Blood on the Stars - Part 1: Secrets & Lies - CH.1 (2)

Hans walked into the hangar area to find the small staff under his command all huddled together talking quietly. He took a deep breath and approached them. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he had to be confident and in charge. He needed to show them all that he knew what he was doing, even if he had no clue at all.

“Good morning everyone. I’m Hans Beaulieu, your new supervisor. For those who don’t already know I learned to fly in the Armed Forces. When I retired I joined Global Space Tech as an instructor. I am certified in all planetary and space craft operation. This includes military craft as well. I have five years experience in flight instruction and flew in active service for five years prior to that.”

Hans glanced around at the faces before continuing, hoping that he was making a good impression on his new employees. All he got in return was blank stares. He smiled before continuing.

“I’m not going to be your stereotypical military hard-ass boss. I’m pretty fair-minded and I believe in efficiency and honesty. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all over the next few weeks. I know we have a busy day ahead of us, but are there any questions at all?”

Once again he was met was nothing, but blank stares. He noticed a few people giving Duke quick glances as though waiting for him to address the new boss. He made a mental note of those people, knowing that he would have to be careful with them down the road. They were most likely the ones that supported the idea of Duke as the boss.

“Alright then, Duke?” Hans waited patiently for Duke to respond.

“Yes,” he said after letting the silence between them grow to an awkward length.

“You were the interim manager before I was assigned here, if we could have a small talk so you could bring me up to speed on what’s what and who’s who around here, that would be great. I did take the liberty of double checking the schedules this morning when I got in so I believe your schedule is fairly clear right now?”

Although Hans phrased that last sentence as a question, it was really more of a statement. If Duke was going to play games with him and then he was going to give it a good go. He was used to people looking down on him for his youth, but there was no way he was going to let anyone get the upper hand on him.

“Sure.” Duke continued with the short and sharp responses. He was giving no ground to the new boss.

“Okay, I look forward to chatting with each of you later. In the meantime, my door is always open.” Hans didn’t wait for anyone else to say anything or to see if Duke would follow him. He just turned sharply and headed back to his office.

He caught Duke out of the corner of his eye as he stepped around his desk. He heard the door shut quietly behind him before turning to sit down and face what he believed was going to be his biggest challenge in this new position.

“Alright Duke, I’m asking you to lay it down for me. I’d like you to be honest and frank. Are you going to have a problem with me as your new boss?” Hans stared at him intently, really studying the older man for the first time.

He took in everything from the rough stubble and weathered skin to the semi-permanent sneer on his face. There was no doubt in Hans’ mind that the man across from him was going to be a tough man to deal with if he couldn’t find away to strike a deal with him.

“Frank and honest, eh?” Duke scratched his chin and gave a quick glance to the ceiling. “Right then.  I’m not overly impressed that the company sent some as young as you to take control of the location. I’ve been with them a long time and was originally under the impression that I was going to be given this position.”

“I can respect that, but is it going to be an issue? I need to know if I can count on you. You’ve been here since they opened this location a few months ago. You’ve got the feel for this place and you know the people. I very much respect your experience here and I don’t want to step on toes. I didn’t ask for this transfer, but I wasn’t going to turn it down either.” Hans leaned towards Duke and extended his hand across the desk.

Duke started at for a moment before taking it and shaking. “Can’t say that we’re going to be best buds, but I’m here to do a job. I’m going to respect your honesty, but you’re going to have prove yourself as a boss to me. That’s just how it is.”

“Understood, now anything I need to know to keep operations going smoothly here? I don’t need there to be any hiccups with this change in leadership.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, it should be pretty routine stuff. Although we’re getting pretty busy since there is really no way around this planet without a pilot and there just isn’t many people here beyond us to get people places. So there more chartering and less lessons than there would be where you came from.”  Duke gave the same non-committal shrug that he had been using earlier this morning.

“I noticed that and it was expected on a frontier planet, especially with the heavy mining on the moons. I did take the time to study up on this planet and the system it’s in before coming here.” Hans smiled politely. “Thank you Duke for your honesty with me and just so you know, I would like to keep you as an assistant manager of the facility. It’s not what you wanted, but it’s the best I can do.”

“It’s the smart thing for you to do.” Duke stood up and walked out without waiting to be dismissed leaving Hans a little unsure still of where he stood with this man. He had done the best he could in damage control and a part of him wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough.

“Alice, did you make a record of that conversation?”

“Yes. All conversations are automatically set to be recorded and stored unless otherwise directed to do so. These files will be stored locally for up to one standard-t year before being archived to the main server.”

