Ch10: What a rollercoaster it's been. I'm so glad to find this story when there are so many chapters up to read at once.
Your mention that Rune and his puppet become important; my guess is that Rune is Zerachiel's ex unless I've completely misread your signals.
The strategy during the space battle was brilliant.
The angst in this chapter and the notion that all existence is a prison, way to go for painting that so vividly. "Poisonous bad vibes" indeed, and that's even before finding out the explanation for Ch9's message. I couldn't imagine what it's like to have ZERO privacy and no escape even from myself.
The theme of family, how all three males at Emma ended up alone no matter how much life they've experienced, I see that as a major theme that continues.

Totally enjoyable. From the preview I supposed this was going to be another case of a docile, malleable doll learning affection. Zerachiel's personality in Ch2 really pops. Each of the three major characters - him, commander, and Uriah - shine, and Uriah demonstrates rock solid will and authority.

Favorite line: "No doubt, Langley only saw in him a passive little doll, a receptacle for the commander's deepest and most depraved fantasies." With that instant attraction Langley showed in Ch1 - busted! XP

I don't know. I don't mind Lyn being introduced like that. If there were too many hints, we wouldn't have believed him dead, and I think that was important. I do kind of mind him somehow being different than the other Emperor's without a good reason why yet.

I wonder how Z is going to factor into this. I'm assuming Uriah is going to crash and burn, but why? And how will you make us care about it? We don't know much about him, other than that crabby Z hates him...and Z is crabby, so.

They did seem kind of important, if only as foils to Z and Langley.

Uriah thinks they're cute. What even? Just that line alone make me want to know more about him and the way he thinks.

Even *I* don't think they've been acting cute, and I strive to see cuteness.

I saw the title for this and the song started running in my head. I'd like to say that's because I just overheard "Supermassive Black Hole" in the show I was just watching and was thinking about the band, but I don't think that's it.

Regardless, I actually like the way the lyrics are just used as titles and epigraphs and still fi the story. Normally I hate stuff like that.

No, S, your love for the band has no influence on this...

Hmmm. So, I think there's a typo or something. I thought ring A was the first one that they lost? I think one of the A rings should be C.

The end kind of puzzles me. I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out. It seems too short to be over yet. I hope you're not doing that.

Hey! You're alive after all! I was really excited to see an update with this.

I can kind of see why you're stuck with this. I hate writing action scenes, too, so I can't help you much, either.

Good luck, Z!

Sounds like Zera's shaping up to be a good little secretary. Oooh, and action. I wonder what's going on - the mental image of Prakash drunk and leaping upwards at the red alert was quite amusing. x) I also love that Frank could tell soemthing was wrong when he beat his friend's score - tells you something about Prakash's interests and priorities, eh?

[1 battlecruiser, rapidly bearing on Ring A!] Yuck - write out the "one" since it's a number under a hundred and it's not a date or something on a written list/on a screen or something. Also, as a general rule, you don't want to start any sentence with a number that's not written out.

[Drop your weapons," declared the biggest and ugliest pirate...] Hehe...the biggest and ugliest. A universal sign of being in charge, right?

[A pirate attack after only a week being stationed on M317789!] Minor nitpick, but unless absolutely necessary, exclamation points in prose tend to look awkward. It's not a big deal, since you don't over use them, but as a matter of personal taste they tend to look sloppy to me. (Dialogue is another matter. :P)

[he paused whenever the pirate's shouts] Since it's pirates, plural, should be [the pirates' shouts]. If it were only a single pirate shouting then it would be [the pirate's shouts].

Glad to see Zera held his own for at least a while. I wonder what he was going to say? And what was Frank even doing there at the last minute? Curious, curious. The action's certainly ramping up. I have to wonder if this'll be a quick scrape they get out of or a more long term problem - kidnapped by pirates, taken away to somewhere...I don't even know.

Guess I'll have to wait and see.

- Moonstar

Ohh, that bet explains a lot at once, but poor Zera! Now I'm concerned for him - as well as rooting for him, obviously - but still. I wonder if being in such a remote place will make the disconnect any more stressful than it normally would have been. And I wonder what it is specifically about the disconnect that would cause him to die. I hope somehow in the end Frank can play the savior role in this, or at LEAST figure out what's going on and work out how to help.

Aha - so Frank was officially banished. Sounds like something he'd get himself into. Zerachiel's attitude towards Frank irritates me, though. Yeah, Frank is loose/easygoing, but he doesn't strike me as *dumb* and yet Zera's mentally going off on him and making him out to be an absolute fool for just minor things. Poor Frank. (This is not a criticism, by the way - I think it's great that you make Zerachiel's attitude so striking and apparent; there's no way to get the wrong idea about his thought processes here. The prose really reflects his opinions well.)

