Titan's Shadow - Story Extras

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't read Titan's Shadow, grab a copy (it's FREE this week!). The rest of this article gives away some major plots points, otherwise.

A few sciencey bits first:

• Jia only wears arctic gear and a full-face breather in Saturn's clouds. Atmospheric pressure is eighty-percent Earth's and the temperature, -99 C, isn't that much colder than the coldest temperature recorded on Earth, -89 C, in Antartica.
• When Jia and Ping attend the eclipse party, Enceladus eclipses the Sun. Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Rhea, Dione and Titan are all capable of causing eclipses on Saturn.
• Despite its thick nitrogen atmosphere, Titan is extremely cold at -179 C, which is why Jia's cryowear is adequate for Saturn but not Titan. If you're wondering why Ping needs a PLEX suit here instead of a regular spacesuit, read the Science of the Story section of Aero One (TLDR: spacesuits are not designed to keep you warm).
• Titan's atmospheric pressure is higher than Earth's. Jia doesn't depressurize Lucky Cricket's airlock before going outside. When she opens the door, Titan's atmosphere blasts in.
• Iapetus is remarkably far from Saturn. At 3,560,851 km, you could fit 279 Earths between Saturn and Iapetus. It's a good place for a smuggler's base.
• The concept of celestial Julian dates is only somewhat fictional. Real Julian dates are popular for astronomy because they are not calendar dependent; instead, they use Jan 1, 4713 BC, as '0' and count up days elapsed. In everyday-life you probably encounter a simplified version of a Julian date which counts days elapsed since Jan 1st of the current year, maxing out at 365. There's no reason that you can't do the same thing for any other planet. For example, Venus has a 225 day year, so it could have its own simplified Julian calendar which spans from zero to 225.
• Although the constellations will appear the same from any planet in our solar system, the morning stars (which are planets) will change. In Park 270 at the end, Jia and Ping see two morning stars - Earth and Venus - low in the horizon.

A few writing bits:

Titan's Shadow has a linear structure, but, like an action movie, has a few big action scenes. If you break the story into normal scenes (S) and action scenes (A) for the nine chapters, it looks like:

S S A S S A A S S

Neat, huh? It's fairly symmetric.

In terms of writing lingo, the inciting incident occurs when Jia spots Flynn, the midpoint is the news of the Hephaestus attack, the climax is the shoot-out with Sulo, and the Hermes's return is the resolution. If you map them out as inciting (I), midpoint (m), climax (c), and resolution (r):

- I - - M - C - R

It works out how you'd expect. The midpoint is exactly in the middle (and is the turning point for the story).

Aero One's story structure was very different. In terms of normal scenes/action scenes, its five chapters map as:

A S S/A S A

Still symmetric, but the opposite of Titan's Shadow. Aero One starts with action and lets you get caught up in the middle.

Okay, a bit technical for writing tidbits, but thought I'd mix it up and give you both the science of the story and also the science of the story.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Titan's Shadow - Deleted Scenes

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there's an editing joke about how Ford spent the past decade writing about all of Earth's best places, restaurants, and experiences. When his work is submitted for publication, the entire entry for Earth is simply edited down to two words: mostly harmless.

In a 12,000 word story, I tend to edit out 2,000 words. Mostly I delete redundant words and phrases. For example, he set the book down on the table becomes he set the book on the table. Sometimes I cut out entire sentences if they're dragging down the rhythm of a paragraph. Occasionally I'll scrap a scene if it doesn't do anything to move the plot forward. Sometimes it's a bit painful. It reminds me of playing Magic: the Gathering back in the 90s and trying to build a sixty-card deck. Choosing those last few cards to get to sixty was always agonizing because I felt that I needed each one.

There's no sixty-card rule for short stories, but there is pacing. Readers expect to hit certain waypoints at specific times, and the story will feel off if they're missed.

Here's a few of the deleted scenes from Titan's Shadow, and why they were cut:

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't read Titan's Shadow, grab a copy for 99 cents before proceeding.

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Original Chapter One (preceding Cassini): Shanghai

Jia sits in the pristine hallway with her palms folded over her knees. Butterflies dance in her stomach. In the corner of her eye she watches a young administrative assistant swiping icons between translucent displays, the Shanghai skyline spiraling behind her. On the adjoining wall rests the China National Mining Association logo. The assistant becomes aware of Jia’s gaze and stares back. Jia curls her fingers into fists.

A mahogany door creaks open and Ping emerges wearing a dark suit and tie. They lock eyes a moment. Over his shoulder lies an interview room and a single chair. Before she can ask him how it went Ping says, “They’re ready for you.”

She stands and smooths her skirt, her footfalls clacking along the marble. When she reaches the doorway Ping steps aside, but as she is about to pass he places his hand on her arm. A touch of his hand and a smile, then she’s through the threshold. The mahogany door closes behind her.

