Michael C. Bailey's Blog, page 79

Weekly Update – January 24, 2017

[image error]WRITING PROJECTS

Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play and Action Figures – Live Free or Die: Edited, formatted, awaiting front cover art. Tricia sent me the final back cover art (at right) and I absolutely love the classic pinup vibe.

And remember, fans, I am making a small number of advanced reader copies available, so if you’re interested, drop me a line and let me know. I can give you full details then, but I’m looking for people who have read the entire series to date (book six pulls heavily from other events in the series, especially book one), can read book six before it’s released to the public in late February/early March, and will post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or their own personal websites, so serious inquiries only, please. ARC readers will get a finished copy of the book when it’s released in their preferred format.

Action Figures – Issue Seven: The Black End War: First draft finished.

Action Figures – Issue Eight: Crawling from the Wreckage: First draft in progress. I’m into the final set piece so I should be wrapping things up within the coming weeks, and then I’ll be moving on to the next Strongarm & Lightfoot book.

Action Figures – Issue Nine: Rough plotting in progress.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Blades of Glory: Rough plotting in progress.

Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins:  Audiobook recording in progress.

APPEARANCES and EVENTS

February 17 – 19: Boskone at the Westin Waterfront Hotel, the same location as Arisia.
Saturday, September 16: The Connecticut Renaissance Faire in Lebanon, CT (time and exact location TBA).

MISC.

If you happen to be out Tuscon, AZ way, go check out the Tuscon Festival of Books at the University of Arizona March 11 and 12. You’ll find lots of great indie authors out there, including several of my fellow Young Adult Authors Rendezvous colleagues, and there will be two signed copies of Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins available.

Dare To Be Stupid

After one of my Arisia writing panels wrapped up, I chatted briefly with an aspiring writer stuck on a story point. She had a character, portrayed throughout the story as highly intelligent, who needed to make a stupid decision in order to keep the story moving.

Now, I don’t know the full details of the story so I can’t say whether the character truly needed to make a stupid decision. I took her problem at face value and shall do so for the purpose of this post, but my tendency is to believe that if your narrative requires a smart character to behave stupidly to keep things moving forward, you might want to take a look at the story to see if this in fact true or if you’re just looking for an easy out. But I digress…

The writer’s problem was that she didn’t know how to let her character have a Duh Moment without it undermining the character she’d built and taking readers out of the story — which is a legit concern. I’m sure all of you can think of a story that hinged on an intelligent character making a painfully dumb and totally uncharacteristically decision and it completely wrecked your suspension of disbelief.

So how do you do it well? Four ways immediately come to mind…

Give the character incomplete information

Your hero, a bomb disposal expert, finds a ticking time bomb. The bomb is a standard homemade job, easy to understand and disarm by cutting the ever-reliable red wire. The timer’s running down fast.The hero has enough time to either evacuate the building or to defuse the bomb. He chooses the latter. Problem is, except the bomb was made by a color-blind individual who couldn’t tell his red wires apart from his green wires. The hero clips the red wire and boom, everyone dies — including himself.

Not a perfect example, perhaps, but it gets the point across. The hero could have made the smarter choice to get everyone out to guaranteed safety, but he instead took a risk that literally blew up in his face.

This approach is a tiny cheat because your character wouldn’t be making a truly stupid decision, but I prefer this method because it preserves the character’s integrity; his choice was revealed as the wrong choice only after all the information has been revealed, so the character wasn’t behaving in a contrary fashion. Your intelligent character was still behaving intelligently based on the information he had at the time.

Make the character choose while under extreme stress

Stress and emotion cloud people’s judgment. Someone mired in fear, sorrow, rage, etc., won’t behave rationally. That’s human nature, which is what makes this a viable option; readers can empathize with someone stuck making a tough call when they’re freaking out about something.

Give the character a blind spot

There are certain topics, situations, and people that cause us to think less rationally than we otherwise would. You probably know someone who constantly makes excuses for a loved one’s lousy behavior but is pretty quick to call out other for displaying that exact same behavior — and I’d bet good money that someone is a parent with a bratty child.

A character with a specific mental blind spot is more likely to be excused by readers for momentarily abandoning their intellect, in part because it is, again, a trait readers can understand and empathize with.

Use the character’s intelligence against him

Years ago I read a piece in Reader’s Digest about smart people having stupid moments. One of the (quite possibly apocryphal) anecdotes involved a college professor who went on vacation and realized he’d brought his house keys with him. Worried about losing his keys and effectively locking himself out of his home, he decided to mail his keys back home so they’d be there waiting for him upon his return.

