First up, sitrep:
I finished
The Gaia Project last week. I put the last minute touches on the cover and I'm off this week (more or less) for grads and parties.
I just sent Rea
We the People and sent out a Beta blast for
The Gaia Project.
FYI, the current schedule is centered around finishing the Founding time period this year. I've had complaints that I've got too many irons (series) in the fire and I need to cut back. So, we're going to knock out the Founding series and you'll see some more foundation work for the
Ragnarok and Irons time. (and these books have more Easter Eggs!)
I've had another request for a print copy of my books. (and my family asked for 1 too when I mentioned it to them) The reason I don't print... okay, there are 3 reasons.
1: I have to format each book. Which costs $$$ per book. I don't trust the auto-formatting.
2: Amazon won't let me do a proof copy to make sure the bugs are out. (Some of you have seen that in my e-books) I don't want to be dinged because someone doesn't like a typo, or if something gets messed up in the print process. (like a missed highlight, or overrun, or whatever) They charge
me for returns for that sort of stuff.
3: the profit margin is scary small. For my books (which are apparently big) something like
Convoy would cost $15 for a paperback. I'd get $0.05 per copy in royalties, (yes, not kidding, 5 cents!) and lose money (I mean pay in) for over seas sales to the tune of $0.50 per copy in some countries, $1 in others.
So, no, not going to happen. I'd love to have a printed copy of each of my books (despite not having room in my library) but nope.
So, there you have it. When some of those factors change I'll reconsider it.
Anyway, here is the first snippet from
We the People:
Chapter 1
April 4, 2284
Alpha-G7-449351 star system, Alpha sector
Station Commander Aeyrn Glock made her way through the station, nodding
on occasion to those she passed but with a resolute face that forbade others to
approach her. She had the expression of polite interest but I'm busy come back
later was the subtext.
Just about everyone on the station got it. Well, almost everyone,
Toshido was clueless when he had something on his mind. A bomb could go off
next to him and he'd be single minded about something or other. Sho the
station's massive chief engineer didn't give a damn, if he had a problem that
needed her attention he brought it to her as he was supposed to do.
She ran a hand through her short cropped hair as she got into the lift.
"Command center," she ordered. She needed a trim, but not quite yet.
Alpha-G7-449351 was a star system on the outer edge of the Alpha sector,
near the edge of Gamma. It was along the Orion spiral arm and well away from
the known areas that other species tended to inhabit or pass through, just what
the client had specified.
She had once been a naval officer before she'd seen the light and gotten
out. She had gotten an education though, and her brief career allowed her some
perks. That included respect from those who were currently in the navy or those
who still looked up to such things.
Other than Sho she'd been in LGM's field station department the longest.
Well, no, that wasn't quite true, she thought, reminding herself that Ranginui
had them both beat.
Ranginui was a dumb A.I. originally created to manage the station. As
more and more computers were brought on to handle the process of terraforming,
the A.I. had grown with it.
Ranginui had named himself after the Maoiri patriarch of creation also
known as the Sky Father. Rather appropriate given that he was in the core of
the space station orbiting their current project.
The station was massive, a series of cylinders and spheres over a 3
kilometers long with a crew of 600 organics. The crew was there to maintain and
occasionally service and refurbish the network of satellites orbiting the
planet in a dense grid.
Over the years since Lagroose Industries had started terraforming exoworlds,
LGM and her competitors had improved the process. Lagroose had gotten lucky
with Pyrax and a few of their other conquests. LGM preferred to rely on steady
careful work and hard science and engineering to get the job done.
Which was where Commander Glock's people came in. Chief Sho managed
engineering for her. He oversaw not only the station's engineering spaces but
every maintenance shop and shed as well as the overhaul of every satellite,
shuttle, tug, and barge they had.
Her lips pursed as she arrived at her destination. The doors opened and
she paused to make sure no one was going to barge in on her as what had
happened last week before stepping out.
She missed Jenny her daughter. Her daughter was a teenager and a handful
for her parents despite already being in college at the tender age of 15. It
was one reason why she'd accepted the posting despite the ban on children.
It hurt, missing Jenny, but it was what it was. Jenny was where she
needed to be, and keeping busy on the station was fine with her. Since many of
the stationers were in stable relationships she didn't have to worry about the
dating scene.
