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Thread: Bad fiction writers club

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    The ship shuddered for a nanosecond and this long drink of water appeared with impossibly long legs and honey colored hair falling in languid waves just below her shoulders, her uniform tattooed on her body . "Hi Lieutenant" she breathed, her soft voice low and husky..."I'm Betty" "Anything you need...just put your lips together and ...whistle". Rico caught his breath involuntarily. ."She's gorgeous" he thought. and then caught himself...there was something oddly familiar about her and dammit she's a computer! "Hi Betty" he responded, trying to sound authoritative..."why are we parked in the suburbs?" Betty froze for an instant...there was an almost imperceptible shudder in her hologram and then she responded..."There was a glitch in the mission download Lieutenant - it's been corrected...I have the original coordinates - are you ready to hit the road?....
    In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.



    "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
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    Chapter One - Something is fishy in Denmark

    As Lt. Richard (Rico) Carter slipped into the flight seat of his newly assigned F622 space cruiser, it enveloped him like a second skin, immediately displaying his vitals in the lower left quadrant of his visor ... the computer in a Betty Boop voice announced "welcome aboard, sweet cheeks" and Rico winced in irritation, thinking "I've got to do something about that"....Abruptly all the onboard klaxons rang out, & Rico's vitals flat lined.

    Betty started doing a dubstep version of "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do ..." "Nice homage & all, Betty, but damn it, What's going on here?" Rico subvocalized. (Clearly Rico had forgotten - understandable, in the circumstances - that he was inductance-tapped into the ship systems. He more or less was the ship's brain, with artificial nervous system & a small habitat's worth of CPUs & storage. & to himself - whatever that means in this context - Rico mused "If I've flat lined, who the hell is thinking here?

    "The com suddenly chirped and the voice of the base sergeant drawled with contempt "Loootenant Cahtah, did you forget to enter your 10 digit security code, Suh?Rico flushed..."what a rooky mistake ...and at frakking home base" imagining the razzing he would face on his return. He quickly tapped in the code and his vitals popped back onto his visor. The ships engines began to whine and then settled into a subaudible vibration. Rico called up the star chart and touched Alpha Centauri...

    The ultraspeed drive kicked on with a humming sound. Betty started humming along with it as the nanosleep started to kick in. He knew he wouldn't wake until the ship was beginning to come out of ultraspeed. As he began to drift off, he wondered if he could create a song out of the humming noise, a question that had been asked by most of the explorers before him, though he had no way of knowing that.The humming went flat & then thinned out. Rico surfaced into consciousness, with a receding dream of Betty & some little black & white dog doing a hula with palm trees swaying in time, & the moon racing along to countertempo. "Yow," Rico rasped, "Gotta cut back on the classic hyperfeelies, or @ least reengage the safeties. Maybe next time." Meanwhile, the alarm klaxons screamed like demented calliopes hooked up to an erupting volcano. Rico sucked in a breath. "Where the kludge is A. Centauri? & what the finagle dragged me out of ultraspeed? That's not supposed to be possible, is it?" Rico dredged his mind, but transfinite math was never his forte, & mom always had told him not to work with his hands.

    Betty started into her rendition of "Good morning, good morning... ain't it great to wake up late..." "Ugh" he thought, "what frakking retro hayseed programmed this computer?" hitting the release button on the pilot's seat. He popped up the holographic display. He was still several parsecs from Alpha Centauri. The three stars appeared before him. He put his finger on Alpha Centauri A and two stars zoomed into view. Tapping again he could see the space station orbiting A - his destination

    .Rico downed a stim, always a good idea after nanosleep. "Criminy, I don't even like horses," he mused. "So I can only half dislike Centauri?" He blinked, did a double take @ the nav tank. "Couple of parsecs? What?!" He snapped @ Betty "Were we going in reverse? Didn't I designate A. Centauri? Who's been @ the nav tank?" Betty hesitated for a moment - years in nano-time - & finally blurted out "The dog star ate my homework?" Rico took a deep breath

    ......and called up the BTI 800P software diagnostics..."something sketchy about Betty's last response" he thought uneasily..."computers are never evasive"... as he scanned the readout he noticed something odd...the download of the mission specs occurred an hour before he boarded - "SOP" he confirm mentally...then he noticed it "Whoa, that's odd"... 2 hours into the flight there was another download...Betty's programming had kicked up a couple of error files, but whatever was in the download had repaired the files..."Crimini", he muttered "as he tried to find the download file - "it's gone" Every last trace of the file had been efficiently erased. His stomach sinking he checked the com files. There should be a constant data stream from the ship to HQ. "Frak! he exclaimed loudly. There it was, a two 2 second blank spot in the data stream....

