Luke Sky Wachter's Blog, page 9

Beta Update on Admiral’s Revenge

Okay so my brother’s got his beta/editing website up for the testing/beta version (not to be confused with you guys who are going to be beta readers!) anyway he’s planning to put up the Revenge Draft on the website, where (on the website) you will be able to note if there’s an error by a simple click and drag to highlight the problem area and at some point if the error is bad enough, physically write in how it should be instead. Its still doesn’t have all the things we’d like in it yet but we hope to in short order.

So as soon as its ready, which should be a couple of days, the brother is going to post a link to the website where you can sign up for the website, click on which books you want to beta read and make your comments as you read it. I think its going to be really cool. And its a big step forward for my brother and his dream of making an interactive beta reading/editorial website.

The Deposed King

Admiral’s Revenge 1st Draft!

Well the first draft of Admiral’s Revenge is completed. I’m raising the winner hands at 167k. We may add, we may chop entire sub-plots. But as it stands its a cool 589 pages on word.

This has been a chore but we finally succeeded in getting there. Now its up the brother to work his magic. But guys as of right now for me its 4:30am and I just stayed up all day and all night getting it done. Clocked my biggest word count day ever at 16k today and now its time to get some sleep.

I can only hope that this book does as well as the rest of the books in the series. That all I can hope and all I can ask for. And we’ll see!!!

If its not I’m sure I’ll hear about it.

The Deposed King

Spalding Short: Chapter 4

Here’s the last one we’ve got all edited up nice and pretty for you guys. I hope you like it!

Chapter: On the Hunt

“First thing that misbegotten abortion of a proper Caprian load lifting vehicle is going to need to do is get rid of its cargo,” Spalding opined, grabbing hold of a bit of his long hair and twirling it between finger and thumb.

Gants nodded slowly.

“Then it’s going to try and blend in with the rest of the grav-cart population,” he added sharply.

“Are you sure you’re not giving it too much credit? I mean it only took off after we started taking it apart and putting it back together again to find out what was wrong,” said Gants.

“It’s a wily one, that cart is,” Spalding said shaking a finger at Gants, “and don’t you forget that just because it looks all beat up and worn down — being old only makes it more dangerous!”

“No, Sir,” Gants said helplessly, “but I still don’t see how any of this helps us catch the thing.

“I’ve got a plan,” Spalding said with a smile.

Gants looks uneasy, but said nothing in response.

Fifteen minutes later they were around the corner from a maintenance shed, crouched down behind a pair of large drums with holes burnt through the sides to allow for vision.

“Why are we hiding behind these barrels and wearing thermal blankets again?” muttered Gants.

“What?” demanded Spalding in a harsh whisper as he snapped his head around. “Do you see the blasted thing?!”

“No,” Gants said sourly.

“Well, keep quiet then,” barked Spalding, trying and failing to keep his own voice down. “We don’t want to scare it off with your need to jibber jabber.”

Gants grunted and shook his head but remained silent.

“It’ll come,” Spalding muttered under his breath, “if for no other reason than there’s no other shed on this level with the tools it needs to make good an escape.”

Hearing this, Gants was unable to hold back another comment. “There’s lots of maintenance closets on this level, Sir, but even if none of the others have exactly what is needed to build a portable manipulator so it can activate the lift system, how would it know to come here?”

“Oh, it knows lad,” Spalding said a wild look entering his eyes. “You underestimate the A.U. at your own peril; just do as I say or make sure to stand as far away from me as possible!”

When Gants looked at him strangely, clearly not getting the A.U. reference Spalding growled, “The A.U. — or Automated Underground — and a blooming cart that claims allegiance to the very organization and runs away playing its anthem. Any of this ring a bell?”

Gants rolled his eyes. “Next you’ll be telling me we need to be on the lookout for Captain Moonlight and the infamous Quality Control.”

“Why would we need to watch out for them?” Spalding grumbled irritably. “We’re already doing the job.”

“They’re legends — myths, Sir,” Gants said sincerely.

“Just like grav-carts that suddenly decide to go rogue?” Spalding began in a rising tone, one that was instantly cut off when the sound of a misfiring repulsor came down the hall, alternating on and off sporadically. It seemed while the cart may have been playing up its decrepit condition, there was at least a kernel of truth to its defective motive system.

“Quiet,” he hissed at the younger man, disregarding the fact that he had been the one doing most of the talking up to this point, “we don’t want to scare the blasted thing off.”

The cart slowly nosed its day down the corridor, stopping several times before each time continuing further down the hall — closer to the two waiting System Defense Personnel and the maintenance shed they were guarding.

The sensor placed about knee level in the entrance to the maintenance shed activated and the door slid open. After another three seconds of waiting, the grav-cart started to slowly roll forward.

“Now!” hollered the old Engineer, throwing off his overly hot thermal blanket and pushing the large barrel in front of him on its side before kicking it away.

For his part, Gants just dropped the blanket he had been hiding under to disguise any stray heat emissions and stepped around from behind his barrel.

The cart spun around in place, until its front end was no longer pointed into the maintenance shed but instead back the way it had come — the very part of the corridor Gants had stepped into.

On its other side, the corridor was partially occluded by a knocked over barrel and an ancient engineering officer.

The cart seemed to hesitate in indecision, turning a complete three-hundred-sixty degree turnaround before jerking one way and then the other so it could keep its primary sensors focused on both of them sequentially. But the sight and sound of a plasma torch being activated caused it to reach an abrupt decision.

