Morning all, I hope your week is going well. I am still having trouble with the s key on my keyboard. it is why some times the word as either has an extra s or no s at all. My apologies for the multiple asses that have appeared in the last few weeks. It is about driving me bonkers. So today we are doing a deep keyboard clean which will hopefully fix the letter s. I say we, it is me and several keyboard cleaning elements. But that is coming after coffee. For now, it is on with the morning writing prompt. So timers set and off we go.
I like this one. I will have to think about a few more details and figure out what he knows as well as what his skills are, but I like the basic set up. The germ of a story shall we say. Could be fun to work on.
Wednesday, June 12th: Dust swirled in the air.
Dust swirled in the air. They were only small puffs now, tiny tornados, but he knew what it heralded. “Dust storm,” He yelled, even as he raced for the bell to ring the warning. Others caught his words and began locking things down and getting everyone and everything under cover. He rang the bell loudly, three hard tugs on the bell to send the signal to those beyond the range of his voice. Duty done, Quinn raced for cover.
They had been on the planet six months and already all of them knew to fear and respect the dust storms. He grabbed a loose sheet that seemed to have escaped someone’s grasp and hauled it with him into the shelter. At the moment resources were stretched and nothing could be wasted. While e doubted the sheet would mean the difference between life or death, no one was wasting anything.
He and the sheet made it to the shelter even as the wind picked up tempo. ‘Its going to be a howler,’ he thought.
Those were the worst. They came down from the west and raced through the mountains. They howled as the wind sped through the jagged peaks and picked up not only dust, but loose scree. It meant that there would be more than wind blowing and the settlement would no doubt take damage.
Most of the storms weren’t howlers, for which they were all thankful, but the howlers caused the most damage. He tossed the sheet inside and looked out. He could see no one moving. All reached shelter. ‘Or at least no ne is racing here,’ he thought.
Quinne lowered the gate and locked it into place. It cut some of the noise down, but not all. He looked around. His shelter was one of the concrete style bunkers. It was used for storage rather than living quarters. As his own living space was at the far side of their small settlement, he knew he wouldn’t have had the time to get home.
‘But I locked everything down before I left.’ It had become habit. The scientist studying the planet thought that this was just the season where dust storms were increasing and that they would soon be out of the season. Until then everyone locked things down before they left home for the day’s work.
‘Not that there is much to lock down,’ he thought. Landing had been a bit more problematic than expected and a third of their supplies were lost. Their equipment was taking damage from the storms as well and couldn’t be replaced until the next scheduled shipment in three months. In a way they were lucky as most of the lost items were the personal possessions of those sent to this planet. It was a mixed lot and Quinn still wasn’t sure why he was included.
Unlike the others he was no scientist, no explorer. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and he found himself in possession of information others didn’t want him to have. While they knew that he would keep his mouth shut about it, the fact that he knew what he knew made them all uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable they became, the more Quinn suspected that they would be tempted to eliminate him, solely for their peace of mind. Figuring that out of sight was out of mind, he suggested sending him with one of the teams. He asked that they find a place where his skills would be useful. He still didn’t know why they chose this group.
Ten til Midnight 