“Thank you Alice. Please show me my schedule for today.” Hans glanced over the display and frowned at how light it seemed. He knew that this position would bring more administrative work with it, but he had been hoping to get out of the office and into the air a little more often. He made a note to talk to Marietta about booking him out a little more once he had settled in.

He had a couple of hours before his first customer for the day, in the meantime there were inspection reports to sign off on and requisition and special request form to go over. He wasn’t a fan of paperwork, but it was one of those necessary evils of any job. He could bear with it so long as he got to fly often enough to feed his soul.

I had a nightmare...

I am not one of those people who often dreams - or rather, if I do dream I rarely remember. However, last night I had a dream that I could remember. It was a nightmare actually because I what I remember the most this morning is how scared and how incredibly sad I felt.

It was a simple dream. I dreamt that there was this darkness in our shadows and this darkness was a reflection of our souls. I was watching as shadows became darker because of this infection. It was spreading and getting worse and all I wanted to do was find a way to fix it - to cure the infection and rid the shadows of darkness. Instead, it kept spreading and I could do nothing, but keep running away from it... And in my dream I was so distraught that I was crying as the darkness closed in on me.

And, I have a feeling that dream says a lot about the person I am.

Blood on the Stars - Part 1: Secrets & Lies - CH.1 (1)

I'll admit the first chapter or two are pretty rough. I do think it gets better as I settled into the story and get to know the characters better. I wrote this from a prompt given to me by The Capillary and wrote without any plot and only a general idea of where I was going. It was certainly an interesting NaNo writing without a plan, but this is the result of my month long journey.

---

Hans glanced around at the barren landscape that surrounded him. It was hard to believe that this part of the planet had already been terraformed. He did his best to hold back his opinion of this planet until he had seen more of it, but at least it was a step in the right direction. His own centre to be in charge of, it was a big step up even if it was in a place as remote as this one.

It didn’t take him long to collect what he had brought with him. All of the bigger items had already been moved into his new place by the company. With no issues at customs, he walked into the greeting lounge and looked for a sign with his name.

“Hands Bowlow…” Hans shook his head and sighed as he walked toward the gentleman holding the sign. He tried his best not to read into it, but he couldn’t help but feel slighted. He expected there to be issues, but he hadn’t expected anyone to be so forward about it.

“Hello, I’m Hans.” He didn’t bother to smile. It was purely business, he would worry about making friends later – right now it was all about getting the upper hand. He didn’t want his new employees feeling that they could walk all over him just because he was young.

“Riiiiighht.” He drawled the word out as he gave Hans the once over. “This way then, sir. I suspect you’d like to go right to your residence?”

“Yes.” He didn’t really want to go see his new place yet. He was more excited to see his new work area. He had been told that it would be state of the art despite being on a frontier world. Global Space Tech had assured him that it was only a matter of time before Cantun became a trading centre for the outlying expansion worlds.

As the landscape whipped by Hans found the need to re-evaluate his opinion of this world. It wasn’t near as barren and boring as he had originally thought. Mountains soared, dark blue against a purple tinged sky and he longed to explore them. There wasn’t much for vegetation outside of the occasional cultured park, but it wasn’t as bad as he had thought it would be.

His own residence, when he was finally dropped off, was considerably larger than he had grown used to on more populated words. It was definitely one of the perks of moving to the edge of civilization. Even by civilized standards it was a nice domicile – all of his stuff still waiting to be unpacked.

Hans was relieved to see that no one had tried to unpack everything for him. It would have been nice to have come into a place that was all ready for him, but he preferred to have it set up the way he wanted. He had never been too keen on other people touching his stuff.

It was late, by local time and Hans had to admit that he was pretty tired. Unpacking could wait till another day. He watched as the dual sun slipped behind the mountains and alien stars came into view. This new place was going to take some getting used to, but Hans also knew that that was the least of his worries.

******

Hans stood inside the massive new hangar, staring at the various crafts that were now his responsibility. It was finally sinking in that he was the boss, not just a lead instructor, but the number one go to guy for all the instructors, pilots and mechanics in this facility. It was a huge responsibility and he almost began to doubt if he was actually ready for this or not.

“That just won’t do.” Hans mumbled to himself and tried to shake the thought out of his head. He was going to be just fine and he could handle this.

“What just won’t do?” A familiar voice drawled. Hans turned around, surprised that anyone else would be here so early.

“It’s not important.” Hans smiled and held out his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were actually an employee the other day or I would have made a proper introduction.”

