The Shade Tree
Jean Barrett and Darrell Weems, Amole’s “executive assistant,” were overseeing the loading of the three cargo containers containing two small pre-fab shelters and various and sundry supplies for Amole’s fledgling colony when the call came down from the Bridge. The captain stepped to the comm panel to answer the page. “Barrett.”
“Captain,” she heard Indira Krishnavarna’s worried voice, “Call here from Gomp. He says you’ll want to get right back down to the surface, fast as possible.”
“What’s up?” Barrett demanded.
“I’ll put him through.” There were several clicks as the exec switched the external line to the panel.
“Cap’n?” Gomp’s voice said at last. The signal from Gomp’s low-power datapad comm was weak, scratchy.
“I’m here, Gomp. What’s going on?”
“I found a campfire, Cap’n. What’s left of one, anyway.”
“A… campfire? A campfire? Are you sure?”
Gomp’s voice came through a burst of static. “Pretty sure. Amole’s men, they’re…” His voice trailed off into a hiss of interference.
“Gomp?”
“Cap’n?” Gomp’s signal strengthened for a moment. “Like I said, they’re just standing around talking with their boss. Can’t see this is gonna…” The static rushed back in, drowning out the security chief.
“Sorry, Captain,” the exec’s voice came back. “Lots of solar activity right now; communication conditions stink.”
“That’s all right; I’m heading back down there.” Barrett turned away from the panel.
“What’s going on?” Weems demanded.
“That’s what I’m going to find out. You’re staying here.” She turned to Tim McNeal and Robert Timmons, who had manhandled the three containers of gear into the shuttle’s cargo bay. “Is that all of it? All right, make everything fast. I’m leaving for the surface.”
“I should go with you,” Weems objected.
“No,” Jean shot back. She turned to her Security troops. “Tim, he stays here.”
“Very well,” Weems sniffed. “I’ll wait in my quarters. I’m sure whatever your man has found won’t amount to anything.”
Five minutes later, the shuttle detached from the Shade Tree and dropped towards the planet below.
***
At the landing site
There was no cautious approach when the shuttle came in for the second landing. Instead, the old Navy lander shot in over the southern tree line, flared quickly and landed in a cloud of dust from the maneuvering thrusters. The hatch popped open and disgorged Jean Barrett, who immediately made for the edge of the meadow where her Security Chief waited.
“Show me,” she ordered.
Gomp led the Captain a hundred meters or so into the woods. Barrett saw Yvette Langstrom standing in a small open area with one of Amole’s scouts.
“Here it is,” Gomp said, pointing at the ground in the middle of the small clearing.
Jean bent and examined a small depression in the ground. It was, unmistakably, a recently used fire pit. The small, bowl-shaped depression was filled with gray ash and black chunks of charred wood, some of which was still smoldering. Some dirt had been roughly kicked over the fire, but not enough to hide it.
“Someone built a fire here,” Gomp said, somewhat unnecessarily. “And they’re smart enough to try to put it out when they leave. And Cap’n, look here,” he added, holding something out in his left hand.
“A tool of some sort?” Barrett asked.
“A pretty serviceable knife before it broke,” Gomp agreed. “Flint, I guess? Some kind of stone, anyhow. Whatever made this fire, Cap’n, and this knife, they moved off to the north not all that long ago. Probably no later than this morning. You can see their trail moving into the trees here.” Jean could not, but she was not a trained Marine.
“Where are Amole and his other scouts?”
“Took off following the trail about an hour ago.”
“Shit. Let’s get after them.” She looked across the fire pit at Langstrom and the remaining scout. “You two, come along with us. Nothing is coming off that shuttle. We have to gather everyone up and get out of here.”
“Why?” the scout wanted to know.
“There’s an intelligent species here,” Jean told him. “Primitive, but intelligent. Bordering on technological: fire, stone tools. Confederate law says we leave them the hell alone.”
“We’re not in the Confederacy,” the scout pointed out.
Jean didn’t bother to point out that she had herself ignored Confederate law when it suited her on any number of occasions; in this case, the law agreed with her own sense of proper action. “We are Confederate citizens; the Constitution says that we obey Confederate law even outside the frontier. We’re leaving,” Jean snapped, “and that’s not subject to debate. Follow me or stay here, I don’t give a damn, but the shuttle’s locked down. Nothing is getting in or out of it. If you stay here, you wait in the open alone. Gomp, lead the way.” She turned away from the scout and followed her Security Chief into the forest.