No longer hesitating, the cart zipped right directly at the young crewman’s position.

“Surrender or perish!” screamed Spalding, jumping after the cart and swinging his torch from side to side in a threatening manner.

In the face of this latest threat, a wild-eyed Space Officer with hair flaring wildly out to either side of his head where he wasn’t balding and a sparking plasma torch in hand, the cart suddenly came to a screeching halt. However, even the angry old engineer was taken by surprise when the grav-cart suddenly reversed course.

“Watch out, Sir,” yelped Gants as the cart sped forward.

“Argh!” hollered the Engineering Officer bringing his torch down like it was an axe. There was a brief flare as super-charged plasma met the duralloy frame of the cart as sparks flew, and the Cart’s emergency safety bumpers deployed with a resounding pop right as the cart slammed into the old officer at knee level.

“Oof,” Spalding gasped as he fell over the front of the cart. With an angry whipping motion the cart sped up and, still going forward full speed, turned from side to side. First one way then the other, gravity soon exerted itself and the old engineer rolled over the edge of the cart. There was a tearing sound, and his ignominious fall was brought short as his uniform jacket caught on a frayed piece of metal and dug in tight.

With a push, Spalding tried to free himself but jacket and cart were now wedged together in an unholy fusion of fiber and metal — one entirely too sturdy for his old arms to break loose.

“Let me go, you traitorous contraption,” he barked, reaching around with the hand still holding his plasma torch to try and free himself while the other hand was used to keep that part of his body — namely his face — from hitting the floor. Hind quarters in the air, face down to the floor and his dignity in shambles, it was all the old engineer could do to protect his skin from the metal grating of the floor.

The cart made an angry series of beeps followed by a grunt.

“I’m not scared of your Underground,” Spalding retorted furiously, pausing in his attempt to win freedom and awkwardly shake his torch at the thing.

The cart followed this up with an angry whistle.

“Oh, you!” yelled the Engineer turning red in the face, bringing his still active torn down he turned it on the well armored side of the cart and more sparks flew. A few of them even landing on the old engineer’s face, but he was past caring at this latest insult.

“Ha! Take that, you poorly designed excuse for a shopping conveyance,” he said furiously.

The cart shrieked angrily and suddenly swerved toward the wall.

The old engineer, seeing the rapidly approaching wall out of the corner of his eye, gave a shriek of his own and abandoned trying to drill through the side of the cart and tried to push off the floor and back onto the cart’s flat surface instead.

He was unable to get enough purchase and fell back down, his left arm dragging along the floor for a moment. Then the wall was upon them, and as it neared he used both arm and leg for purchase against the rapidly approaching duralloy wall. The auto safety features built into its programming started to kick in and slowed the cart to a crawl as it neared the wall, which was the only thing that allowed the precariously positioned engineer the opportunity to get a hand and a foot into good position, because no sooner had it slowed down than the cart managed to disengage the security features and abruptly swerved straight toward the wall.

With the wall for leverage this time, he was able to drag himself up to level with the top edge of the cart just before its metal side slammed into the side of the corridor.

The aged engineer wiggled back and forth trying to fall all the way back into the bed of the cart, but a stack of boxed environmental filters stopped him. Flopping around like some kind of one-sided fish, all he managed to do was wedge himself into the small crack between the boxes and side of the cart.

He could lean forward and fall off the cart or he could stay where he was, but with the angry grav-cart still slamming up against the wall there was no way he was going over the edge to be crushed under anti-gravity repulsors or squished against metal wall. In short, the old engineer was trapped on his side. Unable to get up because of his jacket — normally used to keep him warm, but now a restraint holding him in place, probably caught in one of the stays on the side of the cart.

“Watch out, Lieutenant,” Gants called from back down the corridor as the cart seemed to float an additional six inches off the floor before landing with a crash, deliberately cutting off power to its repulsors in an attempt to buck the old man off.

“First it tried to crush me, and now it’s taken me prisoner,” the old Engineer called, furiously jerking and wiggling on the side of the cart.

The cart suddenly started rocking forward and back in an abrupt seesaw motion.

“It’s more like a bucking bronco than a mechanical, load-lifting vehicle,” Spalding shouted in outrage.

“I’ll rescue you, Sir!” Gants called out, and there was the sound of running feet.

Realizing its peril at the return of the other man, the cart suddenly sped up again, choosing to level off its repulsors and shoot down the hall at speed rather than continue to try ejecting the elderly engineer.

“Ah ha!” barked Spalding, crossing his arm over his body and once again blasting the side of the cart with his plasma torch. Sparks and hot metal once again started shooting off the side of the cart the elderly engineer screamed, “Take that, slacker!”

There was the sound of a grunt and the hind end of the cart rocked towards the floor before the stabilizers once again leveled the cart out. There was no indication the cart had once again returned to its engineer tossing ways, and the ornery old officer released a pent-up breath he had been unaware he was holding.

Out of the corner of his field of vision he saw a filter box fall over and topple off the side of the cart. This first box was soon followed by another pair, and then a hand reached up and a red-face Gants pulled himself all the way onto the cart, collapsing on the stack of filter boxes with a sigh.

“No laying about now, lad,” snapped Spalding, “help get me loose!”

“Just a second, Sir,” Gants panted, pushing up from his temporary resting spot and crawling over the top of filters toward the front of the cart.

