I want Uman to be able to show his temper in this scene without making him seem too irresponsible. He gets back to his carriership just in time to have them jump into hyperspace, but then he needs freedom to show his anger. I don’t know if this could work before he reports to his XO about the failure of the mission or after. It makes sense that he would do it right away before he goes to report. He could communicate to jump as soon as possible when he boards the ship, telling them to jump back to the space station outside their homeworld where the War Council meets.

Ben Bova says to start the ticking time bomb in the opening scene – first paragraph if possible. I’ve been thinking about this in relation to what will go off at the end. My time bomb is whether Uman will decide to act based on how he will look before his dad or help the people he’s assigned to serve. I’ll have to find a way to keep these two in opposition, because it seems natural that serving the people would make him look good before the Master General, but in war sacrifices sometimes need to be made. At the end, Uman will have to decide if he’s willing to abandon the few survivors in order to rejoin his father in the war against the Osuna.

Somehow this scene must show Uman’s heart: he hates that he failed not that he is overly concerned about losing his men, but more so because of how that will look that he did. He is worried about criticism about his rash decision to invade this planet without calling for backup. This will be the darkest point in his soul, a purely selfish outburst of rage. Maybe in the docking bay he throws his helmet into the wall or something that the crew enjoy like a card table. He might even catch himself short of killing someone who catches him and shows a look of disgust. Maybe that person says “Are you mad because we lost men or because you lost men.” And when he says the next line, “And that doesn’t help your chances of getting on the Council,” Uman’s hand clenches his knife in its harness.

The final scene might be something like him finally getting the chance to go home, and with a reasonably decent bounty – maybe secrets about Comerc or a new invention – that would make his father have to put him on the Council, but he knows that if he leaves the colony of survivors will either be killed or used for Koslo’s experiments for the rest of their miserable lives.

Archived.