This is my first attempt at writing from a civilian perspective of his life leading up to the main events. This is kind of a test of my writing skills and I'm looking for feedback on it, how I could improve, etc.
The Seaportian Chronicles: Part One
Cortal
It was dawn. That, because dawn always followed night; it had always been so. As a result of it being a dawn during the Sunner season in the vast city of Tshar, the air was, as was consistent with that region, blanketed in a thick layer of almost suffocating thick, humid, clammy cold air. The red giant star which served as the sun for the planet was just starting to peek over the distant mountaintops, and the first thin rays of warmth were just starting to stretch over the land, trying to embrace it within its warm embrace and clear away the chill of night.
As a result, the fingers of red heat scattered upon contact with the fog-like air, making everything seem to be enveloped by a bizarre red mist. Well, bizarre for any visiting aliens or other off-worlders, but for the residents of Tshar, for all the Seaportians in fact, this was a usual and natural, albeit lovely occurrence. All in good time though, the sun would heat the land and the clingy cold air would warm up and disperse to the custom, drier heat of Shara’s top-middle belt.
But for now the cold clammy air would remain, irritatingly uncomfortable despite its sun-induced beauty. And as the vast city began to awake to tackle on the challenges and threats of a new day, many people, namely the women, would stay inside their homes and gaze out the windows, safe in the mist of Seaports technological achievements, and sigh and wonder at the sheer beauty and fascination of it all. While the male population was much more likely to eat breakfast, suit up, and roll their eyes at their transfixed wives and daughters before and setting out for work, school, or other things, weather or no weather.
Now one of the men among this majority of Tshar’s men had ate a morning meal, got dressed, packed up, and was walking out of his houses door so that he could set off to apply his skills to both make Seaport a better place and to earn a living for himself and his family. This man was Lennar Kiska. Lennar or Len as everyone called him, had gotten up at a seemingly appropriate time, and had some good breakfast before realizing that he had not gotten up at an appropriate time, which in fact he had gotten up at a very inappropriate time.
So after a quick goodbye to his family he had rushed for the door, just stopping to grab a drink with him, which was why he was then blowing heat off the open top of his mug of offy. The somewhat addictive drink that most people drank to help wake up and just out of habit, had been hastily brewed and had been pulled out of the brewing device too soon for the cooling process to activate and bring the drink down to a much more agreeable temperature.
And so as it was, Len was desperately blowing at the rippling surface of the scalding black liquid at the same time his hand was desperately groping for the handle to pop open his door. His seeking hand found the handle and automatically squeezed, popping open the door which swung outwards. The result was very predictable. His weight flew forward outside and he stumbled in an effort to regain his balance. The sudden shifting motion disturbed the relatively calm surface of the offy which surged upwards in a splashing wave which flew over the rim and cascaded down all over Len’s hand.
Len yelled in pain as the scalding liquid washed over his hand. Dropping the cup on reflex, he grabbed his hand with his other hand and let loose a barrage of explicit profanities and curses. Eyes closed and face crunched up and red, Len’s voice quieted to a thick, course whisper which ripped from his throat and through his tightly clenched teeth. As the burning pain coursed over his hand and consumed his mind, he stood there, quietly spewing out violent expletives.
As the initial shock from the hot drink passed, he quickly changed actions, going from furiously swearing to desperately blowing on his hand, trying to relieve the pain. He was partially successful in this and began to calm down. He released his wounded self and bent down to retrieve the falling mug. Lifting it up in front of his face for an inspection, he gazed in disgust and despair at the pitiful dribbles of liquid which now remained at the bottom of the cup, the rest lost to the thirsty dirt at his feet.
He sighed with despair at the loss. Nothing he could do to get it back now and going back in to brew another batch was out of the question. Daje, I should really just shell out the extra hundred krids and get a brewer installed in my flier. It really wasn’t that expensive, not at all actually! Anytime he could just head down to the body shop, dish out the cash and fly off with the ability to brew offy in his flier! The brewing wouldn’t take more than a few minutes, enough time for it to finish on the way to work, even if there was light traffic.
