Three
The Shade Tree
When Gus Feller made up his mind to act, he acted quickly; by eleven local the next morning, he and Hector Gomp arrived by leased shuttle at the Shade Tree, where Gomp was not at all surprised to find his Captain still in residence.
Captain Barrett, on the other hand, was surprised at the Colonel’s request. “You want to book passage? Where to?”
Colonel Feller smiled at the Shade Tree’s Captain. “Where are you going next?”
Barrett laughed. “Well, Colonel, I haven’t really decided yet. We need to finish up a few repairs, most of my crew’s down in Mountain View on shore leave. I don’t figure on putting to space again for another five days.”
“Suits me fine,” Feller said. “That gives me some time to make arrangements to be gone a spell.”
“You really don’t care where we’re going? We get into some shady places; it gets dangerous some of the…” Her voice trailed off as Colonel Feller grinned widely.
“I think I can handle it, Captain.”
“All right then,” Barrett smiled and shook the Colonels’ hand. “Welcome aboard. We clear Tarbos orbit on Tuesday morning; if you can be here Monday by twenty local, my Exec will set you up with a berth.”
“I’ll be here,” Feller agreed. He extended his heavy, callused hand and shook Barrett’s slim one. “Captain, thank you. I best be getting on back down to the surface. Gomp, you want a ride back to the city?”
“Sure thing, sir,” Gomp grinned. “Still got four more days of shore leave.”
“And no room booked, I suppose?” Feller asked.
“SOP, sir,” Gomp agreed.
“Gomp,” Barrett began,
“I know, Cap’n, I know – don’t get tossed in jail. Geez, Cap’n – I’d a never took a swing at him if I’d have known he was a cop.”
***
The Brookes
Saskia Miroslava woke up slowly, her head pounding from a drug hangover. She opened her eyes, squinting against the glare of a single overhead light.
“Sassy,” she heard a familiar voice. She turned her head; Mickie Watanabe was sitting against the smooth grey wall two feet away, still in her bathing suit. Sassy looked down; she was still in her suit as well.
“Where are we?”
“Listen,” Mickie replied, pointing down at the deck. From the deck below where Sassy lay came the distinctive, low-pitched rumble of a Gellar star drive. “We’re on a ship.”
“What? What ship?”
“I don’t know, Sassy. I think we’re in trouble.”
Sassy sat up, rubbing her head, and noticed for the first time that there were four others in the room. All four were young women, under twenty-five or so; all four huddled miserably on the deck. There was no furniture.
The room was more like a cell, maybe ten meters by four, curved slightly – following the contour of a ship’s hull, Sassy was sure. There were no ports, no terminals, no wall hangings, just four plain unmarked gray bulkheads and only one door. Sassy stood up, laid a finger on the panel to feel the slight buzzing of a security field that would give her a considerable jolt if she tried to force the door.
“We’re in trouble,” Sassy agreed.
Mickie drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as she sat against the bulkhead, sobbing quietly. Sassy sat on the deck next to her and wrapped her arms around the smaller girl. “Don’t worry, Mickie. The Captain will come after us. We’ll be fine.” She stroked Mickie’s hair, wishing she felt as confident as she sounded.
“We don’t know where they’re taking us,” Mickie cried. “We could be going over the frontier, we could be going anywhere. How can the Captain find us? How can anyone find us?”
“We listed the ship on the hotel check-in,” Sassy assured her. “When we don’t turn up to pay the tab, they’ll call the ship – and remember, Mickie, the Exec invented the protocols that the Navy uses to track ships in subspace. Nobody’s better at it than she is. They’ll find us,” she repeated. “They’ll find us.”
“Are you in the Navy?” one of the other girls asked. Sassy looked up; the girl was about her age, black-haired, petite, wearing a dress suited for an evening on the town, but torn and soiled by rough handling.
“No,” Sassy answered. “We’re from the Shade Tree. It’s a privateer ship.”
“You really think they’ll come after you?”
“I know they will,” Sassy said.
The girl moved over to sit next to the two from the Shade Tree. “I’m Mira Toler,” she said.
“I’m Sassy Miroslava. This is Mickie Watanabe. We work in Engineering on the Shade Tree.”
Toler leaned closer, her voice lowered. “They thought I was asleep when they tossed me in here,” she confided, “but I heard them talking. They’re talking about selling us.”
