# Rogue



## IndigoCypher (Jul 6, 2012)

This is the first chapter of my first book about a futuristic naval captain who goes rogue to stop an alien conspiracy.

CHAPTER 1: Solus V
“Union battlecruiser _Atlantis _on standby.”
Jamal Sweens spoke slowly into the microphone on his wrist. He was my second in command, and my best friend while on duty aboard my ship. 
“Thank you, Lieutenant Sweens.” That was Admiral Kenson. I sort of hated her, sort of loved her. My heart raced whenever I went near her, whether in anger or attraction I don't know. She was too cautious, too contrasting to my "screw it and nuke’em" nature. Still, I liked her. "Now could you please turn me over to the captain, Jamal?" Jamal's face of dark complexion scrunched into a smirk.
“Sure thing, Admiral.” I turned on a second hologram projector, not looking away from the tacmap I was studying. Kenson flickered to life in all her digital glory. She had light brown hair streaming down to her chest, which was covered with bronze stars and medals. She was the most decorated fleet commander in human history, besting even Chester Nimitz of World War II. That was over 700 years ago. 
“Raring to go, Dakota. Where do you want us?” I asked. 
Even as a digital projection I could still see her blush. No one ever called her by her first name. Except for me.
“That's Admiral Kenson to you, Captain Evans. And you=re going to Solus V. Just out of orbit. A big band of raiders has been sighted near there.” I was currently stationary at the hot gas planet=s moon, a couple thousand miles away, and planets in the Solus cluster were known for their incredibly immense gravitational pull. 
“Sure thing, Dakota.” I plotted the course data and fed the information to Leonardo, my AI. 
Kenson fumed. “_Fleet_ _Admiral_ _Kenson! _Jesus, Mark, I swear, the second IB” I pretended not to hear her and cut the holo feed. 
“Probability of immediate discharge: 61%,” Leonardo chimed in his digitized voice.
“Yeah, thanks, Leo,” I said, and keyed a holo to the cockpit. 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Ensign Drane spun around in his chair, startled. The only elf aboard the _Atlantis_ snapped a hasty salute. I thought I saw him pocket something small and silver from his ear, but dismissed it as nothing. I really didn’t care if my pilot had an earring. 
“Captain!”
“Did you get the coordinates?” 
“Solus V? Yeah, I'm turning the ship now.” Drane typed in a command code and the ship rotated with a lurch. “Can't go full throttle,” he said. “I want to keep the stealth screen up while we advance.”
“Good idea,” I said, and cut the feed. 
I turned away from the hologram projector and looked at the bridge. Jamal was supervising twelve ensigns who were all furiously keying commands into their computers. Except for one. 
“Sir?” asked Ensign Demone. He was staring in disbelief at his monitor. “You might want to see this.” I walked over.
“What in the name of-” There were red triangles-enemies-onscreen. 
Advancing.
Towards the _Atlantis_. 
“Code red!” I screamed! “Battle stations, prepare for impact!” Little dashes appeared onscreen, moving ahead in front of the red triangles. The enemy contacts had launched missiles at my ship.
The nerve of some hostile aliens. 
Drane brought the _Atlantis _to a sudden halt, throwing me off balance and into an ensign. “Sorry,” I mumbled. I stared out the thermal-proofed glass walls, desperately searching for the missiles. 
There. They were coming right towards us. Drane=s maneuver hadn’t been enough. We were going to take some major damage, especially since our shields weren’t up. 
I braced myself against the railing and gritted my teeth, ready for the inevitable impact. 
It never came. 
I stared in disbelief as the missiles stopped just before connecting and veered hard right. They streaked off in the direction of Solus V.
I ran to the holo projector and hailed Ensign Drane. He was relieved, but I could see definite worry and fear in his expression.
“Drane, what's wrong? Your maneuver worked, we evaded the missiles.” 
“Sure, Captain,” he said glumly. “For now.”
“Explain, ensign.”
Drane thought for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “The missiles veered off-course at the last second. Why?” Good question that I didn’t feel like answering.
“I'm not here to answer questions. Tell me what went wrong.”
“The missiles went straight for Solus V. No doubt about that,” he said. 
“So what?” I asked indifferently. “It has a big pull.” 