He could he should and he would if could just daje remember! Len was a bit addlebrained, often enough he
would have a great idea in the middle of an inconvenient time or place, like at twenty thousand feet over the Lesser Drifter Ocean, forget it, then remember it at an ever worse time or place like at the middle of the night.
So as it was now, he had a good idea on the way to work, an idea which had had not the time to put into action and would not be able to put into action for about a week unless he made a call to tell his wife to take it in for him. Of course he would forget that too, daje it all! He was sure that he would always install it ‘tomorrow’, or do whatever he needed to do ‘tomorrow.’ Of course tomorrow always became today, so it was an endless cycle of stalling. It was a cycle he should end really daje soon.
Giving his hand one more quick blow to ward off an more pain, he quickly dashed back into his house, set the empty mug on a like-wise empty counter, let off one more fare-well to his family before dashing back outside, slamming the door as he left. He quickly made his way over to the slightly raised landing platform where his flier was kept, ascended the slight ramp and arrived by the door. He jammed an ID key into a slot on the side, waited for a moment for the computer to analyze it and beep in confirmation. However before he could open the door, he had to perform one more security measure he had personally requested.
He pressed his hand against a small panel on the side of the door and felt the tingling sensation as the computer ID’d his finger prints, and then the familiar little sting as it scrapped off a tiny piece of skin for DNA identification. This completed, he pulled his hand off the panel and waited impatiently for the results. One second passed then two, three, four and five! Daje it, he’d remembered to install this time-sucking contraption but he’d forgotten to install a far-more important offy brewer!
His foot tapped on the platform impatiently, seven seconds now! What was wrong with it? It never took this long, usually only three seconds or so. His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the refreshing long-awaited ding of the internal computer verifying him. Yes, he was Lennar Kiska, already late for his job thanks to modern technology! And one look at the milling fliers crowding the sky above him told him his time situation wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. He grasped the handle and jerked the door open with more force than necessary. It opened up quickly and silently and Len swiftly slid into the padded seat and stuck out his ID key one more time, shoving it in the slot to activate the system.
He’d bought too much security, far too much! He didn’t need this much, especially in the upper districts! While Tshar was relatively low in poverty and crime, some of the lower districts, especially Districts L20, L19 and L16, were known for being a dangerous place to be, more so at night however. While the local police kept the crime level at a low level, especially in H6 where Len lived, and there were no real gangs, criminal armed with Cortalan military weapons were not to be treated lightly. While they didn’t do much black market, at least now to outsiders, Cortal’s weaponry had a curious way of ending up in the hands of dirtballs in slums.
The flier beeped once more in confirmation of Len’s key. As he pulled it out and put it back in his pants pockets, a small lid zipped away into the flier to reveal a set of controls, simple controls for flying. While crashes much less common with fliers due to the three-dimensional maneuverability, when you had about nine hundred thousand fliers buzzing around the skies unguided, crashes were bound to happen. So in 3467 AE, the time that fliers had started becoming mass-produced for the public, all civilians were required to activate autopilot shortly after liftoff and let the city AI’s take over.
The massively powerful and complex computer systems which ran the entire city of Tshar controlled all of the civilian traffic, making crashes almost non-existent and crime much more difficult. With all legal flight over the city well-organized in a system, any craft being flow manually, with the exception of government craft of course were asked to surrender control to the AI. If they refused three times, their control were disabled and the flier was taken over and flown to the nearest police station. Len put his hands around the controls, hit the activation button and felt the pleasant hum as the engines came online and began to lift him into the air.
He gripped the controls firmly in his hands as he guided the flier, a model nine Kyoni class, gently into the air and above his sprawling neighborhood.