They walked through the woods at a good pace, stopping twice while Gomp circled and picked up the trail. After traveling about three kilometers, crossing two creeks and climbing a low ridge, they stopped to take stock.
“Can’t believe they came this far,” Gomp said. He brushed a clinging fern frond off his carbine. “They’re following the trail of whatever built that fire, that’s clear. Must be moving right along.”
“We’ve got to be getting close.” Barrett took a water packet from her jacket pocket, popped it in her mouth and bit down for a drink.
Gomp looked down at the faint trail again. “Yeah. It’s odd – whatever these things are, they don’t really leave footprints – more like round pads from a walking construction droid. They seem to be four-footed, but there are marks to the side where something drags every now and then – like I said, odd. Can’t wait to see them.” He stood up straight, wiped sweat off his forehead with his coverall sleeve. “It’s getting warm, must be getting on towards local noon. Yvette, want to take point for a bit?”
“Sure thing.” The young woman nodded, checked her own carbine and drifted away silently.
Gomp chuckled. “That girl can move like smoke on a light breeze.”
They were just preparing to follow her when the sound of several shots pealed out from a short distance away. Gomp immediately sprinted toward the shots, which were followed now by the sound of a man’s voice, shouting. Jean Barrett and the ‘scout’ – Jean remembered his name now as Rafael Opp – pounded after him.
Gomp ran effortlessly, bounding over down trees, crashing through the brush. Amole’s scout kept up with the former Marine with little trouble, but Captain Barrett was struggling; years of shipboard life had not equipped her for extended running in a warm, humid environment. She noticed that Mickey Crowe was following her closely. She looked back at him once, and the ever-taciturn man just nodded as he jogged along. I have your back, Captain, the silent gesture somehow said.
Barrett was gasping for breath and holding a stitch in her side when she finally broke through into a small clearing to see Amole and his other two scouts standing, staring at the trees.
“What’s going on here?” she demanded. “What was all the shooting about?”
Hudson Amole pointed at one of his scouts, who was holding a bloody field bandage to the side of his head. “Look at Thomas! Something attacked us, hit Thomas here with a rock.”
“It threw a rock? What did it look like?”
“I got a good look at them,” Thomas Gantz spoke up. “I was closest. There were three of them. They looked like some kind of upright squid-thing, with tentacles; the big one wore a skin over its head. That was the one that threw the rock at me.”
“We found the remains of a campfire,” Barrett told the man. “Now you say they were throwing rocks, wearing skins – were they carrying anything?”
“The big one had a long staff, spear, something like that – made of wood, anyway.”
“That tears it,” Jean snapped. “Listen, Mister Amole, we have to get back to the shuttle. Pretty or not, this can’t be your Utopia.”
“And why is that?” Amole was suddenly calm; he was watching Barrett closely.
“Isn’t it obvious? There’s an intelligent species here. Stone Age, maybe, but intelligent. They use fire, they use tools. Confederate law is very plain; if you try to establish a colony here, the Navy will be forced to displace you.”
“They can’t,” Amole objected. “We’re outside the Confederacy. They don’t have any authority. Hell, Captain, they probably won’t even notice.”
The privateer captain stopped for a moment, thinking hard. The man may have a point. Will the Confederate government interfere out here, past the frontier? We are on the opposite side of the Confederacy from the Grugell, so there is no danger there. The Navy doesn’t maintain much of a presence in the nearest settled systems. How long can Amole operate out here? He’s a Confederate citizen, he’s subject to the law wherever he is, but odds are long against anyone coming out here to look for him.
Can I allow him to move in on another intelligent species, no matter how primitive?
How far on the shady side of the law are you willing to go, Captain?
“We’re not staying here,” she barked. “I don’t give much of a damn about where the border is, Mister Amole. The law may frequently be an ass, but in this case, there is good reason. We can’t put a colony down here when there’s already an intelligent species.”
“Captain,” Amole responded, his voice lowering, “I mean to have my colony here. I will co-exist with these things, or I will deal with them some other way. I won’t let you, or anyone else, stand in my way.”
“If you stay here, you’ll stay just as you are, Hudson. No supplies, no shelters. I won’t unload the shuttle.”
“Captain,” Amole replied with a feline grin, “I don’t think you’re going to have much choice.”
