Six
The Shade Tree
Gomp and the Colonel found the Captain in the ship’s mess room, where she was listlessly picking at a sandwich and fretting. On hearing the news the two brought from the Skyhook, it only took her a fraction of a second to reach her decision.
Barrett stood up, walked to the mess room’s comm panel, and called the Bridge. “Indira,” she snapped when the Exec answered. “I need crew status. Is everyone back on board?”
“As of half an hour ago, yes,” Indira Krishnavarna replied.
Barrett began barking orders. “Call the Bridge watch to duty. I’ll be on the Bridge myself in a few minutes. If there’s anyone at Navigation now, tell them to plot the best possible trajectory for Avalon. Call Port Control, get us a departure clearance.”
“On it,” the Exec replied.
“Avalon,” Colonel Feller said. He snapped his fingers. “Captain, I just remembered something; I was on Avalon two years ago. The colony itself isn’t much, mostly tourism, canyon gliding, parasailing and the like. No industry, very little farming or anything labor-intensive. But there’s something else there.”
“What?” Barrett demanded.
Feller sat down at a mess table, grunting slightly at a pang of pain from his belly. He reached into his jacket pocket, extracted a cigar, held it up at eye level and examined it carefully. “We were talking about all the little roughneck mining stations around when we were down on the Dock and it got me to thinking. See, Avalon, the planet itself, wouldn’t have too much appeal for a slaver; too much traffic, it’s a pretty place and lots of folks vacation there. That bothered me when we found out Dotsero was headed that way. But Avalon’s the second planet in that system; the fourth is a gas giant they call Titan. Most passenger ships take a sub-light swing within visual range of it on the way in to Avalon, it’s a pretty spectacular sight. Big damn gas giant, it would make three or four Jupiters – its gravity well has swept up most of the garbage in the system into a series of rings around its equator. Now, those rings are mostly ice and rock, but the ice is full of hydrocarbons and complex carbohydrates; there are a dozen or more little hydrocarbon and volatiles farming operations out there harvesting the ice blocks for water, oxygen, hydrogen, carbohydrates and hydrocarbons. The place is practically custom-made to re-supply ships, especially ships that want to keep a low profile. They call that ring system Titan’s Belt.”
“Avalon’s sort of out there on the southern periphery,” Gomp observed. “Lots of traffic to the colony, but I bet nobody much pays any attention to those hydrocarbon farms.”
“It’s a labor-intensive operation,” Feller pointed out. He removed the wrapper from his cigar, trimmed it and lit it. He leaned back, propped his boots on the table, took a thoughtful pull on the cheroot and blew a cloud of blue smoke into the air. “Rough living conditions, too, I expect; lots of men that have been out there for a long time, isolated, nobody much paying attention to what they’re doing – and they’re making plenty of money from their operations.”
“And Dotsero is picking up attractive young girls,” Barrett snarled, “to sell to those carbon farmers and ice wranglers. Perfect.”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? And the thing is this; there’s got to be someone organizing this slaver ring. Find that guy, and you find your missing crew.”
Captain Barrett looked the old Marine in the eyes. “Colonel, your pleasure cruise just turned into a rescue mission. Are you sure you still want to ride along?”
“Captain,” Feller grinned, “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“It might get rough.”
“I’ve got an M9 carbine in one of those footlockers I brought aboard,” Feller said, “and a Parks 12-gauge riot shotgun. I’ve even got my old battle armor. I’m always prepared for a scrap, Captain; it’s a hard habit to break.”
“Fair enough. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
***
The Brookes
Mickie Watanabe woke up suddenly; something had changed.
“Sassy,” she said, shaking the other girl’s shoulder. “Sassy, wake up.”
“What?”
“Listen,” Mickie said. “The star drive has stopped.”
Sassy placed a hand on the deck, closed her eyes. The characteristic faint rumble of the Gellar drive was no longer there. “You’re right,” she said.
“Wherever they’re taking us, we’re there.”
“Wake up the others.”
While the other girls were getting up, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and pulling on their cheap paper coveralls, Sassy recovered the book reader she’d been surreptitiously modifying and tucked it inside her coverall just as the door suddenly swung open.
