Young Writers Society

Prologue
“Get the Nuclear warheads prepped and ready for war now Major Sieska!” shouted the General.
“Yes Sir,” she replied, whilst frantically typing at her computer.
“Jenkins, I want the entire army armed and ready with the biggest, meanest and most bloody destructive weapons we have A.S.A.P, is that understood?” bellowed the General.
“Yes Sir!” he barked back.
The General collapsed down onto his chair and swept the sweat from his forehead. He surveyed the control room; it was packed with military giants and the world’s top scientists, all rushing in about in panic. They were trying to prepare for inevitable blood bath which was soon to come with their only chance of survival millions of light years away. He watched the door slowly open and a bold figure stepped into the room. He wore combats, a leather jacket and held a motorcycle helmet. His head was bold, almost clean shaven and bore the fearsome look of displeasure. Slowly the man examined the control room before his eyes came to rest on the General. The man strode over to him.
“General” growled the man,
“Colonel Jones, great to finally meet you, I’ve read all of your mission reports and I was very much impressed,” smiled the General as he stood up and held out his hand for the Colonel to shake.
The Colonel stared at it for a moment before shaking. “I’m honoured and it’s great to finally meet you to, I’ve heard all about your work, but I wish our meeting was under different circumstances, Sir,” said the Colonel with an inquisitive expression.
The General’s face turned serious as he sat back down. “So do I, but we don’t have much time to spare they could be here with the next few hours,” sighed the General. “Well I assume you already know where we stand and about the Arrow?”
“Yes Sir,” replied the Colonel.
“Great, well your mission is to save as much of Earth’s population as possible, that is providing that we lose the battle which is most likely, but in the unlikely event that we win, we will contact you and your crew,” said the General sullenly.
“My crew, sir?” questioned the Colonel.
“Yes your crew Colonel,” replied the General. “There is a team of nineteen men and women hand picked by myself waiting for your orders aboard the Arrow. They consist of ten scientist specialised in alien technology and other relevant things, as well as nine solders all from different forces such as the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. Like I have said already they shall be under your command!”
“Anyone I know?” smiled the Colonel sarcastically.
“For a matter of fact there is,” answered the General who seemed amused by Colonel, “Colonel George Williams of the Air Force is one of the nine solders, he was chosen because of his experience and his great success during the mission when you were under his command.”
“Who?” asked the Colonel.
“I believe you know him better as Colonel Will,” smiled the General.
“The, Colonel Will, wow. Haven’t heard from him in a while!” beamed the Colonel
“I’m glad you’re impressed Jones, hopefully you’ll be just as happy with our lead scientist, Doctor Lucy Smith, head of everything to do with the aliens ,Arrow and the stuff found on the digs,” teased the General.
“Do you mean the Doctor Lucy Smith who created the magnesium infused exploding bullets?” replied the Colonel.
“Why yes I do. I must say that I’m rather surprised that you would know of her. Any particular reason?” asked the General curiously.
“Ever since I was 14 I have made it my business to know of all new types of weaponry!” smiled the Colonel.
“I now very much believe I picked the perfect man for this…”The General sentence was cut short by the small, female solder that was Major Sieska.
“Sir,” she shouted urgently.
“Major,” the General replied, quickly becoming serious.
“There is a huge energy cluster building near Neptune,” she shouted back, sounding worried.
“Meaning?” bellowed back the General with a hint of fear in his voice, as though he knew what was coming next but just didn’t want to believe it.
“A hyper space window is forming!” Major Sieska turned around on the verge of tears as the frantic room fell silent.
The Generals head dropped into his hands as he took a deep breath. He looked back up to see every face in the room staring at him full of fear and sadness. “How long?” he asked quietly.
Sieska turned around to look at her computer screen. She turned back to look the General in the eyes “Six and a half minutes!” she whispered.
The room remained still and silent for a while. They’ve got here to early, we’ve got no chance of being ready in time was the common thought. The Colonel clapped his hands together, drawing everyone’s attention, “People, we have six minutes before the creeps get here, surely we should be doing what ever we can so that we are ready to kick their slimy little butts right?” boomed the Colonel, Everyone stared at him with fresh motivation in their eyes. “Get back to work, the lot of you!” he shouted.
Instantly everyone turned back to their computers and began to type madly. The Colonel then turned on the General. “I need weapons, sir,” he said.
“Too right you do!” replied the General whilst taking in the sudden burst of energy that had taken the control room by storm, “Follow me, I’ve got some ready for you,” his eyes swept the control room again. “You sure can motivate people!” said the General as he began to walk away.
The Colonel followed him over to the other side of the control room where there was a table of weapons. “Sir, as we have already established, I am an expert on weaponry, yet I have never seen let alone heard of any of these?” said the Colonel whilst giving the General a questioning glare.
“That will be because they’re new and as top secret as it gets,” responded the General, “They were specially built by our good friend Doctor Lucy Smith to combat the aliens!”
“I’m interested,” smiled the Colonel
“What she did was take old guns and change their shapes to make them smaller, more light weight and easier to use” stated the General. “She also adapted the way the work to by adding alien technology to make them fire quicker, more powerfully and made them more accurate. Plus on top of all of that she took her magnesium infused bullets made them more compact and so that they explode more!” The General looked chuffed with himself. “Impressed Colonel?”
“Very,” grinned the Colonel whilst examining the new machine gun. It had a shoulder harness so he put the harness on over his leather jacket and let the gun rest on his back. He picked up the two pistols which came with their own leg harness and examined them. He attached them to his thighs before picking up eight grenades and stuffing them into multiple pockets.
“I guess it is about I got out of here,” said the Colonel sullenly as he walked towards the door.
The General opened his mouth to speak but was yet again interrupted by Major Sieska. “Sir, the aliens have some how hacked into our satellite system and now have access to our computers and all our files” she screeched.
“How can they do that if they’re still in hyperspace?” said the General, he too sounded shocked.
“Sorry Sir, I haven’t a clue how they are doing it, up until now I didn’t think it possible” replied the Major.
“Do we know what files they’re looking at Major?” asked the General.
“They have looked at pretty much all of our military files but it seems they have only taken an interest in two topics, the Arrow, and this institute!” answered the Major.
The General turned suddenly to the Cornel who was paused in the doorway. “Get the hell out of here and good luck, you’re going to need it big time!”