“Duke.” He shrugged his shoulder slightly as he said it and glanced down at the proffered hand, but didn’t take it.

“Okay then.” Hans lowered his hand, but kept his smile firmly fixed in place. “Nice to officially meet you Duke. So what do you do here?”

“Mechanic.” Once again the statement was accompanied with a shoulder shrug as though Duke wasn’t at all committed to what he was saying.  

“I see…” Hans wasn’t exactly sure what else he could say to this man. Just like his misspelled name, it seemed like Duke was making his dislike of his new both well known without actually saying as much. “Well it was good to meet you Duke.”

Duke nodded and walked away leaving Hans alone in the hangar again. He took a deep breath and searched for where his office would be. It didn’t take him long to find the door marked ‘Manager’. He pushed it open. He walked around the desk and threw himself into the chair as the computer came to life, acknowledging is presence.

“Good morning, sir.” It was the nicest thing that had been said to him since he had arrived here and it was an automated system that was responsible for it. “My name is Alice and I will be your personal assistant here.”

“Good morning Alice.” Hans tapped his fingers idly on the desk, trying to phrase his first query properly. “Can you give me a list of all current employees at this posting?”

“Yes, sir.” It was less than a second before the entire list was displayed in front him. He glanced down the list till he found the one name that he was familiar with – Duke Willis. Reaching out to touch the name, it expanded into a full bio about him.

Hans gave it the once over and stopped halfway through to read it in closer detail. He had known that this centre had been open for a few months before his arrival, but he hadn’t known that Duke had been the interim supervisor for this centre. It explained a lot about his animosity. It was more than likely that he had been expecting to be given the permanent position, not some young off-worlder.

He worked his way through the rest of the profiles for his employees. I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to have an issue with any of the office staff, but a lot of the instructors and mechanics were probably going to be loyal to Duke. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but Hans was determine to make the best of it.

It wasn’t until someone knocked on his door that he finally looked up and realized that more time had passed than he had thought. He had been so absorbed in learning about his new staff that he had managed to lose track of the clock. It wasn’t normal for him to do so, but this was a brand new situation.

“Come in.” Hans waved the display closed and looked up to see a older woman opening the door to his office. She was smiling, but it seemed like one of those professional smiles that meant nothing. It didn’t reach her eyes, but then again, he was the new boss and no one knew him yet.

“Hi, I’m Marietta. I’m your front desk staff.” She stood unsure in the doorway as though she wanted to make a quick escape.

“Hello Marietta. I was just going over the employee profiles. Is everyone in today?” Hans smiled politely, trying to seem as though he was confident in what he was doing. In truth, he had no idea what he was doing, but he wasn’t going to let anyone else know that.

“Yes, they are.” She smiled a little more naturally this time. “Did you want to meet everyone in person?”

“Definitely. If you could get everyone together in the hangar area for me that would be great.” Hans watched Marietta wander off, leaving the door open behind her. He waved the display back up and made a few notes in a file for later. There was still a lot that he needed to know about his new staff, but it would have to wait.

Another NaNo Done.

So I've finished another year of NaNoWriMo - crossing the finish line early and in excess. This means that I now have three fully completed first drafts of novels under my belt...

I do think my writing has changed this I finished my first first draft. I'd like to think I've improved, but who knows, I could be fooling myself. You can be the judge of that as I will actually be posting this years novel as a serial right on this very blog. So you get see the what the quality of my first drafts look like because I will only be doing the most minor of touch ups to it.

Also, when I've published the whole thing here on my blog I will make a PDF of the entire story available for download IF people seem to be enjoying it. If I don't get any feedback I will more than likely assume that no one likes it or wants it. However, chances are I'll make the pdf available no matter what lol.

This story is tentatively titled "Blood on the Stars" and will be found under that tag for now. If the name changes between now and when I start putting it up I will change the tag and I will post about it. So, here goes everything. I really hope you all enjoy it....

Twas the Night Before NaNo

So for my creative warm up for NaNoWriMo on October 31, I took the time to create this wonderful little adaptation of Clement Clarke Moore's "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Twas the night before NaNo and all through the land
The writers were worrying and watching clock hands
Their fingers were poised over keyboards to fly
Waiting for midnight to roll right on by

The writers were bravely ignoring their beds
While visions of plot twists danced in their heads
Caffiene and sugar, their weapons, near at hand
Inner editors from their heads finally banned

At midnight's arrival their arose such a clatter
And now the word count was all that really mattered
Across their keyboards fingers flew so quick
Word after word appearing so slick

The moon shining in from the window so bright
Gave them ideas that just seemed so right
When what to their wondering eyes should appear?
But a novel beginning, a first draft so dear.

