Twenty-One
Outskirts, at sunset
Mary Lenell was just walking back from Outskirt’s tiny mercantile towards the cabin on the north end of town that she shared with her security officer husband when she heard the buzzing sound. She looked up from the red dust of the road to see, emerging from the trees to the north, one of the strangest things she’d ever witnessed.
A buzzing silver-gray platform, two meters wide, floated out of the trees. At the front, both hands on a tall t-handle, stood a tall, thin man with a huge mustache, a big gray hat like she had only seen in old Western movies, dressed in leather vest, leggings and moccasins. On the platform behind him was a petite blonde girl who sat on a bulging backpack, holding a rifle on…
She screamed for her husband Walter, who was in their small house trying to fix their leaky kitchen sink drain.
Minutes later, the platform floated to a stop next to Mary and her security officer husband, who stood with his pistol held loosely in one hand, pointed at the ground. Behind him in the open door of their small house, two small boys watched, wide-eyed. The man at the controls reached up and tugged downward on the brim of his huge hat.
“Ma’am,” he asked politely, “Sir, would either of you know where I can find a Company security troop?”
“I’m a security officer,” Walter informed him.
The young man smiled broadly. “You better take us to your boss, Officer. This here’s a long story.”
“I bet it is,” Security Officer First Class Walter Lenell admitted, staring over Mike’s shoulder at the skinny, weird form of Clomonastik hunched on the alien scooter. “Can you give me a thumbnail?”
“Yeah, there’s a whole piss-pot full of these things,” Mike pointed at Clomonastik, “landing up in the New Pyrenees. They blasted the hell out of our cabin the minute they showed up, and they’ve been trying to kill us ever since. This one here seems to be the boss. I brought him along out of their main camp, figured he’d be a nice safe-passage. My guess is they’ll be coming here before long.”
“You’d both better come along with me, and bring…whatever that thing is. I’ll call a skimmer to come down from Settlement. The Colonel’s going to want to talk to you both.” Officer Lenell turned to his wife. “Mary, honey, would you run in the house and bring me my duty belt? I’m going to have to go to work for a while, I guess. There goes my weekend off,” he grumped.
“Weekend?” Jenny exclaimed. “What day is it?”
Officer Lenell stared at the young couple, finally noticing their hand-made clothing of boser leather. “It’s Saturday. How long have you kids been out there in the woods?”
Mike and Jenny traded a look and laughed. “Right around a year and a half for me, and Jenny here a year or so longer, before her folks got killed by a roc. I guess we don’t have much use for calendars up there.”
Thirty minutes later, a large black skimmer with the blazon of OWME Security on the side settled to a stop in front of Officer Lenell’s small house. A large, heavy-set man strode out of the troop bay door at the rear. Mike looked, and a jolt of recognition shot through him.
“Mr. Davies!”
“Well, Ah’ll be damned.” OWME Security Forces Colonel Jeff Davies, Commander of Security Forces, Forest, strode up to Mike with his hand outstretched. “Ah’m damn glad to see you, boy!”
Mike grabbed Colonel Davies’ hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Jenny, I guided the Colonel here on an elk hunting trip what, two years before I left Earth.”
Jenny stepped around Mike, smiling prettily. “Pleased to meet you, Colonel.” Davies blushed a little.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss. You got yourself a fine young man, there. And Ah’ve still got fond memories of that elk hunting trip, boy, Ah tell you what! That elk head is a-hangin’ on the wall in my office back in Settlement right now, as it happens.” He turned to stare at Clomonastik, who was now standing nearby, guarded by two more security troops from the skimmer. “Well, now, boy, I wonder just where the hell y’all came from.”
“As far as we can tell, he’s the big boss.” Mike said. “Well, there’s gonna be a second banana up there, and if these things are really planning to come down here looking for a fight, then Ah imagine their timetable just got kicked up a ways. Kids, Ah’d like y’all to come with me. We’ve got an invasion to get ready for.”
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Is this where we insert the gearing up montage?
Isn’t the book form of that a chapter heading “Six months later…”?
Indoor plumbing? They must be rich!
