Three
Grugell, Imperium Fleet Command Complex
Kadastrattik XII had been expecting the summons for some time. He strode into the Fleet Commander Pokatik’s office with as much confidence as he could muster. His think black hair was oiled down, his black uniform cleanly pressed, his black cloak well brushed; in short, he was as well turned out as the attentions of his three wives could make him.
“You summoned me, Fleet Commander.”
“Yes, Commander Kadastrattik. Sit down.” The Fleet Commander had his back to the entryway, and didn’t bother to turn as Kadastrattik walked in and took a seat on the room’s single high stool.
“Are you aware of the ongoing project to determine the shipping lanes used by the humans in their travels between their settled worlds?”
“Yes, Fleet Commander.”
“You are aware, then, that the Emperor has taken a personal interest in this project?”
“Yes, Fleet Commander.”
Pokatak turned his chair around now, finally, to face his subordinate. “Then you’ll appreciate the importance of the orders you are being given, Commander. You have recently completed a tour of duty as Subcommander of a frigate, so you’re prepared for this mission.” The Fleet Commander reached into his desk, tossed Kadastrattik an information storage crystal. “Examine that carefully. You are being assigned Commander of the newest of our frigates, the K-101. Your first mission will utilize the initial findings of our traffic analysis project.”
“A strike mission, Fleet Commander? Surely the time is not yet ripe?”
“You are astute, Commander, and cautious, although not overly so. No, your initial orders are to proceed to the planet indicated on that crystal – the humans call it Tarbos – and monitor ship traffic and transmissions. Your ship’s main computer has the latest data on human language that we’ve been able to decipher.”
“Do we suspect this is the human’s home world, Fleet Commander?”
“No. The population density is lower than the demographers say it should be, and the settled areas are too recently built. But it seems to be a communications and traffic nexus. It sees far more traffic than any of the other worlds we’ve located. The home planet would seem to be in a sector we haven’t explored yet, and we’re hoping that a listening post at Tarbos will lead us to it.”
“And when that happens?”
“As the Commander of the successful listening post mission, you’ll be ripe for promotion, Kadastrattik. If you earn it, I may place you in command of the Occupation force to invest the human’s home world.” Pokatak leaned forward, his jet-black eyes narrowing. “And I remind you, the Emperor has taken a personal interest in this matter. In fact, I have had a personal audience with His Majesty myself, and I know the degree of his interest. If you fail in this, Kadastrattik, then the consequences will be dire. Do you understand?”
An image flashed through Kadastrattik’s mind; an image of the Imperium’s disintegration chambers in the Penal facility. “I understand perfectly, Fleet Commander.”
Forest
“Hey Dad, aircar coming in!” Mike Junior’s call from the archery practice area at the lower edge of the meadow broke through Mike’s customary late-afternoon doze in the porch swing he’d built some years earlier. He opened his eyes, stretched his arms and yawned. “Who’d be coming in this late in the day?”
Jenny, seated next to Mike in the swing, looked up from her book. “I don’t know, honey,” she said. “I suppose we’ll find out in a minute – here it comes over the trees now.”
“Well, there goes my quiet afternoon.” Mike stood up and stretched again. The aircar was just settling to the mowed area fifty meters from the front door Mike maintained as a landing area. Mike and Jenny’s daughter Andrea, two years younger than Mike Junior, came outside just as the car touched down. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Mike didn’t expect the first figure out of the air-car, nor the two that followed.
“Beau! Beauregard Rousseau!” Mike burst out. “Look Jenny, it’s Beauregard Rousseau!” Mike waved at the gray-haired figure that emerged from the air-car. “And Yuri Pyak? And who’s that – Tom Quiet Water?” Mike strode quickly out to greet his former comrades-in-arms.
Beauregard Rousseau was thinner, his hair shot through with gray, but his eyes still glittered with the old mixture of humor and irascibility. “Comment ça va, garçon?” he asked, extending a gnarled hand with the little finger missing. “How you been keeping, boy?”
“Great, Beau, just great. You look good!”
“Eh. The knees, they be going, but the heart is still strong,” the old Cajun answered, thumping his chest.
“And you, Yuri? Still hunting loggers?”
“Da,” the little Nenets grinned, as madly cheerful as ever, but much more fluent in English – thanks to the Company’s newly developed hypnopedia sleep-teaching programs. “The hunting, it goes well, Mikhail Nelsonovitch. One day you must come on a hunt with me.”
“I don’t know,” Mike laughed. “I don’t know if I could handle a cannon like that old Krupp you used to carry. Tom, how are you?”
“Well, my friend.” The tall Cheyenne’s hair was iron gray at the temples now, but other than that he had changed not a bit. Even his former taciturn nature was still obvious.
“So, what’s going on? Why the sudden reunion?”
