A little something · 6:36am Feb 19th, 2017
As promised, here is a tiny bit of a project I'm working on and planning on submitting to a publisher in the coming weeks/months. Before continuing, I would ask anyone who has known me here for a while to compare this to what I used to write and please tell me where I've improved and anywhere I can still do better. Thank you, and enjoy.
The silent alarm rang exclusively through his head. Thomas groaned, his eyes burning and his body protesting over the unwanted early morning awakening. He rolled out from under the warmth of the covers and rubbed his eyes. The alarm continued to ring.
He sighed, giving his head a quick tilt, silencing the racket in his brain. The evening breeze had pushed open Annika’s balcony doors, the curtains flowing in the wind like ghosts. He strolled to the railing, enjoying the view. A blanket of stars dotted a midnight blue sky. The horizon gave way to an ocean of clouds, roiling in slow motion as the night wore on. A set of pink petals drifted by in the wind.
He smiled. The sakura tree growing out of the side of Annika’s home had been the feature that sold her on the house. The previous owners got the strange idea to integrate the tree into the structure when they built it. A now signature part of her abode.
He walked to his bag and removed a small pad. 0400. Unfortunately he couldn’t afford to continue enjoying the view for much longer. He cracked open his suitcase and began to dress himself. A suit and tie with pins at the neck. Satisfied with his appearance, he moved to pack his things.
The familiar fire of rage began to burn in his chest like a coal fire yet to be extinguished. A number of events led him to this point that, if any one of them had been different, would have set him free. If the representatives from Epsilon Indi had not left a few years ahead of schedule, had Father simply not required his presence, had the proximity of a comet early in spring not diverted the small fleet of Narakan ships and extended their approach, had Annika had the pleasure of being born a few hours later, if any one of an infinite set of events been even slightly different, he would not have to miss her birthday party today.
Still, if he couldn’t be there himself, he could at least leave her a gift before he left. He removed a small box from behind the case, cracking it open. A small stuffed bear rested inside, surrounded by blankets of tissue paper. He allowed himself a small grin of satisfaction before placing it on a nearby chair in the corner of the room. A small collar and tag rested around the bear’s neck.
“You behave.” He whispered before zipping up his case.
He surveyed the room one last time. Annika still slept silently in her bed, the blankets like clouds over her angelic form. He sighed, rubbing his eyes again. Fomo at the very worst.
Stealthily as possible, he made his way to the front door. A small staircase led down to the home’s entrance from a wide open living room and kitchen hybrid. The first creak of the floor boards came a few seconds later, his finger barely a centimeter from the door panel.
“This is how you say happy birthday?” A familiar voice yawned behind him.
Shit.
Her mere presence caused a chemical imbalance Anders could never hope to correct. He turned with a sigh.
Annika stood tapping her foot on her kitchen floor boards, looking down with a judgmental frown. Her pale arms wrapped around a familiar brown bear. A bird’s nest of short black hair inhabited her head. Her pajamas, if they could be called that, consisted of a simple night shirt and sweat pants. Seeing her outside of her signature engineering jumpsuit remained an anomalous sight.
“Not even a note to go with it? You thought you could just slip away unnoticed?” She yawned. “Today of all days?”
Anders sighed. “Father wants me there when they arrive. They’ll be planet side within two hours.”
“Excuses, excuses, Thomas.” She put a hand on her hip, holding the bear up with another. “Still, he is quite cute. What’s his name?”
“I figured I would let you do the honors. He’s handmade. Took me a while but I was able to find a seamstress to do the job.”
“Why’d you go with a bear?”
“You always enjoyed early twentieth century cultures and antiquated things.”
“Not entirely true. You’re younger than me. Still, I like it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Am I off the hook?”
“For now.” She smiled, walking down the steps to meet him.
“Believe me.” He said. “I don’t want to go today.”
“Don’t worry. I get it. But you better be free later tonight, alright?”
“I will be whether father likes it or not.”
“And be sure to remember everything that happens at the meeting today. We’re going to want details.”
He laughed. “I’ll do my best. So what are you going to do while I’m gone?”
“Wait for you to get back of course.” She smiled. “But joking aside, thank you for the gift. I love it.”
Her arms wrapping around his torso was an unexpected but not unwelcome gesture he swiftly returned. An odd conflux of emotions ran through him as he remembered what he’d be forced to miss. She pulled away and held his hands in hers and smiled.