Sounds clever, right? And it is, until the professor got home and realized that his mail was delivered through a slot in his front door, meaning the envelope containing his house keys was safe and sound inside the locked house.

Intelligent people can and do outsmart themselves. They grossly overthink or under-think a situation, often out of overconfidence in their own intellect, and miss a critical point.

There are other possible approaches to executing a Duh Moment, but regardless of how you do it, the key to selling it successfully is to set it up in advance. The extreme stress option, for example, won’t work if you don’t show your character crumbing under pressure and making a bad call earlier on in the story.

The character cannot have his brain fart out of nowhere.

Yes, people in real life have moments of out-of-left-field stupidity all time, but the paradox of fiction is that things have to make more sense in your story than in real life to be believable. A smart character has to have a clear reason to behave stupidly at a key moment in the story or it will come across as inconsistent characterization and weak writing.

Weekly Update – January 17, 2017

[image error]Arisia 2017 is a wrap!

This year’s show, unfortunately, wasn’t terribly successful from a financial perspective. Sales were below last year’s, for both me and my tablemate J.M. Aucoin, but I got to participate in four panels over the weekend, and those were a lot of fun — and educational, for the attendees and for me. I picked up a few new techniques and learned some new approaches to writing, which I’ll never complain about.

Nor will I complain about the fact my last sale of the weekend was to a young girl who walked away hugging her new copy of Action Figures. That made an otherwise slow day totally worth it.

Speaking of Action Figures…

WRITING PROJECTS

[image error] Copyright 2017 Patricia Lupien

Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play and Action Figures – Live Free or Die: Edited, formatted, awaiting cover art. Speaking of which, check out this color rough of the back cover art, which features Megawatt Quantum, who plays a prominent role in book six. I thought it’d be fun to portray her in the style of a WWII-era pin-up girl, a nod to her penchant for retro fashion. Tricia has some fine details to add but this is basically what you’ll be seeing on the back of book six.

Remember, folks, I am making a small number of advanced reader copies available, so if you’re interested, drop me a line and let me know. I can give you full details then, but I’m looking for people who have read the entire series to date (book six pulls heavily from other events in the series, especially book one), can read book six before it’s released to the public in late February/early March, and will post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or their own personal websites, so serious inquiries only, please. ARC readers will get a finished copy of the book when it’s released in their preferred format.

Action Figures – Issue Seven: The Black End War: First draft finished.

Action Figures – Issue Eight: Crawling from the Wreckage: First draft in progress. Arisia took up my weekend so nothing got done on this or anything, but I hope to get back to it soon.

Action Figures – Issue Nine: Rough plotting in progress.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Blades of Glory: Rough plotting in progress.

Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins:  Audiobook recording in progress.

APPEARANCES and EVENTS

February 17 – 19: Boskone at the Westin Waterfront Hotel, the same location as Arisia.
Saturday, September 16: The Connecticut Renaissance Faire in Lebanon, CT (time and exact location TBA).

MISC.

[image error]Book recommendation time! I’m currently reading Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics[image error]by Jason Porath, partly for fun but partly for research and inspiration for one of my future projects (currently going by the working title of The Well-Behaved Women Trilogy), and I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to give this book a try. And you can keep up with Jason’s ongoing Rejected Princesses project at his website, on Facebook, and on Tumblr.

Panel Time! Imaginary Friends: Crafting Memorable Characters

Monday, 10 AM in Marina 3

Even the most gripping plot will fail if you don’t have memorable characters. How do you create a sympathetic protagonist? How much backstory should you give them? How do you develop interesting supporting characters to accompany them on their journey? There are many ‘tricks’ you can use to flesh out characters, as well as ways to juggle multiple character viewpoints. Come learn how to write characters so realistic your audience will be talking about them long after they finish your story.

Panel Time! Writing a Worthy Adversary

Sunday, 8:30 PM in Douglas

Nothing brings a story to life like a worthy antagonist, but how do you figure out the yang for your protagonist’s yin? What is your villain’s backstory? What are some of the ways they can twist, torment, and temper your main character? And how can a good antagonist act as your protagonist’s mirror? Boo! Hiss! Come learn how to write bad guys your audience will love to hate.

Panel Time! Getting Into Character

Sunday, 1 PM in Alcott

From the way you walk, to the way you talk, getting into character is key to making your cosplay shine. Our panel of performance-minded costumers share with you their secrets for bringing their costume to life.

