On the surface
“Your man, Weems,” Barrett growled at the wealthy would-be colonist. “He hacked my shuttle’s piloting computer.”
“You belabor the obvious, Captain.”
“You were prepared for this, you bastard. You knew there was an emerging intelligence here.”
“You are perceptive. Yes, Captain, I suspected it. The probe droids sent here indicated nighttime campfires. I had hoped one of the other worlds might work out, but I am prepared to take this one, by any means necessary.”
Barrett risked a glance over her shoulder. Behind her, Mickey Crowe cradled his carbine casually in one arm. He had placed his hand carefully near the pistol grip and trigger. The carbine’s muzzle, seemingly trained carelessly skyward, was in fact only a few degrees away from one of Amole’s scouts.
She shot a look over Amole’s shoulder. Behind him, Hector Gomp stood, glaring; his carbine was slung over his right shoulder, muzzle-down. Gomp’s hand was on the pistol grip, ready to rotate the weapon up into firing position at a moment.
Yvette Langstrom, like Crowe, held her carbine casually pointed skyward, and her off hand rested on her favorite new toy, a static discharge device that delivered a hefty stun charge at ranges up to ten meters. She was well within range of Amole and two of his three henchmen.
Amole’s three scouts were more overtly prepared for action. All three held carbines at port arms, and all three had moved in to flank their boss, one at each side, one at his back.
Come any shooting, Barrett thought bitterly, I’ll get some of my own people killed.
Stand-off.
She felt the weight of her ancient .45 hanging uselessly in its holster. Behind her in the trees, some animal or another emitted a small, trilling sound. A slight breeze ruffled the fernlike plants that filled the small meadow. Everything else was silent.
“Have your people back off, Captain,” Amole ordered at last. He extracted his datapad. “Have them back down. My man Weems, as you put it, has your ship locked down, and he’s waiting for my signal. Back down, or he’ll never release it.”
“Gomp, Mickey, Yvette, take it easy,” Barrett ordered. “All right, Hudson, you have the advantage, for the moment. What exactly do you plan to do?”
“Why, I plan to found my colony here, exactly as I came here to do. I am not about to let a few stone-throwing beasts stand in my way. And, Captain, I’m not going to let you stand in my way, either.”
“Hey,” Hector Gomp interrupted. “Listen. Anyone else hear that? Off to the north.”
“It’s coming from the southwest, too,” Yvette Langstrom agreed. “Kind of a rumble. Sounds almost like thunder, but there are no clouds.”
“It’s not thunder,” Gomp said. “Bet you anything it’s whatever built that campfire. Whatever Amole’s man shot at.”
***
The Shade Tree
“Vada,” Scanning tech Ophelia Watts asked suddenly, “has the Captain called from the surface?”
“Nothing since she left to head back down the last time,” Signals tech Vada Newman replied.
“What’s going on?” Indira Krishnavarna demanded.
“Shuttle’s coming back up, Exec,” Watts replied. “Scanning for bio readings – hey, this is weird, there’s nobody on board.”
“I’m going down to the docking port,” the Exec announced. She stood up and strode to the Bridge hatch –
— which didn’t open for her.
“What the hell?” she muttered under her breath. She tapped the manual release.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, she tapped the manual again and tried to pull the hatch open. It remained firmly dogged shut.
“Exec,” Ophelia Watts spoke up again, “Someone has activated the fire protocols. Whole ship is locked down. Alarms are disabled, but sure as hell the compartments are all sealed.”
“Someone has hacked the main computer,” the Exec said. “Anyone want three guesses as to whom?”
“Doesn’t matter much,” Watts answered her. “Anyone who’s in a compartment is staying there, until we can get the computer to drop the lock.”
Krishnavarna went to her main computer panel and slid her fingers over the board. “I could have guessed it,” she said bitterly. “Computer’s locked out.”
“And the air vents are all dogged shut, too,” Watts reminded the Exec. “We’ve probably got enough air for two-three hours. Maybe less here on the Bridge, with a whole watch standing.”
“Not much we can do from here. Good thing we have an ace in the hole.”
“Kaelee?” Paolo Guerra asked from his now-useless Helm station.
“Kaelee.” The Exec sat back down in the Captain’s chair and smiled. “Amole thought he was pretty damn clever in bringing along a hacker. He never knew we had one of our own.” She pulled out her own personal datapad and punched in Kaelee’s code.
One deck below, Kaelee Adams was in the narrow, claustrophobic quarters she shared with second watch scanning tech Anita Knapp and security troops Annette Wilson and Amanda Davis. The quarters were dark; none of the four was due on duty for over four hours.