“Is your party going to be here or are you moving it somewhere else?” He asked.
“Valerie’s place. Where else? Her parents cleared it out this evening just for us.”
“Great. Now you’ve given me something else to think about.”
“What’s that?”
“Missing out.”
“It won’t be a true party until you arrive. But yeah, the Diamond Tower, it’ll be fun. And I’ll be waiting for you there. Now I want you do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“Wake up.”Interstellar Space
En Route to Beta Aquilae
2648A shock of cold stabbing at his lungs told him he’d awoken. Anders coughed as the door to his pod flipped open, unceremoniously flopping to him to the floor like he was once again a newborn baby. After a few moments of retching up the P-Gel, he was ready to stand, if somewhat wobbly. The taste of the gel got worse each time he went under. He found the temptation to empty his pod of the stuff almost impossible to ignore. The experience of vomiting up the fluid ranked as one of the most unpleasant sensations he’d encountered in his one hundred and thirty nine years of life. If it didn’t stop his lungs from crystalizing in Kryosleep, he probably would.
He stumbled to his feet and blinked a few times, clearing his eyes. They hadn’t been used in years. The rest of his senses remained similarly dulled after six hundred days of inactivity. The Kyrosleep bay was one of many aboard the Aesthetica of Light. Rows of pods lined the two walls, with catwalks and stairways leading to the upper rows. Most of the more senior officers slept here, in between the long journeys between stars, and would linger here for at least several months. Now, however, Anders was alone.
The familiar dizziness began to vanish and the pain in his lungs faded to a dull ache. He found his locker and slipped on his uniform. After strapping on his wrist terminal he stepped out of the bay and into the vessel’s vacant hallways. The Aesthetica carried a crew of over two thousand people, and all but two were asleep in their pods as the ship decelerated down from near light speed at comfortable one G.
Anders quietly followed the labyrinth of halls inwards towards one of the ship’s many lifts. A door in front of him slid open and he stepped aboard. Immediately, the car began to ferry him inward towards the vessel’s backbone.
“Bridge level.” He ordered.
“Bridge confirmed.” The elevator chirped as a microscopic part of the ship’s central computer diverted itself to controlling his ascent up the long skyscraper like structure of the vessel. His trip began at what most would consider the bottom of the vessel, somewhere in the nameless lower third.
The Aesthetica followed the same design principle as nearly every other massive star runner in existence. Constructed like a stupidly huge, five kilometer tall, office building, it produced gravity by accelerating or decelerating upward. When not under thrust, four rotating sections would begin to spin to produce a space where the crew could live without having to suffer through microgravity.
“Aesthetica.” He said.
“Yes, Thomas?” the vessel replied. Something about the voice always irritated him. Its smooth, somewhat feminine vocals sounded either too chipper or too delirious than they had any right to be. It only served as a personification of the ship’s computer, but he still felt a slight amount of animosity towards its artificially generated demeanor.
“Give me a status of all crew members, myself included.”
“Currently, two thousand seventy eight crew members are in Kryosuspension and are not scheduled to be revived until 2649 when we arrive in Beta Aquilae.”
He took a deep breath. The fact he even found himself awake right now was proof the answer to his next question wouldn’t be one he liked. Still, he needed to know. The mission demanded it.
“How many crew members are currently awake?”
“At present, two officers are not currently logged in any of the Kryonic bays across the ship.”
He swallowed. “Who are the officers?”
“Sub-Commander Thomas Anders and Lieutenant Matthias Nguyen.”
“I see. Thank you. Please track Lieutenant Nguyen and display his location on my wrist terminal.”
“Yes, Thomas.”
“Now, music please.”
“Please specify.”
“Classical. Luigi Boccherini. Night Music of the Streets of Madrid.”
The first plucks of the strings began to fill the cabin as the elevator shot up the vessel. Anders sighed and stared at the display on the elevator’s wall. A glowing cross section of the ship occupied the panel, showing the elevator’s position as it climbed through the vessel. The star runner consisted of two large angular sections organized into an extremely loose spike shape, like a child’s toy block approximation. Towards the bottom of the vessel sat the two secondary engines the ship used for intersystem transportation and emergency backups. The engines, alongside cargo bays and Kryobays, occupied the lower third of the vessel.
