Snippet #1 from Leaving Home
by Author on April 27, 2017
*This snippet is straight out of my work in progress. It hasn’t been edited and may not look like this in the final book. But I thought it would be fun to share.
From Book 1 of the series Beyond the Wormhole-
The ship carrying Jessica, Dylan, and Ruby had another crewmember who makes his first appearance in this book. Eemo is a knee-high T-rex but with longer, usable arms and wears a black leather vest.
***
“It’s over here.” Eemo pointed in the far direction as he padded over that way.
“You know what the problem is?” asked Dylan the foot-high dino-lizard leading him through the engine room. Dylan ran his hand along the working engine nacelle feeling it vibrate beneath his fingers.
“No, this happened after the last jump, and JC left before then.”
Dylan assumes JC was their prior mechanic. “Why didn’t Ruby just bring this in and have somebody look at it?”
Eemo jumped the three feet from the deck to the console. His eyes huge in his face. “No, we can’t do that. What if we get the message?”
Eemo patted Dylan’s arm. “You will fix it,” he said then jump back down, his long thick tail acting like a rudder and keeping him balanced.
Dylan shook his head not quite understanding what the little guy said but Dylan was here now. He may as well put his side talents to work. “Doesn’t seem to be making the noise now. What speed doesn’t it happen at?”
“On the low end,” Eemo said as he lay down on the floor on his belly, propped his chin on his hands, and watch Dylan.
Dylan brought their speed down, and sure enough, on the lower range of the impulse engine, the clank started. He put his hand on the housing again.
“What you doing?” Eemo heaved his pudgy, little body up and walked closer.
“I’m getting a feel for the vibration of the knocking.” Still keeping his hand on the engine housing, Dylan adjusted their speed a little bit and watch the readout.
“Why?” Eemo jump back up on the console. He leaned over Dylan’s outstretched arm to get a look at the readout.
“I’m getting a feel for the rhythm of the clanging and its effects on engine performance. It’s a diagnostic check an old Army Master Chief showed me.” Dylan left the diagnostic running on the console next to the affected engine and went to the main console on the far wall. Eemo jumped off the counter and followed him.
“What you doing?”
Dylan started the diagnostic on the system. “I wanted to make sure there was no cross-contamination of flow lines from the FTL drive.”
Eemo plopped his butt on the floor next Dylan and looked up. “Why?”
Dylan stifled a laugh but not the smile that went with it. Eemo reminded him of a buddy’s child when she was a toddler. He decided to try the same tactic his buddy had when faced with multiple ‘why’ questions. “Because.”
Eemo nodded intently as if Dylan’s one-word answer made total sense.