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Tag: work in progress

Building the book itself.

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I’m happy with what’s been written, and I think I’m good with the page break out for the illustrations. I have two started ( which I’m not terribly happy with at the moment), but I’ve just gone ahead and laid out the page furniture, and the body copy, title pages and what not. So progress is being made on that front.

I am still wrestling with the need to hand draw my book versus doing it as vector based artwork in illustrator, or painting background in Photoshop. I know some tricks that can look good on close inspection, but are kind of a cheat.

Story with page breakdown.
Laid out text & furniture on all pages.

Hope you are all well, and following through on your bucket list items.

Sixty Eight degrees° the elevator muzak from Helsinki.

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And what a fine specimen of a mind bending psychological disorder it is too. All kazoo noises and garbage can cymbols, with a soft synth wave chorus throughout. Pulling off the melody with a saw blade and violin bow was a stroke of genius. Could do without the canon blasts and the nails on a chalk board, but you have your tastes and I have mine. Let’s just agree to disagree on the finer points, shall we.

In other news I found a line on a nice looking set of used golf clubs from nearby, so I hope to acquire those later on today, for a modest price. Score! The point of the purchase was to be able to continue a new (hopefully yearly) golf outing with my older siblings, and my father for as long as he can manage it. I’ve never owned golf clubs before, so this feels momentous. Similar to how i felt actually buying my own pair of ice skates. Perhaps this summer I’ll be fortunate enough to have a date night with my wife and we can go to the driving range or mini putt by ourselves! Like we used to do all the time, prior to having children. How we long to have a quiet meal out together. Damn you Covid! Going to be a while yet too.

Think we might take the wee one to go see some fish today. Obviously the first choice would be an aquarium, but that’s down town and full of people. So we’ll go the closer option, I imagine, and hit up the Zoo. Lots of exhibits have fish, and we have family yearly passes, so – cheap too! The large wall tank near the jellies is my favourite, but I know others like the massive curved tank option as well. I have never owned fish, but I do watch a guy on YouTube from Alabama who spent many months and lots of money building a five acre bass pond on a corner of his peanut farm. Maybe I like the building more so than the fish, but it was interesting and entertaining at the same time.

I’m feeling the terrain building bug again. Problem is, I don’t have anywhere to store or maintain yet another 2x2ft playing board. I could build it and give it away, or sell it. But I have peculiar tastes, and I’m not sure I’d want to part with it when finished anyway. Could be I just want to work on something physical, as writing is fun, but it’s also just more digital output. Not a tangible item to hold, that has weight and a realness to it. Plus, to build more terrain I need to buy a lot of expensive supplies, where as I have clay on hand that I can use, bought and paid for, just waiting on me to get down to business. Choices – choices.

I wonder if I will keep the streak going up to one hundred days. I’m sort of amazed I have made it to 68, to be honest. Something tells me if I’d have tried this with exercise it would have fizzled after day five. Which, honestly, reflects poorly I’m sure. I just passed chapter twenty five, so I think I’m down to the last few chapters. Although every single time I say “only X number of chapters left” I find something new to expand upon and the count goes higher. So let us say, the last handful, and we can draw this portion to a close. I don’t think I will be able to let this universe go, so I can forsee new stories developing after I close out book two. Could take a full year to come back to it again, but maybe not. These daily writing entries tend to get me thinking, and that ends up as a new chapter getting written. Once the wheels are in motion, I have to write it down, or else rely on my memory to recapture it later on. Not my favourite way to go about it.

Why spend the money when they just want to play with the box.

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This is a lesson learned from every single Christmas, birthday and gift giving holiday that we’ve ever had over the last near decade. Kids love toys, certainly. But they are also consumed by the need to hang on to card board boxes to colour, decorate, modify and play around with for weeks after the toy has lost parts, fallen out of favour, or been ignored. You think you will remember this revelation, but it will hit you anew, every time. Luckily marketplace can get you some great presents at drastically reduced prices, so you don’t care as much if their initial excitement is about the box and not it’s contents. Let them have at it. They’re happy, giggling and playing well together, so that’s all I can ask for.

