1. Immortal: "No young man believes he shall ever die," said Stek, who had turned forty the week before. "But we both know that's not true, don't we? Just think of all that we could achieve if we didn't grow old and die just as we are getting starte...
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(Author's Note – Written for Ooorah's Smackdown – The Second Coming.
Round 2. Pot One. Theme: To Boldly Go – tell the story of a crew exploring a distant region of space
Use 4 out of 8 pictures provided as prompts, plus the compulsory ninth – a photo of Twinkie bars!
I've used pictures:
#1. A ship in space, titled "into the light"
#2. Two women in a space ship (At first rejected by me, this turned out – along with #5, to inspire the main theme for my story!)
#3. A large planet and asteroids
#5. Brain waves / audio pattern (on first glance it looked like a nebula!)
Word limit 4000 – this story approx 3700 not counting this note)
To Boldly Go ...
The white light streaming from the Starlock hurt her eyes. Captain Asaro blinked once, increasing her optical filters one more level, as the huge space ship drew ever nearer to the 'lock. Automatically, her peripheral vision registered the status of every officer on the bridge. All of them were women she knew almost as well as she knew herself, all except the young newcomer, Elka Mercedes, the realspace navigator, brown eyes wide with excitement for her first deep space trip.
There was Iyren Bujold, her chief pilot, dark face expressionless under the metal cap linking her brain to the ship's control system. Brel Norton, medic and exobiologist, the oldest of them at forty, eyes shut tightly against the glare, hands squeezed into tight fists. Asaro knew she hated this part of the journey, but considered it a small price to pay for the promise of discoveries beyond. Engineer Leguin, her augmented vision constantly scanning the console unit in front of her, checking that everything was operating as it should. And finally, McCaffrey. Asaro's face softened fractionally as she glanced across at her second pilot; Leesa's short copper hair tufting through the gaps in her pilot's helmet.
Asaro's thoughts drifted to the rest of her crew, down in the sleeping quarters. All ten of them—technicians and scientists, each one specially selected for this mission—would be lying in their bunks trying hard not to vomit, wondering what on Earth they had let themselves in for.
Not long now.
Asaro tore her gaze back to the blinding white light about to engulf them. Excitement battled with the fear she experienced at the start of every voyage, despite—or perhaps because—she was the Captain; fear that everyone had just signed up for a one-way trip. She took a deep breath. Now!Into the light. Pulse slightly elevated, palms damp, the crew of the Saranyu endured the seemingly endless brain twisting transit of the 'lock. When they came out, they would be in the Cygnus Quadrant—the furthest any human being had ever travelled.
