Son of a Pitch Entry: When Planets Fall

Title: When Planets Fall

Age and Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Word Count: 96K

Query:

The blood color feud between the planet Scarlatti’s three tribes has already stolen nineteen year-old Breaker’s leg and his older brother. Keeping his younger brother safe from the feud is practically impossible when the little ‘stroid visits their older brother’s grave in enemy territory.

While hauling back his brother’s sorry hide, Breaker discovers a secret nova-worthy wrecked starship. The green-blooded Herons want the ship to give them an advantage in the feud. They threaten to kill Breaker’s family if he doesn’t use his mechanic skills and repair the ship within seven days. SEVEN MEASLY DAYS. Breaker accidentally accelerates the impending battle when he plays hero and rescues Malani, a pain-in-the-ass eighteen year-old POW held by the Herons, from a life of experimentation. Now they want her back. Breaker enlists Malani to help fix the ship, except her body modification exposes a secret metal the blue-blooded Eliks will kill to protect. The same metal that can fix the ship and help win the feud.

Time is ticking. No matter what Breaker does, the tribes are ramping up for war. But he will do everything in his power to prevent his brother from fighting, and dying, with them.

First 250 Words:

“Test .a . . Test . . . Testing for real. Let’s see if you work now, baby.”

            I released my pinky from the transmit button and pushed my metal prosthetic leg against the table. My chair squeaked-squeaked-squeaked across the concrete floor. Extra motors, hinges, cables, coils, driveshafts hung from ceilings, trailed from drawers. The furnaces stored down the hall flavored the air with musty smoke. I'd bet two corn rations a claustrophobic wouldn’t have lasted more than five mins. Despite Lewis’ constant mess, his tech repair workshop was a dark hovel of sexy.

            I wheeled around my completed projects crammed along the bottom of the walls until the floating four-meter-long MapScreen across the room came into view. The diction software I just finished rewiring scrawled the words I spoke earlier across the Screen’s clear surface.

            Right beautiful.

            Lewis entered, not bothering to look at the Screen. “Ahead of schedule again, Breaker?”  He wiped grease and grit off his hands onto a half-apron, then tossed it into a bin with the rest of his filthy bibs. Most had never been washed. As they should, my aprons hung in rows above the container, clean as a newly bathed baby’s ass.

            I plopped the comm on the table and—thook—placed my feet alongside it. “Would it be me if I weren't ahead?” The leather harness strap cut into my waist, thanks to the awkward angle of my prosthetic. This was the seventh right leg I’d built out of mismatched project debris.