Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 16: Convincing a Cat

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Walk me through the plan again,” Captain Carroway meowed begrudgingly.

Lt. Diaz chased after Captain Carroway as the Norwegian Forest cat strutted down the central corridor of the Wanderlust toward the bridge.  A dog chasing a cat.  Tale as old as time.  Except this time, the dog really wanted to know what in the world the cat could possibly be thinking.  The dog didn’t just want to catch the cat; she wanted to change her mind.

Captain Carroway’s tufted ears flicked just enough as she walked to show that she could hear Lt. Diaz following her, but she didn’t stop.  She strutted all the way to the bridge and took her seat in the captain’s chair, paws immediately working the control panel in the arm to pull up status readings about the state of various systems on the ship.  So even though she only beat Lt. Diaz to the bridge by about three strides, the Norwegian Forest cat already managed to look busy and like the Xolo-Lupinian was interrupting her. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 16: Convincing a Cat”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 15: A Question of Scale

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“He didn’t have to state his arguments out loud. They were all far too obvious.”

The idea of anti-noise defrag couplers may have been completely fake, something that the two dogs had invented as a way to trick the Zakonraptors into letting them steal the device used for shrinking all those poor, hapless creatures to a microscopic scale, but Lt. Lee really did have an idea for how to make it work better.  If the creatures — or anything else one might want to shrink — were encased in a hyperspatial slipstream, then the folds of that field would protect anything within them from the natural decay that happened when they came into contact with matter still obeying the normal laws of physics.  It wasn’t a permanent solution, as hyperspatial slipstreams require a great deal of energy to sustain.  However, if one could shrink an object like, say, a spaceship, even for only a short time, then it would be possible to apply an external force to that object and — because of its effectively lowered mass — propel it as a much higher velocity than would otherwise be possible. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 15: A Question of Scale”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 14: Ridiculous Plans are Better than No Plans

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“They needed to implement all the pieces of their plan before the Zakonraptors sliced Lys’s brain open.”

While Lt. Diaz had been arguing with Risqua, making sure the reptile-bird understood her place in their little hierarchy, Lt. Lee had been turning his understanding of the Zakonraptor research — illuminated in new ways by Lt. Diaz’s perspective — over and over in their shared mind space, and he was pretty sure he knew what they needed to do.

It was a ridiculous plan.

But if it worked — and it might work — then it might actually get them a lot closer to home. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 14: Ridiculous Plans are Better than No Plans”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 13: Combining Perspectives

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Lt. Diaz thought as hard as she could without speaking, and suddenly, Lt. Lee blinked at her like he’d heard her thought.”

In a single stroke, the round, silvery moon had become both more and less of a god, answering Lt. Diaz’s prayers at the same time as breaking apart, revealing itself to be nothing but a hollow shell, housing a creature inside who the half-Lupinian would have never thought to howl or pray to in the first place — a baby world-turtle was a wonderful thing, but it wasn’t the kind of moon she’d been taught to revere as a pup.

And then Lys’s voice echoed strangely in her mind but not her bat-like ears.  Lt. Diaz splayed her ears and looked at Lt. Lee, only to see his butterfly-like ears had splayed as well. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 13: Combining Perspectives”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 12: Less Alone than Expected

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Like a birthday present opening itself, the world turtle was finally born…”

Only one member of the Wanderlust’s scattered crew wasn’t watching as the great, silvery moon cracked, patches of its surface breaking off in shards.  Some of the broken pieces of shell floated around the rest of the egg-moon, detritus that gleamed with reflected sunlight as the shards turned and twisted, and others flew away, caught in the gravity well of the planet below and spiraled down, becoming flaming meteors soaring across the sky.  And in the middle of it all, a wrinkly green face, pressed against the crack, seeking the wider, open space beyond, liquid eyes blinking as they saw the brightness of distant stars for the first time. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 12: Less Alone than Expected”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 11: Lunacy

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Korvax’s paws clutched together under his chin like he was praying to the gigantic, moon-sized egg hatching in the starry night sky over their heads.”

On the surface of the planet below, huddled beside a dwindling campfire, Korvax took his turn watching the sky and waiting for his comm-pin to chime to life with the voice of his beloved Ollallan daughter — or one of the other Wanderlust crewmembers who was still on the ship when it flew into a hatch in the side of the craggy moon — telling him everything was better now and to prepare to be teleported back aboard.