Panel Time! Writing Swordfights, Knives, and Hand-to-Hand Combat

Saturday, 2:30 PM in Otis

Violent encounters are a good way to up the tension in your story. Our panel of martial artists will not only explain the phases of combat, what goes through their mind prior to ‘going at it’, and what makes a realistic swordfight, knife-fight, stick-fighting or hand-to-hand encounter, but they will also demonstrate a few basic moves, answer questions, and help one lucky attendee work out the mechanics of their work-in-progress.

Arisia, Ho!

It’s Arisia time!

As of post time, I am about to eat lunch, and then pack up the car and drive to Boston nice and early for set-up. I’ve been in Boston rush hour traffic many times before and I’m perfectly content to sit around the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel for a couple of hours if it means I don’t spend that time crawling down the Mass Pike at 10 miles per hour. Screw that.

[image error]I’ll be down in the dealers’ room alongside J.M. Aucoin all four days, so come say hello! I’ve marked our table on the map on the right. If you can’t make the con but want to keep tabs on what’s happening, I’ll be posting throughout the weekend on my Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram pages, so follow me there!

The dealers’ room opens to the general public at 5 PM tonight, but the event itself gets rolling this afternoon. Head over to the Arisia schedule page to see what’s happening today and all throughout the weekend.

And remember, I’ll be participating in four panels throughout the con. Below is the list of my panels, along with the dates, times, and locations. You can find the rooms where they’ll be held on this handy map.

Writing Swordfights, Knives, and Hand-to-Hand Combat

Saturday, 2:30 PM in Otis

Violent encounters are a good way to up the tension in your story. Our panel of martial artists will not only explain the phases of combat, what goes through their mind prior to ‘going at it’, and what makes a realistic swordfight, knife-fight, stick-fighting or hand-to-hand encounter, but they will also demonstrate a few basic moves, answer questions, and help one lucky attendee work out the mechanics of their work-in-progress.

Getting Into Character

Sunday, 1 PM in Faneuil

From the way you walk, to the way you talk, getting into character is key to making your cosplay shine. Our panel of performance-minded costumers share with you their secrets for bringing their costume to life.

Writing a Worthy Adversary

Sunday, 8:30 PM in Douglas

Nothing brings a story to life like a worthy antagonist, but how do you figure out the yang for your protagonist’s yin? What is your villain’s backstory? What are some of the ways they can twist, torment, and temper your main character? And how can a good antagonist act as your protagonist’s mirror? Boo! Hiss! Come learn how to write bad guys your audience will love to hate.

Imaginary Friends: Crafting Memorable Characters

Monday, 10 AM in Marina 3

Even the most gripping plot will fail if you don’t have memorable characters. How do you create a sympathetic protagonist? How much backstory should you give them? How do you develop interesting supporting characters to accompany them on their journey? There are many ‘tricks’ you can use to flesh out characters, as well as ways to juggle multiple character viewpoints. Come learn how to write characters so realistic your audience will be talking about them long after they finish your story.

Weekly Update – January 10, 2017

Arisia is this weekend!

For those of you in the Boston area this coming Friday through Monday, Arisia starts the fun on Friday night, and if you haven’t already registered online I’d strongly suggest you go do that right now. Then come visit me and fellow author J.M. Aucoin down in the merchant area. We’ll be there selling and signing books and talking about writing — and I’ll be talking about the craft more at four panel discussions over the long weekend (my full schedule is below).

I’ll be posting stuff all weekend long, and you can follow my shenanigans through my social media outlets.

WRITING PROJECTS

Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play and Action Figures – Live Free or Die: Final drafts are done and formatted! Now all I need is my cover art and book six will be ready to go!

I am making a small number of advanced reader copies available, so if you’re interested, drop me a line and let me know. I can give you full details then, but I’m looking for people who have read the entire series to date (book six pulls heavily from other events in the series, especially book one), can read book six before it’s released to the public in late February/early March, and will post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or their own personal websites, so serious inquiries only, please. ARC readers will get a finished copy of the book when it’s released in their preferred format.

Action Figures – Issue Seven: The Black End War: First draft finished.

Action Figures – Issue Eight: Crawling from the Wreckage: First draft in progress. Got some more work in over the weekend. My goal is to get through the first draft, then tuck it aside and go develop something else for release later this year.

Action Figures – Issue Nine: Rough plotting in progress.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Blades of Glory: Rough plotting in progress.

Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins:  Audiobook recording in progress.

