I read a lot of big adventure science fiction in high school and college, and I attempted to write some as well. I wrote “Comrades in Arms” when I was young and inexperienced, but it had a great core idea and was very engaging (in my own mind, at least)—two enemy soldiers in a future war, a human and an alien, desert together and go on the run when they discover they have been betrayed by their respective commands. The early version was never published, but it always stuck with me.
Then my friend Loren Coleman, a writer and game designer, suggested we put together a military SF anthology, Five by Five, which consisted of five military SF novellas by five military SF writers. I was busy with other deadlines, but I vividly remembered “Comrades in Arms,” which was absolutely perfect for the project. I agreed, because I knew where the original manuscript was in my old files. I would just give it a quick polish, make sure it was ready for publication, and that would be that.
Until I reread it. I guess it’s good to realize that my writing had improved dramatically since those college freshman days. When I read the manuscript, expecting just a few tweaks, I was dismayed to realize that this would require a lot more work. The idea was solid, and I remembered the characters and some of the scenes very clearly, but this was not at all ready for prime time. No way.
So I had to start from scratch, rebuilding the core idea and the plot structure, and then write a brand new “Comrades in Arms” from the first word to the last. Here’s a very old story that’s also completely fresh.