Faustina continues her tour of the POW camp and meets someone unexpected. Afterward she and her legates head north to take a look at the Port of Savannah but find that to be too dangerous in the evening. Time for bed.
Over 3000 words this weekend! And it’s only 1300 on Sunday! A total of 51k so far! Where is this story going? Won’t someone tell me?
Faustina returns to Savannah to find out all the little details of what’s going on and what needs her attention. A fly-by gives her an overview. Right after she receives something not heard on Earth for a very long time… and guaranteeing her triumph. But she understands her most important task: “take me to the wounded.”
That is one of my life-mottoes. It is derived from Calvin Coolidge saying “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.”
Strangely, one of my other life-mottoes is from the US Marine Corps: “Doin’s better than thinkin’,” which I have used in one of my books. The gripping hand between the two is knowing when to act and when not to.
First Councilman MacRae’s proposal to Faustina was a bolt from the blue for her and me. Thankfully he gave her time. She takes a little of that time to place it before the brother she loves so much and her sister-in-law she thinks so mistaken. They come to the same conclusion: give it time. In a month or two, they could be in a hot-war with the PLA, or attacked on another front, or revolution at home, or… or… the horse just might learn to sing.
Tomorrow: back to Savannah!
Faustina gets out of the hospital at last. We see a little more of her odd cult as well as a demonstration as to why she’s so good at fostering it. She takes a ride with her sister-in-law. More politics next then – I hope – a flight with her brother back to Savannah. Busy, busy!
Faustina gets some laps in the pool then a bit of shock about what she is turning into in the city of Knoxville… essentially, her image is outstripping who she really is. The question shall be: does she try to catch up, or go another direction entirely?
Either way, her dad thinks this is all a crock and is worried sick about his little girl.
After not formally writing for a week and half, I feel as if I should be entering rehab; I have (looks about) five pages of notes from downtime at DayJob and quiet times about my house but when I just didn’t the time to sit down in front of the laptop.
That came to an end today. Daughter #2 off on a cancer fun-raiser, wife doing something about the house somewhere… I’d no more excuses. I fired up the pellet stove in the basement and came down thirty minutes later to write. So far, it’s working. 3k words of Faustina’s recover in the Knoxville hospital flowed right out. There’s much there: her physical condition, the reaction of her family to her injuries, and her fervent desire to return to “her boys” as soon as she is able. It will be a balancing act for her, in, I think, three parts. Here’s part one.
The Kindle ebook version is now available. I hope to flog things together and get “Crosses and Doublecrosses” up on smashwords.com this weekend.
In the meantime, with about twenty minutes of downtime between making chemos, I saw why Thaad chose to interfere in human affairs, specifically when it came to the Chinese military dropping more rods onto Savannah. Made about a page of notes… perhaps I’ll try to write some tonight?
Needs work. Couldn’t quite get into the proper groove of things this weekend: post Christmas and Daughter #1 back to college. It was nice to have her home for three weeks; of course she’ll be back in five days as she wanted to come with us to Ohayocon on the 10th-12th. That’s my weeb girl!
This is enough that when I rewrite it and edit it into a novel that it will work. As any regular reader knows, I keep things sparse and terse. It might be a little too terse here.
Some good news. Some very bad news. Faustina is learning to think under pressure.
Most of my fam is out of the house for one reason or another tomorrow. Barring any oddity I shall complete not only part three of three but also quite possibly bring Part One to a conclusion. What little I have seen of Part Two is… rather weird.
Hope everyone had the New Years Eve and Day they desired. I’ve spent most of the morning avoiding writing (two loads of dishes, repaired a space heater, collating a week’s worth of leftovers) and the afternoon sitting down and writing.
Below the fold are the first moves against the city of Savannah and the Peoples Liberation Army units that occupy it. There are several references to military history and we learn that like her Machine namesake, Faustina has what a normal person would consider to be a very odd sense of “fun.”
machciv 