Kaelee smiled to herself in her sleep, dreaming of a boy who she had known on Corinthia, years before. She rolled over with a sleepy sigh of contentment and slumbered on. Beside her, a flashing red indicator light on her muted datapad went unheeded.
***
On the surface
“Folks, we may want to think about setting up some kind of defense,” Hector Gomp insisted. The rumbling sounds were coming from four directions now and getting closer — and more frequent.
“I think you pissed somebody off, Hudson,” Jean Barrett said. She took her antique Springfield .45 from its holster, checked the load. She reached in a pocket, extracted her extra magazine, and examined that, too. “I’ve only got twenty rounds, Gomp. How are you three fixed?”
“Full load, Cap’n,” Gomp replied. “Six thirty rounders each. I’ve got a couple of smoke grenades.”
“No frags?” Jean grinned at him.
“Not today, Cap’n. Teach me to think that this would be a boring trip.” He looked at the mini-nav on his wristband. “We’re about a klick and a half from the landing site – we might want to make a run for it.”
“The shuttle isn’t there,” Barrett objected. “Amole’s man has it headed back up to the ship.”
“Yeah, but that clearing will be easier to defend, and the shuttle’s coming back, right?”
“Your logic is impeccable,” the captain conceded. “Hudson, my people and I are pulling back to the landing site. You can stay here or come along, just as you please.”
***
In the woods
Whenever two groups came together, the two hunt leaders advanced towards each other while the rest of their respective pods waited a short distance away. The two hunt leaders exchanged rumbling signals and waved tentacles at each other until a pecking order was established, after which both groups acted as one.
The hunt leader of the pod with the wounded member was larger and somewhat more brightly colored than the hunt leader of the new group they had just encountered, and quickly established his dominance. The two pods assimilated into one and moved off through the forest towards the clearing where the encounter took place.
Each member of each caste had well-defined roles to play. As they rolled through the forest, the hunt leaders picked up rocks. They stopped for a moment to allow the gatherers to procure some long, straight saplings. The two hunt leaders took the saplings, stripped branches and used stone choppers to hack a rough point on the heavy end, forming crude but effective stabbing spears.
Meanwhile the fire tenders checked the bone-lined pouches where they carried banked coals, ready to start kindling quickly ablaze. As they moved about the group, they gathered bits of dry brush, twigs, and dry ferns in their tentacles, wrapping them around broken ends of branches to make crude but effective torches. The breeders stayed at the rear of the group, rumbling very quietly among themselves.
When this was done, the group moved on. They were quietly aware of at least two more groups, also converging on the same area.
***
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Utinni!
Such a great reference. That colony group is about to be wiped out by a fleshy tidal wave. Here’s hoping the good Captain gets her ship unlocked in time to GTFO.
From the ded-thred about Schumer trying to help Elias steal PA’s Senate seat. This would be an excellent time for the next Senate Majority Leader to inform Schumer of the expected consequences of his actions.
From what I gather, there’s quite the knife fight going on inside the Repub delegation on who the next Majority Leader will be, so right now there isn’t one to read anybody the riot act. Of course, if the GOPe get their way, no riot act will be read at all.
See I think this would be a great opportunity to stand out, to be as bare-knuckle as McConnell ever was, and defy all the rest as cowards. Doesn’t even have to be something we ever hear about, in fact, doing so quietly – the Corleone way – is even better.
Listen Chuck. Taking this seat doesn’t give you a majority. It doesn’t even get you to a tie.
It just leaves you in the minority with a pissed off majority that won’t forget about it.
Chuck – I can make sure every mic you stand in front of is turned off.
He’ll always have the Sunday morning news shows to preach to right thinking Americans.
thanks for the story Animal
Yes! I can’t wait for the next chapter, “Wiping the floor with the colonists.”
lol
“Death by a thousand pointed sticks”
Agreed, I’m enjoying this greatly.
Totally off topic:
I hadn’t seen this before but it made me laugh out loud:
https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/13fe90c6-998e-4b76-93ec-3b1ca93dac8d_1125x1194.jpeg
Not having an over-inflated ego? What madness is this? /cries the leftists, and literally crying leftists
Enigma
The Rev. Derrick Harkins, a minister who has served Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, has overseen outreach to Black American religious communities for more than a decade. He said that Trump’s hypermasculine appeal worked to win over some younger men of color.
“I think that Trump with this bogus machismo has been effective amongst the young men, Black, white, Hispanic,” Harkins said. “And I think unfortunately, even if it’s a very small percentage, you know, when you’re talking about an election like we just had it can be very impactful.