Hello, and welcome to YWS. If you need anything, just PM me.
You asked for a critique, so here I am.

shouted the General.

she replied

bellowed the General

he barked back.

These words are all fancy, but they don't improve the dialogue. The word 'said' is perfectly fine to use. The words 'shouted, replied, bellowed, barked,' etc. all draw attention to themselves, and you don't want that, since they distract the reader from the actual dialogue. The word 'said' doesn't draw much attention to itself, which makes it good to use. The words in the dialogue should be strong enough to stand by themselves.

He watched the door slowly open and a bold figure stepped into the room. He wore combats, a leather jacket and held a motorcycle helmet.

Having two characters in the same paragraph should be avoided. It creates a problem when you use pronouns. Notice that you used the word 'he' to describe two different characters. To avoid confusion, I'd recommend that you start a new paragraph every time you focus on a different character. Keep your characters in separate paragraphs.

“General” growled the man,

I just wanted to point out that we don't know that he 'growls' until he's done speaking. Stick to 'said.' Trust me.
Also, if you keep characters in separate paragraphs, 'said' doesn't even need to be used.

For example:

The man strode over. "General."

Provided that only one character is mentioned in a paragraph, we would know who is speaking.

“I’m honoured and it’s great to finally meet you to, I’ve heard all about...

'To' should be 'too'
The comma ( , ) afterwards should either be a semicolon ( ; ) or a period ( . ).

and other relevant things, as well as nine solders all from different forces

'Solders' should be 'soldiers.'

“Colonel George Williams of the Air Force is one of the nine solders,

Again, 'solders' should be 'soldiers.'

As for the dialogue itself so far, I'm getting a little confused with all of these names. I suggest that you either take more time introducing characters, or if you don't want to spend the time, at least don't have the characters talk about other characters.

