Month: October 2023

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 12: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“For millions of years,” the blue-eyed octopus signed, “we’ve hidden here under the seas on this tiny planet, exiled from our rightful home in the stars by the foolish, damnable, unutterable crimes of our ancestral siblings inside Jupiter. Until now. Until you revealed us.”

The mysterious machinations of the octopus government in Choir’s Deep kept Kipper and the otters on the Diving Canary waiting for nearly two days.  Kipper did a lot more reading.  Trugger found a deck of tarot cards that some previous occupant of the submarine had left behind and invented a card game that was a cross between tarot and poker.

Trugger, Captain Cod, Chauncy, and Pearl took turns laying out cards to tell each other’s fortunes, betting on them, trading them, and mixing them up, all while laughing a lot.  Kipper declined to play, feeling like she’d already bet too much on her fortune. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 12: Kipper”

Welcome to Wespirtech: 2nd Edition

A book twenty years in the making…

Back in 2003, Mary E. Lowd began writing short stories set in the Entangled Universe, many of them centered on an elite science institute on a desolate moon — WESPIRTECH!

A decade later, a bunch of the Wespirtech stories were collected together in Welcome to Wespirtech, but the story told by that collection was always incomplete.  Two of the most important stories about Wespirtech — “Breathing the Air at Wespirtech” and “Lunar Cavity” — hadn’t been written yet. Continue reading “Welcome to Wespirtech: 2nd Edition”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 11: Petra

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“She was the president’s sister, but out here, next to a dog in a police uniform with a gun, she was still just an alley cat.”

The pew-pew sound of laser weapons blared from the television — the kind of sound that’s always accompanied by a rain of colorful blasts of light on the screen.  It was a rerun episode of Tri-Galactic Trek.

Petra hadn’t been able to stand a single minute more of Alpha Dog and Numbers Cat.  That show might be educational, but it creeped Petra out the way that the two characters stared straight at the audience and explained every word they used.  The final straw had been when Alpha Dog said, “Sharing is what dogs do when there isn’t enough for everyone to have their own!  Do cats share too, Numbers Cat?” and Numbers Cat archly replied, “Sometimes,” followed by a laugh track. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 11: Petra”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 10: Jenny

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“They didn’t have blueprints for it, and even if they did, it was too much to hope that it had a single central weakness that could be exploited by a ragtag strike team of six otter ships and a stolen Whirligig scout.”

Jenny and Ordol were suited up and ready in Brighton’s Destiny, but the two-man Whirligig vessel was still parked on the floating roof of the Europa base.  The Imperial Star-Ocean Navy otters and their five ships were already in low-orbit, but Ordol hadn’t even powered the Whirligig’s engine up yet.

Jenny couldn’t start the vessel without him.  Too many of the controls were designed to be used by an octopus on the shoulders of a biped.  Jenny couldn’t see Ordol’s eyes with him perched on her shoulders — but she could see the color of his tentacles through his translucent spacesuit.  His flesh was bone white.  He was terrified. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 10: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 9: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“She’d known the Church of the First Race had a lot of power, but… They edited the news? Had she been living in a religious hegemony? Without knowing it?”

Kipper hadn’t expected the submarine to feel so cramped.  There was plenty of space on the Jolly Barracuda — why should a submarine be any more cramped than a spaceship?  They’re both airtight vehicles, and if anything, space seemed like a more foreign and dangerous landscape than the ocean.  The ocean is at least on Earth.

Well, a spaceship has to hold an atmosphere for its occupants to breathe.  Whereas, a submarine has to be built to withstand the extreme water pressure created by the weight of miles upon miles of ocean water pressing downward on it. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 9: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 8: Petra

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Pete had a long, blue, silky scarf tied around his neck. He grabbed the ends of it and fluttered them, exclaiming, “I’m an uplifted butterfly!””

Petra had lots of plans.  None of them were working out the way she wanted them to.  No one would cooperate with her.  She’d been sent from one end to the other of the beautiful but archaic, ancient human building that was the seat of the Uplifted States’ government — the White House.

Sure, it had been renovated to suit the needs of dogs and cats who were on average much smaller than humans, but if you asked Petra they’d be much better off with an entirely new building with fewer beautiful columns and more properly proportioned rooms. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 8: Petra”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 7: Jenny

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“What was it with this admiral and seriousness? It’s almost like he wasn’t an otter at all.”

Jenny wanted to push all the buttons.  So far, her science officers — Felix and Amoreena — had only let her press one.  After a lengthy discussion where Ordol helped translate the language on all the newly-flooded Europa base vid-screens, Amoreena had figured out how to turn the base’s heaters on.  And only just in time.  Europa’s oceans were no longer covered in ice, but they were frigidly cold.  Much longer and they’d have had to improvise space heaters or begun wearing their spacesuits which would have been ungainly and clumsy underwater. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 7: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 6: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“The Pine Nut Patisserie was crowded. Shoulder-high squirrels skittered around Kipper, their ears twitching and tails waving like streamers in many different winds.”

Kipper followed Tamantha down a path between two of the towering buildings.  Red and gray-furred squirrels passed by, their movements sudden and jerky.  The way they moved — stopping and starting — made Kipper feel twitchy.  Yet, their tails flowed smooth as rivers.

Behind the row of buildings that faced the street, there was a pedestrian square, surrounded by cafe awnings and outdoor seating.  Squirrels in wicker chairs chattered and dined on crunchy-looking pastries.  Ladders and open-air skywalks laced through the space above them. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 6: Kipper”