Redux, Sci-Fi
Novak gave one last tug, finally heaving the heavy generator onto the last landing. He shouldered the door open, and the muted rumblings in the stairwell exploded into full-bodied violence as he rolled the generator out onto the roof.
Laser light and explosions had kindled the night sky ablaze, mirroring the inferno raging in the city below. The flames leapt so high in places that it seemed the dark clouds themselves were alight. The bloody aura washed over everything, backlighting the silhouettes of armored figures crouching behind the parapet of the Temple’s roof. Novak, hunching, rolled the generator closer to the edge of the Temple of One Thought’s roof, gesturing at one of the dark figures closest to him. “It’s here!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got it!”
The figure turned and bellowed the news over the crackling roar of the battle, and one by one the armored soldiers scuttled back towards Novak, who helped them jack their power packs into the machine for recharging. A rugged man with a Captains’ insignia on his helmet spotted Novak and clapped him on the shoulder, pulling him close to shout in his ear. “How’s the downstairs?”
“Dominic’s got it sealed!” Novak replied. “He took back the lobby, pushed them right out the front doors, and now he’s taunting them to come back in!” The Captain’s face warped with grim satisfaction as he jacked his power pack into the generator, resting the heavy railgun on his knee.
“That’ll show the fuckers. Good work with the generator, too!” Novak nodded, eyes dark.
“Have you raised anybody else?”
“Neg, the fucking battlenet is one big clusterfuck like everything else!” the Captain snarled, not taking his eyes off the railguns’ charge meter. “Last I heard Charlie Company was trying to punch through to the spaceport. Don’t know if they made it.”
“Yet,” Novak added.
The Captain looked up at Novak, his eyes invisible behind the ruddy glow of reflected firelight on his helmet visor. “We can keep the boulevard tied down indefinitely from up here, as long as we hold.”
“And Charlie Company won’t have to deal with reinforcements,” Novak finished. He rested his hand on the butt of his sidearm. “Then we’ll give them their chance.”
One of the soldiers on the parapet turned and bellowed to the contingent in general: “ARMOR, MOVING UP!”
“That’s my cue,” the Captain grunted, unplugging the railgun and hefting it in both hands again. He scuttled forward and another soldier, this one with a particle cannon, slid in to take his place at the generator. Novak drew his weapon and moved forward to join the battle line.
The square below burned brightly, ferocious flames raging upon the skeletons of trees and bushes scattered about in their marble planters. Veils of smoke drifted across the square before rising upward to join the low-pressing ceiling of smoldering clouds. Armored shades flitted from planter to planter through the smoke, tracked by the brilliant emerald beams of laser light and glowing tracers lancing through the haze. From the boulevard on the right, a light hovertank edged out from behind a building corner, it’s arrival already betrayed by the eddies of smoke churned about by it’s lift fans. It advanced only a few feet, training the snub barrel of it’s mortar launcher on the Temple parapet, before a railgun slug drilled a dime-sized hole through the front and into the engine compartment. The hovertank veered off to the right and smashed to the cobbles as the fans lost power.
The Captain kept his eye to the sights of their only railgun, peering down the six feet of barrel resting on the chipped stone of the parapet at the boulevard entrance. The hovertank was only the scout vehicle, he knew- the heavy tanks were coming, and when they punched forward the infantry would surge with them. He felt his entire mind surge into the gunsight, a narrow needle of piercing focus on the building corner from behind which the lead tank would appear. Every fiber of his being tensed, finger tight on the trigger, as he prepared for the single shot that could bottle the enemy amour in the road.
Thus he didn’t notice the single shadow flitting not towards the temple, but away, with four sapping charges slung across his back. Novak pressed himself against the hot marble of a planter, feeling the heat of the flaming trees and laser beams blooming over him as he stole a glance at the sulking shadows across the square. None of them had seemed to notice a single man in the nightmare of the burning city moving in the wrong direction through the smoky veils, just another shadow in a landscape ruled by them.
And so Novak ran, through smoke and fire, towards the building at the corner of the boulevard chokepoint, four satchel charges and the fate of the chokepoint, the Temple, the boulevard, the hopes of Charlie company and the spaceport on his back. Low and fast, eyes straining through the stinging smoke and raging flame to steer him true towards the corner building, he ran.
