STEALING THE SUN
SCI-FI
80,000
Query:
Taro Takahashi's father built the fastest starships in the multiverse. His ships built an empire, but self-destructive obsessions with his dead wife and forbidden technologies led that empire to take his life. Young Taro, fatherless and forgotten in the cold depths of space, ran.
In his father's stolen ships, Taro left whole universes behind, but the one thing he couldn't escape was his name. He took a new one—Trig—and became famous for his own reasons: treasons as the case may be.
Now Trig's stolen the fastest ship in existence, the Rising Sun, but he still can't outrun his past. Ort—the scaly, six-armed, cannibal captain of the warship on Trig's tail—has a score to settle. The Sun—an eerie echo of Trig's father's designs—is surprisingly sentient (a forbidden technology), and not entirely convinced she wants to be stolen.
>From investigating a mysterious shipwreck in a far-flung fungal jungle to the final showdown with Ort aboard a forsaken space station, Trig's epic joyride becomes a race to save himself (and everyone else by proxy). If he wants to succeed he'll need to earn the Sun's favor. For that, he'll have to stop running long enough to face his past. His biggest concern used to be escaping his father's shadow; now Trig would settle for escaping with his skin.
First 150:
Trig couldn’t believe what he wasn’t seeing.
A shockwave sent him swaying. He kept searching for the shift control; they wouldn't destroy the ship to keep it from being stolen. Another blast, closer; Trig fell. He'd lost his footing, and his certainty. Would they?
The crew of the Yamato-Musashi was an Imperial warship's worth of hungry monsters, among whom Trig had stowed away at port. He'd eluded port authorities and the Vaxaxian crew—no small feat for the most wanted man in the multiverse—and located the warship's cargo hold without being able to read a word of Vaxaxian. That's where he found theRising Sun, sole focus and responsibility of the warship and its bloodthirsty crew, and stole it from under their noses. Snouts. Face holes? Whatever.
He'd powered up the ship, released the dock clamps, started the sublights, and cleared the warship’s gravity field, all without incident.
Of course the hardest part would be finding a button.
I love the concept of this. I'm a little confused as to how Trig's race to save himself has to do with saving the world/universe/everyone else as you mentioned (in parentheses), but it has all the ingredients of a great hard-sci-fi thriller.
ReplyDeleteI get an Andromeda/Farscape mashup vibe from this ~ :) It looks like quite an adventure! But - the query, despite some salient details, seemed kind of vague to me. The "His" starting the second sentence should be clarified - I had to read it twice to make sure it was the father and not the son. I'm also not clear about why he started running in the first place? Especially as you mention he's "forgotten". If he's no longer in the public eye and his dad's not a threat because he's dead...why run? I guess it all reads as plot and I'd like to know more about his motives and what he's ultimately trying to accomplish. :)
ReplyDeleteIn the 150 - I really liked these few lines: "...and stole it from under their noses. Snouts. Face holes? Whatever." Nice voice there.
Best of luck to you!
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ReplyDeleteLove your premise, query, and voice! The opening of your first chapter is excellent. One tiny edit in the query stands out to me: "...became famous for his own reasons: treason, as the case may be."
ReplyDeleteLove these lines: "That's where he found the Rising Sun, sole focus and responsibility of the warship and its bloodthirsty crew, and stole it from under their noses. Snouts. Face holes? Whatever."
Strong world-building but getting to the heart of Trig's motivations may make your work even stronger!
You've got my vote!
I really enjoyed this one. I cannot tell you how much I thought about it after I read it a few days ago. Love love love your voice. Great job! You've got my vote!!
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