“Sure, but I think it was deliberate. The missiles, well, missing.”
“Huh?” I was confused, Apparently more so than one of my ensigns. 
“Look outside. You can even see the missiles circling in Solus=s orbit. Accelerating. Without thrusters.”
I was beginning to see where he was going with this. I didn’t like it.
“So what you=re saying,” I thought aloud, “Is that when those anti-armor, HE missiles engage their thrusters again, they=re going to break orbit.”
“Exactly,” said Drane.
“And when they do. . .” I trailed off. “Demone! Calculate the missile=s trajectory and blast tonnage under the scenario it breaks orbit 35 degrees starboard.” I usually got pretty high marks in math. 
“Calculated, sir,” said Demone. “The trajectory will send the missiles right at our flank, Captain.”
“And the blast number?” I peered at his computer. 
“More than I can count.” I swore under my breath. 
“Get everyone to the escape pods!” I yelled. “Leonardo, tell Kenson we're abandoning ship.”
“Understood.” 
“Forty-five seconds to break orbit!” shouted Drane. 
“Get yourself outta here!” I shouted back. He started to protest, then thought better of it and ran. I cut the holo to the cockpit. “Godspeed, Drane,” I whispered.  
“First escape pod away.” That was Leonardo. “The admiral is informed.” 
The missiles were coming right for us, and it was then I noticed Lieutenant Sweens wasn’t moving. 
“Get to a pod, Sweens. That's an order!” I yelled at him. I glanced over at the timer. Fifteen seconds.
“No, sir,” he said with a tiny grin. I grinned too. 
Impact.

What do you think? Please, be harsh if needed! I need your feedback!


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## IndigoCypher (Jul 6, 2012)

Sorry about the B's where the hyphens should be and the = signs where the quotation marks should be. Don't know why my computer does that.


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## TheWonderingNovice (Jul 6, 2012)

There is no need to be harsh. _Rogue _is well written except for the minor mistakes that you have explained. If this is your first book, I'd like to see how it will continue.


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## MJCaan (Jul 19, 2012)

I dont' think this require harsh words either.  THe dialogue flows well, and you obviously have a nice feel fro writing action.


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## I Am Vague (Jul 22, 2012)

Your style seems very similar to my own, and I'm not sure if I genuinely like it, or I'm just identifying with it. Nonetheless, I truly would like to see how this turns out and what the idea is all about. Seems interesting enough for me to want to learn more.


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## Quietman (Jul 29, 2012)

I like your style also. I can see it playing out in my head. I think it could use a little work on presentation. Try to serve it to the reader in an easy to digest way. I was a little overwhelmed trying to take all that information in so quickly.


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## Segrotlo (Jul 29, 2012)

I like the names and the technical allusions.  It was a little too much information but it moved along well.

I was a little thrown off by this:


> “No, sir,” he said with a tiny grin. I grinned too.
> Impact.


  Not sure why they grinned.

Also, 


> Kenson flickered to life in all her digital glory. She had light brown  hair streaming down to her chest, which was covered with bronze stars  and medals. She was the most decorated fleet commander in human history,  besting even Chester Nimitz of World War II.


 I liked this, "digital glory" and the Nimitz reference.


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## The Jaded (Jul 29, 2012)

All right. I am going to note things here as I see them.


The first bit, where the narrator is trying to explain his feelings about his superior officer - it's jumpy, inconsistent. Perhaps that's what you're going for. But he starts with "I sort of hated her, sort of loved her" and then goes on to say nothing that makes him hate her besides a difference in tactics. For most people, a tactical disagreement is not justification to hate someone.
The bit about the narrator being the only person in the fleet who called the admiral by her first name reinforces my thought on this - that you want a conflicted relationship between the two, but everything I see so far is no conflict whatsoever. Call a superior officer by their first name without permission in any modern navy, especially repeatedly, and you don't get a 39% chance of escaping trouble. You get trouble - that is, unless there's some sort of special relationship there. As far as I can tell, your world of 620-odd years in the future hasn't relaxed navy discipline any. This makes me think that there is not only chemistry there but possibly past complications of the familiar sort, if you get my drift. Perhaps I am reading too much into it though, I do that on occasion.
The nonhuman crew-member is described as an "Elf". It's quite common in this genre to have races who have been named by the fictional creatures they resemble, of course, but it's a point that in later chapters you should eventually elaborate on.
Not sure if the missiles looping around a gas giant was to gain speed and thus killing power or to give the crew a chance to escape. While I expect it was the former and not the latter, I would make this more clear.
I saw nothing wrong with the smile before impact. The idea of laughing in the face of danger to shore up one's own morale is hardly new. Perhaps making it a "reckless grin" might emphasize the point, or some other descriptor. You don't often have "tiny" grins. They're bigger expressions.

Good read, all told. I judge pieces as basically good or not based on whether I'd continue reading if the end was a chapter break, and I definitely would here so I would classify this as a very good start to your story.


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## Jamie Cook (Jul 31, 2012)

It feels like you move from point A - introducing the ship - to point B - it being blown up - a little too quickly. I would've liked some more time or some more description between the two. You also mention this being chapter 1, but if this is a full chapter, it's a very short one. It almost feels more like a short prologue than a full chapter.