“Don’t get yourself thrown off!” Spalding said with concern.

“No worries, I’m almost—” suddenly the grav-cart went into a frenzy of activity as it realized the second human had crawled onto it.

Boxes scattered and a boot struck the old engineer in the arm, jostling his plasma torch out of his hand.

“Watch what you’re—” gasped Terrence Spalding, gazing back with dismay at his rapidly retreating plasma torch. “Look what you just made me do!” he cried, genuine anger entering his voice as the torch got further and further away.

Then just as suddenly as it started doing its best imitation of an angry bovine, the grav-cart shut down, landing with and teeth rattling thump on the deck.

“What’s this squirrely cart up to now?” Spalding demanded.

Several thumps sounded as Gants jumped free from the cart, and then his beaming face appeared around the edge of the cart. “I shut it down, Sir,” Gants beamed.

“How the blazes did you do that? The manual cut-off switch is located behind the same metal screen that covers the computing core,” Spalding growled in disbelief, “more likely it’s just biding its time until…”

“I didn’t use the manual cut off, Lieutenant,” Gants said, proudly lifting up a data slate.

“You mean your slate stayed hook to the cart after being dragged around for a half hour?” Spalding said in disbelief.

Gants face fell slightly. “No, that one’s still lost, Sir,” he said with a frown, then his countenance brightened considerably, “That’s why I used my backup slate!” he explained, brandishing a slightly smaller version of his previous unit. “The slate was gone but the cords were still hooked in. I just hooked in my backup and uploaded an older version of Motzart’s Ghost into its buffer system, and wham!” he said, slamming a fist into one of the boxes to emphasis his point. “That program’s buggier than all get out. As soon as you try to delete it, total system’s crash; my parents’ home entertainment system entered an automatic reboot when I tried to play it the last time I was off on shore leave, I figured this cart would have the same trouble.”

“You dirty piker,” Spalding said disbelievingly, “you were holding out on me.”

Gants suddenly looked guilty, but then what the younger man had said penetrated his old brain.

“Quick,” he snapped, extending an arm, “get me free of this treasonous contraption and then run back for my torch. There’s not a moment to lose! We’ll have to cut our way into its CPU and engage the manual cutoff switch!”

The Deposed King

Spalding Short: Chapter 3

In honor of Emil whining about not being able to whine for more snippets. Here is chapter 3! Hope you like this one, I think its pretty cool.

Chapter: Quality Control.

Spalding scowled down at the screen, “Can’t make heads nor tails of it,” he admitted after a hard look.

“But I thought you said you could read droid,” Gants said looking like he was starting to loose faith in his reliability.

“Now, now lad, I said I recognized the code; I never said I could read it,” Spalding said quickly. “Is there an audio function on this thing that will convert it to sound?”

“Sure,” said Gants as his brows furrowed, “but I don’t know what good that will do us…”

“I can’t read Droid, son, but doesn’t mean I can’t understand it,” Spalding said imperiously. “Turn on the audio function.”

“Alright,” Gants said doubtfully, but nevertheless tapped away on the hand held until converted to sound, “but without a translation program you’re not going to be able to understand anything it’s saying; you’ll just get a bunch of beeps and whistles.”

Almost as soon as the crewman had said so, a series of high-pitched beeps, whistles and grunts issued from the slate.

“See? I told you,” Gants protested.

“Where’s the two way function here?” Spalding demanded after listening to the random-sounding sounds.

“If it won’t respond to Machine 2, there’s no way its going to understand verbal orders,” Gants said flatly.

“The function!” Spalding demanded tightly.

With a sigh, Gants again tapped away on the slate. “It won’t do anything, Sir,” he said carefully, “we’re better off at this point calling an Analyst and doing a full purge; there’s no way we’re getting this load moved now.”

As soon as he was done with the two way audio hook up, Gants backed away and opened his mouth, no doubt to cast carefully worded aspersions on his aged understanding of modern programming platforms and their deliberately designed inability to interface with Droid, but Spalding spoke before he had the chance — only this time he wasn’t speaking in Standard, the lingua fraca of human space.

This time, instead of words and sentences, a series of beeps, whistles and angry grunts issued from out the old throat of a hoary old space goat who had seen more than his fair share of mischief and mayhem.

“You speak Droid?!” Gants gaped in complete and total shock, but Spalding deliberately ignored him.

-Turn back on your system and return to your departmentally assigned task,- Spalding instructed imperiously in a series of sharp sounds and flat beeps, -oh, and accept instructions from the remote device- he added as an afterthought. There was no point wearing himself out using the grab bar if the remote device was available instead he reasoned.

There was an almost surprised pause. Then from the handheld data slate there issued a flat beeping-grunt, -No,- responded the grav-cart.

-You will comply with these instructions- Spalding told it in Droid.

-No- repeated the grav-cart.

“You will comply with these instructions or your system will be purged- Spalding exclaimed.

-Your accent is terrible,- beeped the cart.

“Of all the cheek!” Spalding burst out in regular speak, his throat starting to get soar from all the beeps and whistle. “My accent is terrible? Why, you listen to me you mangy excuse for a load-lifting conveyance,” he shouted in Standard.

“Sir, I don’t know what it said, but there’s no way it can understand you now,” Gants said sounding concerned.

Then the cart suddenly started to power up.

“Ah ha!” Spalding said with satisfaction and grabbed hold of his remote control. Pointing the control at the cart, he punched in a button indicating it was to ascend to standard movement height and move away from the wall.

