Young Writers Society

Okay, this is something that popped into my head 'all sudden-like' and I had to write it down... It is an extract from a collection of stories I've decided to write about a military unit on a decaying war-ridden planet. The story is (obviously) set in the future, about a decade after the destruction of earth. The Delphinus Unit is the main military base on the planet and is home to a number of humans who escaped earth before it died. The collection of stories all revolve around a central character - Jack Atkins, the head of Delphinus' cybertronics department - who is a legend in the military base. The stories follow the lives of certain people who reside in the base but follow the main storyline of Jack and his quest to perfect his design of a fully functional robot soldier. The soldier, once completed, becomes the biggest breakthrough in robotics that mankind has ever seen.

And please excuse any grammar and spelling mistakes. I haven't edited this at all. Also, the names are pretty lame, I do understand that but I was writing too quickly to come up with anything better

***

‘Who’re they?’
‘They, my young scabby underdog, are transfers from the Andromeda Unit.’
Colts thoroughly enjoyed his charge’s expression. The sixteen year old’s eyes widened and he watched in wonder as the small party of people disembarked from the large MTV.
‘The Andromeda Unit?’
Colts smiled at his charge. ‘It’s a top security military base in the Andromeda mountains. They’ve taken on almost every special ops secret mission that’s ever come out of any base. They’ve been going strong for five years but a large explosion blew up the main regiment of their squad and they’ve been sent here till the heats off and they find new recruits. These guys are the real shit, Ash. They’re the best.’
Ashton stared at them again in wonder.
The party consisted of eleven men and two women. They were all dressed in the standard military wear, similar to those who already stayed at the Delphinus Unit except that they had a blue star pinned to their uniform, the symbol of the Andromeda Unit.
Colts was staring around aimlessly before he caught sight of the women. His eyes widened.
‘Is that… no it cant be… wait, it is! Steph! Hey Stephanie!’
The brunette closest to them looked around casually. She spotted Colts and made in his direction.
‘Wow, if it isn’t “Lightning” Colts.’ There was an edge of sarcasm to her voice but it was all in good humor.
‘Hey Steph. How you doing?’
‘Can’t complain. Can’t say the same for the others though. they’re all still trying to get over that blast down by the Pegasus Unit.’
Colts looked surprised. ‘the Pegasus Unit? They hit you that far down?’
Steph nodded. ‘We weren’t expecting it. There was some info leaked on the drainline that said they’d be moving their troops from Perseus down to Pleiades from behind the Andromeda Unit so we decided to move through Pegasus and hit them from the side. But they were already there, waiting for us. Someone is anticipating our movements on their side. Someone who has access to our base at least once.’
Colts whistled. ‘Sounds pretty bad. You guys going to be here long?’
Stephanie laughed. ‘Trying to kick me out already?’
Before Colts could reply, a shout came from behind them.
‘Steph? Are you coming? We’ve gotta get this stuff back down to the cargo hold so they can send it up!’
‘Yeah, I’m coming.’ She turned back to Colts. ‘Good seeing you again. I’ll be around so don’t be a stranger, okay?’
Colts watched her go. ‘You know, boy, Steph is probably the best teacher you’ll ever have. Stick by her. She’ll teach you more than I’ll ever know. Right, now lets get back to work. We have fourteen new gas-propelled H-boards to test as well as a few engines to clean. The software on that new batch of bikes is just crawling with viruses and it’s affecting the engine. Come on, off you go.’

*

Stephanie threw her bag onto the transport trolley and turned back to the rest of her team, gazing expectantly at her commander. It had become habitual; follow your orders and wait for more.
Commander Erik Thanatos caught her gaze and shook his head.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Steph. We’ve been withdrawn. Go find your room and relax for a few days.’
Stephanie only just managed to keep her hand at her side. ‘Sure.’
She turned to see Colts and his young charge waiting anxiously beside them.
‘C’mon Steph, I’ll show you the way. Is Brina coming?’
Stephanie turned and motioned to the young red-headed woman standing beside her bags. She gave Stephanie a small smile before following her.

