She was, essentially, an adolescent aristocratic spoiled brat in a position she didn’t deserve, talking to him simply because she was part of a privileged elite social class based on birth order and some bizarre pseudo-eugenics game of rock-paper-scissors.

My Name is Lisa Melton. You Killed my Boyfriend. Prepare to Die.

That’s totally in the writing queue.

But I can write one.

And that girls have cooties.

This confused him. They had just made love, for the eight time that week. And it was only Thursday. He didn’t feel sad. He didn’t feel much at all right now except contentment with his lover. She was wrapped around him like soft sleepwear, smelling of sweat and playfulness and sassy.

“I’m not sad!” Was this a test, some sort of whimsical girl thing? Although, she wasn’t a girl really, any longer. At least on the outside. Inside, he knew she thought of herself as a girl. She could be 89 and a great-great-grandma, and he could envision her looking at the mirror and going “hey girly girl, look’n good!”

She turned over and looked at him, her amazing green eyes flecked with blue as curious and warm as ever. “Not now. But sometimes. Sometimes your eyes go somewhere. You’re not here but there. Where ever there is. Where do you go?”

Her empathy ran deep. Maybe it was the way she made love. She was always shy about it, at first, as if she would blink and find the kisses weren’t real. Then, as the kisses continued she would simply let go.

It was his favorite part, when she let go. Her mind would blank, all her worries, all her stress, everything neat and ordered in her life gone. Gone as long as he kept loving her. And she would say such naughty things.

Afterwords, it was as if her heart beat in time with the world. Moments where she understood things, felt things. That she was pulling on a thread should not surprise him. It was, essentially, his own fault. He brought her here. What did he expect?

But then, what should he tell her? It was too much. The wrong type of intensity. It was foul. It only intruded upon his thoughts because it was one of those things never forgotten. He didn’t want to tell her. She was too good. Too pure. Too in-tune. Gaia. It would be like poisoning the Earth. Her eyes would not be green any longer. They would die. He would murder her eyes.

“See, there, just now, you went away.”

“I don’t like to go there, it’s not a good place,” he finally admitted.

“Tell me. Why?”

“You’re not there,” he said simply. “You’re here. You’re here.“

She looked at him and then he saw it. She knew. Knew he didn’t want to say. Knew he didn’t want to leave. Knew it wasn’t important. Only talking about it would make it so.

So she never asked. She kissed him, and wasn’t shy. She took command of him, and chased the thoughts away, purged them as if they were never there.

She was never shy again, at the start of their lovemaking. She still let go. She still liked to whisper her naughty talk into his ears.

Yet, he missed it. That part of the woman that was the shy girl.

Empathy, he thought, sometimes had a terrible, terrible price.

“The Fleet frigate has changed course. She’s on an elliptical acceleration intercept!” her captain practically yelled at her.

Admiral Neiva d’Oaneia couldn’t believe it. She looked at the plot and the intercept arc appeared.

Right for the Deadly Azure.

Right for her.

And the frigate was moving fast. Insanely fast. That type of speed was impossible!

That’s when she noticed the acceleration curve was such that the Azure could not escape. They were in the frigate’s intercept envelope. They were nowhere near the FTL line—they could not FTL for over an hour at their present speed.

Trapped.

“Weapons free! All ships intercept! Emergency deceleration, engage at maximum range!”

The orders were, of course, useless. Such was the acceleration of the frigate that they would soon be measuring it in percentages of  light speed. It would be like shooting at the wind on a stormy winter day on the Islands.

She felt warm liquid on her leg. She looked down. She had peed herself. She hadn’t put on ship suit because it didn’t occur to her that they would be engaged in combat in their home system.

The Princess was right after all.

The human captain was insane!

But over the years I’ve come to a different interpretation. I believe he was speaking to all the little lies we tell ourselves.

That’s when I knew those were the worst lies of them all.

Thus, the secret to fulfillment through the art of seeking the truth, is to embrace all the little lies within, and simply let them go.

I’m on a roll.

Terrans, as the table assembled before him proved, were a decidedly mixed lot.