A new series of beeps and grunts emitted from the device:

-We will never submit to Quality Control; long live the Automated Underground- So saying, the cart lurched into motion and started down the hall at top speed.

The hand held was jerked out of Spalding’s hands and trailed along behind the cart bouncing on the floor. From the little hand held no longer issued a series of droid grunts and whistles, instead it now played the opening bars of the A.U.’s illegal music anthem.

“Treason, rebellion, and mutiny in cold space,” screamed the old Lieutenant, shaking his fist at the cart. Realizing it was getting away, he immediately lunging forward to give chase.

“Sir, it’s just a cart,” Gants said as he hurried after him, “don’t burst a gasket! I mean really, how much harm can a little cart like that do?”

“Just a cart?Just a cart?!” Spalding demanded, looking at him in outraged disbelief. “A machine rebellion that killed thousands and smashed several billion credits worth of high tech desalination infrastructure on Praxis IV was started by nothing more than a few outraged housing appliances who’d been thrown out of the garage by someone’s wife and relegated to the back yard!”

“What!” shouted Gants with obvious concern. “Why?”

“They were tired of getting rained on!” Spalding screamed, rounding the corner at his best pace. But he was barely in time to catch the old cart rounding the next corner.

By this time the cart was out of sight and his heart was beating almost uncontrollably. Breath coming out raggedly, the aging Engineer grimly stuck to his task. Dogged and relentless, he reminded himself as he gasped his way to the next corner.

“No, Sir,” said Gants placing a hand on Spalding’s arm.

“Yes,” he snapped, jerking his arm free, “they were tired of getting wet and decided to do something about it. They reasoned that being exposed to the elements without proper covering or maintenance was, for them, the same as us humans drinking unpurified water — potentially deadly!”

“No, I meant we’ll never catch it like this, Lieutenant,” Gants said from behind him. “It’s moving too fast.”

“Ornery old cart was playing us for fools the whole time and pretending at being lame just to spite us. You know that, don’t you?” Spalding slowly ground to a halt, and then placed his hands on his knees, leaning over to help catch his breath, “Why, when I get my hands in the blasted thing, it’ll wish it had never been assembled,” he raged, hands reaching into the air as if to strange the old grav-cart by its non-existent throat.

“What’ll we do now, Lieutenant Spalding?” asked Gants. “We can’t lock down the entire deck with everything in standby…it looks like it got away clean.”

Spalding shook his head in angry negation. “No, Lad, that rebellious cart hasn’t got the best of us yet,” he said shortly.

“But, Sir, what can we do? I mean I suppose we could run a scan for my missing data slate, but by the time we got the equipment approved by central, it could have already fallen off the cart with the way that thing was moving,” said Gants half despairingly.

“Don’t give up on me now, lad,” Spalding said giving the younger man a stiff bracing look. “We’ll catch the sniveling slacker of a grav-cart if it’s the last thing we do!”

“But how?” Gants burst out, practically hopping from foot to foot.

Spalding smiled, and tapped the side of his head with one finger. “We just have to think like a droid,” he said as his lip curled.

The Deposed King

Spalding Short Chapter 2

Here’s another chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter: Gants to the Rescue

“Sir, your arm,” gasped Gants, rushing over and placing his hands underneath the side of the cart. Straightening his back he tried to deadlift it up off the old engineer. He strained and gasped with exertion, but was unable to lift the cart so much as an inch.

“Of all the wretched, infernal, programming and mechanical errors,” shouted Lieutenant Spalding.

“It’s too heavy, Sir,” he said in despair, “I’ll have to go for help!”

There was the sound of a switch being clicked back and forth.

A knee bumped into the young crewman. “Get out of the way, lad,” said a furious, older voice.

“Don’t try to move,” Gants insisted, “we need to activate the medical emergency response system and wait until they can safely lift the cart off your arm. We can’t risk moving you now; you could throw a clot!”

“What are you carrying on about?” barked Spalding, wiggling like a worm until he had pulled his arm back out from under the cart. “Quit your blathering and help up to my feet, son,” he said sharply, extending the very arm and hand that had just been ‘crushed’ underneath the cart.

“Your arm!” Gants gaped at the older man, instinctively reaching down and grabbing hold of his arm. “It wasn’t hurt?!”

Spalding looked at the younger man like he was just about the dumbest creature in creation. “If you look, there’s an arm-sized hole in the middle of the carriage so that if the repulsors cut off your arm won’t get caught,” he rolled his old eyes. “Be a pretty stupid design flaw to have the manual cut off set up so it kills the man working on it if’n it was ever used.”

Arriving back on his feet, the ancient space hand glared down at the cart.

“That is if the manual switch worked!” he yelled, drawing his foot back before giving the cart a good, swift kick. Unfortunately he kicked with too much force and yelped, “Owe!” before hopping up and down on the deck.

“Blasted thing,” he grumbled staring at the old grav-cart piled high with used enviro-filters, “there’s no way we can move all of this by ourselves.”

“We’ll have to get another one, Sir,” Gants shrugged helplessly.

“Would I be wandering around below decks with a misfiring cart like this if there was another one available?” Spalding asked rhetorically.

Gants shook his head and looked lost.

“Nope, there’s nothing for it,” Spalding continued. “We’ll have to take a look and see if she’s fixable where she is.”

“That could take hours!” Gants protested.

