(The title is just the first random thing that came to my mind so I understand if it sucks) This story is about a young pilot who is stuck on a planet along with his Novakid companion due to a ship accident that involved mostly bad luck and possibly not having payed attetion to the radar. [authors note/disclaimer] First, this might not be entirely lore-friendly regarding Novakids. I see this story as my personal thoughts on them, mainly because there isn´t much lore and information on them so don´t be triggered if I get something wrong here. Second, I´m no native speaker so bear with whatever mistakes I make. If there´s anything severe, let me know and I´ll correct it. Third, this is by no means supposed to be sexual. It´s supposed to show differences between the two races and their customs in a humorous way. “At some point there must have been civilization here.“ “Well duh“, Tesla responds. “Let´s just hope they also had advanced technology here at some point.“ Before I can say anything else the Novakid enters what appears to be the entrance to an old mineshaft. While I'm glad to be holding onto my rifle, which every crew member of a company ship is assigned, this isn't what I signed up for, after all. Even so, I follow her. At least the Novakid I´ve been working with for the past few months appears to be female. She is pink, has what looks like a long and messy ponytail on the back of her head if it was actual hair and a voice that is not exactly male either. Also, her body or whatever might be under that uniform is quite curvy. Lastly, she is somewhat tomboyish. But let´s not think about that too much. “I´m sorry“, I say as we make our way down the dark shaft. “If it wasn´t for me and my bad piloting skills, we wouldn´t have to do this now.“ “Ya already said that. And it´s still fine. Nobody could´ve seen those meteorites comin´. Actually, withoutcha piloting we wouldn´t have much of our ship left.“ “If you say so...“ She´s probably right. Although the meteorite shower damaged the thruster pretty badly, I managed to maneuver the ship into this planet´s orbit so that it would stay there. Also, the solar panels keep the AI and the teleporter just about powered so we were able to beam ourselves down here while the computer sends out an SOS signal. “So what exactly are we lookin´ for?“ Tesla asks. Conversations with her are always weird. Like every Novakid she doesnt really have a face. She has some sort of mouth which she uses to eat and a weird black symbol where most other species would have eyes. “I don´t know to be honest. Anything that might be helpful I guess.“ “Roger that, captain.“ Not to forget her strange habit of acting military and calling me captain at times. We arrive at some kind of doorway and a few metallic boxes containing some glowing red ore. The door itself seems barred though. While I am still thinking about what to do, Tesla proceeds to kick against the door, then pulls out one of her two guns and shoots a salvo at it. “There we go“, she nods. After another kick the door budges and we ready our flashlights to enter the darkness ahead. Strange noises echo trough the place. Slowly, I begin to raise doubts about this being a good idea. “Dont you think it would be better to go back and search elsewhere?“, I ask reluctantly. “Aw, come on. Don´t be like that. Ain´t scared of the dark, are ya?“ she teases. Or at least I think she does. It´s quite hard to tell without any corresponding facial expression. “No, it´s just...“ I´m interrupted by a load roar accompanied by the sound of falling rocks and stomping. “What was that?“ Another roar echoes through the cave, but much closer this time. In panic I wave around my flashlight until it catches something big. It´s hairy, chubby and off-proportioned, with short legs and huge clawed arms. “How didcha get down here anyway“ Tesla mutters while readying her weapons. The monster keeps stomping towards us and I try to hold my rifle and the flashlight at the same time. But as soon as I have to open fire, I drop the latter. “It´s comin´ for ya!“ Tesla warns me not a second too late. I manage to jump behind a boulder and evade the monster´s claws. She, however, is not so lucky. As she tries to find cover herself, something made of glass breaks and she falls over. I keep firing and yelling at it, but the monster doesn´t look bothered by my weapon. Tesla gets up again and tries to fire. But the monster already caught up to her. Its claws slash right through her. With a sharp hissing noise she… Dissolves into pink particles? “No! Tesla!“ I scream, confused and scared. Where my companion stood just a second ago is only a pile of clothes, her guns and a flashlight left. Adrenalin kicks in. Determined to kill this beast, I leave my cover. Somehow, I manage to jump-dodge several of its attacks. Still, it seems physically undamaged by my attacks. I almost can´t dodge its next attack when suddenly something hits the beast´s face and explodes. A pink hand appears next to me. Then, another hand holding a machine pistol appears. Again, loud hissings sounds and, continuing from the hands, something materializes while the gun keeps firing. Without a warning the monster roars loudly and falls over, defeated, forcing me to jump aside. “Gotcha!“ I hear Tesla´s voice. What the heck is going on here? “What in starnation was that, anyway? I feel like I just exploded from inside“ she goes on. Slowly, I turn my head to where the voice came from. And there she stands, with the gun in her hand, though slightly translucent compared to her normal looks. But… I can´t really help myself. I just have to stare. She actually has a body and its actually shaped like that of a human woman, although its like those blonde plastic dolls my sister had one of when she was little, without any texture or complexion and slightly glowing. “Are you okay?