Two men and one woman sit at a table opposite an empty chair. The lead motions towards the chair. “Please, Miss Xu.”

Jia crosses the room and sits. Chao is the senior and continues to speak, “Thank you for your candor during this week’s interviews.”

Jia breathes in and out, aware of the rise and fall of her chest.

Chao nods to Lei and he speaks next. “Miss Xu, regarding the matter of initial contact with the pirate vessel Maya at the Uranus T2 orbital platform, you are found negligent of following proper disengagement protocols where crew safety or corporate property are at risk. Your actions resulted in the significant injury of Senior Flight Engineer Ping Sun and the complete destruction of the Cormorant-class light carrier Prosperity.”

A flush spreads across her face to her neck.

“Furthermore,” Lei adds, “during the same encounter you brought the ascent vehicle to full power while the platform’s umbilical and clamps were still engaged.”

“I was being shot at,” Jia says, the words more curt than she intended.

Lei sighs. “And then you intentionally destroyed it at a loss of a seven-hundred-and-fifty-million yuan.”

“Respectfully, Chief Lei,” she begins, “it was worth a tenth of what’s on the platform, and I didn’t think the pirates would be able to access the platform without it.”

Lei interlaces his fingers. “But they did, Miss Xu.”

Jia looks away, glancing at nothing. Her expression sours.

“Had you disengaged it is likely both ships would have survived.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t know that. The Maya was clearly aware of us before we saw it. They could have fired on us as soon as we tried to disengage.”

“We’re interested only in facts.”

“Well, Chief Lei, here’s a fact for you. One hundred and twenty-eight seconds. That’s how long it was from initial contact to the battery room exploding. I spent that time dodging slugs, remote-piloting the ascent vehicle, piloting the Prosperity, and generally trying to keep me and Ping alive. I’d like to see what you could do in that situation.” She shakes her head. “The real person responsible for all of that is still out there, and no one’s doing anything about it.”

Lei is silent for a moment. He taps at the screen on the table, then glances back to Jia. “Next, regarding the matter of the one hundred and sixty-three thousand liters of Helium-3 you purged to atmosphere—“

She laughs. “Here we go…”

“—your actions are deemed appropriate by the panel.”

Jia raises her eyebrows. Her lips part, but she says nothing.

Lei continues. “The loss of six-point-eight billion yuan of Helium-3 is regrettable, but purging was appropriate to ensure crew safety. In this case.”

A cautious nod from Jia.

“Your testimony was fully corroborated with Senior Flight Engineer Ping Sun. We find him non-culpable in these matters.”

“As you should. Ping didn’t do anything wrong.” She curls her hands into fists again. “It was my command.”

“We agree.” Lei looks over to Meilin.

“Then you’ve reached your decision,” Jia says. 

Meilin says, “We have. Your CNMA contract is terminated, effective immediately.”

Jia shakes her head. “That’s not fair.”

“To be clear, we had an extended discussion about pursuing legal reparations, recommending a pilot’s license suspension—”

Her face burns. “You can’t do that.”

“—but we will not do so, contingent on you not challenging the separation package. Your license will be intact and you can pursue other work.”

“Sure, I’ll just be blacklisted with every carrier.” She looks back to Lei. “You said Ping’s not responsible, right? I want your word that he gets to stay before I agree to anything.”

Lei frowns slightly. “We have not asked Mr. Sun to leave.”

Jia exhales audibly through her nose. “Fine.”

Meilin stands, and the rest of the panel joins her. “My assistant will escort you to your workspace, where you’ll need to clear your belongings.”

Clear your belongings is a gut punch and Jia’s knees are weak as she stands. She turns, crosses the room, and pulls the handle to the heavy door. Ping stands from the bench. In the corner of her eye the assistant in the red blouse moves outside her desk and walk briskly towards her, footsteps echoing rhythmically.

“I’m sorry,” Ping says.

“Miss Xu,” the assistant says, closing.

A lump forms in Jia’s throat as she wraps her arms around Ping’s strong shoulders. She speaks softly in Ping’s ear, “It’s okay, I knew this is how it would be. But Lei gave me his word, you’ll be fine.”

Ping leans back, slides his hands to the tops of her shoulders, and looks her in the eyes. 

The assistant arrives. “It’s time to go. I’ll escort you both to your desks.”

Jia’s brow furrows and she ignores the assistant. I’ll escort you both. She questions Ping with a gaze.

Ping rubs her arms. “When they told me they were going to fire you—”

She shakes her head. “No, Ping…”

“—I quit.” He smiles. “Hey, we’re a team. You wouldn’t want me inflicting my bad jokes on another pilot, would you?” He smiles slightly and slides his hand down to hers, intertwining their fingers. “Wherever you go, I’ll be there.”