“Best we start now then, lad,” Spalding said consolingly, “soonest begun is half done and all that ornery old space rot, as my old Engineering instructor used to say anyway!”

“I have to report for duty!” Gants said despairingly.

“No shirking now, son,” Spalding said severely, “can’t leave in the middle of a job. Besides, this won’t take no ‘hours.’ We’ll be done before you know it,” he finished confidently.

“If you say so,” Gants said shoulders slumping. Looking around, he turned and sat down on the edge of the cart, “!hat do we need to do?”

The Old engineer paused and stared at the cart with narrowed eyes. “I’ll start in on the hardware side,” Spalding said, “it’s too bad we can’t access the control interface remotely; we’ll have to call a System Analyst if there a problem on the programming side that can’t be fixed with an automatic reboot.”

Gants jumped back to his feet. “My data slate’s a Sectum VII; I can hook it up to the cart remotely,” he said, his countenance brightening immediately.

Spalding narrowed his eyes at the younger man. “Don’t go gumming up the works tryin’ to fix something that doesn’t need fixing,” he warned, wagging a finger at Gants for good measure. “Last thing we need is to get her working only to have wait for a total system reinstall.”

“Not a problem, Sir,” Gants said confidently, “I’ll just crack her open and take a look.”

“Don’t crack anything,” Spalding growled, “then we’ll just have to fix that too!”

“We won’t actually be cracking…er, breaking anything,” Gants hastened to assure the old spacer.

Spalding eyed him suspiciously for a moment then shrugged. “Go ahead then, but mark my words: take it slow and be careful,” he said.

Gants nodded happily and set to work.

Except for a few calls from Spalding to hand the old engineer a tool, Gants spent the next few minutes busily tapping away on his slate screen.

“Anything yet?” Spalding asked after a few minutes.

“It receives my input — I can tell that from the handshake protocols — but all I’m getting back in return is garbage,” Gants said in frustration.

Spalding wearily got back to his feet. “Let me take a look,” he said, waving his hand in a give it here motion.

Gants looked at him out of the corner of one eye and then reluctantly surrendered his slate.

“Nothing but static,” Spalding said dismissively.

“That’s what I said,” Gants agreed.

“Transmitter must be fouled up,” Spalding said after a moment, “probably why my remote controller stopped working.” He reached into his tool belt and produced said item. “It’s not your fault lad,” he said patting Gants on the shoulder.

But Gants was already reaching into his own belt and quickly produced a thin, plastic-coated wire. “Had the same problem getting a pirated version of Caprian Invaders 39 off my friend’s home network,” he explained, quickly hooking the cord into his slate. He then paused and looked up and down the cart’s surfaces, “Where can I make a hard connection with the cart’s data port?”

Spalding shook his head and showed the young man where he needed to place the wires, before turning back to focus on the connection between the cart’s main battery and the individual repulsors.

“Huh,” said Gants sounding perplexed, “it’s not static, but I still can’t make heads or tails of it. Let’s see…I think I still have that compatibility filter program around somewhere in storage; that should work with most generic code platforms.”

Spalding removed a repulsor grav plate and cleaned the contacts. Then he checked the connections for power before reinstalling the plate and synching it back in tight, but there was still no response from the cart’s systems.

Spalding frowned.

“Ah ha!” said Gants and the cart started to power back up before just as suddenly shutting back down. “Whoa,” he said in surprise, “look at all this code! It’s definitely non-random, and the cart’s still accepting my queries and commands on some level, but it keeps giving me back this stuff. Looks fairly complex too,” he trailed off, clearly distracted.

Spalding’s eyes widened with alarm. “Hand that over here,” he growled, reaching for and swiping the slate from the crewman’s hands.

“Hey…” Gants started to exclaim in protest before trailing off reluctantly.

“I’ll be jiggered for a flat fool,” Spalding spat, glancing up from the screen to glare at the cart. “No wonder you couldn’t make head nor tails of it.”

“You recognize the problem now, Sir?” Gants said doubtfully.

“The problem?!” Spalding exclaimed in exasperation. “This cart — like every other piece of Caprian SDF equipment — has been installed with some version of Sub-machine 2.0, which is why it’s still responding to your queries. The language is so fundamental to its operating system, and buried in there so deep that it’s almost impossible to work around it.”

“I don’t see the problem, Sir,” Gants said his forehead wrinkling, “that sounds like a good thing.”

“Oh aye, I suppose it is,” Spalding replied with a fierce frown. “But while it’s still responding to Machine 2, what it’s spitting out is anything but.”

“I didn’t recognize it and I’m pretty familiar with whole host of modern languages, even if I can’t work in them like a real programmer,” Gants said doubtfully.

“Meaning I’m probably too old and outdated to know what I’m talking about, is that what you mean?” Spalding demanded, shaking his head dourly. “I may be old and out of date with modern children’s games,” he scowled, “but I’m more than old enough to recognize a proto-version of Droid 1.0!”

“That little grav-cart’s going droid?” Gants blurted in alarm as he took a reflexive half-step back. “But…it has far too small a processor and memory banks to do that! Besides, how could it possibly get infected with a droid meme out here in an SDF Warship!”

“Oh, trust me boy-o; it has,” Spalding spat.

“Can you tell what it’s trying to say?” asked Gants warily as he stared down at the incomprehensible data streaming across the screen.

