Day 1: 5677 (Total NaNo -- 111,124)

Starting into the new novel is not easy. It's very hard to jump from an action/adventure sf like Bad Connections to something with a bit more depth to it. I started Darkness Falls. I moved back in time and started at a different spot. And then I moved back even farther than that and started yet again. In the end I had a prelude titled Five Steps to The End. It seems to work, but I'll know better after I finish the novel and read it. (grin)

But here is my snippet. It's step 1 and 2 from the prelude:


1

The ship had tumbled into the system, very nearly out in the Neptune Orbit. The automated station on (something) picked up the spectacular and unexpected entrance on sensors and sent the message on, computer talking to computer, images and data relayed down sol's long gravity well to Earth.

And the ship swept on, battered, burnt, holed -- and alien.







2

''Residual readings show that the ship took part in a battle no more than an hour before they made the jump,'' Dr. Abbot said, looking down the long table and the dozen uniforms. Men of rank, all of them. And none of them happy. "There's no doubt of it. The crew died as their life support gave out. We know very little about them except that they were not human-like in most ways. Nevertheless, it was not chance that brought them here. "

"You can't know that -" Captain Wilks said, shaking her head.

Abbot reached down and clicked the comp screen on. The picture came up on every screen before the others and they all leaned forward, like trees blowing in the wind.

"The aliens, whatever they may have been, were tactile rather than visually orientated. The computer has taken what you see there -- a series of ridges, bumps and depressions and given us a visual rendering.

He clicked again. Even a child in school would recognize the simplistic layout of their own solar system.

Nods of agreement and looks of worry. "By that, we know that they knew exactly where they were going. However, this was not the only picture that we have recovered.

He clicked through a series of four alien representations and the computer versions: one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

Wilkes pushed herself back from the computer, shaking her head in shock and dismay. "That world -- if that's right --"

"Nothing left," Abbot said, nodding agreement. He had gone over the pictures for days, trying to find something that said it had not happened, and for the first time now he said it aloud. "The entire world destroyed, the surface scoured clean of life. And there is more."

One-two, one-two, one-two.

"Outer colonies destroyed as well," Sterling said. "And all by this fleet -- the long, narrow ships. They are the enemy, aren't they?"

"The enemy of these beings," Milkin said. "That does not make --"

But Wilkes interrupted. "They had no reason to come to us, except as a warning. Their world had been destroyed. Gentlemen, I suggest that we get scouts out along that line right now. We need to know what is out there."

"What do we tell the others?" Band asked, his fingers clicking back through the pictures again. "What do we tell the Earth governments, the news --"

Wilkes looked down at the screen and away again. "We tell them nothing."

Abbot watched as the people began to protest and died down to silence again. Wilkes stood her ground. She may not have been officially in charge, but Abbot could see her take the command now. She waited only a moment after the silence fell.

"What would telling the others gain anyone? If we're wrong, then the world goes on without change and we avoid a panic. If we are right, there is nothing they can do anyway."

"Some might -- we could rescue a few --" Band began, but the growing horror on his face pointed out everything that Wilkes had obviously already put together.

"The current population of the earth is estimated at over ten and half billion. We have a fleet of twenty three ships, all of them already fully staffed," Wilkes said. She shook her head, her face stone still... but a tear had slipped from her eye. "We cannot save them. We say nothing. Dr. Abbot, I'm afraid that you will have to remain here with us. You understand."

"Yes," he said.

He left them an hour later. They had begun the frantic work of sending out scout ships and hoping that what they'd all surmised turned out to be wrong. Abbot went to the room he had been assigned. He hadn't slept in days, and he sounded wonderfully seductive right now. Abbot pulled up his travel bag and rooted through the belongings until he found the small vial of sleeping pills.

He grabbed a glass of water from the bathroom and settled down on the bed, stretching out, his back against the headboard. He ached from the tension of the last few days.

So he sipped the water and took a sleeping pill.

And another.

And another....