Start to my current novella

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Here's the rough draft to the prologue of my current work in progress, Station Of Darkness. Let me know what you think, though I know it's probably terrible so far. POV issues for starters, argh. Anyhow, any comments or thoughts? Ways to improve?

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The ERF Dreadnought Waterloo loomed over the rest of the fleet, the deadly planet Venus below with its beautiful yet deadly clouds reflecting the blinding sunlight. Simon drank his morning coffee slowly, watching the stars turn slowly with the rotation of the station through the thick window's of the station's galley. Today was the big day, the moment he had been working on for years. Terrorists or Martian Special Forces might have destroyed Earth's orbital ring, but it wouldn't matter soon enough. Mars might own the solar system, but Earth would own the stars.

“Simon” said a young lab assistant.

“Evangeline, it's Dr. Kantwell while on the clock.”

She rolled her eyes, “yes sir, Dr. Kantwell sir.”

“What is it, Evangeline?”

“Shouldn't it be 'lab assistant Planck' during work hours, Dr. Kantwell sir?”

“Sorry, whatever. What do you have to report?”

She glared at him for a moment and huffed. “We're ready to begin. Everything's green.”

“Alright, let's do this.” Simon turned back to the window. “Let's open the wormhole to Tau Ceti.”

Evangeline stamped her foot. “I thought you liked me Simon.”

Simon raised an eyebrow and drank from his coffee cup again. “Yes, I do. We're at work now. Let's talk later. Besides, last time I gave you a gift at work, you reported me for 'harassment', so what was that about?”

Her cheeks turned rosy and she looked down, “I was just afraid of people talking, nothing against you really.”

“Tell that to my personnel file,” said Simon. “I was nice to you and you punished me for it, so let's do this by the book now if you want to. Alright, Evangeline?”

“Alright,” she said, and with a little huff she said “Simon” and kissed his cheek. They walked together to the command room, he opened the door for her and they entered.

The coffee cup empty, he placed it at the corner of the holographic display table. “Let's make history today people. Mars might own the solar system for now, but they can excuse me while I light up the sky. Activate the wormhole device.”

Between the station and Venus a tetrahedral satellite orbited. Four massive electromagnets made a compression field. Accelerators injected quark-gluon plasma into the field and after full the electromagnets oscillated with increasing frequency as the plasma was compressed. For a while, nothing seemed to happen. Then it did. A virtual wormhole became a real one, and the expansion was immediate, engulfing the satellite and a few miles out from the center.

Dr. Kantwell stood there for a moment, amazed and just taking in the view as everyone around him cheered and Evangeline kissed him despite everyone watching. He could see a planet through the lens-like bubble of the wormhole. “Everyone, look. Is that? Look at the topography. It has to be, but it can't be. Can it?”
The planet seen through the bubble was a world covered in oceans, far more than Earth, with a long continent and many large islands.

Simon kept looking incredulous at the world below. “That's Venus, isn't it? It should be a wormhole to the Tau Ceti system, but what is this? Is this time travel or another universe or what is this? What can it be now?”

Evangeline compared maps of Venus with the surface below, “yes sir, it's Venus. I don't know how either, but it is. It looks habitable too. Same atmosphere as Earth. Um sir?”

“Yes, Evangeline?”

She tilted her head and rolled her eyes, “rules rules rules. Whatever. There's signs of industrial byproducts in the atmosphere. It's inhabited.”

“What?! By what?”

A bright flash lit up a portion of the terrain below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Again open inter-dimensional anomaly” said sensor clerk Rearc. “Stable appears to be time now.”

Supervisor Kretark looked at the display. “Artificial to be seems probable, now look station rotational is there. Open channel Imperator towards.”

A lifelike hologram lit up the room of the Venusian command center. The Venusian Imperator dressed in Imperial yellow. “Yes supervisor?”

“Anomaly artificial appeared time now. Recommend action immediate.”

“Granted is authorization.” The hologram faded.

Supervisor Kretark sounded the alarm and called for a cruiser to be deployed. The brilliance of its kugelblitz drive filled the skies beyond the horizon with thick white light as it soared blasting toward the artificial bubble of spacetime warping.

“Well fare you soldiers,” said supervisor Kretark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simon kept his eyes glued to the window, unsure of what to do. There was no training for this, no way expectation for having to prepare for this circumstance. Now what is this? A missile? A ship? Should we let it through or shut down the wormhole and keep it out? Probably safer to keep it out. “Shut it down! Shut it down now!”

It was too late, the craft accelerated too quickly. By the time Simon's subordinated begin to go through the shutdown sequence, the Venusian craft entered the bubble of the wormhole, seeming to absorb the bubble as its engines passed through. The wormhole gone now, only this universe's Venus shone beneath with the glaring reflected sunlight off of the sulfuric clouds of death below.

The ERF dreadnought Waterloo opened fire with salvos of missiles and lasers as it slowly turned to have its central railgun face the Venusian cruiser. The lasers reflected off the shiny surface and the missiles hit an energy shield, exploding away from the ship on a skin of electromagnetic force.

The Venusian ship spun around and released its kugelblitz, a small black hole used for propulsion, in the direction of the Waterloo. The giant dreadnought desperately attempted evasive maneuvers. The brilliant singularity passed through outer habitation rings of the dreadnought as if they were not there, and each then looked like partially eaten doughnuts.

