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I suppose I could say that I had always suspected Mengsk. He always smiled in that half-smile, smug like his backwater bigot's drawl. He always spoke like a confederate, though his words were altruism. He said things would be different.
And I suppose I always knew the truth on some level. That war was war despite. That either side of the line rebel/oppressor felt the same when your finger was on that trigger.
It felt good though, for a while. And there was the girl. And both of those were drugs as much as the trikes are. Fooling yourself to feel it again.
They say the first step toward defeating addiction is admitting that you have a problem. This unfortunately leaves you open to the situation in which you admit you have a problem and don't give a ****.
I don't sleep while we're in space. You can make a room as dark as you want, but it isn't ever night. There aren't any organic sounds outside your ten-inch battle glass window. I remember sleeping outside back on Mar Sara, Backwater, Home. Drawing shapes in the dust streams and stars across the sky. Feeling that living air around me. We're resistance, so we can't afford psyches, but if we could, I'd tell mine that that was the reason I became an addict. And that's the reason I don't give a ****.
For the last four hours I've been drinking this bottle of non-fab Umojan whiskey, and loading this bracelet with a lethal dosage of the battle-use stimulant chemical tricycline k. The trick is making the bracelet distribute the lethal dose, not loading the dose. This applicator is made for soldiers trying to quit after they've been juiced up for too long in extended combat operations. Obviously the decreasing dosage programmed by default has been fixed for some time.
I don't understand why some girl's corpse is enough for me to do this, but I've always had morbid way of measuring love, tallying it in what happens to you when the person it's attached to inevitably gets killed.
I guess this means I loved her alot.
And this is why I think I loved her more than Raynor did.
Tieman said, "It's not what she would have wanted."
Yeah? She also didn't want alot of things. Getting orphaned, getting exploited, getting abandoned, and getting killed. Basically her entire life didn't go the way she wanted. Me and my pallet of baggage among other things.
I strap the string of median doses around my wrist and pull the clip tight.
I'm out too quickly to even hear my head hit the stainless steel floor.
Beat. Light.
flicker
I blink and close my eyes again. You can tell you’re hung over when the light beaming through between the slow blades of the ceiling fan feels like a fat bunch of knuckles, knocking on the inside of your forehead. You can tell you’re drunk when the clenched fist in your chest relaxes.
I’m lying awake with a lined checklist of aches. Dead, at the very last box on the list, is the only open one. Tieman is speaking to my left. Right? Left.
"That was a celebrity suicide attempt, Dana, but God obviously doesn't care to meet you yet. And the next highest up, Raynor, has sent you and his other second-in-commands a message. There's a meeting to discuss it in about half an hour.
"Drink some coffee and watch it. I've already hacked it and prepared your battle plans."
"How long was I out?"
"Eleven hours. Longest you've slept this month I imagine."
"This year. Give me the message on this console."
"Yes, sir."
"And give me some privacy."
"Yes, sir."
pro:james%ruler>
:briney’r%deep>
AUD FF>>
Dearest,
I know you're busy with your two old friends, but Lee has really to find himself in a spot of trouble once he finds out about Em's little bundle of joy. Nine months? More like nine days. Less for sure!
Lots of love,
Kerri
P.S. I've let your siblings know, quick and proper as well. They're excited as I'm sure you'll be.
%://hit*sm>
sr/>>
EC: **********
DC: ******
The screen flickers to life, the visual equivalent of white noise slowly congealing into a familiar face. Father figure, brother in arms, rival for a certain woman, friend on slow days, and overbearing boss. Jim Raynor, General, appears on screen, looking grave and pale, unshaven for at least as long as he's been awake. Tired but intense. Balding steadily.
He looks down and shakes his head. He's speaking but his mouth is out of sight.
"I can hear you from here.
"Yes. Mengsk ****ed us.
"Yes. You told me so."
He looks up.
"And yes. It is now your problem."
He takes a breath, looks down again, and then fixes his eyes on the screen. I start to say "bull****".
"Sarah is dead, Dane. Alan is dead too. And it should tear me up more than you, but I know about the trikes."
I look away, eyes falling on the flat silver cigarette case between my knife and sidearm, thinking of soft sheets and softer skin, all pale and lacy.
