend so much time staring at handguns. You need a permit to buy a handgun in Chicago, and there’s a two-week waiting period on top of that. I didn’t think the kid was old enough to buy one, either. In any case, it creeped me out.
But he stood there in his torn red hooded sweatshirt and dirty jeans, staring at the glass case that displayed the snubnosed Smith &Wesson .38 right next to the nickel-plated Beretta 9 mm automatic, which in turn was below the Colt .45 long barrel. Any one of those guns were enough to shatter a padlock, hold up a 7-Eleven, or blow the top of the kid’s head off, depending on what his intentions were. And I was beginning to wonder what his intentions were.

Here's my bit of nonsense ;)

Synopsis: HexNumeric--a Witches and Geeks Adventure
What happens when a slightly neurotic computer geek meets his new partner--a symbiotic magical construct...
Caffeine-deprived snark and sarcasm at its finest...

Excerpt: HexNumeric--a Witches and Geeks Adventure
“The Gods (and Goddess) of Joyful Amelioration have now entered your area. Rejoicing may now commence. Any and all computer bug a boos will be quickly eviscerated. Gremlins will be spanked and sent to their nasty little beds without their supper and viruses will be flash frozen and studied to create the miraculous cures of which you appear to need so desperately. You may now commence worshipful adulation. All gifts, vestal virgins, offerings of gold, gemstones, ambrosia, and other libations will be gratefully accepted.” The typical greeting offered by someone in the group was, of course, whispered soto voice but the smiles on the faces of the room's newest occupants was more than enough to cause alarm to even the most stalwart of those already present.

“Ouch dear,” Booker grimaced, carefully lifting the little cat out of the tangled mass of dreadlocks. The peculiar wrinkled face of the little Sphinx looked up at him innocently with huge ocean-green eyes. “Don't give me that look. I'm not your ladder. That is in the other room,” said he motioning in the direction of the bedroom. The cat regarded him thoughtfully then meeped in response and tangled herself up in his dreadlocks once again. “As if you listen...and who am I kidding? I'm just one of many of your toys, aren't I dearest?”

Untangling her again, Booker lifted her onto his shoulder with one hand. Then he loosened the heavy coils and shook them loose. Catherine(the Great, Magnificent, Kind, Precious, Intelligent, Perfervid, etc...) eyed the loose strands, tail tip giving the smallest hint of a twitch. Nocturne grinned as he watched her from the corner of an eye. “You're giving yourself away, bratling.” The cat naturally ignored his admonishment and swatted at his finger instead. Satisfied that she'd tortured her pet human enough, Catherine proceeded to headbutt him at every opportunity. “Quit wiping your cat boogers on me!”

Illegitimus non carborundum est....ask what it means. I dare you

Synopsis: HexNumeric--a Witches and Geeks Adventure
What happens when a slightly neurotic computer geek meets his new partner--a symbiotic magical construct...
Caffeine-deprived snark and sarcasm at its finest...

Excerpt: HexNumeric--a Witches and Geeks Adventure
“The Gods (and Goddess) of Joyful Amelioration have now entered your area. Rejoicing may now commence. Any and all computer bug a boos will be quickly eviscerated. Gremlins will be spanked and sent to their nasty little beds without their supper and viruses will be flash frozen and studied to create the miraculous cures of which you appear to need so desperately. You may now commence worshipful adulation. All gifts, vestal virgins, offerings of gold, gemstones, ambrosia, and other libations will be gratefully accepted.” The typical greeting offered by someone in the group was, of course, whispered soto voice but the smiles on the faces of the room's newest occupants was more than enough to cause alarm to even the most stalwart of those already present.

“Ouch dear,” Booker grimaced, carefully lifting the little cat out of the tangled mass of dreadlocks. The peculiar wrinkled face of the little Sphinx looked up at him innocently with huge ocean-green eyes. “Don't give me that look. I'm not your ladder. That is in the other room,” said he motioning in the direction of the bedroom. The cat regarded him thoughtfully then meeped in response and tangled herself up in his dreadlocks once again. “As if you listen...and who am I kidding? I'm just one of many of your toys, aren't I dearest?”