“All right,” the short, squat guard called out. “Get it together. We’re moving out.”
“Where are we going?”
“Never you mind that. You’ll find out soon enough.”
The six girls filed out of the compartment into the corridor. “Follow me,” the short guard said; Sassy noticed another guard, this one tall and cadaverous, took up the rear-guard position. His carbine dangled from one hand, and he yawned hugely as he fell into place behind them.
Two ladders and one hatch later, the procession filed into a docking umbilical connecting the ship to a station. Sassy managed a look out one of the umbilical’s tiny ports; the station was not a Skyhook, nor was it an orbital dock over a settled world. Instead, an enormous gas giant swirled slowly, dominating the view, while closer, a wide belt of ice chunks and boulders stretched away into the distance. Looking forward, Sassy could see part of a large station seemingly built into a large asteroid, one of the larger fragments of what had to be Titan’s Belt.
‘Mister D’ was waiting for them just inside the station.
“Take them to B deck, compartment B-24,” he told the squat guard. “We’ll be here a few days until everyone involved gets in from the other stations. Then we’ll be moving down to Brickstown to do the sale.” Sassy saw Mickie’s face pale suddenly at the word sale.
“Yessir, Boss. This way, girls,” the short man motioned.
One by one, the girls filed into the mining station. Sassy Miroslava was the last into the port, wondering as she stepped across if she’d ever breathe free air again.
***
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’ve even got my old battle armor.
Hmm. Foreshadowing. At least, i hope so.
A strange passenger on board, who brought some battle supplies with him. This is not coincidence.
I’m packing while on vacation.
Who doesn’t?
As I said at the beginning, this guy arranged for Gomp to have his adventure in the bar. The Colonel is manipulating this situation.
Our tinfoil hats agree.
You guys have talking hats?
/jealous
#PoweredbyBaofeng
Not the same without a Partner Toupee.
Those toupees are very exclusive, very exclusive. The only go to the best clients.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZkzhQyE80
Judge rules against NY attorney general, says Trump’s $175M judgment bond will stand
Former President Trump’s $175 million bond judgment stemming from his non-jury civil trial will stand, a New York judge ruled Monday after New York Attorney General Letitia James attempted to invalidate it.
A brief moment of sanity.
$175 million?! That’s more than I make in a year!
Thanks for the story animal.
I look forward to the Shade Tree administering a bit of frontier justice.
Animal, I just read your article on the extinct snake and I am obligated to fil in for Swiss… (-.-) Those puns were Corn-y.
OT
Grounds For Divorce | The Story Behind The Song
I did a story based on this song. We chatted about what it meant.
So, here is the story.
If you have 3 hours to kill, Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson shooting the breeze.
https://youtu.be/DfTU5LA_kw8
The first step in fortifying the election of 2024.
Joe Biden Has Stunning 9-Point Lead Over Donald Trump Among Actual Voters
According to a Public Opinion Strategies poll for NBC News, the Democratic incumbent is ahead of his Republican challenger by 9 points among people who voted in the 2020 general election and 2022 mid-term elections.
They voted so hard that they voted dozens of times each.
Well that’s not a good sign.
Do you actually believe Polls? Or are you saying “They’re definately laying the groundwork for the fraud to come?”
Yes I actually believe polls within a certain range of accuracy.
And i think Trump lost to Joe mainly because he’s an unpopular idiot.
Good sign.
That sign is lying!
agreed
I have slightly more confidence in the results found on the Real Clear Politics site… but still almost no confidence in any polls reported anywhere.
Well that site just aggregates all the polls so you should. Probably the best place to go.
What good is any poll re: the presidential race that doesn’t account for likely state/electoral college results?
Oh RCP is pretty good for that usually. You can find the metrics. Maybe a little closer to the election.
The End of the Electoral College Is Finally in Sight
Earlier this week, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) decided not to veto an obscure law called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV), which calls for the state’s 4 Electoral College votes to be awarded to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes nationally regardless of the outcome in the state. The law doesn’t go into effect, however, until states totaling 270 electoral votes join the compact. That’s the number of Electoral College votes required to win the presidency. Once dismissed as an unworkable, almost farcical fantasy, the NPV just tallied its 209th electoral vote with Maine, and now has a clear path to victory. And that means that the Electoral College as we know it might not survive past the 2024 election cycle.
