Category: Book Chapter

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 25: 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.

“Way, way down beneath the quagmire of toxic gases that looked like cheerful creamsicle clouds, there was at least one raptor who believed raptors and otters could be friends, that maybe someday they could visit each other peacefully.”

Jenny and Ordol landed Brighton’s Destiny lightly atop the Europa base.  It touched down like a lonely whirligig maple seed that had spun its way improbably down through an arctic sky to the surface of an iceberg, a small stretch of cold land, floating on Europa’s choppy gray ocean.

Wind whipped through the hatch when Jenny broke the seal.  The door swung aside, and Jenny climbed out of the ship.  Ordol followed her, clambering over the flat ground like a basket of snakes slithering together in a complicated knot.  The sky above them was clear and bright with stars.  Jupiter hung low on the horizon, where it should be — far away, rather than under Jenny’s paws. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 25: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 24: 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.

“Kipper wished she could tuck the tiny tentacled baby in a pocket and smuggle it out of here to raise it with a family. She and Emily could keep it and raise it together. That would be a nice family. Does it count as kidnapping if the child is fated to die?”

The giant malachite stalagmite towered in front of Kipper like an underwater skyscraper.  The octopus tour guide led her, Trugger, and Captain Cod into an opening at the base that turned into a dark, narrow, winding tunnel.  After several sharp twists and turns, the tunnel opened into a conical chamber that must have filled nearly the entire stalagmite.

The octopus city outside the stalagmite had been a heady visual opera of colors and motions.  The inside was literally dizzying.  Kipper had to turn her head down and close her eyes, shutting the visual noise out for a moment before she was ready to face it again. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 24: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 23: 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.

“Petra felt cold inside. She had military intelligence that could change the course of a war, and she was still at the mercy of a few over-paid copper dogs who didn’t like her.”

Every piece of paper in front of Petra told a story.  The rows of numbers; the columns of… pointless, stupid text that meant nothing to her.  The story the papers told was one of frustration and boredom.  She wanted the papers to tell a story of corruption and secret societies, money being funneled into an underground military complex — an army that would rise up from their massively expensive hidden bunkers to save Earth from the raptors — all because Petra found the number trail leading to them in these papers. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 23: Petra”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 22: 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.

“Even if she made it down to ground level, she’d be free on a planet filled with dinosaurs. Even if most of them were harmless herbivores, she didn’t relish that idea.”

Jenny would have given up eating clams forever to have a tour guide who simply held out a tentacle — or talon, as the case may be — and pointed to the most precious part of Corjovis.  That would have been invaluable tactical information.  Instead, she had two eager raptor younglings crouched behind her, calling up video and sound files on their computer pad, seemingly to show her their favorite pop songs.

Raptors danced on the touchpad screen, literally shaking their tail feathers to the rhythmic, stuttering screeches that emanated from the device.  Jenny could only assume it was music.  Her helmet computer had trouble keeping up with the sound to give her a translation, but most of the words seemed to be about power or love or murder or freedom or slavery or growth or dinner.  The helmet computer wasn’t sure.  Its translations had improved a great deal in certainty over the last few hours, but song lyrics tend to be inscrutable in any language. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 22: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 21: 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.

“Any creature could be uplifted. Jellyfish fluttering like ballerinas? Maybe they were ballerinas — maybe they’d spent years training and studying to flutter like that.”

Kipper didn’t know why the octopi kept sending puzzles to their prisoners, but she wanted Captain Cod and Trugger to stop solving them.  Except for the occasional meal of sushi-like rolls and raw fish brought by the dolphins, there was no way to mark the time, but it felt like they’d been held in the dank, watery cell for days.  Days of being cut off from the outside world.  Days of the raptor ships flying closer and closer to Earth.  Days of being wet and useless.

Kipper was restless.  Besides, there was something sinister about solving puzzles for captors who never showed themselves.  It was time to stop cooperating with their captors.  It was time to start planning a way out of this underwater dungeon. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 21: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 20: 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.

“Almost afraid to touch the precious pages, Petra lifted the three brightly-colored crayon drawings, one from each kitten, with shaking paws.”

