Twenty-Two
The Grugell base camp, that evening
Second Assistant Commander Dispotratik XII has waited long enough for the report, and was in a foul humor when it finally arrived. The young Subcommander that had found the Assistant Commander’s ship stood nervously fidgeting in front of him now.
“Well, get on with it. Make your report.”
“Sir,” the Subcommander piped, his voice shaking slightly. “As you know, we found the wreckage of Assistant Commander Apportamattid’s ship in a clearing to the south. Sir, the ship had been torn apart and scattered. There were signs of some sort of large animal – a very large animal, sir – in the area. There were no survivors we could detect, and there was no sign of Group Commander Clomonastik.”
“Very well. You are dismissed, Subcommander. See to your troops, have them ready for movement in the morning.”
“Sir!” The Subcommander spun on one boot heel and gratefully departed. Dispotratik turned to the communications technician on watch at a panel in the rear of the building.
“Send a message to the Fleet, to be relayed to the Emperor. Message follows: ‘Group Commander Clomonastik III and Assistant Commander Apportamattid IX missing and presumed killed in a scout ship crash following contact with unknown native life form. I am assuming Group Command, this date, Second Assistant Commander Dispotratik XII, Grugell Imperial Navy,’ and so on.” He stood up to pace the floor of the Headquarters shack. “Send that immediately.”
“Sir!”
“We will have to step up the tempo of our operations, I’m afraid,” Dispotratik turned to the two other officers in the room, each of whom commanded a unit of scooter troops. “Send patrols to the south as far as the river. Establish a patrol using the river as the southern border. We will mass our forces on this side of the river and strike south at the aliens when our troops are fully prepared. Dismissed!”
Dispotratik smiled inwardly at the rich opportunity fate had placed before him. Group Commander Dispotratik, he savored the words silently. Governor Dispotratik. How obliging of the Group Commander and Assistant Commander to get themselves killed so fortuitously!
Settlement, three days later
A sudden rush of activity had seized the normally sleepy town of Settlement. Security troops and skimmers rushed this way and that, and every droid and flying transport available was pressed into service to retrieve every pioneer and hunter that could be located. To his lasting surprise, Mike found himself deputized at the rank of Lieutenant and placed in charge of a squad of five other hunter/pioneers. Jenny had volunteered to join Settlement’s defenders, and while the Company’s few engineers and scant store of heavy equipment prepared a palisade around the main part of the town, Jenny was engaged in teaching rifle marksmanship to the town’s merchants and housewives. Anyone who could handle a rifle would be on the palisades in the event of attack.
“Your scouts will be doing recon work to the forward of our main positions north of Outskirts, probably a few raids, some hit-and-run,” Mike was informed by OWME Security Major Adam Wells, who was to conduct a mission briefing for his group. “We don’t have uniforms or weapons to go around, so you’ll have to use your own arms. The Mercantile will supply you all with all the ammo and supplies you need.”
Mike met his team of scouts for the first time at their first mission briefing in a small classroom in the OWME Security HQ. They proved to be a varied lot.
Beauregard Rousseau was the oldest at 47, a rough-featured, squint-eyed Cajun swamp hunter from Lake Charles, Louisiana. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with huge hands like grapples and a perpetual frown glowering from a thin black beard heavily shot with gray. Rousseau had been on Forest the longest, four years, and had made a specialty of hunting the huge river delta a hundred kilometers south of Settlement where the big river emptied into the Central Ocean. Rousseau carried a 15mm Parks double identical to Mike’s.
“Hey, I know you,” Mike said on first meeting the Cajun. “The Mercantile, the day I got here – you were buying dehydrates!”
“Eh? Don’ remember you, boy.” The Cajun regarded Mike coldly.
Originally hailing from the taiga of eastern Siberia, Yuri Pyak was a madly happy Nenets tribesman. A short, bandy-legged, wiry little gnome of a man, he nonetheless carried a monstrous Krupp 20mm semi-auto, cradling the fifteen-kilogram bulk of the four-shot cannon casually in his crossed arms. His 36-year-old face was deeply wrinkled but constantly split with a wide grin. With sign language and a weird combination of broken English and cackled Russian, he managed to get across the message that he hunted the giant loggers of the northeastern fern prairies. Any further questions were met with a grinning series of shrugs and a repeated “Nyet, nyet!”
