Adventure of Your Choice

One of my favorite series growing up was the Choose Your Own Adventure books.  Stories I could read over and over, taking different routes and reaching different endings each time.  I mentioned them before in relation to Wil Wheaton reading them live online.

For some reason, I recently got the idea to try and write a story in a similar style.  Obviously, some adaption had to be made for the digital method of choosing story options instead of simply turning pages.  I hope you enjoy it.

You are the First Officer of an exploratory space vessel. You stand and look over the bridge and see the other five officers working at their stations. The Captain sits in his raised chair next to your position. The bridge is relatively quiet as the large display screen shows a map of nearby solar systems and the status of various ship systems. All power levels, environmental systems, and faster-than-light engines are all showing green and functioning properly.

The peace is broken by the communications officer speaking up. “Sir, we have an incoming communication. It appears to be a distress signal from a colony ship en-route to Tau Ceti. A malfunction took out their FTL drive and some of their environmental systems.”

Captain Hogarth issues commands in a clipped tone. “Navigation, plot the colony ship's location and put it up on the main screen. Communications, reply that we are on our way and get their registry and the number of people aboard. Also, relay the signal to any other ships in the neighborhood. We don't enough space to transport an entire colony's population.”

You look down at the Captain as the two officers acknowledge and execute their orders. “Should I alert the Medical Bay that we will have injured incoming?”

“Let's wait and see how many people are hurt and whether their own medical facilities are functional first. No need to get the doctors and nurses all hot and bothered for nothing. We should notify the Marines that they will need to gear up to board in unknown conditions.”

You nod at him and glance at the navigational display as the colony ship appears on it. Even with the FTL drive at full power, it will take just over two hours to reach the same region as the stranded ship, then another hour running on the sublight engines to get close enough to dock.

If you use the ship's interior communications system to contact the Marine squad, click HERE.

If you take the lift down to the crew quarters and notify the Marine Lieutenant directly, click HERE.

This post was challenging on two fronts.  It was fun writing a story that takes many paths because I didn't need to decide which direction a story should take, I could let it take all the directions that came to mind.  The other challenge was creating the different pages for the different choices and linking them all properly.  In all honesty, I may do this again if people like the format.

Are there any other directions you would like to see the story go?  Comment below what you think.