Barrett was about to reply when, from the distance, she heard the unmistakable sound of the Shade Tree shuttle lifting off and angling for orbit.
“What the hell?” She turned to the direction of the LZ and shaded her eyes to follow the tiny shape of the shuttle soaring skyward. “That shuttle was locked down!”
“Was,” Amole gloated. “Was.”
***
In the forest
The pod of six gathered around the hunt leader. Each of them extended their sense-organs, although the scent in the air was plain without that; one of their number was wounded.
It was one of the fire-tenders. There were two small, strange holes in the fire-tender’s side, both leaking a sluggish flow of olive-green blood. The fire-tender groaned softly, and slumped to the ground.
One of the gatherers went to the wounded fire-tender. The creature extracted some grasses from its carrying-pouch. With one walking tentacle, the gatherer scraped at the ground until it had a pile of dirt under its body, and then urinated in the dirt. The gatherer mixed the grasses into the resulting mud and spread the mixture on the fire-tender’s wounds. It listened to the wounded pod member’s breathing for a moment, then stroked the wounded creature with a carrying tentacle.
A few meters away, the hunt leader squatted down, inflated its book-lungs, and sent a deep, throbbing rumble through the forest. It repeated the call three times. The sound echoed through the hills, where the hunt leaders of other pods heard and repeated the summons. Slowly, the pods began to converge on the pod with the wounded member.
***
The Shade Tree
Darrell Weems grinned down at his enhanced datapad. The shuttle, under the control of the remote device he had surreptitiously installed shortly after leaving Avalon, was on its way back to the ship.
Weems looked around the small guest “stateroom” – actually, a temporary area partitioned off in the cargo bay – that he shared with his employer. He had already hacked most of the Shade Tree’s systems, and was confident that there were no onboard surveillance systems tracking him, but that didn’t mean that someone might not walk in on him.
His next action would preclude that possibility, too. He tapped into this datapad, effortlessly accessing the Shade Tree‘s emergency and fire protocols and entering a series of commands. Once that was done, he checked the shuttle’s progress; once it docked, he would be free to board the shuttle and join his employer on the planet below.
Weem’s twenty-year sentence for computer theft on Earth – a sentence he had skipped on a year earlier during a weekend “furlough” from the minimum-security prison in Toronto – suddenly looked to be a distant, bad memory.
***
Thanks for the story.
Interesting turn of events.
Don’t bring rocks to a gun fight.
At least he’ll make an effort to coexist with them.
Perhaps a full-time network security billet for the Shade Tree? 20/20 hindsight and all that…
I don’t think that Amole is going to particularly like the part that comes next though.
They have one. But only one, and she was asleep.
Suddenly I’m thinking of Riddick’s line “you should’ve taken the money”.
Interesting, apparently Veteran’s stuff has been placed into the DEI group’s responsibility.
OT, but the best comment on P-Nut seen so far:
Eskimo Libertarian
New York takes “No Nut November” far too seriously.
Oof.
Nuts out for Pnut.
Great chapter. The inevitable confrontation! Who wants to bet the mercy shot first?
Mercs. Mercs! Damn this autocorrect! I damn thee!
The card says ‘moops.’
Bravo.
MAGA riot prep
New security fencing went up around the White House, U.S. Capitol and Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington, D.C. as authorities prepare for Election Day in the event there may be political unrest in the coming days.
The Secret Service constructed eight-foot-high metal fences around the White House and Treasury Department complex and the adjacent parts of Lafayette Square, the Naval Observatory and Harris’s house in D.C., The Washington Post reported.
At the Capitol, previously used temporary bicycle-rack barriers stated “Police Line: Do not cross,” surrounding the perimeter.
The Secret Service also have plans for physical security measures outside of the West Palm Beach, Fla. convention center where former President Trump will host an event on Election Night, the outlet reported.
Fair and transparent. Safe and effective. Beacon of liberty. Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Seems premature. I thought they were planning on counting ballots for weeks.
Only in select counties.
Remember, DC prepared in ’20 for the wilding in the event of a Trump win.
“Officials have said there are no current threats to Washington ahead of the election”
So they’re saying the uniparty have it all locked up?
Officials have said there are no current threats to Washington ahead of the election, but locals are bracing for upset supporters and the fencing and plywood are reminders of the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
We’re not worried about antifa. Those guys are mostly peaceful.
Say what you want about the people on Jan 6, they did not attack businesses.
