The new book, having slowed down to take a deep breath in medias res, as it were, with some brainstorming, more research, and hard thinking going on, has now reached 280 manuscript pages (some out of order) and is moving again–though the Holy Week services and car problems will slow it down again this week and I have a house guest next week.\u00a0 Still.\u00a0 Moving along, new ideas flowing.\u00a0\u00a0 So I think it’s time for a snippet that may or may not survive later editing.\u00a0 (This is the first, very rough, draft, after all.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Location: New Vatta HQ building, Slotter Key<\/p>\n
Who:\u00a0 Helen Vatta, interim CEO of Vatta on Slotter Key, her daughter Stella Vatta, visiting from Cascadia and CEO of Vatta Enterprises there.\u00a0 They are expecting the arrival by midafternoon of Ky Vatta, believing her to be safely on a Slotter Key Spaceforce\u00a0 shuttle from the main space station, after the arrival of her flagship in the system the day before.\u00a0\u00a0 It is Ky’s first visit to her home planet since she left years before in disgrace;\u00a0 she is needed there for legal reasons (transfer of authority w\/in Vatta, requiring Helen, Stella, and Ky–all the heirs of the former CEO and CFO–to be present), but it’s also a sort of state visit by the great hero of the recent war, so there’ve been preparations beyond the family.<\/p>\n
……………………………………………………<\/p>\n
They were in the lunchroom when Stella saw her mother stiffen and set down her glass of white wine. She waited, dread rising up her chest like a tide. Her mother’s face had paled.<\/p>\n
“The shuttle went down,” her mother said.<\/p>\n
“Ky?”<\/p>\n
“They don’t know. It was in the ocean. They don’t have any location other than that.”<\/p>\n
“So\u2026she could still be alive.”<\/p>\n
“She could. But they–we–don’t know–”<\/p>\n
“Was that Grace calling, or someone else?”<\/p>\n
“Grace. She’s canceled all the ceremonies and said we should leave here. Go home, was her suggestion.”<\/p>\n
“Do we have a secure connection to the local ansible?”\u00a0 Stella had put down her fork and pushed back her chair.<\/p>\n
“Who do you want to call?”<\/p>\n
“My people on Cascadia need to know, and I want to let Toby’s parents know. If they’re after Ky, they might be after Toby, or me, or my people. Our ships need to be warned.”<\/p>\n
Her mother stared a moment, then shook her head.\u00a0 “I should have thought of that.\u00a0 You are definitely the right one to take over, Stella.\u00a0 I’ll show you where Communications is.”<\/p>\n
……………………………………………………………<\/p>\n
Ky is<\/em> still alive,\u00a0 but they won’t know it for an inconveniently long time.\u00a0\u00a0 Ky’s adventures\u00a0 will be interwoven with the economic, legal, and political machinations that cause, and arise from, her “disappearance”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s becoming delightfully complex in the way that promises more good stuff later.<\/p>\n Besides the external threats Ky must deal with, she’s got to grow as a commander in this one.\u00a0 She’s a tactical genius and growing in competence as a strategist, but she’s still young to have the psychological insights that make a great leader over the long haul, and she’s never had to deal with leading a group of people she had no part in choosing (outside the crew of the ship she started with, hand-picked by her father.)\u00a0 She’s making mistakes and learning, but…boy, did I stick her in a bad place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new book, having slowed down to take a deep breath in medias res, as it were, with some brainstorming, more research, and hard thinking going on, has now reached 280 manuscript pages (some out of order) and is moving again–though the Holy Week services and car problems will slow it down again this week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-2443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snippet","tag-snippet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2445,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions\/2445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}