#also this crew looks delightful
A random snippet from my sci-fi novel starpath, featuring a grumpy intergalactic antiques dealer and his red panda, supported by a trigger happy pilot, a disgraced aristocrat and a poet-turned-engineer.This snippet takes place somewhere in the third/fourth act.
The group stand huddled around the control panels. The brig is comically large, the few panels and workstations barely enough to fill a tenth of the room. Its walls extend out into the darkness, where technicolour lights shimmer in the distance, resulting in nothing more than faint starlight. The sun’s red light mingles with the darkness like brushstrokes.
“You sure you can fly this, bug?” Guiying says, kicking against the panel.
Capella leans forward onto the control panel.
“Just because it’s three hundred times bigger than a starfighter, you think I can’t fly it?”
Guiying looks over to Capella and shrugs.
“I’ve found the reactor,” Youssef’s voice says through their earpieces. “Let me know if something … explodes or something.”
Before anyone can raise concerns metal cries echo throughout the ship. The floor vibrates, rumbling loudly, protesting, before settling into a soft hum. The panels in front of them buzz to live, cyan holograms claiming the empty space between them, showing walls of numbers and data sprinkled around a model of the local solar system.
“Well done kid,” Guiying says.
“I’m older than you,” Youssef replies.
“Biologically, yes.”
Capella taps her earpiece and mutes it, taking in the screens with an awestruck admiration plastered over her face. She nods to herself, a grin from ear to ear.
“We can get out of here,” she says, turning to Brim. “You ready?”
Brim stands in front of the central panel, his tattered cloak almost regal in the crimson sunlight. He plucks a berry off his straw hat and feeds it to Rasmus, whose orange claws snatch it out of his hands and swallow it whole before standing up on Brim’s shoulder on his two back paws. He puts his front paws to his side, mimicking Brim who puts his hands back in his pockets.
“We have a promise to break.”