Thomas Quiet Water was a Cheyenne from southern Colorado, a tall, stately figure who appeared silently at the muster carrying an old leather knapsack and an even older Lazzeroni 10.57mm Meteor rifle. He greeted the others with a silent, grave nod before seating himself cross-legged on the floor.
“We don’t even know how he knew to come in,” the Major whispered in Mike’s ear. “As far as I know, nobody’s heard him speak more than a word or two. He just showed up and signed the volunteer roster yesterday afternoon.” Thomas was 29, and the unassuming holder of Forest’s top gun rating for the steady stream of boser and roc carcasses dispatched to Settlement’s processing plant from the open country to the southwest.
Mike was less impressed with Edward and Albert Greene, identical twins from Wales who boasted of a history “on safari” all over Earth. Mike was skeptical. They were the only scouts who weren’t employed as hunter/pioneers, having instead paid private passage to Forest to speculate in some sort of “private business” the exact nature of which was somewhat vague. The Greene twins were thin, ferret-like men with shifty eyes and loud, strident voices, always ready with a boast. They arrived with well-worn backpacks, though, and identical 12.5mm Belgian FN bolt-action rifles. Maybe they hunt better than they look, Mike reassured his nagging doubts.
He was acutely aware that he was the youngest of the group by several years, and judging from Rousseau’s scowl, at least one squad member resented his appointment as their commander.
Finally, everyone was seated, so Major Wells began the briefing.
“Ok, troops, we’ve got a mission for you already, as it happens.” He turned to uncover a large map of the area north of Outskirts, along the river – which had recently been named, “Settlement River,” showing a slight lack of imagination on the part of OWME’s Cartography Division.
“The Grugell base camp is too far away for us to hit directly. We don’t have enough transport to move enough people up that way, it’s too far to go on foot with a large force, and we don’t have enough men of fighting age in any case. So, we’re going to have to let them come to us, and choose the time and place for any fights on our own terms.”
“So we just gon’ sit here an’ wait, est-ce que c’cest il?” Rousseau snorted.
“No,” Major Wells corrected, “We’re not. We’re going to harass them every step of the way in, and you six are going to figure in on that action. But first, we’ve got to know when they’re coming in.”
He pointed at a wide bend in the Settlement River about twenty kilometers north of Outskirts. “The river turns west here for a few klicks. There’s some high ground on the south bank right here,” he pointed at a forested hill overlooking the river, “and from there, you command a piece of real estate that covers most of the direct route down from the New Pyrenees.”
“But you can’t see much through those trees,” Mike pointed out.
“We’ve got something for that, actually,” Wells replied as a tall, gangly man with a shock of unkempt black hair and wire-rimmed glasses entered the room. “Men, this here is Doctor Gerald Richfield, and he’s going to explain this little gizmo he’s put together for us.”
“Ah, ceci devrait être bon,” Rousseau muttered. Yuri Pyak smiled broadly, clapping his hands together once.
“Good morning,” Richfield greeted them. His voice was strong and clear, practiced from several years of lecturing college students on Caliban before signing on to the Forest project for a change of pace.
“You already know the problem. The Grugell are somewhere up to the north, and they’re going to be heading this way soon. Problem is, in these thick forests we might not see them coming until they’re right on top of us. Since we can’t let them gain the advantage of surprise, we’ve had to come up with a way to detect them in the trees.” He held up a small black cylinder with a blinking red light at one end.
“This is a multi-spectrum motion detector and visual sensor. We’ve built three of them, and that’s all there’s going to be. I had to use some specialized parts cannibalized from some of the few pieces of geological survey gear we’ve got here. They don’t have enough range to transmit to us here in Settlement from that high ground south of the river bend, so we have to have a small relay device placed halfway in between. The relay device is about the size of a wheelbarrow, and with a bit of luck we’ll have it in place using a modified provisioning droid no later than tomorrow.”
“So, I suppose we’re going to place the three sensors?”