"With our forces broken and scattered, our options have run low. I'm taking my men to Char, where we'll use the only thing we have enough of lately, time. We're the most broken and scarcely armed or fed. But you, Van, Nimble, you're all close enough to Tarsonis and well enough and pissed enough for the other option.
"What we have left now, Dane, is revenge. Mengsk ****ed us. Mengsk killed Sarah, but his final play, the downfall of the Confederacy, is not yet complete.
"We will handle the Ion Cannon. Destroy the Psi Emitters and the zerg will pause, consider, and as we project, probably raze Korhal.
"What else do you want Dane? Should I guilt you? Should I morally compel you? If you aren't inspired by now, it's your choice. We've only got definite locations for half the emitters, while Duke is placing more. And if you're too late, your life is as likely forefeit as everyone elses."
He leans forward and there is an anticlimactic clicking sound. The word 'End' appears on screen, like I just sat through some pretentious piece of black and white art vid ****.
"Tieman, you were right."
"Thanks, but you're still sleeping on the couch."
"Whatever. Let's just get this down so everyone inside of and seeing the inside of this room is clear."
"Right. We have around a hundred and thirty hours. The plan originally called for ten emitters, six of which we placed, two of which we know the locations of, and two that haven't been placed.
"We've got a thirty-thousand cubic mile section of planet, debris, and space to cover to find ten of these two-foot-tall devices you see here before me. We can track them and kill them pretty easily, so the biggest obstacle will be the several billion beleaguered Confederate hostiles whose home planet we will be orbiting the entire mission.
"In addition there are nearing a trillion massed aliens at our backs, and certain death for anyone still here one-hundred-and-forty hours from now. We'll have three novas, each one basically a few hundred ex-Saran resistance soldiers, a few squadrons of fighters, and a few dropships full of weapons and supplies, each operating at a pace to kill four emitters by our deadline. You're playing whatever role gets this all done.
"but I've always had morbid way of measuring love"
a morbid way?
morbid ways?
It might be style, I dunno, but it still doesn't seem right to me. There's another something like this around the same area, but it currently eludes me...
Eh, anyway, I also had to re-read a few sections, for understanding, but then afterward I also chose to re-read them again, because they good. Great!, even.
Interesting...I don't often see stuff from Starcraft, so this caught my attention early on. Overall, I'd say it's a good first chapter, with an intriguing plot and some decidedly believable characters, but it's a little confusing at times and hard to read through. I'm not sure if that's intentional, erroneous, or just your style, but I'll point these instances out for you to look at.
Anyway, on we go!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
That war was war despite.
Despite what? This feels like you're missing something at the end here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
That either side of the line rebel/oppressor felt the same when your finger was on that trigger.
It felt good though, for a while. And there was the girl. And both of those were drugs as much as the trikes are. Fooling yourself to feel it again.
They say the first step toward defeating addiction is admitting that you have a problem. This unfortunately leaves you open to the situation in which you admit you have a problem and don't give a ****.
I liked this part; the character of a burned-out, grim soldier really came across here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
For the last four hours I've been drinking this bottle of non-fab Umojan whiskey, and loading this bracelet with a lethal dosage of the battle-use stimulant chemical tricycline k.
Minor technical note: "tetracycline" is an antibiotic, so "tricycline" probably wouldn't be a military stimulant. Known stimulants are neurotransmitters such as epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine, so I'd suggest modifying one of those to suit your purposes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
The trick is making the bracelet distribute the lethal dose, not loading the dose.
The last clause doesn't make sense to me...you may want to revise it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
I guess this means I loved her alot.
"A lot" is two words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
You can tell you’re hung over when the light beaming through between the slow blades of the ceiling fan feels like a fat bunch of knuckles, knocking on the inside of your forehead.
I’m lying awake with a lined checklist of aches. Dead, at the very last box on the list, is the only open one. Tieman is speaking to my left. Right? Left.
Nice images. That's really gotta suck...
[QUOTE=Khalic]"And the next highest up, Raynor, has sent you and his other second-in-commands a message."
