Thursday, December 4, 2008

Let's go into Space!

This is the first chapter from Girl Space Pirate - it'll probably be cut along with the next ten chapters (LOL) but hey it's a start.


The soot and heat of the glassium forge seared my arms as I pulled the metal out onto the bench. Of course I could have used a millicompressor and had it mold the metal straight into the joint, but in all honesty I preferred to do things ‘old fashioned’. I didn’t mind taking my time to make sure the metal rivet wouldn’t slip again. Riald often grumbled about how long I took on each project, but when it came to having a working thorium engine I had proven time and again that I knew what I was doing.

‘In you go.’ I couldn’t keep the smug grin off my face as the rivet fitted perfectly into the engine casing. ‘What’s done is done, let no one come behind and muck it up.’

The invocation of the old stellar engineers blessing instantly brought Riald over to my work bench.

‘You finally finished with this thing yet?’ His looming mass wasn’t intimidating. I was used to Riald’s ways.

‘Just now, want to be the first one to test it?’ I held out the starter key in the palm of my hand to tempt him.

Riald jumped back and raised his hands defensively towards me. ‘You do it.’

I chuckled remembering it had only been the once that Riald had started up an engine I thought I’d fixed. It blew the workshop apart spectacularly. We were lucky the force shield held when it went or none of us would be around today.

I pressed the appropriate code into the data film and the engine roared into life with rotating lights signaling the movement of the thorium atoms throughout the casing. I crossed my arms and leaned against the bench behind me.

‘Think you’re so smart.’ Riald said. His voice betrayed the glee at having a working thorium engine to sell.

‘Yes you know I am.’ I smiled when he gave me a satisfied nod in agreement.

I was always given the jobs that no one else could fix. I suppose Riald was right when he said I was a natural at thorium engines and stellar drives, but the factory bosses didn’t know I was here. Riald had taken me on as an apprentice to help my mother and so anything I repaired he would keep and sell. Of course he gave me a tiny fraction of the profits so that I wouldn’t leave and find another job. It was hardly worth it, I loved what I did and if it wasn’t for the fact that food and shelter were soo hard to come by I might have even done it for free. I wanted to work with as many different engine systems as I could.

One day I would leave and travel to the inner worlds to see the great merchant fleets and perhaps join a crew to travel the space lanes.

Of course it was all pie in the sky thinking I knew that dumbolds from the outer worlds were never allowed the honour of joining merchant ships. In the long history of the planetary systems very few had gone off planet and those that had never came back to talk about it. Even the girls picked for The Farm never came back and all they did was produce oocytes for the fertile labs of the inner worlds. Probably knew better than to come back to this dump of a planet.

The whistle blew signaling the end of the shift. I had to bolt over to the women’s section before any of the subalterns came past to lock up the sheds. Women were not allowed to fraternize with the men in this factory, there were rules about it all. The owners were paranoid that there would be full scale riotous behaviour if men and women mixed at work.

Luckily my short hair and boyish body kept me from being spotted. When I snuck through the barrier separating men and women I had to shove the hat into my pocket and pull out a grey scarf to cover my head instead. Another rule, women couldn’t wear men’s headgear and vice versa. The whole thing stunk but as these people were paying Mum and keeping us alive I never bothered to argue. It was easier to slip through the cracks in the system than to confront the system itself. The insurgent Wing Zee would be proud.

‘Lenni over here.’ My mother waved a scared hand at me through the bustle of closing time.

I slipped quickly past several older women bent over from years of working the factory floor. That was another thing about working there, you ended up aging quickly, most never survived past fifty rotations of Qual. I could see the lines that had formed on Mum’s face as I came closer to her. No one knew how long they would live, but I knew one thing I wasn’t going to spend my life energies here.

‘I fixed another engine today.’ I whispered into Mum’s ear.

She gave me a small nod and held my wrist as we were thrust into the main crush of bodies exiting the factory. Standard procedure was to scan each worker before they left to ensure no one was making money on the side. Riald had a secret way out of the factory so the bosses never cottoned on to why so many engines that had come in for possible recycling were deemed for the slag heap.

People didn’t talk as they left the factory. It was as if they were trying desperately to forget the misery of life inside the dark doors as they pushed those in front of them through the doors to the outside world.

