Another rough draft

Worldbuilding with character, and writing "aliens"

So there’s a lot of stuff I’m trying to do here, some of it more effective than others. It’s a balance, not dumping too much backstory into the action, and getting it right takes time. I just want to open with the caveat: this draft is NOT there yet. Not even close.

We met the narrator, Harees, once before, in Beya’s first pov in the second book—he was her replacement on McPhee5.

The biggest thing I try to do in this stage of a draft with a new character is get voice down. Figure out their personality. What distinguishes them from other people. Specific words they’d use, what kind of perspective they’d have on things, how willing they are, in this case, to follow orders. How curious they are about questioning those orders. Etc.

Here there’s also a lot of cultural and political stuff I’m approaching sideways, trying to answer questions for myself and the reader:

How do the Faege feel about the people they’re taking?

Practically speaking, how do they communicate across the stars? How was Nate issuing commands?

How clear do I have to make it why Nate would issue this particular command at a very specific time in book two before a bunch of other stuff happens? There exists an earlier draft of a similar scene written two years ago. In that one, Virmarr is on this job, and recruiting Danny may—or may not—be more random.

What specific words “terran” would Harees find unfamiliar? What words would he use? How many italic “foreign” words can I have in a section before it becomes annoying? (I think there are too many in this section now.) They don’t capitalize krov, so would they also not capitalize terran? I think so. And all people not krov (or not in the krov) are terran to them.

Practically speaking, what kind of ship is he traveling in? How many crew? How much of them are supervising him and how much are taking orders? What’s his place in the pecking order in general?

I think it’s roughly clear why they’re collecting pilots—they need pilots—and I think it’s fairly clear their version is less… pleasant and more permanent than the Guild version, but how do they get them to go along with that? Lies? Indoctrination? Compulsion?

In my head canon, a Faege pilot is an older, more primitive version of what the Guild does. And a great deal of Faege culture—a culture of empaths at its heart, even when that sometimes is twisted into something terrible—is built around sacrifice.

At this point, I’m not sure how many povs Harees will have, or what role he will play. I do want more Faege povs, but I have to get to know them first. You should not be shocked by his xenophobia… after all, you’ve seen the Terran version of same toward the Faege.

Now Danny, I do have a few ideas about his povs, and where they will go… but we’ll get to that too.

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Harees was only trying to comply with his new orders, but this crowded public square was a cold and dead thing, one lined with ceramic brick that tickled his senses, and underlain by lifelessness that was undoubtedly full of cursed metal. Unaware of their tomb, the insensate natives gibbled and darted on the bricks, basking in the stillness like a school of captive fish.

Harees suspected that beneath the ceramic there was a wealth of alien tek, more of those filthy wires and buzzing lenses that saw far too much. Passing beneath their ray-dar was nothing new for someone trained on Skye, of course. Over time in the field he’d grown used to dead things—prided himself on his ability to ignore deviance--but he’d been stationed on the living world of McPhee5 for too long and now such abomination stung his every nerve.

For a Faege, being surrounded by stillness grated like bone on ice.

Under Lee, his chores had involved scouting out weapons factories and shipyards on these alien planets, looking for holes in security, points of entry for their attacks, but had ended with her supposed death. New orders had come through the McPheean oracle trees, muddled and arbitrary as always, followed shortly by a shuttle of bone to take him to the stolen cruiser waiting in orbit, with its welcoming guards who’d come straight from the Two.

There was no way to refuse. An honor to be chosen by Nate: Harees was commanded to leave civilized space and pick up on the work Friend Virmarr had so recently vacated.

Recruitment.

It wasn’t until Harees landed on “Dims VI” that he learned the god who’d given the order was dead. He’d watched the alien broadcasts in fascinated horror from his o’tell, conferring with the Guard above on his sputtering fone. According to the stories on the screen, Starfire walked the stars once more. She had once eschewed collections, but that had been before they’d taken on an empire. Things had changed, surely she would see that… and if not? Well, no doubt they’d have a new god of grass soon, and really, it would be their call.

Anyway, they had no way to check. There were no oracle trees on Dims VI, and their singular pilot was still too raw to pierce the quantum barriers of time and space.

Now Harees was trying not to be overwhelmed by the press of bodies on this new planet; the strange emptiness in his senses, despite the crowd. Krov-dumb these people were, incapable of higher reasoning. He watched them stream past his small table. There was some kind of festival going on, with a parade and giant holographic images projected on the red walls of the buildings that surrounded him. And most of the crowd were cadets from the local military academy.