“Yes,” Major Wells replied to Mike’s query. “And remain in the area and in contact with us here. We’ve got a handful of tight-beam burst transmitters that should reach Settlement from there, and hopefully these Grugell won’t be able to pick them up. You’ll be on the sharp end of the stick, men, and we’ll have to react fast to decide how best to get in the first few licks before they get as far as the town.”
“So, we to be de ‘xpendable cannon fodder, droite?” Rousseau wanted to know.
“No! Nobody in this deal is expendable. Let’s get that straight right now,” Wells snapped. “There’s less than four thousand people on this planet. We can’t afford to lose even one settler if we’re going to hang on to this planet. Personally, I kind of like it here. I intend to bring my family in from Earth next year, and I’ll be damned if I let a bunch of stick-men from wherever the hell they come from chase us off this rock.”
One or the other of the Greene twins piped up. “So, mate, what are we to do up there all by ourselves? Chuck pinecones at these lads?”
“No, you’re to observe, avoid contact, report anything you see, and await further instructions. Clear?”
“It’s clear to me, sir,” Mike interjected. “How soon can we leave?”
“The detectors are ready now. We’ll be placing the relay tomorrow,” Richfield offered, looking at Major Wells.
“Can you men be ready to go at first light?”
Mike looked around at the men – his men – that he was expected to lead into harm’s way.
“Tomorrow morning, then?” he asked.
“Da! Da!” Pyak burst out. Mike laughed. The Greene twins looked at each other, back at Mike, and agreed. Thomas Quiet Water nodded once and turned to look out the window.
Rousseau stood up. “Pourquoi attente?” he agreed. “Le’s go’on, den, and get dis t’ing done.”
“OK, let’s see you all back here an hour before first light, then,” Major Wells announced. The six men filed out silently.
With that decided, Mike went looking for Jenny.
The streets of Settlement rattled with activity. Earth-moving and logging equipment raised clouds of red dust, people bustled everywhere, and in the near distance Mike heard the repeated bangs of a number of people at rifle practice. He headed in that direction.
He found the rifle practice under way at a rough 100-meter range hammered out of a small meadow by a large earthmoving machine. The red dirt was a scar in the green ferns where the great blade of the machine had piled it up into a berm, against which targets were placed. A row of people, mostly women, lay prone on pieces of carpet at the opposite end. Mike spotted Jenny standing some ways behind the firing line and walked over to her.
“How’s this going, babe?” he asked after receiving a quick peck on the cheek.
“Not bad.” She nodded towards the firing line. “Most of them at least had a rifle to bring, and most of them have at least fired a few shots at some point. I guess most of the people here get out looking for some fresh meat once in a while.”
“That’s not too surprising. The equipment list for most of the occupations included a rifle of some kind.” Mike observed. He put an arm around Jenny, drawing her away from the firing line. “Honey,” he began, “I’m going to be gone for a few days.” Jenny looked at him evenly. “They want me to take five men up to put out some electronic listening posts up on the river north of here.”
“The other five are pioneers, too, I suppose?”
Mike nodded. “All but two, they’re merchants of some sort but they claim to have done a lot of hunting.”
Jenny turned to face Mike, looking up into his eyes. “It will be dangerous, won’t it?”
“Yeah, but not near as dangerous as running through the woods with a bunch of those things breathing down our necks, and not near as dangerous as sitting up behind a log on the palisade waiting for those things to come screaming down out of the sky in those spider-looking flyers. Don’t worry, baby, we’ll be safe. This is one hell of a great group going out there. Couple of them are twice my age, easy.”
“But you’re in charge?” Jenny’s pride was obvious.
“Well, I guess that elk hunt stuck in old Colonel Davies’s mind.”
“Well, I’m proud of you. We’ll be breaking for lunch in an hour, so if you want to wait around for a while, I’ll take you back to that tiny little shack they gave us and I’ll show you just how proud.”
Mike smiled. Jenny’s attitude was infectious. “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve got to go over the Mercantile to arrange for some supplies, so I’ll go do that and meet you back at the room in an hour. Then I’ll be free for the rest of the day. How’s that?” Jenny smiled her agreement and gave Mike a quick hug and a warm, wet kiss before returning to her marksmanship students.
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Weaselly ferret-eyed dudes will betray the rest.
Great story Animal. I went and bought the book because I didn’t want to wait to see how it played out, and I finished it in two days. I just bought Sky of Diamonds and started on that.
