Tag: RichardWrites

Shore Leave

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Not everything in Tyche’s Journey is about death insects. Sometimes there’s a little R&R; time on a crust to unwind. When you’re the best goddamn Helm in the universe, shore leave needs to be a little more … special. This week’s #RichardWrites nets us a scene from Tyche’s Crown. Enjoy! When El woke, it was with a man’s warm arms around her. Warm, strong arms. Connected to a chest that, even in sleep, looked purpose-built. The smell of sweat and sex and after alcohol was around her, holding her tighter than his embrace. What the fuck was his name again? Johnson. Davison. Mendleson. Something-son. She was sure of it. El gave a lazy blink, taking in the room. Nice enough as far as these things went. Rented by the night rather than by the hour. Not attached to a bar — Read More …

A Wanted Woman

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With the release of Tyche’s Flight just around the corner, I thought I’d share the start of the book. You get to meet Grace for the first time, even though you probably already know the cut of jib already. I’d love to know what you think, so face your fears and drop me an email ? Grace had less than a day to live. Oh, sure. She might be able to stretch it to a day and a half. But what’s twelve hours against your lifetime? Not a lot. Her room at the hotel was burned. The only thing she had left was her stash with her sword and a few Republic coins for emergencies. She hadn’t expected to be on this particular crust for this long. She hadn’t expected to be here at all. When Grace got caught, she’d die. Simple Read More …

Never fuck with an Engineer

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This week’s #RichardWrites is a scene starring Hope Baedeker, ship’s Engineer of the Tyche. It’s from Tyche’s Deceit. The crew are on Earth because reasons, and Hope is alone in a very bad part of town. Add in some thugs, and you’ve got an easy mark. Right? Hope felt her arms grabbed by the two men behind her. Raccoon was laughing, enjoying her joke over a gullible child, and the man at her side was laughing along like this was the greatest show on Earth. The vibroblade came at Hope like a diving falcon, straight at her heart. A blow like that would have gone in, cutting through the shiny new rig. Reduced its value a lot, and coupled with the blood that would be everywhere — Hope’s blood — it would make it worth just a handful of coins. Read More …

When Good Drinking Goes Bad

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In today’s #RichardWrites, we’ve got Elspeth trying to track down Hope in a scene from Tyche’s Deceit. Hope is off doing … something important that I’m not going to tell you about because, you know, spoilers. El’s tracking her in the best way she knows how: spacer bars that serve hard liquor. Moses snapped his fingers. “Altman Razor.” El looked between Moses and the autobar. “That a drink?” “It’s a dude,” said Moses. “I mean, it might be a drink as well. But it’s a dude. Sells shit. Parts, machinery, that kind of thing.” “Sounds like the right kind of match,” said El. She twirled her empty glass, initially curious about how it got so empty, so fast. “Hell, Moses. My glass is empty.” “They do that,” said Moses. “One of the annoying things about the universe.” He shifted his Read More …

When you’re out of options

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I try and put my people into tricky situations. Not just the guns-and-lasers-and-swords situations, because that kind of goes without saying. No, the type where they’ve got to make a choice where the first path is shit, and the second path is also shit. I especially like it when the actors do it to each other. Here’s a piece of Tyche’s Crown, the third of the Tyche’s Journey trilogy. The story so far is that … spoilers, so I’ll just say that Kohl is not having a great time, and Nate and Grace need to rescue a couple of their friends from the clutches of evil scientists. Oh, it’ll be fun. “Hey,” said Nate, then, “Hey.” He moved across the ready room to grab her, and Grace slumped into his arms. “Grace? Are you okay? Grace?” “I’m … fine,” said Grace. “You Read More …

FTL

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Trying to create FTL was a tricky problem. How do you deal with humans and their concept of linear time? How do you deal with the pesky laws of physics? Well, like most of the things I do: I cheat. I’ve created two types of FTL for Tyche’s Journey — one using the the Alcubierre drive, the other using wormholes (because, reasons — the Guild owns wormhole tech, which is safer, but those on free traders still like to chart their own course…). The Tyche has an Alcubierre drive — in the future, they call them Endless Drives. Here’s what happens when a ship jumps. “Clear for jump,” he said. He felt the thrill. He’d jumped a hundred, a thousand times before, but it never got old. He’d been on a rollercoaster on some frontier world, an attraction with mag sleds and high G. Read More …

Meet Hope Baedeker

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Got another piece of Tyche’s Flight for you today. In last week’s piece you saw a glimmer of Hope; this week, you get full and unfiltered Hope. She’s the Tyche’s Engineer, and she’s the best there is — even with the price on her head. Yeah yeah, first draft, but let me know what you think. “Nate—” “Captain.” “Nate, you said two weeks—” “I said a week, maybe two—” “It’s been two days!” She jerked an angry arm at the exposed machinery on one of the fusion drives, the cowl stacked up against the opposite wall. Wires. Pipes. A little smoke — now where the hell was that coming from, that wasn’t supposed to happen — and above it all, the status panel. Not enough lights green, too many red. “I took her apart because I had two weeks!” “A week!” “It’s been two days!” Read More …

Meet Elspeth Roussel

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Today’s #RichardWrites is a slice of Tyche’s Flight. This is the first time you meet the Tyche’s Helm, Elspeth Roussel. Best starship pilot you’ve ever met, and she’ll tell you that straight. You know the music: first draft, but let me know what you think. Elspeth Roussel sat in the Helm’s chair — her chair — on the Tyche’s bridge. It wasn’t much of a bridge, not like what she was used to from her days flying frigates for the Empire, but the captain had given her a paying job and didn’t mind that she’d flown for the losing side. And she was still Helm of something. Even a small lifter like the Tyche. She reached out a hand to the console in front of her, kept clean despite the age of it. “My good girl,” she said. “What was that?” Hope’s voice came Read More …

How we turn one car into a city block’s worth of destruction

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Today’s #RichardWrites is from Tyche’s Deceit, they second book in the Tyche’s Journey trilogy. I’m experimenting with points-of-view and types of exposition; it’s a little bit new, so I’d be interested in what you think 🙂 The two air cars screamed over the streets, engines burning hard. Citizens would have been looking up, wondering what was going on. Looking at what would cause a disturbance like this in their boring, safe lives in the very heart of the Republic. The lead car would have wobbled a little, the trained eye picking up a disturbance in the port thruster. Just a little noise in the burn, a bubble in the feed. Nothing serious under normal situations, something that might be rectified with ten minutes of maintenance by a skilled Engineer. The situation wasn’t normal, and there was no time for maintenance. The pilot Read More …

Meet October Kohl

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The crew of the Tyche (?) is more than the Nate & Grace duo. It takes all types to crew a starship. Often as not, the crew are better at lifting heavy things rather than their skill with words. Meet October Kohl – deckhand of the Tyche. Yeah yeah, first draft, but let me know what you think. October Kohl was drunk. He knew it. That asshole who was eying him up knew it. The bartender knew it. The … proprietor of the brothel he’d just been thrown out of knew it. The question was not whether he was drunk, but whether it would hold him up any. He put a hand out in front of him, looking at the way it held in space. It wasn’t waving all over the place, but it wasn’t steady as a rock either. That meant Read More …