This is the first time I'm putting one of my stories online. So
please give me feedback, point out flaws in my writing so I can fix them
& tell me how I can improve the story in pacing, technique,
dialogue, characterization & whatnot. Also give me ideas on the
name.
I have the general events of each chapter planned (there's 6 chapters) but everything you see right now is in a WIP state for the moment being. Your feedback & responses will help me improve & bring the story to a shape where I'm satisfied with releasing it online.
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I have the general events of each chapter planned (there's 6 chapters) but everything you see right now is in a WIP state for the moment being. Your feedback & responses will help me improve & bring the story to a shape where I'm satisfied with releasing it online.
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Chapter
1 – The Space-Kite
The
Space-Kite was docked on the space station Signovia. In the outskirts of mantis
controlled space, Signovia housed the only Federation base in over a thousand
parsecs. The crew of the Space-Kite had just finished loading her up with
necessary supplies and was having a rest in the cargo hold while going over
their cargo itinerary when Captain Bear Lagardy, a man of thin but well-built stature in his early forties, walked in.
“Alright
crew”, spoke the captain, “I have some bad news, some good news and some better
news.”
“Well
that’ll be a nice change of pace”, said the only other human crew of the Space-Kite,
a strongly built woman in her late twenties.
“Quite.
The bad news is that my application to get a crew teleporter installed was
rejected thanks to our recent couple of losses. Sorry Sofia.”
“Darn
it.” Sofia punched the crate she was sitting on. “Why doesn’t the top brass get
it? We need to bring the fight to the mantis. That’s the only way we can take
them by surprise and win more often than runn...”
“Will
you let me finish?” said Captain Lagardy in his characteristic stern commanding
voice.
Sofia
went quiet immediately.
“As
I was saying. The good news is that I managed to cajole the supply issuance
guy. If we can find a crew teleporter via unofficial means and install it in
The Space-Kite, he’ll keep it out of the reports and save us on the paperwork.”
“Meaning
we have to look for it in black markets?” queried the large imposing rock crew
member with his normal booming voice.
“Exactly.
It’s not ideal but we can pull it off. And the last bit of news, the better
one, is that I’ve found our new gunner.” Lagardy turned and looked at someone
down the ramp of the cargo bay, “and looks like he’s here.”
Walking
up the cargo bay ramp was a slightly flabby human carrying a rucksack and a
sidebag.
“You
got here just in time.” Lagardy turned back to the crew and said, “Crew, meet
Raffick Woolza… I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Lower
Private Rafiq Ul Zardari, captain”, spoke the man with a salute quickly
standing in attention.
“Right.
Sorry about that. And ease up soldier. We’re not on the battlefront yet. Besides,
this is a war of skirmishes. Our ship will be alone in deep mantis space with
no backup. Ranks and salutes don’t work there; that’s only for when we’re at a
base. Out there, the 5 of us is all we got. So we have to take care of each
other. Got it Raff?”
“Yes
sir”, said Rafiq as he put his hand down and walked up the ramp.
“A
greenie, Captain? Seriously?” said Sofia, incredulous.
Lagardy
took a glance at Rafiq standing at the top of the ramp, turned to Sofia and
said, “He’s got very good aims on simulation and he comes very well recommended.”
“Captain,
a greenie with good aim is still a greenie. The Space-Kite is a ranger ship. We
need someone with experience on her guns.”
“I
agree but with our recent win/lose ratio, I assure you he’s the best I could
get without having to bribe some general.”
Lagardy
turned to face Rafiq listening to the conversation. “So Rafiq, I’m sure you
realize with you being fresh outta the academy, this assignment is on a trial
basis. If your performance isn’t up to the stuff your report says, you’ll be
back on the recruitment list. We clear?”
“Yes
sir. I’ll try my best” Rafiq replied.
“Anyways,
this is the crew of The Space-Kite. I’m the captain, Bear Lagardy. Over there
we have Pomeroy, our engines operator.” Lagardy said, nodding towards the metallic
grey coloured humanoid, composed of trillions of nanomachines, standing a little
to the side holding a datapad.
Pomeroy,
the engi, gave a slight nod of his single giant green eye and said,
“Greetings.”
Rafiq
nodded back. “Hi.”
“Next
we have our shields guy, Zekko Sunn.” Lagardy gestured towards the rock, a humanoid
shape made entirely of organic stone wearing a XXXXL sized T shirt &
oversized shorts, sitting on the floor.
“Welcome
aboard” said Zekko, stretching out his large hand.
Rafiq
stretched out his arm and held the rock’s hand and said “Hello”. Zekko gently
wrapped his fist over Rafiq’s hand and shook it softly.
