(The Silence of Ancient Light, continued)
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Three plumes of rocket exhaust arced upward from the surface, through and above the clouds. Two of those plumes terminated in bright flares of booster engines lifting toward space, bright even against the daytime blue of the planet’s vast ocean. The third plume, already shredded and dissipating in the ferocious winds, lifted out of the hurricane itself, but instead of arcing toward space it veered below their view, toward the island and the cable. They could not see the cable itself, but they didn’t need to in order to know the rocket had crashed. An expanding mushroom cloud, torn ragged by the massive storm yet flaring with angry reds, oranges, and blacks, swirled around where the cable should be. Even from their great altitude, they could see lightning flashes of electromagnetic discharge within the churning smoke and ash.
Read more, including how we got to this point, at
(1,817 words; 7 min 16 sec reading time)
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If you click that link, you’ll immediately note that the text above is not how the scene opens, but rather it appears later. But it makes a decent hook doesn’t it? Action! Excitement! Danger!
Several things are happening here. Obviously, for those who are reading through from the prior scenes, Anna’s relationship with Jaci is developing, and yes, we’ll deal with that. Equally obviously, they’ve been ascending the space elevator for a while now, and they’re due to arrive at the orbital ring station. Does this scene’s title give it away that this is going to happen? Or, is there an interruption? Ok, this is at heart an action story, so there’s going to be drama that interferes with our heroes’ smooth plans. And what’s with those rocket plumes and that mushroom cloud? Is that going to be a problem?
Perhaps more important, how many of you noticed that it has only been two days since I posted the previous scene? Yes, that’s right, this scene nearly wrote itself in rapid fashion. I hope you find it as engrossing to read as I did to write.
This scene is also the final one for Chapter 9. You know what that means, don’t you? If not, or even if you do, you’ll just have to read it to find out, so click that link!
header image credit: user:JCK5D / pixabay.com via Pixabay License
Matt Fraser 