Deep Sky Anchor

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”

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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Months of waiting turned into a week of hurried rushing, seemingly over one restless, sleepless night.  All at once, Hedda declared the epsilon engine ready for field testing, and Captain Kipper handed out schedules to everyone.  Their amorphous days of playing cards on the engine room floor while occasionally consulting on the designs were through.  And suddenly, they were busy dawn to dusk with last minute health checkups, itemizing the onboard supplies to make sure nothing was missing, and most bizarrely — press events. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 6: 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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As soon as she laid eyes on the curly-furred mop of a dog — bizarrely wearing one of their USSA-specific blue-and-silver uniforms — Kipper could tell that Amelia was not a dog who had any patience for waiting.

The gray tabby cat captain closed the laptop computer that she and Trugger had been working on — writing emails, searching directories for officials who could help them, and downloading form after form that didn’t quite fit their situation.  Nothing fit their situation.  She put the laptop aside and got up from the bottom bunk bed she’d been sitting on.  “Can I help you?” she asked the dog. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 5: 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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As soon as the scruffy white dog insisting she was the ship’s new second in command left the engine room, Josie signed with her delicate hand-like paws, “That is one grumpy mop of fur.”

Obsidian’s color shifted from the angry shade of plum he’d become to a self-satisfied shade of soft peach.  He signed with the tips of three tentacles — which grew so thin at the very ends that they weren’t much larger than a mouse’s paw:  “I’ll believe she’s second in command when Captain Kipper tells us so.  Besides, I’m here as an independent advisor, directly from the octopus oligarchy.  I don’t answer to dog politicians.” Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 4: 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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The Lucky Boomerang squatted on the tarmac like a half-melted scramball.  The name of the spaceship had been hotly contested for a few months while it was being built — a lot of dogs and cats had wanted to name it The Lucky Frisbee for the flying disc-shaped toys, because deep in the cultural consciousness of the Uplifted States, spaceships were still expected to be flying saucers.  Even though they never were.  Even The Lucky Boomerang was only vaguely disc-shaped, and that was largely because the committee who had approved the hull design had added non-functional wings to either side.  For aesthetic reasons. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 3: Amelia”

by Mary E. Lowd

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

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Sequoia collected stars like other squirrels collected acorns.  Not really.  Because squirrels didn’t collect acorns anymore, except for kits on the playground.  And no matter how much Sequoia wanted to gather all the stars in the sky — all the red giants and blue dwarfs; all the pretty yellow and orange ones — up into a pile and bury them deep inside a black hole where they would be hers, all hers and only hers forever and forever, you just can’t do that with stars. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 2: Sequoia”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 4: First Moustronaut.  If you’d prefer to read in e-book or paperback form, learn more here.  Or if you want, jump back to book one or return to the end of book three.

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The mouse whirled through the air, paws hitting the gym mat in rhythm as she flipped:  front paws, back paws, front paws.  Head over tail.  Her long tail streamed behind her, making fancy curlicues in the wake of her carefully practiced routine.  Finally, Yvette pirouetted up to the high bar, spun around it and launched even higher into the air — nearly flying.

When she came down, the mouse landed — perfectly — in the center of the mat, all four paws on the ground.  She drew a deep breath, and then rose up, standing just long enough to smile at the crowd, before taking her bow. Continue reading “Otters In Space 4 – Chapter 1: Yvette”