A snippet of NaNo

Today I thought I'd post an excerpt from my aborted NaNoWriMo verse novel, Concept of Self. I'm in two minds about whether I'll ever go back to it - I think the idea might be not up to the weight of novel or novella length, but there might be a couple of OK-ish long poems lurking in there.

So, without further ado ... Here is a little bit of Erika, Minder-Kinetic, fighting a fire (literally) on her space repair station. Gemina is her station AI.

Now that the Bowery gate is stabilised, I slacken my chokehold on it and cast my sense around,

feeling out the ships nearest by the damage point.

There is the Ancient of Days; she’s a nickel and iridium mining girl, big in the belly, short in the stern.

She’s in hospital for a life support upgrade, but that scar of burn on her gate-side curve

does not bode well for a quick recovery.

No active flames there though, so I push on to the Amal; she’s a lighter, nimbler bird

designed to thread the needle through the showers and pick up knocked-loose platinum.

Her size has been an advantage, here; the fire seems to have caught only her delicate front bow

leaving a lace tattoo that is nothing but surface-deep.

Then – ahhhh, yes. The Ashling Gray.

Tough iron-mining grunt ship – built like the workhorse she is.

This ship has hauled metal from the Belt for the past 15 years, month in, month out;

this ship, and her captain, have also hauled out at least a dozen wrecked boats

saving crews from months-long slow deaths marooned in the Belt.

This ship brought me from my home in Mars Prima, here to Station 203-Beta

five years ago and change, now.

When I needed to hide and be no more, she gave me unsentimental refuge

made a space for me in her blocky alloyed guts, and showed me a sky

with room for me in it.

And now. Now the Ashling Gray is burning.

I throw down a suppressant layer and straightaway the fire fights me,

squirming in my mindgrip like a birth-slick pup.

That this is ground zero for the fire is beyond any doubt.

There is some sort of accelerant at play, and I can’t immediately tell what.

I’d give anything in the moment for another Kinetic.

Gemina, omnipresent as she is, cannot sense, outside of her sensors

and the Mind-Nots are of no use here, not until the fire is dead.

Think, Erika. This tricksy dancer is bile-green,

the colour of tree-moss and dart-frogs, jewel-bright and witchlike.

What makes a fire burn green, and resist?

(This is post #13 in NaBloPoMo. 13 down, 17 to go!)