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## IndigoCypher (Jul 31, 2012)

Yes, my chapters tend to be short like James Patterson's or whoever. About the "elf", my feeling is that the "elves" of medeival lore were actually a visiting alien race. Of course, the reader doesn't know that, and I'll explain it in some other chapters that I'll probably post, if you guys want to keep reading.


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## The Jaded (Jul 31, 2012)

IndigoCypher said:


> About the "elf", my feeling is that the "elves" of medeival lore were actually a visiting alien race.



That's not an uncommon route to take, to identify fictional creatures as extraterrestrials who visited the Earth. Provided you mention that in passing relatively soon (most likely, the first time one of those aliens is featured in a longer scene), that shouldn't throw anyone.

A note on chapter length, even for a short chapter structure this is brief for a "chapter 1" (but not for a "prologue", though I doubt that's what you intended). Not that it covers the wrong amount of material - the action is actually about right for one chapter's worth - you probably could do well filling in some more description though, pausing in places to give a sense of time passage between the two discreet events being portrayed: the conversation with Kenson and the missile attack.


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## fwc577 (Aug 7, 2012)

Jamie Cook said:


> It feels like you move from point A - introducing the ship - to point B - it being blown up - a little too quickly. I would've liked some more time or some more description between the two. You also mention this being chapter 1, but if this is a full chapter, it's a very short one. It almost feels more like a short prologue than a full chapter.



I agree with this the most.  It felt very disembodied.  There was no description of the setting other than "Ship" and "Bridge"

Are you going for some sort of Star Trekish feel?  Mass Effect?  Star Wars?  or Modern Day in space (like a submarine sorta)?  We have so many different feels in our culture as to what a ship and a bridge can look like that a story that doesn't introduce us and show us where we are just feels dull.  How many people are on the bridge?  Is the bridge large?  Is it dark or bright?

This chapter needs a lot of reworking and more description.  It's funny you mention James Patterson about your story.  First off, his chapters aren't THAT quick.  When you put that into format you are going to have a page in a half, two pages for a chapter.  Second, his dialogue isn't that quick either.  We literally have a page and a half of barebones dialogue and nothing else.  Go re-read some James Patterson and look at his dialogue, it is filled with description and isn't very "bang bang quick and over"


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## IndigoCypher (Aug 9, 2012)

Thanks for all your help, guys. Following your advice, I have since expanded the chapter to include a better description, more complex dialogue, and reasoning behind my points.


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## don'tmakemeblue (Nov 6, 2012)

I like your focus on character dialogue and development, without it ending up dense in conversation and thin on plot.
"Jamal's face of dark complexion" was my only issue, just seems odd.
Other than that, I enjoyed it, it flows well; "The nerve of some hostile aliens" is nice.
Good start!


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## dlaurent (Nov 25, 2012)

I liked it alot. I don't know why but I feel you play a lot of Starcraft. I could be wrong. I think your piece has a lot of promise and I especially like the heavy technical jargon, it serves to solidify a believable world. However I tend to agree with alot of the others. You tend to race through it to quickly. Even without the technical terms there seems to be a hell of a lot to take in, in such few paragraphs. I feel that if you want to keep the explosive beginning you need to set up the readers expectations that either 'something doesn't feel right. The space quadrant was a little to quiet' or that 'We had to stay frosty, it was known that alien marauders scoured these space quadrants' Either way it prepares the reader. 
Also and this is a personal thing, exposition of romantic back stories are best interwoven in the text without explanation i.e "Is everything set, the admiral inquired", tersely. 

"Yes ma'm". 

"Good let's hope it runs more smoother then last time." 

"We are still talking about work?" I inquired sarcastically. The tension was still there after all this time. 

Something like that (if they were previously involved.) This allows the audience to read into it, without going into much detail. If its really important it can wait until after the battle. 

But like I said I was pulled in by the action. Keep it up!  :lol:


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## bioclasm (Nov 25, 2012)

As a math guy, I think calculating the trajectories of several missiles as well as their impact parameters would take a while. This might be a good place to increase suspense as he's calculating, since we don't yet know what the missiles are doing. A perfect slingshot maneuver would be a parabola around the planet, having doubled the kinetic energy of the missiles. With this in mind, it would make more sense (in my mind) to have the aliens fire the missiles towards the planet initially, leaving the crew confused as to what their intentions were before they realize what was going on. They'd have some time to figure it out, since orbiting a gas giant would be a bit of a long walk. 

Just my opinion. I really look forward to reading more _Rouge_. You're doing a great job.


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## cheezyb10 (Nov 26, 2012)

I like it aswell. There were some minor grammar errors, but other than that, it seems pretty ambitious. :cheers:


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