Young and stupid, and all stamped with that terrible human sameness. Two-legged, two-armed, even their clothes were all the same drab white, verging to gray. Dreary. Terrans squandered their long lives, spending a quarter of them as children. No Faege could afford that, not even the ones not marked for breeding. (Harees considered himself fortunate not to have been given that honor. Those marked to raise the next generation couldn’t be risked, not when there was so much in the wider galaxy to see.)

The boy he’d come for was technically past the age of maturity, for a terran. They were all terrans, Harees thought, no matter what planets their ancestors had scattered to. Stuck in their homogeneity, their fear of change, that infernal terran language it had taken him three months to learn, and their obsolete culture of filthy iron.

He’d seen the target in the oracle-tree’s mind, but it still took him a moment to pick the drab he was looking for out from the crowd—they really did all look alike, beneath their variegated shades of flat skin. Harees thought later that he only found the right one because the boy saw him first, face brightening as he approached. Of course he did. Harees deliberately wore a tabard emblazoned with the sigil for one of their profit-sucking komp-knees.

Daniel Ferdinand-Sai had intermediate skin with a shock of dark hair and a scant stubble like dying grass that trailed past his ears. He stood out in the crowd only slightly, wearing an earth-colored jerkin and loose trousers, a spot of brown in a sea of white. He also possessed a companion joined at the hip. As they approached, Harees noted that the target’s eyes were blue like lakewater or a mutant spider’s, and his companion was scowling, her own orbs dark, with one metal-laced.

The girl, perhaps his mate, had lighter hair cropped shorter. She wore the Academy uniform. Harees also noted the metal pistols on her hips, her bare arm of pinkish flesh, still devoid of its implanted abortion. So, not a pilot yet. But from what he’d learned on other recruitment drives, the bare arm was a sign of status.

The boy’s arms were both covered. In disguise? Or not a pilot prospect? He had so little to go on. Nate’s message had only the image of a face, and the urgency of the command, not even the child’s proper name. Whatever reason had sent their lord to demand this specific human had included a wave of anger so violent, that the child’s name rang in Harees’s ears over and over again. Danny. Find Danny. Bring him to me. Unharmed.

Oddly specific with the last—not that their training harmed anyone—merely set them on the right path.

It had taken Harees a week of charming his way into cadet circles as a corporate recruiter to track the “Danny” he’d been sent for this far.

Since Nate’s death, their contacts at Fleet had become quite silent regarding the son of a Lieutenant Navigator Rathe Sai, as well as a myriad of other, more important things. Perhaps they thought their work was over… reminding them otherwise wasn’t Harees’s problem. No doubt another team was already on that task; the ruling committee was nothing if not efficient.

No, his task was dealing with children—although notionally, by the archaic Standard measure these people used, Harees was only five of their “years” older than these.

Now he adjusted the badge of the korporashin he was wearing on his lapel, and raised his gloved hand in a wave.

“Cadet Ferdinand-Sai?” he said in a bored tone. The girl shouldn’t be here. He hoped she wouldn’t be a problem.

“Not a cadet anymore,” the boy said, frowning. “I thought you knew that.”

“He was the best,” the girl broke in fiercely. “The discharge was honorable—check the records.”

“I wasn’t the best.” Those lake orbs rolled toward her and then back to Harees. “I was third. He knows that.”

“You should have been—”

“Let me handle this, Charla. Please.” There was a ragged note to the boy’s voice that made Harees raise an internal eyebrow.

“Of course I’ve checked your records,” he lied smoothly. “An honorable discharge is fine! You’re a perfect candidate for the new cohort! To take advantage of this opportunity, you’d have to leave before graduation anyway.”

Daniel Ferdinand-Sai glanced at his companion again. “Charla wants to come too.”

“I am ranked fourth.” The girl produced a square piece of metal from her pocket.

Harees tried not to flinch as he took it from her with a gloved hand, wondering what by the Axe he was supposed to do. He was familiar enough with their alien tek by now that he understood it contained information invisible to mortal eyes, but—

Ah hah! he thought, and adjusted the carbon visor on his head, the one that concealed his not-quite-human gaze. He made a great show, of hemming and hawing, as if the apparatus in front of his orbs held some magic to let him “read,” a cold iron square. “Impressive,” he added, as neutrally as possible. He’d only allotted space for one, but they could always use more. Indeed, it seemed a shame to come to one of the barbarian’s academies and not bring back more. Pilot prospects, especially trained ones, were hard to find, and the ones in their schools were already screened for just enough krov. Too strong, they went to grass. Too weak… well, that was why they kept needing more.

These two would have some Guild training, at least. That would help them last.

“Of course we have room for two! In fact…” Harees had practiced his human smile very carefully, not to stretch his lips to far, or show too much tooth. “If you know any others…?”