This is incredible news. The U.S. Electoral College is, by a quite considerable margin, the most unfathomably stupid democratic institution in the world. It has already malfunctioned twice this century by awarding the presidency to the person who received fewer votes from the American electorate. The 2000 election of George W. Bush, who steered us directly into three distinct catastrophes—the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the Great Recession—sent our new century disastrously off course in ways we are still feeling today. The even-more egregious 2016 elevation of former President Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote more decisively than Bush, resulted in the capture of the Supreme Court by reactionary conservatives for at least a generation
Drooling over the future.
If a Republican ever wins the popular vote again, that goes away fast.
Any state which has signed onto that should have it’s electoral votes and congressional delegation stripped from it and reduced to territorial status.
NBC, huh? And it goes against all the data that has come out in the last six months?
Huh.
Not saying it isn’t a good poll, but… What has Biden done, this week, to change the poll numbers? What has Trump done?
Battle space prep, most likely.
gaslighting
Lies & propaganda.
In the past little while:
1) Trump decided to give a little talk about abortion, making it the #1 issue in America abortion again (very shrewd) He tried to be as states rights as possible there but then criticized Arizona’s stringent abortion law.
2) Helped plug for the House a big Ukraine aid package, which he supports.
3) Is now being killed by Biden campaign ads and mobilization. His campaign has not run single ad and had no local offices. Because he is not really a campaign. It’s all going into his bullshit legal fund.
1) was a couple weeks ago, so would have already been showing in the polls
2) the vote was Saturday night, so too soon to show up in the polls, unless they called on Sunday.
3) I live in a blue state and have barely seen Biden/Harris signs, but Trump ‘24 is everywhere, with the rest being, uh, impartial.
Other polls are showing Trump way ahead in individual issues, such as “fit for office”, “good leadership”, “the border”, “inflation”, etc. Something is amiss here.
Polling
I don’t really think he’s losing… yet. I think he’s just dropped his lead by like 1 or 2%.
For the record I hope he wins because the alternative is even worse.
The Iowa Electronic Markets have an excellent record for predicting winners. The only time they have been wrong was when the electoral college overruled the popular vote — so Bush/Gore and Trump/Clinton.
The Winner Take All market is showing the Dems with an 80% chance of winning. I’ve never seen that big an advantage in the market. So, people who are putting really money on the outcome of the election think it’s all over at this point.
I really don’t seem to understand how to read.
I’m Not eligable for longevity pay this year, but I am going to hit top of grade (I’d calculated that I should hit top of grade Next year instead). Yet when I double checked, the values the system spat out were indeed correct.
Amortized over the year, dollar-wise, jumping to top of grade from where I was is slightly more than the nonexistant longevity payment I’d expected in a lump sum. It doesn’t help that I’m still looking at the dent in my cash reserves the March/April expenses made.
And people trust me to solve technical problems? That involve reading documentation?
Future- what’s that?
Unable to make ends meet without going into debt, many Americans have simply stopped saving altogether. Three-quarters don’t even have an emergency fund. The reasoning is sad but simple: Why save for retirement if you’ll never have enough to retire?
Likewise, many young adults have given up on the American dream of homeownership and have stopped saving for a downpayment. What money would’ve been set aside for a house or retirement is just being spent instead.
——-
This has caused consumer spending to greatly outpace incomes over the last several years, but it’s not at all sustainable. Eventually, the bills people are racking up will come due, and then there’ll be the devil to pay. At that point, Americans will be forced to cut back, maybe even trimming necessities.
We learned it from you. Uncle Sam.
I’m sure some people are counting on Biden sending them a check to buy their vote.
He still has a few checks left
President Joe Biden on Monday will celebrate Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in grants for residential solar projects that will power nearly a million low-income households, the White House said.
The announcement kicks off a week of activities aimed at touting the Biden administration’s record on climate change.
Biden will reveal the funding during a trip to Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, Virginia, where he will also announce that applications are open to join the American Climate Corps, a program to prepare young people for jobs in climate-related industries.