Korvax had stuffed bits of moss that he’d gathered between his quills to keep him warmer, and he could hear the various other officers, curled around the campfire, snoring softly as they slept.  But he kept his eyes on the sky.  He kept watching the craggy moon.  In fact, he almost missed the first cracks when they appeared on the surface of the larger, rounder, silvery moon, because his beady eyes were so focused on the moon where his caterpillar daughter had been taken. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 11: Lunacy”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 10: Reconfiguring with Minimal Options

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“You should choose your allies more carefully,” Lt. Diaz woofed coldly.

The Zakonraptor brought Risqua, Diaz, and Lee to a quiet area with chairs and tables.  Several other Zakonraptors were sitting at tables in small groups, each with a tray of food in front of them.  It seemed to be some sort of cafeteria.  The tour guide showed Risqua, Diaz, and Lee how to get trays for themselves and fill them with food from a covered buffet.  None of the food was recognizable, of course, since Lt. Diaz knew nothing at all about Zakonraptor cuisine.

There were tureens of thick stews and pots of strange casseroles, everything smelled spicy and gamy.  Lt. Diaz hoped it would taste alright, but also, she wasn’t sure how much she could eat right now anyway.  Her body felt like it had switched permanently into fight-or-flight mode, and the idea of eating seemed like a dangerous distraction that might cause her to miss the exact moment when she should swipe out with her claws or dash away on all fours.  Except neither of those behaviors would actually save her or the Wanderlust from this situation. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 10: Reconfiguring with Minimal Options”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 9: Into the Proverbial Lion’s Den

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“She might understand much of what the various Zakonraptor scientists were explaining to her, but she couldn’t figure out how it all fit together.”

The interior of the asteroid had been hollowed out and reinforced with beams and latticework that broke it into a honeycomb-like structure with several large bays.  The Zakonraptor piloting the Wanderlust flew the small ship into one of those bays, and docking clamps locked it in place.  Trapped.  Ready to be stripped for parts.  Lt. Diaz didn’t know how she and Lt. Lee — assuming he ever realized they should be working together — would ever get their ship out of here.

Two of the other bays inside the asteroid housed Zakonraptor vessels, familiar in form from when the Wanderlust had squared off against them to protect the Waykeeper.  If it came to a firefight between the Wanderlust and two Zakonraptor vessels, Lt. Diaz would bet on the Wanderlust.  Though, even if the Wanderlust did win such a fight, they’d probably sustain heavy damage. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 9: Into the Proverbial Lion’s Den”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 8: Spectators in Their Own Story

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“None of them on the planet’s surface knew what was happening in the sky.”

Down below on the planet’s surface, Captain Carroway had been trying to contact anyone aboard the Wanderlust for hours.  The Norwegian Forest cat had gathered up all seven of her crew on the planet’s surface — thanking her lucky stars that they’d decided today to all teleport to locations close enough together to reach each other by foot — and they’d set up something of an improvised camp for handling the dark night rapidly descending upon them.  Her emotions had looped from confusion to irritation through anger and right back to confusion several times over by now.

None of them on the planet’s surface knew what was happening in the sky.  They only knew that Ensign Risqua had disappeared from her foraging party in the woods with Commander Chestnut and Korvax without explanation, and Lt. Diaz had stopped answering calls for her to teleport up supplies.  And then everyone aboard the Wanderlust had stopped responding to comm-pin calls entirely.  And Ensign Risqua was still gone. Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 8: Spectators in Their Own Story”

Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 7: Playing the Part Required of Her

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Lt. Diaz shrugged as casually as she could manage, as if she really didn’t care at all whether the Papillon lived or died.”

The Zakonraptor stood in the hallway, staring inquisitively at Risqua and Lt. Diaz.  If the Xolo-Lupinian had to guess, it was wondering about the wisdom of Risqua holstering her weapon, leaving herself vulnerable.

Apparently, the Zakonraptor was smarter than Risqua.  Lt. Diaz would have to pay attention to that.

“You’ve come to an understanding with the mammal?” the Zakonraptor hissed in its own tongue, translated almost immediately by Lt. Diaz’s comm-pin.

“Yes,” Risqua squawked.  “She sees the value of our arrangement here, and she’ll prove very valuable to us.  She’s much more knowledgeable about this ship’s systems and technology than I am.  She trained with the Tri-Galactic Union which built the vessel.” Continue reading “Discovery of the Wanderlust – Chapter 7: Playing the Part Required of Her”