Back in the Saddle

Or being dragged by the stirrups. Take your pick. Sometimes, its all the same to me. Well, wait...depends on who's doing the dragging.


Here's a breath of Jahannan's Children Chapter 4 for you.

Chapter 4

Melera Shen’zae had returned to Dirt.

Her space cruiser hovered before a barren rock mountain surrounded by an endless blue sea. The cz’ado—shadow—warrior, sitting in the bridge’s command chair, reached for the secondary instrument console above her and flipped a switch. As she watched, a huge section of the mountain’s exterior seemed to dissolve. It had, actually. The switch activated the disruptor, a device that temporarily scrambled the molecular structure of anything at which it was aimed, causing it to disappear. Once she was safely inside, that part of the mountain would rematerialize.

She slowly steered her spaceship through the opening. The mountain closed behind her. Hovering a few feet above the enormous, artificial cavern’s smooth floor, she carefully turned her craft around until it was parallel to her campsite situated about seven hundred feet away. Then, with her long, slender fingers, she drummed a tattoo on a dark square panel on the primary instrument console. About thirty seconds later, she heard the whine of the ship’s support pylons lowering into position. After making sure the supports had locked into place, she gently set her cruiser on the ground and then shut down its four drives.

“Kyle,” she said, her quintuple voices sounding peeved. “Those pylon motors—what’s going on with that? I thought I fixed them.”

“Yes, Shen’zae.” The five voices belonging to her cruiser’s artificial intelligence module filled the small bridge. “You did. But the tertiary relay has shorted out again.”

Melera frowned. “Was it me or the flow tubes Dqaarli’s sold me?”

“The flow tubes, Shen’zae.”

Her lips twisted into a grimace. “Jakkers,” she said.

Dqaarli was a small shipyard catering to starfarers like her who, for various reasons, couldn’t put in for repairs at a legitimate port. Because of that, the yard’s owners had no scruples about selling substandard parts and equipment at prices that were sheer robbery. They stayed in business because every outlaw in the Maqu galaxy knew that unlike shipyards servicing the legitimate ports, Dqaarli’s personnel asked no questions and knew how to keep their mouths shut.

Melera rose from the command chair and stretched, thinking about the Akkadian javelin—fighter—jockey that had turned her ship into a pile of space junk. “You’re a jakker too,” she muttered.

She turned and stepped onto the lift that would take her to the main deck and palmed the controls. With a jerk, the lift began to descend. She narrowed her golden, slit-pupiled eyes. Something was wrong. The lift shouldn’t have jerked like that. Her lip curled. Had to be the luckiest shot in the whole jakkin’ universe, she thought.

“Kyle,” she said. “Find out what’s wrong with the lift and see if you can fix it.”

“Yes, Shen’zae.”

On the main deck, a few steps aft brought her to the ship’s airlock. She placed her hand on the controls and paused. “One more thing, Kyle. You can stop calling me Shen’zae. Xia’saan…home…” A look of anguish passed over her face. She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried again. “Xia’saan is just an asteroid belt orbiting a binary star system,” she said, her quintuple voices sounding husky. “I’m the Shen’zae of nothing.”

“Yes, Shen’zae,” Kyle said.

Melera drew her brows together but relaxed once she understood the why of Kyle’s insubordination. She smiled and gave her head a small shake. Artificial intelligences were literal and for a solitary starfarer like her, it was easy to forget that an AI like Kyle was nothing more than an incredibly sophisticated computer program. Though sometimes I wonder about Kyle. She opened the airlock’s two hatches. Stepping through them, she exited the ship into the mammoth cavern.

Forgot To Mention

Clicking on the title will take you to my new site. It looks a LOT different from this one. But I think it works...

Moved, Left Forwarding Address

I'm pretty much up and running on Wordpress. I'll visit from time to time...

Vanity, Thy Name Is BRW

Ah, I should have done my homework first. I submitted because I liked the name. Then, after submitting, I checked them against Preditors & Editors. Guess what. They're a vanity press. They sent an email the other day asking for a ballpark figure of how many books I wanted to buy. Arrgh. Well, I won't be buying any. I don't want to buy my books. I want YOU to buy my books.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

Dazed and Confused

Well, I got the Wordpress thing going and...I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like, I want to get an "about" link on the main page, but I don't see how to do it. And the sidebar only has room for two widgets? How bogus is that?

Time to call in the professionals...

Baby, I Was Dead-Ass Broke!

Banks. I hate 'em. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Well, you can, but don't let your neighborhood Nike boys know that.

So what's broke mean? When you've got lint in your wallet and no job? But what if you have $25K computer system at home (purchased in better days)? You could probably get at least $15Gs for that. So are you broke, or do you just have a cash flow problem? What about the guy who's got trust funds galore, but can't get to them (or a job). Working as a waiter with $30M in the bank.

Take my sister. When she says she's broke, she's down to four figures in her checking account. When I say I'm broke, my checks are bouncing around like hydrogen molecules over the fire.

Maybe it's like if you have nothing right now but have access in the future, you ain't broke. But if you've done already sold everything you can sell, like your car, your neighbor's car...and you've got nothing left that might bring in a coupla coins, maybe that's when you can say you're dead-ass broke.

Thoughts?

(I know, weird topic)

Speaking of Fishing...

Ah, the timing was perfect. Seemingly minutes after I wrote that post about agents and publishers being fish and writers the fishermen, I received two nibbles within days of one another. One from a publishing house, another from an agent. Is this a case of "build it and they will come?" Naah. I think it's more coincidence. But a lovely coincidence all the same.

First time I've gotten past the query stage. Keep that good mojo comin' folks!