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Space Adventure |
Derek's Writing Page Fishing History Short stories Children's Novels |
Derek MoodyCurrently looking to place: The 250,000,000 Mile Gang and the Secret MoonA science fiction novel for 9-12 year olds. Set in the asteroid belt and on the rapidly warming Earth it exploits the advantages and limitations of high speed networks and the strangeness of other people's ordinary lives. Complete at 80,000 words. — Download partial (100k) Traditional layout. PDF file. SynopsisHow can you have an adventure when you're stuck on a boring asteroid mining station and you haven't even got a dog? You access Jess, the labrador, via long range vid link and make Twm, her owner, a member of your gang, the 250,000,000 Mile Gang because that's how far away they are, then you synchronise adventures. Jess is clearly special: The vid skipped forward to a picture of Twm and Jess in a grassy place. Silver, adopted only child of same-sex parents, is newly arrived at mining station Orbital Nine. Cousins, Henry Bright and Vangi and Tim Tarr welcome Silver. They form a close group. Little sister Bex is too young for most of their activities but when Silver's parents open for business as jobbing spaceship repairers and Silver suggests they host a bubblewar tournament to advertise their new facilities Bex comes to the fore. She engages in a publicity bout with the Mayor. Bubblewars are indoor dogfights between low power zero-gravity ships firing paint guns: The picture span and zoomed crazily. At one point the Mayor's ship appeared dead steady in centre view while the spectators in the background whirled dizzily. In another moment Bex's helmet cam showed an orange bubble so close it looked like a football as she curled her ship around it under full power. Henry and Vangi both take the Space Crew Ticket exam and qualify to fly a dusty, a short-range utility ship. They take part-time weekend work shunting cargoes of Acontiice: reflective floats to be dropped into the seas of Earth to reflect sunlight into space and cool the planet. Soon Henry gains his Private Pilot's Licence. Now they can fly a proper space ship and get permission to use their uncles' Space Tug Stardozer. Vangi and Tam notice that an unexplored asteroid will come within range at the same time as Twm goes camping by the sea with his friend Hari. They synchronise their trips and link up electronically to share adventures. The asteroid turns out to be dull but it does have a tiny, exotic, uncharted moonlet. It's a decayed comet core. Vangi takes samples from the moonlet. Tam opens one in Stardozer's cabin. Henry said: 'What's that funny smell?' They extract the moonlet from its orbit and deliver it to the refinery where it's processed for its valuable, pungent, frozen gasses. Unfortunately the moonlet is claimed by Two Planets Mining who say they mapped and claimed it many years ago. When the gang try to look up the official record they find it's not on-line. It can only be seen by appointment at a Library on Earth. The library is only a short sail in Twm's dinghy Feckless from where Twm and Hari are camping. Twm and Hari visit the library and gather evidence. At first sight it doesn't help their case. Henry queried the database. He frowned. 'That's odd.' Twm and Hari's interest panics someone and the record is stolen from the library. The Earth police think Twm is the thief. The copies Twm sent to the gang expose conspirators defrauding Orbital Twelve, a mining station about to close due to what everyone had thought was a run of bad luck. We leave them with the prospects for Orbital Twelve looking bright and the the gang, heroes now, equipped for further adventures: 'We're "Local Boys Foil Space Plot" in two different places,' said Twm. ManuscriptDownload partial (100k) Traditional layout. PDF file. |