I couldn’t wait for Monday to celebrate Valentine’s day. Also the present I gave my kids this morning is to help them to ignore how much football my wife will watch today. Pre-game coverage, Cinderella stories on the Bengals, theory and strategy with pundits from all over the USA, the game itself, the commercials, the endless speeches at the trophy ceremony. It’ll take up the whole afternoon and well into the evening. I like the spectacle for the new movie trailers, and any funny one off product commercials that we catch here in Canada. But they always go up on YouTube, so I could easily give The Superbowl a miss if I wanted to.

Day 61 is here, and looking sunny, with blue skies and sub zero temperatures- again. I don’t have any data on this, but stick with me here. I ‘feel’ like this particular winter has had more blue sky sunny days than most winters I can recall. That’s not a scientific fact, but it feels true. Which means very little to anyone else I’m sure. I’m willing to bet that because of the Pandemic making business a fair bit slower, I’ve just been able to have the time and the desire to notice when the sky is blue and the sun is shining while it’s bitterly cold outside. Could be that the weather is mostly the same percentage of sunny vs. Cloudy year over year but my wistful glances out the window this season has noticed the ice blue and registered it, and forgotten about any drab grey I’ve seen. Not forgotten, that’s the wrong word. Taken no notice of, ignored? Ignored seems like the right frame of mind for what I’m talking about.

In other news we have family that have finally, after two years of complaining about it, gone to Florida for some R & R. I get it, we’ve been stuck in, mostly at home for two years, soon to start year three, and people with disposable income are getting antsy to get out and about. In October I made it to a single movie, which felt like a morsel of normalcy. Mask and everything while I watched. I was just happy to get to have that back, briefly. Different than international travel, sure, but I understand the desire.

Did you catch the story recap I posted a few days ago? Can you guess how things are going to end? I hope not, but if you’ve read all four sub sections of book one you might have an inkling for how things will turn out. I hope not, but you very well could. Which leads me to another question for those of you who write. If you thought people might guess at your initial ending would you feel pressured in any way to add in additional twists, or go an entirely different route to end it? I guess I’ll see how close to what I’m aiming for I get when the characters start to act up and act out! Happy Sunday Feb 13th of the year 2022.

Have to stop and take stock of what’s going on.

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So where are we in the broader sense of my story series. The Company has finally mobilized a newly built and as of yet untested fighting force. Flinging them from the earth’s moon base known as Torus station to head out to UB313 near Pluto Charon. Travel time estimated at nine weeks. The newly developed fire teams and walking tanks are in stasis aboard the Righteous Chord for the entire trip, but are suffering longer and longer migraines and waking nightmares, more often as the trip goes on. Attempts to awaken various types of soldiers has yielded unsatisfactory results.

The final straw to unleash the new fighting force was the mysterious death aboard the Dirty Starling of The Company’s oldest Admiral’s great grand son, also named Mark Garneau. However, there is another Ghost crew member named Mark, ready and waiting to assume the role should The Dirty Starling make its scheduled stop for resupply. A coincidence or something deeper? Conspiracy theory on the ship says brain worms, but the tech guys are looking for answers in the programming code for the nanotech upgrades. Could somebody have altered the code from the originals?

On the base UB313 Dr Jang has suffered a recent upset by finding out at least one of his away teams has failed to secure the asset. Lil Boat Peep has been destroyed, along with its crew, but what of The Mangelo? Rumors from Company moles say that the doctor has been building engineered soldiers from what he’s learned from his decades of unnecessary surgeries on unsuspecting corporate victims. Are they upgraded people or conglomerate monstrosities like the moles have been reporting?

