Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence.
Parsee darted back into the main area of the house to get the guns. Ed unholstered his F-6 as Quaz snapped open his spread rifle and loaded two cells into it. Parsee came back and handed one of the rifles to Dave and kept another for herself. She handed the pistol to Ed. He recognized it as an O-1 Six-Blast Cell Revolver, a gun nearly 90 years old. It was much older than his F-6. It had the appearance of a revolver from the 1800s, over 700 years ago. It was loaded with six one-off shots that then needed to be reloaded. The rifles were not quite as old, but they still didn't look to be in the best of condition. Ed deferred to Quaz, thinking he would know more about the situation. "Quaz? What's the deal here? Scare em' off?" Quaz shook his head.
"No' a chance. Scrappers here are vicious. They protect their trash short o' givin' their lahves. Yoo git a' oppurtoonity, yoo kill the sumbitch." He snapped the spread rifle back together with a sense of finality. "Now, wut we need heyre is th' elemen' o' sooprahse. Head out th' door slowly an' quite-ly." They tiptoed single file out the door and all of them dropped and crawled to the low stone wall in front of Quaz's house. The Condor lay, stricken, only a hundred yards away. They could here the shouts of the scrappers' leader standing atop her tilted wing, like a lion, or more accurately a hyena, surveying his pack. He did no real work of his own, simply ordering around his gang, shouting the odd curse or threat.
"That's strange." said Dave, peeking over the wall.
"What?" asked Parsee.
"It could just be me, but they don't have any scrapping equipment. Just guns." The three others took it in turn to peek over the stone wall. Dave was right. Not a single man carried tools used to tear apart a wrecked ship. Quaz grew suspicious.
"Yoo ask me, e'en be'er reason te' shoot em'. Means they ain't scrappers." Ed decided to take charge of the situation.
"Fair enough. But we need a plan. They outnumber us two to one."
"Well, you're the combat engineer." said Dave. "What's your plan?" Ed thought for a moment. He picked up a pointy rock off the ground and started drawing a rough map of the house and the field in the dirt.
"Here we are." he said, pointing to a thin line with four dots behind it. "And here they are." he pointed to a much larger drawing, comprising of the Condor and the eight men surrounding it. "Dave and Quaz are going to each take a flank and circle around the enemy. I'm going to stay here with a rifle and pick them off as they present themselves."
"What am I going to do?" asked Parsee. Ed shifted around to look at her.
"You're going to trade with me." he said, handing her the revolver. "And you're going to guard me by shooting anyone who you deem too close."
"When do we start?" asked Dave.
"I'm going to fire the first shot to get their attention. Once they all start charging over here, you and Quaz split off, firing at them while I pick off any I can." Dave and Quaz their agreement and so did Parsee when Ed looked over his shoulder to her. Dave army-crawled across the ground to get behind Parsee, ready to bolt off to the left when Ed gave the signal, as Ed poked the barrel of his rifle over the edge of the stone wall.
He lined the iron sights up on his target, slowly breathing, watching the front sight on the muzzle bob up and down on the man. The sights came back down, lining up perfectly. Ed squeezed the trigger slowly, and the gun bucked back against his shoulder as the charge bolted from the muzzle. It streaked across the field, striking the man directly between the eyes. He fell backward off the wing, landing with a heavy thud on the ground. The men he was leading looked up, searching for the source of the charge. Ed motioned for Dave and Quaz to move out.
They darted to the sides, keeping low to avoid being noticed. The seven remaining men fanned out, carefully approaching the stone wall, unsure of where the shot came from. They moved forward tentatively, aiming their pulsearms randomly in the direction of the house. Dave sat behind a large piece of farm equipment, psyching himself up for what he was about to do. He took several deep breaths then stood up, bringing the rifle to his shoulder and aiming it at the man closest to him. He pulled the trigger, jerking it as he did so, causing the muzzle to waver in the air and throwing off his aim.
The bolt leapt from the pulsearm and streaked toward the man. It grazed his arm and he whirled around to face Dave. Dave shrieked in terror and dropped back to the ground as the man's shot ripped through the air where his head had been. He motioned for his friends to join him and was about to yell to them when Ed's pulse plowed into the side of his head, dropping the man to the ground. His comrades turned towards his lifeless body, shocked by the speed and accuracy of the shot.
They broke out of the shock and dove for cover, some simply dropping to the ground, others throwing themselves behind rocks and farm equipment. One of them made it just in time as Quaz's shot blasted a hole in the boulder he darted behind. The men started ducking out from behind their cover, firing in the direction of the house. Blasts raced over Ed and Parsee, along with bits of wall as the blasts rammed into it.