XO Lieutenant (Sr. Grd.) Ola (no last name) was a waif of a woman. Small, black haired, pixie-ish. Despite her girlish figure, Tilbrook knew she was an older woman, having joined fleet a decade out of college. She was worldly and cosmopolitan.

The doc was her opposite. Tall, pale-skinned, with flaming, unruly red hair, green eyes and a body she seemed uncomfortable with, as if she woke up one day and saw that she had a wonderful feminine figure.

Actually, considering Winnie’s youth, that may be exactly what happened.

Gunnery Sargent Charles Kim was something else entirely. It was as if someone took the biggest Korean, searched for the biggest Samoan, and bred them to produce a 127.3kg monstrosity of pure muscle. Which proved the old Fleet maxim—space is the great biological equalizer. His job was to blow things up, not bust heads.

Staff Sargent Sergei Koltsov, commanding his six person marine squad, at least looked decidedly normal—average in every way, except for his unarmed combat scores and his deadly effectiveness with just about anything remotely like a weapon. His family came from a long line of County Safety officers, and here he was in Fleet. Everyone called him Sarge, although Tilbrook thought of him as “Mr. Security.”

They had just watched the exchange of between him and the shish brat and now everyone looked contemplative, especially after Ola briefed them on the upcoming coming-of-age party for the shish’s older sister.

He didn’t want contemplative. He wanted options.

“Winnie, could you give me some insight on what possibly could be going on to cause Princess here to act completely irrational? I get that her position is political and she is young. That aside, even a mediocre politician should know better than to assume we’re a bunch of dorks. What’s her problem?”

Winnie actually chuckled. “Permission to speak candidly, sir?”

“Winnie, this is a brainstorm session. I need your brain, not your built-in military courtesies. In this room, I expect candor 24×7. That also means call me James.”

Tilbrook knew Winnie might need a more delicate touch when she blushed scarlet, but Hernández’s clock kept ticking down the minutes. The ship was fast. Time was short.

“Aye, um, yes, um, James. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious what the problem is.”

She paused, looking apprehensive. Tilbrook decided to not cut her off at the knees and give her some time to compose herself and spit it out.

“Anyway, the problem is you,” she said in a rush.

What?

“Me?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. He contacted the shish station by the book. Only when the Princess, for the most part, called him a liar did he depart from protocol. In fact, given the circumstances, Tilbrook was sure a less experienced…

“You’re a hottie, James,” Ola broken in.

“Excuse me?”

“A total hottie, to be exact,” said Winnie, blushing even redder.

“Indeed,” said Guns, “while I myself am a heterosexual, I have heard from the female crewmembers that your backside is very esthetically pleasing.”

“My backside.” Out of all the tracks he thought this conversation might go, this one was completely unexpected.

“That means you have a nice ass,” said Sergei.

“Thank you Sarge, I get that. While now I am inwardly cursing that I demanded informality, I would like to state the obvious that my butt was in no way pointed towards the Princess during the entire conversation. Thus, whatever powers said butt might have, they were not in play here.”

“James? Really? You had no idea you were a hottie?” Winnie was looking at him as if he was nuts.

Suddenly Ola nodded. “Ah, makes sense. Skipper here is from Lupa-12, they do things a bit more formally there. I bet you went to an all-boys school during puberty?”

“Look, while I’m sure you Earthers love making fun of the country boys with your 6.8 billion population, you all know I have an apartment in Paris right? And for a reason.”

“You have browner-than-brown hair that looks like if you grew it out it would curl, your eyes are a vivid, and I mean a vivid sky-blue, and you have the eyelashes any teen girl would envy, and I ought to know,” said Winnie. Now instead of looking completely embarrassed, she looked whimsical.

“Let’s not forget, Winnie, that when he works out in the gym shirtless, you seem to find yourself there,” Ola quipped.

“And I would like to point out, Ola, that you are there too.” Winnie quipped back, only looking slightly annoyed.

Tilbrook sighed, loudly, and looked at Sarge and Gunny for sympathy, or at the very least, to bail him out.