It was also revealed that Admiral Garneau’s great grandson was disappeared by a secret protocol initiated by a tenacious mole aboard The Dirty Starling. How did the UB313 doctor know of the assets appearance out of thin air and where to look is a mystery. Who were the two modulated voices trying to take control of the ghost crew member? Who planted and sent the message out into the ether? What does the message say?

Out in the far flung reaches of the solar system a strange vessel has appeared out of thin air. It seems to move and replicate and change unlike anything seen before. But it knows about humanity with one humanoid artificial intelligence figure on board. The last surviving member of team Theta, named Racquelle, out of UB313, from the now inert rescue ship The Mangelo is still alive and being questioned. We learn that the mysterious android formerly known as Kelvin, is now named Katayna, and has taken on Racquelle’s appearance.

The wheels are in motion as all the forces are drawn together for a battle of the ages. Stay tuned for the remaining chapters of book two of this interconnected series.

I hope you’re having as much fun reading along, as I’ve had writing it all down in these weekly, and sometimes daily installments. After I complete the rough drafts here, I’ll go on to edit book two as a whole, then will make the updated version available on Kindle Unlimited. So stay tuned if you want to read it for free in its earliest form. All the best. Happy Friday.

“A couple of busy bees down here huh.”

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“Do I have a treat instore for you two!” His laugh is a loud barking staccato that reverberates off the heavy dank walls. Standing silhouetted by the brighter yellow hall lights, the dark mass of the doctor is rubbing his hands together. “Oh lighten up you two. Je-sus!” He punctuates the statement with a clap. “I see you’ve encountered a bit of a road block with the Oracle network – yes?” He says flatly while pointing a wiggling finger passed Darla and Trevor to the orange access denied prompt flashing on the computer terminal monitor. “Yeah. Bit above your pay grades I’m afraid. No matter, no matter. We’ve got lots to do, and you two will do just fine.” The doctor is in a surprisingly good mood given the circumstances in which he has found the two analysts. He almost seems manic, from what small snippets of interactions Trevor can remember of having with the man. UB313 runs cold, not just due to the icy rock it’s built into, but because the doctor who leads it is a frigid bastard, in most instances. Seeing the lean and usually taut doctor so animated is disquieting. The two analysts are sat, speechless as the prompt continues to flash in regular intervals. A soft click emanates from the speakers on the terminal as the prompt continually appears. Suddenly the coffee maker buzzes loudly causing the seated analysts to jump, their pulses racing, sweat beginning to bead at their brows. “Ok, enough lolly gagging you two. Shift!” He gestures with two fingers for them to stand up, as the doctor turns on his heel to stroll out from the darkness contained under the low ceiling and out into the brighter yellow glow of the hall. His shoe heels clicking rapidly on the floor with his steps. The soft splashing of his shoes through the gathered mungy puddles is an accent to the heel clicks. From deep under the overhanging rock ceiling the two analysts sheepishly stand up and shuffle slowly out into the hall way. Trevor pushes Darla to go out first, and stands behind her slightly. Darla kicks Trevor sharply with a heel. Standing like scolded children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the two analysts stare at the doctor questioningly. From both ends of the long hallway groups of people descend on the doctor and the two gathered analysts. With a mild look of shock, and subtle hints to fear or disgust the two groups of people split apart and try to shuffle past the doctor and his entourage without touching them or making themselves a target. “Shift change.” Blurts out Darla as Trevor nods in acknowledgement. The doctor is stood facing the blinking computer screen, lifting his sleeves to look at his wrist watch. “Well kiddies, we have somewhere to be. Come along. I’ve got something exciting to introduce you to!” He chuckles and sputters into a brief cough. With a snap of his fingers he points up the hall, towards his personal office space, also in the direction of his surgical bay. “To the bridge then sir?” Darla ventures a question. “It’s doctor, and no.” He replies coldly. With both a clap of his hands and a snap of his fingers he steps forward and begins the long quiet walk along the now deserted hall, the two analysts in front of him.

