#WeWriWa - RESCUING MARA'S FATHER: A Fight

Each weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

I'm sharing a new story, a Middle Grade/YA science fiction adventure, titled Rescuing Mara's Father. It's still a work in progress, so suggestions are welcome. The narrator is Mara, an almost 15-year-old girl who lives in a mining outpost on the Outer Rim. This snippet takes place a little later than last week's. Mara's friend Jako told her about a new ship that's come into spaceport. 

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited from the original.

 

Spaceport is at the far west end of the village, an easy ten-minute walk. I cut through the alley between Main and Back Street, but as I round the corner of the mercantile, I run into a cloud of dust. The dry season has been drier than usual. If the clouds actually bring rain tonight, everyone will be grateful, especially the farmers, but the dust cloud I’m seeing isn’t made by the wind whipping sand between the buildings.

No, it’s a fight—a one-sided fight, three against one. Since the ‘three’ are the Dunpus Brothers—meaner than vipers and stronger than hicans—and the ‘one’ is Jako, I wade in. I mean, he’s just a little kid, while the brothers are around my age. Two are older, one younger, I think. They don’t come to school—their father says it’s a waste of time.

Blurb:

Her father is gone! Taken by the Queen of Compara’s agents. Mara has to rescue him before the Queen tortures and kills him.

Instead of the kind, loving father she’s always known, he’s become demanding, critical, with impossible expectations—not just as Father but also as the only teacher in their frontier outpost. Mara would rather scoop zircan poop than listen to another boring lecture about governments on Central Planets. Give her a starship engine to take apart or, better yet, fly, and she’s happy. Now, he's gone.

Never mind, they’ve had a rocky road lately. 

Never mind, Father promised she could go off planet to Tech Institute next month when she turns fifteen, where she’ll learn to fly starships.

Never mind, she ran away because she’s furious with him because he reneged on that promise. Father is her only parent. She has to save him.

Along with her best friend, eleven-year-old Jako, and his brother 15-year-old Lukus, Mara sets off to find her father. An old spaceport mechanic and her mentor seems to know why the Queen captured Father. In fact, he seems to know her father well. But, does he tell her everything? Of course not. He dribbles out info like a mush-eating baby. Worse, he indicates he’ll be leaving them soon. And Lukus can’t wait to get off our planet. Mara’s afraid they will all leave her, and she’ll be on her own. Despite her fears, she has to rescue her father.

RESCUING MARA'S FATHER BLOG TOUR

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