[He didn't know whether he liked it or not.] Lol. You've already made it clear you don't like it, Zera. BUT hopefully your opinions will change. I find it amusing that Zera and Frank's first impressions of each other are so wildly different. Frank with his instant obvious attraction and Zera scrunching up his nose.

[...not too far from my room."] Planning ahead, Frank? Naughty boy.

[How he'd love jerking idiotic Commander Frank Langley around.] Ouch. Nasty streak much, Zera? Humph. I hope he learns to respect Frank more. Very interesting dynamic they have going - such wildly different personas to work with. I look forward to seeing how it develops. :)

- Moonstar

Love the opening description - makes me wish I could write sci-fi, or you know, be transported there to stare up at that same scene. But, alas. Oh well. Reading about it is second best, I suppose. I think you did a good job setting up the picture of what's going on, though.

Hehe - I like that we get a sense of who Prakash is immediately from his opening scene. It makes me what he's doing way out there in the "lonely" sections of space if he doesn't even like looking at it.

["Yeah, I knew that," Frank said quickly. Behind him, Prakash snorted.] Heeheehee. Smooth, Frank. Very smooth.

[Damn, his lips were surprisingly full and soft-looking.] Jumping on the bandwagon already in chapter one, Frank? Tsk, tsk. I wonder if he's one of those slutty space captain pilot...er...officers. Like Kirk. :D *ignore me*

[Frank had accepted his banishment to Emma] Ooohhhh...I wonder if he literally means 'banishment' (some sort of punishment) or just as a term because it *feels* like banishment. Makes me wonder all the more about Frank's past and relationship with the Empire. I wonder if Zera's there to spy on him...

Not much slash now you say, hah; this is clipping right along I'd say. Nice start. I'm definitely interested in learning more about Zerachiel, too - how something that sounded originally like a router to the internet is now instead a military officer with rank and status and why they didn't send anything that could give Emma a connection to the stellarnet. Curious, curious.

Oh, and slash/romance progress will be lovely, too, though Zera doesn't seem particularly...snuggly...so far. ;)

- Moonstar

I'll say that I didn't understand at first why Z decided to kiss Langley, but it makes a bit more sense towards the end.

Also, Z is clearly not aware of all of the reasons, himself.

Langley's a bit older than I thought he was. It makes me curious as to Z's age, as well as his effective age, as he probably did very little maturing as a mindless puppet. And how he became a puppet (it doesn't seem like a born thing...), and why, and. And ugh. I'm curious about these things now.

So this: "ounce of sleep tonight." Kind of...bothers me. Not because it's not a valid phrase, but because it's entirely idiomatic with it's not actual making of sense. And Z doesn't really seem the type for them. But maybe I'm wrong. He just seems so...precise about everything.

Wife and kid...hm. Not sure how I feel about that.

Sex already? You *are* moving fast. I wonder how you're going to make it work.

Aah, love the premise—nothing like a good piece of space action. The idea of "psionically augmented organic robots" is also really fascinating. I wonder what kind of Psionics Zerachiel possesses?

The universe you've created sounds fantastic! Great descriptions for what you've mentioned so far. The Mytakkians really do sound cute! (#_#) I... kinda want to see one. They sound adorable—like sentient pet rocks, tee hee.

Anyway, great work! :3

And introduction of angst and a protp-Zerachiel. Something that tends to crop up frequently, and will of course cause problems. Will like to see more about that later and I'm sure we will.

Tetris. Of course there will be Tetris. Tetris has been released on every single gaming system (or a version of it) since it was created. Naturally there will always be Tetris. *hums theme to self*

Which places in this in far-future instead of alernate universe. Hmmm...You probably don't care much about that, but I find it interesting.

I can't roll dice. Carpal tunnel. But anyway, this: "The smell of singeing". It botheres me to no end. Singed wood smells different from singed flesh, which is different from singed hair, and singed metal, and singed cloth. If blaster fire has a unique scent, describe it.

Anyway, you successfully made me curious as to Z's motivations. Congratulations.

I hope I'll be able to help some. I don't write much action myself, so I'm going to poke around in this. I'll need some more ideas because I'm going to run into during NaNo and not have time to screw around.

As of now: it seems pretty good. I figure for actions scenes, things need to be heavier on the description than thoughts because that's what people focus on. And most people trained to fight develop a lizard-brain reflex to react. At least, that's how fencing and karate worked.