Nine
Washington D.C., Earth
President Anthony Gomez was finding the White House a little too quiet these days, with his best friend and most trusted advisor gone over a thousand light-years away. Gomez presided over a United States enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, an America that sat at the heart of an Earth that was now a rather quiet and idyllic place.
But President Gomez had other advisors as well, and one of them sat in front of the historic Oval Office desk now.
Army General Horace Julesberg was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military officer in the country, serving in a position that the global political climate had made almost irrelevant – until the word came of the attempted Grugell occupation of Forest.
“At any rate, sir,” the General was concluding, “we’ll be ready to launch the first auto-defense satellite later this year, by October 1st at the latest. Each satellite will have a high-resolution-video and a millimeter band radar targeting system, twin particle beam projectors, a laser designator and two Shrike missiles. The computer targeting system can engage three targets simultaneously, and can shift fire to deal with as many as sixty targets a minute with particle beam fire.”
“And there will be twelve of these in geosynchronous orbit by May?”
“By the end of May, yes, sir. Earth will be surrounded at the Equator by a belt of these defense satellites.”
“The Skyhooks are still our weak points. We’ve got almost no orbital lift capacity that doesn’t depend on these three Skyhooks.”
“Yes sir, that’s a major bottleneck in the overall strategic situation. At least Off-World Mining is volunteering the use of their orbital shuttles to launch our satellites from the Quito Skyhook, for the cost of crew and fuel. Saving the taxpayers a bundle there, sir.”
“That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” President Gomez smiled. “Tell me, do you think we did the right thing sending another representative to Tarbos?”
“Yes sir, I do. Vice President Gutierrez could use the input from a unique viewpoint.”
“Yes, I suppose he could.”
“I just wish I’d thought of it a few weeks earlier.”
OWME cargo ship Cachalot, en route Earth to Tarbos
The cargo hull was ungainly, awkward, built along wholly different lines than most OWME exploration ships and liners. A giant disk formed the cargo carrier, docked beneath a smaller drive unit housing a Gellar tunnel that was rather small for the mass of the ship. The result was a carrier of massive capacity that handled, according to its pilots, like a hog.
But it was efficient.
On reaching a planet’s orbit, the disk portion would detach from the star drive unit and descend through a planet’s gravity well using chemical rockets and pressor beams to balance the load; when their planetside chores were done, the disk would rise on four columns of ionic flame, back to orbit, there to dock with the star drive unit.
It was ugly, but it had the virtue of effectiveness. Twelve such cargo hulls, all named for Earthly whale species, roamed the trade lanes now.
Command of a cargo hull was considered a punishment posting for an OWME merchant ship captain. Passenger liners were the plum assignments, and colonization ships the next in the scale of desirability. OWME’s small community of qualified ship captains saw cargo hulls as decidedly unglamorous.
But Captain Janice Benton cared not a bit about that. A command was a command, and OWME’s space fleet wasn’t growing nearly as fast as the number of qualified pilots and ship’s officers. The Cachalot was big, ungainly, awkward and ugly, but it was a ship, and it was her ship.
Shifting, dancing and sparkling, the weird and unpredictable patterns of subspace flashed on the main viewer as the ship drove for Tarbos. Captain Benton, like the rest of her bridge crew, was strapped into her chair on the zero-gravity bridge; only the small passenger/crew quarters section of the ship was spun on the long axis to provide gravity.
And back in those passenger quarters, passage paid by the United States government, rode an unusual passenger indeed.
Six weeks in subspace, and they’d drop out into the normal space outside the orbit of Tarbos. Six weeks, and she’d be able to take one of the Cachalot’s small freight shuttles to the surface, to see another new planet with her own eyes. Tarbos would make six planets Jan Benton had seen first-hand.I do love this job, she thought for the twentieth time that day.
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Does President Gomez have a sentient toupee and chapeau?
A sentient belt buckle and boots seems appropriate.
El Sombrero y el Cabello.
No sex.
No explosions.
No fun.
🙁
Just press the Diet Coke button a lot of times? Ask the staff to get you some Mentos?
+1 wannafud
First, we protect our asses!
So, Alf is headed to Tarbos to explain how the enemy thinks.