APPEARANCES and EVENTS

Friday, January 13 – Monday, January 16: Arisia 2017 in Boston, MA. J.M. Aucoin will be in the dealers room at table A18 selling and signing books and talking about writing. I also have four panels on my schedule throughout the weekend.
February 17 – 19: Boskone at the Westin Waterfront Hotel, the same location as Arisia.
Saturday, September 16: The Connecticut Renaissance Faire in Lebanon, CT (time and exact location TBA).

MISC.

For those interested in my panel schedule at Arisia, here’s where I’ll be over the weekend and what I’ll be talking about:

Writing Swordfights, Knives, and Hand-to-Hand Combat

Saturday, 2:30 PM in Otis

Violent encounters are a good way to up the tension in your story. Our panel of martial artists will not only explain the phases of combat, what goes through their mind prior to ‘going at it’, and what makes a realistic swordfight, knife-fight, stick-fighting or hand-to-hand encounter, but they will also demonstrate a few basic moves, answer questions, and help one lucky attendee work out the mechanics of their work-in-progress.

Getting Into Character

Sunday, 1 PM in Faneuil

From the way you walk, to the way you talk, getting into character is key to making your cosplay shine. Our panel of performance-minded costumers share with you their secrets for bringing their costume to life.

Writing a Worthy Adversary

Sunday, 8:30 PM in Douglas

Nothing brings a story to life like a worthy antagonist, but how do you figure out the yang for your protagonist’s yin? What is your villain’s backstory? What are some of the ways they can twist, torment, and temper your main character? And how can a good antagonist act as your protagonist’s mirror? Boo! Hiss! Come learn how to write bad guys your audience will love to hate.

Imaginary Friends: Crafting Memorable Characters

Monday, 10 AM in Marina 3

Even the most gripping plot will fail if you don’t have memorable characters. How do you create a sympathetic protagonist? How much backstory should you give them? How do you develop interesting supporting characters to accompany them on their journey? There are many ‘tricks’ you can use to flesh out characters, as well as ways to juggle multiple character viewpoints. Come learn how to write characters so realistic your audience will be talking about them long after they finish your story.

Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play Sneak Preview!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my editor Julie finished her work on Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play, and I spent Saturday implementing her corrections and suggestions. I have yet to do a final read-through and polish, but it’s ready enough to give you all a taste of what’s coming in a couple of months!

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read this if you haven’t read Action Figures – Issue Five: Team-Ups!

***

First, the official back cover text:

One of our super-heroes is missing.

It took a devastating attack on Kingsport to reunite the Hero Squad, but their reunion proves short-lived after Lightstorm vanishes following the battle, leaving the team without its most powerful member at the worst possible time.

Damage Inc. is back and more dangerous than ever, thanks to the mysterious mastermind known only as the Foreman arming them with enough firepower to take on the Hero Squad — but for what sinister purpose? The Squad is determined to find out, but the answers could cost them dearly.

Psyche takes center stage for this game-changing chapter in the Action Figures saga, which includes the bonus short story, Action Figures – Live Free or Die.

This is when everything changes!

PART ONE: ONE OF OUR SUPER-HEROES IS MISSING

I tap my headset. “Lightstorm? You there?” I say. “Lightstorm, respond. Lightstorm? Carrie?”

“Hm? Sara?” Meg mumbles, my rising panic rousing her from her nap. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Carrie went off with one of the aliens. I had her on the comm but she dropped off all of a sudden.”

“I’m sure she’s okay, hon. Carrie can take care of herself.”

“No. Something’s wrong.” I stumble to my feet as a painful burning sensation fills my chest. For some reason I look up into the sky, as if I expect to see Carrie hovering above me. I cycle through every channel on my comm system, listening for her voice. There’s nothing on the secure Protectorate channel, nothing on the military or police bands…oh God. Oh God…

“Meg, something’s wrong!” I squeal, even as some distant corner of my brain argues that everything’s fine, I’m overreacting, there’s some rational explanation for this.

There isn’t.

Carrie’s gone.

 

ONE

“Sara!” Meg shouts. “Wait!”

Kingsport Heights Beach is still total chaos. The military works to clear the battlefield of debris and bodies both human and alien. Police officers try to clear space for ambulances to get in and pick up those lucky enough to have survived the fight but not so lucky they can reach the edge of the hot zone on their own power. Meg and I dash past Concorde as he confers with a group of men and women, all of them in some kind of uniform. He calls out to me. I don’t stop.