Jia squeezes the tears from her eyes, leans her head on his shoulder, and just breathes.

---

WHY IT WAS CUT: The final version of Titan's Shadow doesn't introduce the inciting incident (Jia spotting Flynn during the eclipse party) until midway through the second chapter. This is already a bit late. Pushing it out another chapter by starting with Shanghai caused pacing problems. Ultimately, what happens in Shanghai is a retelling of Aero One which can be summarized as Jia gets fired for her actions in Aero One. It's covered in her dialogue with Galen after she turns in Flynn.

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SCENE BETWEEN "IN THE BLIND" AND "PISTACHE"

(DESCRIBING JIA AND PING'S RESCUE FROM TITAN)

Punga Mare station is illuminated like a roadside store on a stretch of desert highway. In the distance, a great black lake spans away from the shore’s edge mirroring the perimeter lights. The station is deserted and feels like an arctic research base. Jia and Ping stand near the main runway. She has her suit heater on, chewing up battery but warding off the chill. 

In the sky, a pale patch of light moves beyond the clouds, growing brighter. When the ship emerges, its spotlights carve foggy cones in the night. The craft turns in a wide arc and skims over the lake. It’s large, armored, and both wings sport railguns. Engines hum, crackling the air. It glides to a halt on the runway twenty meters ahead. When the door opens, five men in U.N. PLEX suits emerge, rushing over to meet Jia and Ping, and they’re aboard the ship in an instant.

The gunship blasts back up through the atmosphere like a rocket. Clouds part as a sheath of ethane rain pelts the window, the raindrops looking like a blizzard in the ship’s forward lights, then the storm gives way as darkness surrenders to stars. One of the stars is its own constellation of red, green, and white lights. As they draw nearer, Jia can see structure—decks stacked on each other extending along a trapezoidal axis, docking bays spaced like legs on a centipede, and weapons everywhere. It’s at least three hundred meters long with an asymmetric forward nose. Massive letters read Hermes. It grows impossibly large as their gunship flies along its structure into one of the caterpillar-leg docking bays.

A soldier calls over from the airlock. “You both zero-gee capable or you need an escort?” 

“Yeah, we’re good,” Ping says.

When they arrive at sick bay, it’s world-class, pristine white, and has tech Jia hasn’t even seen on Earth. Their doctor programs a nano-cellular repair regimen for her burns, encapsulate the bots under a layer of synthetic skin, and sets them to work. Her palms and knee feel like they’ve been dipped in glue. It could be worse. In a week it’ll peel off and she’ll have new skin. 

Their debrief is short with warrant officer Casey Gray from the Criminal Investigations Unit. Whoever deployed the drones did so on the dark side of Titan, out of view. Casey’s reviewing all traffic to Titan during the past few days, but Jia doesn’t need him to tell her that their job was a setup. 

“So,” Casey says, buckled into a chair in the interview room. “That was some pretty fancy flying. A couple of our guys can’t believe you kept three raptors at bay in a class-four hauler. Your PLAAF days are showing.”

Jia shrugs. “It’s been a while.”

“You flew TG-32’s. Two combat ribbons. Why’d you leave?”

“Family obligations.” She shifts. “Anyway, it got me my pilot’s license and paid for my degree.”

He nods and looks at Ping. “Quick thinking with the navcon telemetry.”

Ping shakes his head. “No special training. I’m just a nerd.”

Jia curls her fists. “You still have Flynn on board?”

A nod. “We do.”

“Either he somehow passed word about us or his friends figured it out. Either way, pretty sure he’s the reason we’re here. I’d like to have a few words with him.”

Casey appraises her. “I’d advise against that.”

“I don’t—”

“Request denied.” He unclicks his harness and pushes up from his seat. “Why don’t you both get some dinner and rest? Your escort will take you to the galley. We’ll reconnect tomorrow.”

“We’re not going back to Cassini?” Jia asks.

“Need to secure the area first,” Casey says, folding up his slate and tucking it into his belt. The door opens behind him.

Afterwards, Jia holds a tether beside the bed in their quarters. Ping rubs her back while she rubs her neck. Her hands no longer hurt, but they feel odd, like they’ve fallen asleep and she can’t shake feeling back into them. She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

---

WHY IT WAS CUT: The scene can be summarized as the Hermes rescues Jia and Ping and returns them to Cassini. Introducing Casey as a second investigator created one too many detectives. Instead, I moved the backstory dialogue about Jia's PLAAF days to Galen's conversation, referenced that she'd been treated by the Hermes medics, and expanded the investigation dialogue into the Pistache and Yin and Yang chapters.

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New Story Teasers

Jia, Ping, and the pirates return in my new story, Titan's Shadow. I'm working on editing and revisions now and will release it this month.  Here's a few teasers:

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Saturn’s ammonia clouds stretch off into an infinite horizon, the Sun casting long shadows across the platform’s deck. Lucky Cricket rests on the transit ramp silhouetted against the sky. Shimmering aerostat lights hang suspended in the clouds, waiting.