When Clomonastik files his report with The Big Giant Head, he’s gonna get in so much trouble.
I think he’s past the point of worrying about any report.
Big Giant Head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-vC_-kJFRg
@Zwak, of course I was referring to the Shatner, but Swiss’s was probably more contextually accurate.
thank you for the story
Is it wrong to picture him as a young Sam Elliot?
Yup, that works
Thanks Swiss, for both pics. 🙂
Regarding treason/sedition by certain famous persons . . we have this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPWr_Rygg7Q
If I drink vinegar I will lose weight?
You have to stick a lemon up your ass and spin around three times first. Dont tell anyone though, its a secret doctors aren’t telling you.
He is correct. What they did was the textbook definition of sedition but…by force? Define force. They used the organs of the fedgov which should be punishable by lengthy prison terms…does it constitute force or does one need to beat someone up or shoot them?
I am your boss. If I order you to do something on the threat of terminating your employment, is that force?
At this point . . . .
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-honors-senate-judiciary-committee-request-information-related-clinton
Attorney General Pamela Bondi released the following statement regarding Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s request for information related to the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and mishandling of classified information during her time as Secretary of State:
“Today, the Department of Justice honored Chairman Grassley’s request to release information relating to former-FBI Director James Comey’s failed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of highly classified information during her tenure as Secretary of State. I commend Chairman Grassley for his unwavering, years-long commitment to exposing the truth and holding those who seek to conceal it accountable. This Department of Justice is fully committed to transparency and will continue to support good-faith efforts in Congress to ensure accountability across the federal government.”
RIP Theo.
Cosby’s real son was murdered at age 27.
Culture of fear
Ella Kaplan, a contractor employed by Global Science and Technology Inc. and the website administrator for the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, said she decided to publicly attach her name to the Voyager Declaration because “the overall culture at NASA has very much shifted — and it feels a lot less safe for me.”
“That’s been felt kind of universally by most minority employees at NASA,” Kaplan said.
While Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened, in her view, “I’m a member of the LGBT community … and I’m probably going to be fired for this at some point, so I might as well do as much community organizing as possible before that point.”
Any day now she’ll be whisked off to the camps.
““I’m a member of the LGBT community ” <— No one cares. No one gives the tiniest shit.
"So I am going to stir as much shit as I can and make everything about me." <—- Now. you have my attention. You are fired.
Job not in danger. (“While Kaplan said her job has not yet been directly threatened[.]”)
Proceeds to “community organize” which puts job in danger.
Sure. Let’s martyr ourselves and then blame it on Trump.
That’s what martyrs do.
*Long sigh* “There is nothing so tiresome as a martyr.” – Pontius Pilate
Ya know, if you didn’t spend your working hours “community organizing” and just did your damn job, maybe you wouldn’t get fired.
Just a thought.
Picked up both of these (kindle) as well as both Nova Roma books. Enjoyed them all. Hess is an interesting individual.
Same re: these two. Good stuff, Animal!
Speaking of fear, it’s pretty risible to see Comey’s daughter whining about authoritarian fear and intimidation. As a federal prosecutor, fear and intimidation were her stock in trade.
Why did you leave out hubris?
Well, she did just get slammed by Nemesis.
Where does Schadenfreude fit into that? Oh wait, I ’em mixed up. I guess she would be Tisis’s shadow.
Why did you leave out hubris?
I’ll come in again.
Her three- no four main weapons are..
*manager scans list*
“Which one did you say was the militant queer?”
“Kaplan, sir. ”
“Well, I think we can live without her.”
The source who spoke with CNN anonymously said that DEIA policies not only ensure a welcoming work environment — they’re also essential to practicing sound science.
“The concept of inclusivity being a pathway to better science is something that has become really entrenched in the overall academic and scientific community in the last decade or so,” the source said, adding that the changes “set an immediate tone for the destruction that was going to come.”
No question-begging or circular reasoning at NASA. Just SCIENCE!
“something that has become really entrenched in the overall academic and scientific community in the last decade or so”
Tell me something is horseshit without saying it is horseshit . . . .