‘So where exactly are we staying?’ Brina asked casually as they moved down the hallway of Sector BC3.
‘Subdivision C, isn’t it Colts?’ Stephanie asked.
Colts smiled at her. ‘You still remember the layout of Delphinus after all these years?’
Stephanie laughed. ‘Of course I do! It’s where I grew up, remember?’
Ashton’s eyes widened. ‘You grew up here?’
‘Yes, she did,’ Colts replied, aiming a playful punch at Ashton’s shoulder.
Ashton looked like a star struck puppy as he gazed at Stephanie. To think that someone like this had once lived in Delphinus …
‘Yeah, Steph, subdivision C. They’ve redone it recently. I think it was modeled on those new Sky Hotels that have just been commissioned.’ Colts shook his head and chuckled. ‘To think that even now, after nearly five years of losing a war, the Grand Council is still spending billions on floating luxury hotels instead of their troops.’
Stephanie smiled at him sadly. ‘It’s been the same for centuries, even the wars they fought back on earth were the same – there’s always something more important to spend your money on. Maybe that’s why earth finally died.’
There was silence as the four of them contemplated her thought.
‘I wonder what earth was like.’
The soft voice made the three adults turn. Ashton was staring dreamily into space, clearly forgetting where he was. Colts shook his head again.
‘Charges,’ he muttered, ‘So light-headed and dreamy.’
Stephanie glanced at Brina who was staring back at her. Obviously she remembered the light conversation that had taken place four and a half years ago, the one that had revealed the fact that earth was Stephanie’s home planet.
‘Come here,’ she said to Ashton.
She reached into the pocket of her army coat and withdrew a small round disc. It was dark blue with a small pale blue circle in the center.
‘My mother gave me this when I was six. When earth started to decay and die. She told me that even when our home was nothing but sky rock and moon dust, I’d still be able to remember it.’
She pressed the blue circle and a holographic projection erupted from the disc. She handed it to Ashton who watched in wonder as a world came to life, full of green plants and tall stone buildings and a soft sunshine that felt pleasant against his face. He watched as the buildings grew slowly skyward.
‘This is an Epoch Disc. It’s a timeline of the events that played out on earth. It’s archives are filled with information on everything you need to know about earth.’
‘Don’t give him that, Steph!’ Colts barked.
‘It’s ok Colts. Jack can just whip up a new one for me in no time.’
Colts face softened slightly.
‘You haven’t heard, have you?’
Stephanie turned. ‘Heard what?’

***

DUM DUM DUUUM! (to be continued)

All right, I have to mention your dialog right away. Your characters communicate smoothly, and you seem to know how to add pinches of humor here and there without overdoing it. It’s working.

While reading this, though, I couldn’t help but to notice you aren’t varying your sentences much. Work on switching the clauses around, combining some with compound words. I understand you wrote this quickly, and it’s easy to write the same type of sentence all over the place. I do it, too. It’s a pain to fix, but it makes the story sound better.

I think this is great. There aren’t many written stories like this compared to the science-fiction/military movies, and your ideas are pretty cool. I’m sure your plot will be fresh. I hope you continue!

P.S. The disc thing reminded me of Wall-E. Just had to say it. lol

Hey hi!

Echoing Joy Sauce, I liked the way the dialogue read. It came across very naturally and smoothly. Very nice to read.

However, my three main critiques mostly have to do with said dialogue:

1) I'm having a hard time telling any of the characters apart. In the beginning, the voices were very distinct, but as the characters were all thrown together with no breathing time, they quickly began to blend together. Take the time to separate each character and develop them independently. Try giving each character a little moment to shine to help the reader distinguish them from each other.

2) Exposition! There is quite a bit of information being thrown around very quickly and most of it is going right over the readers' heads. While we do want to know about the situations and predicaments and everything, we need to care about the characters involved before we care about what they are involved in. Take the time to develop the characters and slow down a little on the exposition. It's interesting and can be useful in building your world, but with so much of it so quickly, especially when given by characters that we haven't really gotten to know yet, it is quickly overwhelming.

3) Description seems a little lacking. You are giving us exposition information in the dialogue, but we don't really know much about what anything looks like. What does the installment look like? Are they inside or outside? Is it crowded with people or are they alone? You don't have to go overboard, but it is useful to space out dialogue and give the reader some time to absorb things.

A few other minor things:

And please excuse any grammar and spelling mistakes. I haven't edited this at all.

Your honesty is appreciated, but you really should at least proofread for grammar and spelling mistakes before you post. It's just more polite to reviewers, so they don't have to deal with them and can more fully enjoy your story.

‘It’s ok Colts. Jack can just whip up a new one for me in no time.’

While I can see how here you are setting something up about Jack, this seems rather strange. Why would she give a complete stranger a childhood treasure given her by her mother? Why not instead have Jack make a replica for Ash, rather than Steph getting a replica of her own disk. Just seemed a little odd to me that she'd hold onto the disk so long just to give it to some new kid.

Overall, I really like this concept and would love to see you do more with it. Let me know when you continue it and I'll be glad to come and read more!

*thumbs up*

~GryphonFledgling

Hey

Thanks so much for your pointers, they're really going to help !

I would just like to point out that this is just an excerpt from a collection of stories, I will fill in all the blanks if i decide to continue it. It's like a painting: a brief glimpse into the story. It won't give you all the details but you can sort of see what its about.

Thanks Again!!!!

Illa Ater Rosa III