Author: marylowd

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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Kipper knew that it was canonically hard to herd cats, and there were in fact two cats among her engineers…  However, she thought that overall it was harder to herd engineers.  And as a cat herself, instead of some kind of herd dog, she wasn’t at all sure that she was well suited to the task.

The gray tabby grumbled to herself about the difficulty of leadership as she floated through the halls of her ship, mostly as a way to console herself over the fact that she’d missed something as important as three-quarters of her engineering team going rogue and building an untested artificial gravity generator in deep space. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 16: Kipper”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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“You need to sleep,” Captain Kipper insisted to the bleary-eyed, scraggle-tailed squirrel, mere minutes after the latest epsilon jump.  “I can make that an order if you’d like.  And it doesn’t have to be more than a nap, but if you don’t lie down in the barracks and close those eyes for a while, you’re not allowed on the bridge anymore.”

Sequoia glared at the screen of data in front of her, flooding with new numbers in this new location that represented stars she hadn’t had time to get to know well yet.  She didn’t dare look up at the captain.  She knew she’d keep glaring, and she figured that glaring at her captain was a bad idea.  She’d probably end up ordered to sleep for a solid eight hours instead of just catching a nap. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 15: Sequoia”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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After a week of hopping across the galaxy, cataloguing stars and background radiation signatures everywhere they went, The Lucky Boomerang wasn’t feeling like such a lucky vessel to the hopeful crew aboard.  They’d found no sign of humans.  No sign of alien life.  Nothing.

Just stars.

They were beautiful stars, and the squirrel navigator still seemed to be happy once she’d accepted the captain’s insistence that the crew was better off collecting data across a multitude of different sites rather than digging really deeply into one site. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 14: Yvette”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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Sequoia felt like she’d spent the whole meal on Europa playing some sort of game with Amelia, catching each others’ eyes and then glancing away, trying not to get caught looking at each other.  Except, she wasn’t sure if it was something they were both doing, or if it was all in her own head.  She didn’t know why the mop dog had stayed with the crew when she was so clearly opposed to everything Captain Kipper was doing.  And it made her feel all fluttery inside.

Or maybe that was the low gravity. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 13: Sequoia”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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Kipper watched the faces of her crew closely as they took in the sight of their newest comrades in arms… and tentacles… and flightless wings.  They might be more arms than wings, but those feathery raptor limbs had clearly evolved into bird’s wings in some branches of the family tree all of Earth’s creatures shared.  Well, all of them shared a family tree, except the octopuses.  From what Kipper had learned, octopuses were the one sentient race of creatures rattling around this solar system who hadn’t actually evolved on Earth.  Thank goodness for that, given that octopus technology was behind every piece of her plan to take The Lucky Boomerang out into the universe, searching for the wayward humans who’d forgotten to come home and check on the dogs they’d left behind waiting for them.  And, you know, the cats too.  Though, cats weren’t quite as much waiting.  Certainly not the ones on The Lucky Boomerang. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 12: Kipper”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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The atmosphere in The Lucky Boomerang’s engine room was riotously celebratory.  The engineers didn’t have the gorgeous, panoramic view of Europa that the bridge crew had been enjoying on the main viewscreen; though, smaller versions of the view were relayed to several monitor screens built into the walls.  But the engineers were the members of the crew who had done the hard work of properly calibrating the epsilon drive engines for the flight, and they were literally above and beyond the moon with the success of their efforts. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 11: Yvette”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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“I’m staying,” Amelia said.

Kipper and Trugger looked at each other, uncertain.  The two of them and Amelia were the only ones left in the galley now.  It wouldn’t be easy to remove a stubborn dog — even a small one — from The Lucky Boomerang if she didn’t want to go.  If she wouldn’t go peaceably.

Several of the other crewmembers had already shown their reluctance to break Uplifted States law and continue on the mission as Kipper planned it.  It would be very, very bad for morale if those officers had to hear and see a government dog kicking and screaming as Trugger and Obsidian wrestled her out the airlock. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 10: Kipper”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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The last twelve hours of Sequoia’s life had been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions.  She’d learned during her months with the USSA that among the dogs of the Uplifted States, squirrels were stereotyped as flighty, impulsive, mercurial creatures, ruled by emotions as unpredictable as ocean waves during a storm.  That was nothing like how Sequoia had always seen herself.  She knew herself, and she’d always considered herself to be steady, steadfast, and certain.  As fixed as the distant stars in the sky which she treasured so much. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 9: Sequoia”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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Kipper watched the day dawn through The Lucky Boomerang’s main viewscreen.  Everyone else was still asleep.  Later in the day, the smart glass of the viewscreen would be filled with readings and calculations, and under those, eventually, stars.

But for now, it was just a window.  And through the window, she watched the sky soften through shades of violet and pink into powder blue, decorated with clouds that bled gold and orange.  A view that couldn’t be seen from space, not like that. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 8: Kipper”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

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That night, the crew of The Lucky Boomerang bunked down in the barracks, like they had every other night for weeks.  They needed to sleep.  They needed to be sharp for their mission in the morning.

But none of them could.  Sleep was an ethereal concept.  Something they could remember; something that happened every day; and yet seemed impossibly out of reach.  Impossible to attain.  And some of the crew wasn’t even trying. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 7: Amelia”