——-
A majority of voters nationally said Trump was a strong leader; slightly fewer than half said the same about Harris. Among Hispanic voters, even more saw Trump as strong in this election. Roughly 6 in 10 Hispanic men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%.
Black men and women were about twice as likely as in 2020 to describe Trump as a strong leader.
What if people view him as strong because he stood up to the onslaught of lawfare and defamation instead of knuckling under?
That can’t be it. That’s crazy.
It’s like a soyboy v chad meme come to life.
Not to mention people having watched Biden for the last four years.
I admit, I don’t like the strong leader cast – for anyone, not just Trump. Stop looking for someone to follow. But I may as well be one crying out in the wilderness.
“Stop looking for one to follow.”
I might as well hang it up for the day. That x1000.
If you don’t like the term “leader” because of its connotation of “followers,” what term and/or what qualities would you consider appropriate for the person we choose to be in charge of dealings with other heads of state?
“I’m in charge now”
GT – It is not the leader that needs work. The office should have far less power. It is the electorate that is the problem, just not the way the left thinks.
If the voters were more cynical, less gullible, more independent thinking, and not so freakin’ low-information we wouldn’t be in this condition. A dash or two of courage wouldn’t hurt.
This probably rates as the most wishful thinking, naive comment in Glib history.
This probably rates as the most wishful thinking, naive comment in Glib history.
Beat me to it. As I told my son, right now I’ll take a speed bump and some loose lug nuts.
GT, Suthen has the gist of it.
Every single organized human endeavor will consist of leaders and followers. That isn’t the problem.
The problem is the characterization of a leader as strong, because that sorta implies that people follow out of weakness. It also means accountability is probably weak – and power exercised without accountability is a real problem. The executive branch is not where the prime locus of power belongs in our govt – it is to faithfully execute the laws, to carry out that which Congress has decided. Every investiture of strength in the Executive is a diminishment of the power of Congress. Of course the spineless weasels there love that – hey, not my[/our] fault!
So who sits across from Putin?
Who has any reason to sit across from Putin? Do we not have an entire diplomatic corps within the State Dept?
So Putin is satisfied to meet with an underling? Or do we still have a Secretary of State? A Secretary of State who reports to…?
GT – heads of state meetings are photo-ops
Asshole FDR thought he could charm Stalin and sacrificed Eastern Europe in the process.
Bogus machismo?
The dude stopped his SS detail to find his shoes, then threw up his hand in a fist with blood on his face after getting shot. The look on his face was not fear or worry but rightful anger.
And then there’s the fact that he’s been arrested, booked, convicted of a felony, had his house raided by the police (FBI) including looking through his wife’s intimates drawer. I’m sure there no way anyone who’s been hassled by cops could think he could relate.
Or his clear love of NY and NY people, and quite pedestrian tastes in food but gaudy taste in decorations. Gold shitters aren’t much different from lawn flamingos except in price.
Oh, you mean that fake assassination thingy? You didnt get the memo? That was staged.
“Bogus machismo”
Yea, shaking a defiant fist and exhorting his followers to fight after nearly having his head blown off is bogus machismo. IMO that gesture will do him a lot of good when it comes to talks with Russian Man Bad Putin.
<em.I admit, I don’t like the strong leader cast – for anyone, not just Trump. Stop looking for someone to follow. But I may as well be one crying out in the wilderness.
I agree. Maybe it’s the phrasing of the poll question as opposed to what the people actually think.
Bottom line, Trump is tenacious and he’s not afraid to say what he thinks (to a fault, possibly). Harris slunk away from anything remotely resembling accountability or responsibility for the policies actively implemented by the administration she was part of, and she had no discernible plan other than vague feel-good sloganeering.
That was a bright red caution light and a big enough warning flag to block out the sun. I dont think many people appreciate just how bad that it is.
Vague platitudes using the words freedom and democracy coupled with nebulous talk of the opponent as evil and will do bad bad things without ever citing anything or giving details is dictator 101. Her speeches were right up there with any tin-pot thug that is or ever was.
Not to be guilty of it myself I would point out that she talked about how responsible power blah blah ruin people’s lives with a stroke of the pen no one seemed to point out that that is exactly what she did. She also (was pointed out) ran interference for child molesters because of the political clout of the Catholic Church.
“I’m in charge now”
is that you, Al Haig?
The Dem establishment learned some lessons about the new media landscape last week. Now it’s GOPe’s turn:
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=412331
Poor critters are being bullied. I feel terrible for them.