Thanks again for letting us Glibs have these stories for free.
If I’m picking a team, a crazy Russian and angry Cajun are pretty high on the list of desirable.
Gee, I wonder who will cause trouble in the scouts?
Parents of girls dissatisfied by their kids selling cookies?
The GS cookies will poison the Grugell and cause their unconditional surrender.
At the SIG Academy/SIG Experience Center, there is an onsite gun shop called the Flagship Store.
It has some weird quasi-independent status. It’s where I bought my P220. Four days after I bought and paid for it, I redeemed a prize certificate for a Fuse from SIG corporate. The latter gun was delivered to my LGS four calendar days after it was ordered. Thinking maybe the Flagship Store wasn’t set up to send me the tracking information, I called them. They have not yet shipped the gun and I was told to check back in a week.
Keeping corporate happy while ignoring cash customers . . . .
critical drinker — not a great idea clip —
Redeeming through corporate also results in the gun being shipped to my FFL, who can then make whatever adjustments are necessary (like blocking the magazines) to make it NY legal. The Flagship Store will not sell me anything that wouldn’t be legal for a NY FFL to had across the counter to me.
I do not like the Flagship Store. I do like the employee discount that can be used there though.
For the past ten years or so, SIGArms has considered themselves a military contractor above all else. They have US, Canadian, and Australian military small arms contracts – they don’t give a single fuck about the civilian or even the law enforcement market, and have publicly stated as much.
The downside of that is that if they lose the M18 contract with USDoD, they’re likely to eat a restructuring at a minimum.
A lot of eggs in that one basket.
It works for HK.
Sig emailed me today. They want to sell me a $2,200 Legion watch with free 2 day shipping.
🙄
This will be my first Legion. I feel a bit icky, like I’ve joined Scientology or something.
*flashes challenge coin*
LOL
I had to register mine way back when. It got me a 20% coupon and allowed me to buy the matching Surefire X300.
I still have my Jack Mason solar on a Leatherman Tool band. It pleases me.
Confusing symptoms with cause, as usual
Party leader Sohei Kamiya, who since 2022 had held Sanseito’s only seat in the upper house of Japan’s parliament, will now be joined by 14 others in the 248-seat chamber. It’s a far cry from the party’s origin as a fringe anti-vaccination group on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Though Japan has long had a complex relationship with foreigners and its cultural identity, experts say Sanseito’s rise is another indication of the global shift to the right embodied and partly fueled by Trump, with populist figures gaining ground in Europe, Britain, Latin America and elsewhere.
Kamiya “fancies himself a mini-Trump” and “is one of those who Trump has put wind in his sails,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies and history at Temple University’s Japan campus.
Oh, one of them fringe anti-vaxxer death cults? It’s all coming into focus.
If it hadn’t been Trump, it would have been somebody else.
Trump didn’t create the conditions which brought him to power. Call them wokesters, or globalists, or any damned thing you like, they keep pushing their agenda until it’s impossible to ignore them. Then people get fed up with their bullshit. I’d say the limeys are just about due for an England-firster popular front.
I’d say the limeys are just about due for an England-firster popular front.
They had that, and got Brexit out of it, but fucked it away by doing other stupid shit.
How asylum broke Brittan: https://youtu.be/3N0NUJs2hfE
From ded thred: armed pilots are a thing after 9/11. Using plainclothes, non-uniformed police and in a confined space such as an aircraft with lots of uninvolved people is a dumb dumb thing. But it gets the ratings.
It’s best they not yell aloha Snackbar when they enter the cabin.
Remember when they could have arrested David Korresh on his morning jog? They could have busted this guy at the end of the Jetway.
Thanks for the story Animal.
For Tonio:
I had a picorant about drama at a shooting match. Here are more details as I think it might finally be over.
There is a biology teacher at a local JuCo that inserts herself into basically everything, and is a very sterotypical brittle, overselfestimating New Yorker. However, since she actually does does work that she likes doing, I just let her do her thing and stay out of her way. In this particular case she handles a decent chunk of the electronic registration/scorekeeping/reporting. Unless she’s feeling pissy about something then she suddenly develops a case of not being able to understand something and walks away. Since the “work” she does isn’t difficult this has not been a problem.