Today I learned than illegals in DACA Can apply for Advanced Parole so they can travel abroad, including their country of citizenship, and re-enter the US. Utter bullshit. Fuck the traitors, especially Obama, that implement this patent bullshit. Any judge that rules for DACA is a fucking traitor. Fuckers need to swing.
And especially fuck the woe is me daca shitheads. Your parents fucked you over? Too bad, happens to everyone. You’re an adult now. You can voluntarily self deport back to the country of which you are citizen or you can remain and be a criminal with all that entails. Once you’ve decided to remain, you’re no more a victim than the Mendendez brothers.
How dare you deny them the victimhood they choose!
But a non-immigrant visa expires if you leave the country and you must apply for reentry after you leave..
Even if one is sympathetic to the DACA people, it’s still legislation from the Executive Branch, which is kind of authoritarian and threatening to our democracy. And in cases like this the Dems expect the legal system to take so long that it creates a situation where you can’t do anything about it.
…
I can’t believe I forgot to mention on Sunday – The duel with Tabris was the inspiration for the cover art of the book, though I let the artist take creative liberties for visual appeal. (Things like the rain and the extra rocky ford)
I noticed that.
Me too.
I’m glad it didn’t go by unnoticed.
False advertising.
I demand compensation.
It is an understood convention that the book’s cover does not represent an exact depiction of events within its pages.
Same same
Originally I wanted to know why a bearded guy in quilted armor was dual-wielding kopides.
Then after the description in the tournament I recognized what Kord was toting.
I’m willing to settle the case, but only if you write a second book in this same vein.
“It is an understood convention that the book’s cover does not represent an exact depiction of events within its pages.”
See: Youtube videos
I especially like the ‘most satisfying’ thumbnails with barely dressed buxom women but the video is all mass productions machines
I guess there is a connection there…a euphemism maybe?
“we are prepared to offer you a lifetime supply of free coffee a…”
“I’ll take it!”
So… apparently the IT guys at the NYT are going on strike, but apparently that doesn’t affect anything since playing wordle counts as crossing a picket line?
Reading the paper is crossing the line… that address tag?.. printed via the tech union. That delivery to the store? coordinated by the tech union.
Boycott in sympathy for their 6 figure jobs.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-digital-picket-line/
And especially fuck the woe is me daca shitheads.
Pick up your winnings and leave the table before your luck runs out.
Go home and fix your shithole country, if you have learned anything worthwhile in your time here.
*I’m not holding my breath
apparently the IT guys at the NYT are going on strike
That’s it. We’ll have to cancel the election.
If they can declare a candidacy, they can declare a winner.
I keep seeing these horrified stories about people unjustly purged from voter rolls. If you are actually an eligible voter you can just correct the error, can’t you? It’s not like they’re going to deport you and kill your family.
If Trump wins (a second time) he totally will, though!
It’s not like they’re going to deport you and kill your family.
Worse, you get to the poll, and they won’t give you a ballot.
They’ll give you a provisional one and you’ll have to prove your citizenship within X number of days to have it count.
I will almost certainly be shunted to the ‘inactive voters’ line, since I never send in the stupid annual census postcard.
I will have to show my ID and then I’ll get a ballot.
Total disenfranchisement!
(Note that showing ID to vote is not racism here in Mass for some mysterious reason)
One our friends is going through this. She moved here a year ago and registered when she got her driver’s license. Just a few days ago she got a letter saying she’s not registered because they didn’t have a phone number or something from her. Sounded like a scam, but she called the county and they don’t have her registered.
Another friend is a poll worker. The solution is to go to vote and ask for a provisional ballot. Then you have 10 days to get registered, and if you do that the ballot counts.
I was comparing my mail in ballot to the one my wife received. I can’t find any unique identifier on them, so I don’t see what would prevent someone from running the ballot through the counting machine dozens of times. I’m not expecting the ballot to be tied to a specific person. The secret ballot is important, but I would expect some serialization or something to make sure it is counted only once.
People argue it’s too had to cheat with in-person voting to influence an election. Probably, but mail-in ballots seem to be an incredibly easy way to do it. Some states even set aside a week to count all those mail-in ballots, and they just happen to favor one party by an impossible margin.
With mail-in voting you make signature verification much more important. How do you verify millions of signatures in a short period of time? Is software used? If so how does it work? My signature changes over time and depends on the pen I use, the type of paper, how much space is available, the surface under the paper.