The air-car’s pilot finally emerged, removing a helmet to reveal a cascade of bright-red hair.
“Mr. Crider?” the woman asked. “That’d be me,” Mike answered, gaping a little.
The woman wore the uniform of a Colonel in OWME Security, although she looked to be no older than thirty. She was short, like most OWME air-car pilots, and slight – she probably weighed no more than 45 kilograms soaking wet. Her eyes shone a bright, steady green from a narrow, ivory face stippled with freckles.
“I’m Colonel Celia MacFarlane,” she said, extending a narrow hand to shake Mike’s. “I’m the new Head of Security for Forest, since Colonel Wells retired. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
Mike waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Colonel.”
Colonel McFarlane regarded Mike closely for a moment. “Sir, there’s a matter of some importance I’ve been asked to discuss with you. Could we talk inside?”
“Yes – yes, of course.”
They crowded into the Crider household’s tiny living room, finding only a small fireplace, a tiny vidscreen/terminal, a small couch and two old, upholstered chairs.
“I’m afraid there’s not too much room,” Jenny apologized, bringing in two extra chairs from the bedroom. “We don’t get many visitors up here.”
“This be fine,” Rousseau half-bowed gallantly. “You be as pretty as ever, belle.” Jenny dimpled at the old Cajun. Mike motioned the others to seats and took his own accustomed place in the chair nearest the fireplace. His old Parks double, still clean, oiled and well maintained, hung over the mantle.
“So, Colonel,” he began, “You said you had something important to talk about.”
“Yes, Mr. Crider, I do. Bert Grolier, the Forest Project Director, sent me to speak to you.” Mike raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“To put it rather bluntly, Mr. Crider, we’d like to ask you to represent Forest at a meeting on Tarbos.”
“Me? Why me? What kind of meeting?”
“A meeting of representatives from all the colonized planets, sir, and from Earth, too. They’re going to discuss forming an association of the colonies to form a Navy.”
“The Grugell, right?”
“Yes. The Grugell. They’ve been picking off freighters, four this year alone, and several of their Occupation ships have been sighted orbiting worlds we’ve already colonized. So far there haven’t been any landings, but…”
“It’s only a matter of time,” Tom Quiet Water added softly.
“You didn’t answer my first question. Why me?”
“The Director will never leave Forest again, Mr. Crider,” Colonel McFarlane said. “His heart condition won’t allow it. The Assistant Director is too young and inexperienced; the Director doesn’t have any confidence in her.”
“While you, tovarisch, are the Hero of Forest. Your voice carries much weight, Mikhail.” Yuri Pyak was actually solemn, adding greatly to the gravity of the moment.
“And they’re going to be needing sensible voices in this thing,” Rousseau grunted. “Old Rousseau, I’d go myself, but these old bones, they ain’t going to take no rocket launches. An’ Carrie, her leg gets worse these last few years. She don’t need to be alone for nine-ten months.”
“You’re talking about a Constitutional Convention,” Mike observed. “I did study history in school, you know. You’re talking about setting up a Galactic government. That’s what it will take to form a Navy. You’ll have to combine resources of all the colonies, and Earth, too.”
“Da,” Yuri agreed. “It’s a Navy we need.”
Mike stood up and turned towards the fireplace, more deeply troubled than he cared to admit. He turned to look at Jenny, who was looking into the cold fireplace with a contemplative expression. Mike Junior stood in the doorway next to Andrea; both of them looked thunderstruck.
“Kids, you may as well come in and sit down. This affects all of us,” Mike told them. Mike Junior and Andrea seated themselves on the stone hearth, looking up at their father, alarm registering on the young faces.
“I still don’t see why you want me to go,” Mike said at last. “I’m not qualified for anything like this. I don’t have any education in government or politics. Hell, I never went to college, I only just graduated high school.” He turned to face the others, his hands held out almost pleadingly. “I’m just a Company hunter and pioneer. What business do I have at a Constitutional Convention?”
“You’re an American, are ye not?” Colonel MacFarlane asked, her brogue deepening somewhat.
“Yes, born and raised in Idaho. I don’t see the connection.”
“Who founded your country, Mr. Crider? Who fought and died for it?”
“Farmers. Plantation owners. Shopkeepers. Woodsmen.” Mike answered.
“People like you, sir. You’re the Hero of the Grugell Invasion, Mr. Crider.”
“You the man, Mike.” Rousseau agreed.
“There’s no one on the planet better suited to represent Forest’s interests at the meeting.”
“I don’t know,” Mike equivocated.
“Michael.” Mike turned to see Thomas Quiet Water standing up, his arms folded across his chest.
“This thing that we ask you to do is a tremendous thing. You will be spoken of in history classes for hundreds of years. So will all that attend this convention.”