The scenery wasn’t much better outside the factory as it was in. This whole area had been set up by the one conglomerate, the houses were attached to the factory and kept the workers in line and any subversive activity was quickly picked up on, the family would be evicted instantly to the outlands. A new family would take residence almost before the lights could deglow in the boxy compartments.

We lived further out than most. Our fortunes had changed the day Dad and Jessem died. The factory blamed my father for the accident and we were left to pay them damages. It took everything we had and even then we were almost bound to slavery for them until the balance was paid in full.

When you’re just part of the numberless horde you tend to forget that there are things worth living for. Mum had slipped into that state of mind a long time ago but I wouldn’t let them get me. I couldn’t. If I did then they would win and all the effort we had made would be for nothing.

Sometimes I wished that someone like Wing Zee would rise up here and free the people. But that was over a hundred rotations ago, most people wouldn’t even know who Wing was. The Inner Consortium had made sure that most records of the revolution had disappeared along with anyone who was found to have Wing Zee’s life work. The little blue book was still out there, the authorities couldn’t stop it entirely. The disappearances had led those who professed to follow Wing Zee’s way to go underground.

Our apartment was small and boxy like everyone else’s in that part of town. We had three rooms, one where we could eat and talk, another where we could take care of ablutions and so on, and the third where our bedrolls were. The walls were made of thin dura-iron, a polymer hybrid of scrap metal and plastrons. It was durable, hence the name, but because it was so thin you could hear most of what went on in the apartment next door. The dura-iron was a sickly off yellow colour, it reminded me of puke and it was uniform throughout the entire neighbourhood. I guess that’s part of the reason why people were so downtrodden, they lived in a puke coloured habitat which leeched out positivity.

The lights came on automatically as we entered and the viewscreen showed a grassy hillside with small purple flowers dotting the landscape. It was supposed to be how the inner worlds were, the vegetation alive and the sky blue. I couldn’t help but wonder which planet this vid was from, I’d like to take Mum there one day so she could lie down on the grass and feel that breeze flow over her.

Mum didn’t even look at the screen anymore, she trod over to the food preparation bench and opened up two of the silver foiled packages which all our food came in. Part of the Factory’s way of cutting out the middle man, they bought this stuff in bulk and then sold it to us at an exorbitant price. We couldn’t not buy it. There were no grassy hillsides here and in fact I don’t think in all my years I had ever once held a plant that wasn’t hydrosynthically created in a bacterial tank.

‘Food’s ready.’ Mum said.

‘Oh look bean paste and beads again.’ I mumbled.

‘That’s supposed to be rice, close your eyes if it helps.’ Mum handed me a fork and sat on her chair closest to the view screen.

‘Beggars can’t be chosers huh?’ I said.

Mum closed her eyes and chewed her food ignoring my comment.

She hadn’t always been this way. There was a time not too long ago when she was vibrant and full of energy. She believed me when I said I would one day travel through the stars and nebulas. Mum had even encouraged me to study the engine designs Dad had been working on so I could get a head start in life. But that was then. Today as she sat in front of me her skin had a grayish tone, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, and her eyes were hollow.

She hadn’t asked for this life, none of us had. It was what we had to make do with until something better came along. If it ever did. Perhaps I shouldn’t have thought like that but I harboured a fear that my dreams might never come to fruition and that doubt niggled in my stomach each and every day.

The view screen flickered and changed to a night time scene in some vast swampland with tiny firebugs flittering through the reeds. That type of darkness was foreign to us. The fluorescent glow of the factory reflected back from the cloud cover so that the sky was in a constant brown twilight. A brownish stain had settled over everything as if the world was weeping for the destruction the people of our planet had caused.

I poked my fork into the food with half hearted resolve but my fight to swallow was interrupted by the door chime.

‘I’ll get it.’ I bounded over to the entranceway and palmed the door open.

‘Have you heard?’ Gerri almost yelled in my face.

I sighed and shook my head. High drama followed Gerri everywhere she went as if she was a magnet.

‘You and I have made it.’ She twirled around excitedly.

‘What have we done?’ I shut the door and came back into the middle of the room.

There was a look of pure ecstacy on her face as she said, ‘we’ve been drafted, you and me both.’

I almost vomited on the spot. The draft was supposedly a random draw of all eligible females aged seventeen to fulfil their spot in The Farm as egg donors.

‘I know you’re stunned, I was too. I mean me? Going off world.’ She said it with such awe that I didn’t know how to respond.