He ran- and felt the rumble of tracked death shake the cobbles underfoot even as he beheld the sweeping tide of dark armored infantry emerge into the firelight, surging across the square to support their tanks. Novak altered course slightly towards a narrow side street opening running parallel to the boulevard, hammering towards cover as the enemy infantry advanced. The thunder of the lead tank’s cannon merged with the hypersonic snap of a railgun round somewhere in the chaos, but Novak had eyes only for the side street. He sped over the cobbles, pursued by tracers that whanged and pinged about him, and he knew he’d been spotted. Novak reached the street at last and dove for a gutter, feeling the gun muzzles, the boots, the enemy pressing on the back of his mind as they gave chase. He looked up to seek an alleyway, an escape- - and looked into the blank faceplates of dark power-armored soldiers standing ten abreast.
Their weapons came up, muzzles black and empty, swinging slowly to bear as Novak felt time slow down. He stared into the muzzles and the dark, feeling the weight on his back as fingers tightened on triggers, and then the blinding angry flashes as they volleyed over his head.
They charged, voices silent as their weapons spoke in lieu, roaring rage tearing into the infantry advancing across the square. Novak watched, stunned, as they surged around and past him, eyes glinting bright behind tinted visors as they sought targets amongst the enemy. Fire from the Temple roof soon found them, and they died silently, making no sign to their comrades as they relentlessly smashed into the flank of the unsuspecting foe.
Novak found his feet, glancing past the building lining the street end up towards the boulevard, now very near. The front of the lead tank was visible there, the tracks spilling off of three twisted wheels where the Captain’s round had shattered them. It’s cannon thundered again at the temple behind him, and Novak saw the tank grind begin to grind forward, pushed by another from behind, as he unslung the satchel charges from his back to let them dangle from his hand.
Keying the timer, Novak charged for the building, focusing on a shattered first floor window that gaped at him jaggedly. He cocked his arm for the throw- and from behind him, rose a terrible cry of rage. It tore through the air, a battle cry of defiance screamed into the mikes of a hundred captured helmets and thundered into the earphones of ten-thousand more- a cities dying roar.
It swept Novak up, and as his mouth opened to join the charges left his hand; the fate of the city soaring towards the window, propelled by the defiance and the hope of the last, most devoted defenders that pulsed through the air with their cry.
The building exploded, thundering down over the lead tanks in a tide of smoke and fire, and the boulevard was closed.
------------------------------------
The smoldering clouds skimmed by just overhead, their reflected glow sliding smoothly over the fighter’s canopy. Jason slowly rolled inverted and looked down at the tableau of the flaming city, searching for targets through the smoke. Tracers and laser beams pierced the night everywhere he looked, friend and foe merging into one chaotic fight below.
“SHIT!” snarled Jason in frustration. The defenders were fighting desperately down there, and though his finger itched to unleash his ships cannons, he had no target. “Allie?” he queried hopefully.
“No good,” came the reply from his headset. “The battlenet is still down.” Jason snarled.
“The radar-“
“Jammers still up,” his AI replied, voice calm as always. “They’re still flying on visual.” Jason grunted satisfaction; as long as they were all flying blind the defending fighters had an equal chance to bounce any attackers. He wondered if anybody else from his flight was still out there in the smoke and clouds, fighting, or if he was the last, blasting through the night, alone, over the burning city.
“BREAK!” the AI bellowed into his ear, and his hand moved the stick before he realized she’d spoken. Crimson tracers whistled underneath his F-45 Interceptor as he snap-rolled into a hard left bank. He hauled hard on the stick, G-forces crushing him in his seat, and snap rolled again into a vicious right. The corner of the Heads Up Display devoted to the rear camera showed his pursuer rolling back to follow him. Tracers speared past him as he banked again to the left, keeping one step ahead of his foe’s probing reticule. The enemy fighter held on, following him though the Scissors, both pilots competing to shed speed until Jason either forced his attacker to overshoot, or his foe fell back enough to catch him in his sights. Their engines thundered low over the embattled rooftops of the city as they twisted and turned, seeking to wrest the advantage for themselves.
Jason reached the apex of his next swerve and pushed the stick flat, pausing his fighter’s hard turn for a split second. He felt, rather than saw, his foe snap-roll to take advantage of his slow reversal- but instead of rolling, Jason snapped the stick into his belly and hauled into the turn again. The flaming city blurred as the G-forces crushed him, draining blood away from his brain. He dipped the nose slightly and let gravity tug his fighter faster into the turn. He sensed, with intuition that no combat AI could ever match, that his enemy had pulled hard in the other direction rather than belatedly follow his turn.
