Gynnos Seeker Project by Juneta Key

#storytimebloghop

Storytime Quarterly Blog Hop
January 29th, 2020

This is the first Storytime Quarterly Blog Hop for 2020. We are celebrating our fifth year of quarterly blog hops featuring speculative flash fiction. We have nine more great stories at the bottom of this post for your entertainment. Click the links to keep reading.

My news and a little history concerning my blog hop story.

This year I am determined to finish my first full-length novel participating in the Ninja Write Along in 2020. The novel is from my series world Starlight Galaxy A Space Opera, tentative title, Bloodlines.

It will be standalone that may develop into a trilogy. (I participated in NWAL 2018 but did not finish my story, a different series world. Still have that one to work on.) (The NWAL is part of the Ninja Write Club events.) (Not affiliate link.)

I originally created the series and world-building using Holly Lisle’s course How to Write a Series: Master the Art of Sequential Fiction. (<-This is an affiliate link. I am a Holly Lisle affiliate. Holly’s courses have made such a huge difference in my writing life. If you rather not use the link just Google Holly or course name. )

So my series foundation is solid. I learn something new every time I go back through one of Holly’s courses, and yes, I own them all. They are that good IMO. I will continue to buy any new course she releases because I ALWAYS learn something or improve somewhere in my writing using them.

I have many pieces of this world and story. I have three different bits of different versions already written. I will probably harvest some of that to use. I created these sentences during the course for my series world. It has been tweaked over time as things change or are revealed. They are for my use only during the writing process.

Book I Bloodlines Logline/Sentence Guide:
A guilt-ridden entrepreneur to protect his family must find his bloodlines connection to the guardian worlds before NovaCore Corp. closes the net that threatens to destroy them.  27 Words

Series: Logline/Sentence: My Guideline different from the book premise.
A determined entrepreneur must locate the Heart of Gynnos, before an egomaniacal CEO with illusions of ruling the Starlight Galaxy can awake an ancient sentient that devours galaxies. 30 Words

I am starting this first book from scratch in NWAL2020, sort of, re-plotting with the Shaunta’s Plotting workshop and A Novel Idea course included with the academy, creating new scenes and chapters. The world-building basics are already done thanks to Holly’s series course. I have part of the first chapter written around 3000 words.

I am workshopping the novel through Ninja Writer’s Academy created by Shaunta Grimes. (This is NOT an affiliate link.) Each workshop has 8 people in a class. The workshops last 8 weeks.

There are four 8-week sessions, broken up, during 2020 plus you get 4 mentor calls to talk one on one with Shaunta about your project in 2020. This has been a very positive experience and wonderful feedback in a safe environment. I have been very lucky to have found three such safe communities my first one I consider my first home HollyLisleWritingClasses.com, and then I found Insecure Writer’s Support Group, and now Ninja Writer’s Club.

I am so thankful to be part of them, and this year’s Ninja Writer’s Academy. So far I am loving it and it has been a big help and motivation that I needed. I am writing some new words almost every day.
My point here…

This flash fiction for the blog hop is a scene with one of the characters from the novel I am currently writing. I plan to go back later and expand this to 3000 to 10,000 words making it a bigger short story, but for now, you get to see a bit of the Starlight Galaxy.

I will be using Holly Lisle’s course, How To Revise Your Novel when I get to the editing as well and in conjunction with whatever the Ninja Write Along 2020 outlines for us to do.

The Gynnos Seeker Project

NovaCore sat like a small city in the middle of the dense jungle just 20 klicks from where Akira DeNaga, leader of The Hand, landed his Stealth fighter just outside NovaCore’s detection zone.  He activated the camouflage shields as he exited watching the ship blend into the jungle canopy. 

The tranquility of the jungle moon of Pandaria could be deceptive, and yet almost magical.  Moonbugs danced in the darkest areas of the jungle, tiny flashes of light in the night.   

Akira had one goal.  Destroy the Gynnos Seeker Project.   