“I give the elected MOILTF no sympathy,” said Guns.

Sarge looked blank.

MOILTF? Male Officer I Would… He sighed again. “Fine. I see how you all are. I like to work out. So what? And my looks, I can assure you, are quite vanilla compared to most of the other men on Lupa-12.”

Ola immediately sat up straight. “Really?”

Winnie gave herself a little shake, as if her brain was in the gym. “Anyway, there a total and very disturbing attraction parity between human females and shish. Everything human females find attractive, shish find attractive. Only, the attraction is much more visceral for the shish because, as we all know, their sex-response is biologically tied to feeding.”

She seemed to enter her lecture mode and turned to him. “So, without knowing what political and family monkey business is going on—put yourself in her place. She’s sexually frustrated, that’s a given. Her sister is going to get laid for an entire week, basically have the best sex a shish could have—short of the symbiotic bonding process or the feeding/mating protocol—while she has to work. Indeed, tradition does not allow her to participate in the family orgy because of her position. Now a human male, aka The Hottie, shows up in the spiffy Fleet uniform with a fantastic tale of pirates in a system no pirates should be in, with a more impossible tale of a new jump point. She loses it. Her body is telling her to get you alone, seduce you, then bite you, and suck your blood if she likes you. Dismember and toss you into the pot if she doesn’t.”

“Oh, come on. She is a thinking person. She’s not some eating machine ruled by instinct,” Tilbrook protested.

Guns shook his head. “Rationality means something completely different to a shish. She’s young. She’s low-boob on the totem pole, and she could be hungry. And you’re a walk’n snack that conveniently can get her off before she fills her tummy with a warm happy meal.”

Tilbrook sighed yet again. “Fine. The age-old human-shish socialization problem. What are our options?”

“There’s another social dynamic in play here, that may give you the answer,” Winnie said, nodding to Guns. “Everyone likes to focus on how shish are hyper-sexual beings. That is a mistake. Shish are, for the most part, biologically superior to all other species in the galaxy. They consider themselves at the top of the food chain, and biologically speaking, they are. The only advantage humans have over them is our culture is superior, and I don’t mean that in a racist way. We are more productive, we produce superior art and technology, and our system of governance, such as it is, provides humans with a cultural flexibility nobody can match.”

Suddenly James got it.

“Ah. Being differential and polite wasn’t enough. I was sending her a very specific signal by assuming I was in charge of the situation.”

“Exactly,” said Winnie. “So now your options are, and keep in mind I’m not a shish expert, merely a well-read layman, is to assume a submissive position, or metaphorically pop her in the jaw and assume control. She’s totally going to bite you for sure on the former, the latter is difficult because she is stronger, not to mention most likely telekinetic, and all that aside, she is way smarter than you.”

Crap.

Here at Chez Pacheco, it certainly isn’t the nudity. We’re not nudists, but you won’t find a lot of modesty around. Usually clothing is a defense against the cats with claws.

But there I was, in the shower going, “why can’t I think of a plot to SPACE OPERA” and, just like that, it came to me.

I’ve been trying to think of a plot for this novel a year and there it was, between the lather rinse repeat.

Yeah!

I also have a new working title. STUFF BLOWING UP IN SPACE. Because, you know, that’s space opera. It opens thus:

Commodore Philip Connery eyed the sish in front of him, looking for a hint of weakness. Sish and humans did not play poker often. Since they looked alike, but were separate species, it was common for both to misread the others expressions. The classic poker game became less a game of skill and more a game of chance.

How this one was cleaning house, Connery had no idea. It was as if she dabbled in surface thought reading.

Which, of course, was impossible—telepathy was the purview of humans only.

“I fold.” He tossed his cards on the table. She may not be telepathic, but he was running out of bar money.

She smiled, showing a hint of fangs, and merrily collected their credit chits. She swayed back and forth in a kind of bouncing motion, like the excited bounce human little girls made in their chair when they were getting close to the pony ride.