“Slavers?” Sassy gasped.
“Yeah,” Toler agreed. “There have been rumors; every once in a while someone just disappears, usually girls about our age but some men, too. Anyway – they mentioned where they were heading.”
“Where?”
“Someplace called Titan’s Belt,” Toler whispered, “Out past Avalon, on the south side of the Confederacy.”
“I was afraid we’d be headed to the Grugell frontier, but that’s away off in the opposite direction.”
“Yeah,” Toler agreed, “I know. I’m studying astrogation at the University at Mountain View.”
“Think you could figure out where we are once we get to wherever this Titan’s Belt is?”
“Not without a bearing on the night sky, spectrograph readings on a dozen stars or so and a navigation console,” Toler said. “It’s not that easy.”
Sassy raised her voice. “Do any of you have any technical skills?”
Two of the other shook their heads sadly; the third looked up, revealing a tear-streaked face. “I do, sort of,” she said. “My Dad was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, he developed signals systems for starships with Space Systems Command; he taught me a lot.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gillian Marquez.”
“Where did they get you, honey?”
“Right out of my own flat in Rangely,” she said, indicating her tan pajama pants and top. Sassy noticed her feet were bare and dirty. “They won’t even give us clean clothes.”
“All right,” Sassy said, “We’re on a ship, headed somewhere called Titan’s Belt. We know it’s near Avalon. We know these people are slavers. Now, Mickie and I are engineers; Mickie can hack computers and I know Gellar drives as well as anyone. Gillian, you know signals systems, and Mira knows a little astrogation. Let’s put our heads together; we have to find some way to let someone know where we are.”
***
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Links, in case you need them:
https://crimsondragonpublishing.com/anderson-gentry/
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Anderson-Gentry/author/B00CK1AWMI
I hope their escape plan doesn’t fail, and we have to endure several dozen chapters about the girls’ lives as slaves.
The slavers should have at least left some pillows for them. You know, for the obligatory pillow fights…
This is shaping up to be a good one! Thanks Animal!
A question I already know where answer to:
Anyone interested in an analysis of the golden freedom in Poland during the Commonwealth period?
Yes, please.
Absolutely!
“Slavers?” Sassy gasped.
I guess there weren’t any Glibs around to tell them to fuck off.
That seems silly. How will people know they’re slave girls if they aren’t wearing the proper outfits?
And collars!
Letting your prisoners/slaves get together and conspire is always a bad move. They need to either be kept separate or kept from talking. It sounds like the slavers are gonna learn this lesson the hard way…
It’s just a bunch of girls.
Sounds like you’ve had this problem before.
Great story so far.
I mean, who among us hasn’t had to suppress an occasional orphan revolt?
A Trump email in my inbox with the subject: I’m suspending my campaign…
I gasped and opened it.
***
JUST KIDDING –
HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!
I will never stop fighting for the American people.
I WILL NEVER SURRENDER!
We can’t sit back and watch Crooked Joe Biden continue to destroy our GREAT country.
OPEN BORDERS
SKY ROCKETING CRIME
RECORD INFLATION
TARGETED PROSECUTIONS
HUMILIATION OVERSEAS
***
He sure knows how to get attention.
‘RECORD INFLATION
[…]
HUMILIATION OVERSEAS’
Does he have a final solution?
ARBEIT MACHT AMERIKA GROSS AGAIN
[begins humming Horst Wessel song]
Solution? I’m part of the precipitate.
Hah, that’s awesome.
“We finally got him! … Aw, man.” (kicks nearest cat)
I gasped and opened it.
And infected my PC with seven different viruses each more virulent than the last.
I have the best, most articulate viruses, believe me
Everybody says so. Even Melania.
“TRUMP INJECTING PEOPLE WITH VIRUSES” – Msm
Thank You, And Goodbye…
The difference between men and women.
OT – thought of Mr. Nissan with this 4/1 video.
Greatest Cars of All Time, No Arguments
Carlos Ghosn speaking from the equipment box was genius.
Biden in 2000 giving a speech about the glories of the internet. His big idea? The gubmint should buy people computers and teach them how navigate the brave new world of cyberspace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o3VgeaNyhw
In 1998, teenage me was regularly logging onto BattleNet to play StarCraft. It didn’t seem that hard to figure out.
