Trading In Danger Ch3

Ten days later, when Glennys wallowed uneasily into endim translation, Ky watched the strain gauges and wondered how the ship had passed its last inspection.

Chapter 3 starts a lot slower than the first two did. The first two we had heavy emotional moments and disorientation for the character. I hoped that we’d immediately take off into a space adventure that was set up in the last chapter, which we do to some degree later, but the chapter still opens with another scene of Ky worrying about her Aunt Gracie.

I admit I was a little bored by this section and the next that ensued here as it continued the last chapter’s storyline a bit too far, and then engaged in an expositional set-up of the ship, how old it is, all of its failed systems and meeting new characters. We’re introduced to Ky’s crew, who we find are competent and can easily work without her, and we do get a feeling of Ky feeling isolated and useless, which is nice for the character depth, but we’ve had that impression a bit already. It gets a bit into the procedural, which I know there are fans of Military SF who LOVE to see it, but for me it’s skim material.

We meet her crew, who are all named and presented to us, but there’s not a ton of interaction with them just yet, so we don’t get too much of a sense for who they are just yet, so there is little emotional investment there.

There are a couple of key threads set up in CH3, however, which could play into the story’s grander purpose for the future: 1. The preoccupation with Aunt Gracie in another chapter here gives me the inkling she’ll play an important role later 2. Ky receives a gift from MacRobert back at the academy, and we learn that he may have connections to special ops, there may be more brewing there as well 3. Ky toys with the idea of keeping this ship and refitting it, leading it on other adventures. Surely we’re all rooting for her to do that.

The Glennys is off to the junkyard, let’s see what happens in chapter 4!