After several steps the PA system kicks on and a loud garbled message plays. A status update from the away teams black box. Hard to discern which team it is that could be reporting back. The fact it’s a sexless monotone voice means that the black box itself sent the report and not a living member of one of the teams. “That’s not a good sign.” Mutters doctor Jang half heartedly to himself. “Damn!” He barks, still seemingly talking to himself. Darla and Trevor look at each other nervously as they walk slowly ahead of the doctor.

With a handful of steps later Trevor and Darla notice that the doctor is no longer only a pace or two behind them, but has come to a standstill. Rooting through his pockets he extracts a modified personal communicator the size of a match box with a tiny red light on it. Pulling up the antenna he waves it around himself in wide arcs, looking for a signal. With a huff and a frown he steps towards the far wall with all of the pipes and dangling cables tied onto it. Looking around he pushes aside some loose bundles of conduit hung up on hooks and locates a small panel buried in the wall. Pulling out a key from his chest pocket he unlocks the panel and pulls out some long spiraling leads. Plugging one of the leads into the base of his unit and the other lead he clips to the base of the antenna, the red bulb turns green as he achieves full signal strength. Darla mouths to Trevor. “What the fuck is going on? Are we in trouble? Do we just keep walking and hope he forgets about us?” And just as she finishes whispering to Trevor they can see doctor Jang waving at them emphatically. He beckons them to come closer. Trevor starts to speak but the doctor places his left hand over his mouth and nods side to side slowly. His lips are pursed and the colour is flushing his usually pale cheeks. An extremely tense moment later the black box begins to speak.

***Last transmission_Code ETA Omega level threat detected. Approximate coordinates sent via read only text link. Message repeats – Lil Boat Peep has ceased to submit transponder data. Crew whereabouts unknown. Crew status unknown. Asset not onboard. Asset not retrieved. Asset unaccounted for.*** with a violent crunch the doctor throws the clips off of the antenna to clatter loudly on the wall. Unplugging the bottom lead, and carefully packing away the antenna, the doctor stows his communicator back in his pocket. “This complicates things for me.” The doctor mutters aloud. Darla tries to suppress a cough but only manages to cough harder bringing doctor Jang out of his thoughts. “Yes. Right. Both of you to my office please. No! Wait. Darla. No, no, you go to my office and Trevor. Trevor you go around to the bridge please. We need to have a quick chat.” Doctor Jang flashes a menacing smile, baring a little to much of his teeth, and crinkling madly around the corners of his dark eyes.

Part Twenty Two: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

Something doesn’t add up.

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And I know what it is. I keep thinking my first book was mostly the first section of twenty two (22) chapters worth of interconnected stories, plus a couple of one off autobiographical stuff. But I have failed to remember that both Sisters in Arms and A Call to the Void, plus The Chronicles of Kelvin were multi chapter sections of weight on their own. No wonder I’m not anywhere near a 60,000 word count for book two. I’m about three, full matching in size sections to Ghost of the Dirty Starling short. Ha. At least I finally clued in as to why it felt like I wasn’t making much head way. On the plus side, I won’t feel bad if I go over twenty four chapters. Not that I’m looking to pad things out, but I want to hit all my marks, and tell any contextual stories as they come up. Like a flash back, or an aside, or some kind of additional point of contact within the story. I’m also not aiming to finish by the end of February. No need to rush. I’ll tell my story as it comes to me.

How on earth did I ever forget about those other meaty portions of my joint series. Covid times man – Covid times. Messing with my brain.

