“This is outrageous! This is nothing but a cargo hold! It’s not even warm!”
This chapter gets into a bit of the procedural aspects of the merc-given mission to Ky and her crew that they will be taking on 50 new passengers, straining their environmental and capacity capabilities. While I believe it will escalate to critical mass, we in essence, have started a new story at this point, and so we get some background set up to the scenario.
What’s interesting about this chapter is that it spends time talking about food and water, logistics of crowding people into cargo holds, and then plans for dealing with different people. Moon gives some detail about a particular group’s foodstuffs which are rated gourmet, talking specifics about the food. This is something that in the post-YA revolution you really wouldn’t see in books, because it’s a big slowdown of the pacing, and since the Hunger Games phenomenon, stories generally keep a breakneck pace that isn’t displayed here. In some ways as a reader, I’ve gotten used to that, so it makes it difficult not to skim over parts like this, but on the flip side, it adds to the realism of the situation. That realism and moments where we’re reminded our heroes are mortal humans as well adds to character as much as it detracts from pacing. It’s something worth keeping in mind while reading or writing stories. it does set up a potential foil in another trader ship captain turned refugee. We’ll see how that develops.
But, it doesn’t leave much to discuss beyond that, so I will see you in chapter 13!
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