A New Concept

Mom bought me a subscription to Writer's Digest as well as a book about writing and getting published. I flipped through a few of the chapters of the book, looking for help on disciplining myself to write. The advice, in a nutshell, was that writing was much like any sort of exercise: You just have to do it. A half hour, an hour, a page, five pages...it doesn't matter, as long as you sit down with a goal and meet it. It's not so much important WHAT you write, as long as you're writing. I realized part of my problem was that I would try to dedicate all time to a single concept of writing. As such, if I felt writer's block I would simply not write. This of course leads to a decline in writing ability because your writing muscle isn't being used at all!

So I've got another short that I'm working on. Truth be told, I haven't finished the previous piece. I'm still trying to figure out a way to close it. So until then, you guys can be entertained with the new project. Sci-Fi/Horror, kids.

New Untitled

The ship sat lifeless in it's orbit around the equally lifeless planet, a pair of corpses drifting in space. The ship was the Helle Licht, a preliminary research vessel sent to determine if the otherwise barren world could offer any form of salvage; resources that mining teams should be dispatched to recover. Four hundred and eighty-five meters in length, the Helle Licht looked like a massive beetle in suspended animation. The bulbous body had a forward pod that resembled a head, a pin cushion of antennae and sensors. No lights could be seen and were it not for the backdrop of the pale gray planet, the ship would have been difficult to see, for it would have blended in with the inky darkness that surrounded it.

Primo Serjiak looked out the forward view of the Reanimator, his eyes criss-crossing the hull of the Helle Licht in search of some indication of internal activity. There was none to be found. Nothing so much as a desk lamp seemed to show up.

" What've you got, Serjiak?" came a voice from behind him.
Primo shook his head slightly, then glanced down to the four monitors laid out before him. His fingers traced the screens as he poured over the data, readouts from the half dozen sensors pointed at the derelict vessel. He sighed and shook his head again, looking back out through the forward viewport at the silent giant they were approaching.

" She is dead in the water, Captain," he replied in an accent that could have been found in Old Eastern Europe, " I do not need the readouts to tell me that. The way it has drifted in it's orbit, the lack of light...but, from a technical standpoint, it seems the life support systems are functioning, though running at minimum. The engines are completely inactive, which accounts for the drifting; not even the stabilizers are firing."

He turned to face the bridge of the Reanimator, his eyes settling upon an older man sitting atop the command dais, his own gray eyes peering out at the ship that drew ever closer. Serjiak shrugged a bit, " there is little more I can tell from here, Captain Holland."

Captain Ambrose Holland stroked his gray beard thoughtfully, then spoke, his eyes not leaving the view ahead, " contact?"

The man who responded was barely that, a recruit fresh from the academy, " no response to our hail, sir."

Holland's eyes lowered to Primo who shrugged and glanced down at his monitors once more,
" there is no evidence of damage to their communication arrays, subspace or local, sir. However, without a direct connection to their network, I cannot be sure. "

" Alright, then let's get a hardlink established. Vodden, take us in to a docking module, nice and easy. Serjiak, prep the hardlink lines for attachment. We're not stepping foot in that ship until I get some readings on it," Holland said, sitting back in his chair.

The Reanimator slowly approached the Helle Licht and in space, there was no sound as the maneuvering jets ignited in small bursts of pale light. The Reanimator, at only seventy meters long, was dwarfed by the far larger research vessel. The smaller craft maneuvered about to the underbelly of the derelict vessel. Several spurts from the maneuvering jets slowed it's approach to a crawl as the smaller of the two lined up the docking tube.

Primo made his way to the upper level of the ship, passing through a set of bulk heads and coming into a large circular room, some fifty feet in diameter and a ten foot ceiling. In the center was a clear, plexi-glass cylinder with a pair of sliding doors on one side. An array of consoles, monitors and large bed scanners lined the walls. As Primo walked to one of the consoles, he could hear a knocking sound coming from above.

" Serjiak?" came the Captain's voice over the intercom.

Primo hit the switch on right side of the console and said, " I'm here, Captain."

" Vodden has docked us with the Helle Licht. Commence sensor hardlinking when ready."

" Yes, sir."

On the monitor above the console came a blueprint showing the docking tube that extended from the Reanimator to the Helle Licht. Between the outer shell of the tube and it's interior there was a space. His hands went to the controls on the console and the translucent images of two rod-like appendages began climbing up space towards the research vessel.

" We'll have sensor hardlink in ten seconds, Captain," Primo said into the intercom.

The arms reached two small circles on the blueprint-

-and stopped.

Primo frowned a bit, easing them back, then turning a dial to magnify the area near the ends of the arms. He guided them forward once again, only to have them stop and a small error flash in the bottom left corner of the screen.

Error. Unable to secure. Hardlink not established.

" Do we have a connection, Serjiak?" came the Captain's voice.

" Not yet, sir," Primo said, the confusion of the scenario in his voice, " there seems to be an issue with the terminals on the Helle Licht. The hardlink cables aren't interfacing with them."

On the bridge, Ambrose sighed and leaned to his left, resting his chin on his fist. The half dozen crew members on the bridge waited a moment, then began glancing about, waiting for their captain's response to the situation.