There were dozens of building clusters covering over 25 leagues of ground.  The science labs hovered on large daises among the clouds, above jutting buildings that punch the sky.  The ground buildings extended 30 feet underground, connecting to the ancient catacomb mazes that ran even deeper throughout the inner planet.   

The Hand spies within NovaCore had provided a detailed map of the planet and the building that house the Seeker Project, plus the Pandaria sentries patrol shifts and routes.   Automation controlled the science centers and sky labs during sleep cycles. The security detail focused on ground patrol while sentry droids patrolled the sky.   

***

At the main building, Akira placed a communication control device on the outside communications array.  He entered the code that disabled security alerts and allowed entry into the building.  The inner lift took him to the roof, bypassing all other levels. 

One sentry operated the security post on the roof.  Akira pulled on his gas mask, counting to mark time.   On the last count, the door opened.   He sprayed the sentry, knocking him out before he could stand and react. 

Stepping out and moving around the guard post, he flipped the lever that released the sky-hopper.  Once he docked with the Sky-Lab above the building, he crossed the sky bridge through arched doors to the control panel punching in the entry code, GJH289KV834. 

The force field dropped.   Moving down the hallway to the next door, he repeated the process through three more doors using different codes. 

 The lab was home to thousands of storage cubes and data panels, and surprisingly other life forms detained within containment housing cubes. 

Akira accessed the database inputting the project ID number, SEEKER-420DALF.  Library cubes and panels shuffled and shifted, bringing to the forefront project SEEKER.   Instead of biotech data, or bioweapons, or sophisticated bio intelligence, he found living animals.

He read the data file. 

Gynnos Mountain Wolves.  Genome experimentation.  Gene Splice on bonded pair.  Genetically altered for hunting and finding the Gynnos race, specifically, the ones that carried the marker of the royal lineage. 

Male rejected alterations over six full lunar rotations.  Male did not survive.  Female survived due to the mutated gene and elevated antibodies that appeared with the onset of the gestation period.  Three pups all born healthy.  Project successful. 

The female wolf growled, pulling his attention away from the data file.  A movement to his right was the only warning he got.   A MEC9 robotic sentry appeared extending an arm and firing at him. 

Akira dove to the ground pinned down between the housing cube and the database.   The sentry had grazed his arm with that shot.  He checked the wound.  It hurt worse than sun scorch, but he’d survive it.   

The MEC9 fired again, hitting the cube control panel, releasing the door mechanism.  One adult wolf and three pups jumped out.  They watched the robotic sentry instead of him. 

He took a deep breath and prepared to stand and fire.   The female wolf jumped over the database ripping the sentry’s firing arm off.   Akira fired at its sensor panel, completely disabling the MEC9 unit. 

Turning to the database, he entered the code that would wipe all information about the Seeker Project from the system.  Looking at the wolves knowing the mission requirements, he gripped his blaster and then re-holstered it.   

***

When he retold the story later to the rest of The Hand on their ship the Hidden Glove, he ended the adventure tale saying, “I arrived a destroyer and left a savior.”

One of the wolf pups scratched his boot.  He picked it up.   Mama and the other two wolf-pups were asleep on the palette in the corner of his quarters.         

Escaping Pandaria Moon was tricky, but without the wolves possibly impossible. They were way more intelligent than the average mountain wolf.    There had been a real connection, a silent communication, between him and them. 

Finishing his report log, he input, mission complete.  He left out the part where he released the wolves before destroying the project.   

The real savior of the day?  Smiling, he thought, wore a furry suit. 

Check out the other stories from authors around the globe below. Leave comments we love hearing from you.

1. Shores of Lamentation, by Melanie Drake
2. Syrojax Lends a Claw by Nic Steven
3. Culture Sharing by Angela Wooldridge
4. Sisters by Barbara Lund
5. Rogue Ring by Katharina Gerlach
6. Grim Failures by Bill Bush
7. Secrets by Gina Fabio
8. The Daughter of Disappearing Creek by Karen Lynn
9. The Gynnos Seeker Project by Juneta Key <–YOU ARE HERE
10. Mugging Morpheus by Vanessa Wells
11. A Little Off the Top by Tyler Vawter