Although he was a rushed man, Len couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the city he inhabited. Although the best views were atop of the main governmental buildings, or at least higher off the ground, thirty meters up was still pretty good. For miles in each direction extended the city, a bevy of white and grey houses, most of them shining brilliantly in the sun. The red mist was now just starting to vanish, but much remained, bathing the gleaming city in ruby-red light. All over the place where parks and yards, stunning and vibrant dashes and stretches of brilliant green and deep blue. In some places, in some yards the owners had planted and guided the growth so that the grasses twisted and curled in unique, complex and lovely patterns, vibrant and deep and pure patterns which adorned the ground outside the houses, giving them an additional charm.
Len smiled for a brief, fleeting moment before his urgency returned to him in a rush. In a flash his admiration vanished like the melting mists and he focused on his task at hand. Accelerating a bit, he brought his flier up to one hundred meters off the ground, standard flying height. Now all around him, like great bizarre snakes, were streams of fliers all moving at the same speed, perfectly controlled by the vast AI’s which ruled the city with nearly god-like powers.
At the required height, Len tapped an icon to activate the automatic pilot which quickly linked his controls with the cities AIs taking away his control and diverting it elsewhere. Immediately the controls shifted under his hands, forcing him to release them suddenly. They twisted beneath him for a moment before folding back away out of sight as he did not need them anymore. His flier veered to the left, and after a moment’s hesitation, dove into the nearest stream of fliers.
Lens own vehicle was on the edge in roughly the middle of it all as so that Len’s vision was consumed on three sides by fliers and one side by the sweeping panoramic view of the rest of Tshar. Sinking back into the soft, forming material which covered his backrest, he stretched out his legs in the large space beneath the control panel and tried to relax a bit. Usually he found it quite relaxing to just lay back and watch the world fly overhead through the duraglass window which started from the windshield and wrapped over the top of his sleek vehicle. Yet today he just could not rest, not with the anxiety and nervousness chewing at him, the disturbing, lumpy feeling in his chest he felt, the fear of getting to work late and the fear of being left behind.
He sighed and sat back up in his seat and looked out the wrap around window at the river of fliers fifty meters from his left ten feet down. They moved faster than his route, his was only a local flight pattern, one that winded around the city but nowhere else. The one next to him however, was an external flight path, one that lead outside of the city to the countryside and therefore went about twice to even thrice the speed of his lane. Once outside the city limits and the danger of collisions were gone, the fliers were returned to manual control and the drivers were allowed to fly wherever they wished and at whatever speeds that pleased them.
Suddenly, as if time froze, the whole line of fliers Len was observing stopped in midair like it had hit a wall. Len could almost hear the collective groan which emanated from the pilots as their rides ground to a complete standstill. Shaking his head in slight amusement, Len was glad that he was not on that flight path. If there was only one real disadvantage to having all in-city traffic rigidly controlled and monitored by super-powerful AIs, it was that if one of them suffered any sort of technical failure, all of their traffic stopped.
Usually the problems were fixed in a few minutes or so, but sometimes it could take up to a few hours. When it was taking that long, usually the fliers were restored manual control and they could fly off to another flight path. Of course, some people just didn’t have the patience as shown by one flier who decided to take a risk, restored manual control and shot out of formation at maximum legal speed.
Blazing out of the motionless crowd of fliers, he darted across the open space, the fifty meters between him and another flight path, a moving flight path. He was trying to clear the gap before his flier would be shut down automatically, racing against the clock, trying to get to another lane before he was shut down and shuttled off to the police station. Engines flaring brightly, the flier sped towards the lane, quickly closing the distance.
Forty meters, thirty meters, twenty, ten, five, Just a few meters before the flight pattern of vehicles, the warnings issued expired and his controls locked up and his vehicle swerved sharply, turning one hundred and eighty degrees and down towards the police station where he would be fined five hundred krids for disruption of traffic and disobeying issued warnings to stop. Len could almost see the look of sinking despair on his face as he was pulled away by an invisible force.