Jason looked up through his canopy and saw the bandit coming round the tight circle the opposite direction for a head-on confrontation. Jason grimaced and shaved his radius tighter, tensing.
The enemy fighter hove into view ahead, frozen for a spit second in space, guns alight-
snap shot-
and then Jason was past screaming in triumph as the flaming wreckage of the bandit streaked by just underneath.
He breathed deeply- once. There was no time to recover, not now.
“Where the hell-“
”An escort,” the AI replied, again in her default cool tone. “On your three-o’clock, lieutenant. Look.”
He looked.
Descending though the clouds, a bulky black troopship was slowly settling over the city’s west side, preparing to disgorge troops. The distant dots of patrolling fighters buzzed around it as it’s landing bay doors began to open in anticipation of landing.
“The spaceport,” Jason breathed. “No… they’re dropping in behind the spaceport. We need to- fuck, FUCK!” he screamed. “I can’t do it alone! Riley! Minoza! Anybody, god damn it, I need help, I can’t do it fucking alone!” he wailed uselessly into the dead battlenet.
“You are never alone,” the AI stated coolly.
Jason tried to speak as he turned towards the troopship, but his voice caught in his throat. He swallowed, bringing the F-45 down to rooftop level, and spoke: “Thank you, Allie. How long has it been? Four years?”
“Four years, two months and six days since our first sortie,” replied the AI.
“Yes,” Jake whispered. “Every minute, every battle. Ours.” He coughed, and hammered the throttle forward into full emergency power. The F-45 slammed forward towards the troopship, low and fast. “It’s been a pleasure, Allie.”
“For me as well, lieutenant.”
Jason smiled sadly and trained his eyes on his target, the massive engines of the troopship that were currently pulsing to let the vessel drift down slowly. In less than two minutes it would land and crush under it the last hope for escape.
Blasting past the surprised bandits circling their charge, the F-45 lanced up off the deck towards the hovering behemoth squatting over the city. Jason held the stick steady, pointing the nose directly at the vulnerable engines. Seconds only now. He felt his last breath bubble up in his breast, and opened his mouth for a last cry of triumph.
“Goodbye, Jason,” Allie sighed.
Jason’s ejection seat blasted him through the canopy and free of the fighter in four-tenths of a second. The seat sensors detected a low-altitude atmospheric ejection and deployed Jake’s parachute before he exhaled.
He watched the F-45, aerospace superiority fighter, spear upward and slalom into the engines of the troopship, sending it to a slow, clumsy tumble towards the earth, where it shattered against the flaming city.
------------------------------------------------------------------
“Look!”
The Captain turned away from the carnage of the square, the excitement in the cry jolting though his weariness and firing his last spark of hope. He followed the pointing fingers and looked west towards the flaming sky.
There, rising majestically from the spaceport, was the Aeneas, her massive engines shaking the earth with their power. Her mighty guns roared their fury, spearing up into the sky with incredible force against enemy ships in orbit as she picked up speed. Incandescent beams and projectiles hurled from orbit pounded into her vast armored sides as she gained altitude, but to no avail. The Aeneas shuddered all along her half-kilometer length as her main drives built to full power and unleashed a pillar of ionized fire, obliterating the ruined spaceport and launching her, guns ablaze, into the high atmosphere.
The Captain fell to his knees as he and the rest of the defenders watched the massive battleship pull away from the city, her belly shielding survivors military and civilian. They cheered, tears fracturing their vision, as she and the last of the city surged upward to smash though the orbital blockade into the open vastness beyond.
**********************************
Well, there it is. What did I do!?
I think most of the people that read this thing will recognize where I drew my inspiration. Few things I have ever read have painted such a vivid, powerful picture- but what really flared in my mind was the idea itself, rather than the original prose. The idea of the desperate fight for survival in the doomed city, of having nothing left to loose, of the last, most desperate and devoted defenders fighting against all odds as the world ends around them... damn. Such an epic scene just had to be revisited, sci-fi style.
It's got a ton 'o problems, and as always, R&R and any other kind of criticism is welcome. Eventually, however, once I've put enough polish on and gotten the background hinting clearer, I think this will end up being my first Writers of the Future contest submission. Here's to hoping.
