Killing the darlings: Epsilon universe ramblings

The story that appears in the Epsilon series is one that has gone through a dozen iterations–and at least as many starting points.  It’s a universe that I have been working in for the majority of my writing life, though the first draft of Epsilon (back then, a single volume unto itself) was something I started back in 1996, back when I was a wide-eyed student at a suburban high school.  A lot’s changed since then, not the least of which being the story of Epsilon.

The original draft started with Aaron, as the curren series does, but it started well before the events of Broken Stars.  In fact, the period of Broken Stars was something I had never explored until I was starting and re-starting the third draft of Epsilon (still, at that time, a single volume that would encompass the material that eventually became Broken Stars told from Aaron’s point of view and then subsequent events from Caren Flannery’s point of view). Epsilon draft one encompassed an entire war–a very simplistic war, but a war nonetheless–and roughly four years of time in 62,000 words written over thirty-six months of my college career.  By comparison, Broken Stars comes in almost 20,000 words longer and doesn’t even cover six months of time.

Currently, I’m working on the second book of the series, Redeemer, a story that I didn’t even know I had in me until after I’d written what became Broken Stars.  Initially, from the end of Broken Stars, there was going to be a gap of three years, then the story was going to pick up again from Caren Flannery’s point of view (it was a holdover from previous drafts–one of those “darlings” that writers are often encouraged to kill), all in one book.  It was the summer of 2011 and I had been reading more and more about the indie and self-publishing revolution, and I made the decision by the turn of autumn to split Epsilon into a larger series than I’d intended.  As I sat down to begin writing what was then the second book, Shattered, I began to realize that there was a lot of story that I was going to miss out on telling if I moved forward with my intial plans.  In sitting down to write Redeemer, though, I’ve ripped the guts out of some old darlings from previous drafts of Caren and Aaron’s story.

For instance, over the course of every previous draft of Epsilon, a major backstory point was that during the years (and yes, it’s years) when Caren couldn’t remember who she was, Aaron avoided her, almost alienated her.  This is in stark contrast to what occurs in Redeemer.

Spoilers below the cut.

The draft of Shattered began with Caren and Sam showing up on Treyl in the middle of a storm–and right before the Imperium invades.  From the intial draft:

            “Doctor Ross is here.”  What the hell is he doing here?  Why isn’t he doing…whatever he does when he’s gallivanting around pretending not to be supply running and recruiting?  Or better yet, in Perie, doing his actual job at St. Mikhail’s.

            Sam blinked, following my gaze.  She frowned.  “I didn’t know he was going to be here.”  If we’d known, of course, we might not have come.

            They were rarely in the same place these days, she and Lucas Ross.  He’d declared it too dangerous eighteen months ago, around the same time he’d given Sam formal command of the region.  If the rumors were true, she was one of only three leads left, down from seven three years ago.  Things were getting bad in the Borderworlds and everyone knew it.  That was why she and I were here to meet Trey and Harm, to talk about an ace in the hole we’d been working on for the better part of a year: a secret base of operations for the Resistance on an unoccupied, slightly out-of-the-way planet buried at the heart of a nebula.  An old, failed colony set-up on the planet, which sat along the edge of the Borderworlds only a couple dozen light years away from an Alliance outpost, seemed like the ideal place to set up that secret base, and Trey, Harm, and I had been working hard to make that happen.  It wasn’t quite ready yet, but it was only going to be a matter of time.

            Why was Ross here, of all places?  Was he here with Trey and Harm for some reason?  I scanned the crowd.  There were Trey and Harm, in a corner booth.  Probably not with them, then.  If he’d come with them, he’d be sitting with them.  “You want to go talk to him?”  I asked Sam.

            “Are Trey and Harm here?”  She was still looking at Ross, who hadn’t seen us yet.  If he had, he was doing a damn fine job pretending otherwise.

            “Yeah, but they’ll keep without you.”  I nudged her gently.  “Go see him.”  You don’t get to see him enough, Sam.  Just go.

            Sam looked up at me.  “You don’t need to talk to him, too, Ren?”

            I shook my head.  “No.  Haven’t had one of the dreams lately, so I’m good.”  Not a new one, anyway.  Nothing really to talk about, unless he’s got something to tell me.  He’d have called or something if he had, though.  I nudged her again.  “Go.”

            We split up, she headed for Ross and me heading over to where Trey and Harm were sitting.  Trey stood up as I approached, coming around the edge of the table to hug me tightly.

            “Shitty weather, huh?”  She asked as she let go, gesturing me into a seat.  I shook my head with a wry smile.