---

At first it’s a nibble out of the Sun, growing from its left side. It’s not until nearly half of the Sun is blotted out that the glare dims and the party fades to sunset. The kaleidoscopic sea of neon wearables pulses and  shimmers with the revelers. Ping’s hair shifts to amber. He slides his hand behind the nape of Jia’s neck and draws her near. Enceladus centers itself perfectly over the Sun, ringed by the corona, and, for a perfect moment, it’s night inside the Panorama. Ping kisses her, his lips warm and tasting of champagne. As they pull apart, the Sun fades in and the party returns to daytime.

---

Jia’s grunting, fighting with the controls. Fire suppression sprays a white fog which wreathes around the windows.

Ping is groggy, shaking his head. “Are we going to crash?”

Jia glances at the aft camera.  The port engine sheathing peels away and spins off into the darkness. “Yes. We are definitely going to crash.”

---

Galen stands and heads to the airlock. Inside, his EV suit is colored cobalt metallic blue with copper plates. Beside the suit is a rifle and pistol. He checks both before gearing up. 

Jia slips into her red EV suit as Ping dons his PLEX suit. Once she’s dressed she checks her pulse pistol. The ammo indicator is full. She slides it into her hip mount.

“Ready?” Galen asks, slinging his rifle onto his back.

Jia’s nervous, shifting her weight. “Yeah.”

---

Overhead, Saturn is a yellow moon in a speckled sky. A lone white star traverses silently across that sky. It flashes blue and Galen’s ship blossoms into a fireball. Chunks rain down streaming fiery tails, impacting the deck, while the smaller pieces shoot up into the sky like a thousand fireflies. There’s no blast wave in the vacuum, just the low rumble of the explosion’s sound transmitting through their boots. Everyone staggers back into the doorway.

Galen is stunned. He grabs onto the door frame and steadies himself. Ship pieces pulse orange like dying embers, flashing as if gunpowder were sprinkled on them.

---

Erebus - Writing and Story Tidbits

SPOILERS ALERT! If you haven't read Erebus, grab a copy first. It's only 99 cents. Seriously, you can't even get someone to read a 17,000 word story to you for 99 cents.

Erebus is the inverse of my original story idea. In my first draft, Sarah was the one who got trapped in interstellar space and James rescued her in Bernard's Beauty. I still have the draft of chapter one, titled "Gamma 222". Here's a clip:

Sarah breathes fast, her words muffled by the mask. “Collapse the wave.” She spins the damage control graphic with his fingers. Red flagged systems follow a diagonal line bisecting Gossamer Goose. Ballistics calculations plot the trajectory of the impactor.

But I really didn't want Sarah to be a damsel-in-distress. So, I flipped it.

One of the issues I immediately ran into is "one too many heroes" and I needed to think a bit about using story structure to address this. One thought was to use parallel stories, like "The Martian", with some chapters following Watney while others followed the NASA rescue efforts. You can see how James's scenes - crashing Bernard's, scouting the snowy landscape - would be compelling as their own chapters, and toggling between his and Sarah's story would be interesting. But, ultimately the story is Sarah's. It's about her voyage there, what she's feeling, how it changes her, and what she does when she gets back. As interesting as James's adventures are, they're the background events. It's a bit like how the movie Titanic wasn't really about the Titanic.

As an aside, I notice that James, who was the clear hero in 43 Seconds, takes the role of catalyst in the subsequent stories. When I write him, it's very easy for him to overshadow the lead characters, so I always need to use some restraint. I also like how his strength (taking risks) is also his weakness.

Handling time was one of the consistent narrative challenges. During James's voyage to Erebus, he and Sarah are in different timeframes. I decided to give a sentence or two for each of them during Jame's six transmissions. It's similar to the approach I used with Jia's video journal in Aero One. William's slightly convoluted whiteboard diagram for the rescue was another visual tool to help with time. Pepper in some flashbacks via James's two video logs and you've got a narrative moving on multiple time axis.

In a way, this story was a bit of an all-star reunion for many characters. A few thoughts:

• I'll bet James and Will's offices are just like you imagined. Letting Sarah sit in both gave a chance to see what each man valued.
• My beta reader commented that she always liked any scene where Hitoshi appeared. In 43 Seconds, he was Q to James's Bond. In Erebus, he's a little like Galaxy Quest's Guy, having read far too much sci-fi to think it's a good idea to be on an away team. I relate with him the most.
• Ananke could've used more air time, but she does get to ask a very important question near the story's end.
• I broke a bit of a story rule by introducing two new characters midway through the narrative. Isaac gets a decent share of talk time, but you don't get to learn too much about his or Julian's personality. I'm sure they'll appear in future stories. On the plus side, it was fun having an actual crew, and I liked how they each had their own area of expertise for the mission.