She has an ex boyfriend. She’s in her 60s, he’s over 70 I think.
Her ex-bf tried to pick fights at the match three times, finally coming up to me and started screaming. I DQ’d him for unsportsmanlike conduct. He refused to accept the DQ. The JuCo prof declared that she was taking his side and would keep running him. I had to call the CRO and the Sheriff. The JuCo prof stormed off, declared that she would never work a match again, but that she was going to come by and shoot with her friends, since that’s what the game is “really” about. She deleted my credentials to the software that we use that she had access to to do her “work.”
Today my access was restored. Hers have been revoked.
😧
How do people get to that age and continue to be so childish?
Other people giving in rather than telling them to sit down and shut up.
I was going to say, “Being from New York,” but that’s really not fair. Assholes abound.
I try to look at this on a per capita basis, but in NYC you have lots of per capita which equates to assholes.
Talk about petty with the software access.
She really is a superannuated child. If given an excuse I will tell her so and watch her have a meltdown over the term superannuated.
Kevin’s a dick, but he’s at least a grownup.
As a juco prof, I’m betting she would have to look up what “superannuated” means.
Jesus fucking Enkidu. Can you get the club leadership to toss them, and/or run it up to the A7 director and have their USPSA membership yanked? Refusing to accept a DQ and/or running a DQ’d shooter both strike me as excellent grounds for removal from the organization…
The ex-bf is not a member of the club. I could probably get him banned, but I really am trying to let this die. JuCo prof is, but I wonder if she’s going to renew.
This game is one I made especially for beginners, it’s not affiliated with a national org. UnCiv has shot it and thinks it might be too advanced. We have plenty of real shooters attend, but it’s literally the only game in town (in three or four towns actually) that will accept novice shooters. Relatedly AD7 was asking me about a USPSA club that only lets people who have a Major on their record or have taken a multi-hour “holster work class” shoot their level Is.
Accepting novice shooters has been a problem not with those shooters being unsafe but with “serious” shooters not wanting to be squadded with the newbies.
Next season I might be forced to be in charge of USPSA at my “serious” club. I love my beginner game, but I’ve invested way too much time and effort to let my local USPSA die. I’m trying to find a replacement at the novice game.
This is the same woman who last year complained about the staff reset at A7 because we were “rushing” them and not given them enough time to socialize.
Reset is not social time.
“This ain’t a cocktail party. Move your superannuated asses, already.”
This is absolutely bizarre to me. Like, in twenty years I’ve never heard of this kind of thing. Most of the local clubs I shoot/have shot at, in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, have an informal policy of squadding noobs with more experienced shooters, so the noobs can get some watch-and-learn experience, and the experienced shooters can keep an eye on them.
There is some weird sort of safetyism/liability worry thing going on. The clubs think (AD7 only asked about one, but I know of two others who doe the exact same thing) that they’ll be protected from lawsuits if they can demonstrate that they only let “proven safe” shooters compete. Likewise, those clubs have a “club safety rule” of only letting certified ROs run the timer, which is completely bass-ackwards from NROI’s position.
Thinking about this more, it might be the oldsters running the clubs who only shoot during hunting season and/or are shotgunners object to the whole “running around with a loaded gun and shooting faster than one shot per second” thing and require these “safety precautions” in order to let the activity take place on their grounds.
Now this I can believe.
My home club, maybe 7-8 years ago, had a palace revolt by the practical shooting membership, that resulted in most of the septuagenarian bullseye and cowboy action shooters losing their leadership positions. The shotgunners (wisely) saw the writing on the wall and haven’t fucked with the USPSA/PCSL program in some time.
Gotta say, these Tales from the Shoots are not exactly motivating me to take up competitive shooting.
What NA is describing is extremely unusual. Like I said, in twenty years of competitive USPSA and multigun, I’ve never personally witnessed this level of bullshit.
Yes, this is something I’ve never seen elsewhere. Notably, all of this drama was generated by two specific individuals.
There is a reason I spend so much of my time travelling to higher-level matches.
What with all the loaded guns around, you’d think people would be more polite.
Poster child
he deportations sparked a legal battle led by civil rights groups. Families and lawyers of many of the men have denied they have gang ties.