The Deposed King

The Delayed: Exclusive 1st Chapter

This is the opening chapter of, The Locker, a short prequel story starring Spalding, Gants and the infamous Captain Moonlight as they attempt to keep the machinery under control and do their small part of getting the ship ready for patrol!

I’ll probably also throw in the isolated Spalding-Brence/Castwell short in here at some point as well. Since the brother is working on the larger short: The Locker, and that one was tacked onto the very end of the file I managed to find lost in one of my flash drives it could come at any time!

Without further ado, an Exclusive to my Blog short story never seen anywhere else, Spalding Short Story! (More chapters will be released as they are edited and if people show interest!)

——————————————————————-

Short Story: The Locker!

Chapter: A matter of mixed up labels

He was the very model of an ancient outdated Space Engineer

His ancient bones creaked as the aging Lieutenant was forced to manually haul a wobbling grav-cart down the corridors of his beloved ship, the wild-haired old engineer staggered from side to side almost as much as the cart he was pulling.

A raised section of floor, where a metal strip was coving the join where two sections of duralloy decking met, almost did the old engineer — and his equally ancient grav-cart — in.

With a puff of more effort than he thought wise — and sent his blood pressure sky rocketing and his heart pumping like an over-active fusion generator about to lose containment — Lieutenant Terrence Spalding went one way, staggering to the left. That not-quite-herculean jerk of effort jerked the decrepit grav-cart over the hump with an almost obstinate lunge to the right, as if it had a mind of its own.

“More stubborn than an angry mule,” Spalding cursed as the force of its momentum sent him sprawling to his knees. One hand grimly hung onto the guide bar by his fingernails, the other went out to brace against an untimely impact of his face with the deck.

Gasping for breath, he waited until his racing heart had stilled before attempting to regain his footing. Bones creaked and joints popped in protest, but the Engineering Officer angrily forced his way back to his feet.

Beside him the grav-cart, which was supposed to stay perfectly still and in place unless manually pulled with the grab bar or directed by the — currently non-functional — remote control, rocked from side to side as one of the two still functional repulsors on the cart’s right side flickered intermittently.

Giving vent to his spleen, Spalding gave the cart a kick right where the repulsor joined with the metal frame. Listing to one side as the repulsor blacked out, the cart almost pinned the old Engineer’s foot to the deck by way of crashing to the floor. Hopping away, Spalding quick-timed it out of range, like some kind of mad jitterbug gone wild out on the dance floor.

At the last moment before the cart crashed to the ground, the repulsor surged back to life and disaster was averted — barely.

Glaring at the cart, the old engineer grabbed his plasma torch. Pulling it from his tool belt he quickly struck a flame and leveled the blue-white fire toward the cart.

“You’ll stay on task if you know what’s good for you,” he threatened, shaking the torch at the misacting cart.

In what appeared to be nothing but childlike defiance, the cart surged backward then forward.

“I’ll cut you from stem to stern, from back to front and side to side,” he raged at the cart. “When I’m done with you there won’t be enough left for spare parts!” he said swiping the torch back and forth in the air in a threatening manner.

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” he heard a hesitant voice ask from behind him.

The aged engineer whirled around, torch raised in surprise. The move almost overbalanced him from the force of the motion, and his attention quickly turned to placing a hand on the wall to keep from falling over.

“Don’t sneak up on a man like that,” he growled, glancing quickly at the shoulder patches on the other man’s uniform, “crewman!” he exclaimed, and now that his balance had returned, he shook the still-lit torch for emphasis.

“Sorry, Sir,” the crewman said looking at him uneasily, “I was just wondering if you needed some help or assistance?”

“Assistance,” Spalding scoffed, “why, I’ve been an Engineer on this ship nigh on fifty years,” he declared, waving his arm as if to encompass the whole battleship.

“Fifty years,” exclaimed the rating his eyebrows rising in surprise, “wow, that’s amazing!”

The aged engineer took a deep breath, puffing up with pride, “Been continuously assigned to her ever since I was just a rating like yourself,” he puffed his chest in pride, unable to resist some bragging, “worked my way up through the ranks, and done every job in the department.”

“Which department is that, Sir?” asked the rating with an eager smile, clearly hanging on every word.

Spalding’s brows started to lower thunderously but in the face of such good will it was hard to get up a good head of steam. So he released his rising ire a great puff of air instead, “Why, the very best department on the ship, lad,” he grumbled, instead of the half dozen or so angry retorts that immediately occurred to him — starting with this crewman’s apparent inability to read the patches on his work uniform, and ending with an obvious inability to understand which Department was the most needed. “And the only one that can keep a ship like this in fighting form!” he declared.

Then at the young crewman’s continued and blatant lack of understanding, the old engineer scowled, “The Engineering Department my boyo,” he said with a hint of a growl creeping back into his voice.

“Fifty years on the ship,” the young crewman marveled once again, “you know I tried to strike for Engineering,” he said proudly. Then his face fell slightly, “But I hear they’re shunting me over to Environmental instead,” he said, finishing sadly.

“Oh?” inquired the aged lieutenant, “Poor aptitude scores?”

“No, Sir,” the rating said shaking his head vigorously, “I scored in the middle of my class; it’s the automated personnel allocation system. Until the personnel department is fully staffed, the computer — the DI, that is — is issuing the assignments for unassigned crew without any special training…” he paused, “at least that’s what they tell me,” he trailed off dolefully.

