My parents have 1-3 and 5 of the Harry Potter series. I'm going to read them when I finish "Lake Woebegon Summer 1956" by Garrison Kellior(sp, don't have the book with me).

*The damn dog just wouldn't shut up. It, and others like it, had recently been drafted into the space service as they had proved almost pre-cognizant in alerting crews to internal danger before anything was noted as amiss on the control panel.

We couldn't tell what the heck was going on with him. to be on the safe side, we checked the ship from bow to stern, but nothing was found out of place, not a particle of dust mis-placed, the internal weight was as perfect, even the atmosphere of the ship was a perfect mix of nitrogen and amonia. We had a volunteer crew of two maintainence workers go outside to check the external hull, thinking perhaps the dog had somehow 'detected' something out there. That's when the mystery thickened. Soon after the crew circled around to the below decks area, we lost contact with them. A sensor sweep that I ordered confirmed this. Not even a scrap of their environmental suits remained as a testament to their mission.

Fearing the worst, I had shields raised and the ship put on red alert. It might have been too late for the maintenance crew, but it wasn't too late for everyone else, I hoped, but at least the dog had shut up.

Two weeks later the dog started up again, but this time I engaged the shields immediately and put the ship on red alert. "Captain, incoming message from an unknown source, trying to trace back and get a position," announced the tactical officer. "Good," was all I could manage. I was scared out of his mind, I had no skills on first contact missions. I was on a transport ship and besides the shields had nothing with which I could defend myself and the crew. No weapons, not even defensive weaponry. If the unknown was to get too itchy, most likely we'd be all dead before we knew what hit us.

"Sir, they are aliens, translating language now," chimed the communications officer. "Language translated, do you want me to put it up on the main view screen," it asked. "Yes, place it on the main view screen," I responded, burying my nervousness as deep as I could. "Attention unknown ship, I am Captain Samson Lewis of the TSA OS Card, you are in human space, please lower your shields and state your purpose," the alien captain ordered.

Indicating to mute the transmission, I looked around at its bridge crew, then directly at its communications officer. "Can we broadcast in their language?" I asked. The communications officer nodded. "Then make it so."

"Attention crew of the O.S. Card, this is the Talaxian space freighter Vengence," I paused and looked toward tacital and indicated to the tactical officer to lower shields, "we do not wish any trouble. We are simply on a trade mission to one of our colony worlds and this just happened to be the fastest way to get to it," I forgot to mention that the last time anyone from Talaxia had been to Alpha Centauri had been several thousand years ago.

"Would you like an escort?" Captain Lewis offered. "All we need are the co-ordinates to your destination and we can assist you on your mission," he smiled politely at me.

I thought about that for a moment, "We agree to your offer, but we must warn you that we have recently lost two crew members to an unknown force while they were inspecting the outer hull," the Captain figured since they were courteously escorting them through human space, that they should also be aware of any danger. After all, I hadn't slept through all of its diplomacy course.

10 standard days later, both ships were nearly completely devoid of life. The only life-form that existed on either was a single, lone dog. One that just wouldn't shut up.* Not exactly sure if this has fixed up the problems you pointed out, but I hope it does. BTW, dialyn, thanks for your comment. I meant to reply to it but apparently Renderosity lost it. O.o

Not at all. Sticking to one POV is usually hard for me and sometimes I don't realize that I'm drifting. Thanks for the advice. I'll do a rewrite tonight and repost in this thread. (:

Nope, never heard of him. Sounds like an interesting book, though. You're welcome (:

Damn, that last one is out there. Could they be anymore polite? Sorry for my laughter, but I nearly fell out of my chair (I am tearing up from all the laughing!).

Perhaps. I'll give it a go as soon as I'm done with my math homework.

The GIMP has several manuals (The Official GIMP Users Manual and Grokking The GIMP). I just downloaded them and chucked them on my web site (self-hosted). Still, it'd be nice to see some "real world" examples here on Renderocity. (;