            “We couldn’t land in Niven.  Had to take the underground in.”

            “Redirected you to Margrove, huh?”  Harm shook his head, smiling wryly.  “They barely let us land here.  We’ll be lucky to get lift clearance.”

            I shook my head.  “Next time, we meet somewhere with more favorable weather.”

            Trey laughed.  “Unfortunately, we came to pick up supplies, so we didn’t have much choice in the matter.  Appreciate you two making the trip, though.”

            “Eh, we were going to be in the sector anyway.”  I shrugged slightly.  “It wasn’t that out of the way.  Weather’s just put me in a bad mood.”  The bad mood actually stemmed from a combination of the weather and being a hundred miles away from my ship, even if the high-speed underground maglev cars could get me back to it inside of an hour.  There was something about being that far away from ready transport that made me nervous to the point of irritability.  A waitress came by and took my drink order.  I gave her enough time to move out of earshot before I leaned toward harm and Trey.  “Did Ross come here with you two?”

            They exchanged a look.  Trey hesitated before answering.  “No,” she finally said.  “He’s here with Wil.”

            My stomach folded in on itself.  Wil was here.

            Trey watched my expression go sour and she sighed at me.  “Ren, c’mon, don’t make that face.  He’s one of the good guys, remember?”

            “On the darker side of gray if you ask me,” I growled.  Sam and Luc trusted him, but that didn’t mean I had to, and I didn’t.  The man had too many secrets, and when he looked at me, I didn’t like what I saw in his eyes.  He knew things.  I wasn’t sure whether he knew things about me or just had secrets in general, but either way, he never saw fit to share in my presence.  Sam told me once to just bloody well ask him if I had questions.  Luc had been with us at the time and looked like he wanted to smack her when she suggested it.  Something told me then and there that asking Wil Terrel questions was very likely to be pretty counterproductive.

            He was gruff, aloof, and avoided me like the plague, so I avoided him right back.

            “Why do you hate him so much, Ren?”  Trey asked me softly as the waitress brought my drink.  I just shook my head.

            “He just scans wrong to me, Trey.  That’s all.”  Never mind the weird dreams I kept having, the ones where I kept seeing someone who looked like Wil sometimes showing up, close and big as life and near me, with me.  They were the dreams that scared me the most, sometimes, and were dreams I dismissed as nightmares rather than the maybe-memory dreams that Luc and I talked about.  I didn’t mention the dreams with the man who looked like Wil in them most of the time, but every so often I’d slip and Lucas would get this troubled look on his face, but it never lasted.  I always tried to change the subject as quickly as humanly possible.

            “He’s the one who found you and made sure you got medical attention after he did.  Bad guys don’t do that crap, Ren,” Trey said.  Harm put a hand on her arm.

            “Settle down.  She’s entitled to her opinion.”  His gaze flicked to me.  “But you could probably stand to be a bit less paranoid about him, Ren.  The only person his secrets are gonna kill is him.”

            I didn’t believe that for an instant, but I didn’t feel like arguing with anyone about it again.  I took a long swallow from my drink and shivered at the fire it left behind as it worked its way down my throat.  Stronger than I’d anticipated, but I probably needed it, especially on the off chance I’d have to deal with Wil Terrel tonight.  Next time I see him will be far, far too soon.

Contrast that scene with this one from the working draft of Redeemer:

“I slept with Wil,” Ren said.  Just like that.  No warning, no preamble.  I just sat and blinked at her for a few moments.

We were in my apartment, had just had dinner together with Sam and Desantis before they headed out on an evening walk.  There was a meteor shower tonight, and Desantis had found a place for them to watch it without being bothered.

We probably wouldn’t see them until midmorning tomorrow.  I’d come to accept that, even be relieved.  At least he loved her.  They were allowed to sleep with each other.

But Wil and Ren?  I knew he loved her, but did she love him?  And now they’d slept together?

This had the potential to be the biggest mess I’d ever dealt with since beginning to lead the Resistance—bigger than the neurotoxin mess, bigger than my sister, bigger than Korea disappearing—bigger than everything.

It’s dangerous territory.  He could break her heart without meaning to, or she could break his.  Then I’d have two broken souls on my hands and no way to fix them.  Where would that leave all of us at the end of the day?  Nowhere I want to think about.

Damnation, Wil.  What were you thinking?

“And?”  I finally managed to say.  Wil, what did you do?  Is this why you decided to go off and do something stupid and heroic?  I felt a headache coming on already, but I stopped myself from rubbing my temple or showing anything other than surprise.