    Betty is suddenly very clingy, & manifests as a 1920sCE gun moll (Rico thinks "Note to self - find out what a gun moll is/was.") Betty throws herself @ him - no, really, trips & falls - How many shipcomps do you know that do tight clingy outfits slit up to there & stilettoes tall enough to reach terminal velocity from? "Hmmm," Rico thinks, "Nice catch/cache. This can't be in the standard shipcomps persona listing. I smell a rat - well, a very attractive nubile-looking rat, to be sure. What's a female rat called, anyway?" Some considerable time later, drinks, ciggies & small talk stowed away - Rico has a moment of lucidity. "Whoa, this can't be right! What other surprises are waiting in the shipcomp? Time to scram the shipcomp software from a secure copy & reboot!" He commlinks to the emergency overwrite, IDs & verifies himself, his implants vouch for him, & he pulls out a virtual envelope, rips it open, reads: "What I tell you three times is true." He repeats it to Betty three times, the ship systems blink off, even the klaxons fail to wail. "Goodbye, Betty," he whispers ...

    The ship shuddered for a nanosecond and this long drink of water appeared with impossibly long legs and honey colored hair falling in languid waves just below her shoulders, her uniform tattooed on her body . "Hi Lieutenant" she breathed, her soft voice low and husky..."I'm Betty" "Anything you need...just put your lips together and ...whistle". Rico caught his breath involuntarily. ."She's gorgeous" he thought. and then caught himself...there was something oddly familiar about her and dammit she's a computer! "Hi Betty" he responded, trying to sound authoritative..."why are we parked in the suburbs?" Betty froze for an instant...there was an almost imperceptible shudder in her hologram and then she responded..."There was a glitch in the mission download Lieutenant - it's been corrected...I have the original coordinates - are you ready to hit the road?....
    Last edited by Dr. Who; 11-18-2015 at 12:10 AM.
    In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.



    "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
    Mahatma Gandhi

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    Next - Chapter 2.
    In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.



    "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
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    Rico dropped into the pilot's seat and was almost immediately synced with the navcom. He pulled up the holomap and touched Alpha Prime..."time to jump Betty" ... the ship whined for a moment and then in complete silence it jumped...

    The ship was suddenly in orbit around Alpha Centauri Prime. The navcom registered a few thousand ore carriers and mining ships, queuing up for landing and taking off for Beta and Theta. "Must be rush hour" Rico mused...then the com chirped and a prissy looking guy in a dorky uniform appeared on the holo display. Betty had already provided his credentials ..."Good day Lieutenant Carter, I am Traffic Officer Butkus" he squeaked in a rather high nasal voice..."Please state your business". Rico suppressed a laugh and replied with a straight face.."Good day, Sir... I'm here on military business for the Terran Government". Officer Butkus pursed his lips and asked haughtily "whom are you here to see?" Grinning, Rico replied "Effron Taller". Officer Butkus's face blanched and his hand touched his ear... a moment later his face suddenly melting into an obsequious smile he replied..."Welcome to Alpha Prime Lieutentant Carter... you are cleared for landing".

    Rico almost felt sorry for Butkus...Effron Taller was the most powerful man on Alpha Prime. He was the face of the mining industry that was the life blood of Alpha Centauri....
    In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.



    "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
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    Quote Originally Posted by webrockk View Post
    It would be... but where would we find this crowd?.... you and I are the only people here who aren't afraid to publicize our fantastic writing "talents"
    ???
    Wearing a mask with your nose sticking out is like wearing a condom on your testicles.

    When out walking, look out for PROBlems. You know: maskless Plague Rats On Bicycles who blow past you without giving you time to get out of the way.

    Ah, CONServatives, the Masters of Projection (MOPs). With CONServatives, every accusation is a confession. Weird, that.

    ............Oh, what fresh hell is this?
    ,,,........¯¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯
    ....... Not my circus, not my monkeys

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    Quote Originally Posted by OGIS View Post
    ???
    You declined to participate.
    In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.



    "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
    Mahatma Gandhi

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