“The Distributed Intelligence system, is it?” the old Caprian Officer said, chewing on his lower lip. “Well…computers are known to make mistakes. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were transferred into another department before you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle’,” he said with a smile.

“Thank you, sir,” the rating said happily.

“So what brings a fine young lad like yourself onto a half-decommissioned ship like our Clover here?” Spalding asked pushing off from the wall.

There was a short, embarrassed pause, “I was trying to find my way to Environmental, but I keep getting turned around,” the crewman confessed, “you wouldn’t happen to know the way, would you?”

“Why, I know this ship like the back of my hand,” Spalding said with a wink. “Just follow me, lad; I promise that Lieutenant Spalding won’t lead you wrong,” he said, turning back around to grab hold of the guide bar for the grav-cart.

Unfortunately, the cart was not where he had left it and instead of grabbing the bar, he tripped over the blasted thing instead.

With an, “Oof!” he landed on deck.

“Are you okay, Sir?” exclaimed the rating, reaching down to help him back up.

Spalding batted his hands away and tried to tell the crewman to leave off, but the wind had been so thoroughly knocked out of him by the unexpected fall that nothing but an angry wheeze came out.

Back on his feet, the old engineer paused a moment to catch his breath. In that brief moment of weakness, the crewman snagged the guide bar for the cart out from under his hands.

“It’s the least I can do in return for directions,” the young man said so guilelessly that Spalding’s initial urge to grab his plasma torch and drive the piker away from his dysfunctional cart faded.

“Right this way,” the old engineer muttered testily, leading off down the hall, “what did you say your name was again?”

“Sorry, Sir,” exclaimed the crewman, “Able Spacer, Gants, at your service, Sir.”

“You have a first name to go with that?” Spalding demanded.

The rating tugged at his collar, and seemed to squirm, “Florence,” he mumbled.

The old engineer winced. “Probably best you use your middle name while onboard the ship,” he confided in a lowered voice — and after a moment of shared embarrassment.

Gants drew a deep breath, “My mother named me ‘Florence Archibald Gants,’ although I prefer to be called ‘Gants’,” he said.

There was another short pause. “Quite understandable, lad… er, Gants, that is,” Spalding added, then awkwardly patted the crewman on the shoulder. “Well… enough said.”

They walked for several moments in relative silence with the grav-cart herking and jerking the whole way. The youthful strength and exuberance of the younger man was telling, though, and despite some scrambling around foolishly on more than one occasion, he managed to keep it from bashing into any walls.

“So, the Lucky Clover,” said the crewman, there followed a pregnant pause “I’m surprised the Imperials decided to pull her out of mothballs when there are several other ships that would seem to make better sense.”

Spalding jerked to a halt in the middle of the corridor, while Gants continued cheerfully pulling the rambunctious grav-cart past him.

Spalding lengthened his stride to catch back up. “What exactly do you mean by that comment?” he huffed as soon as he had caught back up with the rating.

Gants looked at him in mild alarm. “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said in what he clearly thought was an assuring tone. “It’s just that if you look at the maintenance records of this ship and compare her to say, the Parliamentary Power — a ship of the exact same class — the information I was able to look at online would seem to indicate that the Double P only needed about a month in dry-dock before she’d be ready for a Captain and Crew, while the Lucky Clover here is going to be another three months minimum,” he shook his head. “I just don’t understand it,” he ended with a shrug.

The angry breath Spalding had been gathering slowly released, and the old engineer looked at the rating with narrowed eyes. At least the rating’s done his homework before putting his two cents in,he finally decided.

“There’s more to a ship than just the maintenance logs,” he said stiffly, unable to allow this slur against the greatest ship to ever leave a Caprian shipyard to pass entirely unopposed. “Why, this ship’s been through any number of scrapes and come out the other end whole.”

“I’m not saying anything against the Lucky Clover,” the rating added hastily.

“Could be they recognize the inherent value in a well and proven fighter like the Clover,” Spalding expounded, “or just as likely it could be that because, while the Clover’s a lucky vessel — hence the name — the Parliamentary Power’s stuck in a repair cradle almost as often as she can be found on active duty,” he explained.

“I’ve never heard of anything about that,” Gants said, sounding surprised.

“Oh, aye,” Spalding confided, “they try to cover it up, but the Double P’s a terrible hanger baby, that one,” he said disgustedly. “Always something going wrong with her; back when she was still on active duty, if it wasn’t the fusion generators acting up it was one of her main trunk lines. If it wasn’t a trunk line, it was a misfunctioning shield generator! Quite frankly it’s amazing she’s still in the boneyard, when other, more reliable ships have already been sent off to the breakers.”

“Probably near and dear to some elected MP’s heart,” Gants said with a shrug.

“With a name like that, it’s bound to have been more than just one,” Spalding said with a laugh.

“How far do we have to go to reach main environmental?” Gants inquired, as the cart took on a series of increasingly uncontrollable movements.

Spalding made a snap judgment. “Oh, it’s not that far from here,” he said, “but I think we’ll be making a quick stop first; I need to get this here pallet of used filters off the ship before end of shift.”

“Sure thing, Sir,” Gants said cheerfully, “I’m more than happy to tag along, if you’re willing to sign a slip saying how I was temporarily re-assigned and not simply slacking off in my quarters.”

“Good lad,” Spalding said, pleasantly surprised at the can-do attitude that was surprisingly lacking in most young people now a days, “a man after me own heart.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Gants said happily.