“But think well on your answer, Michael. You wish to stay here in the home you have built, with the family that you have raised here. These are the normal wishes of any normal man. But you are not a normal man, Michael. Events in the past, when the four of us fought alongside the other heroes who are not here tonight, Nathaniel, Mick and Tak, they have proven you to be more than the ordinary man.
The tall Cheyenne took two steps to face Mike, placing one hand on his shoulder.
“This meeting, this convention, it will have many men of education, many of sophistication, many of political learning and experience. But such men are not frequently men of courage, Michael. They are thinkers, not actors. Forest is not like the other worlds, my old friend. Forest is not a world of industry and trade. Forest is a world of hunters, farmers, and pioneers. We do not need a politician or a businessman to represent us. We need a man of courage and vision. You are that man, Michael.”
Mike turned to his wife. “Jenny?” he asked.
Jenny looked into the cold ashes of the fireplace for a few more moments before answering.
“I hate the idea, Mike. I hate the idea of you being gone for what, nine, ten months? But Mike, I have to admit, I agree with Tom and the others. You’re the logical person to go.”
“Can I take my family with me?” Mike asked, still looking into Jenny’s eyes.
“The Company will cover transport for you and your family,” Colonel MacFarlane answered.
“For you,” Jenny corrected. “Andrea still has a year of hypnopedia and cyber-school. We’re staying here.”
“Mom!” Andrea protested but subsided quickly at a gesture from her mother.
“What about me?” Mike Junior asked. “I graduated cyber-school a year ago.”
“I’d like to have Junior come with me,” Mike admitted. “Jenny?”
“It is time he got out, broadened his horizons some. I think it’d be good for him,” Jenny agreed. She was smiling, but a tear glistened in the corner of her eye.
“When would we have to be ready to leave?”
“There’s a passenger liner inbound from Earth in nine weeks. It stops here for four days, then ships for Tarbos.”
Mike threw up his hands. “All right. All right.”
“I knew when I met you, Mike, that you were something more than just an ordinary man,” Jenny noted. “And you’ve always shown that to be true. Thomas is right, Mike. They’ll need someone like you to speak for the little people in this new interstellar government.”
“Oh, man,” Mike Junior exulted. “Tarbos! I’ve heard stories about Tarbos!”
Mike looked at his grown son with some dismay. He turned to Colonel MacFarlane.
“All right. Nine weeks from today, we’ll be in Settlement with our bags packed.”
“Thank you, Mr. Crider. Mr. Grolier will be delighted at the news.”
“I just wish I could say I was delighted,” Mike frowned. He shook his head. “Well, that’s decided. Colonel, please sit down. Tom, Beau, Yuri, let me get us all a drink. We’ve all got a lot of catching up to do.”
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Junior gets to meet some Big City girls…
He can at least check out the Power Converters
Giggity.
Not everyone can find a woman by killing the Roc that killed her family.
It is a solid plan though…
Killing a giant-sized animal is a panty dropper…from what I’ve heard.
Whalers were in constant demand.
Is there a harpooning joke in here somewhere?
I kill giants …
Gy Ants are not terrible big.
Boil an ant hill.
Go up a level.
President Mike.
That fucking idiot Jack Dorsey
https://x.com/jack/status/1980046360998203615
The idea of Massie for Pres, however unlikely, is more an indication that a small particle of brain has gotten lodged in Dorsey’s skull…
I hate it when my brain asks what at first sounds like it should be a simple question, then I start to realize it’s a lot more complicated than first thought.
Example – I was wondering what the carrying capacity of pasture for free-grazing beef in head per acre was. Then I started to ask “well, what type of cow? What type of forage is growing on that land? Is there enough water?” and so on.
(The answer could easily be less than one head per acre.)
And then you have to rotate pastures so they can recover.
That would be included in the carrying capacity, as you could only graze X over this land without depleting it.
In certain places in the West the number is more like acres per cow.
Ultimately, I don’t need the number beyond curiousity, since I’m working on fiction and don’t have to be exact. But I get stuck in these rabbit holes of figuring stuff out.
@ BH: in some parts of the Australian outback, it can be 1 cow/50 acres.
The variability is enormous. I don’t think there’s anywhere you can pasture even one cow per acre; I would guess 3-4 acres per cow is pretty much the minimum. And yes, in the arid West it’s more like cows per tens of acres. The rotation complicates it even more.
My wife just sent me this:
https://ibb.co/wNyk1XdY
Just fantastic.
IYKYK
I guess I don’t know.
Really, it’s not even visual:
👍
Sometimes I am surprised at what is or is not blocked on this proxy.
If you’ve got a pill organizer, just admit you’ve moved on to Rockabilly.
Pretty much.
I refuse to use a pill organizer, until I can find one that Sherlock Holmes might have kept his cocaine in.
