Sisters of the Flame Book 1 - Convergence - FINAL POST IS UP!!! AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nov. 17

Ok, more delays! I feel awful.

Turns out Eld hasn't known I'd been sending him PM's for a while because they've been coming from a new email and he thought it was spam. So now he may still be the beta.

CONFUSION!

Now that I know that, I feel doubly bad about it all. But The_Standmaiden is lined up to be beta, so I need to think about her to. I mean, two beta's would be a bit clumsy, wouldn't it? But I don't know.

So I'll keep y'all posted.

Should I just post the next bit unbeta'ed to hold you guys over for a while? Let me know.

 

I sure wouldn't mind

 

I feel kinda stupid myself too.

It's strange... ALL notices I get come in under a different name. Except hers. I get those under DoNotReply@ign.com and I set a spamfilter to it and didn't think about it until I got another and thought "persistent lil person".

Anyone else get them under different names? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

EDITI saw no post so I'm checking it now. I'll send it off in about 1 hr.

 

Ah, the wonderful world of computers *rolls eyes*

 

Many thanks and profuse apologies go to Eld. (BTW, I thought Goffa would talk a little differently to her brother, just because her character didn't really seem like she'd talk like Watto.)

Here's the next postie. I'm writing furiously to get another post or two done for you before I go to camp next week.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After ten minutes of walking around Ord Mantell, Danika had permanently pushed her cloak away from her shoulders and had her hands openly on her weapons. Alexander wasn?t sure whether it was those weapons or the increasingly annoyed face of Abby that was keeping thugs away. He was pretty sure if he had been alone, he would have been attacked numerous times by now. So he was kept silent and was glad for the company, even if there was an uncomfortable silence between him and Danika. Apparently his question to her earlier had shaken her more than she wanted to admit.

They had been methodically going through the areas of Ord Mantell where Abby?s contacts had been for the last hour. But all of them so far had either fled from some reason or were dead.

The trio turned a corner to walk down a darkened street and about halfway down, Abby stopped in front of a window where a partially lit sign read ?G+G Art Exchange?. Abby keyed a code into the pad beside the door and waited. When the door didn?t open she entered it again. After a few minutes of trying several other codes, she gave up and sighed.

?I guess they?re gone as well. Maybe Dole is still around though.?

As she turned to walk back up the street, the door behind them opened and a dark red and cream colored Toydarian fluttered out of the shop.

?Blood anda bones, Abby, thatta code?s been outta of date fora yearse now. It took us a while to figure outta whatta was going on outta here.?

?Gaffo! You have no idea how good it is to see a familiar face. Where?s everyone gone? We?ve been walking around here for ages and no one?s around anymore.?

At this, the Toydarian?s face fell a little, and he lowered his eyes. Then he saw Danika and flew around Abby to get closer to her.

??Nika?? He asked, then looked her up and down ?Well if you aren?t a carbon copy offa your mother atta your age I don?ta know whatta is.? His eyes flicked to Alexander, and a little suspicion threaded its way into his voice ?Whosa your handsome friend, eh??

?Alexander Helios,? he replied

?You?re avoiding the question, Gaffo. Where is everyone?? Abby said.

?Let?s go inside. Goffa?s justa made dinner. You know howa she is with food, we would have had truckloads of leftover?s if you hadn?t shown up, he he he.?

?Gaffo??

?Looka, just come inside, eh? It?sa bad to talk about such things on an empty stomach. You getta indigestion. Didn?t your mother ever tell you thatta??

When they entered the shop, the first thing Alexander noticed was that there were cargo crates everywhere, and things were half on the shelves and half in the boxes. They were either just moving in, or moving out. Since Abby knew the place from memory, he was betting on the latter. Why? He wondered as they followed Gaffo to the back of the shop.

?Goffa! Come see who?s here!? Gaffo shouted towards the back.

Another Toydarian flew out of the back door, this one?s back was a lighter red than Gaffo?s, almost a pink.