We weave through the maze of wrecked cars and demolished military vehicles, skirt past a cluster of black sedans bearing government plates, past a dump truck transporting alien battlesuits and weaponry to the beach to be secured inside the dreadnought, and jump down onto the beach itself, where the Vanguard stands watch over its prisoners. They’re all aliens — for-real aliens from outer space. They brought this war to Kingsport, and one of them must know where Carrie is.

“Where is she?” I charge at one of the Vanguard aliens, a thing built like a gorilla with leathery skin and a second set of T-Rex arms set into his chest. He’s big and intimidating, but he retreats as I run up to him. “Where’s Carrie? What did you do with her?!”

“Honey, easy,” Meg says, pulling me back.

“They took Carrie!”

Meg spins me around. “Sara, you’re not going to do Carrie any good if you’re freaking out. You need to cool down and think.”

Meg squeezes my arms, and I feel her strength flow into me, quite literally. It’s a smart move; she knows my empathic abilities pick up, sometimes involuntarily, on other people’s emotions, and she uses that to inject some much-needed calm into me. The adrenaline flushes out so fast my head spins. Meg’s grip tightens to keep me from falling over.

“Psyche, what’s wrong?” I look past Meg to see Concorde approaching. He’s hurrying as best as he can, but he took as much of a beating as anyone. He needs to rest but he’s not going to let a little thing like possible internal bleeding slow him down, not when there’s work to be done.

“Carrie’s gone. She went off with one of them,” I say, gesturing toward the Vanguard. “She hasn’t come back.”

“I’m sure she’s —”

“Don’t tell me she’s okay, Concorde, and don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” I snap. “Something’s wrong. Carrie’s gone. I know.” I turn back toward the gorilla alien. “Where’s my friend?”

Gorilla grunts at me. A squishy-looking alien, who reminds me vaguely of Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants, says something incomprehensible to Gorilla, who responds with more grunts.

“This is a problem,” Concorde says.

“No it’s not. They can understand us. Do you have any more of those translator things?” I say to Gorilla.

He furrows his sloping brow at me. He’s considering it — I think. Whatever wavelength these beings’ brains operate on, it’s not compatible with my powers; I can’t read their emotions, much less their thoughts.

With a snort, Gorilla reaches into a belt pouch and hands me a pair of small, pale yellow blobs. I press them into my ears and — “Ohh, gross,” I moan. It feels like I’m shoving wads of cold snot into my ears.

“Not a pleasant sensation, is it?” Patrick says.

“No, it isn’t.” Oh, hey.

“Astounding. Why the matrices don’t fry their primitive little brains,” Gorilla says, his voice not quite matching the movements of his mouth. That’s distracting.

“I can understand you, you know, so start talking. Where’s Carrie?”

“Commander Do has escorted your friend to Kyros Alliance Central, on Kyros Prime.”

“Escorted? Or taken?”

“Your friend went of her own accord.”

“Yeah? Then when is she coming back?”

Gorilla hesitates. “I cannot say,” he says, and oh, I do not like his apologetic tone. “The Alliance is in the midst of a significant crisis, the likes of which we’ve not seen in generations. The Council of Generals has called in Vanguardians from every allied world —”

“Carrie isn’t part of the Vanguard,” I say, but Gorilla shoots that argument down.

“She possesses the astrarma,” he says, referring to the alien tech that gives Carrie her powers. “She is Vanguard.”

“But she is coming back.” I mean it as a question. It comes out as a demand.

“Maybe. If the council decides she’s —” Patrick begins. Gorilla makes a jabbing gesture. Patrick shuts right up. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“The matter is out of our hands,” Gorilla says.

***

Gorilla abruptly dismisses us so his people can focus on securing their prisoners and all that tempting alien tech in the dreadnought — the Nightwind. The Kyros Alliance is supposed to dispatch another ship to remove the Nightwind, but Gorilla — Lieutenant Bote Maasuur — has no sense of exactly when that might happen. Optimistically, it could arrive within a few hours, he says, but Kingsport could wind up playing host to a crippled alien warship for a day or two.

“That’s one problem on a very long list of problems,” Concorde says, calling to order an impromptu meeting of the Protectorate, the Hero Squad, and the Quantum Quintet. “Entity. So glad you could finally make it.”

I jump when I realize the big leather-covered weirdo is looming right behind me. He wasn’t there a second ago, and I never felt his presence. How does he do that? Is he an alien too? That would explain a lot.

“I’ve been here the whole time,” the Entity says in his creepy monotone.