‘They’ve got you.’ Mum whispered from her chair.

I turned to Mum who looked at me with utter despair. ‘What can I do?’

‘What do you mean, what can you do?’ Gerri was almost laughing. ‘You can celebrate Lenni, finally we get out of this place and after our term is up we can travel anywhere we want, maybe even go to the inner worlds.’

I swallowed the bile that had risen in my throat. ‘I don’t want to go.’

Gerri gave me a look of incredulity. ‘What do you mean? How could you not want to leave this hell hole, come on Lenni it’s all we ever talked about since we were young.’

I clenched my hands in front of my body and turned back to look at Mum. ‘I don’t want to go.’

I thought I saw a tear form in the corner of Mum’s eye but she turned away from me before it fell.

‘Why? What’s here for you? You’ll just end up a slave like the rest. Didn’t that Zee Ying say something like take opportunity when you can?’

‘Wing Zee,’ I corrected her without thinking it was a habit we had fallen into years before. ‘Gerri, I can’t go. I’ve heard what happens up there.’

‘It’s two years in stasis. You don’t even know you’re being harvested and when you wake up you have money and a place to go.’ Her smile had returned. ‘What could go wrong?’

She had uttered those fateful words and I wish I had had the courage then to tell her everything Riald and the others had told me. That you didn’t come back, most didn’t survive the treatment. It was just another way of enslaving the masses here with the thought that their daughters were living a better life somewhere else.

Gerri reached across to me and rubbed my arm. ‘Cheer up Lenni, we’ll go together and travel the space lanes together.’

I gave her a reluctant smile. ‘You’re right, it’ll be fun.’

‘That’s my girl.’ She almost jumped up and down in her excitement. ‘I have to go let the others know, they’ll be coming for us tomorrow evening, pack light.’

With that Gerri fluttered out of my life. The next time I saw her regret would almost overwhelm me.

The door slid shut with a familiar whoosh and an uncomfortable silence ensued. I sat heavily on the floor it felt as if the whole world had just crashed down on top of me. Gerri and I had always talked of getting off world, but not this way. I did not want to be hooked up to some machine in stasis as my body produced eggs for infertile inner world couples like some caged animal.

‘We can run away.’ Mum’s soft voice echoed across the empty room.

I looked up at her as she knelt down to cradle me I her arms. ‘We can’t they’ll find us and then we’ll be sold into slavery.’

‘We already are slaves here Lenni, or just about. We’ll hide on a freighter and go to another world, start again.’

‘They’d jettison us into space if we did that.’

‘There must be some way out of the draft.’ She said.

‘The only way out is to die, once your name is down you have to go.’ The resignation in my voice shocked even me.

Mum was quiet for a moment then said. ‘Why not die then?’

‘What?’

‘If you died they couldn’t take you.’ Her face was calm as she spoke. ‘Riald will know how to do that.’

Mum what are you saying?’

‘They will hunt you down if you don’t die, no matter where you run, they’ll find you. So the answer is to die.’

I had a sick feeling that Mum was right, The Farm would send someone to find me if I did try to run away, but how could she consider my death?

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Wednesday's word fest.

Okay, so I um'd and ah'd about which snippet to give you all a look at but I've finally decided to go with the opening two pages of Dress Up Cowboy. It's not edited so be gentle with it. Enjoy.

