Thanks to Mike Amadeuz for
permission to use his dynamic image, “17.08.2013”!
Marauda perched between a sensor
array and a phase battle cannon. She couldn’t hide her grin, and her eyes
glowed yellow with excitement. Phasefire burst in brilliant arcs around the
battleship, and she watched the fighters zoom around her, wondering if she
could hitch a ride on one of them next time.
She snorted. Daddy would
definitely have a thing or two to say about that. Honestly, she was almost 800
years old. It’s not like she sprang out of a star nursery yesterday. But Daddy
still insisted on treating her like a newborn. Her broad, curved horns rivaled
her eldest brother’s, and she could send killing thoughts to drop a full-grown
bromhorst rampaging across the Sballaigh Plains while she was orbiting the
fourth moon.
It had taken her almost a century
to convince Daddy to let her fly into battle with the fleet, though. Even so,
she was to stay with the battleship and come inside if there was any phasefire
near her. As if she couldn’t deflect it, she grinned viciously. Her brothers
had tormented her with phase fire when they *were* still in the nursery. She
knew a lot more battle skills than Daddy gave her credit for.
A fighter exploded on the other
side of the battleship, and Marauda almost flew away from the ship to get a
closer look. She gripped the cannon with her bare toes and clung to the array
with her long fingers until her jump inertia spread away from the ship. With a
sigh, she relaxed against the cannon again. She scowled. I could be *helpful*, she thought, if Daddy would have a little faith in me.
The cannon flew up under her, and
Marauda followed its path. A fighter was headed straight for them, already firing.
Without thinking, she flung her slender arms out to deflect the phasefire. The
fighter exploded in a kaleidoscope of color. Marauda launched away from the
battleship in a victory dance.
She drifted around the curve of
the ship toward the command center. Looking in, she saw Daddy’s stern glare.
She looked down at herself, free of the ship, bare armed, bare legged, no
weapons but her own self. His baby.
Uh oh.
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Dogs in house
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Houdini
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Time writing:
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20 minutes
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October word
count:
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13,356
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Prompt: The Thrill of Battle (No Matter What Daddy Says)
ReplyDeleteI schooled my face into its ‘serious’ look, knowing Daddy would get his ‘even more serious’ look had he seen my grin. His steps did not falter as he passed me, but I could hear the ever-so-slight lengthening of the period in between sharp raps of his boot heels in the few strides it took to cross in front of my skimmer. He finished his inspection of the troops in the hanger bay and returned to the command module, where he looked out at us through the curved and currently transparent wall.
I knew he wanted me there, somewhere supposedly ‘safe’. But I also believed he respected my decision, somewhere deep down that he dare not show. He pretended to be swayed by his second’s argument that letting his daughter fight on the front lines would avoid appearances of nepotism, which had plagued him throughout my elder sibling’s careers.
Time writing: 14 minutes (done last night, but had to run as baby woke up)
Nice intro! Good scene setting and even quick relationship sketch. The sentence about the footsteps threw me a bit - had to read it a couple of times to make sure I envisioned it--I think you could simplify it a bit (for us slow readers). And in the 2nd graph, 1st sentence, is "there" in the command module?
DeleteI would read more!