Sofia
said, quite surprised, “Didn’t expect a greenie to have met a rock before.”
“I
haven’t”, replied Rafiq.
“Then
how come you were so nonchalant to shake Zekko’s hand? Even I was hesitant the
first time I met a rock” said Lagardy, equally surprised as Sofia.
Rafiq
said with a smile, “He’s not going to crush my hands. So why should I worry?”
Zekko
asked, “What if I didn’t know my own strength? How were you so sure I wouldn’t
hurt you by accident?”
“Then
you wouldn’t have stretched out your hand to shake mine in the first place.”
Zekko
gave a short laugh at this and said, “I like this guy already captain. He’s got
spunk.”
Lagardy
smiled, “and over here we have our only other human crew, Sofia Grundi. She’s
been working on weapons since our designated gunner was KIA about 2 weeks ago.”
Rafiq
was shaken by this. He certainly didn’t expect to be deployed in a ranger ship
straight out of the academy. But he was elated to hear that he was since very
few greenies get directly selected on one. And even though he knew that over
60% of gunners on a ranger ship have an average lifespan of about 2 to 3 months
at most in this war, hearing Captain Lagardy reminded him of what exactly he
was getting into.
Although
he was trying to hide it, Rafiq’s face spelt out clearly what he was thinking.
Lagardy knew he had to stop the newbie’s train of thought before he scares
himself witless before they even leave the dock.
“Hey
Raff?”, the captain said.
“Sir?”
Rafiq was snapped out of his thoughts.
“Stop
that line of thought. You’re a soldier for Pete’s sake. This is what you’ve
been trained to do. So man up. Sofia will show you where the crew quarters are and
give you a tour of the ship.”
Sofia
gave a short sigh and got down from the crate.
“And
just for posterity, there’s the captain i.e. me, Bear Lagardy. Anyways, Sofia’s
gonna show you the weapons. Get used to the actual controls while we’re still
docked. This isn’t a simulation any more Rafiq. And one last thing, on my ship,
I demand absolute teamwork. Treat each other like family because all of our
lives are dependent on each other. You can forget rank on my ship but don’t
forget that. We clear?”
“Aye
aye, captain”, said Rafiq.
“C’mon
greenie. Let’s go”, called Sofia from near the door heading towards the inside
of the ship.
Rafiq
quickly followed her out of the cargo hold.
***
The
two of them walked through the narrow corridor of the ship. They soon passed a
door off to the left with the word pantry written on it.
Sofia
pointed while still maintaining her pace, “That there’s our pantry. We have
meals either in the crew quarters or we just grab some food and eat it on our
respective rooms. How good are you at repairing?”
Rafiq
was slightly confused at this sudden change in topic. “Uhm you mean like
repairing broken machinery?”
“Yeah.
Damaged systems or subsystems. Also, breaches.”
“Half-decent,
I guess. We’ve had classes on ship repair.”
“Did
the classes include repairing while being attacked?”
“Uhh
no.”
“Thought
so. Well I’ll help you out on the first few times. Specially with breaches. But
you better learn fast. Anyways, here we are to the cabins.”
They
both reached a set of double doors leading into a medium sized room, about half
the size of the cargo hold, housing 4 beds with 2 beds on each side, a large
mattress near the wall at the end and a cupboard.
“That
mattress is for Zekko, obviously. Pomeroy doesn’t actually need to lie down but
he does anyways.” Sofia pointed towards the cupboard. “You can drop off your
bags inside there. Forget the lockers at the academy. No private storage here.
Get used to it.”
“Right”,
replied Rafiq as he took off his rucksack and handbag and shoved it in the
cupboard.
“The bathroom’s over there”, Sofia spoke,
pointing towards a door a little ways ahead. “Remember, use the NACS for
cleaning. Don’t use water unless absolutely necessary. You need to change?”
“Uh,
no, I’m fine.”
“Good.
Remember, this is a ranger ship. We specialize in strategic clandestine guerrilla attacks. That means absolutely no official uniforms unless we're docked at a Federation base. Anyways, let’s continue with the tour.”
***
The
tour of The Space-Kite took about 20 minutes. Sofia tried her best to explain
everything to Rafiq, who listened intently and asked questions every so often
trying to take in as much information as he could. The two of them were now at
the weapons control room with Sofia showing Rafiq how everything worked with
the weapon auto-targeting and auto-charging system.
“…and
that’s about everything you need to know. Any questions?”
Rafiq
could tell that Sofia was getting fatigued. It was clear that she’s not used to
talking this much. He got a feeling that she’s more of an ‘actions-speak-louder’
kinda girl.