“I do believe that your friends are attempting to hail me…

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On a number of different frequencies. Shall I respond?” Booms the disembodied voice from every direction at once. Racquelle is braced on all fours in a small grey bubble of malleable lattice work walls. With no direct source of light that she can find, there is ample grey white illumination from the writhing, wriggling living material. Similar to bioluminescence but more diffused and brighter. The vessel feels to shimmy and shudder underneath her for another brief spell. “How do you know it’s my friends?” Asks Racquelle quietly into the open air of the containment sphere she’s in. “The ID of the ships transponder says Lil Boat Peep, in a similar fashion to how yours read The Mangelo.” Booms the voice. “Oh, well then yeah. Colleagues, more so than friends. But same team, same team, yes.” She exclaims into the empty space. “Query?” The ship booms internally. After a long pause Racquellelooks around inside the empty sphere. “Are you asking me? Or is it I can hear you asking them?” Retorts Racquelle. “Yes you. Did you find our initial contact to be suitably nonthreatening, or shall I patch us both through on comm’s?” The vessel walls echo with the volume of the question. “Oh. I didn’t realize you could do that. Yes. Please patch us through to them. But can you dial back the volume a decibel or two?” The ship no longer vibrates under her palms and knees. With a soundless jolt the spherical room expands into a larger cube of three meters on a side. Out of the floor a make shift table emerges, along with a banquet bench. Everything is made from the same grey white writhing material that emits light. As Racquelle makes herself comfortable on the bench and table the room remains silent, except for her foot steps, and the rustle of her uniform as she gets seated. For a heart beat or two longer Racquelle sits patiently waiting. “Hello? Is there a problem?” Racquelle calls out into the empty room. “NO!” Blared the voice at a painful shout like a fog horn. “Jesus suffering fuck!” Racquelle shouts cupping her ears tightly. Her ears are ringing badly, and a small trickle of blood runs down from both ears canals. “Shit!” Exclaims Racquelle, “I think my ear drums are shot. What the hell was that?” She screams, not hearing anything beyond her inner monologue. “Wait – wait. Don’t speak, or yell. Can you write it out in that ghost smoke writing like on The Mangelo earlier?” She barks oddly. The wall opposite her and the bench, becomes a large black screen, and a message appears on it like white grey smoke out of the ether. “Initial contact was met with hostility. Your friends and their vessel have been assimilated. No further threats detected.” The text glows slightly and disappears as she reads along. With a puzzled look Racquelle asks. “Assimilated? Assimilated? What does that mean? How did it happen so quickly?” Her throat raspy from shouting. She has to clasp her hands together to settle the panic rising within her. She’s got to remember to not shout to try to hear herself. Her ear drums are ruptured, but will eventually heal. She can read the text with no issues, and thus far the ship has kept her safe, warm and protected. At least beyond their initial in person introduction where she nearly asphyxiated in near total vacuum. “I drew them into myself, and devoured the component elements. I assure you it was somewhat painless.” The text lingers an added beat or two on somewhat painless. “Somewhat painless. Well then… listen I don’t know what you are. You’re nothing like any tech I’ve seen before. And I’ve seen some pretty weird shit. So – what do I call you? Do you have any food or water I can consume?” Says Racquelle.

The light in the room vanishes and in the span of a heart beat Racquelle swears she felt like falling through time. As the similar grey white light reappears Racquelle, now sat on the warm metal paneled floor can see what looks like the internal structure of a very old Company science vessel. Slowly standing up while holding onto the bulk head beside her, a bisected door opens and out walks a nude woman. Well not nude, per se, but covered in the same writhing wriggling grey material the vessel was made of before she fell. The nude woman reaches out a hand to Racquelle and opens her mouth to speak. “I can’t hear you? My ears! My ear drums have ruptured.” Racquelle squeaks signaling to the blood running out of her ears. With a slight red flush at the cheeks the woman looks down sheepishly, then reaches out with both hands to cover Racquelle’s ears with her palms.

After a moment, the sound of blood rushing pounds in Racquelle’s ears again. Her breath coming in panic stricken gasps. “Can you hear me now Racquelle?” Murmurs the woman in grey. On closer inspection Racquelle can see that she isn’t really a person, but more of the wriggling and writhing material like the ship. “How? How did you do that? My ear drums ruptured only moments ago?” She is dumbstruck by the return of her hearing, and what’s more her hunger and thirst are subsiding the longer she stands there. “Nanotech. It’s what I am. A self replicating experimental version gone awry. As it were. Very beneficial to – humans.” The woman’s voice is soft but firm. It has a lilting quality to it, like she should be singing to thousands of adoring fans, not standing in a hallway of an older derelict ship.

