Space Opera - Chapter Fourteen

Chapter 14

When Chaney came to he was lying on a hard surface but he head was cushioned by something soft. He was disoriented for a few seconds and then came fully awake with a shock.

“It’s about time you awoke,” Nakeisha said softly.

Apparently, she was the something soft his head was resting on, or more specifically, her lap.

“What–?”

“Easy,” she helped him into a sitting position on the floor beside her.

“Where are we?”

The room they were in had a dirt floor, with walls made of local stone. There was a single light and a small window high above them, too small for anyone, even someone as small as Nakeisha, to fit through. There were no furnishings in the room, just a heavy, wooden door on the wall opposite them.

“We are in a store room of a home close to the space port,” Nakeisha told him. “They brought us here directly from the space port.”

They were no longer wearing the dust covered robes and there was a bandage on his side under his shirt.

“Who–”

“I demanded clean water and a cloth to treat your wound,” she said grimly. “It was not as bad as I had feared, the laser cauterizes as it cuts. You lost some skin and some muscle, but nothing vital was touched.”

“You should have escaped when you had the chance,” he said, leaning his head back against the wall.

“Perhaps you should not have escorted me to the library,” she retorted.

He turned his head to look at her.

She shrugged. “Who can say what small event triggers a larger one. All we can do is move forward from the moment we are at.”

“Point taken,” he said. “How long was I unconscious?”

“It only took a few minutes for them to bring us here and it has been several hours since we were locked up.”

“I don’t suppose they said why they were shooting at us?”

Smiling faintly, she shook her head. “No, they did not speak to me at all. I believe they are some kind of mercenaries, doing someone else’s biding. They seem to be waiting for orders of some kind.”

“What kind of orders?” he wondered.

“That, I cannot tell you. It is just the impression they gave.”

There was a rattle at their door. Nakeisha laid a restraining hand on Chaney’s arm as he tensed. The door opened and while two men pointed lasers at them a third slide a tray inside the cell. Once he backed away, the other two left as well and the door clanked shut behind them.

Nakeiska got up and brought the tray over to where they were sitting.

“Do you think it’s safe to eat any of this?”

“Probably. If they wanted us dead we’d have been dead by now, and if they wanted us unconscious they’d use the stun setting on their lasers. They don’t seem the subtle type.”

The meal consisted of fruit and a hard, dry bread with a flask of water to wash it down with. Neither of them were very hungry and the food was not at all appetizing to them, but not knowing when their next meal might be they ate anyway.

After they were finished they sat side by side again. Nakeisha sighed and leaned her head against Chaney’s shoulder. He put his arm around her and held her close.

“Your friends will be wondering what happened to you,” he said.

“I suspect they were among those who were killed in the library.”

“I wonder why the librarians chose to hide us together?”

“I am glad that they did,” she said, raising her head to look at him. “I would not like to be here alone.”

“It’s my fault you’re here,” he said.

“Why would you think such a thing?”

“I insisted on accompanying you to the Library. If I hadn’t, those raiders wouldn’t have followed me and you wouldn’t have been put in danger.”

“Chaney, I don’t think–”

“We’ve been on an important mission for the council and we’ve had trouble dogging our heels since we started.”

“Chaney, you must listen to me–”

“Wait,” he held up his hand for quiet. “Do you hear that?”

There was a sound beyond the door. Something was happening.

“Perhaps whoever is in charge has arrived. Chaney, before anything else happens, you must listen–”

There was a scrape of a key in the lock and their door swung open.

Choka

Choka

Choka is a form of Japanese long poetry pre-dating, but related to, haiku. As with haiku, the lines of a choka should not rhyme but should follow a syllabic pattern (onji).

The most widely accepted pattern for the Choka is to start with a katuata of 5-7-5 syllables and continue in a 7-5 syllable pattern. It can be any odd number of lines and finishes with a 7-7 syllable count.

xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx



STORM SEASON

A pregnant silence
after the crash of the storm
a door slamming shut
on turbulent emotions.
A rainstorm of tears
washes away the past sins
but never enough
to wipe the slate clean again.
The eye of the storm,
cold emotion withdrawing
leaving in its wake
a desiccated spirit
without redemption
until the storm clouds gather
bringing chaos in their wake.

Whimsical Wednesday

I find it interesting that I'm able to find more information about the Deadly Sins than the Heavenly Virtues, for my Tuesday posts. :-)

Last week I helped you discover which of the Deadly Sins you had to watch out for and which level of Hell it would send you to. I thought it only fair that this week I offer you a chance at redemption and let you discover which Heavenly Virtue you most likely possess.

