With a new year comes new things. In this case, a new book gets started, while the finishing touches are put on the last one.
A snippet for your perusal.
Pulling a tablet
out, he said, “Something like that, yeah.
Not to change subjects, but you think we’re going through the gate
anytime soon?”
“We’ll probably go in the next
twenty-four-forty-eight hours. Captain
Yamato knows her ship is a bit, skittish when it comes to things like gate
jumping here.”
“The ship’s skittish,” he asked,
heading out of the compartment and towards Tanngnjostr’s
bridge.
“You’ve never heard the stories
about the William D. Porter?”
“Nope, it’s my first trip out here
into the wilds of outer space,” he said, dropping into a seat.
“Well, settle in there youngin,” I
said, putting a slack jawed look on my face, “and I’ll tole you the story. Willie here is named for an American Civil
War Admiral, William D. Porter.
Originally, she was supposed to be a survey cruiser, but the AI said, no
thank you wipe me or put me in something without weapons, thank you very much.”
“Why,” he asked pulling a tea out of
a compartment next to the pilots chair and tossing it to me, then grabbing a
second one for himself.
“Now, while the Admiral himself had
a somewhat storied carrier, the World War II destroyer named for him, well,
didn’t,” I said, taking a sip.
“Ok.
What do you mean by less than storied?”
“Well, let’s see. First, she struck another ship leaving her
berth in port. Then, during a training exercise
while escorting the President of the United States across the Atlantic, she ‘accidentally’
fired a torpedo at the ship carrying the President.”
“No shit?”
“No shit, youngling. Once they sorted that mess out, which
included arresting the entire crew for a short period of time, they sent her to
the Pacific. Where, when she entered
port, she was greeted with calls of ‘Don’t Shoot, we’re Republicans’. Her service in the Pacific made up for most
of the earlier tomfoolery, which was mostly accidents caused by a war time crew
of new recruits with a few older hands for seasoning.”
“If that’s the case, why’s the AI
skittish?”
“Ah, therein lies the rub. Her namesake was sunk by enemy action. When a suicide bomb missed the ship, but
exploded under her, breaking her back.
Once the AI added all that up, she figured she was an unlucky ship. So BuSur (Bureau of Survey) cut a deal with
BuCol (Bureau of Colonization) and BuCol got the AI for a colony hauler, while
BuSur got two later draft picks and a really nice coffee machine.”