"Dave, Quaz!" yelled Ed. They both turned to look at him as shots flew all around them. Ed motioned for them to circle around the enemy. Quaz nodded to him and Dave gave him a snappy salute, then they both set off to flank the men. Dave was unfortunate enough to not keep his head low and the men spotted him as he ran off.
"There's one!" shouted their de facto leader. He was cut off as Quaz's spread rifle ripped through his right arm. He screamed in pain and dropped to the ground, clutching his arm. Opting for a less subtle strategy, Quaz reloaded his rifle, hopped up on a tractor and ripped off two shots at two men who were bunched up together. One of them was struck in the head and he fell over, dead. The other was hit in the stomach and he lurched back, breathing shallowly.
"Yeah! C'mon yoo bahstards. I c'n tahke yoo. C'mon n' tahke it!" His call was promptly answered with three or four shots from the remaining three men. They startled him and he fell backwards off the tractor, the wind knocked out of him as he landed. He reloaded his spread rifle and put his back to the tractor. He grinned at Ed. "Jus' like bein' back inna war, innit?" Ed grinned and shook his head.
Ed turned his attention back to the battle, scanning for an easy target. He saw two of the men with adequate cover, no chance he could hit them. He looked for the third man, unsure of where he was. He inched his head up from the wall for a better look. Sure enough, the man was nowhere to be found. He knew enough from his days in the war to know that wasn't a good sign. He frantically searched the area, looking for that last man.
"Not so smart are you?" growled a voice from behind him. "Nice skills you got with that rifle. Pity you won't be around anymore to use them." He pressed a gun against the back of Ed's skull. "Say goodbye, rebel." A shot rang from behind Ed. The man fell forward, slumping against Ed. Ed pushed him over, revealing a smoking exit wound in his chest. Ed looked behind himself. Parsee stood in the doorway of the house, the gun raised in her hand. She had a shocked look on her face and the barrel of the gun was still smoking.
End of chapter
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140,284 Literary Works • 673,074 Reviews
Hi! I saw this in the Green Room and the title seemed interesting, so here I am.
I'll just be reviewing this as I read it.
Let's get to it. ^^
> I like how you put the action right at the beginning; it works well as an opening.
> The sentence structure could use some variance. You wrote most of the sentences in the same structure, and it gets repetitive. The blue part in particular felt choppy, and you used the word "it" as the starting word of a sentence three times.
Perhaps try writing it something like this:
He recognized it as an O-1 Six-Blast Cell Revolver, a gun nearly 90 years old, much older than his F-6. It had the appearance of a revolver from the 1800s, and was loaded with six one-off shots that then needed to be reloaded.
By combining sentences, using transitions, and switching up the order of the things in the sentence, you can have the writing flow better.
> Notice how the bold words all feel the same: a noun and then a past tense verb. This also makes the sentences feel stiff. Try switching up the sentence structure, and the paragraph will read better as a whole.
> I think it's really cool that you've included so much information about guns here. However, I'm afraid that I'm not very familiar with guns and didn't fully understand it. If your audience is familiar with these weapons, the way you wrote here works well. However, if most of your readers are like me, having a more.. beginner-friendly/visual description would help. For example, if you described how the O-1 looked instead of comparing it with a revolver from the 1800s.
> This. This is awesome. I really like how this bit of dialogue shows so much about the character. I struggle a lot with differentiating character voices in my writing, but you nailed it here.
> I also really like this part. There's something about the tone that you use that makes it sound so good, almost-sarcastic-but-not-quite, which works really (I really need to think up a synonym for really) well here.
> I know Plume already said this, but the imagery here (in both sentences) is really good. However, the amount of commas threw me off. Perhaps replace them with dashes to make the writing flow better, like so:
"...like a lion--or more accurately, a hyena--surveying his pack."
> Because you have a dialogue tag right after the dialogue, the period after "strange" needs to be a comma.
> That's still dangerous.
> Dave and Ed don't have accents, huh.
> Dave must be pretty smart to just be able to make a plan on the spot.
> I think there should be a "nodded" between "Quaz" and "their."
> The first sentence feels kinda clunky; maybe rearrange it a bit, like so:
Dave and Quaz nodded their agreement, and when Ed looked over his shoulder at her, so did Parsee.
> This whole paragraph is awesome. The imagery is really, really good, and I actually forgot to breathe for a bit as Ed aimed at the leader.
> There's this feeling of.. movement throughout this part and it helps the scene a lot.
> Oh no..
> Ed's shot hit the man, right? For a second I thought it hit Dave.. scared me.
> Because you used "he" to refer to Dave for the first parts of the sentence, when you used it at the end (I made it blue), I thought you meant Ed shot Dave. Try writing it like this for more clarity:
..when Ed's pulse plowed into the side of the man's head, dropping him to the ground.