CHAPTER ONE

Scott Bennett couldn’t believe he’d let Josh talk him into coming tonight. The place was jam-packed full of people, half of whom wore very little in the way of clothing, the music was attempting to break the sound barrier and the beer he’d been nursing for the last five minutes starting to go warm. What on earth could Josh have used to tempt him into coming?
A couple of dark rose spots danced in front of his eyes. Oh, yeah, he remembered now.
Sex.
Easy sex.
Anonymous sex.
Hot, sweaty, no strings attached sex with a buckle bunny.
Oh, yeah!
He could do with some of that. There was just one problem. None of the buckle bunnies in the Bucking Bronc Bar looked old enough to know what sex was never mind old enough to do it legally. His cocked twitched as the two dark rose spots danced across his line of vision again. She might not look old enough to have sex but the big breasted blond certainly had the equipment for it. Mind you, with the way those mounds bounced they couldn’t be real. There was no give in them. Only one thing turned him off quicker than a girl, and that was a fake one.
Nope, Scott liked his women older and real. No silicon for him. The size didn’t worry him either, just so long as when you squeezed it was all woman. He liked them to be the way nature and genetics intended. He sighed and lifted his beer to his mouth, watched as the dancing dark rose spots got groped by some cowboy with large hands and scarred fingers. No doubt about it, he’d end up with a boner just from watching the boys and bunnies rubbing up against each other all over the room. Not exactly his idea of a good time.
Movement near the bar caught his attention and the mouthful of beer he’d just swallowed came charging back up his throat. Leaning on the bar, in the shortest, tightest denim mini he’d ever seen, was a woman. An honest to God woman. She had to be in her late twenties and her breasts were crushed into one of them singlet top things the waitresses at Hooters wore. He couldn’t quite read the writing on it but from where he sat it looked like the distinct brown owl and orange lettering made famous by the restaurant chain. No bra either. Damn, that was hot.
Her arms and legs were long and tan, smooth skin as far as the eyes could see. Hair the color of caramel swirled around her face and shoulders, feathered layers flying this way and that with every move she made. No other way to describe her other than sex on legs. Scott could easily picture those legs wrapped around his waist while he drove his cock into her wet cunt.
Pain lanced his groin. Damn. He was rock hard and hadn’t even touched her. He’d be lucky if he didn’t blow in his pants just sitting here watching her. The barman passed her a beer and she slapped some money on the bar top. Lifting the beer to her mouth, she turned to scan the room. He couldn’t make out the color of her eyes with the distance between them but he didn’t care, he wanted that steady gaze on him. He waited for her eyes to land on his side of the bar, she scanned quickly, cowboy after cowboy dismissed with just a look.
The closer her gaze got to him the tighter the tension in his body. He felt like his whole life rode on this one look. Josh stepped up to the table just as her eyes landed on it, he didn’t look away from her, and he watched as she sized Josh up and found him lacking. Her gaze lowered to him and he saw the spark of interest, her back stiffened, her shoulders pulled back and her orange splashed breasts pushed forward. He kept his eyes on hers as he raised his beer and toasted her with it. The corners of her eyes tipped up and he darted a look at her mouth.
Those red slicked lips were plump and kissable, and presently stretched in a grin that made him think he just might get lucky after all. But when she slid off the stool and started in his direction he knew he was getting lucky, because if she came over here and said one word to him there was no way he would let her walk out of this bar alone. If he had to, he’d throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of here. She didn’t know it yet but she was his. No if’s, ands or buts, he planned on spending the rest of tonight buried deep inside that tight little body until his dick refused to get hard anymore.
******
So what ya think?
RC

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Tuesday's Torture

Here is part of the opening scene to my NaNo novel. As it turned out the first few days work was probably the better of a bad lot. LOL. But, as you can see it still need work. It’s interesting because now that I have read part of it again I may just do some editing on it while I’m editing a few of the others and start writing it again after Christmas.

Marianne sat quietly in the small parlour watching Shep Freeman from below lowered lashes as she attended to her needlepoint. Her sister Charlotte sat by Shep’s side prattling on about how hungry she was and how hard it was on their beloved mother to have to go without food. Charlotte’s selfish behaviour astonished Marianne at times. Charlotte two years older than Marianne always made sure Marianne knew her place.

‘Charlotte, I’m sure we have more than enough food to last us a good two weeks.’ Marianne felt it her place to inform the couple.

Charlotte looked over her shoulder eyes filled with fury. ‘You have no idea what we do and do not have Marianne. I’m the one who has to manage the household.’

Some household, there is only the three of us, and I do all the cooking. Marianne held her tongue. She would receive a good tongue-lashing from Charlotte as soon as Shep left.

The house they now lived in with its small rooms and heavy curtains resembled nothing of what they had grown up with, oh how she missed the peace of the countryside. The beauty of the rolling hills, the smell of wild flowers and slow flowing streams. She closed her eyes to the pain of the eviction from their childhood home by her sister-in-law after her stepbrother’s death.

‘Miss Marianne, are you feeling alright?’ The deep baritone voice of Shep Freeman washed over her bringing her back to her surroundings.

Shep Freeman, a tall man with dark wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail. His hazel eyes reached down into her soul and smile send a pool of heat to her stomach. Marianne had fallen in love with him the day he arrived on their doorstep carrying Charlotte in his arm after she had taken a fall. His muscular arms had held her sister close to his wide chest. Marianne wished it had been her in his arms. She dreamt of his hard body pressed against hers. The smell of him close to her, a raw male scent. It was a wanton thought, but she could not help herself. He was everything a man should be and more.