Laser light and explosions had kindled the night sky ablaze, mirroring the inferno raging in the city below. The flames leapt so high in places that it seemed the dark clouds themselves were alight. The bloody aura washed over everything, backlighting the silhouettes of armored figures crouching behind the parapet of the Temple’s roof. Novak, hunching, rolled the generator closer to the edge of the Temple of One Thought’s roof, gesturing at one of the dark figures closest to him. “It’s here!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got it!”
The figure turned and bellowed the news over the crackling roar of the battle, and one by one the armored soldiers scuttled back towards Novak, who helped them jack their power packs into the machine for recharging. A rugged man with a Captains’ insignia on his helmet spotted Novak and clapped him on the shoulder, pulling him close to shout in his ear. “How’s the downstairs?”
“Dominic’s got it sealed!” Novak replied. “He took back the lobby, pushed them right out the front doors, and now he’s taunting them to come back in!” The Captain’s face warped with grim satisfaction as he jacked his power pack into the generator, resting the heavy railgun on his knee.
“That’ll show the fuckers. Good work with the generator, too!” Novak nodded, eyes dark.
“Have you raised anybody else?”
“Neg, the fucking battlenet is one big clusterfuck like everything else!” the Captain snarled, not taking his eyes off the railguns’ charge meter. “Last I heard Charlie Company was trying to punch through to the spaceport. Don’t know if they made it.”
“Yet,” Novak added.
The Captain looked up at Novak, his eyes invisible behind the ruddy glow of reflected firelight on his helmet visor. “We can keep the boulevard tied down indefinitely from up here, as long as we hold.”
“And Charlie Company won’t have to deal with reinforcements,” Novak finished. He rested his hand on the butt of his sidearm. “Then we’ll give them their chance.”
One of the soldiers on the parapet turned and bellowed to the contingent in general: “ARMOR, MOVING UP!”
“That’s my cue,” the Captain grunted, unplugging the railgun and hefting it in both hands again. He scuttled forward and another soldier, this one with a particle cannon, slid in to take his place at the generator. Novak drew his weapon and moved forward to join the battle line.
The square below burned brightly, ferocious flames raging upon the skeletons of trees and bushes scattered about in their marble planters. Veils of smoke drifted across the square before rising upward to join the low-pressing ceiling of smoldering clouds. Armored shades flitted from planter to planter through the smoke, tracked by the brilliant emerald beams of laser light and glowing tracers lancing through the haze. From the boulevard on the right, a light hovertank edged out from behind a building corner, it’s arrival already betrayed by the eddies of smoke churned about by it’s lift fans. It advanced only a few feet, training the snub barrel of it’s mortar launcher on the Temple parapet, before a railgun slug drilled a dime-sized hole through the front and into the engine compartment. The hovertank veered off to the right and smashed to the cobbles as the fans lost power.
The Captain kept his eye to the sights of their only railgun, peering down the six feet of barrel resting on the chipped stone of the parapet at the boulevard entrance. The hovertank was only the scout vehicle, he knew- the heavy tanks were coming, and when they punched forward the infantry would surge with them. He felt his entire mind surge into the gunsight, a narrow needle of piercing focus on the building corner from behind which the lead tank would appear. Every fiber of his being tensed, finger tight on the trigger, as he prepared for the single shot that could bottle the enemy amour in the road.
Thus he didn’t notice the single shadow flitting not towards the temple, but away, with four sapping charges slung across his back. Novak pressed himself against the hot marble of a planter, feeling the heat of the flaming trees and laser beams blooming over him as he stole a glance at the sulking shadows across the square. None of them had seemed to notice a single man in the nightmare of the burning city moving in the wrong direction through the smoky veils, just another shadow in a landscape ruled by them.
And so Novak ran, through smoke and fire, towards the building at the corner of the boulevard chokepoint, four satchel charges and the fate of the chokepoint, the Temple, the boulevard, the hopes of Charlie company and the spaceport on his back. Low and fast, eyes straining through the stinging smoke and raging flame to steer him true towards the corner building, he ran.
