John Chastain

Here's an intro scene (prolog, chapter zero) that doesn't even mention the novel's main characters but is the reason the entire novel takes place. Act Zero or Prolog The cadet peered into the twilight over the distant trees, then at the screen on the communication console. Still no blips; the supply ship was running even later than usual. He and the Com Sarj were the only officers still awake, trapped in the tiny lookout center atop the station's tower, struggling to stay awake until this tenday’s supply flyer showed up. "Dunno where they get these pilots, Sarj sir," the cadet said. "They're late every time." "Bureau civilians, cadet,” the Com Sarj said. “Manual flight, no signals at any time. It's a wonder they get here at all." The two militars resumed their vigil in silence. The console shrieked and blazed red. "What! Distress!" the cadet cried. He palmed the hailing plate "Supply vessel, this is destination! Explain your--Fuck! Signal's gone." The Sarj pointed a night scope at a gray-green hull peppered with fluttering black spots, wobbling over the trees toward the complex, its cabin portal half-open and an arm hanging out. A body plummeted into the jungle. "Shit! There's biters inside the cabin. Fucking idiots must have opened the door. Supply vessel!" he barked at the hailer. "Touch down now! We'll send Containment to your location." "Speed and course for freight module " the young cadet reported in a shaky voice. "Unsteady and sinking." "Supply vessel! I said touch down!" the Sarj roared. "Shock your hull. Get the biters off! Now!" The hull did not shock, the flyer did not touch down. The Sarj turned to the wide-eyed cadet. "This could be bad, son. Suit up before--" Two modules away, the flyer plowed into the supply dock. The hull shocked in a blaze of lightning. An explosion rocked the complex, tossing the flyer upward, where it shaved off the com tower and tore along the module roofs on a trail of sparks. Inside the complex, debris flew, lights failed, sirens shrieked, doors sealed, and vents whirred. Three modules away, Commander Sharl Agrik started at the noise. Yellow containment lights flashed overhead; panicked voices chattered in her earpiece, then quickly went silent. She ran for the bio lab module. At the laboratory window, she palmed a speaker plate. "Breach! Shut it down, wizards! Get to Decon, then Refuge. Now!" Most of the twenty scientists hurried from their stations, but a few glared at her over their shoulders at yet another interruption. Another explosion, the groaning ceiling and warping windows, flickering screens, and ever louder alarms inspired them to follow their colleagues. One lab-coated figure turned toward the window. "What is it this time, Sharl?" she yelled, pointing to a wall clock. "It's only 9.75 hours!" "Supply ship got swarmed and came in dead," Agrik shouted over the rumbling and creaking of the building. "Hit the dock pad, tore open all eight roofs, landed in the atrium. We've already lost three staffers to vamp bites--hold on, got a call. Agrik here. Yeah." She stared at the com dot, then said faintly, "Acknowledged." Grim-faced, she turned to the professor. "It's bad, Urb. The Fast got in."[JC1] An outer window warped until it exploded into the room; the wall cracked. Prof Urbana wrenched open the sealed lab door and stepped out. She tried to shut the door, but the frame had warped. The women headed toward the decon booth at the far end of the module. "Nobody's on the com. Last report was, Containment tried to scorch the flyer and the warehouse module." "That Lesser Vamp swarm," Urbana said. "It wasn't normal." "Neither is this damage level." The last of the power failed. Ghostly emergency lights sputtered on briefly, then most went dark. The structure around them groaned and cracked, sealed windows sprang from their frames, the rush of airmakers ceased. The two women exchanged a long look and headed to the reserve decon booth. They found it open to the night sky and crawling with tiny vampires. The exterior doors were jammed open with bloody, swelling corpses. Sharl backed away [JC3] and slammed the inner door. "To the bail port, now!" She and Urbana hurried down a groaning corridor, tendrils of smoke following them, until they reached a heavy door that still stood in its frame. Sharl wrenched the door aside and shone a wrist torch inside. The outer door was still sealed; an untouched shelf of packaged bitesuits lined one bulkhead. Sharl and Urbana stared at each other. No one else had made it this far. "I smell smoke," Urbana said, forcing the hall entrance shut. Something fell and clanged against the outside of the door. "Into heavy bitesuits," Sharl ordered. "The crawler park is right outside. We'll get to one and hope it's stocked up." The pair struggled into the bulky suits, Sharl's wrist torch flashing about wildly in the tiny chamber. Sharl handed Urbana a pistol and readied her own. "It's set to mid-wide. Should kill or stun any biters that get too close. Ready?" The Prof nodded. Sharl wrenched open the outer door. A few groans and a stench hit them. A few fallen figures stirred weakly and then stilled. Bodies hung from the opened portals of the nearest crawlers, arms reaching for blood on the ground. She pointed the pistol overhead and held down the trigger; it hummed and began to heat up. "Third crawler over is still okay. Stay close. Don't stop." The women crouched beneath the flickering pistol shield and hurried toward the crawler’s portal. #

Some years ago, a lecturer from the Bethesda Writers' Center gave the best advice I've ever heard for wannabe writers on seeking publication: "You are the rule, not the exception."