Hernandez, detained at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration, had an active asylum case when he was deported to CECOT. His case was widely covered in the media.
Advocates in the U.S. have voiced concerns that Hernandez, who is gay, faces risks in Venezuela due to LGBTQ persecution.
The story is so (intentionally) muddled. Did Venezuela refuse to take him? Did he refuse to be sent home?
All we know for certain is trump hates gay people and ships them off to be tortured and abused.
Speaking of overgrown infants…
NYC’s ‘We’re With Colbert’ rally for late-night host is a bust with just 20 protesters
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/nyc-colbert-rally-night-host-224428385.html
The amount of entitlement on display here is insane. “We demand our favorite show which is insanely biased and is losing money stay on the air. And we demand other people pay for it.”
They also ‘think’ the show’s hilarious, witty and insightful.
They’ve been coddled so long they know when and why they’re supposed to laugh at certain gags. (To give them some Stockholm credit, many /most may simply know they *should* laugh at xyz. Mustn’t be ostracized from their Group! They’ve invested so much into it. A knowing chuckle is a simple way for ’em to signal ’round the (digital) water cooler.
What an odd time – We’re watching the demoralized live out the trope: Show True Believers the released info, CNN+ continue to push the (now-damned) narrative they pushed before.
(I imagine our time’s not really that odd. The speed of info- dissemination, however, is. (Yes, see also, all times before. Still. Neener-neener.))
That was probably a good percentage of his regular viewers, so . . . .
Those people look way too young to be typical viewers.
There are dozens of us!
DOZENS!
I’m curious how long it’s been losing multimillions. One year? Five years? Wondering what changed. I doubt it’s been a money loser forever, unless accounting games.
Those signs are priceless.
Big Pharma appears to have gotten hold of the WP editorial board.
Those annoying pharmaceutical ads have real value
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/28/drug-pharmaceutical-advertising-maha-healthcare/
https://archive.fo/g6PY6
And in completely unrelated news…
Did drug companies spend $10 billion on consumer advertising in 2024, making up nearly 25% of evening ad minutes?
https://wisconsinwatch.org/2025/07/drug-companies-advertising-consumer-ads-pharmaceutical-news/
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Big Pharma appears to have gotten hold of the WP editorial board.
Those annoying pharmaceutical ads have real value
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/28/drug-pharmaceutical-advertising-maha-healthcare/
https://archive.fo/g6PY6
And in completely unrelated news…
Did drug companies spend $10 billion on consumer advertising in 2024, making up nearly 25% of evening ad minutes?
https://wisconsinwatch.org/2025/07/drug-companies-advertising-consumer-ads-pharmaceutical-news/
Very few people realize why those ads exist. They’re building good will with the public, and more importantly, they’re paying off broadcasters so they only get good press. They may or may not have been widespread damage from the COVID shots, but right now we’re only hearing about it from “fringe wackos”. Everyone else has been paid off.
And manufacturing demand.
Animal, I continue to like this series. I’m curious how the rag tag team of colonists can compete against a enemy with the ultimate high ground.
The side most dedicated usually wins. Here one side is fighting internal politics and for ground they have nothing invested in. The other side is fighting to defend their homes and families….and are salty as hell.
I dont think they are evenly matched.
Yuri seems so similar… like me eerily combined with my “GOOT! GOOT!” taxi driver in Kazakhstan.
(So far, I strongly approve of this new possibility.)
Hmmmm. It has been a very long time since I did any competition shooting. Nothing I read here is recognizable to me. It also sounds like something I would not want to have anything to do with.
Constitutional right to anonymity would be a hell of a precedent
The new federal lawsuit, led by Democratic attorneys general from California and New York, argues the unprecedented data demand violates various federal privacy laws and the Constitution, according to a news release about the suit. The states are asking a judge to block USDA from withholding funds from states that do not turn over the data.
——-
“This unprecedented demand that states turn over SNAP data violates all kinds of state and federal privacy laws and further breaks the trust between the federal government and the people it serves,” Bonta said.
The government has no authority to access records of who is getting federal welfare payments? If the states want to keep it a secret they can put up their own money.
When someone says ‘you dont need to see my records’, you need to see their records.