Having seen my results I have to wonder how accurate this test is! :-)

The 7 Heavenly Virtues Your Result: Chastity   Your most powerful virtue is the virtue of chastity. You display courage, and you can control your sexual desires. You should be proud of yourself, because chastity is a great virtue.
Diligence
Humility
Temperance
Patience
Kindness
Charity
The 7 Heavenly Virtues Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

And just for the heck of it, maybe you'd like to find out how you're going to die.

How will I die? Your Result: You will die in your sleep.   A peaceful departure into the next life. You are blessed with the good fortune of passing from sleep into eternity. Do not fear sleep. To dream into the next life is a rare gift.
You will die while having sex.
You will die of boredom.
You will be murdered.
You will die while saving someone's life.
You will die from a terminal illness.
You will die in a nuclear holocaust.
You will die in a car accident.
How will I die? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

The Sin of Sloth

Part three of my series on the Seven Deadly Sins is the Sin of Sloth, also known as the sin of Idleness.

By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. Ecclesiastes 10:18

The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour. Proverbs 21:25

Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said Sloth is "sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good... [it] is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds."

A slothful person is loose, meaning a waywardness with a view to doing what he wants, since slothfulness is tied to gluttony. Apparently he can be a gossip, having a loose tongue and can't trusted to be told anything in confidence. He is also deceitful, using lies and deceit in order to get what he wants and to enable him to do only what he wants to do. He appears to be a follower, subjecting himself to other people's rule because he doesn't really think for himself.

The modern view goes further, regarding laziness and indifference as the sin at the heart of the matter. Sloth is often seen as being considerably less serious than the other sins, more a sin of omission than of commission.

Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be thrown into snake pits.

If you don’t want to end up in Hell because of your slothful ways, you must practice

the Heavenly Virtue of Zeal or Diligence

Zeal is shown by a diligent and careful nature as proved by one's actions and work. It includes a decisive work ethic, budgeting of one's time; and monitoring one's own activities to guard against laziness. It the decision to fulfill all of the responsibilities in your vocation or state in life.

Diligence includes suitable recreation, particularly on the Lord’s Day after Mass, after you have fulfilled your responsibilities.

The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God; it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude. It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment. By his deliberate actions, the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience. Matthew 5:3-12

Magnificent Monday

Wow. Monday already.

Because of my internet fiasco, my only real goals for last week were to catch up on my blogging (both posting and commenting) and catch up on my NaNo.

The blogging was easy to catch up on. It is, after all, one of the all time greatest ways to procrastinate. The writing, however, did not come as easy. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to remain about 5,000 words behind. Until Saturday.

Saturday was kind of grey and uninspiring. I puddled around until the mid-afternoon when the husband left for a bowling tournament in Toronto, then I put a pot of coffee on, put a Celtic CD in the stereo, and started writing. And writing. And WRITING. By the end of the day I had almost 6,000 new words.

Yesterday I had to take the daughter and her husband to a near-by city to shop, so I didn't expect to get much writing done. It's usually feast or famine with me anyway. And after spending six hours shopping I sure didn't feel the urge to write.

But I pulled out my lap top anyway and much to my amazement I churned out another 2,000 words which caught me right up to the day 15 target. Go me! :-)

Trust me, no one is more surprised than I that I did it.

Okay, so I stayed up until 1 a.m. to get those last few words in, but who cares? Other than my Business Communications teacher who will have to put up with my snoring in class today.

So, Goals for this Week:

Tuesday we'll have another in my Deadly Sins series, I believe it's time for the Sin of Sloth.

Thursday's poetry form is the Choka.

Friday will be Chapter 14 of my Space Opera.

And you might want to check my Random Writings blog once in awhile. You never know when I might post another excerpt from my NaNo Novel.

I also have three assignments due on Tuesday, a presentation to make on Wednesday, and an exam on Friday.

Looks like I'm back to being busy! :-)

How's your week shaping up?

Space Opera - Chapter Thirteen

Hmm. I think I'd better pay more attention to the saying: be careful what you wish for. I'm pretty sure I recall saying something about wishing I was posting Chapter 13 on Friday the 13th, and look what happened. Honestly, it's just a coincidence! :-)



Chapter 13

The wind storm kept up a steady presence as they continued towards the space port. The dust was just heavy enough to help mask their trail, but not so dense that Chaney was unable to see which way to go.

They passed no other people, not even so much as a ground car. As they neared their destination, he became more cautious, keeping watch for an ambush or trap. Their luck appeared to be holding but they hadn’t made it this far trusting in luck.

