It’s not like I had a lot of options. As a slave, when you see a way out, you take it. But, in the long backward glance, all I did was trade one death for another. I exchanged a public death, up close and personal, in front of a crowd of thousands, for this solitary death at the hands of an impersonal fit, pitched by an unstable star.
A clipped, cynical laugh escapes.
“Whatever has you giggling, Kweilin, shake it off! This is not the time to go deer-in-the-headlights on me,” says the ships AI, Joshua. For twelve hours a day over the last ten months, he’s been my only company in this metallic pocket of air orbiting the planet’s battlefields below.
My voice drops an octave. “I was not giggling.”
Every bulb he can muster blinks at me in alarm. “You have six minutes to land or you’re dead. Hey! I know! Let’s spend it arguing about what constitutes a giggle.”
My mind balks. Coronal mass ejections usually took eight hours to reach Tarsius. “CMEs never travel this fast.”
“Good point. Shall I conduct a study? I could deliver my findings to your corpse.”
He sounds so obsequious anyone who didn’t know him might think he was serious.
“Check the readings,” I say, fully knowing he already did.
“The helio-stations checked the readings before sending the report. I checked the readings when they arrived, but if you don’t mind getting freeze dried, check them again.”
Last Edit: May 14, 2018 16:02:36 GMT -5 by cesarm3
It’s not like I had a lot of options this seems like it applies to the present situation, but later we learn it's about the past. As a slave, when you see a way out, you take it. But, in the long backward glance, all I did was trade one death for another. I exchanged a public death, up close and personal, in front of a crowd of thousands, for this solitary death at the hands of an impersonal fit, pitched by an unstable star this sentence comes across as a bit choppy, but that may just be personal preference.
A clipped, cynical laugh escapes.
“Whatever has you giggling, Kweilin, shake it off! This is not the time to go deer-in-the-headlights on me,” says the ships AI, Joshua. For twelve hours a day over the last ten months, he’s been my only company in this metallic pocket of air orbiting the planet’s battlefields below super nit-picky - below is implied if you're talking about a planet you're orbiting.
My voice drops an octave. “I was not giggling.”
Every bulb he can muster blinks at me in alarm. “You have six minutes to land or you’re dead. Hey! I know! Let’s spend it arguing about what constitutes a giggle.”
My mind balks. Coronal mass ejections usually took eight hours to reach Tarsius. “CMEs never travel this fast.” these are fairly redundant situations - you might be able to cut the description and just stick to the dialogue
“Good point. Shall I conduct a study? I could deliver my findings to your corpse.”
He sounds so obsequious the words above are pretty sassy, so what do you mean by this? anyone who didn’t know him might think he was serious.
“Check the readings,” I say, fully knowing he already did.
“The helio-stations checked the readings before sending the report. I checked the readings when they arrived, but if you don’t mind getting freeze dried, check them again.”
This is great! My comments are pretty nitpicky, because on the whole I enjoyed this a lot