“Yeah,
you forgot to tell me the power level of the weapons. Also, I could see outside
that we have a Burst Laser Mk 2, Hull Laser Mk 1 and an Artemis. Is there
anything else?” Rafiq queried.
“No.
That’s all. We got level 5 weapons so we can power all of them. By the way,
I’ll be keeping a close watch on you for our first few encounters to see how
you’re doing and take over if you’re screwing up royally.”
Rafiq
turned back just in time to see Sofia smirk as she sat down on the extra stool.
He responded, “Thanks. I’ll try my best not to let you have that chance. What
happened to the previous weapons crew before you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Sofia
said, “Are you sure you wanna hear it? It’s kinda terrifying and I don’t want
you to have nightmares before even getting to the battlefield.”
Rafiq
replied, “I had a feeling you were going to say something like that. No. I’m
not sure. I might get nightmares, yes, but I think I should know. So I can try
my best to avoid meeting the same fate.”
Sofia
looked at Rafiq. It was clear he was trying to show his best game face but was
scared inside. She found herself somewhat impressed by the spunk of this
newbie. Zekko was right. She gave a sigh. “Okay. I did warn you.”
“We
were facing this large mantis ship. They had fried our weapon systems. But our
last Artemis shot managed to take down theirs so they weren’t going to damage
us either. It was a stalemate. And then we got boarded. 2 mantises, Zekko and I
can handle. But this time there were 4, at once. Zekko and I managed to trap 3
of them in our medbay, holding them off from running to other parts of the ship.
But a lone mantis managed to break through the door to the weapons bay.”
“Sean
was busy repairing. I guess since the rooms outside were vented to space, he
expected the mantis to die before breaking through. By the time we were done
with 2 mantises and finishing off the 3rd we heard his scream from
the weapons bay. I quickly ran over leaving Zekko to take care of the 3rd
one. When I reached the weapons bay, I saw the mantis remove his claw from a
gaping hole in Sean’s back. Pomeroy also entered the room from the door on the
other side. Then the mantis turned to me and laughed. The bitch laughed.” Sofia
punched her knee in anger.
“I
lifted my gun and so did Poms but the bugface disappeared, teleporting out.
Neither of us could get a shot in. I grabbed Sean and felt no pulse. I told
Pomeroy to repair the weapons and carried Sean to the medbay. Zekko was on his
way out when I ran in the medbay and laid Sean on the table and started pumping
adrenalin in him. Didn’t work. He was already dead. The mantis stabbed right
through his heart. He probably died before I even reached the room.”
Rafiq
was speechless. Sofia was right. That was a horrible way to go. He asked in a
raspy voice, “Did you get them?”
“You
bet we did. The mantis scout was trying to jump away but Sean had managed to repair
the weapons to level 1 before going down and Poms fired an Artemis as soon as it
charged up and blasted the mantis’ cockpit. Bear told me to leave Sean and help
Poms with repairs. I did. We quickly patched up the controls and used a burst
laser volley to take down their shields, followed by the hull laser to crack
the scout wide open.”
Rafiq
listened intently and was about to speak when the captain’s voice came over the
intercom, “Listen up crew, we just got our assignment. We’re heading to the
Sedocho sector. Everyone prep your respective systems. We leave in 10 minutes.”
Sofia
stood up from the stool, “Well, enough flashbacking. I’ll go doublecheck the
life support.”
“I
can go check the doors and sensors.” Rafiq volunteered.
Before
Sofia could say anything, Pomeroy entered the room and responded, “Not
required. Doors control and Sensor status, 100% percent. All external doors’
status, closed.”
Sofia
chuckled, “Well no arguing with an engi on that. You just sit tight and run a
diagnostic on the weapons. I’ll be right back.”
Rafiq
ran a short diagnostic on the weapons, powering them up and depowering them.
Sofia got back soon and took her seat on the stool. Soon enough, the captain’s
voice came over the intercoms, “Alright crew, we’re undocking. This is it Private
Zardari. Welcome to the frontlines of the Federation-Mantis War.”
The
ship shook slightly as it undocked from Signovia. The thruster rockets carried
them to the FTL beacon near the station. Soon came the ‘ding’ sound that Rafiq
would soon grow accustomed to, indicating the FTL drive becoming fully charged.
Lagardy’s
voice came over the intercom again, “Prepare for FTL jump in 4. 3. 2. 1. Here
we go.”
The
Space-Kite disappeared in a bright flash near the FTL beacon.
Footnote:
NACS: Non-Aqueous Cleaning System-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
