They'd solved the mystery, but there were a couple things left to do... ------ Chapter 6. Numbers stared at her with all three eyes, one of them flicking back and forth to look at the display near him. "The 'Kryndomerr Resonance'?" "You and I did the work together, but you were the one who first found the pattern that showed something was causing well-maintained ships to disappear, and then did the hard work of deriving the function and building the models that showed that it actually worked the way we [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Resolution: Chapter 5
December 5, 2019 By Leave a Comment
Time to see what Sue and Numbers had figured out... ----- Chapter 5. Portmaster Michael Ventrella—newly inducted a month and a half before—gestured for everyone to sit as he entered. "We're not a huge organization, let's not get too formal," he said. "I hereby convene this official Review and Inquiry Report for incident OR-7-FTL, the event which resulted in crippling damage to colony vessel Outward Initiative. Are representatives of all interested parties here?" Captain Toriyama stood. "I am Acting Captain [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Resolution: Chapter 4
December 2, 2019 By Leave a Comment
Sue and Numbers were on the case... ------ Chapter 4. Sue shoved her hair back and forced it back under the restraining clip. "Well, now I'm even more mystified than I was before." She drifted over to the coffee dispenser, filled the transparent carbonan cup again. Numbers floated nearby, chaotic patterns flickering over his hide. "Yes." "I'd expected to find a flaw somewhere—neglected maintenance, a mistuned coil, a one-in-a-million abrupt coil failure, something. The symptoms sure looked to me like some kind of [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Resolution: Chapter 3
December 1, 2019 By Leave a Comment
Sue had arrived at the terribly damaged Outward Initiative... ------ Chapter 3. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Fisher, Dr. Pearce," Captain Toriyama said. Sue was slightly surprised to see that while many of his features were as Japanese as his name, his skin was the color of coffee without much cream at all; he was also tall and not bad looking at all, and would probably be even better looking without the circles under his eyes and the worry lines engraved on his face. Next to him was a woman who looked to be [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Resolution: Chapter 2
November 27, 2019 By 1 Comment
Well, Sue got what she wished for. Something happened. Now she has to deal with the "something". ----- Chapter 2. Raijin lay before her, a perfect sphere of polished silver and glass cradled in a setting like an egg cup, every feature of airlock, impulse jets, Trapdoor coils, and all others meticulously set as flush with the surface of the sphere as possible. At her approach, the circular airlock door swung open, and she could feel her omni establishing full link connections, readying the little ship for [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Resolution: Chapter 1
November 25, 2019 By Leave a Comment
Today I begin posting chapters of Castaway Resolution (which was originally titled Castaway Peril). Those who read the short stories posted on Baen's site may remember the first few chapters of this novel from there, as this book incorporates the short story "Disaster". A quiet day... ------ CASTAWAY PERIL Third in the Castaway Planet series By Ryk E. Spoor and Eric Flint Part 1: DISASTER Chapter 1. Sue Fisher tried to force herself to stay awake. Three more hours of this. If only something would [ Continue reading... ]
Lying About the Future, OR Reality is Unrealistic
March 20, 2017 By 2 Comments
I've written, to this point, five hard-SF novels, with two more on the way – the Boundary Series (Boundary, Threshold, Portal), the Castaway Planet novels (Castaway Planet, Castaway Odyssey, and forthcoming Castaway Peril), and one tentatively titled Fenrir. As hard-SF novels, I worked hard to make these stories as accurate-to-known-science as I could, within the limits of dramatic necessity and the need to not bore my readers with calculations and details that they didn't really want. But even within hard-SF, the author has to make a lot of [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Odyssey: Chapter 23
July 13, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Well, the Sergeant was back to consciousness if not to action... Chapter 23. "Whoa!" Tavana lunged out reflexively, catching Maddox as he was almost dragged headlong into the water. The carbonan fishing pole was bent in a sharp curve, vibrating furiously even while Tavana managed to get the smaller Bird brother back on his feet. "Got something, Tav, we got something!" "Vraiment, that we do! Can you hold it?" Maddox' face was set in lines of determination. "If… you can… keep me from falling on my [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Odyssey: Chapter 22
July 11, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Xander said the Sergeant was waking up, so why not see things from his point of view? Chapter 22. Campbell blinked his eyes blearily, forced them to focus. What… Oh. I'm inside my suit. For a moment he was confused. Was I on EVA? Fixing something? What happened? When he tried to sit up, he felt the tremendous lethargy and pain of having been still for many hours, even days, and his leg gave a dull throb despite what his nanos reported as "significant pain reduction". That cleared his head, and [ Continue reading... ]
Castaway Odyssey: Chapter 21
July 8, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Well, Xander seemed to have things under control... Chapter 21. The pistol bucked three times in Xander's hand, almost without him willing it. A screech and convulsive writhing showed that he'd hit the sinuous creature just as the targeting app had said he would; the centisnake, as Maddox had named the thing, shuddered to a slow halt; once it was still, Tavana stepped forward and brought the machete down hard, taking the head from the body and causing another powerful but this time harmless sequence of [ Continue reading... ]
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