Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Alterations

April 19, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another round of Weekend Writing Warriors. I was going to move on to a new story, but I decided that considering where I left off last week, that would just be mean. I’m sure you’re all curious to know how Eli’s escape attempt turned out. This is from my erotic space opera in progress, From Mars, With Love.

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Reluctantly, Eli opened his eyes. A crushing wave of disappointment washed over him. He was in a pod, or half a pod, anyway. They hadn’t sealed him in yet. He tried to move but found his arms and legs weighed about a thousand kilos each. His left arm was stretched out along a metal plate, his wrist held in a vice and a microscope was trained on his pinky finger. Blue and red scan lines rippled across his mother’s ring.

“Until we discover the nature of the object, no alterations will be made to the host.”

***

So now you know. Sorry. Here is a pretty picture to alleviate your pain.

Okay, it’s an arrow, not a gun and to be honest, I don’t even know Hawkeye’s backstory. SF or fantasy? But do we really care?

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This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from a published work or perhaps their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or use the address: http://www.wewriwa.com

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ This One Has Value

April 12, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another thrilling episode of Weekend Writing Warriors. I’ve been sharing snippets from my erotic space opera in progress, From Mars, With Love. Guess what? I’ve finally reached the end of the never-ending chapter! Eli has made a break for it, attempting to escape from the slavers who were in the process of putting their prisoners in stasis for the long ride to Titan. I actually ended with two lines to spare, so I continued on into the next scene to provide a taste of what follows.

Then miraculously, Eli was in the hall and sprinting toward the shuttle dock. An earsplitting alarm sounded and he knew he had seconds before he’d be cornered and overwhelmed. He rounded a corner and came face-to-face with two surprised guards, who were even more surprised when he hit them with the stun wave.

He ran to the control interface of the dock, smashed the screen with the gun and jammed the snout into the splintered crack. After an agonizing moment of searching the weapon’s stock he found the power modulator and turned it to maximum. He took a deep breath, said a prayer to Lucky, and fired the gun into the guts of the shuttle system.

* * * *

“Can I snip off his genitals now?” asked a robotic voice.

“Absolutely not. This one has value.”

***

Sure Mal gets all the attention, but what about Jayne?

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Weekend Writing Warriors~ Proud and Terrified

April 5, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another exciting episode of Weekend Writing Warriors! I’m inching my way, eight lines by eight lines, to the exciting conclusion of The Call To Adventure Chapter of my erotic space opera, From Mars, With Love. Last week, faced with having certain beloved body parts forcibly removed, our hero Eli took a wild gamble and made a break for it. Pandemonium ensued.

***

The doors hissed open and a phalanx of guards charged in. Eli grabbed a confused asteroider and used him as a shield, avoiding the first blast of a generalized stun gun. Asteroiders as well as prisoners slumped to the ground and the shock wave seemed to have an ill effect on the crabs. Several started to spin and collide.

“For Chriton’s sake, don’t use the electric wave in here!” cried one of the guards. They too appeared confused. Eli had the distinct impression this had never happened to them before. He felt proud as well as terrified as he snatched a syringe hose and plunged it into the chest of an onrushing guard. He picked up the guard’s dropped weapon as he climbed over the body.

***

Fun with guns (in space)

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Pandemonium

March 29, 2015 by christinalay

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop, the one stop hop for all your fiction needs. This week I’m continuing with snippets from my erotic m/m space opera (how many descriptors can one novel need?) From Mars, With Love. Last week things were getting unpleasant in the slave ship when Eli’s captors decided to cut the ring off his finger. Today, for good or ill, Eli decides to be proactive.

***

A pair of cutting shears emerged from the end of one of the crab’s arms- this was enough to wipe away all of Eli’s hesitations. He’d been pulling back against the crab’s tugs and abruptly stopped, using the bots momentum to direct its arm and pincher into its faceplate. The plastic cracked on impact and the eyeball tube bent sideways as the metal pincer struck it. Eli leapt on top of the crab, slid across its back and hit the floor hands first. He tucked, rolled, and came up in a crouch. Four security crabs raced towards him.

The Moon Unit grabbed an arm of the bot Eli had disabled and swung it around in a semi-arc before it fired its thrusters and sent itself careening into one of its mates. Pandemonium broke out as half the prisoners joined in the uprising, and half fell to the floor either begging forgiveness or merely covering their heads with their hands or hand-like appendages.

***

I’m hoping this is a gun and not a fancy waffle iron.

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ This is Earth, not the Oort!

March 22, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another exciting episode of Weekend Writing Warriors! Spring is in full bloom here in Oregon, I finished my latest WIP and started a new job. Things are looking much rosier here on Earth than they are in space.

I’m posting from my m/m erotic space opera From Mars, With Love and will continue torturing my hero until I reach the end of the chapter. Last week we left poor Eli being prepared for stasis by two of the slavers: an asteroider (altered-human) and a floating, multi-armed robot called a crab. The crab noticed the ring on Eli’s finger and took a disliking to it.

***

“Leave it,” the asteroider said.

“I’ve analyzed it and do not recognize the metal compound. It might interfere with the electronics in the pod.” The crab kept trying to twist it loose and Eli feared the bot might rip his hand off along with the ring.

“What do you mean you don’t recognize it? This is earth, not the Oort! Well, fine, cut it off. We can always grow him a new finger.”

***

Eli wishes he was this tough. Maybe Harrison will show up and rescue him!

Eeep! I wish I could post the whole scene, I really do, but rules are rules.

By the way, you can still enter to win a Loose Id gift card and a copy of Touch of Salar at the giveaway for my Book Tour. Blood received 5 Star/Heart Reviews from two of the blogs on the tour so far! Check it out here.

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ What’s That?

March 15, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another dose of Weekend Writing Warriors, the hop where writers share their work in 8 enticing sentences.

I’m excited to get back to my space opera in progress, From Mars, With Love. This one keeps demanding my attention, so I guess I better finish it so I can get back to the “serious” stuff. 😉

Our hero Eli has been nabbed by a slave sweeper and taken aboard a ship bound for Titan. After watching some of his fellow prisoners strip, get inoculated and put into sleep pods, it’s now Eli’s turn.

***

To Eli the asteroider said, “Remove your clothing.”

Eli was grateful that as a scavenger he always wore several layers of clothing, but as he removed his coat, his sweatshirt and a zip-up cotton shirt with deliberate clumsiness, his fear of the crab effectively discouraged acting on any rash escape plans. He was down to thin t-shirt, surplus army pants, and was undoing the velcro on his boots when the crab snapped, “What’s that?”

One of the crab’s pinchers reached out and grabbed Eli’s wrist. The bot’s red eyeball flew outward on its own extending arm to inspect the ring on his pinky finger as Eli curled his fingers into a fist.

“Just a cheap trinket,” Eli said. The ring was his only adornment, the only thing of his mother’s he’d been able to keep and it was so small, it barely fit on his smallest finger. The bot clamped on to it and tried to pull it off, jerking Eli sideways, but it didn’t come off.

***

Really this whole space opera thing is an excuse for me to surf the web looking for photos of hot space guys with guns. Here we have Bruce in The Fifth Element- one of my top ten SF movies for sure.

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