So it really wasn’t a surprise when I was five days (and 12,000 words) in and realized this particular idea was not a good fit for NaNo. I needed more time to develop it and I could see where I was going to have to do some research and maybe even (gasp!) use an outline. I gave it a couple of days to make sure, and then I abandoned it and began writing a science fiction suspense/adventure called Quest of the Valkyrie.
I came up with this idea in high school and had ream of notes on different scenarios and characters and had even written bits and pieces over the years. I had a box full failed attempts and disjointed scenes. I really had no clue what I was doing back then.
But something about it called to me. I knew the story. I read as much of the failed attempts as I could stomach and then started from scratch. 52,000 words later I had another NaNo win under my belt, and the first volume of the trilogy I’d always dreamed of writing.
Prologue
In the history of the Old Race, before the Confrontation Wars, the Ashardean Silversouls began receiving portents of disaster. There were visions of a new race of beings invading the galaxy; beings terrible in their ability to fight – beings without conscience and without mercy.
They did not know when this would happen, only that it would happen. The conflict would encompass both known space and regions that were as yet unknown. It would culminate in a confrontation between The Betrayer and The Defender that would decide the fate of every species of known space.
The Old Race had been in existence since the dawn of time, so legend had it. They were the peacekeepers, the keepers of knowledge. They were long-lived, but not prolific. The Silversouls could only tell them that their knowledge would be needed were the human population to survive; they could not divine whether or not the Old Race itself would survive.
And so the Old Race began amassing knowledge. They built a repository for this knowledge on a barren moon and this place became known as the Temple of Wisdom. Five keys to the temple were fashioned out of virgin firestone and all five were needed to unlock it. Each key had a guardian, a genetic code that would be recognized at a specific point in time and then hidden until needed.
Having taken what precautions they could, the Old Race sent the moon off on a journey through space, knowing that even if they did not survive, the repository would. To keep the knowledge safe, details of the Temple, the Keys, and the Guardians were expunged from all records, save for a series of riddles kept under lock and key. And so the years passed . . .
Chapter One
The battle was three hours old. There was no sign of the enemy ship, though it left behind a trail of debris. The Valkyrie came to full stop in space, stabilizers barely able to keep it from drifting. Chandra, last of the Old Race, stood on the command platform beside Commander Aleron, an eye of calm in the storm of activity around them. “Has the Kohl-trin ship left the system?”
“Affirmative,” the dark haired man seated at one of the terminals surrounding them told her.
“Were you able to identify it?”
He swiveled to face her. “It was the Serpent.”
Chandra nodded, unsurprised, eyes still focused on the view screen.
“Estimated time of repair?” Aleron asked.
The sandy-haired man seated at the next terminal looked up with a frown on his face. “We need to put in some time at a base station, sir,” he said. “We really took a beating, damage reports are still coming in.”
“Do we have star-drive capabilities?”
“Short hops only, there’s a power flux that can’t be accounted for.”
“Plot a course for the nearest base station, but wait for my order before engaging.”
“Yes sir.”
“Skyler, Bran, I would like to see both of you when you’re finished here,” Chandra said. With a last look at view screen, she left the command centre.
The two men looked at each other – Bran raised an eyebrow in question, Skyler shrugged in answer. They darted a look up at Aleron who was looking at the closed door, as surprised as they were.
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