Ravenstar,
You are my first official critique here in this forum so... THANKS for letting me read your stuff.
I'm also excited to see other women here so, I hope to read a lot of your work!
Regarding your submission:
I thought your prose was quite sound and your dialogue tight. The flow was easy to immerse myself into, which is often a rare find in amateur writers (pre-editor). Even in this short submission, I felt lost, as though I wasn't sure what was going on, but it seemed as though you wanted me to feel that way. It lent the entire story a mysterious allure that made me very interested to keep going. I felt as though your descriptions could have used just a little tweaking... I wanted to know more about what the T'wan looked like, what sort of creatures they were, defining characteristics, etc. Also, I wanted to get a little more description of the facial expressions/body language of Taq and Tolan as they conversed. Again their dialog was very good, realistic, and paced so well, but something like 90% of communication is body language and I like to "see" that on tha page as well it can add such dimension to an already fabulous scene.
I was interested and impressed by the way you titled things and people. i.e. Infirmarian, Breach, Mentalist, Junction etc. Really lends it that "other world" quality where you know right off, you're not here and now... very creative.
Just a few tiny things: First paragraph, ~ "affect" needs to be changed to "effect" I think...
~Tolan stands "Swiftly" twice... although Taq does not.
~ and in your dialogue, I wondered if the characters say "do not" rather than "don't" on purpose? Only because that made them seem a little stiff and unrealistic if they did that all the time... but if that is part of your characterization, then it needs to be done consistently, I suppose.
In all, VERY interesting and nicely done! I can't wait to read more!
~Miranda