Algonkian Assignments 2025 Story Statement Two scientists are drafted to save a rare and deadly predator species from extinction at the hands of an ecocriminal. Antagonist A ruthless self-promoter and careerist, Rud Imazve was convicted of criminal ecodisaster and exiled to a desolate, boondocks planet. There, he schemes to earn his way back to the glitzy Center by exterminating a predatory species that plagues the humans inhabiting a lush, earthlike world in the same star system. He envisions offering the beleaguered Center a new place to stash its overflowing human population--including a few million refugees from his ecodisaster that destroyed their world. When a sudden snafu requires him to beg the Center for help with his plan, the Center sends him the two scientists who hate him the most: (1) the biome investigator whose report got him convicted in the first place, and (2) a xenoveterinarian who was a childhood refugee from the disaster. Desperate, he has to play nice with these two, while schmoozing, steering and tricking them into his sketchy extermination scheme. Breakout Title Something to suggest that this is a lighthearted tale of impending ecodisaster and extinction, e.g.: Fiends Like These [or other puns with "fiends," e.g., What Are Fiends For?] Don't Kill the Monsters Comps What We Are Seeking, by Cameron Reed. (According to Amazon, forthcoming from Tor April 7, 2026.) Similar setting, tropes, and cast of characters: boondocks planet, baffled humans facing a mysterious species, scientist(s) drafted to investigate….) Humorous-&-sometimes-scary scifi and scifi-adjacent novels, like (tall cotton, here!): Lois MacMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga; Russel Hoban's Riddley Walker; Rick Gualtieri's Bill the Vampire series; and (dare I invoke it) the original Star Wars movies. [Author's Note: Don't worry, my vampires aren't sparkly adolescents or accented aristocrats dressed to attend the opera.] Log Line (conflict & core wound) Two reluctant scientists are drafted to save a little-known, deadly species from extinction in order to make a planet safe for humanity, only to discover that their real foe is a criminal they both know well. Conflict Levels (inner turmoil & external social environment) Forced into hiding after securing the conviction of a ruthless official, and exiled from his own aristocratic family due to his casual parentage, a young zoologist resolves to prove his worth and regain his career by rescuing an endangered species from impending extinction at the hands of the same ecocriminal. He must overcome his by-the-rulebook timidity to have any chance of succeeding against his familiar foe. Once a childhood refugee from planetary catastrophe, a xenoveterinarian joins the zoologist on his quixotic mission to save an endangered species, balancing her calling of saving lives against her desire for revenge against her world's destroyer. She must also battle the native humans' insufferably patriarchal cultures. Setting Details Far, far in the future, in a galaxy right here, a far-flung collective of citizen species links most inhabited worlds and controls nearly all space travel: call it the Komplex ("empire" is trite and misleading.) The uppercrust of the Komplex inhabits a sector of the galaxy called The Center, which is populous enough even to need human participation. Two human Central organizations figuring in the novel are the Komplex Institute of Sciences and the Produx Bureau. Among the thousands of those species, humanity is among the most disrespected, what with being relatively new to the Komplex, backwards in technology, and breeding way too fast by official standards. Humans have spread to hundreds, maybe thousands of worlds, whether eco-compatible or requiring sealed structures. One star system with the archaic designation P-11010, features two human-infested planets: the outer one frozen and nearly airless, now peppered with Prefabitats full of refugees; the inner one lush, verdant, fertile, its larger continent home to a native human population. The natives call their planet "Oria," believed to come from an archaic word meaning "hunter." By Komplex standards, they're technologically primitive. The inhabited pancontinent ("Oria Major," in Centrish) covers about a quarter of Oria's surface and holds over ninety percent of the world's land. Most of the people live in six city-states strung along a huge equatorial river valley; small villages and towns dot the vast "Ocean of Trees" across the northlands. The southern part of Oria Major is uninhabited, as is the "High Dry," a parched plateau occupying the western quarter of the pancontinent. Off Major's east coast lies Trezz, the seismically fraught "Shaking Island," with another city-state perched on a plateau in the shadows of rumbling volcanoes. The continental people figure the Trezzans are nuts for living there. The rest of Oria's circumference is one enormous ocean, which all Orians avoid. The Komplex aliens, however, have discovered an uninhabited, Australia-sized continent amidst the ocean and call it Oria Minor. The big catch with this nice world is, humans aren't the top of the food chain. is also home to at least two species of vicious, bat-like predators that love human blood and the occasional chunk of flesh. The creatures ("fiends" or "wilders," in Orianese) can also spread a bleeding disease the Orians call "The Slow," because that's how it kills you. The Orians have been battling these creatures for at least two thousand years (records are poor), with no noticeable progress. Their culture has become steeped, stained and stunted by supernatural fears, legends, and dubious folk practices for warding off or healing The Slow. For centuries, teams of huntsmen have tracked down roosts and stopover points for the flying killers, attracted them with blood, and then killed the creatures with siphon arrows, wire blades, hollow spears. Spilling the beasts' blood frees the souls of their victims, allowing them to find peace in the Land Beyond Sunset. According to legend, of course. About a century before storytime, the Komplex established a Presence (embassy) on Oria and sent a detail of the human Force Militar to the 11010 system, ostensibly to combat spaceborne piracy. Instead, they founded a military academy for youths on the outer planet, intending to train them, ship them to Oria, and tell them "fire at will" when they see one of the "Great Orian Vampires" or GOVs (Centrish term for the big predators). Nobody in the Komplex knows or has bothered to learn anything about the creatures--until our he-and-she team of protagonists from the KIS arrive on the planet, tasked with--believe it or not--saving the rare, uniplanetary, very nasty GOVs from extermination.