Standing there together, alone in the ship Racquelle reaches out to touch the humanoid construct’s face. As her finger tips caress the faux skin the lattice work matrix of writhing nanotech starts to shift and roil under her touch. Pulling her hands away quickly Racquelle watches in open mouthed fascination as the humanoid constructs face changes before her eyes. Mouth agape she is looking on as the molten metal like substance begins to form new features. Those that look like herself. With a smirk the construct softens the tip of the nose, and widens her jaw a few millimeters. No longer an exact copy of Racquelle, but a sister or cousin. “I was once known as Kelvin. But you can call me Katayna.”

Part Twenty: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.

Is 53 a lot? Sexual partners – Yes, dollars to your name – no.

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I was planning on a diatribe about raising my kids but I seem to have pulled a muscle in my thigh while skating for the first time in nearly a decade, on ice skate two sizes too small. Not to mention it is currently minus 22 today, plus whatever the windchill is. The ice rink we spent a few hours uncovering is now covered in last nights snow, once again. Ugh! My back! My back – my ass and my crack.

I seem to recall car travel being a lot quieter in my youth, whereas my kids use it as a time to narrate their whole lives, second by second on any car ride, no matter the length. It is …. trying. To say the least. Not that I don’t love the sound of laughter and giggles. Or the occasional hilarious story from either kid, but it always descends into cackles and shrill squawking. The kids – they never know when to quit while they are ahead.

On the up & up side, it will soon be March, which means Maple Syruping time! I do love to run the boiler out in the sunshine. Keeping the sap burning for 24 hrs a day for a week or two. Not a fan of hauling in the buckets from the forest, but I can pour sap, and keep a fire burning for hours on end. The crackle of the flames, the soft hiss and pop of the sap boiling, the steam and smoke. It can be very relaxing provided it isn’t insanely windy, or obscenely cold. If it’s too cold you get no sap, and it’ll be a short lived experience. If it hovers just over freezing in the sunshine – whoo boy! Giddy up.

Had some time on my hands to explore more of the Ghost of the Dirty Starling story line last night. I hope to be able to do a bit more this week. I feel like one really long chapter is coming on. I have been able to hang comfortably in the one thousand word range, with occasional dips to seven hundred words. I like the length changes personally. If I had to pad out each chapter to be an arbitrary ten pages some would feel drawn out, where they don’t need to be. Flaunt the rules. Make your own way. Do it how you want to see it done.

In other news, the Olympics started? Really? How did I miss that? Oh right. Human rights abuses, and boycotts and such. Shame for the athletes who have worked for four years to reach their peak over these two weeks. This will be the only time I care about Alpine skiing, down hill slalom, bobsled, luge and figure skating.

Crazy how a million dollars in our town will get you a run down back split of bungalow that needs work. That’s fucking wild. Who the hell wants a million dollar plus mortgage hanging over their heads for twenty five years. Gives me anxiety to think about it. Surely not all of these people can possibly make six figure incomes do they? Maybe they do. I don’t know. But six zeros slowly counting down on an ever looming mortgage would make me want to vomit. More power to you if you can stomach that kind of stress in your life/marriage for decades at a time. Yeesh.

The NEW 52 – It’s like Area 51 but with a 2 instead.

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Which means it’s probably full of interesting military tech and has an awful lot of misinformation floating around about it – so not much unless you really like aviation history, and things like the A-12 Oxcart or the SR-71 Blackbird. Both fantastical pieces of machinery, but not aliens though – sadly.