You also create opportunities for voter intimidation of the sort that Dems think husbands are doing to their wives. This is actually something UN observers look out for in other countries.
You create more opportunities for people to sell their ballots.
See Lazlo Holyfeld: “They set up the rules”
https://youtu.be/I6kBfBXZBdc
Yanno, this might be something that is completely changed in my lifetime. I know what *I* think you meant here, but as the next generation, that phrase might be synonymous with 👉 uwu 👈
Worse, you get to the poll, and they won’t give you a ballot.
Ignorant as I am, I thought they’d give you a “provisional” ballot, to be counted upon verification of eligibility.
You know, like the Nazis.
so I don’t see what would prevent someone from running the ballot through the counting machine dozens of times.
There is nothing that could in anyway trace the ballot back to the person that voted or the agency that issued the mail-in ballot. This is by intention.
There are a couple of ways to prevent a ballot from being scanned multiple times:
1) the scanner prints a code onto a ballot when it is scanned to prevent it from being scanned again.
2) an auditing system that counts ballots received from the populous and compares to the number of ballots counted.
It is possible to build a system that is vastly more secure than today’s system. No one will do it.
Maybe the two methods you mention are what they use. If so, then I feel somewhat better.
It bothers me that I can think of dozens of ways to cheat. Instead of putting together a schoolhouse rock video of how they prevent such cheating, they just wave their hands and say “Trust us. Don’t be a denier, fascist!”
No. As far as I know there are no methods being used to prevent ballots from being rescanned.
The 2020 election was alleged to have ballots dropped off in bulk in the middle of the night with no vetting and alleged to have ballots rescanned in bulk.
Allegedly. All accusations came from fascist nazis and were dismissed without afterthought.
I’ve seen hand waving that the counting machine should catch it, but it’s never explained how. The bar code would work, but instead of running it through one machine ten times, I run it through ten machines one time. Would it be caught in that case? I’m not even that devious, and I can think of so many ways to cheat.
Baris and Barnes just started:
https://rumble.com/v5lwomn-barnes-and-baris-episode-85-what-are-the-odds.html
The Bee hits another home run; the headline alone is perfection.
Realistically, I don’t believe Trump will drain the bureaucratic swamp more than an inch or two. Then, in four years, the rains come again to refill it.
Instead of putting together a schoolhouse rock video of how they prevent such cheating, they just wave their hands and say “Trust us. Don’t be a denier, fascist!”
,/em>
“There is no cheating. It’s illegal, duh.”
My reply to that is that murder has been illegal since almost forever, and yet it still happens.
Told you last week I didn’t trust Amole.
What’s Amole?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(sauce)
I feel like Gary now.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie?
It’s that sauce you put on your leppo.
It’s that sauce you put on your leppo.
I prefer raw dogging my leppo, personally.
Avocado’s constant is the number of atoms in a bowl of guacamole.
Another handy reminder – more for other folks than us ;p
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/remember-to-vote-no-on-bond-issues-tomorrow-3/
Anomaly
Up until 2020, Americans had broadly gotten used to relatively quick race calls for elections, usually no later than late Tuesday or early Wednesday after the election. Of the races of the past few decades, all of them had been called by major media outlets by early the following morning, except for 2000 when a recount in Florida caused weeks of delays.
But four years ago marked a sharp difference, with the pandemic yielding health guidelines to minimize in-person, indoor interactions as much as possible. With the election approaching, many voters turned to mail-in voting to avoid voting in-person, and several states altered their policies to allow more voters to cast their ballots through that method.
hat caused a historic amount of mail-in voting, making up more than 43 percent of all votes cast, as opposed to just a quarter of all votes in 2016 and 2018, according to a federal report released after the election evaluating voting methods used in 2020.
But that caused an issue with states being able to process and count all the ballots with the speed that many have gotten used to.
The “health emergency” has passed. We should return to normal.
Haha, I crack myself up.
With mail-in voting you make signature verification much more important. How do you verify millions of signatures in a short period of time?
“Huh, lookee here. ‘Occupant’ is the most common name in America.”
Oddly specific stat of the day:
According to Boston Sports Info on Twitter/X, 22-year-old Drake Maye is the first quarterback in NFL history to tally at least 700 passing yards, complete at least 60 percent of his passes, throw at least six touchdown passes, rush for at least 200 yards and have at least one rushing TD through his first four starts.