Prologue

Prologue

 

 

    Jonah Riley looked upon the planet beneath him with a combined sense of sadness, fear, and wonderment.. The blue and green world beneath him had been the home of humanity for billions of years. To be leaving it now filled him with a sadness that should be saved for lost family or lost loves. It tore at him, ripping at his heart. But while the thought tore at his heart, it also spoke too some primal part of him. Somewhere at the back of his mind, a growing piece of Jonah was realizing how far the Butterfly Effect could extend.

    The model his physics professor used was a ball at the crest of a hill. He stipulated that a ball would move into many of the valleys depending on any number of slight variances in its initial position.

     But it was on 12/21/2012 that the ball was replaced by the asteroid 99942-Apophis, and the butterfly was stepped on.

     It had passed too close to the sun and slingshot around, most of its mass burning up in the process. The mass that worked through struck the moon, shattering it in a single catastrophic blow. Barely half of the moon was intact; everything else was thrown into the earth’s orbit. For three days rocks the size of basket ball’s hammered the globe. When it was over the result was a singular ring of debris circled the Earth.

      The world as we knew it had changed.

      But right now Jonah was on a new ball with a set of new variances. The small spacecraft he was situated on held him and the three passengers comfortably, without the pilot and copilot. It was egg shaped in design with a wide frontal window and a pair of short smaller egg-shape thrusters on the each side. This craft was nothing compared to some of the stones in the debris field that they would have to navigate to get at Cerberus-Base-1. The ship lurched to the side, avoiding a stone twice its size. Seeing that stone Jonah’s thoughts moved on to the smaller rocks, those pebbles going several thousand miles per hour. The consequences of a hit by one played out in his head.

      It wouldn’t be a quick hit and boom like hitting one of the bigger ones. Instead it would be a more of a pin prick against the egg’s surface. Out of that pinprick would go the atmosphere, with it Jonah’s and every other passenger’s air. That would be fine, assuming that they were able to get to the oxygen masks in time and that the oxygen would hold out until they arrived at Cerberus-Base-1 or one of the dozens of stations that permiated the debris.

     But that was just one. If there was more than one then the spacecraft would be annihilated, holes cutting through the hull like a phonebook caught by a round of buckshot.  But that was neither here nor there.

     Jonah felt the ship lurch to the right. It circled around the moon, coming into the sunlight.

     It was then that Jonah saw it; there was Cerberus-Base-1. Like a gleaming silver starfish, the base stood out against the moon rock. From its surface towers of steel and glass rose up into the sun. Jonah found himself holding his breath as they landed inside one of the starfish legs. Once inside the lights came on, revealing dozens of other ships like Jonahs.

     Outside the ship, Jonah and the other passengers were greeted by a singular transport vehicle. It fell gently out of the sky before them, like a silver leaf on a nonexistent breeze. Jonah and the others clamored inside, the egg ship taking off as they left.

     Once they were situated inside the vehicle, Jonah felt a jolt flow through and the vehicle rose and they blasted forward. While the others were content to question what the station was like Jonah could only stare out the windows, watching the world they had just entered.  

    Vehicles like the one they entered flooded the station, hundreds of them floating through the air in their individual lanes. The monolithic towers stood against the blackness of space, lights flicker on and off in the individual rooms. But it was the blackness of space that intrigued Jonah; from the outside there looked to be nothing protecting the station from the debris field. On the inside there still looked to be nothing, but every now and then Jonah would catch sight of something above the station sky. A ripple would form over the station, like someone had thrown a rock into a pond.

    He knew on some level the station had a kind of shielding against the vacuum, but he didn’t expect it to be so large or colorless. In the back of his mind he expected something more colorful, like the barrier curtains from Star Wars or something that hugged the buildings.

      But then Jonah saw something else in the air. He thought it to be a star; a yellow dot in the sky, but then it got bigger growing into a golden sun. It punctured the shield with little difficulty releasing a low humming sound as it did so. The beam passed through Jonah’s vehicle, cutting from the driver side backseat to Jonah’s right side. The beam clipped his arm, as the other passengers screamed.

     Shouldn’t there be more pain? He thought, moments before the world around him went blank.

Author's Note

This is a work in progress. I appretiate all comments on this piece.

Reviews

I was prepared to be bored when I started reading this. Prologues tend to do that to me. This was actually interesting, instead.

You could definitely fix places where words are repeated too close together and fix up grammatical issues. In the first part, Jonah scowls several times. There are plenty of alternatives to use rather than sound like a broken record.

The first part with the teacher didn't make sense to me. Is he on the ship with Jonah or is he part of a flashback? What's the point of the exchange? If you don't need it, then maybe you can cut it out.

The action seemed to go by too quickly. Maybe the characters need more time to panic. More drmatic language could be used in these places as well.

Aside from those minor issues, I like this :)

[Bette]

i like this you drew me in a kept my attention, when first started reading i thought ii would be like the movie the butterfly effect so i was prepared for that, but surprised me (wich i like) i am not good with technicals but i would like to see you take out some of the repetitive words that you use a few times in on paragraph, but still with that said, i enjoyed it, the imagery was great. well done.

[Angie Diane♥&hea..]

At some parts I understood at others I didn't. I liked it regardless though. I understood what you meant by the end of the prologue. I really liked it. It wasn't boring. It was good. I can't wait to read the first chapter now. I hope it as interesting as this. :)

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Pretty cool. I like science fiction and fantasy. I won't comment on structure. I'm not a novelist. :o) I'm just a poet. I admire anyone who has a large enough concentration span to write books!

[J.P. Bristow]

I totally agree with the below this is great- and yes it is more like a chapter than a prologue but I am left to wonder if you meant prologue in the sense of an introduction to the reader of the pending story.... or prologue as a title of the chapter thus catching the reader up on the world as it is to Jonah?

Well done--looking forward to reading more of this!!!

[LilyM;)]

This is good:). There are grammar problems and parts that don't flow but over all the story and characters are well introduced

[Kaelyn Shea]

Great job i loved it all the way through you are an amazing writer and i think youll do great with the rest of your book!

[Belator Books]

The prose of this version appears more succinct, which is a big plus, and a little more on the 'showing' side than the version before as well. Still, there is a lot of telling. For instance, instead of telling us that the main character is sad to leave the planet ('mud ball' is a bit too juvenile an expression) perhaps he could look at the fading image of the planet on screen, with a sad or 'wistful' expression. Every time you tell us how he feels or what he thinks, try showing this via his expressions, or have him actually think it in italicized quotations:

Instead of: To be leaving it now filled him with a sadness that should be saved for lost family or lost loves.

"I may never see home again," he thought; the intensity of the notion's accompanying sadness surprised him. "It's not like someone died or anything..." he remanded himself, scowling. "Concentrate on the mission..."

[Stephen Scaggs]

And I agree with Meredith Greene. Lol.

[Belator Books]

I am glad you are yet perfecting this piece. The first two sentences : you repeat the use of 'beneath' too quickly. The prose harbors a great deal of 'telling' instead of showing; allow your characters to act out the scene instead of narrating to the audience; show Jonah's emotions on his features, instead of explaining them. Quote what the physics professor said, and insert it as if the character is recalling the information, instead of having the information float around in the air. It is an improvement and the concept is intriguing; i highly recommend reading a few classic sci-fi book, like Out of the Silent Planet, C. Lewis, or some of Asimov's work. Use their sentence structures as a model, their tone as a guide and their showing as a teacher in how to draw in the reader, verses talking at them.