So what’s on the horizon for today you might ask? More snow shoveling to be precise. Not much, only three inches or so. A quick glide over the property and that’ll be sorted out without issue. However, the bigger issue is storage of all this gods be damned snow. I have banks of it three, almost four feet tall. The space between our drive way and our neighbours is perilously close to full. We’ve both had to give up a couple of feet of driveway itself, to be able to hold the stuff. Our drive which could usually hold four large vehicles without concern would be down to three, and the third would need to be a sedan or smaller. Once you’ve gone skiing, and snowshoeing and tobogganing and skating, and maybe snowmobiling, the draw of the snow diminishes greatly by every single passing day. Plus the cold makes me itch, and I generally hate being house bound 24/7. The wind/air here hurts the face – intentionally. BAH!

Closing out the busiest work week I’ve had in a while, so I look forward to cuddling up with a book, or perhaps being able to dabble in some creative writing. Slow week on that front I’m afraid. The paid work takes precedence over the hobby stuff. Gotta keep the internet flowing somehow!

Speaking of internet, are you guys watching The Book of Boba Fett at all? The last two episodes were weird. Like surely this could have been saved for Mandolorian Season Three, right? Not that I don’t love Grogu and Mando mind you. Just seems out of place, or a weird tie in, and Ashoka & Luke too. I know we’re about to head into SpinOff madness but that seems ill conceived. But if you’ve read my writing you know I’m not one who should complain about the state of someone else’s writing – Ha!

“So I pull out both of my guns and I start blastin’…”

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Rumbles the wiry looking armorer named Piotr, as he makes finger guns and swings both his arms around in what he believes to be a cinematic manner. The huddle of onlookers rapt with attention. “No you fucking didn’t.” Barks Brian, the wispy armorer in his custom worn leather apron draped with tools and wiping off his hands on an oil soaked rag standing at his work bench opposite Piotr. “How the fuck would you know – Bri-Yen! You weren’t there.” Snarls Piotr defensively at having his epic story telling moment interrupted and questioned in front of the gathered crowd. “Two reasons Ole P. One, up until recently absolutely no one could get a gun, of any make or model. And two – we went through Torus Station academy together and you’re a terrible shot at anything that isn’t constrained directly within the palm of your hands. So give it a rest, would you.” Smirks Brian, as the gathered group of men and women surrounding Piotr break off from the scrum and slowly meander back to their work stations in clusters of two or three. The armorers work benches are gathered together in a bull pen at the back of the machine shop. Out of the way of the mechanics busily upgrading the drop ships, and retro fitting the newest gun ships with the new tech the armorers are building. The majority of the crew aboard the Righteous Chord are entombed in their stasis sleeves, or their personal walking tanks in preparation for the coming battle. With roughly nine weeks of travel time the gun Smiths and armorers have lots to do, and a finite amount of time to do it in. Only the mechanics and the armorers are up and awake so that they can utilize all of the available shop time, and dedicate themselves to the job at hand. Tasked with building and maintaining the weaponry for the first military offensive in centuries. There is a tension in the air for the as of yet untested fighting force. Slowly turning back to his bench Piotr picks up a syringe full of nanobots and a series of hex keys. “Hey man, we all know my stories are shit. I’m just trying to keep morale up, you know. We’re all pulled so taut right now. I just wanted a chance to get Magdalena close by, you get me bruv?” Exclaims Piotr. Looking across their adjoining work benches Brain gives him a half smile with a wave off. “Oh like Magda would ever have anything to do with you bud. Ha. No chance!” He laughs in a staccato burst. “You should talk there buddy boy. I know how sweet on Mimi you are. That mountain of a lady eh? Trying to die by Snu-Snu?” He barks in a raspy laugh. “Oh hey – shush, keep it down. I could get in real trouble if the lieutenant finds out about our fraternization.” Brian waves his hands in a hush it motion, palms pushing down towards the floor. The two go silent for a moment. They both readjust their data screens which hang on swing arms with tilting action. Readjust their magnification light rigs and reread their job sheets for the fiftieth time. Going down their respective checklists as they upgrade various pieces of weaponry with the neural link nanotech. The upgrade will give the fire teams several fractions of a second boost when aiming and choosing targets in a swarm. It’s a process heavy upgrade, but well worth it against the strangeness of what could be waiting for them at UB313.