?Abby!?

Alexander was almost sure this one was female from the cadence of her voice and the way she flew over to hug Abby.
??Nika!?

She exclaimed when she caught sight of Danika. She stopped and looked her up and down, hands on her pudgy hips in a matronly manner that made Alexander smile.

?No. Not ?Nika any more. You?re not a girl now are you??

She flew forward and embraced her warmly, and after a moments hesitation, Danika let go of her carbine and returned the hug. Abby raised her eyebrows, then smiled at Alexander. He sensed something had changed in Danika in that moment, but he wasn?t sure what.

?It?s good to see you Goffa.?

?Good to see you too, Danika. Come on in the back, I?v made dinner and you look like you h

 

Wow, awesome cool post, Tab! I love the two new Toydarian characters, Gaffo and Goffa. They both seem like lots of fun!

Sawyer also sounds rather interesting...can't wait to see what he's able to do with the Dirk! ^_^

Great posting, Tab; so now Danika and Gang know about the Vong...can't wait to see what part they have to play!

 

Great postie, TAB!

 

Yay, new postie! Good post, nice to see something a bit more lighthearted for a change

 

Rokie: Yeah, I had fun making Gaffo and Goffa. heehee.

Don't expect anything too technical when it comes to Sawyer and the Dirk, that's my brother's forté, not mine. But I'll try.

Part? hmmm....well...you'll just have to wait and see won't you? [face-devil]

LtJS: Thanks!

Shinar: Yeah, a person can only take so much angst. Besides, even in fics life goes on.

Next post is halfway written on a piece of paper somewhere. I just have to find it. I'll keep you posted on how far I am with it.

 

I am sooo sorry guys, I forgot to tell you I was leaving for a week long camp. But I'm back now! I got back about 5 minutes ago in fact.

HOLD THE PHONE! I got a PM from Aunecah_Skywalker....

Congratulations! You've been nominated for the following awards in the Summer 2003 Fan Fiction Awards at the JCF Forums:

Sisters of the Flame for Most Imaginative Story

Please select an excerpt of no more than 2 pages to be presented to the voters prior to the voting round for each of the stories. If the story nominated is a vignette, please submit the whole vignette. If the story nominated is a collaboration, please submit two excerpts written by different authors. They need not be consecutive. We need these excerpts back no later than Sunday, July 13th.

Since that's tomorrow, I'm madly searching for an excerpt, so there may be a delay of a day or so. But the post is 3/4's written. Camp was so full on that I didn't get time to write another post But I heard a lot of awesome things about my Lord, and I changed a lot, so I'm really happy about camp anyway.

 

bumping...

Sorry for the long wait, guys. I'm feeling a little drained and am struggling to write. I'm also deciding just where i want this story to go. I'll get the next part to you as soon as I can.

But at this point, Book 1 (I think it's going to end up being a duology) will be done in 4-5 posts.

 

HA! You thought it was dead, didn't you?

I'm working on it...

 

I was wondering . . .

I've gotten to the point of worrying about Eld

 

He's fine. Just busy. Which I can understand.

I'm going to email the file with the next post to my account at school and work on it at lunchtime today. Speaking of, I ought to go....wish me luck at school!

 

awesome post... sry i didnt get to it earlier! i look fwd to more soon (hopefully) tho.... i cnt beleive its almost over...

-jj00

 

sry double post.

 

well, this part's nearly over.

 

thats wat i mean .

-jj00

 

I'm so sorry guys. Evil writers block coupled with evil yearly exams is draining my brain of any energy at all. Plus the fact that writing battle scenes was never my forte. I'm getting my brother to help me out though. I'll keep this bumped from now on though.

Never fear, Sisters isn't dead!

 

yay ur here! well.. abt time! yay for ur brother too. hopefully we'll get a postie soon! ;-). i look fwd to it!

i havnt really made any progress with that first chapter.... . jsyk. cause schools started and i literally have NO free time. maybe i'll try to get something done on friday but im not making any promices.