Soon he passed through the ship’s main engineering section, housed around 1700 meters up from the tail. Surrounding the engineering section, seated under shield of rock and armor plating, spun the two large rings of the ship’s diametric drive, channeling forces and principles he barely understood.
“Engineering.” The vessel added for good measure.
Thomas rolled his eyes. The elevator sped on past the interstellar drives up to where most of the crew preferred to spend their time. Thankfully, mostly transparent materials composed the walls of the elevator, granting him a comforting view. This deep inside the ship, it could afford the luxury.
The darkness of the tunnel gave way to more pleasant sights. Underneath layers of armor and metal and bulkheads, the vessel’s structure allowed for far more open spaces. Though deserted, the green of the artificial forests and shrubberies still, thankfully, retained a therapeutic effect. Above, nearly a kilometer up glowed the blue of a faux sky. For the sake of sanity, most chose to see it as the real thing. For the sake of visitors, most of the ship’s hangers centered on this level.
Soon the lift shot up through that as well and entered the command sector. Another kilometer until he would arrive at the bridge level. The CIC resided deep inside the spine of the ship, beneath layers of super strength beams and hyper metal holding the Aesthetica together. It would take quite a punch for anything to remotely have a chance of hitting it. Anything that reached them there, in Ander’s mind, probably deserved to kill them.
“Bridge level.” The elevator said as the final notes of the song drifted out of the cabin. The doors opened to reveal more empty halls, devoid of any signs of life. Anders stepped out and began the walk to the CIC.
“Aesthetica, where is Nguyen now?” He asked.
“Deck 503, personal quarters.” The ship responded.
“Thank you. Please inform me if he accesses any ship systems or heads anywhere… important.”
“Yes, Thomas.”
A few long minutes later, Anders stepped into the hauntingly empty bridge. Though massive, the overwhelming majority of the ship’s consoles and stations orbited around a central holotank, leaving most of the multilevel spherical space empty. Behind each station hung a series of rounded pods, currently locked to the walls. Long spider arms sprouting down from the ceiling, connecting to every one of the gimbaled spheres. Every crew member had one located somewhere throughout the ship. In a battle, the ship was effectively run from inside them, the pods mitigating the effects of combat maneuvers and adding an extra layer of protection for the crew. Anders could see his pod as he walked up to the holotank.
He took a deep breath before giving his next order.
“Aesthetica, please load Captain Behr’s Shadow onto the holotank.”
The ship paused for a second before answering. “Shadow Loaded.”
“Run program.”
In the center of the tank, a tall man appeared. He stood considerably larger than a man should have been, standing nearly six meters, taking up the entirety of the tank. He wore a standard naval uniform with greying hair and a checkmark scar on his cheek he never appeared to have gotten fixed. His eyes wore a hard yet inviting to look at and he gave off a paternal air of authority. He turned towards Anders and smiled.
“Ah! Thomas.”
“Hello sir.”
Anders never particularly looked forward to conversing with the Shadow, however he never found it unbearably unpleasant either. So far, the only member of the crew who openly admitted to having a Shadow was Behr, though Anders placed a fair amount of confidence in the possibility of Shadows of the senior staff persisted somewhere away in the ship’s data banks, regardless of who consented. Almost undoubtedly, the computer carried one of himself as well.
Overall they existed as little more than complex facsimiles of the individual they emulated. Personalities burned away to nothing more than algorithms, equations, and difference engines, speaking and behaving as close as possible like their template. In the majority of cases, one could barely tell the difference. On the surface, they were not terribly difficult to make either. Records of an individual’s behavior and neural patterns over an extended period of time were the only things needed. Getting them, however, could be the difficult parts. Still, once created, the result would mimic the template to near perfection.
“So, you’ve decided to invoke me yet again.” He clasped his hands, staring down at Anders like a child viewing an insect.
Anders sighed. “Necessity forced me. I wouldn’t have if there was any other way.”
“Tell me, then. What forced our interaction once again?”
“You’re in Kryonic Sleep, with the rest of the crew. We’re in interstellar space, heading to Beta Aquilae.”
“Another breadcrumb to follow I assume? Reynolds is leading us on quite the merry chase.”
“Full circle. But I didn’t invoke you for an update.”
“Tell me then, what is your purpose?”
Anders frowned. “We have a mole on board. Someone has been leaking our old course and heading information as well as our current investigation status for the past few years now and been scrubbing the log books clean afterwards.”
“A traitor? Hmm, that is interesting.”