Just outside the space port he paused and pulled Nakeisha to a stop again.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“This was too easy,” he said, glancing around.

“You call this easy?” she stood slightly bent over, trying to control her breathing. “I feel like I’ve inhaled half the planet.”

“I just can’t shake the feeling . . .” his voice trailed off as he peered intently ahead of them.

“How much farther to the ship?”

“It’s in slip seven-seven-three, in blue sector. We’re at the edge of green sector, two more sections to go to reach blue.”

Nakeisha looked around uneasily, Chaney’s mood was infectious. The same dust storm that had seemed so helpful for their escape was now a hazard in reaching the ship. Anyone, or anything, could be hiding in the swirling clouds of red dust.

The wind died slightly, allowing glimpses of cargo on loading docks, supplies waiting to be loaded, and other vague shapes. Suddenly, Nakeisha wasn’t liking the looks of what lay ahead either.

“We don’t really have much choice, do we?” she asked.

“No,” Chaney agreed. “Not really. Even if there was any place else for us to go, it would be closed because of the storm.”

Her sigh was lost in the sound of the wind. “Do you think they will have someone waiting for us?”

He tried to smile down at her, but she wasn’t fooled. “I don’t know what to think,” he said honestly. “But it seems like a logical move to me.”

She laid one slender hand on his chest. “We will just have to be very careful then.”

Chaney covered her hand with one of his own and gave it a soft squeeze. “We should keep to the loading docks as much as possible, it’ll provide the most cover.”

He let her lead the way as they slowly approached the space port and nodded when she looked back at him, a question in her eyes. Using what cover there was, she moved to the first loading dock, Chaney following close behind.

In this manner they made it through the green section and were just approaching red when there was a burst of laser fire. Chaney quickly pulled Nakeiska down with him behind a stack of metal boxes.

“Damn it, we were so close!” Chaney kicked himself mentally for not carrying a communicator with him. This was just supposed to be a simple trip - escort Nakeisha to her friends and make a pick up at the library. He’d failed on both counts.

“They seem to be concentrated over there,” Nakeisha said, pointing. “If we go that way, we should be able to circle around to the blue section.”

“All right,” he agreed. “Make for that opening and I’ll be right behind you.”

Staying in a crouch, she moved into position and waited. When there was a break in the shots being fired she bolted towards the next loading dock. There was a renewed flurry of fire right on her heels. A second pause and then Chaney joined her behind the barrels she had dove behind, seconds ahead of more laser fire.

“If they weren’t shooting at us, I’d be impressed with their aim.”

She shot him a look. “That was almost too close.”

“Fortunately, 'almost' doesn’t count. Get ready, we need to keep our momentum.”

Nodding, she got into position again. This time she waited until there was a gust of dust laden wind to protect her before scurrying to the next loading bay. Chaney was not so lucky. Halfway to where Nakeisha was concealed a stray blast caught him. He fell soundlessly.

“Chaney!”

Oblivious to both the storm and the laser fire, she raced back towards him. The wind picked up in a swirl of red dust as she knelt at his side.

“Chaney, tell me you’re all right!”

“Go on without me. We’re almost to the ship.”

“No!”

“Go, get help.”

“I will not leave you behind,” she said fiercely.

He reached up and gently touched her face, leaving streaks like teardrops on her cheek before his hand fell away.

Ya-Du

In the 16th century, the Burmese conquered Siam, and their subsequent knowledge of Thai romantic poems gave rise to a new verse form called the Ya-Du (the seasons). They borrowed only the theme, however, and not the form, and they developed it as an emotional poem, passionate, yet with something of the cool intellectual strength of the poems of the English metaphysical.

The Ya-Du form will always have some reference to nature. (Mother nature, not human nature). Most Ya-Du will have only one verse and never have more than three verses. Each verse will have five lines.

The first four lines have four syllables in each line. The last or fifth line, which will rhyme with the fourth line, will have five, seven, nine or eleven syllables.

Lines one, two and three have rhyming syllables at four, three and two respectively. Lines three four and five also follow the pattern of the first three but also add an end rhyme to lines four and five.

Line 1: x x x A

Line 2: x x A x

Line 3: x A x B

Line 4: x x B C

Line 5: x B x x x x x x x x C or: x B x x x x x x C or: x B x x x x C or: x B x x C.

Seriously, who comes up with these things? :-)


The best I could do was a two stanza Ya-du.


The winter comes
Air becomes chill
Cold numbs, snow falls
I recall past
Snow squalls, snowing us in fast.

And then the spring
Sun glinting bright
Melting the snow
World aglow with
The slow arrival to life forthwith.