Show Me Yours Blogfest

So today is part three of the blogfest-a-palooza that started with the Eye Candy Blogfest on the 1st, continued with the No-Kiss Blogfest on the 2nd, and ends today with the Show Me Yours Blogfest.

This blogfest is hosted by the ever lovely Hannah Kincade at Musings of a Palindrome.  The idea of the blogfest is to share a scene from what you wrote during NaNoWriMo.  Although I didn't "win" NaNo this year, I came darn close, managing to write over 30,000 words, so there are plenty of scenes to choose from.

This scene is from the sci-fi novel I'm working on. As a matter of fact, it's a couple of chapters after yesterday's no kiss scene. To set it up: Red (Amie) and Jaska have stolen a map that a lot of other people are after, and are searching for the treasure that the map leads to, which just happens to be on Earth. They are deep in ancient tunnels under the Sahara. The scene is from Jaska's POV.

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“Jaska,” Red says, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I know you’re in a tight position with that thing in your neck,” it’s like she can read my mind and my skin pebbles at the coincidence that we’d be thinking the same things. “So I really appreciate what you’re doing.”

“How do you know what I’m doing?” I ask.

I hear her footsteps stop behind me and I turn, illuminating her face with my light. She clearly isn’t happy with what I said.

“So what are you doing?” she asks. I can’t tell if she’s going to cry or if she wants to hit me.

“Look, Red. Let’s not do this here. We’ve got a lot to get done and we don’t have time for a chat now.”

I turn to go but I don’t hear footsteps behind me, so again I turn and she hasn’t moved, other than to cross her arms in front of her.

“We’re going to have this conversation now because I’m not going one step further until I know exactly what you’re planning,” she says.

Great, just what I need right now. “Fine, stay here then. I’m going to keep going and find out what the hell this treasure is so we have some kind of bargaining chip,” I turn yet again and continue down the tunnel, grumbling at Red as I walk. “I’m not willing to give up my life over it. And maybe we can work some kind of deal with Gil or Magda or Hawk or whoever the hell else is after it. But we can’t make any deals of any kind if we don’t know what it is. And I have no chance of surviving this little adventure if I don’t keep going forward. So forgive me if I have more on my mind than saving your precious planet from discovery. Believe me, it’ll be discovered eventually one way or another anyway. So it’s no big deal to me if it’s discovered now.”

I’m satisfied to hear her footsteps behind me again, but after several minutes of walking in quiet again I feel her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jaska,” she says and I meet her eyes. “We’ll figure a way out of this for you and for Earth.”

I cock a brow at her. “Let’s hope so,” I say. “But if it comes down to a choice between my head and your planet, I’m choosing my head. We can always come back and do something to help here, but I only have one chance.”

“I just don’t want to be responsible for leading the forces of destruction to Earth.”

I pat her hand, still on my shoulder, then restart the trek down the tunnel. “Sometimes change is good, Red.”

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Hope you like it! Now go read the rest of the scenes from the Show Me Yours Blogfest!