——-
Young voters, who tend to be more concerned about climate change, are a key constituency for Biden, a Democrat, as he prepares to face former President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the November presidential election.
The $7 billion of solar funding through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All grant competition was included in Biden’s landmark climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act. It will create 200,000 jobs and save households in the program about $400 a year, according to the White House.
We’ll spend inflation into submission.
Urge to kill rising.
“What are you guys doing?”
“Putting on the foil.”
“Yeah, you want some?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgL2d5kTepQ
Long, quiet Monday. I need more coffee.
Urge to kill rising.
-We thought about it for a long time, “Endeavor to persevere.” And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.-
I just saw on Twitter that it’s Lesbian Visibility Week. When did the QUILTBAGZ colonize the whole damn calendar?
When you weren’t looking.
It’s part of the overall strategy to destroy life.
Lesbians aren’t visible enough. They need to be everywhere.
They’re already as visible as everyone else unless they have some kind of secret lesbian cloaking technology that I’m not aware of.
A sub-class of lesbians in camouflage.
Are they supposed to wear those bright yellow vests like road work crews?
Maybe that’s what the colorful hair is all about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aposematism
Well, female Marines have to wear reflective belts some of the time so, mission accomplished?
Are they supposed to wear those bright yellow vests like road work crews?
Pussy hats with flashing LEDs.
It’s Oh wait. I think I’m thinking of the Cinemax lesbians here.
It’s never the ones you really want to see.
Posting a relevant song in Ted’s absence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdJgPvlX2lQ
When Trump visited that bodega in Harlem, the crowd cheered and chanted “4 more years”, “USA”, “Trump”, and “we love you”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYILRLr12fQ
So yeah, I don’t trust polls that put Biden ahead.
The poll is meaningless. The important point is the media starting to announce that Biden is a shoe-in for election.
The fix is in.
A wise man in a cape once said that smart politicians trust the voters and not the polls.
Advantages of mass surveillance – a contrarian view
Since is already exists, it might as well be used intelligently. It would make it much easier to catch criminals. Whenever a crime occurs, the time and location are usually known. All that’s left after that is to see what phones were pinging off the nearby cell towers. This method was used to find the terrorists responsible for the Bali bombing. If only metadata is used, I don’t see a violation of the 4th amendment as the government knows everyone’s address already. If you really don’t want the government to know where you are when you’re away from home, you can always leave your phone at home or turn it off and remove the battery. A Faraday cage would work as well. Since criminals are usually dumb and impulsive, I doubt many of them would take these precautions.
It is a common practice for ISPs to turn over the browsing and search histories of the accused to law enforcement. Often that information is incriminating. The basic principle is that people suspected of crimes lose their privacy. There is also a settled principle that there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, which is where most crimes occur. Hypothetically, I think most judges would authorize metadata search warrants for all wireless devices near crime scenes. There is also the deterrent effect such a practice would have. It is similar to the use of license plates. A car without a license plate is immediately suspicious. Smart criminals will swap license plates or steal cars to hide their identities. If license plates are not an invasion of privacy, does that principle extend to metadata in public places? It’s something that ought to be debated and settled with a Supreme Court ruling.
Of course, whatever is used against criminals can be used against political dissidents. The marriage of government and big tech makes it easier to suppress dissent without targeting individuals. Given what people are willing to tolerate from TSA, I find it odd that so many worry about the government having their metadata.
Absolutely not.
I agree that it should be greatly downsized and focused on foreign enemies like Hamas. They really dropped the ball on that one. Right now, the panopticon is spread thin as its targets include allies, enemies, and neutral parties. I should add that NSA is not allowed to spy on Americans unless they are suspected of terrorism or espionage.
Yes, I used to work for NSA. No, I am not dictating this to a G-man while tied to a chair in the basement of Area 51.
So Area 30 or Gitmo?
Correct me if I’m wrong but the NSA can spy on normal communications of Americans who are communicating with foreigners.
They can with the proper justifications. I’m certain that’s how Tucker Carlson got swept up. The comms of Orban are under surveillance anyway, so the communications of anyone in contact with him would be targeted as well. That is to say, only the emails etc, that were exchanged between Carlson and Orban.