And a couple of plot tidbits:

• Cassini Station was developed for a new story called Titan's Shadow. It seems like a fascinating place, and I'm looking forward to exploring it. Here's a clip:

Rolin shrugs.

“Why didn’t facial recognition pick him up?”

“Cassini Station doesn’t have an open security agreement with EarthSec.”

“Well, that’s idiotic.”

He gestures towards the shops. “Everyone who comes here has some reason to get away from Earth.” He appraises Jia a second. “If Cassini had an open sec agreement, probably a quarter of its shops would be gone.”

• James tucking himself weightless into a wall-mounted sleeping bag was inspired by Chris Hadfield's video of sleeping on the International Space Station.
• When I wrote 43 Seconds, it occurred to me that if a ship could maintain greater than one gee acceleration for days at a time, then it could maintain a one gee deceleration long enough to land on a planet. The reason real-life spaceships can't do this is because they are rockets and are bound by the rocket equation. This means they can't possibly take enough fuel with them to both accelerate and decelerate the full way (because the fuel has mass and needs to be accelerated itself, requiring even more fuel). So, real spaceships need to fall from the sky at orbital speeds.
• At the end of the story Riggs switches from a threat to a defense. In the 1960s, fear that Russia would develop space superiority and deploy orbital weapons fueled the Apollo program.
• The idea of a ninth planet (or tenth, prior to Pluto's demotion), has been around for  a while. Dubbed Nemesis, some thought it was a distant object perturbing the Oort Cloud, raining comets down upon us. More recently, the theoretical planet was given a working name of Xena based on the Xena Warrior Princess tv series. When it is discovered, it will be given an official name. This will be challenging because the majority of roman and greek gods have already been assigned to dwarf planets, asteroids, or moons.
• As an aside, there was an actual distant orbit which grazed the Oort Cloud not very long ago (from a cosmological perspective). Scholtz's Star passed through our Oort Cloud 70,000 years ago. It kept on going, and is now 17-23 light years away. When it passed through, it was 52,000 AU away. In Erebus, Gossamer Goose travels 1200 AU. Scholtz's Star may have perturbed comets, but it will be two million years before any make it to Earth. When Scholtz's Star passed by, it would have been magnitude 11.4. The Neanderthals and early humans alive at this time lacked the telescopes to see such a faint object.
• In mythology, Erebus was the primordial god of darkness and consort of Nyx (Night). Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. You can see why I chose Janus for Sarah and James's adventure.

Aero One - Story Extras

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't read Aero One, get yourself a copy. For 99 cents you can enjoy a 9500 word sci-fi adventure. This post discusses plot points with some spoilers.

The idea for Aero One came from an illustration showing He3 mining with an aerostat suspended from what looked like a weather balloon. It gave me the idea of a hot air balloon ride in the atmosphere of Uranus, and that evolved into the thought of someone trapped in an aerostat navigating the planet's winds.

My first draft of the story had ramjets ferrying He3 up to orbit from each aerostat. When Jia and Ping arrive, they find the ramjets missing and locate them on Uranus's moon Miranda. It was a fun investigation which had some memorable imagery, but the logistics of the whole He3 mining operation didn't make sense. I kept thinking: that seems overly complicated - why would anyone do it that way? So, I stopped writing the story, opened a new file, and worked out all of the details of how the aerostats worked.

Sometimes in sci-fi you don't need to know how things work. For example, we were all fine not knowing exactly how Star Trek's phasers worked. Other times you need the details (or at least the rules). So here are the rules for the aeros:

• The aeros fly in a 12,000 km wide counterclockwise loop
• The aeros fly at 100 kph
• Doing the math, it takes 10.8 days for an aero to complete the loop
• At the end of the loop, the aero docks with Cloud Nine and empties its tank
• There are 24 aeros spaced every 1000 km. This means every 10 hours a new aerostat docks at Cloud Nine, empties its tank, and returns to the loop

Cloud Nine needs rules also:

• Cloud Nine processes what the aeros offload and separates out the He3.
• Cloud Nine is the air traffic controller and autonomous command center for the aerostats. It has its own repair facilities for repairing aerostats. The repair facility can be operated remotely, if needed. Ping mentions doing telepresense repairs in the story.
• Sometimes techs need to come down to Cloud Nine to either repair the platform itself or do repairs they can't do remotely. They use Cloud Nine's ascent vehicle, the Crane, to shuttle to and from orbit.
• The Crane can lift 100 tons of He3. Every month a cargo ship arrives in orbit and the Crane launches and transfers its He3 cargo to the ship via an orbital transfer platform.