“We never saw you,” says Kilowatt Quantum, who may be the unsung hero of the battle. He can generate focused electromagnetic pulses, which generally aren’t very useful, but when your opponents are all wearing fancy powered battlesuits? Extremely useful.

“Exactly,” the Entity says.

“He was here,” Missy says, and that’s good enough for Concorde.

“All right. We have two big issues to address,” he says, “and the first is Lightstorm. She’s apparently gone off with the Vanguard’s commanding officer to Kyros Prime, wherever that is. It seems she went of her own free will but we have no idea if or when she’ll return.”

I expect an outburst, for someone to say, “There has to be a way to get her back!” or for Matt to throw out one of his so-insane-it’s-brilliant ideas, but all I hear is a heavy, resigned silence.

“That means we’re that much more short-handed, and that brings me to problem number two,” Concorde continues. “The Kingsport PD has been decimated. I spoke to the chief and his rough estimate is that two-thirds of the force is dead or injured. The governor plans to declare martial law in Kingsport in the short term, at least until the dreadnought’s been removed. Distasteful, I know, but it’s necessary.”

“And in the long term?” Mindforce says.

“That’s where we come in. The chief plans to call in some favors and see if he can borrow some officers from surrounding communities, but it won’t be enough. Until the department can rebuild, we’re going to be pulling extra duty.”

That’s a noble thought, but we’re in no condition to sub in for a school crossing guard much less the police. Most of us are so exhausted we can’t see straight, and a few of us took some nasty hits from the aliens’ hypervelocity weapons. Nina Nitro is toughing out a gunshot to the abdomen until all the injured civilians have been cared for; Rockjaw Quantum literally had chunks of his rocklike skin shot out; and Stuart is covered in bruises.

I tell myself it could have been worse. I glance over at the olive drab pavilion tent the military set up at the edge of what used to be a public baseball field. That’s where they’re storing all the bodies until they can be removed. It’s a harsh reminder that any one of us could have wound up in there.

“I have too much free time on my hands anyway,” Nina says, trying and failing to hide how much pain she’s in.

“You are going to heal first,” Concorde says. “We all are. As soon as we clear out, anyone with an injury is going to the hospital. Everyone else, go home and get some sleep. The National Guard will keep watch on the dreadnought until the Vanguard sends the recovery ship.”

“Which will be when?” Matt asks.

“Unknown, but from what I gather, the Vanguard isn’t thrilled about leaving advanced tech accessible to what it considers a primitive culture, so I suspect they’ll do their best to clear it out ASAP. I informed Lieutenant — Maasuur, was it?” Concorde says, looking to me for confirmation. “I informed Lieutenant Maasuur we’d guard the ship in the meantime, but he plans to leave a couple of his men — er, people — um…”

“Let’s go with people,” Doc Quantum suggests.

“He plans to leave two of his people behind to keep an eye on the prisoners and, I suspect, to keep us honest until they get back.”

“You mean they’re leaving?” Matt says.

“The Kyros Alliance has its own version of the Prime Directive,” I say. “They’ve already violated it, like, a thousand times over, but Lieutenant Maasuur doesn’t want to stick around and make it any worse.”

“Will he be returning to Alliance Central or whatever they called it?”

“I see where you’re going. Good thinking,” Concorde says. “Anyone want to sacrifice their phone?”

***

When Matt told me what he had in mind, I offer up my phone without a second thought.

I find a relatively quiet corner of the battlefield to record my message then give the phone to Lt. Maasuur. He promises he’ll deliver it to Carrie, but that’s all he can promise. It’s good enough. It has to be.

Lt. Maasuur orders First Rank At Mo Ke — a particularly bizarre alien with a cylindrical body, three stumpy legs, and a matching set of arms — and Lt. Commander Fast, who looks like a giant snake, to stay behind and keep an eye on things Earth-side. They decide to station themselves inside the Nightwind so they won’t distract the humans. Or maybe so we won’t distract them? I imagine we look as weird to them as they do to us.

I stand there on the beach and watch Lt. Maasuur and his people take off, rising into the sky until they’re tiny pinpoints of light, until those pinpoints wink out of sight. Meg tries to pull me away, but I don’t want to leave. I want to be here when Lt. Maasuur comes back. He could come back at any minute.

I feel so helpless and useless.

“Hey.” Meg wraps her arms around my waist and holds me close. “You’ve done all you can. Nothing left to do now but wait.”

“No. There’s one more thing I have to do,” I say. I’d give anything I had to avoid it, but there’s no way out of this. “I have to tell Christina her daughter’s been abducted by aliens.”