Len chuckle to himself as the flier receded, getting farther and farther away until it was just a tiny dot in his sight. Meanwhile, the fliers lane had started going again. If only he had waited a few more seconds, his lane would have kicked back in, saving him the grief and the krids. Yes, patience could certainly be a virtue, a virtue that could save you a costly fine. Len’s stomach lurched a bit as his lane suddenly dipped down towards the ground at a rather shallow angle, sending him and the rest of the vehicles towards the main docks.
As the buildings grew all around him, Len sat up even straighter in his seat as the flier leveled out at ten meters off the ground. Below him, masses of people walked up and down the streets, some shopping others on their way to work like him. Their speed had decreased to three meters a second and was slowing. Len’s head drifted to the left as he saw his stop coming up fifteen meters ahead. He tapped a control in front of him, informing the AI that he wished to depart here.
A light blinked in confirmation and a quick countdown began starting at three, two, and one. The numbers expired and vanished and then with a click and a whirring sound, the control panel unfolded before him as his car flew out of the flight lane. Now back under his control, he grasped the controls and pushed the accelerator forward to sixteen meters a second. He descended to five meters off the ground, the lowest legal limit for flight and darted over the heads of thousands of people milling about, engaged in their lives.
He ignored the flashing signs, the luminous and rather distracting advertisements for various products and arrived at the entrance to his workplace, Gifenston Transport Industries, one of the most successful transportation freighter industries on the planet. Tapping a flickering hologram in front of him, Len killed the engines and folded away the controls as the auto-Lander locked onto his vehicle, confirmed who he was and pulled him along to his designated landing zone.
As the flier touched down with a gentle jolt, Len whipped out his ID key, popped open the door and hurried on out, dashing through the hanger to the door ten meters away. A squat mechanic who was working on an engine turned around to greet him, wiping his grubby hands on an equally grubby shirt.
“Mornin’ Len, Skip’s waiting for ya so I would hurry along if I was you.” Len didn’t say anything, gave him a half-hearted grin before hurrying along. He stopped for a moment by the door to swipe his key and push open the door, entering the main corridor which branched off to two dozen different docking bays. A few hundred people milled around in large crowds, some just standing around and chatting while others, like Len, dashed for their freighters.
Well, you can’t actually dash in a crowd of several hundred people so Len made a point of desperately shoving and pushing through the irritated people. Muttering ‘excuse me’ as he went, he saw a break in the crowd and increased his pace, he reached the end, broke into a run again for the large circular desk crewed by seven or so people. Breathlessly he reached the desk and gasped to the staff closest to him.
“Lennar Kiska, gunner, This End Up.” The women, identified by her nametag as Monia, quickly tapped in the information, analyzed it for a moment, then looked up to him and said,
“Kiska, head to docking bay six and board you freighter, you’re late though so you’d better hurry.” He gave her a brief thanks, gripping the desk, then let go and tore off in the direction of docking bay 6. Why did everyone think it was their god-given duty to tell him the obvious? Did they assume he was running like a maniac to work because he wasn’t late? He daje well knew he was late, why did everyone keep telling him that? He didn’t know, but it was getting rather annoying, but maybe that was just because he had spilled hot offy on himself and was running late, that probably accounted for his aggravated state of mind.
He came skidding to a stop before a small door marked with a plain 6 above the door. He again swiped his ID key once more, the door hissed open and he bolted in. Immediately he was assailed by the familiar smells of his trade before he saw them. The acquired-smell of fuel, the smell of exhaust fumes, the smell of sweat, of labor. He felt the deep, low rumble of the engines, and he also felt the tingly, bizarre sensation caused by reversed-gravity field generators. And as he rounded a corner, he saw the source of all of these smells and
sensations.
Before he eyes he saw his home away from home, the place he would spend weeks at a time working. It was a CM1917 freighter, the largest in-atmosphere craft ever constructed on Cortal. Four hundred meters long from bow to stern, one hundred and eighty meters wide and fifty meters tall, it was a behemoth, a true mechanical monster of incredible proportions.