As soon as I realized people might need to come down to Cloud Nine, it meant Cloud Nine needed to have clear emergency procedures and areas to deal with people being injured. A suit breach, for instance, would be catastropic without a warm, pressurized area to retreat into. With a twelve day wait for rescue, the emergency area would need to be a full habitat. It would also need to have spare suits.

As an engineer I work in an industrial facility. In the event of an emergency all equipment is shut down until the emergency is resolved. It seemed the same would be true of Cloud Nine. It would not keep flying in aerostats while rescuers were trying to get to the platform, nor would it do things like filling launch tanks when people might need to use the runways or ascent vehicle.

Once I had all of these rules, the story assembled itself. I thought about each next step Jia and Ping would take for their survial, what would happen when they did, and how it would affect Ward's plans. I can say that, if you're writing survival stories, your characters will try to take things apart, improvise, and work around their constraints. I struggled at first with Aero One because I hadn't worked out the constraints.

Now for the geeky fun stuff.  Here's a few subtle things you might not have picked up on when reading the story:

• The Prosperity approaches the loop from the east end, flying west towards Cloud Nine. They end up overshooting Cloud Nine by 38,000 km.  This means Prosperity is orbiting Uranus east to west, which is the opposite direction satellites typically orbit Earth. This is because Uranus rotates the opposite direction that Earth does.
• Jia and Ping lie on the floor of Aero One partly to avoid contact with the cold exterior walls, but also because heat from the aero's core warms the floor. Ping mentions casually that it's warmer inside the aerostat than outside.
• Just before Jia blacks out, everything to her left floats up and hits the ceiling, while everything to her right falls to the floor. This is because the Prosperity is spinning about its center axis as a result of the explosions in the battery room.
• Aero One's parachute deployment sequence is modeled after the Apollo mission's reentry capsule. If you think about it, Aero One needs to get from orbital speed (several kilometers per second) to deployment speed (nearly stopped) just through wind resistance and parachutes, without killing everyone from deceleration. Fortunately Uranus's atmosphere is much taller than Earth's, and the deceleration is spread over a longer timeframe.
• Sucrose is C12H22O11. As the story mentions, it's carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. These elements are present in breath and water. Presumably the suits have a mechanism for stripping apart and reassembling molecules, and the water lost to create sucrose is factored into the suit's two week operational life.
• Jia references her IFR training when flying in the murk of the troposphere. Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) are aviation regulations used when visibility is poor. Visual Flight Rules (VFR) are used when you can see where you're going.
• The diamond heating pattern Jia feels when turning on her suit's heater is a nod to Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.
• Astronauts overheating in space suits has occurred at least twice. In 1966, Gene Cernan needed to abort a spacewalk when vigorous physical activity caused his body to produce more heat than his suit's cooling system could handle. His pulse spiked at 195. In 2006, A bent water pipe compromised the cooling system of cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, forcing him to return to his ship.
• If you do the math based on the distress signal response and Ward's ultimatum, poor Jia and Ping only get two hours on Cloud Nine. It's just enough time for a shower and a bowl of soup. Life is never easy for heroes.

Hope you enjoyed the story. Thanks for reading!

Story Shorts

Take a second and glance up at the menu, on the right. I'll wait.

Find it? The new menu item just before the newsletter? I'm not selling athletic wear. In fact, I'm not selling anything. Those SHORTS are story shorts, and they're free.

Some of them will be bonus scenes to existing stories, like those DVD extras you get with director's cuts. Others will be new characters or subplots I'm trying on for a bit. They're not full short stories, just vignettes to capture the flavor of an idea, or answer a few open questions from a published story.

They're posted as a blog, which means you can comment on them. If you read a short you like, and want me to write more of the story, let me know in the comments. Shorts which gain traction may become full blown stories.

The first two shorts are posted:

• Last Stand: Kyan testifies about what he found aboard the Resolve, but other agendas are in play. (2600 words)
• Red, Blue, Green: Miyu thinks she's spotting for a data breach, but her life comes apart in an instant. (1500 words)

Hope you enjoy them!

Aristarchus Mission Patch

In Signal Loss, Kyan and Harmony wear matching baseball caps with the Aristarchus logo. In the first draft of the story I described the logo having a sunburst pattern above the ship's name, but the description was edited out to pick up the intro pace. 

I've enjoyed illustrating the covers for 43 Seconds and Signal Loss, and thought it would be fun to render the Aristarchus's mission patch. In the story, Kyan's cap and flight suit are ocean blue, so this formed the reference for the logo's color scheme.

Fun, huh? It picks up the story element of the Earth being occulted by the Sun while also illustrating the Greek astronomer Aristarchus, who was the first to propose the Earth revolved around the Sun (bet you thought it was Copernicus or Galileo? Aristarchus was a millennia earlier).

Enjoy!

Data Running - Story Extra

In Signal Loss, Kyan Anders is a data runner. I envisioned this as the data equivalent of the Planet Fitness commercial, "I lift things up and put them down."

