Editing my first novel...

Just a little bit of me editing like a goober.

 

Well, phew. About a week ago I finished the rough draft of what (I think) will be the last chapter of my first novel.

I'm writing a longer story about the Misevelin Salvage crew, an adventure where they are trying to get to the bottom of a very strange event that has everyone worried: the appearance of an empty lifeboat near the orbit of Markledge (the planet where Aric & co. are based).

Cracks in the Walls at the Bottom (about 4300 words)

Image Prompt "The Pit," from Iron Age Media

I got a little too enthusiastic about this prompt and ended up plotting a three-part story that might end up at novella length.
However, the different parts are fairly self-contained, so here's a slightly reworked version of part of the second act, which works as its own action-packed short story. Enjoy!

Warrenton was the first vertical city on Sophra, a planet that had a clean oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but one too thin at the surface for humans to breathe unassisted. The Vertical City Project was designed to take advantage of the cool, stable crust of the planet and create a haven for humanity deep below the surface. Ten kilometers below the surface, the air was thin but sufficient. Fifteen down, oxygen partial pressures were comparable to Earth at sea level. At twenty, the air was thicker and made physically demanding jobs, like mining, easier and more efficient.

The massive excavation project had just crossed the twenty kilometer mark a few weeks ago. The main shaft was about half a kilometer wide and ample ventilation and modern lighting technology made the deep underground just as healthy as a day in the sun on Earth.

However, today there was a problem. One of the three main ventilators failed, and the other two shut down only a few minutes later. The elevators stopped working, and the network of radio frequency repeaters that made communication possible through and around the caverns went down. The city managers scrambled to get things back online. Without ventilation, the air down at the bottom of the city would be breathable for around three hours. Citizens living deep underground all maintained twelve hour supplies of breathable air, but the clock was ticking.