“ she asks. “T-Tesla, you´re n-n-naked!“ I finally manage to stutter. She looks down. Or rather, she moves her head into an angle that appears like she does so. “Oh, right. Ya humans don´t like folks to be naked in public. Sure, I can redress, but if ya wanna look some more that´s fine with me.“ Again, it´s hard to tell whether she´s serious or not. “No, please. This is just awkward, you know?“s “Roger that. Now where´s my stuff?“ Before picking up her clothes she looks at the monster´s body. “Ya think we can eat that, captain?“ The sunrise on this planet is beautiful. Our breakfast, on the other hand, isn´t. Because the ship takes much longer than expected to recharge from beaming down yesterday, we had to spend the night on the surface. And since we unintentionally cleared out the mine we decided to stay here. And since we didn´t bring any food from the ship, Tesla made a fire to roast some of the monster´s meat. It is by far the most disgusting thing I ever ate, and for someone like me who spent most of his fairly short life in a mining colony in the middle of nowhere where all food comes from cans that is quite a statement. Tesla doesn´t seem to share my opinion though. She just gobbled down her portion without a word and is now running around searching for her boots. As far as I can tell, this planet mostly consists of grassy hills like those we crossed to get here and some patches of light forest here and there. Maybe we can get a better look at our surroundings when we get up on the hill we´re basically sitting under right now. “What´s the plan for today?“ Tesla wants to know, now with her boots on. “Let´s get up on this hill first and see where we are.“ “Sounds good to me.Let´s go.“ Getting up on the hill isn´t too difficult and reveals the sight of even more hills, some with trees on them, some without. To the far whatever-direction-the-sun-rose-from there even is a small lake. But the planet itself is fairly small, too. And there is no sign of a settlement or something else that might help us. “Ya see that, captain?“ Tesla suddenly asks pointing somewhere. “What?“ “Smoke. Over there.“ It takes some time until I make out the thin grey line coming out of a patch of trees left of the lake. “Well, it doesn´t look very promising.“ “Ain´t much else here though“ Tesla shrugs. “I think… Okay, I guess you´ve got a point there.“ And if things get hairy we can still beam up to the ship by the time we´ll get to that place. There might just as well be something and I don´t want to miss out on any chance to leave this place. Our way leads us through a scenery of seemingly untouched nature. On another occasion I would have enjoyed it but right now I´m more concerned about what awaits us at our destination. After all, there is a good chance that it´s dangerous. Every little noise I hear makes me flinch and swing around my rifle as if I was paranoid. Maybe I actually am. It´s best to be cautious in a predicament like this after all. Especially if you never had to face something similiar before. With a lot of luck and a bit stealthiness we manage to avoid the few hostile creatures crossing our path and eventually close in on our destination. We decide to stay hidden and check out the place. On a small clearing ahead there is indeed a fire. Leaning against a tree a blue humaniod creature with grotesquely large ears sits next to it. Tesla wants to step closer, but I stop her. “What is that? Is it dangerous?“ “I dunno, captain. Was about to find out.“ Suddenly, the creature looks around alarmed. From somewhere out of sight it pulls out a huge sword with a yellow handle and stands up. “Who´s there?“ it asks. For some reason, the sound of its voice is strangely calming. “Calm down, mister fish. We don´t wanna fight you.“ What the heck is Tesla doing there? And why does she call it a fish? “Oh, is that so? Come closer then. You have nothing to fear from me.“ As it puts down the horrifying sword, I follow Teslas lead and get out of the shrubbery we were hiding behind. And now that I can see it without leaves getting in the way the creature turns out to be a white-haired Hylotl and what looked like giant ears are actually fins. “A human and a Novakid? I´ve rarely ever had the privilege to meet a Novakid! May I ask what you are doing this far away from civilization? Oh, but where are my manners. My name is Sora, former Protectorate scientist. Pleased to meet you!“ The sudden change of mood didn´t quite reach me so I try to look as little disturbed as possible. Especially the sword is still worrying me. “Well, I´m Martin Wang, freighter pilot, and that´s my colleague Tesla. We´re sort of stuck here at the moment you could say.“ “Nice meetin´ya.“ she adds. “Stuck? The three of us seem to be in a similiar situation. Please, have a seat. I´m afraid I can only offer you some wild potatoes I dug up this morning but I hope we can help each other through exchange of our stories.“ A hot potato is just what I need after our horrible breakfast. In exchange for that, I can tell Sora how we ended up here. After hearing our story and after my stomach is filled he looks deeply concerned. “I see. Under normal circumstances I would provided my help, but right now… Well, I could use some myself.“ Tesla seems to take this quite literally. “Anythin´ we could do then? “ “Oh, no. I couldn´t ask strangers for this.“ “Out with it, mister fish. Ya didn´t tell us how you got here, either.“ “You´re right about that. I at least owe you the story. Basically, my ship was sacked by a pack of nasty Florans shortly after landing. “ I smell trouble. Hopefully, it doesnt end like I think it will. “Captain and I already dealt with that monster in the mine back there. How ´bout we give it a shot?“ That´s exactly what I meant.