“Hey!” the jowly jailor barked at Petra and Blaine, interrupting their latest conversation about scramball.

Petra was tempted to hiss an answer at the dog, but even with bars between them, it didn’t seem like a safe move.  Instead, she decided to whither the dog with class.  “May I help you?”  Her voice practically curdled with almost-purrs.

The cop looked properly and pleasingly unsettled by Petra’s unpredictability.  “Here,” the dog harrumphed, pulling into view a wheeled trolley stacked high with disorderly piles of paper, files, and notebooks.  “This is for you.”  The dog unlocked the cell, shoved the trolley in, and then locked the cell right back up.  “Some dog dropped it off for you.” Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 20: Petra”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 19: 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.

“The raptor fledglings hadn’t even grown up on a world where they could see the stars. Their sky was a blanket of amber, muffling out the sun, let alone the pinpoint of light that was the small blue-green world their species had come from millions of years ago.”

While Kipper and Petra waited in their prisons — two tabby cats desperate to save Earth yet incarcerated by their own allies — Jenny parleyed with the enemy.

That was generous.

The otter wasn’t parleying with the enemy, she was playing games with the enemies’ children

Jenny and the two raptor chicks were in a room at the top of the giant mechanical redwood, and the walls were as clear as glass.  Jenny had seen the tree from the outside and knew it looked opaque, but from the inside it looked like she was standing on an open platform.  She could see out over the jagged green tops of all the real trees.  In the distance, more of these mechanical trees stuck out of the forest like towers — much taller and larger around than the real trees.  And behind it all, loomed the ruddy agate Jovian sky. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 19: Jenny”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 18: 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 octopuses hadn’t come back through the sealed hatch in the underwater floor, but occasionally they sent in a dolphin with a puzzle for them.”

Except, Kipper wasn’t talking to octopuses.  Kipper, Trugger, and Captain Cod had been shut in a small room with several feet of air at the ceiling and a ledge around the edges.  Sitting on the ledge felt like sitting at the edge of a public swimming pool, reminding her of cattery days when over-enthusiastic dogs had required all the reluctant kittens to take swimming lessons.  Except this was more claustrophobic due to the low ceiling and near walls. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 18: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 17: 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.

“Somehow, whenever a dog went missing, the police always found a way to discover what had happened. That wasn’t the case with cats.”

Petra could have walked home — if it weren’t for the locked doors, and the iron bars, and dogs with guns.  She might as well have been on Jupiter for all the certainty she felt that she’d be going home again.  She knew about cats getting arrested and disappearing.  That’s something cats did.  Disappear.  Somehow, whenever a dog went missing, the police always found a way to discover what had happened.  That wasn’t the case with cats.  Sometimes, you just didn’t get to know.  Sometimes, the case was closed, and the cat never showed up.

Petra told herself that wouldn’t happen to her.  She was the president’s sister.  She was high profile.  There’d be questions if she disappeared.  Questions and riots and violence. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 17: Petra”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 16: 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.

…the computer in Jenny’s helmet translated the sound, speaking in a melodic but artificial otter voice: “Yes.” A moment later, the computer added, “There is an eighty percent chance of inaccuracy. Other possible translations include: no.”

The cockpit of Brighton’s Destiny popped open with a hiss like a tin can of sparkling clam juice.  Jenny overbalanced and tumbled out of the hatch, tangling herself in feathered limbs on her way down to plop on the damp silver sand.

The wet sand smeared across the faceplate of Jenny’s helmet, obscuring her view of the raptor fledglings as they righted her and began manhandling her spacesuit-clad limbs, moving her around like a poseable doll.  Their screeches and chirrups terrified Jenny at first — they sounded like they were screaming at her.  But as they jostled her around, examining their new toy from every angle, Jenny pulled herself together enough to remember that the computer in her helmet had some basic sound processing and AI algorithms.  Captain Cod had installed them in all the spacesuits, thinking they might be useful for spy activities.  They hadn’t been.  But it might be able to analyze the raptor speech and develop a translation — at least, if it listened to them long enough. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 16: Jenny”