So, what exactly is a data runner, and why would it be necessary in the future?

Consider this: Let's say you live in New York City, and you want to move a terabyte of data to Philadelphia. What's the fastest way to do it?

1. Transmit it over the internet
2. Pick up the drive with your hands and walk it to Philadelphia

This may require a #2 pencil and a calculator. Show your work:

Let's say you're a residential internet user with Comcast. I ran the Xfinity speed test and got an upload speed result of 11.8 Mbps. That's 1.475 megabytes per second. 1 TB =  1,000,000 MB.  Uploading my 1 TB file at 1.475 megabytes per second will take 7.8 days. 

On the other hand, Google maps for NYC to PHL shows an Amtrak option (1 hour, 9 minutes) or a driving option (1 hour, 46 minutes). Or you could just walk. Walking 8 hours a day, covering 30 miles per day, it would take 3.2 days. You could enjoy the extra four days wandering around South Street, seeing the Liberty Bell, and running up the Philly Art Museum steps like Rocky.

Other places you can travel to in less than 7.8 days:

• Anyplace on Earth. You can find flights connecting antipodes (diametrically opposite points on the Earth) with 30 hour transit times, and only two stops
• The Moon. The original Apollo Earth to Moon trip took 3 days.

Now, you're probably already ahead of me and you've realized, "Aha! But you've used a terabyte. Can we figure out how small the file would need to be to get to Philly before you do?"

Easy enough. My fastest NYC->PHL option is probably the 1 hour, 9 minute Amtrak option. Upload speed of 1.475 megabytes per second times 1 hour, 9 minutes equals 6.1 gigabytes. 

Similarly, for my antipode example, a 30 hour flight equals 159.3 gigabytes.

So, if you're sending things smaller than 6 gigs, the internet will probably win.

But, if you've got to move something big, and do it fast, buy a plane ticket. Or hire Kyan Anders.

Signal Loss

I've just completed a new short story, Signal Loss, 9600 words. Signal Loss takes place the day after the events in 43 Seconds, following a different set of characters in a very different location. Kyan Anders is a middle-aged data runner piloting the science ship Aristarchus at the edge of the solar system. His daily chats with his daughter are about to be interrupted as the Earth is occulted by the Sun, leaving him only with the ship's computer, Rios. When another runner and a mysterious object appear, things get complicated quickly and life-or-death decisions need to be made thirteen billion kilometers from home.

Solar conjunctions are real, and we usually think of them in terms of Mars slipping behind the sun, causing communications loss with satellites or rovers. At present we don't think of Earth/Sun conjunctions because there's no one to view them, but once people are on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system they'll become a thing.

Solar flares are well-known and affect Earth's communications. These will also be a complication for intrasystem comms.

In my previous story, 43 Seconds, William says "You can literally fly to the end of the solar system in fifteen days." He's talking about how a one gee continuous acceleration gets you to Pluto in fifteen days. But, Pluto is not the end of the solar system. In 2012, Voyager 1 reached the heliopause at 121 AU. Pluto only ranges 30-49 AU. The Aristarchus is somewhere between the two, at 86 AU. So, Kyan is twenty-six travel days from Earth (using the Aristarchus's RF drive). Even at lightspeed his conversations with his daughter have a full 24 hour turn around due to the distance.

Just as an aside, I think it's amazing that, as far out as Kyan is in the story, there's a real life spaceship (Voyager 1) that is much farther. Voyager 1 is nearly 40 AU past Kyan's location. To put this to scale, if Kyan were the Sun, Voyager 1 would be Pluto. That's how far 40 AU is.

I liked the idea that, even with RF drives, someone could be so far out that help was nearly a month away. Throw in Earth comms loss and you're truly on your own dealing with whatever situation develops.

The role of A.I.s and non-A.I. computer intelligences is also explored. If you enjoyed Ananke paired with James in 43 Seconds, you'll like the reluctant roommates of Kyan and Rios in Signal Loss.

There's a few other technological consequences which 43 Seconds mentions that are explored in Signal Loss. I'll keep those under wraps for the time being, though, to avoid spoilers, but I'll write about them once the story is published.

43 Seconds - Story Ideas and Trivia

I came up with the idea for 43 Seconds while mixing batter for my wife’s birthday cake. The two have nothing to do with each other, except that there’s a certain zen-like meditative span while the beaters churn concentric spirals in the bowl.  In my case, this was the perfect time to daydream of space adventures.  

Spoiler Alert - if you haven't read 43 Seconds, the next few paragraphs contain random babblings about key plot points.

I’d already had the basic idea of a test flight for an unproven technology, but the question that popped into my head amidst the spattering chocolate was, “What if James has to steal the ship to test it?” That spawned a torrent of follow-up questions. “How would he do that by himself? Does he have accomplices? Why are they helping?” Next thing you know I’ve got Ananke, and Hitoshi, and someone who doesn’t want him to go.