Untangling her again, Booker lifted her onto his shoulder with one hand. Then he loosened the heavy coils and shook them loose. Catherine(the Great, Magnificent, Kind, Precious, Intelligent, Perfervid, etc...) eyed the loose strands, tail tip giving the smallest hint of a twitch. Nocturne grinned as he watched her from the corner of an eye. “You're giving yourself away, bratling.” The cat naturally ignored his admonishment and swatted at his finger instead. Satisfied that she'd tortured her pet human enough, Catherine proceeded to headbutt him at every opportunity. “Quit wiping your cat boogers on me!”

Illegitimus non carborundum est....ask what it means. I dare you

Okay, this is near the beginning, and what's come later is far better. Anyway, here you go.

“Very good,” he answered. “Mr. Ryogo?”

The science officer smiled, exasperated. For whatever reason, the captain seemed incapable of separating his first name from his last. “Hydroelectric power source. Given its location, self-sustaining. More than sufficient for the operation of the apparent size of the facility.” He returned his attention to his scanner as the Outrider reached ideal position.

“Let's see it,” the captain said and a small dot appeared in the blue ocean. As the ops officer increased magnification, it grew into an island dominated by a large dome surrounded by several buildings. Vegetation grew around the facility in an orderly fashion and sandy beaches trailed into the ocean. An artificial harbor near one of the buildings was unoccupied by any vessel. There was a wide flat space marked in such a way that Kensington guessed it was a landing site for aerial vehicles. The island was clearly artificial. The angles were too regular, the shape too balanced.

Kaburaki Ryogo glanced at a secondary console which confirmed his preliminary analysis. “The island appears to be a support platform for an underwater facility. It appears to be uninhabited, but life-form readings are inconclusive. There is no sign of any technology that would indicate space-faring capability. Clearly, however, all systems are currently receiving power from the generators below.”

Kensington stood up from his chair. “Let’s go check it out. Mr. Kaburaki, you’re coming with me on this one. Ops, have Dr. Young, Medea, and one of those SF security people meet us at the shuttle pod.”

"But in purple... I'm stunning."

Hopefully this isn't a double post.

Not my best part of the story, near the beginning when I was finding my way. Also one of the characters mentioned here, is no longer part of the ship's crew.

***************

“Very good,” he answered. “Mr. Ryogo?”

The science officer smiled, exasperated. For whatever reason, the captain seemed incapable of separating his first name from his last. “Hydroelectric power source. Given its location, self-sustaining. More than sufficient for the operation of the apparent size of the facility.” He returned his attention to his scanner as the Outrider reached ideal position.

“Let's see it,” the captain said and a small dot appeared in the blue ocean. As the ops officer increased magnification, it grew into an island dominated by a large dome surrounded by several buildings. Vegetation grew around the facility in an orderly fashion and sandy beaches trailed into the ocean. An artificial harbor near one of the buildings was unoccupied by any vessel. There was a wide flat space marked in such a way that Kensington guessed it was a landing site for aerial vehicles. The island was clearly artificial. The angles were too regular, the shape too balanced.

Kaburaki Ryogo glanced at a secondary console which confirmed his preliminary analysis. “The island appears to be a support platform for an underwater facility. It appears to be uninhabited, but life-form readings are inconclusive. There is no sign of any technology that would indicate space-faring capability. Clearly, however, all systems are currently receiving power from the generators below.”

Kensington stood up from his chair. “Let’s go check it out. Mr. Kaburaki, you’re coming with me. Ops, have Dr. Young, Medea, and one of those SF security people meet us at the shuttle pod.”

"But in purple... I'm stunning."

Whoo! Here we go!

\\ Excerpt \\

"It was you, then," I said. My voice held that haughtiness I had re-adopted in the last half hour, but there was also a solid note of cold along with it. "It was you that's been contacting me." His expression changed slightly at that, in a way I couldn't quite name. Surprise? Hope?

"So you heard me," he replied. I nodded.

"I also noticed the part where you tried to kill me." Now that surprised him.

"What? Damn it...why would I do that?" he snapped, caught off guard. I arched an eyebrow at him, crossing my arms. I tried to forget about the fact that I was going to have two very angry goons on my ass any second.

"I don't know. You tell me. I have no idea what the hell is going on here. You tell me." I intensified my stare, cashing in on the intimidation skills I had almost forgotten. "Who are you?"

