XTBAD

Hey, this is my first post, lemme know what you think about this short. Likes, dislikes, etc. I look forward to hearing back.




Dark Sky
By Mike Lane

“We didn’t see it coming. We were, installing the new solar stills for the crops. The sun was bright and the heat was tolerable, it was a standard autumn day here… Then the sky… As if a storm had rolled in, started to vanish behind a cloud of shimmering silver.
“No weather shifts were due for another six weeks, but this wasn’t a weather shift. The cloud, now closing on our position moved faster than any cloud in the sky. There was no wind, only cool breezes, barely enough to move a cloud that fast. It was almost right on top of us before we realized it hadn’t changed formation. No cloud moves that fast, without wind and fails to change its shape.
“We left the solar stills and made our way back to the town. Levin stayed behind to collect the weather equipment. He never made it back. Before we could reach town, we started to hear… ungodly howls and screeches. None of it sounded natural, or close enough to be any of the town’s livestock.
“There was no way we could make it back to the town. Fear had conquered our intentions and our instincts began to take hold. We took refuge in the entrance of the ore mines. It was there where we first saw them.
“Looking up into the sky we saw what had to be millions of ships. They weren’t in our atmosphere, or even in orbit, they appeared too far away. They blanketed the sky now. Their numbers were phenomenal. On the horizon we saw where their armada’s formation ended. A sliver of the land, far off, across the lake was as sunny as we had been minutes earlier.
“The armada passed our planet, but in their departure they began to reform. Our whole planet is now in the shadow of their armada. They appear to have been heading directly for the star in this solar system. I can only draw conclusions at this point.
“We managed to make it safely back to the town. Countless people were terrified at what they’d seen. Some thought it was the end of us, and took their lives before we got back. For the most part we’ve lost all power. We’re now operating off the stored power in the solar batteries and what little wind power we have coming in off the coast… I should’ve been here when this all happened. We’ve lost to many people in the riot of fear.
“We’ve been without light for over ten hours now. Our power supplies, as I said, aren’t looking good. I’ve booted up one of the fusion generators from the colony module. It should provide enough power for…”
“That’s the last of the transmission that we received sir. The Frontier sensor array indicates that ten minutes before this transmission was terminated, the star in the Oceana system was destroyed.”
“Destroyed? How?”
“We don’t know. The Frontier array couldn’t pick up any reading of this armada that Golmin spoke of. If this information is true, and believe me I’d love to find anything that would prove it to be false, but if it’s true, then this… armada could be inside our most fortified areas and our scans would pick up nothing but static.”
“How long ago did we receive this transmission commander?”
“It arrived today, about ten minutes ago, heavily distorted, we required a few minutes to clear up the message, which is why we delayed this report. However, the initial transmission was sent…over a week ago.”
“Why did it take so long for the transmission to arrive?!”
“Didn’t you listen to what Golmin was saying sir? They were operating on reserve battery power and a class-4, colony issue, fusion generator. Their transmission barely had a chance to reach us from the frontier.”
“…What do you suggest commander?”
“We need to deploy massive scout fleets for visual detection, and make ready our stellar defense systems so we…”
“…So we what commander? Say something don’t just stand there! We need to take action now before…”
“My God…”
The skies over the capital world fell dark, as a shimmering silver cloud rolled across the horizon. Not a single scout ship had been deployed. Not a single defense force had been mobilized. There was no warning. They never saw them coming.

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It's the 80s and i'm down with the ladies.

Lily

I feel like I've been saying this a lot to everyone lately, but I'm just going to say it again. What you have here so far is interesting, but it needs to be fleshed out more. It depends on what you're aiming for here, but if you want to draw out an emotional reaction from your readers, you'll need to tell us more about your characters, about the world they live in. Is it planet Earth we're talking about here, or a fictional world? What exactly do these people do? This piece isn't quite satisfying- having read it, I feel like I still want more. Hope this helped- best of luck!

Also, you have to be really careful when you're writing something like this, because it's in extreme danger of becoming cliched, though I'm sure you can be original

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Insufferable Know-it-all.

XTBAD

Excellent. Thanx Lily, I'll beef it up a little bit. Other stories and things that i've written normally have long character development over the length of the story, but this was just something i wrote on the fly. I was working with my dialogue skills.

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It's the 80s and i'm down with the ladies.

Nazareth

"I'll tell ya Fred, I sure didn't see it comming. We were installing the new solar stills for the crops, minding our own business, when out of nowhere the sky went all silver like," I said, pulling my collar around my ears."

Fred shifted his weight onto his toes and his eyebrow shot up when he heard this. He leaned closer, all wiggly with excitement, and asked, "Silver huh? You mean like them fish we catch in the bay, silver?"



"Yeah, something like that," I said narrowing my eyes at Fred. Fred was a nice guy, but he was one or two connections short upstairs. I took a step back from him to avoid the sardine smell wafting out his mouth and continued, "It was the wierdest thing and gave me the willies when I seen it. Weather shifts were at least six weeks off, so we knew right then that it couldn't be from that," I said, shifting my back against the cool winter breezes. "The sky was dead calm, with occassional gusts, but nothing enough to move a cloud that fast. I tell you the truth when I say the formation never changed shape once.



I looked at Fred and noticed him picking his nose and shivering against the wind, so I wound up my story by stating we should grab some lunch at McDonalds, which we did.

The end.

J/K



Your story is Too "factual" - it gives too many "tell" details. I dunno- I'm not good at working with running dialogue like this- Ya maybe could have whoever he is telling the story to break in with actions and dialogue to break this up some to give it some speed- You could even break in with narrative. If done right, it will give the details in a more interesting way maybe. I think what it is is that your dialogue sounds too "scientific"- People don't speak that way in real life & when we read something like that it falls flat-stale. Work your story into real dialogue and believable actions.

You've got all the pertinent info, now create a great story I like the info you have, sounds interesting and very worth pursuing

XTBAD

I'm working with some of the finer points now Nazareth. I'm workin on a few things tight now actually but I'll definately try to post an updated copy or link to an updated copy sometime soon. I appreciate the input.

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It's the 80s and i'm down with the ladies.