‘Yes, I’m fine thank you Mr. Freeman.’

Marianne lowered her eyes back to the needlepoint she was working on. It was no use saying anymore, Shep would hand over part his wage to help them out causing his own family to do without again.

‘Shep and I are going out in the garden for a bit Marianne, be sure to keep an eye on Mother.’
Marianne nodded her head in agreement. Now it would start, Charlotte would take Shep into the garden and work her charm on him. The sad fact was that Charlotte knew how to work her charm on everyone. She often came home with money from one person or another. She never told Marianne how she obtained the money, nor did Marianne really want to know.

She stood and moved to stand by the side of the window. The large garden lay out in front of her, Charlotte stood within the circle of Shep’s strong arms. Her hands farrowed in his hair. Shep smiled down at her sister, and then lowered his lips to hers.

Marianne closed her eyes pretending it was she in Shep’s arms. It was her mouth that he covered and drank from like a man dying of thirst. She groaned deep down in her throat. Her eyes opened in shock, she was behaving no better than a common whore, but that did not stop the tide of excitement to course through her body.


Okay that is my bit done.

Sandie

Sunday, November 30, 2008

My NaNo writings....

Okay, this is scary, but here is an excerpt from my NaNo writings, A Monarch in the Making, in all its unedited glory:

Ash put his head down, his chin nearly resting on his chest. Placing his hands in his pocket he sighed. Looking back up he wondered if the sorrow he felt inside was reflected in his face.

‘I think I might be the biggest idiot around. I’m truly, to the very bottom of my heart, hurt by what you did to me. I never thought, not in a million years that you could do that to me. Not after everything that has happened. Not after the promises you made to my father.’ He looked out the window, trying to keep his temper in check. ‘You put a price on our relationship. Families don’t do that. Not that you can think much of us as a family because you just threw us away, like garbage. You basically said you know what, your happiness is not quite worth this much money. You know, it really does hurt. How can you champion yourself as a ole model when you are willing to discard your family like that. I know we aren’t related by blood, but I valued the famiy that we had become.’

(His stepmother) lifted her hand to her throat, as if to ward off his words. Opening her mouth she didn’t get the chance to speak. ‘I don’t want words, no words. It is too late for that now. No, none at all.’

To force the words home Ash leant down on the table and looked her straight in the eye. Speaking slowly, but with a forcefulness that was not to be mistaken he made his position clear. ‘I don’t want to you to talk to me.’

(stepmother) sat there, her mouth opening and closing, like a goldfish out of water, but with no sound coming out.

‘Honestly, the hardest part for me was the fact you took away time I could have spent with Bree. Ohhh,’ Ash sighed, shook his head. He bent over, his hands supported by his knees as he tried to think of the words that could express the feelings that, up until this moment, he had been too afraid to even think to himself.

Standing up, he took a deep breath and started again. ‘Bree, when I told you that day by the billabong, when you asked me if I was playing you or not, I told you honestly that I wasn’t faking it. I’m not faking my feelings for you. I might have made light of it, turned it into a joke, but I really am having feelings I’ve never felt before and have never –‘ he broke off, taking a deep breath to steady himself, ‘I honestly feel like I startyed to fall in love with you.’ Ash looked at Bree, his eyes baring his soul as she smiled up at him.

‘You ar an amazing girl and I want everyone to know that and I …. I’m glad I didn’t stay in Brisbane so I could be here and have met you.’

Bree held his gaze as she mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to him. Ash shrugged and sat down, still smiling at Bree.

While a mixture of emotions coursed through Bree she realized she had to make a decision. Ash still didn’t know that she was the mysterious girl from the ball, and she knew that it was the magic of that new year’s kiss that had held him back from her. She also knew that, regardless of everything he had just said, that the guilt over his fathers death would prevent him from severing ties with his stepmother and force him to stay on the station. She knew whe sould have to make a very hard decision.

With her heart bursting with love, she realized whe would have to go. She couldn’t be responsible for breaking up the familuy. And she new that the guilt he felt over his fathers deathwould just worsen if he didn’t stay at the farm. But she couldnlt stay behind. Similarly her family duties meant she had to return to Sweden. While she new it would break her heart she made the silent decision to leave.