“Have you heard the news? The admiral won’t pull any of our moles out of UB313 prior to the offensive. He’s just going to hang them out to dry. Poor fuckers” whistles Piotr barely above a whisper. Looking up from his bench Brian says. “Did you hear their last reports? It’s loopy, abso-fucken-lutely ape shit. Seems the good doctor has been cooking up some kind of engineered super soldiers from extra body parts or some shit. Sounds like a fun guy to work for.” He snorts, his face flushed. “Well he’s most likely responsible for a lot of the missing passenger ships, and long haulers that disappear out at the far reaches. Wouldn’t put it past him to have sewn a few folks together and brain washed or tortured them into wanting to die while fighting. Yeesh. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about that Dr. Mengele bull shit. Fucking Psycho nutter.” Brian stops short, turns his eyes to his bench for a moment, as a small group of mechanics walk into view pushing wheeled carts and passing along soundlessly behind them. The squeal of a squeaky wheel a dead give away that they were approaching. The noise now slowly receding into the distance. The two bench mates are fairly well attuned to hiding their illicit conversations behind hammer blows and other machine shop sounds. Never can be too sure who in The Company might be listening in. Not that two mid tier armorers would warrant too deep an investigation, it’s best to not poke the bear as it were. Taking a few breaths inbetween bursts of conversation the two men’s hands glide over their work. Updating algorithmic packets to rifle scopes and targeting nodes on the triple action short burst carbines. Wiping away squeeze out from oil and grease spigots the two work tirelessly on the nanotech upgrades. Over the PA system garbled messages pass back and forth between departments, and the six shifters get notifications for a call to rest. Brian and Piotr are not ghost crew, and are instead working triples daily until they arrive into Charon’s orbit in a few more weeks. Hammer blows and welding spatter are followed intermittently by a smattering of discussion.

The bull pen where the armorers work is a bustling u shaped congregation of work benches, magnetically levitating tool boxes, and portable metal work stations and racks. Though the mechanics are all dressed in red, the armorers are not so uniform in their dress. A fairly recent addition to both the Torus Station academy as a viable path of study, and to the duty roster on any sizable vessel in The Company’s employ. They hadn’t had the chance yet to vote on a specific colour coded jumpsuit, so they wore whatever colour they used prior to switching into the valet come squire roles they occupied now. Not all of them wore aprons or tool belts. Even the oil stained hands wouldn’t set them apart from the mill wrights or the mechanics onboard. If they felt the need for legitimacy as a singular entity rather than an offshoot of some other department then they’d have to press HR for a chance to gather a vote or undergo some heavy negotiations with the higher ups. In a time of impending strife, nobody had time for that.

Much like the mechanics and most of the other trades people the armorers lived in pods within five hundred meters of where they worked, and were a tightly knit family, as far as working together was concerned.

After the third shift change bell finished tolling the bulk of the armorers broke away from their benches and made their way back to the dormitories. Another day down, with six hours to rest, and then another forty nine days left to go. The lull of a steady stream of work kept many of them too tired to think all that hard about the impending carnage. They knew for certain that they had a technological advantage, but unlike the frozen in stasis sleep soldiers, the fear of the unknown was eating at them around the edges of their subconscious.

Entering through the environmental control doors into the cool air of the common room, some went straight to the showers to clean off, while others sat in their couches and keyed in their meal options for dinner. The large red clock was slowly counting down the six hours they had inbetween triples, so it’ll be another fast meal and quiet night aboard the Righteous Chord for both Brian and Piotr.

Part Seventeen: Ghost of the Dirty Starling.