> You used the word "blasts" twice, and it feels kinda repetitive. Maybe word it a little different:
Blasts raced over Ed and Parsee, taking bits of wall with them as they rammed through the structure.
> How was he not shot?
> They all seem desensitized to the violence; they do this sort of stuff a lot, huh.
> Normally, if someone who has never killed before killed a person, they would go into shock, be traumatized, and feel intense amounts of guilt and horror. It takes a lot to just shut that part of your brain off.
> This part could hold a lot of suspense if you pace it right. Try using what Plume said below, and maybe even space it out more. If you start a new paragraph right after "rebel," it would help build the anticipation and fear more. As is, I feel that you gave Ed a way out too fast, without letting the reader really feel the intensity of the moment.
> This ending is amazing. I love it so much~
> I can feel Parsee's shock, and I like how you distanced her point of view from the reader by keeping the scene from Ed's perspective. I dunno. It just fits nicely.
Well, that's it for the review! I really enjoyed reading and reviewing this; it was a nice break from what I usually read.
You most certainly do not have to follow everything in this review; just take what you like and ignore the rest.
Stay safe and keep writing,
Mira
Okay, okay, okay, I totally get your confusion for the majority of this so let me try to explain it away in a comment. There's a lot of backstory I haven't mentioned yet that I plan on revealing in future books (and there's also some in the first, Murder By Starlight-subtle plug) but let me try to condense it without spoilers.
The idea is that Ed and Quaz were both in a war against the Federation in favor of a gaggle of free planets- Ed as a...something that gets revealed later, and Quaz as a machine gunner/heavy, I forget what I called him. Regardless, that's is why they can kill people rather insensitively. Dave however, is quite possibly deranged, I haven't decided yet. Because of this, I decided that Parsee is going to kill someone for the very first time and be upset about it (I'm going to take this moment to apologize for the long reply). Thank you so much for the rest of your advice, I will take it to heart!
I feel like I was confused mostly because I haven't read all of the previous parts, so don't worry too much about it.
Also, I got the idea that they all were desensitized from violence on different levels, with Parsee being the most "innocent" of the four. The story read like you wrote them like that on purpose and not as a mistake, the way some amateur writers (me from the past included) would. I kind of guessed that Ed and Quaz came from really violent backgrounds, especially with that comment about the way it felt like being back at war again. You wrote that really skillfully; I just thought it would be interesting to contrast their situation with the way most people would react.
Long replies are great; they mean someone cared enough to talk to me, and I really appreciate it.
I didn't mean to come off as rude/attacking-your-writing, and I'm so, so sorry if I did. The writing in this is amazing, and you managed to give really thorough... impressions (is that what it is?) of the characters, setting, and even part of the plot of your story within one part/chapter to someone who hasn't read the previous parts. That in itself takes skill for good writing, and you nailed that part really well.
Now I wanna check out the first four parts of this story as well. ^^ You might be seeing me on here more often.
omg my reply is even longer ^^" sorry about that
Hey!! Plume here, with a review!!
I saw this in the green room and shrieked because I was so happy!! I thought there were only going to be four parts of Set Adrift, so this was a super nice little bonus surprise! Well. Let's get right into it, shall we?
I really loved this installment of the story!! One of the things you're really good at is writing action, and I was thoroughly engrossed throughout this piece! Your pacing is phenomenal and has definitely improved from the first time I read one of your pieces!! It seems like everything happens just when it needs to, and I wasn't struggling to keep up or feeling stuck if it dragged. Nice work!!
I also adore your writing voice and dialogue. (I know I've probably said this before, BUT IT'S TRUE.) It's so amazing and feels so professional. You combine humor and drama to create this sort of cynical-but-not voice while you write, both in the narration and in characters' dialogue. It's marvelous and a blessing to read, truly.
One thing I did wonder about was Quaz and Parsee's accents. They can be a little hard to decipher at times, and I think that maybe you should just establish that they have accents by saying they have accents, and maybe describing what they sound like, but otherwise typing their dialogue in normal, deciphered phrases.
Specifics
You do this a couple of times throughout this section, and I just wanted to point out that since you've got a dialogue tag after the dialogue, the period after strange should be a comma.
This was a really great bit of imagery! I enjoyed the switch from a lion to the hyena, but you need commas surrounding more accurately, just so it flows better.
I thought you could have dragged this part out just a bit more. Let the readers fear for Ed, before Parsee saves him. Some ways you can do this are maybe describing Ed's thoughts when he feels the gun, or maybe giving his assailant more dialogue.
Overall: lovely job!! As always, I really enjoy reading about Ed, and you've done more than deliver this time! Keep writing!