“He called me Caren.”  She hesitated.  “And it kind of felt right.  What does that mean?”

My mouth was dry, heart starting to pound.  Why the hell hadn’t he said something?  Because he didn’t want me to know, or was ashamed, or thought that it’d give me leverage to talk him out of doing something he’d already set his mind to.  Bastard.  “I don’t know.  It might?  Could have been the tone of voice that was familiar, too.”  I swallowed hard and hoped she didn’t notice my discomfort.  “When did this happen?”

“Two weeks ago,” she said.  “We crossed paths at Praesidio while we were on the way back from Cantrell and he was on the way back from…who the hell knows.  We had a drink.  Got to talking.  One thing led to another.”  She fiddled with her ring.  “He said he’d see me when we got back here.  Where is he?”

I almost punched a wall.  The bastard.  The cowardly bastard.

“Luc?”

“Doing something stupidly dangerous,” I growled.  She waited for me to say more, but I shook my head.  “I’m sorry, Ren.  I can’t say any more than that.”  You bastard, Wil.  Why the hell would you do that?  Sleep with her, say you’ll see her, then come back here and tell me to try and fragging stop you from infiltrating an Imperium facility to get more data on those neurotoxins.  I took a few deep breaths, logic catching up with the anger train.  Dammit, Wil.  You’re afraid.  You’re afraid of what you’ve just done, afraid to get close, afraid of what might happen when she remembers!  You’re afraid of losing her all over again.  I rubbed my temple.  So you’re going to go off and play hero so you don’t get left again.  Biggest dumbass move I’ve ever known you to make.  We’re going to have words when you get back because you damn well better get back.

She stared at me, crossing her arms loosely.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I’m fine.”  None of us will be later, I think, but for now?  Perfectly fragging fine.

“You’re upset.  What’s he doing?  C’mon, you know you can tell me.  Mac’s probably already told Sam, right?”

“Maybe.”  I exhaled, leaning back against the couch for a moment before I sprang up and started to take care of the dinner dishes.  Her eyes stayed on my back as I worked and tried to sort out what I was going to tell her, how I was going to tell her.

I can’t tell her that he just up and decided he was going to go.  She’d hate him for that.  I can’t do that to them.  He loves her, for God’s sake.  She got up and came into the kitchen, leaned against the island as I threw the dishes into the sanitizer.  Her gaze was so intense that I could feel it without looking.  When I finally did, I just stared at her for a moment, caught the look in her eyes.  She needed to believe that he hadn’t willingly abandoned her like this, and I was the only one who could tell her that he hadn’t—even if telling her that would have been a lie.  I wasn’t sure she’d care if it was.  I exhaled silently.

Now or never.  This lie is for both of their sakes.

“I sent him to get me some raw samples of the neurotoxin and the components it’s made of.  The papers you and Sam brought back might not be enough.  I’m sorry, if I’d known that he was supposed to meet you, I wouldn’t have asked him to leave so soon.”

She stared at me for a long moment, then swallowed hard and looked away.  “He didn’t say anything?”

“I wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise.  He and Alexei left two days ago.  I’m sorry.”

Ren nodded slowly, keeping her face averted so I wouldn’t see the tears that welled up in her eyes.  I saw them anyway and reached for her hand.  She almost jerked away, then sagged, sighing.

“For a minute, I really thought that maybe I could remember.  That he could help me do that.  It just felt so right, Luc.  Why did it feel so right?”  Her lips thinned and she wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.  “But it can’t be him.  It can’t be.  He’d have said something if he was—if he was the one who—”

I pressed a fingertip against her lips before she could give voice to what she was about to say.  She went quiet and shook her head a little.

“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked in a whisper, tears still caught in her lashes and along the rims of her eyes, sparkling like the stars in the night sky.

“You take the time to figure out what you want, to figure out why it happened and why it felt so right,” I told her, my voice quiet.  “You dissect it, look at it in pieces.  We work through this together, you and me.  We’ll figure it out.”

At the end of the day, as I continue to work in this universe, I find myself less and less afraid to let go of ideas that I used to think were sacred within the universe.  Every time I sit down to write, something changes.

It’s an awesome adventure sometimes, though sometimes it’s hard.  I’m working on a second draft of Redeemer right now, and there’s a lot of questions I still have to answer for myself–like when (and if) Lucas Ross will ever see his beloved Korea Cooper again, what’s going to go down with him and his sister, and whether or not everyone’s favorite psychic doctor is going to make it through this war with his soul–and his body–intact.

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