“Before each trip, someone sends off a low frequency superluminal with our course and heading. Small thing, almost unnoticeable unless you really look for it.”
“Were you looking for it?”
“No. However, someone has been sending out rather large updates when we’re in between star systems and the crew is asleep for the trip. I assume it’s everything related to our current status given the size of it but I can’t be sure. The transmission is always erased.”
“But not the record of it?”
“Yes-well, uh, no. The record of the transmission and the transmissions themselves are always gone. The one thing left behind is a record that an erasure took place and how long it took to scrub the data.”
“So, someone has been erasing transmissions in between systems yet nothing appears to be missing?”
Anders nodded. “Correct. And for the past several years now, Union ships have been appearing closer and closer to our destinations. They’ve been tracking us. Somehow.”
“I see. Very dangerous. So have you figured out who it is?”
“I think so.” He said tapping a few icons on a nearby console. In the middle of the tank, a document with a photo of a young pale skinned man appeared.
“Matthias Nguyen?” The Shadow raised an eyebrow. “Well that’s interesting. Do you have evidence?”
“Yes. I set my pod to wake me if someone happened to get warmed up before we arrived. And Lieutenant Nguyen is the only other person awake right now. I suspect-”
The Aesthetica unceremoniously cut him off. “Excuse me, Thomas. You requested notification if Lieutenant Nguyen accessed any ship systems. Currently, Lieutenant Nguyen is accessing ship capability files, including but not limited to, weapons status, main computer functionality, and officer quarters locations.”
Anders frowned. “Thank you. Please revoke Lieutenant Nguyen’s access to ship communications and route all functionality through CIC. Cut power to the Superluminal array. Do not let him send any transmissions out of this ship.”
“Yes, Thomas. Currently, Lieutenant Nguyen is loading a data package onto his personal terminal.”
“Interesting development.” The Shadow said, stroking his chin. “What are your current orders?”
“I was ordered to find the mole and to deal with them however I saw fit.”
“I see. Well, a security risk like Nguyen cannot be tolerated on this ship. You will have to dispose of him.”
Anders frowned. “Nguyen is popular among the crew. They won’t exactly take the news that he’s a mole very gracefully. It will be a disaster for ship cohesion and moral.”
“Then you will have to terminate him.”
Anders paused. “Is that an order?”
“Does it have to be?” The Shadow summoned a file into its hands. Anders didn’t have to look to see what it conjured. “You were ordered to identify the mole and, if they were a threat to the ship and mission, dispose of them however was necessary.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then you should know, Sub-Commander, what must be done. Nguyen poses an unacceptable security risk and there appears to be enough evidence to indicate he has come close to compromising our mission before. You have no choice. If he cannot be reasoned with, you will have to kill him. Do it soon before we arrive in Beta Aquilae when everyone is still asleep and vent his body. Send a suit with him.”
“You want me to make it seem like a suicide?”
“Accident, suicide, some combination of the two, however you see fit, Sub-Commander. Make foul play inconceivable in the mind of the crew. It will be better for them to mourn together than to start distrusting each other.”
“I understand.”
“I certainly hope so, Thomas. We’re approaching the edge of charted space and if we do not find Reynolds soon, things will get very difficult for us very quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I trust you don’t need reminding at what’s at stake here. Remove Nguyen from the equation so we can get on with our business. He’s compromised enough already.”
“Yes, sir. It will be done.”
“Then I trust you have no more need for my services. I certainly hope we don’t see each other soon.”
Anders smiled. “Of course sir.”
“Program terminated.”
The Shadow vanished and Anders let out a breath in a mixture of relief and apprehension. On one hand, the fact he’d been ordered to carry out what he suspected would have to be done comforted him. The fact Behr’s Shadow ordered it only served to add to the new feelings of ease. One less thing he would have to explain to the captain when he awoke. On the other hand, the thought of assassinating Nguyen wasn’t exactly something he anticipated with much enthusiasm. He looked forward to this the same way normal people looked forward to putting down childhood pets well past their expiration dates. But, like a dying animal, Nguyen needed to be put down, and put down quickly. Still, Anders wanted something to solidify his confidence in the righteousness of his task.
“Lieutenant Nguyen is attempting to manually access the main communications array.” The Aesthetica said, shattering the silence of the car.
“Has he attempted to compose or send any transmissions?”
“Affirmative. He is attempting to upload a large encrypted file.”
