Tag: OiS3

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.

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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”

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.

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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”

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.

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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”

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.

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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”

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.

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“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”

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.

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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”

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.

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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”

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.

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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”

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.

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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”

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.

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Jenny had no hope.  Only a fluttery, heart-pounding feeling in her chest that alternated between manic exhilaration and bleakest panic.  She didn’t want to die panicking.  So she clung hard to the feeling of excitement:  she was seeing things no otter had ever seen before!

…granted… mostly those things just looked like flat orange mist blocking the window, darkening to a dull brown as her ship fell farther and farther into the crushing atmosphere… Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 15: Jenny”