As that night stretched to days with dishes undone
Week two loomed upon them and chores they had shunned
The novel being written no longer shiny and new
Still they kept writing, kept struggling through

It was terrible, no good, each of them thought
But such defeating self-talk would stop them not
It was just a bad patch, they could edit in December!
But that was something none could allow, not in November.

Week three fell upon them with a thundering crash
And they began to believe that they weren't writing trash.
With slaps on the back and tonnes more caffiene
They went back to writing, once again keen

Week four snuck right up and scared every last one
And they all began to panic, would the novel be done?
With a clattering of keyboards and the biting of lips
They wrote without caring about bruised finger tips

That's it! They were done, the end had arrived
And everyone could hear their collective sigh
November was over, but the work wasn't quite done
There was editing to do, and it wasn't much fun

With ice packs on wrists and their beds beckoning sweetly
They could finally sleep, their novels saved completely
And then the writers cried out into the night
"Happy NaNo to all! And to all a good write!"

A Trip to Remember

So I did have all intention of posting to the blog as I travelled, but I should have known that I would be too busy. Didn't even get all my postcards mailed (but at least I wrote them!). So, here is a summary of my trip to the UK.

The Trip Itself

So I discovered that not only can I not sleep in cars, but planes and trains are included in that. If it's moving, I'm awake. Ah well. So I woke up at 5am on the day I left, not because I wanted to, but just because that is what I do. I wake up early. By the time I landed in the UK I had been up far too long already. Add to that a train trip that ended up not going to my destination because of "technical" issues so that when I finally arrived in the pretty little town of Chesterfield I had been up for 30 hours straight.

After a two hour nap I was up and getting ready for Hen's Night. That was fun and a story for...well not for you. It was a wild night and lots of fun. For the next few days I spent quite a bit of time just hanging out and helping to get things ready for the upcoming wedding. A few days of tourist stuff and visiting my cousin and a couple of days just relaxing and then my three weeks were up far too soon!

Memorable Moments

Hen's night was, as I said, a wild night. I had far too much fun, drank far too much and was still on my feet at the end of the night. Which, in my books, means it was a total success. Then again, I end every night on my feet. I met some wonderful people, got kissed by a boy 10 years younger than me (Don't judge! He initiated!) and it was great.

Got to go to Chatsworth House. If you live in the UK and you haven't been then you are missing out. It was brilliant. I could have just been left there for days and wandered forever. It was so stunning.

I met a wonderful man and I'm trying not to think about what that means, but I was quite taken with him. How he feels about me, maybe I'll never know, but I am staying in touch with him as best I can. He was a perfect gentleman - how often do you get to meet one of those?

And the wedding was beautiful and it made me realize I'm never doing the big wedding things if I can avoid it. Too much stress and in the end, the result is the same, you get to spend the rest of your life (ideally) with the person you love.

That's All Folks

I did so much more than what I just wrote above. I visited castles, met strangers, got lost, got found, wander off on my own and ate lots of food and drank my silly and back again. It was a wonderful trip and I know I'm going to go back.

I have become an addict

I do not typically have an addictive personality. I won't go into details, but I have a hard time forming any sort of habit at all - good or bad. So it came as a shock the other day when I suddenly realized that I have become addicted to my scale.

I'm not joking. I don't let it get to me mentally, but I weigh myself several times a day. First thing in the morning, when I get home from work and before I go to bed. Sometimes even more often than that. I don't even really think about it much. I just do it.

A lot of experts say that this is a bad thing and I am not going to disagree with them. It can definitely be detrimental to your progress, but it has more to do with your thought process about weighing yourself.

I started my journey by weighing in every morning at the same time. Over the past year and some I've become accustomed to the ups and downs and plateaus of my weight loss journey. I don't put that much thought into or stress over it. Actually, one of the benefits of weighing in so often I've become an expert on my body and how it reacts to the food I put into it and the exercise I choose to do. I know what to expect. I know what I weigh with clothes on, clothes off, in the morning, in the afternoon and at night.

Weighing myself has become the sort of habit I don't think much about - like how I always pat my pockets before stepping out of the house even though I *know* I have my keys and phone on me. I just do it, make a mental note and move on. I think that's the trick to weighing in on a daily basis is not to worry about the numbers so much.

So that my new habit and we'll see if this month in England without my scale will help break it or if I will just get right back into it the moment I arrive back home!