These massive vessels were true to their name, freighters. Several hundred years ago, cargo and such was transported primarily by vast transport ships which crossed the oceans to their destinations. However, these vessels, big as they were, were at constant risk from the leviathans the monsters of the deep such as the fearsome Leredan. So after reversed-gravity technology was discovered one hundred and fifty years ago, these gargantuan vessels began to take to the skies, carrying far more cargo than a dozen cargo freighters.
Often gone for weeks at a time, getting a job on one of these mammoth vessels was a great way to traverse the far reaches of the globe. However, thanks to modern technology, no one was required to lift the crates of cargo so the only people usually on board were a crew and some maintenance. As a result there were not many open positions on these vessels and once attained, were rarely let go. So as it was, Len considered him lucky to have such a job, though it did mean large chunks of time away from his family.
Still, he could make a VidLink with them every day, so it wasn’t absolutely horrible. He picked up his pace, heading for an open door in the side of big, boxy green ship. He jogged up a short metal ramp and inside the freighter. Running down a curving metal corridor, he turned a corner, went up a gravity lift to the top deck, and ran forward around one more corner to a door. He once more swipped his ID key and the door hissed open.
He entered the ships bridge, no longer running, and headed for his station, a chair with a holographic screen in front of it, panting. Collapsing into the cushioned seat, he allowed himself a single breathe before spinning the chair around to face his boss, Shiphead Yane.
“We were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago. Final shakedown was fifteen minutes ago, we could have been out of Tshar by now! Could have, except we were held up waiting for you! What in daje took you so tasen long?” Len cringed, he didn’t want to half to explain his delay, but the Shiphead was the boss. He was about to open his mouth when Yane stuck out his hand in a halting gesture. “No, I don’t want to hear it. You’re here finally and now we can go so I will not delay our launch anymore.” He turned around and tapped on the communications with flight control. “Flight control this is freighter Eko-Seven-Tesa-Niner, we are warmed up and ready for launch, requesting permission to engage main engines.” There was a moment of silence, then a strong voice came in over the overhead speakers.
“Got that Eko-Seven, control here. Launch zone is clear of all personal and the skies are clear, feel free to power up.”
“Copy that control, powering up.” The com crackled off and Yane started handing out orders. “Mes, give me a twenty percent increase on the RG field.” Mes, a light haired man sitting before a console and in charge of the reversed-gravity field generators, quickly brought of a luminous holograph display before him, showing him the two generators and the for projectors plus their power level. Placing his finger into a power meter in the center of the display and dragged it up. The display immediately began filling his light up to where he pulled his finger up so that the power meter was close to one third full. Len could feed the effects immediately as a distant rumbling grew beneath his feet, like the growls of some great beast caged far below. As the rumbling intensified Len could see the ship start to rise as the walls of the hanger began to fall away out the windows.
“Aye sir, reversed-gravity field now at thirty percent sir, we are now rising at a speed of twenty feet per minute.” Mes rapped out. Yane looked satisfied with the results
“Good, what’s our engines status Payel?” He directed his gaze towards the man hunched over another hologram, analyzing the status of each of the four big TSOR engines which powered the ship. Then he looked up and answered positively.
“Engines are all good and ready to go, standing by for orders to light ‘em up.” Yane smiled at this.
“Great, now Len, what’s the status of our weaponry?” He sounded only half-serious as he spoke this and indeed Len could see humor in his eyes. Forcing a grin Len spoke back casually.
“Well sir, it all looks good.” He said glancing at his readouts. “The main cannon is fully charged and ready to go and the power supply is at one hundred percent, if Cortal knocks on our door we’ll be ready to respond.” The other reason Len chose his job as a gunner was that it was very simple. He was in charge of the Petlos and Ko PK30ASC cannon, a high-powered anti-ship laser cannon which was installed in the belly of the vessel. Although he was in charge of defending the ship in the event of a battle, Len considered it an incredibly simple job, namely because there was no threat of battle, not to them.