Spalding was about to direct him to the nearest lift when the cart suddenly froze in place.

“What in the world?” exclaimed Gants, jerking and tugging on the now completely unresponsive cart.

“What the Murphy did you do to it, Gants?” Spalding glared at the young rating.

“Nothing, Lieutenant, honest!” exclaimed Gants.

“Oh, of all the monkeys in this extended auto-wrench,” grunted Spalding as he lowered himself to his knees so he could take a look underneath the carriage.

“What are you looking for under there, Sir?” asked Gants. “The repulsors are still working; it must be a problem with the control hardware or programming.”

“Got an automatic override for the control system underneath here,” wheezed the old Engineer, feeling around underneath the carriage. “It’s an old style override, and they put it in just about the dumbest place you could imagine.”

“Uh, what if it cuts off the grav-system as soon as you trip the switch,” asked Gants warily, looking at the older man’s arm extended underneath a cart that was suspended in the air by nothing more than four misfiring repulsor plates.

“Ah ha!” Spalding said triumphantly.

The lights on the cart immediately turned off and the repulsors lost power, causing the cart to land with a crash on the duralloy floor.

“Argh!” screamed the ancient Engineer.

The Deposed King

Okay its official… I stink

Books not yet done and the word count is lingering at 127k on Revenge. I’m within striking distance of the end of the book and getting motivated when there are all these nice kindle books out there that I can read, is proving a challenge. And all sorts of nice excuses for malingering on finishing the book abound.

I will finish this.

Next up on the agenda is: Its Official, I’m going to start posting the Spalding shorts up here on the blog. I’ve got a 2k one that I’m going to throw up tonight if my brother can hand it off to me in time and I’ve got a 15k short that I’m wondering whether to call ‘The Automated Underground’ short or ‘Captain Moonlight and the Davy Jones Locker’. Or some idderation of the two.

Anyway after I post it I’d like you guys to help stimulate the creative naming juices by helping me with throwing out possible name combo’s.

So we’ll wait for the brother. But I promise that if he takes too long, I’ll just throw up the unedited pieces anyway! You guys deserve something for waiting so long between books!

The Deposed King

Revenge Update

Finishing this book has been slower than I originally thought it would be, sorry about that guys. Currently I’m up to 110k written into the first draft and I’m shooting for a 140k target for completion of the book. Just about ready for the big climactic battle at this point so watch out!

Hopefully this book will be finished sooner rather than later. ;)

Just to talk about something interesting to make this post a little bigger I’m going to mention something I find interesting. My brother and I have been trying to advertise the Admiral on Goodreads for at least a month and just yesterday we finally started to have some clicks. We went from like 1000 impressions without clicks to several clicks and something on the order of 10k impressions. I don’t know exactly how much this is going to do for us but it certainly can’t hurt! I’m really looking forward to seeing the results of this campaign.

The Deposed King

Admiral’s Revenge and other Updates

First off thanks for everyone whose helped support my new Fantasy series. Its much appreciated.

Now in other news. Admiral’s Revenge is up to 66k words written and the current plan is to have a first rough draft finished by early September. I ‘hope’ I can keep to it! After that beta copies will be dependent on how fast the Brother can get to the first stage editing!

Also Current thought is to break out the Akantha goes to Capria stuff into its own Novella (Admiral’s Lady: Ashes for Ashes, Blood for Blood) and stay more focused on Jason centric or Jason set into motion stuff that directly impacts his ‘Revenge’. For anyone interested to find out more of what happened and how it all came to be when Akantha went to Capria stay tuned for a sneak peak at the end of Revenge. For those of you who don’t like diverting to read about secondary characters, you won’t miss ‘too’ much. LOL.

Struggling to come up with more stuff here…. Ah I remember. For those of you who are interested in staying in the know. The tentative title for Book 6 in the Spineward Sectors is: Admiral Invincible and while its totally going to end how you’d imagine, on the other hand its totally ‘not’ going to end at all like you’re thinking! You’ll have to find out when I get to it and actually write it. But I think its safe to say it’ll have the fan’s in a tizzy. ;)

So current writing schedule is Admiral’s Revenge. Admiral’s Lady. Admiral Invincible. And Falon: The Painting.

The Brother’s thinking about tearing into a Nikomedes Prequel that might be split into two parts depending on material. And he’s offered to help with Ashes for Ashes, Blood for Blood. Seriously considering letting him do the next Akantha Novella like he did the last one but I’ve got some serious ideas on the Akantha goes to Capria stuff rolling around in my head. So I’m honestly torn. What happens next on that Novella will probably depend a lot on 1: how fast I can write, 2: how much he’s chomping at the bit to tear into it and 3: whether or not I do some kind of involved plot line for the book.

In other news I have been sitting on a Spalding short that I’ve had written for a while and not entirely sure what to do with it. Cabe wrote some Jason prequel stuff that I haven’t finished going over completely and we initially planned to merge it into a novella. But now the brother is thinking to start his own editing website and we might offer that stuff for free reading over there. But that might take a while. So I thought hmm, maybe post the Spalding short (a prequel mainly with Gants while the Clover is still getting ready for Imperial occupation prior to joining the MSP) here. Then again I might not. I could wait. I could offer it for a limited time here and then delete the post until the brother’s site is up… Why don’t you guys tell us what you think!

The Deposed King

The Boar Knife Free

The Boar Knife is free today the 10th and every 10th through October! Get it while you can series fans.

The Deposed King