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Internal Investigations
Chapter 1:
John Grayson woke up to to the clanking of metal on metal. He groggily pulled on a shirt and opened the door that led from the sleep quarters to the cockpit.
"Your abusing the ship again Greg." he said, still half asleep.
"Sorry captain, did I wake you?" said his young copilot.
"No" said Grayson sarcastically, "I'm sleep walking".
"Where the hell are we anyway?" he asked, "Ever since we forged those transponder codes for hypergate access, were always suddenly on the opposite side of the galaxy from where we were."
"You want to know where we are?" said Greg, "Well here you go!"
Greg hit a few buttons on a keyboard (this technology had remained around for thousands of years), and the metal blast shade that had been shielding the main view port slowly opened. John suddenly knew why he had heard a clanking sound. Looking out the view port he saw a spectacular sight. They where docked to a ship. But not just any ship, this was his ship: the Utopia. They where docked at such an angle so that they could see the light of the light of the Terran sun shinning just over the edge of the hull, as if it had been cut by the blade of a knife. The light glistened on the black armor plating of the Utopia, making it look like some kind of heavenly creature. It was especially beautiful to John, for the last time he had seen the B class Pirate Starbridge Utopia, it had been from the window of an orbital drydock, and the ship had been thrust into shadow, it's lower sections blown away, its armor had all but burned up, its hull was illuminated only by fires still burning, feeding off the Utopia's ruptured oxygen tanks. But now, now his bird had flown back to him and he was as anxious as ever, to see what she could do.
John's thoughts were interrupted by Greg saying something. "Huh?" John said.
"Said that you would never tell she had been brushed by a secret Bureau super laser."
John looked at him.
"I mean, weather balloon, secret Bureau weather balloon, that uh...., what was it? Oh yeah, reflected light from Venus. Now I remember," he said. "Uh, how did the feds explain the rebel fleet that mysterious vanished after we saw the weather balloon?"
"Saalian brandy." John replied.
"Of course we know that's not the case" said Greg. "We can't afford Saalian brandy!"
Chapter 2:
John Grayson sat on the bridge of his ship, awaiting the dockmaster's approval for departure. He received it and they were underway.
"We have only one person to see regarding this, weather balloon" John said "Set course for the Journey's End system."
"We taking the hypergate?" Greg asked.
"You wish." John replied.
To Be Continued...
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 09-30-2002).)
I think this story had a few flaws in it that, had they been fixed, would have made it a bit better.
1. It's just too damn short, especially if it's supposed to be two chapters of a continuing story.
2. I caught pretty much all of the spelling errors, but there were several throughout this entire story. You'd do well to proofread your own stories or, if possible, have a friend proofread it.
3. I thought your initial description of the ship ("cut by the blade of a knife") was a nice touch, but some of the other stuff was odd (like the comment about the keyboard). Also, the description of the Utopia seemed to ramble on a bit, going from how it looked now, then to how badly it was messed up the last time he had seen it.
4. Also, if John Grayson is the captain of his current ship, why is he all of a sudden ditching his previous ship (which we're never told what it was) for his old one?
5. I'm sorry, but the ending did absolutely nothing for me as far as building suspense for the next "chapters". Going from an undisclosed system to the Journey's End system, without the use of hypergates, just isn't thrilling.
Anyway, that's what I thought of the story. I didn't mean to sound mean or anything, they are just points where I thought the story could use improving.
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I would say I probably agree with the above post. I would also like to say that compared with some of the writing I have seen so far, you are ahead of the game. Now it's time to really get going and make this a short story, novella or even try for the true novel. Once you have that, then let the fur fly!
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Well, considering that in the beginning, the writer described John Grayson as getting up and going to the cockpit thru one door. So the ship is considerably small. That's about it.,
Mandrake