He ran- and felt the rumble of tracked death shake the cobbles underfoot even as he beheld the sweeping tide of dark armored infantry emerge into the firelight, surging across the square to support their tanks. Novak altered course slightly towards a narrow side street opening running parallel to the boulevard, hammering towards cover as the enemy infantry advanced. The thunder of the lead tank’s cannon merged with the hypersonic snap of a railgun round somewhere in the chaos, but Novak had eyes only for the side street. He sped over the cobbles, pursued by tracers that whanged and pinged about him, and he knew he’d been spotted. Novak reached the street at last and dove for a gutter, feeling the gun muzzles, the boots, the enemy pressing on the back of his mind as they gave chase. He looked up to seek an alleyway, an escape- - and looked into the blank faceplates of dark power-armored soldiers standing ten abreast.
Their weapons came up, muzzles black and empty, swinging slowly to bear as Novak felt time slow down. He stared into the muzzles and the dark, feeling the weight on his back as fingers tightened on triggers, and then the blinding angry flashes as they volleyed over his head.
They charged, voices silent as their weapons spoke in lieu, roaring rage tearing into the infantry advancing across the square. Novak watched, stunned, as they surged around and past him, eyes glinting bright behind tinted visors as they sought targets amongst the enemy. Fire from the Temple roof soon found them, and they died silently, making no sign to their comrades as they relentlessly smashed into the flank of the unsuspecting foe.
Novak found his feet, glancing past the building lining the street end up towards the boulevard, now very near. The front of the lead tank was visible there, the tracks spilling off of three twisted wheels where the Captain’s round had shattered them. It’s cannon thundered again at the temple behind him, and Novak saw the tank grind begin to grind forward, pushed by another from behind, as he unslung the satchel charges from his back to let them dangle from his hand.
Keying the timer, Novak charged for the building, focusing on a shattered first floor window that gaped at him jaggedly. He cocked his arm for the throw- and from behind him, rose a terrible cry of rage. It tore through the air, a battle cry of defiance screamed into the mikes of a hundred captured helmets and thundered into the earphones of ten-thousand more- a cities dying roar.
It swept Novak up, and as his mouth opened to join the charges left his hand; the fate of the city soaring towards the window, propelled by the defiance and the hope of the last, most devoted defenders that pulsed through the air with their cry.
The building exploded, thundering down over the lead tanks in a tide of smoke and fire, and the boulevard was closed.
------------------------------------
The smoldering clouds skimmed by just overhead, their reflected glow sliding smoothly over the fighter’s canopy. Jason slowly rolled inverted and looked down at the tableau of the flaming city, searching for targets through the smoke. Tracers and laser beams pierced the night everywhere he looked, friend and foe merging into one chaotic fight below.
“SHIT!” snarled Jason in frustration. The defenders were fighting desperately down there, and though his finger itched to unleash his ships cannons, he had no target. “Allie?” he queried hopefully.
“No good,” came the reply from his headset. “The battlenet is still down.” Jason snarled.
“The radar-“
“Jammers still up,” his AI replied, voice calm as always. “They’re still flying on visual.” Jason grunted satisfaction; as long as they were all flying blind the defending fighters had an equal chance to bounce any attackers. He wondered if anybody else from his flight was still out there in the smoke and clouds, fighting, or if he was the last, blasting through the night, alone, over the burning city.
“BREAK!” the AI bellowed into his ear, and his hand moved the stick before he realized she’d spoken. Crimson tracers whistled underneath his F-45 Interceptor as he snap-rolled into a hard left bank. He hauled hard on the stick, G-forces crushing him in his seat, and snap rolled again into a vicious right. The corner of the Heads Up Display devoted to the rear camera showed his pursuer rolling back to follow him. Tracers speared past him as he banked again to the left, keeping one step ahead of his foe’s probing reticule. The enemy fighter held on, following him though the Scissors, both pilots competing to shed speed until Jason either forced his attacker to overshoot, or his foe fell back enough to catch him in his sights. Their engines thundered low over the embattled rooftops of the city as they twisted and turned, seeking to wrest the advantage for themselves.
Jason reached the apex of his next swerve and pushed the stick flat, pausing his fighter’s hard turn for a split second. He felt, rather than saw, his foe snap-roll to take advantage of his slow reversal- but instead of rolling, Jason snapped the stick into his belly and hauled into the turn again. The flaming city blurred as the G-forces crushed him, draining blood away from his brain. He dipped the nose slightly and let gravity tug his fighter faster into the turn. He sensed, with intuition that no combat AI could ever match, that his enemy had pulled hard in the other direction rather than belatedly follow his turn.