"I'm Will," he said, taking a step towards me and putting out his hand. It was sincere, but I could tell he was impatient with the gesture. Maybe he was just as aware of how short on time this meeting was. "And I swear I didn't attack you. I don't know exactly what happened, but that wasn't me."

"It had your residue on it," I stated, waiting. I wasn't going to call him a liar, but he had damned well be able to explain to me how this was possible, or else bullets were going to start flying.

"Look- I need your help," he said, his tone sharp. In other situations I may have been offended by his shortness, but somehow in this situation it didn't feel right to hold it against him. "I was trying to get a message to you because I think you're the only one that can help me."

"Help you with what?" I spat, bitterness somehow working its way into my tone. Maybe the conflict with the Core back there had struck me deeper than I'd thought. "Don't you realize who I am?" He watched me for a moment, then shook his head.

"No. I don't know you." His eyes became duller at that, drifting down to the floor. "But you were the only one I could find."

"I repeat," I said, sounding more impatient than I was. "What do you 'need' me to do?"

He was silent for a while.

"I need you to save my life," he said.

Nano 2007: Crossed (Supernatural/Sci-fi)
Nano 2008: Aethernet (Supernatural/Sci-Fi)

“The whole thing worries me,” I admitted.
“Me too, son,” replied Max. “Are you a physicist?”
“No, Sir, I am a programmer.”
“Then I assume you do not know for sure what happens during an atomic blast?”
“No,” I admitted. “But surely what happened to the walls is not result of a nuclear explosion, or anything else I have ever heard of.”
“Right, but I guess there's just a lot we do not know.” He shrugged. “Thanks for letting me know. But there's no reason to make everybody even more worried than they already are.” I nodded my consent and we went back to the main room.

http://www.enderra.com/blog/

Within the Imperial Navy, the Dreadnoughts were the undisputed workhorses. The Dreadnought had come to become the symbol of Imperial Military might, and including the various subclasses and survivors from an older generation, there were more than seventy ships of the Dreadnought category within the armada.
However, they were by no means alone. The Armada was also augmented with an entire fleet of smaller ships, including cruisers, destroyers, frigates, carriers, supply ships, and Battleships. All else were either private enterprises or were of so less of a category that they just weren’t registered in the navy.
However, there existed one class of warship far beyond the simple, ‘mundane’ categories of this type. Its existence was only a rumor, a legend within the Keele military that spoke of a starship the size of a planet. So large had it been that it was said to have the power to support entire starfleets on it’s own, and that it had been built outside the previous Keele Empires by a military force so much more powerful than the Empire itself.
But that’s just it, all it had been was a legend. Such a massive warship had no name or designation. Many believed it was the wet dream of the admiratly, some superweapon long lost in the panicked flight from the previous empire of the Keele.
And yet, some believed so strongly in it’s existence that they actively sought it.
Admiral Brutus Venari was one such man. His own command was based on the Dreadnought Tanator, one of the first builds of the Dreadnought fleet. Tanator was presently near the western fringes of the galaxy, close to the Kylen sector where he had initially believed the super ship was ‘stored’ by the regency. Though this rumor did not hold water, he had made some interesting discoveries out there.
Brutus Venari languished in his quarters: a conversion of the standard affair Maxwell enjoyed on his own ship. Instead of a modest room though, this had become more of a throne room. A large desk dominated his office, where an even grander chair had been situated for the man to seat in. If the desk had not been there, and had the hall been slightly bigger, one would have seen him as an Emperor.
He looked over the reports he had asked for, and nodded accordingly. He put them away with a smirk on his face.
A figure moved in the darkness outside the light, then emerged into it. “Dear,” The woman asked, “It’s getting late. You should come to bed.”
“In a minute, my Dove,” Replied Venari as he consulted a map. It had been heavily edited, scrawled with notes in relation to all he could have gathered about the mysterious prize that he sought.
“Still looking for that ship,” The woman said, moving into the light where her pure silver hair glistened. She moved to the side of the chair.
“Indeed, my love,” Venari said, taking his wife’s hand as she joined him. “Not long now… not long until I am ready to seize the last few pieces of the puzzle.”
“And then?” Aoife asked, a smile on her face.
“Then,” He sighed, “The sky is the limit. The Empire will rise up and dominate under my leadership, and nothing will stop the reign of Keele from becoming supreme.”
Aoife continued to smile while her husband stared into space.