Technically, that's "seconds-in-command," though since it's coming from a soldier, not a scholar, I don't expect it to be perfect. Leave as it is unless the correctness is important to you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
pro:james%ruler>
:briney’r%deep>
AUD FF>>
Dearest,
I know you're busy with your two old friends, but Lee has really to find himself in a spot of trouble once he finds out about Em's little bundle of joy. Nine months? More like nine days. Less for sure!
Lots of love,
Kerri
P.S. I've let your siblings know, quick and proper as well. They're excited as I'm sure you'll be.
%://hit*sm>
sr/>>
EC: **********
DC: ******
Maybe I missed something, but this just came out of nowhere for me and makes no sense.
Anyway, good start so far. I look forward to future posts
Tamrend: Though I have the ability to deflect nearly anything from my style just by calling it style, it's funny you mention that part. It's the newest of the piece, about an hour old when you saw it.
Udorim: That wasn't style, and woe upon this forum for not having a late edit button. It's an old error though, one i've been skipping for a long time now. Should be "a morbid way".
Revenant: Your first critique seems to make sense in context. As for the drug, that was another recent addition, which, I admit, I dropped in there basically hoping someone who knew anything could advise me on drugs that make more sense. The dosage one sounds odd or off to me too, though the last time I looked at it, I couldn't decide on a fix. Alot I spell so sort of on my own, and never really try to fix. And that last one, the bunch of odd symbols and words was supposed to be the coded message that is decoded and then played for him right after.
In general it's been a better response than I could have hoped for. Thanks guys.
As for the drug, that was another recent addition, which, I admit, I dropped in there basically hoping someone who knew anything could advise me on drugs that make more sense.
If you aren't set on using a chemical name (or something that sounds like one,) then you could always come up with some sort of trademark for the substance name. I mean, everyone calls fluoxetine Prozac, since that's what it's known as on the packaging.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
The dosage one sounds odd or off to me too, though the last time I looked at it, I couldn't decide on a fix.
If I read your meaning correctly, you could say something like "The trick is to set the thing to deliver the dose slowly over time, instead of letting it dump it all at once into my bloodstream." Don't use this sentence as is; I hacked it out with maybe thirty seconds' consideration, so apologies for any errors in it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
Alot I spell so sort of on my own, and never really try to fix.
Well, there's no time like the present to start trying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
And that last one, the bunch of odd symbols and words was supposed to be the coded message that is decoded and then played for him right after.
Hrm...you never mention that the message was coded, so I didn't pick up on that. You might want to clarify this in a future draft.
Preparations were under way, we had thirty minutes. People danced through the makeshift halls in the hangar, rifles and strings of ammunition or cannisters of fuel hanging from their shoulders, hands full with body armor or tools, their legs carrying them around and about eachother, each in a different pattern. Seeking another item to heighten the chance of their survival.
I was packing when she came back, layering serrated death over hypodermic death, over high-explosive, corrosive death.
Introducing Lieutenant-Colonel Christina Tieman. Not my superior, except in professionalism and maturity.
"Don't go." She said, stopping in the doorway. The dance froze around her, eyes darted up from the tables, or away from the flight plans.
"Thanks for staying quiet earlier."
"It wasn't worth it." She took a step forward, and now all eyes followed her.
I kept my eyes on her now, speaking, "Spare me. Now that we're here, we've come upon a decision with only one logical answer. Whether human or alien life is more important."
"You're going to die over a corpse and the lives of your enemies. You're a lunatic!" But she looked the lunatic now, her eyes were wide. The white hair that usually obscured her expression was wild, and her detachment lost its mystery. She was a hateful shade that moved among us.
"I'm," she started to say, and drew her weapon, and maybe some day she would have caught me, but with my pack obscuring her aim, my quick step, and the needle plunged deep into her spine, her mood was quickly broken.
She slumped onto me, and I cradled her head to lay her down. She squinted her eyes and said, "Oh, good."
Good stuff. I'm referring mainly to the first part, not the last bit, but it's fine, too. Sometimes when I read something I have no particular comments. Usually that happens when I am sort of magnetically drawn by the words to the point where little or no mental space is left for idle rumination. I'd say that happened here. (That means good.)
Well, maybe I have one comment. Loved this line: "And yes. It is now your problem."