“Thank you. Please stall him as long as you can.”
“Yes, Thomas.”
Anders stepped into the waiting car and braced himself against the wall. The elevator began heading inward. He began issuing a series of commands to the ship’s armory as the elevator began to drop.
“Nguyen has left communications and is heading towards the recreation deck.” The vessel notified.
Anders nodded. “Thank you. Silently track him and upload his location to my HUD.”
The elevator slowed to a stop at the top of the recreation deck. Here the sky became the ceiling. Anders stepped out of the car. A small drone greeted him, hovering upon its duel turbofans. A tail-like spider arm unfolded from the bottom of the craft and deposited a small pistol into his hand.
Anders gripped it, hefting its weight. Its delicacy surprised him, the weapon not designed to fire any deadly projectiles or high energy laser pulses or any plasma drops. Instead it launched small stun darts that could quickly deliver a variety of chemical cocktails, doing anything from paralyzing a target to rendering them unconscious to killing them. Exactly what Anders needed.
He gave a quick mental command to the implants in his eyes. A set of outlines and infographics appeared in his vision. A red line materialized on the floor, directing him to his target. A set of crosshairs coalesced and a dotted line extended out from the barrel of his weapon to whatever the reticle fell upon.
Anders felt a sour grin ghost his face. At least he wouldn’t miss.
He began heading outward along a catwalk towards the inner walls. The air here smelled fresh of foliage mixed with the lingering scent of spring rain. The chirps of faux birds and other synthetic creatures reverberated throughout the massive chamber, complementing the comforting low hiss of running water. The lush greens of the artificial Eden and the irregularities of stony outcroppings and sheer cliffs bestrewing the chamber, thankfully, hide away much of the metal of the ship. Were it not for the false blue ceiling above, one would not be blamed for mistaking the area for a tropical cave, bathed under perpetual sunlight.
It would be easy for the inexperienced to get lost.
Anders robotically followed the path before him, heading down hills and bridges along the walls, skipping across rock and water towards his target. By now Nguyen had stopped moving and remained in what passed for a dead end in the garden. The trees grew familiar the closer he got. He knew the place. A majority of the crew favored the spot, including Nguyen. A red line wouldn’t be needed to find him now.
The man sat upon on a stone bench beneath a small tree resting on the shore of a small pond. A waterfall fell from some other deck above into the pond, which in turn slowly tricked down to one of the larger ponds a few hundred meters below. A collection of flowers, trees, and ferns encircled a grassy ring surrounding a pond.
Anders flipped the safety and cocked the weapon. The man turned.
He was undoubtedly handsome. Broad chin, high cheekbones, and large blue eyes that dominated his face. He wore fair skin that bordered on paleness, even among star runner crews. Similar to the rest of the crew, he’d built an impressive, athletic physique. His black hair lay slicked back and tied behind his head in a bun. He smiled, reaching into his pocket.
Anders fired.
Nguyen jerked and clutched his chest where the dart pierced his uniform. A small pad fell to the grass. He looked back up, pulling the spent dart from his clothes.
“That hurt.” He said dropping it to the ground with his pad.
Anders lowered his weapon. “In about five minutes your heart will slow to a crawl before you go unconscious. From there, your diaphragm will stop along with it and about ten minutes after that, you will be dead. Painless for the most part.”
He smiled. “How kind of you.”
“You’ve become an unacceptable security risk to this ship, Matthias.”
“Yes, I know. I figured someone was coming after me when the array locked me out. Couldn’t last forever, could it?”
“No. It could not.”
“I didn’t think Behr would send his protégé to assassinate me.”
“He didn’t.” Anders said, walking to the other side of the pond. Nguyen turned around to face him, still clutching his chest.
“Ah, his Shadow ordered you to kill me, didn’t it?”
“Basically.” Anders nodded.
Nguyen laughed. “The real Behr probably would have done the same.”
Anders turned. “Maybe not. Be happy I didn’t have Valerie execute you instead. She wouldn’t have been nearly as kind.”
“Ah. I suppose I should use my last minutes to be thankful that she’s still in hack right now.”
“Perhaps. Unlike the rest of the crew, she doesn’t exactly like you.”
“No doubt this probably will exacerbate that.”
Anders frowned. “Actually, it won’t. They will never know what you did.”
“Really? Ah, I see now. Keep everyone one big happy family.”
“That’s the idea.”
