It's July!

Which means............ CAMP NANOWRIMO.

Yes. I am taking part.
Yes. I do plan to finish it this time (April was a busy ALL OF THE ESSAYS DUE time)
Yes. Expect more extracts.
Yes. It is Redux. I know I've kept saying that I'll finish the second draft (I should be a paid procrastinator) but I WILL complete it this month.
Yes. The crew still act like children. They will never grow up.

For now, have an edited 600 word extract from the first chapter:

A blue light flashed in urgency and she jumped down onto the lower deck with another sigh. Underneath the blue light was a button and she pressed it, listening to the speakers on the bridge channel nothing but static for several seconds. She sighed and dropped her eyes to the floor. That made it the seventh glitch in three days.

            Then there was another sound. Her head snapped up and she listened closely, “…ch…el… z…as” More static filled the small space of the bridge.

            “Eerie.”

            She snapped her head up to see Warrant Officer Class 1 Zachary Chamberlin, his blonde hair mused more than usual. Tired green eyes stared down at her and she caught the dredged look in his appearance. She shook her head. Some days she wondered how he’d managed to get this far into the military with his lack of care for his appearance. “I thought I ordered you to bed.”

            Zach pressed himself against the railing that ran the length of the room, overlooking the lower level. One of his boots was settled against one of the lower rails whilst one of his arms propped him up. His other hand held firmly only to the cup of steaming coffee in his hand. “No offense Captain but I’d feel better if it were me on the bridge.” He shrugged one lazy shoulder and straightened himself up with a hand over his face, “Besides, I convinced Soko to stay in bed.”

            “What a gentleman,” another voice interrupted. A taller and dark skinned man entered the room, making the already cramped space even smaller. Charlie lifted one brow at the plastic glass in his hands. Sergeant Wes Eliot let out a chuckle and tilted the glass in her direction with a grin, “In celebration.”

            Zach snorted. Charlie watched Zach climb down one handed to her level without spilling a drop of coffee. “It’s about time we were going home.”

            “Ain’t that the truth,” Eliot said.

            “You know,” Charlie said, the corner of her mouth caught in the start of a smile, “one of these days you guys’ll listen to my orders and actually follow them.”

            Zach dropped himself into the pilots seat, his cup propped dangerously close to a few live circuits and open wires, his hands darting across the controls with expert ease. “Yeah, and on that day we’ll be dying with pigs flying telling us that they told us so.”

            Eliot snorted above her and Charlie shook her head. She folded her arms and pressed them against the head of the co-pilot’s seat. “Do I need to call Torres?”

            “Is it not just another glitch?”

            She looked up at the Kenyan man and shrugged her shoulders, “And that’s exactly why I’m wondering whether or not to let the man sleep. Which is something both of you should be doing.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Zach said before he grabbed his cup and kicked his feet up and onto the control panel. “My opinion, get him out of bed. If I’m up he can be up.”

            Charlie arched a brow at that. “What’d he do?”

            Zach gave her a sidelong look before he shook his head. “He changed the temperature controls in the shower. Instead of hot, I got cold. Freezing cold.”

            “And you did what exactly?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Zach,” she said, her voice tired. She wondered sometimes how any of her crew managed to stay within the military so long.

            Zach gave her another look before he grumbled something. When she asked him to repeat himself he said, “I may or may not have covered his pants in itching powder.”