Hmmm. And one more. Something bothers me about the period in that sentence. If Raynor delivers it in one breath, then it should probably be a comma rather than a period. On the other hand, if Raynor hesitated after "yes," then I'd say that would merit some deliberate highlighting. Maybe he sniffs or his cheek twitches or his glance shifts--something. I would prefer to think of Raynor as someone with at least some conscience left, no matter how war torn. Only a soulless abomination could deliver a line like that without choking on it a little. (IMHO)
Holy necromancy, Batman! K! Where have you been? Good to see you posting again, do make it a habit. I like the layers of death. And the other stuff. I read it all out of context-like, but in and of itself... nice. I'll have to read the older bits sometime. Or reread. I may have read them before. Could not tell you. Ooh, "war was war despite." That's good. More of this later, definitely. Mental note.
Welcome back, Khalic. Good to see that there’s more coming.
Regarding your latest addition, I’d say that it seems a bit light on the context to really draw me in, though it’s not bad by any means. I do like the way you’re slowly revealing your characters and the situation without just up and telling it to the reader, so I’m guessing my lack of engagement and the minimal context is due more to the overall length and the time delay between installments. Hopefully, that’ll resolve itself as the story plays out, so I wouldn’t call this a problem right now so much as an FYI. One little comment on the old post that I missed:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
"We will handle the Ion Cannon. Destroy the Psi Emitters and the zerg will pause, consider, and as we project, probably raze Korhal."
If this is Mission 10 of the Terran campaign, the planet involved is Tarsonis, not Korhal. That, and “zerg” should be capitalized.
Now, to the new stuff:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
Preparations were under way, we had thirty minutes.
Technically, these are two complete clauses, as you’re changing grammatical subjects (first “Preparations” and then “we,”), so the comma here isn’t enough to connect them. I’d use a semicolon if you want this to be one sentence, or just switch out the comma for a period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
People danced through the makeshift halls in the hangar, rifles and strings of ammunition or cannisters of fuel hanging from their shoulders, hands full with body armor or tools, their legs carrying them around and about eachother, each in a different pattern.
“Canisters” is spelled with one “n,” as far as I know, though your usage may be also be an accepted spelling. Also, “each other” should be two words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
Seeking another item to heighten the chance of their survival.
Technically, this isn’t a complete sentence, as there’s no subject; if you wanted this to be grammatically correct, I’d add it to the end of the preceding one or work up some sort of beginning like “They were seeking...” It does sound okay as it is, though, so you could probably just invoke creative license here and leave it as is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
I was packing when she came back, layering serrated death over hypodermic death, over high-explosive, corrosive death.
Not sure what to make of this. It’s a strongly worded image, but the image itself is rather muddled. I’m not sure what each of those descriptions represent, and though I get the feeling that it doesn’t really matter, I don’t quite know if it’s worth having something vivid but unclear here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
"Don't go." She said, stopping in the doorway.
The period after “go” should be a comma, and “she” should be in lowercase.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
The dance froze around her, eyes darted up from the tables, or away from the flight plans.
A grammatical detail: the comma after “her” should be a period or a semicolon, as this is two potential sentences hooked together. More importantly, I didn’t really get an impression of where Dane was or what he was doing, so when you mention the parts after the first clause, it’s a little surprising to find out that there are a bunch of people around them and all. Although it’s not exactly the point here, I might suggest spending a little more time on the setting, so as to draw the reader into the story some more with lifelike details.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
I kept my eyes on her now, speaking, "Spare me."
“Speaking” seems like it should be “saying,” but maybe that’s just me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
"Now that we're here, we've come upon a decision with only one logical answer. Whether human or alien life is more important."
This confused me, since “only one logical answer” led me to believe that the answer would be described next, and “whether human or alien life is more important” didn’t carry any meaning for me. Maybe I’m just being dense (which is quite possible,) but I’m not sure if your point comes across clearly here, or if I’m even guessing what it is correctly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khalic
But she looked the lunatic now, her eyes were wide.
Technically, the comma here should be a period or semicolon, since you use two subjects (“she” and “her eyes.”)
Overall, I’d definitely like to see where this is heading; what you’ve shown so far is interesting, and I suspect (and hope) things will fall into place in my head as the story goes on. Thanks for posting!
__________________
Love may kill, but hatred can never save. - Odette Bouquet, Noir
RevenantsKnight
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