Bright light began to grow again from the aft of the Venusian cruiser as it formed a new kugelblitz, slowing down its motion to a relative halt. It spun again and threw the newly formed singularity at the Waterloo again.

The dreadnought fired its railgun once. A direct hit, breaking the energy shield of the Venusian cruiser with a ferrous shell accelerated to 50 percent the speed of light. The Venusian cruiser lurched, a section of it shattered to dust on the exit point of the projectile.

The newly formed singularity hit the central axis of the Waterloo, crumpling it, collapsing it as it passed through, before exploding into a nova. The second singularity also now burst into a flash of distant light harmlessly away, but there was nobody left on the Waterloo to see it.

Fear washed over him, Simon Kantwell knew not what to do. The dreadnought was gone. Gone. The brilliant light partially blinding him for a moment, the automatically tinting windows of the control center's observation ports not reacting fast enough.

Evangeline held his arm, clinging to him and crying silently. The other researchers variously cried or stood amazed, some ran to other parts of the station. No escape pods, there's nowhere to go.

The Venusian cruiser slowly turned to face the station.

“No!” shouted Evangeline, hurting Simon's ear.

The alien craft launched what appeared to be missiles, small tubes, toward the station.

The point defense systems of Venus Research Station fired away uselessly, the lasers reflecting, the kinetic ones not powerful enough to blast through their energy shields.

Evangeline whimpered, Simon hugged her.

The missiles decelerated.

Each of them deployed magnetic armatures, latching onto the hull in various places throughout. One attached nearby. Clang!

Evangeline cried and so did Simon.

A brilliant red circle appeared on the inner hull nearby, tremendously hot. They were welding through the hull, these must be some kind of small boarding craft. Are these aliens very small? They'd have to be the size of rats to fit in those. The circles of metal hull fell to the ground, the circle still red hot from the welding.

Simon walked to look inside. Some kind of insect like, or spider like creature. No, more like a scorpion, with the tail. Simon looked for the security guards. Cowards, they ran. He picked up his coffee cup, no other weapon in sight.
The circle of the hull now longer glowed, the creature slowly stepped forward. Testing the ground in front of it.
It had a mouth like a locust, except with two pairs of curved horizontal teeth which looked hollow at the tips. It looked as though they wore armor, probably just an exoskeleton, but it looked metallic. They appeared to have a helmet, or a crown maybe, on their heads. And their faces. What? They looked like human faces, except for the mouth, the eyes and nose looking just human enough to be similar and yet still freakishly alien also. Hair too, human like long hair, changing color at will.

Simon threw his coffee cup at the creature. No damage. Only made it angry.

Evangeline screamed. The creature looked at her. Evangeline screamed even louder, causing Simon to cover his ears. The creature began walking toward Evangeline. Simon ran to it and tried to step on it, but got stung and fell to the ground. The creature climbed onto the back of Simon's neck. Evangeline tried throwing her shoes at the thing. It ran up to her and stung her too. The creature looked from one to the other, unsure which to pick.

The creature picked Evangeline, went to the back of her neck and dug its four hollow teeth in. Tendrils shot out from the skinny insectoid legs and burrowed into Evangeline's head. The scorpion tail burrowed into her spine. The creature's hair color changed to match Evangeline's.

Evangeline's body stood up. Her eyes filled with terror, her mouth mouthing a scream, but unable to scream. She moved against her will to the consoles, her eyes no trying to move on their own. She tried to fight, but her body filled with pain each time she fought. She gave up.

The creature moved her arms over the controls for the hangar airlock door. Hovering over the controls, she tried fighting again, but the pain increased until she couldn't stand it. Her hands pressed the controls.

On the viewscreen, the Venusian cruiser flew in.

Closing the door and repressurizing, giant humanoid creatures exited the craft. Evangeline tried to reach for the controls to open the airlock, but again the pain just increased and she fell to the floor before giving up and the pain went away.

Simon started to move on his own.

The creature moved Evangeline's body over to Simon. Her hands pulled an electrical cable out from the holographic display table, with frayed live wires now exposed.

Evangeline fought again, the pain overwhelming her. “Kill me!” she screamed at Simon. Simon stared at her as she convulsed on the floor.

“Look! At neck!” she yelled.

Evangeline could almost stand the pain no longer. Simon took the wire from her hand and pressed the frayed end against the creature on her neck. It fidgeted and Evangeline screamed. The creature fell off. Simon stomped on the creature to make certain it was dead, gross orange blood spewing out from its half human face and red blood from the hollow teeth.

Evangeline still kept on the ground, unable to move, gasping for air.

“I love you Simon,” she said.

He held her in his arms. “I love you too Eva.”

The door to the control room open and a giant humanoid creature in armor stooped to fit through the low door frame.

“No...” whimpered Evangeline.

The creature shot them both with something like an electrolaser.

She passed out.

What?! No "Dark and stormy night"?



Seriously, good work! You hooked me in at "... lab assistant Planck". I look forward to the rest of the story.

Awesomeness! Thanks. I think I remember mostly arguing with you in the past, so I really do appreciate your positive comment.

Hi. It could benefit from some careful editing. It's missing commas here and there. There were a few incomplete sentences. The first letter from a few sentences needed to be pluralized, stuff like that.

Good start. Art takes courage.

playing with ideas for a book myself.

I'm also currently working on a novel that I've been writing on and off over the years. One time, I even lost an earlier version when a former computer died.

No worries. I probably would not have gotten along with Hemingway or Asimov, either.