It was terribly cute, which was yet another highlight of their differences that could get either species into trouble. The sish unconsciously thought her body language was saying “I’m a sexy predator,” and to humans it was “buy the girl an ice cream.”

art by the wonderful Alexander Preuss (www.abalakin.de)

Humans, as another human once told her, would never accept they were for “nomming.” Whatever that meant.

Okay, maybe it’s funnier in my manuscript.

“The Woman” is a story based on the characters in my novel Armageddon’s Princess. Only, I reversed the roles, the story is about Arune, an AI, not about Lexus (although she does play an important part in the story).

Arune is a great character to write. He’s sensitive. He’s based on human DNA, but he is not human, he thinks very, very fast. But he is a person, and an interesting one at that. I was happy to finally be able to do him justice.

I love exploring gender relationships in my writing. My female friends often accuse me of being an incurable romantic. Of that I am proudly guilty.

12:37 PM Anthony:
He’s a cat, honey.
You were playing with his toy.

Running Amok is a technical term, by the way.

But I digress.

My Sassy and Feminine friend Cassie Hart from New Zealand recently pointed out good writing for me comes from a challenge.  So my next target for my love of writing was Dragonsong. The characters and plot speak to me, almost like a call. It will be difficult to pull it together in 100k words, too.

One of my rules of writing, fantasy writing, is that the setting must have a voice. It’s not enough to have a heroic fantasy, character-driven plot. I have very high fantasy standards as a reader. I need to be there. I need to feel it deep in my bones. I need to see it and smell it. It’s visceral or it’s nothing.

I got to chapter three of Dragonsong, and realized the setting isn’t speaking to me. I have a very specific vision for it. I’m not going to hash out the book and then in draft two spruce up the setting, either. The setting is a character, she has a voice or I murder her for one that does. It’s my First Rule of Fantasy Writing.

Unfortunately, nothing repair-wise is nibbling on my little brain, so I’m setting it aside. This novel is better than I am, so I’m going to let it fester.

Thus, I’m living large on The Baby Dancers. That YA setting speaks to me. Yes it does. Maybe she can tell me a few things. Teach me.

That and I’m at the point where I just have to know how the story ends. It’s driving me crazy.

Thank you all who suggested I pick the novel back up because the plot sounded compelling. Because I believe, you’re right.

Goblin Ninjas. On fire.

<giggle>

If you don't see this when I'm writing, I have failed.

On my phone, I simply touched the book in my library listing and it downloaded in seconds.

From a shopping perspective, that pretty much was nirvana. If I wanted to, I could have bought the book from my phone directly.

Either way, it was incredibly easy, in fact, that I can see how the instant gratification of having the book you want show up when you want it is addicting.

I’m a sucker for a good hardcover book and I love physical books, the visceral experience in reading. I was very skeptical of e-books, especially reading e-books on a phone.

How was the actual act of reading?  I am surprised to tell you it was just fine. Actually, more than fine. The screen resolution on my phone is so good, that I bumped the text size down a notch. The text was easy to read, and changing the pages with a flick of a finger was natural.

Disclaimer: I did not purchase this phone; my company did, because we do Windows Phone development. I’m glad they did, however, because besides reading books I’ve used several of the applications, like mail and instant messaging.

Comparing the experience between paper and e-book? To me it was about the same. I can’t really share the e-book with the rest of my family, so on that account I will still purchase regular books.

What about books for me, though? I’ll always buy an e-book off my Barnes and Noble account if I can. The experience was that good, and the price seems cheaper.

Good experience. Cheaper price. I love interwebs. I love it very much.

A few days ago my oldest son asked The Wife Unit: “Just how long did you know Dad before you married him?”

Snicker.

“Hey, Frank!”

“Hiya, Bob.”

“Gotta book here I want you to read.”

“Thanks, Bud.”

One week later.

“Jason, you need to read this book Bob lent me. It’s totally your thing.”

“Oooooooo.”

One week later.

“Hey Bob, here’s your book back.”

“Hey Jason. What did you think? Was that some characterization or what.”

“Awesome. Like, wow, holy crap that was good.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!”

“I pre-ordered his next one from Amazon. Can’t wait to read it.”