Jason looked up through his canopy and saw the bandit coming round the tight circle the opposite direction for a head-on confrontation. Jason grimaced and shaved his radius tighter, tensing.
The enemy fighter hove into view ahead, frozen for a spit second in space, guns alight-
snap shot-
and then Jason was past screaming in triumph as the flaming wreckage of the bandit streaked by just underneath.
He breathed deeply- once. There was no time to recover, not now.
“Where the hell-“
”An escort,” the AI replied, again in her default cool tone. “On your three-o’clock, lieutenant. Look.”
He looked.
Descending though the clouds, a bulky black troopship was slowly settling over the city’s west side, preparing to disgorge troops. The distant dots of patrolling fighters buzzed around it as it’s landing bay doors began to open in anticipation of landing.
“The spaceport,” Jason breathed. “No… they’re dropping in behind the spaceport. We need to- fuck, FUCK!” he screamed. “I can’t do it alone! Riley! Minoza! Anybody, god damn it, I need help, I can’t do it fucking alone!” he wailed uselessly into the dead battlenet.
“You are never alone,” the AI stated coolly.
Jason tried to speak as he turned towards the troopship, but his voice caught in his throat. He swallowed, bringing the F-45 down to rooftop level, and spoke: “Thank you, Allie. How long has it been? Four years?”
“Four years, two months and six days since our first sortie,” replied the AI.
“Yes,” Jake whispered. “Every minute, every battle. Ours.” He coughed, and hammered the throttle forward into full emergency power. The F-45 slammed forward towards the troopship, low and fast. “It’s been a pleasure, Allie.”
“For me as well, lieutenant.”
Jason smiled sadly and trained his eyes on his target, the massive engines of the troopship that were currently pulsing to let the vessel drift down slowly. In less than two minutes it would land and crush under it the last hope for escape.
Blasting past the surprised bandits circling their charge, the F-45 lanced up off the deck towards the hovering behemoth squatting over the city. Jason held the stick steady, pointing the nose directly at the vulnerable engines. Seconds only now. He felt his last breath bubble up in his breast, and opened his mouth for a last cry of triumph.
“Goodbye, Jason,” Allie sighed.
Jason’s ejection seat blasted him through the canopy and free of the fighter in four-tenths of a second. The seat sensors detected a low-altitude atmospheric ejection and deployed Jake’s parachute before he exhaled.
He watched the F-45, aerospace superiority fighter, spear upward and slalom into the engines of the troopship, sending it to a slow, clumsy tumble towards the earth, where it shattered against the flaming city.
------------------------------------------------------------------
“Look!”
The Captain turned away from the carnage of the square, the excitement in the cry jolting though his weariness and firing his last spark of hope. He followed the pointing fingers and looked west towards the flaming sky.
There, rising majestically from the spaceport, was the Aeneas, her massive engines shaking the earth with their power. Her mighty guns roared their fury, spearing up into the sky with incredible force against enemy ships in orbit as she picked up speed. Incandescent beams and projectiles hurled from orbit pounded into her vast armored sides as she gained altitude, but to no avail. The Aeneas shuddered all along her half-kilometer length as her main drives built to full power and unleashed a pillar of ionized fire, obliterating the ruined spaceport and launching her, guns ablaze, into the high atmosphere.
The Captain fell to his knees as he and the rest of the defenders watched the massive battleship pull away from the city, her belly shielding survivors military and civilian. They cheered, tears fracturing their vision, as she and the last of the city surged upward to smash though the orbital blockade into the open vastness beyond.
**********************************
Well, there it is. What did I do!?
I think most of the people that read this thing will recognize where I drew my inspiration. Few things I have ever read have painted such a vivid, powerful picture- but what really flared in my mind was the idea itself, rather than the original prose. The idea of the desperate fight for survival in the doomed city, of having nothing left to loose, of the last, most desperate and devoted defenders fighting against all odds as the world ends around them... damn. Such an epic scene just had to be revisited, sci-fi style.
It's got a ton 'o problems, and as always, R&R and any other kind of criticism is welcome. Eventually, however, once I've put enough polish on and gotten the background hinting clearer, I think this will end up being my first Writers of the Future contest submission. Here's to hoping.