He sighed. “I wouldn’t have done it if there was any other way.”
“Any other way for what?”
“To help out home.”
“This ship was your home.”
“No, Thomas, Naraka was my home.” Malice suddenly crept its way into his voice. “Before the war, I lived in Epsilon Indi. Then all this happened and, well, I ended up on the wrong side.”
“That you did.”
“I tried, sir. I really did. Believe me, if there was any way I could’ve helped my home planet without endangering this ship, I would have. But if this mission succeeds, and Reynolds really does have the pieces to the Holy Grail like you think, it will mean death for my world.”
“Your world had a considerable hand in starting this war.”
“Tell me, Sub-Commander, how much of why you enlisted was due to Commonwealth propaganda? You and the rest of the Commonwealth universally condemn my world and my people and anyone else within ten light years of it.”
“None of it. I had my reasons, just like you did, and everyone else on this ship.”
“Yet you still think my people instigated this conflict. And now, here we find ourselves, on the edge of charted space, searching for a woman who could be dead for all we know who supposedly can definitively point the finger on who and why this all started. How can you place such blind trust in that story? How can you place such blind trust that this Annika Reynolds has what we’re looking for?”
Anders scowled at the man. “Because I was there. My home, like hers, was Takama-ga-hara, and is still occupied by a Union fleet.”
Nguyen blinked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Few people do.”
“Did you know her?”
Anders paused. “Yes… I knew her.”
He smiled. “I see.”
“Let me ask you something. If you knew, for sure like I do, what your leaders did to start all of this, would you still have done everything you did?”
“You mean if they were guilty? One hundred percent sure? Yes, I would have.”
“Why?”
“My Country. In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, my country.”
“Stephen Decatur.”
“Yes. I’m a patriot at heart. Naraka will always be my home. And I have a duty to do everything I can to defend her. My Country, right or wrong.”
“In this case, wrong. You mistake patriotism for nationalism.”
Nguyen laughed. Anders tilted his head. The man was dying for his misplaced loyalty, yet he was laughing. Genuinely laughing.
“In another time, we could have been great friends, Thomas. You believe in the righteousness of your cause, just as I do mine. We’re both patriots to some degree.” He coughed before falling to his knees. “I hope both our endeavors do not end in vain. Truly I do. Unfortunately, only one of our stories can have a happy ending. I hope you take none of my actions personally. We are both patriots after all.”
With a final breath, he slumped over on his side, his head resting in the pond. It would take another few minutes for Nguyen to die. Anders let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and sat down on the grass.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you, Matthias.”
Across the grass, sitting in a tree, appeared a pale girl in an orange engineer’s jumpsuit. Her hair didn’t go any further than her eyebrows excluding the thick lock obscuring a fair part of her face. She smiled down on him and waved. Anders scowled.
“I’m not a patriot.” He sighed, removing a small brown journal from his pocket, flipping to a marked page. “Aesthetica.”
“Yes, Thomas?”
“Please relocate the corpse into Nguyen’s environmental suit and vent it into space.” He walked over to the body and picked up the fallen terminal. He gave it a quick glance before placing it into his pocket.
The ship replied. “Yes, Thomas.”
Now it was a signature part of her home. I feel like it would be phrased less awkwardly that way.
What kind of pins? Safety pins? Frankenstein monster pins? Future Pins?
He was Thomas a few moments ago, so why the sudden change of name?
throwing him unceremoniously to the floor like a newborn baby. Personal preference, there. Not really an issue.
"in Ander's mind at least" may convey it better, but again, that's a personal edit.
Unless the AI is screaming, reserve shattering for another time. You don't get many uses of harsh words. Breaking would do it.
Should probably change fell to a different word.
At the ending bit, are we supposed to know that the girl is there? Is Anders aware of her? Or is the girl the AI of the ship given form?
All in all, I'm in love with the concept and I would happily pick it up when it's published!
(My Steam name is still CyberFire btw ;-; )
-shrugs- I don't have time for constructive criticism, so keep up the good work!!
“I trust you don’t need reminding at what’s at stake here. Remove Nguyen from the equation so we can get on with our business. The first sentence is a bit redundant and could be rephrased as " I trust you don't need to be reminded of what's at stake here." Other than that I couldn't find much else.
which in turn slowly tricked down to one of the larger ponds a few hundred meters below
Tricked should be trickled.
My only question now is where I can access this wehn it is done