Sea of Stars Attempt #1

Sea of Stars attempt

Chapter 1 notes:
-There's a LOT of exposition and it's really dry and awkward.
	-cut down on unnecessary exposition
	-make any remaining flow well
	-avoid long tangents
	-combine certain tone-setting bits of information into
	 less explicit, more compact bundles
	-altogether, show, don't tell (e.g. don't just say that
	 the trucks don't stop for unwary women, and that people
	 collapse in the streets; put someone under the truck and
	 comment on why they might be there.)



Here we go:

Mikkei never thought she would win the lottery. In some ways she was thrilled, but more than that she was frightened. While nobody was expecting the Police to march into the factory with guns and pull her from the line, nobody bothered to ask what was going on. They all knew better. Resigning herself to her fate, Mikkei remained compliant as they corralled her into the back of a body truck with a dozen more women, who were just as alive and frightened as she. Wasn't she being rounded up for execution for some slight? Two of the four who collected her climbed into the cab, while the other pair hopped into the back. With only six guards in the back, security was exceptionally light, not that any of them would dare try to escape.

The truck set off, and mist began to fall from the ever-clouded as the wind whipped their faces. Mikkei briefly envied the guards, with their hard visors and tough armor, and wondered if they were still people behind the masks. To keep calm, she watched the scenery as it went by: dull grays and browns of dilapidated homes, crumbling excuses for streets, and the spires of factories belching acrid black smoke into perpetually gray skies. She'd once heard that catching a glimpse of the sun was good luck, but the only day she'd seen it was the day she took her best friend to a clinic. The wheels beneath Mikkei hit something, the THUMP bringing her thoughts back to the road beneath them, and as they passed she saw another Eloran, dead on the pavement. Whether she'd collapsed there or willingly jumped under the truck, Mikkei couldn't tell, but she knew the woman's suffering all the same.

After some time, Mikkei saw the port come into focus, narrow E'orran starships like bastard swords, towering over the docks despite resting upon their lengths. Some of the others shifted in their seats. They weren't being conscripted, were they? They usually sent the armored trucks to collect conscripts. If she tried to escape, how much would it hurt when they shot her? She wondered if she'd prefer the still and silence left by the peacekeepers' flechettes to life as a peacekeeper herself. They drew closer to the docks, and with horror she saw a small army of Police scurrying about, enough Police to lay waste to a city block. Her unrest was compounded by awe as another starship came into view between the corroded E'orran hulls. While the familiar ships were sharp and blade-like, with command bridges at the hilt, this vessel was all round, sleek curves, and pristine despite the polluted rain which tried to streak its astonishing white surface.

The truck joined a line of others, all unloading their passengers onto the tarmac. When Mikkei, too, was ushered out of the truck, she noticed the Police were much gentler than expected. They were all sorted into lines leading to some checkpoint, where a desk clerk demanded her ID chip. She placed her hand in the scanner and waited for instruction as the clerk read her information on the terminal.

The clerk's voice rasped from her skin-tenna. "12-779-8349-2186... Mikkei Ren, factory worker? Go on through."

She didn't hesitate to put a little distance between herself and the crowds of Police on the other side of the checkpoint. Security on this side seemed much more lax, and the static of hushed conversation crept through the frightened herd of civilians before a voice, one of the police, spoke aloud to be heard over all the skin-tenna chatter.

"Forget who you were before now," she said in the old tongue, voice raspy from disuse. "Your old lives are over. You have been granted the opportunity to travel across the stars."

Mikkei could hardly believe it, even as Police herded them toward the alien ship. More skin-tenna chatter crackled around her, much of it voicing similar thoughts to hers. Was her life of hot metal and grease stains truly over? She'd scarcely dreamt of such fortune. Even if she wound up working in another factory somewhere else, it wouldn't be here. It would be somewhere far away from all the death and smog of E'orra. The line shuffled onto the ship, past some alien guards wielding what looked to her like docile plastic toys. For a moment, the clouds parted, the mist abated, and the sun's rays gleamed from the vessel's hull. Then, an Eldoran guard shoved her onto the ship.