-jj00

 

Don't worry about it, JJ00. It'll get written. Who knows? In my quest to avoid all things English Books, I may just write some myself.

It's alive! I just sent the next post to Eld, so if he likes it, it may be up in a few days. YAY!

 

LOOK LOOK!!!! I'M ALIVE!

Incidentally, the one year anniversary of this thread came and went nearly a month ago. Wow. A whole year. [face_shocked]

Anyhoos, here's a post. Enjoy! (I hope. Well, if you're all still here after four months of non-posting)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next two days were spent in a frenzy of activity. Sawyer and Alexander spent most of their time at the shipyard; Gaffo and Goffa?s shuttle had been moved next to the Dirk so they could easily work on both ships at one time. The Dirk had been effectively gutted. Abby was amazed at how much of her parts and systems were so out of date. Then again, she hadn?t been tinkering with the ship in years. Now she couldn?t wait to see how much better her beloved ship would be.

Alexander had handled the coding for the new systems and parts that Sawyer was installing, and he had also added a screen and keypad to the Dirk?s co-pilot?s control panel so he could work on it from there. Danika noticed that but said nothing, assuming that he wanted to stay around them for a while, and was settling in.

When all the spice had been sold, Danika had cleared the cargo hold in record time and refilled it with enough food to nourish three adults for quite a while.
Alexander felt himself begin to believe that perhaps she wanted him around after all because of this. Of course she could just have been doing it out of habit ? to feed Karine as well ? but Alexander chose not to think of that option.

Sawyer was quickly persuaded to leave Ord Mantell on Gaffo and Goffa?s shuttle. Since none of them had any aptitude for weaponry, he and Alexander had hollowed out all the weapons systems and ports from the small, clunky shuttle and then replaced them with powerful shield generators. Alexander had then coded a complicated shield overlap system where each shield?s area was reduced by about a quarter. Every shield overlapped with at least two shields on either side. It had taken him half a day, but it more than tripled the shuttle?s shield strength.

Abby, Gaffo and Goffa had spent the last half of the second day deciding where to go. Grudgingly, Abby agreed that the best place for them to go would be Smuggler?s Run ? until Abby got her bearings in the Known Regions she had left so long ago.

So on the morning of the first day, the sleek Cianna Dirk and the clunky Pride of the Litter left Ord Mantell?s surface. Abby was in the passenger seat behind Danika while Alexander sat in the copilot?s chair, quickly finding the bugs in the coding and fixing them, while simultaneously plotting their course to Smuggler?s Run, carefully following Abby?s instructions.

Abby was scrolling through some information on Vong weapons systems that Howie had found on the Holonet. The information was sketchy and vague, but it was better than nothing.

? ?The Yuuzhan Vong use only organic weaponry and technology. They mostly attack with a small, clawed animal called a grutchin ? which chews through the metal of a ship and seems to be able to chew through shields as well, and a molten magma ? commonly called plasma. This plasma lands and attaches to shields and ships alike. Once attached, it is virtually impossible to detach. In time, the plasma will deteriorate the shields and the hulls of ships. If plasma lands on you, immediately head to the nearest planet or ? if none is nearby ? evacuate calmly in your escape pod.? Sounds nasty.?

?You know what? I?ll bet you I could code Sawyer?s shield system to modulate continuously, then any grutchins or magma wouldn?t be able to get a hold of it. All I would have to do is add a loop to the coding before the refresh command??

Lost in thought, Alexander opened up the file that contained his coding for the Pride of the Litter?s shield system and soon his fingers were flying across the keypad as he murmured words that sounded like an alien language to Danika. She had never been very comfortable with computers.

Suddenly his fingers stopped tapping, hovering above the keypad as i

 

*sneakily ups*

 

a year old and probably not even a quarter of the way done eh? good post

 

More than a quarter, but a bit less than a half.