Here's an example:

“Do you mean the Doctor Lucy Smith who created the magnesium infused exploding bullets?” replied the Colonel.

Since Lucy Smith has not been introduced as a character, the reader doesn't care about Lucy Smith as a character. So far, this just seems like useless information. Avoid providing the reader with useless information, because that ultimately slows down the story, and it creates a risk that the reader might stop reading.

Dialogue should progress the story. By 'progress the story,' I mean that it should either further character development or further the conflict.

Since both of the characters sound relatively the same to me, the dialogue is not adding much character development. Both characters seem surprised and happy to see each other. Likewise, I'm getting a little confused as to who is saying what.

It might be nicer if you referred to the characters by their names, rather than 'the Colonel' and 'the General.' It's just a personal preference.

Also, you haven't been too clear on the setting. Are they in a space ship?

“What she did was take old guns and change their shapes to make them smaller, more light weight and easier to use” stated the General. “She also adapted the way the work to by adding alien technology to make them fire quicker, more powerfully and made them more accurate. Plus on top of all of that she took her magnesium infused bullets made them more compact and so that they explode more!”

Everything above is all unnecessary information. Don't overload the reader with too much unneeded information. It's called 'info dumping,' and it slows down the story, potentially boring the reader.

the aliens have some how hacked into our satellite system

'Some how' is one word.

I noticed, so far, that you neglected to tell us why these aliens are enemies of the humans. You don't have to tell us that information, but it might give the aliens more depth.

Anyways, I hope my critique helped. PM me if you need anything.

Hey, RJ!

This was a good read. I like the idea and the story and the characters, You're pretty good at your age, because when I was thirteen, my writing sucked XD It still feels as though you should take out a little more time to flesh things out and develop a little more. But that usually happens as you continue to write.

Rj Rock wrote:He watched the door slowly open and a bold figure stepped into the room. He wore combats, a leather jacket and held a motorcycle helmet. His head was [s]bold[/s] bald[color], almost clean shaven and bore the fearsome look of displeasure. Slowly the man examined the control room before his eyes came to rest on the General. The man strode over to him.
“General” growled the man,

This is good. I read about this character and said, "Holy crap, this guys going to chew my head off! The problem is, you didn't maintain that image for very long. If you want him to be intimidating, and by the way you described him I'd guess you do, then you've got to keep up the growling and stuff. Instead of saying he smiled, call it smirking or sneering. keep the furrow betweenhis eyes.

Rj Rock wrote:“The, Colonel Will, wow. Haven’t heard from him in a while!” beamed the Colonel[color=red].

Again, "beamed" sounds too out of character for this scary biker.

Anyway, I suggest you trade those commas in for the dot dot dot. It will seem more like a pause thant "wtf why are these commas here?" XD it kind of breaks the flow, you know?

"The...Colonel Will...oh, wow....Haven't heard from him in...in a while!"

Rj Rock wrote: “She also adapted the way the work to by adding alien technology to make them fire quicker, more powerfully and made them more accurate.

Now, it took me a long time to figure out what you were saying here. I think it's supposed to look like this

Rj Rock wrote:"She also adapted the way they work, too, by adding alient techonology to make them fire quicker, more powerfully and made them more accurate."

Not to mention the last few words are a bit awkward...."Fire quicker, more powerfully, and made them more accurate" could be reduced. Make them all "-er"s. Quicker, stronger, and sharper. Or something like that. My synonyms are obviously not the best, so you'll have to get your own.

Rj Rock wrote:“I guess it is about time I got out of here,” said the Colonel sullenly as he walked towards the door.

There's a missing word that got me confused. I don't know if "time" is what you meant, it's just a gues.

And nother thing....why is he sullen? he's a weapons dude, he should be as happy with all these wicked weapons as a child at Christmas! He's just got some new toys to play with! Maybe he's reluctant to leave all these beautiful guns, but he's still got some pretty sick junk strapped to him.

All in all, I liked it. a war between humans and aliens is a conept used over and over again, but somehow I have a feeling you're going to make it original.

good luck! Hope I helped!

~Vee