Hi! New contributor here!
Need comments on how to continue this:
Tough Love
by Sarastro
Locked together in a perverse embrace of entangled wiring and shredded armor plating, the Barikian and the Risurian ship both careened screamingly into the atmosphere of the desert planet Desdra. The scoutship skirmish had been too equal; both pilots had won, and both had lost. As if on cue, escape pods jettisoned concurrently from both ships as the reentry turned their hulls to cinders. The pods crashed into the dunes not half a mile apart, and immediately let slip their smoldering soldiers.
Icobo would not be caught off-guard and knew from a decade's duty as a Barikian high-commander that attack was the best defense. Pausing only for a second at a time, he scurried quickly from sandy hill to windswept valley, heading in a slightly broken beeline directly towards his worthy enemy.
Tarla would not be taken by surprise. She was a daughter of the Risurian martial nobility. Her training should be more than a match for any dirty Barikian slimesucker. She clasped her ray-gun firmly in hand, and made her way towards the touchdown site of the other pod. Little did she realize that the next volley she fired would be her last.
From fifty yards away Icobo fired and tore off most of Tarla's already tattered space uniform. Her forcefield protected her from harm with its last iota of energy, but it only slowed her down for two seconds. Brandishing their guns frantically in front of each other, they fired as one, and their hearts skipped a beat as they saw that absolutely nothing happened. Empty.
They didn't slow down; they were trained too well. Muscles rippled and lips snarled as they swifter than thought traversed the few yards remaining between them. Seconds were all the time the matched warriors had to appraise their respective opponent.
It was an appraisal that caught Icobo off-guard and took Tarla by surprise. In all their bemuscled ruggedness the half-naked soldiers each saw the other as the image of absolute combat perfection. They recognized in each other the drive to succeed, the power and the skill to be the best, and the boundless relishing in their own martial splendor. The gladiator and the gladiatrix.
But hesitation made they none. They collided, and ripped at each other with renewed fervor and gleeful visions of gladiatorial glory. Icobo's mighty blow was caught in both of Tarla's hands, and his momentum pushed him headlong into the dust. He evaded the rapid descent of the rock that Tarla was bringing down on his head, rolling both combatants around in a maelstrom of yellow sand and sweat-soaked frustration.
Thus laying chest to chest and face to face, they marveled once again at the other's utter magnificence. Neither however admitted what they both truly felt: to kill a warrior such as this would be a terrible, shameful waste.
The fight resumed, and the matched fighters kicked and hit and evaded and feinted until exhaustion consumed them, and following a brief rest they clashed anew.
But each colusion was somehow less resolute than the one before, each blow somehow less grave. As their strength faded, a sudden revelation simultaneously dawned on them: they were no longer trying to kill each other. The blows were not as heartfelt, the kicks not as earnest. After one more insincere thrust and yet another reluctant parry, they pantingly ceased their personal war.
(They sat on the sand and inspected each other, a different fire now burning in their eyes.)?
* * *
I hope you'll agree that this is not bad. I'm certainly quite satisfied with it myself. It's got good style and a very readable flow to it (and was written quite quickly, a couple of days ago). But now I find it difficult to continue. The style might have to be changed somewhat. Obviously, they're going to get into each other's pants, but how?
Should they become friends and actually talk to each other, forgetting old enmities, forging a new and lasting alliance? Or should they just rut away, instinct-driven, like growling, speechless animals, and go their separate ways afterward? I lean toward the latter, actually. It seems to fit the style of the first part. I would have liked to have some more genuine emotion in it, but I might forego that this time, for the sake of the piece being an exercise in literary style.
Anybody got any thoughts?
~Sarastro
Need comments on how to continue this:
Tough Love
by Sarastro
Locked together in a perverse embrace of entangled wiring and shredded armor plating, the Barikian and the Risurian ship both careened screamingly into the atmosphere of the desert planet Desdra. The scoutship skirmish had been too equal; both pilots had won, and both had lost. As if on cue, escape pods jettisoned concurrently from both ships as the reentry turned their hulls to cinders. The pods crashed into the dunes not half a mile apart, and immediately let slip their smoldering soldiers.
Icobo would not be caught off-guard and knew from a decade's duty as a Barikian high-commander that attack was the best defense. Pausing only for a second at a time, he scurried quickly from sandy hill to windswept valley, heading in a slightly broken beeline directly towards his worthy enemy.
Tarla would not be taken by surprise. She was a daughter of the Risurian martial nobility. Her training should be more than a match for any dirty Barikian slimesucker. She clasped her ray-gun firmly in hand, and made her way towards the touchdown site of the other pod. Little did she realize that the next volley she fired would be her last.
From fifty yards away Icobo fired and tore off most of Tarla's already tattered space uniform. Her forcefield protected her from harm with its last iota of energy, but it only slowed her down for two seconds. Brandishing their guns frantically in front of each other, they fired as one, and their hearts skipped a beat as they saw that absolutely nothing happened. Empty.
They didn't slow down; they were trained too well. Muscles rippled and lips snarled as they swifter than thought traversed the few yards remaining between them. Seconds were all the time the matched warriors had to appraise their respective opponent.
It was an appraisal that caught Icobo off-guard and took Tarla by surprise. In all their bemuscled ruggedness the half-naked soldiers each saw the other as the image of absolute combat perfection. They recognized in each other the drive to succeed, the power and the skill to be the best, and the boundless relishing in their own martial splendor. The gladiator and the gladiatrix.
But hesitation made they none. They collided, and ripped at each other with renewed fervor and gleeful visions of gladiatorial glory. Icobo's mighty blow was caught in both of Tarla's hands, and his momentum pushed him headlong into the dust. He evaded the rapid descent of the rock that Tarla was bringing down on his head, rolling both combatants around in a maelstrom of yellow sand and sweat-soaked frustration.
Thus laying chest to chest and face to face, they marveled once again at the other's utter magnificence. Neither however admitted what they both truly felt: to kill a warrior such as this would be a terrible, shameful waste.
The fight resumed, and the matched fighters kicked and hit and evaded and feinted until exhaustion consumed them, and following a brief rest they clashed anew.
But each colusion was somehow less resolute than the one before, each blow somehow less grave. As their strength faded, a sudden revelation simultaneously dawned on them: they were no longer trying to kill each other. The blows were not as heartfelt, the kicks not as earnest. After one more insincere thrust and yet another reluctant parry, they pantingly ceased their personal war.
(They sat on the sand and inspected each other, a different fire now burning in their eyes.)?
* * *
I hope you'll agree that this is not bad. I'm certainly quite satisfied with it myself. It's got good style and a very readable flow to it (and was written quite quickly, a couple of days ago). But now I find it difficult to continue. The style might have to be changed somewhat. Obviously, they're going to get into each other's pants, but how?
Should they become friends and actually talk to each other, forgetting old enmities, forging a new and lasting alliance? Or should they just rut away, instinct-driven, like growling, speechless animals, and go their separate ways afterward? I lean toward the latter, actually. It seems to fit the style of the first part. I would have liked to have some more genuine emotion in it, but I might forego that this time, for the sake of the piece being an exercise in literary style.
Anybody got any thoughts?
~Sarastro
It's just supposed to show them being enemies from opposing sides in some big space war. But the story is really only about this specific situation.