Sheldon uses a pill disorganizer – he never knows what medication he’s going to get.
Hier
I just take one on my hockey trips, takes less room than full bottles. But I have been listening to Phil Collins lately.
::sobs::
TOK:
Just make sure you know who you’re trading with.
That one is pretty nice.
Right now we’re into pot gummies to sleep and nicotine pouches for games. We live on the edge.
Wait, here we are. Glib-appropriate.
I really don’t need pills to make me more autistic.
None of us do, Sheldon, none of us do.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a7DZogKfB7A
Glib organization
That movie is a guilty pleasure, Timeloose.
And Linda Cardellini – rawr.
It is difficult to overstate how much I hate ALB. The delay there has resulted in a seven hour layover (pending additional delays) and now instead of arriving at the hotel at 4:00, it will be midnight (at the earliest). Fortunately the United club has unlimited supplies of cheese and coffee of adequate quality. And I have you people to entertain me.
What did the cow say to the farmer when shown her new pasture?
Moo.
Sexy Oscar the Grouch costume is back for 2025. As is most of the Sesame street crowd.
https://www.yandy.com/products/grouchy-trash-can-cutie-costume
The sexy costume people also made a mailman costume.
https://www.yandy.com/products/postman
That must be why trshy hasn’t been around as much. He has a can mate now.
I’m going to two parties this year, doubtful I will see any of this type of costume.
The next Great Man
Zohran Mamdani delivered a major speech last night to thousands of supporters who’d crowded into New York’s United Palace to hear him lay out the stakes in the upcoming mayoral election. To the historically sentient, the speech was replete with echoes of New York’s previous progressive heroes—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, and A. Philip Randolph in particular.
——-
“When has dignity ever been given?” he asked. “When organized labor won the weekend,” he answered, “that was power won, not given.” He continued, citing the battles previous generations of progressives had to wage to wrest the power needed to create better cities and better lives from the powerful of those times. “Great leaders like Fiorello La Guardia taught us that aspiration is something to embrace, not something that we treat as a crime. When we shake loose the shackles of small expectations, our city builds parks and hospitals, and we show the world that ambition and compassion are in fact intertwined.”
He is an inspiration to us all.
He should suicide bomb a DSA meeting.
I will refrain from saying what he inspires me to
Imodium deals with that nicely…
I saw a bit of that debate. The other candidates were so terrible he actually looked articulate.
I think New Yorker’s are more prone elect progressive candidates but Mamdani’s opponents where all trash. Adams was being investigated by the FBI for corruption and Cuomo was impeached from office and killed a bunch of old people during COVID. You would think a place that has Wall Street as its home would have at least one competent free marketer who is loaded and could go against Mamdani, but I guess the best they could do was Curtis Silwa.
And there are the visuals. The others look old and tired.
The Adams investigation was payback from the Biden administration for pointing out the problems all those migrants Gov. Abbott was sending to sanctuary cities were causing.
In his speech last night, Mamdani also called out his campaign’s enemies. There are, he noted, “some who oppose that vision [of a more democratic and affordable New York that he has put forth]. Billionaires like Bill Ackman and Ronald Lauder have poured millions of dollars into this race because they say that we pose an existential threat. And I am here to admit something. They are right. We are an existential threat to billionaires who think their money can buy our democracy.”
He is also an existential threat to those who believe they should be allowed to keep what they have earned.
An existential threat to those who don’t want to be tax cattle to be slaughtered.
What did Burger King do to her?
She didn’t have it her way?
Apparently asked her to state her beliefs. That monster!
You know, I think dehumanizing people you don’t agree with is a very dangerous thing, and is the beginning of the path to horrors, but it is very hard to look at these protestors without wondering how far I am supposed to bend over backwards to avoid noticing that they are NPCs.
The Bee nails it as usual.
Millions Gather To Express Total Ignorance About Political System
https://babylonbee.com/news/millions-gather-to-express-total-ignorance-about-political-system
Reminds me of 2019/2020:
Friends: Trump has violated the constitution in so many ways
Me: what would be the two main examples?
Friends: well, there are so many.
Me: I get it, just give me any two.
Friends (getting agitated): it’s really hard to narrow things down
Me: I know, well just give me the main one
Friends (now angry): well, I didn’t come here with a list!
Pretty much the same now. Except they have the visuals of ICE raids so they’re running with that.
I don’t want to get into it with friends, but I would like to remind them that just a few months ago, they were convinced Must was the shadow president. That aged well didn’t it?
I wouldn’t be surprised if 90 percent of voters cannot cite anything more than their half baked impression of a politician. Even us who are interested don’t walk around with lists to use if politics comes up in random situations.
Me: I know, well just give me the main one
He beat Hillary. What else do you need to know?
Beat her? Like with a wooden spoon?