I think it's interesting so far, though it needs a little bit of touching up. Some suggestions: +Add more of a setting at the beginning of the story. (You have told us that it takes place in a mine of some sort, but what is the surrounding terrain like? And what time of day is it?) +Reference the protagonist's name at least once, currently Tesla only refers to the main character as 'Captain.' (If you want the protagonist to be only known as 'Captain' or 'the Captain' you can obviously ignore this, but if you have a name in mind, you should reference it at least once in this chapter.) +Change the spoiler name. (I'm not sure how you're going to do this story/series, but something you can do to help with organization and identification is to put 'spoiler="spoiler name"' in brackets, without quotation marks. To close a name spoiler just put '/spoiler' in brackets.) Grammar stuff: (you can do ctrl+f to find this stuff quickly) +"Holding onto the rifle that every crew member of a company ship gets and that Im really glad to have in this moment I follow her. This is not what I signed up for, after all." This first sentence seems a little confusing, so instead you could possibly change it to: "While I'm glad to be holding onto my rifle, which every crew member of a company ship is assigned, this isn't what I signed up for, after all. Even so, I follow her." (You don't have to change it to this, or even at all, just keep in mind what you originally put isn't completely understandable at first glance, someone might have to spend a few moments on it to understand what you're trying to convey.) -"Im really glad". Also in the same sentence you write "Im", this isn't proper english, since it's supposed to be a conjunction, use "I'm" instead. +"“So what exactly are we lookin´ for?“, Tesla asks." After you put the '?"' you don't need to add an extra ','. This is because the '?' ends the sentence. (The same goes for an '!', only use a comma in place of a period, and then put it inside of the quotation marks.) +"shoots a salve at it." A salve is a medicinal supply or a remedy, the word you were looking for is 'salvo,' which is a discharge of a weapon or artillery, etc. + "What in starnation". 'Starnation' is actually 'tarnation.' +"you know?“s" <-- random 's'. +"captain?“" If the title is being used like a name, capitalize it, if it's not being used like a name, keep it lowercase. Sorry if it seems like a lot, it's just stuff I noticed that you might want to look into. (again, you can use ctrl+f to find stuff quickly). Other than that, I like it and am interested in seeing where you go with it.
Oh wow... Such feedback, much quality... The spoiler name was something I just couldnt figure out. The commas after direct speach are a habit from my native language I cant seem to get rid of. Im going to correct that and other minor grammar stuff right away. Also, starnation is supposed to be a pun if you catch my drift. So thanks for the feedback. I didnt really expect anything like this so I very much appreciate it.
No problem, I'm making my own starbound story right now and I've come to understand how feedback can help a lot, especially when you miss errors in your own writing. (It's surprisingly common to forget a word or just spell one wrong.)
I will definitely check out your story, too, but I will have to read some Avali lore first for better understanding. Anyway, I´ll be uploading in relatively short intervals because I write my stuff during my daily train rides, so stay tuned for that if you´re interested. (Well, that sounded like some cheap advertising...)
I´m sorry for dissapearing like I did. Exams hit like a truck and I had much less time than I expected. Actually, I should ahve known better than giving an ETA but mistakes were made. But the next chapter is up and I actually managed to think of a proper story. So let´s see how that´s going to work out.