Anyway, compare that speech to this one:
A Slurring And Confused Joe Biden Opens Easter Egg Roll By Saying “Hello To Oyster Bunnies”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HguClVApXxQ
Girl Bunny is a bit swishy
Damn Derp, I didn’t know you were such a mean guy. Making fun of people with a stutter like that.
Egad, my sarcasm detector is beeping like crazy!
Yes, his lifelong stutter which he overcame as a child, then mysteriously underwent as a senior:
Biden suffers ANOTHER autocue gaffe struggling to say ‘kleptocracy’ in Ukraine address
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXxzT9t47QE
It’s a unique type of stuttering that I’ve never heard of, where he uses the wrong words and completely forgets things.
Common stuttering letters: d, t, m, b, p, k, g
Not sure what kind of stutter this is:
Joe Biden fumbles, describes America in single word as “ASUFUTIMAEHAEHFUTBW”; Video goes viral
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvA-Vf0MomM
Also not sure what kind of stutter causes him to utter things like “lying dog-faced pony soldier”.
Rageaholic talking about Biden and Easter:
https://youtu.be/dN1RgKc344A?si=qQVVp9wivmZmAmMw
2 minutes in and I’m dying. “Piece de retardation” LOL.
The admin banned Christian symbols at an *Easter* festival?
Peak Derp remains as elusive as Planck Temperature.
***
The Planck temperature TP is 1.416784(16)×1032 K.[10] At this temperature, the wavelength of light emitted by thermal radiation reaches the Planck length. There are no known physical models able to describe temperatures greater than TP; a quantum theory of gravity would be required to model the extreme energies attained.[53] Hypothetically, a system in thermal equilibrium at the Planck temperature might contain Planck-scale black holes, constantly being formed from thermal radiation and decaying via Hawking evaporation. Adding energy to such a system might decrease its temperature by creating larger black holes, whose Hawking temperature is lower.[54]
***
https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/2024/03/29/gloucester-county-sheriffs-officers-hurt-at-gun-range/73152621007/
3 hit with a ricochet?
Twenty bucks says that the officers were shooting steel at close range, possibly with a patrol rifle or carbine.
Learning and Growing…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z45-FQsTzWo
Bullets often fragment when they hit something hard. There is proof of that in the wall next to my door. It was amusing to see an FBI agent stand in front of it for half and hour while I was wearing faded Army PT shorts and a stained wifebeater.
Well, that’s what I usually have on it you wake me up at 11:30 in the summer.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/burger-king-and-bojangles-franchise-chains-closing-after-filing-chapter-11-bankruptcy/ar-BB1kTDFr
Is this the beginning of a big fast food implosion?
Burger King was more than decimated in my neck of the woods from the last big franchisee bankruptcy. About half of them are now closed, with most of them still vacant.
A Bojangles just opened in my neck of the woods.
Bojangles. I looked it up. There are two locations around Denton. They score 2/5 on the satisfaction scale.
We had a Bojangles that only lasted a year. 4/5 on food; barely a 1/5 on service; overpriced as well.
We have a recently opened one here too. Three doors down from a Popeye’s.
🙄
I hardly ever notice them being busy.
Brand new vat and build plate on my printer – and I forgot to tighten down the build plate, so the print failed.
🙁
What does a failure look like? Is it a melted man-blob that could be used for a casualty marker if properly painted?
No. It’s a disk of resin on the bottom of the vat which never adhered to the build plate, so it’s two dimensional.
Always annoying. Not just the time but the wasted materials as well.
I was able to recover most of the resin, very little was lost.
This reprint had better work. I’m sick of messing up.
Sounds like you built character instead. Cheer up.
***
The “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip by Bill Watterson ran from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. One recurring theme was his father telling six-year-old Calvin, “It builds character.” The things he said build character include:
Diarrhea
Bug bites
Camping
Numb toes
Starvation
Shoveling the walk
Playing sports (baseball)
Enduring cold weather
Food
Suffering a tough life
Learning to ride a bicycle.
So basically, any time Calvin had to do something he didn’t like, his father said, “It builds character.”
…
In one comic from December 1990, Calvin puts on his father’s glasses and combs his hair to look like his dad, and says “Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!” Calvin’s mother bursts into laughter but Calvin’s dad says he’s “sarcastic”.
***
The last stand of IJN Takao for your historical summary pleasure.