Even if her mother and sister tended to twitter her about the lack of
prospective replacements for Ben. She had no intention of replacing Ben anytime
soon, and certainly not with some absent minded egghead or tech.
She nodded to the personnel near the door as she strode onto the command
deck. A quick survey told her everything was fine, not that she'd expected
anything different. On the left of the main screen was the planet statistics.
The right was a series of graphs from the various satellites in orbit.
Telemetry feeds that hardly made sense to most organics since they were
scrolling so fast.
The main holographic emitter normally had an image of the planet. At the
moment it had an image of the plot with a zoomed in image of a familiar looking
naval ship.
"Talk to me," she ordered.
"IFF confirms it is Perth ma'am," Ranginui stated
flatly.
"Ah," she said with a nod, not that she'd expected much else.
Sure they were on the butt end of nowhere but there could always be the
unexpected visitor in the form of a tramp freighter, alien, or someone else.
Someone not as friendly to see for instance.
Visits from the Confederation navy's light cruiser Perth were supposed
to ease the anxiety of the crew and her corporate backers. Captain Stuart was
so punctual they could practically set their watch by his scheduled arrival
time.
"We're getting the usual canned greeting," the A.I. reported.
"Understood. Send them our regards and the latest report on the
planet."
"Yes ma'am," the A.I. replied. It had taken him a bit of
processing time to understand that particular bit of humor between the
organics. Captain Stuart's open message asking about when the mountains would
be open to skiing had finally clued him in.
(^)#(^)
Captain Klaus Stuart was not on his bridge when he got the reply from
the station. Quite the contrary, since the reply would most likely take hours
to get to his ship on the outskirts of the star system he'd gone about his
daily business.
He was unsurprised by the weather report on the planet. Aeyrn had taken
to twittering him about that, their shared little joke. Based on the current
readings though they were getting down there. If it wasn't just a trick of the
weather and the temperatures was average it looked like the terraformers might
stay on schedule.
Which was good for them. It would also mean his routine visits to the
planet might get more interesting in a few more years when they moved on to the
next phase, bioforming.
It was always nice to see a planet turned from a lifeless mudball or
iceball into a habitable world ripe for colonists. He knew companies like LGM
loved the work. They certainly profited enough from it.
LGM and their competitors had perfected the art of terraforming planets,
dwarf planets, and even large moons. If it was big enough and anywhere near the
goldilocks zone of a star system they could turn it into a new Eden.
As long as the client's checks cleared that was.
With the current set up they could terraform a world in 30 years or
less. It turned out that having a manned crew plus plenty of A.I. and orbital
support helped. Of course it was easier to terraform a world that was already
partially to where they wanted it to be. And it always worked out for the best
if the planet had a magnetosphere and near 1 G to work with.
The stationers managed the entire system of satellites and robots.
Technically an A.I. like Ranginui did most of the heavy lifting, the organics
were there to keep things running smoothly or to interpret the data and add
their own intuitive processes into the mix.
Once LGM handed off the planet the station and most of the satellites
would be pulled out by a series of large freighters. They'd be staged
somewhere, most likely a central depot to be refurbished before being returned
to service and transported to the next candidate world to start the entire
process all over again.
About half of the science and observation satellites would remain in
orbit to keep tabs on the planet as it underwent its final metamorphosis. He'd
read that LGM had been burned when a planet had backslid after a team had
thought it was fully 'cooked'.
He checked the status. They had another three days before they arrived
in orbit and could check in more thoroughly with the stationers. He knew that
Aeyrn was looking forward to the break in the otherwise boring and dull
routine.
He sat back in his office chair. It was a bit thread bare, he had rigger
tape on one arm rest but it fit him. Trying to get another or even parts for it
was a pain in the ass.
Sure, engineering could and frequently did make some replacement parts
with their 3D printers, CNC machines, and other equipment in the machine shops.
But the basic stock had to be accounted for. In the current penny pinching red
tape mood of the navy, he'd rather put up with the lumpy thing and annoying
squeak rather then get drowned in paperwork.
Just like he'd more or less resigned his career to being a patrol
cruiser captain. It beat sitting in an office somewhere, or drummed out onto
the street with little prospect for a job commanding a vessel.
He glanced at the ship status board and then stretched. Andrea was
planning a series of drills in the morning so he might as well catch some rest
while he could before they began.
(^)#(^)
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