Seaport was the planets biggest powerhouse, the only country capable of threatening them was Cortal and Cortal wasn’t stupid enough to try it. So while technically the cannon was protection against Cortalan fighters, the only time it was ever fired was two times a cycle to make sure it was still operational.
As a result, Len got good money for protecting the vessel, but he never had never had to protect the vessel. The very obvious result was easy money, and a chance to traverse the globe. A opportunity not to be taken for granted.
Yane gave him a half-smile. “Good to know.” Then turning to the others bridge crew he rattled off the checklist and listened to answers.
“Hull integrity?”
“One hundred percent, good to go.”
“Everything else?” There was a chorus of yes’s and good to go’s. Satisfied that his vessel was ready for another trip across the planet, Yane contacted control again.
“Control this is Eko-Seven-Tesa-Niner, we are all ago and ready to embark over.”
“Copy that Eko-Seven, the sky is yours and you are free to leave. Have a good trip.”
“Copy that control, will do. Eko-Seven out.” Switching off the communications, Yane turned to the crew.
“Mes, take us up to an altitude of around fifty thousand feet, increase our RG field to sixty percent. Payel, bring our engines up to seventy five percent. Once we reach our altitude of fifty thousand feet, stabilize and settle in to a cruising speed of seven hundred miles an hour.” There was a chorus of “Aye sir” as the various men set about their tasks.
Len could feel the sudden lurch of acceleration shove him into his seats as the ship quickly shot into the sky. But quick as it came the sensation left him as the stabilization fields activated. The pressing feeling died, but he could still feel the powerful rumble of the generators far below and the more distant roar of the engines propelling them forwards.
Looking out a viewport, Len could see the rapidly disappearing port shrink below him as the freighter quickly shot into the sky. Peeking his head over his display, he could see everyone else was busy at work, monitoring the crafts statistics and making sure they stayed well in the green zone.
The vessel stopped rising and its RG field dimmed in power until the craft was just floating in the air so its engines could push it forward. Payel increased power to the main engines which grew louder as they flared and shoved the behemoth ship forwards.
Len leaned back in his seat and exhaled heavily. The downfall of this job was, besides being gone long stretches of time, was that it was quite boring. All he had was to occasionally check the turret to make sure it was still on. At least guys like Mes and Payel had things to do, jobs to keep them occupied for at least part of the trip.
Now, with nothing else to do except check the turret every once and awhile to assure it was still online, Len
pulled out a pair of wireless ear buds and stuck them in his ears. Setting a timer to alarm him once an hour or so, he waved his hands across the holographic screen and brought up a vid to pass the time. A split-second loading time later and Cortalan Dawn began to float before his eyes.
Slumping back in his chair with a deep sigh, Len was half-focused on the action flick flashing before him, his eyes rolling all over the interior cabin, sliding over the crew working on their various tasks and the Shiphead who was staring intently at a hologram in front of him, probably going over the ships statistics for the umpteenth time.
Eyes lazily drifting over the crew members, he caught Mes flashing him a dirty look before returning to his console. Payel also shot him an angry glare before likewise returning to his work. Len looked away guiltily. Probably one of the worst aspects of this job was that, seeing as he had little work to do, he was not exactly the most favored person aboard the vessel. The other crew always made a show of this, from simple dirty looks to forcing him to clean up after their messes.
Len tried to ignore them, tried to bury himself in the flashy gunfire and spectacular explosions of the epic film. Focusing hard on the glorious scenes of destruction before him, he tried to ignore the burning stares of the others that he could feel digging deep into him.
It was no use; he couldn’t stand it any longer. The angry starring of the others was too much. He stood violently to his feet and ripped out the ear buds with a sigh of angered disgust before storming out of the bridge.