The story evolved quite a bit since the original concept.  Here’s a few glimpses into where different aspects originated:

He could see the Skyway3 news filtering across his audience. Feeds were tapped and haptics signaled notifications. Eyes darted to wearables and looked back to him.

The idea of real time social media updates streaming in while James was giving his speech came from a real-life example detailed in Ron Johnson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. In his example, a person was giving a public apology via press conference while monitors displayed Twitter responses. It didn’t end well.

"I mean, we’re talking disco-era technology, here. It was pricy, and it folded."

James and William’s debate was fun to write, since it was in response to the question, “Why wouldn’t you want an instantaneous near-lightspeed drive?”

The Sandpiper’s strobes pulsed red and green along the pavement while James finished his pre-flight checklist and chatted with the tower. 

Sandpiper was the name of the airline in the 90’s TV show Wings. Ah, nostalgia.

“Proceed to whiskey three-five, HPC359.”

All of the air-traffic-control jargon is real, but simplified. It was also an opportunity to see James’s nostalgia for the golden days.

"I remember titanium spirals corkscrewing through cobalt and chromium, the light catching the edges of each turn."

I have a very cool glass paperweight from a trip to the Corning Museum of Glass. It’s clear with blue and white swirls. This formed the inspiration for Ananke’s comments on Earth’s appearance from space.

"Will’s got a vintage Twin Otter that’s a blast to jump out of."

The DeHavilland Twin Otter that James mentions for skydiving is a real plane used by the United States Army Parachute Team.

The speck became an asterisk and bloomed into a proper space station, with a large central dome radiating into six landing pads.

The LEO transit station fuels and stocks vehicles parked there, a bit like loading food and drink onto aircraft at airports. The central hub has a very airport-like waiting area. The original scene was extended and covered all this, but was cut because it didn’t advance the plot.

Earth-Sun Lagrange Two was a popular place. Anything placed there would take one year to circle the sun, the same as the Earth.

Earth-Sun Lagrange Two is a real place. In real life, there are several probes, telescopes, and spacecraft currently at Earth-Sun L1 and L2. ESL2 is somewhat unstable, but I’m assuming the Hayden-Pratt test facility is capable of making its own course corrections.

“Fun fact,” Hitoshi said. “The biggest asteroid that thing’s ever fired on was only twelve meters.”

As I realized ships were routinely achieving fractions of lightspeed, the implications of catastrophic collisions with Earth became a problem. Earth would need to have a “no wake” zone similar to speed boats near shore, and a way to enforce it. The UNSDEF array concept was born. 

The Comet looked big from the control room, but as they approached it loomed spectacularly large. Nose to tail it measured fifty-two meters. It was rare to be outside of a spaceship, and easy to forget the true size of one when you were accustomed to the cockpit view.

Once I was at an airshow where a ladder was set up next to an F-14.  You could climb up and peer down into the cockpit.  I recall just how big the ship was, compared to what I was used to seeing in movies. The Comet is much bigger than an F-14, but the idea of scale is the same.

“Bernard’s Beauty, you are cleared for launch”

Yeager named his Bell X-1 Glamorous Glennis, after his wife. It seemed appropriate for Hitoshi to name the Comet Bernard's Beauty.

The Earth was a brilliant sapphire to his starboard, and Mars was a copper star forward.

I admit that I'm such a nerd that I plugged the story's date into a solar system simulator to determine the distance between Earth and Mars as well as how they would appear from the cockpit of the Comet.

There was no physical sense of speed—with Riggs there wasn’t even acceleration

The Riggs drive is a fictional variant of the Alcubierre drive. It works on a similar concept, but different execution. RF drives received some press last year, although conventional thinking still says reactionless drives are impossible. If you want to approach significant fractions of light speed, you need a way around the rocket equation, however, which limits how fast you can go based on your exhaust velocity.

“Are you crazy? You’ll be dead in less than a minute if you fly that ship.”

As an engineer, I have to say that what James and Ananke are doing is insane, but it wouldn't be a fun story with careful, pragmatic heroes.

“You were thinking in objective time. We would have been dead within the first seven seconds, on our timeline."

I got all the way to end of the story before it occurred to me that forty-three seconds would pass in just a few seconds for the crew due to time dilation. So, if you didn't die nearly instantly you were doing better than the last run. 

“We’re in trouble.” Red icons began spilling across the left screen. “Primary and tertiary are already in resonance."

For a famous example of resonance in a mechanical system, watch the video of the Tacoma Narrows bridge ripping itself apart. It's not quite how resonance between Riggs waves works, but it's the general idea.

Hope you enjoyed the story! More posts to come on the process of creating the cover, and self-publishing.