First Words—August 30, 2018—Mack ‘n’ Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9

-
I’ve just finished the words for Mack ‘n’ Me #5. They are good words… until tomorrow, when I will edit them again and probably ask myself who wrote this shit, and then they will be edited and will be good words, all over again. For now, in their mostly unedited first draft state, here are the first words of the day, written around 7 hours ago. You don't need to ask if Cutter's mission is going sideways, you just need to ask how bad and how fast:
----------------------------------------------------------------

Turns out it was a good question to ask.
I’d been trotting through the tunnel, towards the slant-wise cutting that would take me down a level, when Tens and Case called me back.
“That wasn’t the maid,” Tens said. “It was the concubine.”
“Figures.”
I slowed to a walk, found an alcove, checked it for creepy crawlies, and stepped inside.
“Go on.”
“And it’s a slave bracelet.”
“A what?”
“You heard the man,” Case told me. “A slave bracelet. You know, the kind of thing that stops folk from running away, or lets their masters track them.”
“Uh huh. So why does he need me, then?”
“That would be the thing to ask.”
I huffed out a sigh.
“No point. He probably wouldn’t tell the truth, anyway. What I want to know is why he hasn’t sent a squad after her, and why he needs someone from off-world. And it would be good to know I wasn’t’ going to be retrieving a person, because you know the contract’s breached nine ways to Hell, if he expects that. I’m not taking anyone back to slavery under that asshole.”
“Literally,” Case said, and I rolled my eyes.
Not what I needed to hear.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Would you like to read more? 

The first three books and two short stories in the Mack ‘n’ Me ‘n’ Odyssey series: Mack ‘n’ Me: Origins, The Depredides Dance, Mack ‘n’ Me: Blaedergil’s Host, Mack ‘n’ Me: Arach and Cloud Door, are also available. The fourth book, Mack ‘n’ Me: The Transporter’s Favour will release shortly.


Location: Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Australian Insects: An Unknown Caterpillar eating Grevillea flower buds

-
Image
So, this little guy nearly bought it when I caught it eating the still-forming buds on my Robyn grevillea, but then I thought I might like to see which particular butterfly was responsible, so I took some pictures and decided to keep an eye on it, so I knew when it pupated. The first shot - caterpillar happily nibbling on flower buds:  Yup - definitely nibbling: And here's another view. Note the little yellow lumps near its back end. Same day, but it was one of those cloudy days with variegated light. And it kept nibbling for quite some time: Stretching out to get the more tasty tidbits, and using its hind feet to keep a firm grip on the branch. Eventually it looped back on itself... ...and headed into denser foliage. It didn't always move in a straight line... How come caterpillars have more feet than butterflies? Eventually, it got into some much thicker growth (well, for a young grevillea, anyway), meaning it was somewhat prot...
Read more

NEW RELEASE: AUTUMNAL THREAT

-
Image
An alien autumn. An unseen predator. Deadly burrowers and an oncoming winter. And bugs big enough to ride. Joaquin only wants to warn his daughter of a new danger. To keep her safe. To make her understand her mother isn’t coming back, while keeping her alive. But what if he’s wrong? What if Mariam really did survive? What if, when everything looks like it’s going wrong, it’s really going right? Autumnal Threat is Joaquin's story. It is a father's story...and the story of a husband who misses his wife, and wants to keep his daughter safe from a new threat on their frontier world. It's a story of hope, and not giving up, and of family, as well as an exploration of what an alien eco-system might look like. It was a lot of fun to write. You can find links to this newly released, stand-alone, science-fiction short story on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/mgyopK or read an earlier version in A Collection of Lost Ships and Colonies .  
Read more

Free Read: Forest Connections

-
Today, I managed to settle down and write a response to the latest flash fiction challenge on Chuck Wendig's Terribleminds blog - The Dead Body . There were only two rules: the word limit was 1,000, and the story had to open with a dead body. This is what came out: Forest Connections The body swayed in the trees rocked by storm winds and illuminated by lightning. It was naked, except for the green, leather gloves it wore on both hands—the hands from which it was suspended from the tree. It might have been an attractive body, if there hadn’t been a gaping wound where its stomach should be. Perhaps… but Garamond wasn’t looking at the body, didn’t notice the slender hips or sculpted chest, the beauty of fine-chiselled cheek bones or luxurious fall of hair. Garamond fought his breakfast back into place, swallowed bile, forced his focus to the other trees in the grove, the ground onto which he’d nearly stepped. If it hadn’t been for the crow flying out of the chest cavity...
Read more