3.20 - 108 words | Stuck Station | Stuck Station

3.20 - 108 words

Apr 15 2011 Published by under Chapter Three

“Memorable to who? Alitma’s going with us,” Daniel said.

“No, we’re not!” yelled one Alitma’s subordinates, a skittish-looking wolf-like biped.

Fingers flying across the command deck wall, the hairy creature hurriedly accessed the dreadnought's shatterwarp engine interface and begin entering a warp path—one that would take them far from the cannon's blast radius.

Before it could input the final command, Alitma stood, walked three steps, and smashed the subordinate across the face with a metal fist.

The creature fell to the floor with a thud, dead or unconscious, Daniel wasn’t sure.

“We stay here, until I get what I came for,” Alitma said.

7 responses so far

  • John says:

    Today's post is indeed 108 words long (at least according to http://www.wordcounttool.com/) .

    Hopefully, that's ok with everyone, especially since the next post will be have the extra 142 words this one lacked.

    Hey, Trak 42?

    Per your suggestion, I definitely plan to add some of the lyrics of Rachel-7's song (The Ballad of Alitma the Stupid ) to a future post or comment.

    Hopefully, I can make it funny.

  • trak42 says:

    yeah
    and i wish there were more people commenting i seem to do it the most

    • John says:

      truth be told not many people read this yet. someday i hope i have a lot of commenters but until then it's mostly you and CalLadyQED :)

  • CalLadyQED says:

    They're still alive? How long does it take this cannon to blast?

  • CalLadyQED says:

    John, I suddenly realized that you may have gotten the idea of nanobot clouds in part from the contemporary idea of cloud computing (in combination with the current advances in robotic surgery). Am I right? Or, being a journalist, are you going to refuse to reveal any sources; even sources of inspiration? :)

    • John says:

      CalLadyQED,

      Just like I didn't come up with aliens, robots or artificial intelligences, nanobotic clouds are something that science fiction writers and scientists have theorized, and I just piggybacked off their ideas.

      Incidentally, if you want to hear an interesting idea, check out the Grey Goo scenario. Some scientists worry that unchecked nanobotic research could destroy the world.

      As for the name "clouds?" Nah, it doesn't have anything to do with cloud computing, which I haven't done any research into. I was simply trying to think of what the different species of the 28th century would call these blurry and gaseous things that were so prevalent in their society.

      They wouldn't call them hovering sentient nanobotic swarms all the time--that'd be too long. So, cloud seemed to work.

      Thanks for the question!

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