What up…haven’t had time to post much. Think I mentioned it before, but although I can catch up on reading posts at work, I don’t sign in there. Just finished 5 night shifts in a row…going to go get a Thanksgiving steak at a pub in a couple hours. Don’t really feel like sitting in front of my laptop and reading too much when I’m off work either…so not too many posts.
Re: Venezuela…haven’t seen it discussed too much, but Adam Carolla did interview a couple guys about one conspiracy theory about the voting machines being run from there…haven’t researched, but it makes more sense for Trump than leaning into regime change for the narco stuff…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NzjzMvDJzQ
Hobby wise…still building a lot of models and painting very slowly. Getting a lot of satisfaction from this although my pile of shame is getting bigger and bigger (same with my “to watch” pile of blu-rays). May pick up a projector sooner or later too – just to have something 3D capable…but probably no 4K tv until I get back stateside with the shitty power situation here. Finally got the radiators turned on today, but the thermostat can’t get repaired till next week. Looks like that card burned out the same time as the water heater back in June, but didn’t notice it until last month due to the lack of need.
Welcome to the true nature of the hobby.
/looks at giant pile of diorama pieces and figures
Looks at my driveway…
Sounds like you’re doing well. Big news in my house is that my son-in-law is in Pearl Harbor right now, and will be back at the home base this month. My kid is visiting us right now but she’ll head back to Washington later this week.
Well enough for the most part…lots of walking still with the parking frustration…I don’t really have any desire to travel on my time off here – but I like walking around downtown when I have a chance.
Next year…my folks are visiting – so I’ll see Rome and Milan and Switzerland briefly (and probably some more local stuff that I don’t feel like checking out on my own)…also planning for Germany (Edelweiss resort) and another Ischia trip.
I had a nice lunch at EEdelweiss resort, the world is small, when my wife and friends came out into the parking lot from lunch a bunch of guys on bikes pulled in, we recognized one of them from our old unit. They were riding up from Italy through Switzerland and on to Munich.
No models or figures or pieces that I have accumulated.
I just have 20+ carboys full of booze in various stages of completion that need to be dealt with and little ambition to deal with it.
I have no desire to do anything today.
That would be 100 gallons of booze?
Or for your average Glib, a Tuesday.
A mix of 5-gallon, 6-galllon, and 6.5-gallon carboys. Probably close to 120 gallons total. Roughly half mead and half sour ale. There is one carboy of cider from a couple of years ago.
Kinnath:
You are a horrible person for your oversized impact on the environment.
Couldn’t you switch to Teslaboys to limit the amount of carbon from all your brewing?
One of the many reasons that I am despicable.
Look on the bright side – at least you don’t write code for Airbus!
I am still dumbfounded as to how that could have happened. I am familiar with the standards and practices in this industry. This is just not supposed to be possible.
+ 1 Ghost in the Machine
I don’t get it either. It’s like the “dog ate the homework” excuse. The issue is well known.
I am still dumbfounded as to how that could have happened. I am familiar with the standards and practices in this industry. This is just not supposed to be possible.
Regression tests are regressive, it’s right there in the name. We want to be progressive.
Wasn’t it cargo ship losses that precipitated the confederation convention?
Question is it a joke or is a DHS official named Iwona B. Horyn? Because that is some austin powers ass name
https://www.dhs.gov/leadership
Look at Pie, trying to get our names on a[nother] list.
Sounds like a DOGE pseudonym
Fact Check
Iwona B. Horyn is DHS acting chief security officer’s real name
Horyn was named to the role following her predecessor’s retirement, according to LinkedIn.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iwona-b-horyn-dhs-security-officer/
hmmmm
Wasn’t the snopes guy busted for using the website donations to fund his whoring?
was that wrong? should he not have done that?
Not Adahn:
A bit.
Ima Hogg’s name is all over buildings in Houston. And I was friends with a Dick Hoar… III.
But yeah, that looks like someone from DOGE hasn’t had all his pranks reversed yet.
She’s definitely a plant in the Deep State.
What should she be naming her kids?
Asa?
Isabel (Isa for short)?
Gone?
Kid names can be so fun for some people
Literature related…there may be other fans here – just was at Kickstarter taking care of another campaign and noticed this one (had to get in on it).
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/litescalates/the-first-law-signed-and-personalized-by-joe-abercrombie?ref=section-homepage-featured-project&category_id=Q2F0ZWdvcnktNDc=
Unless you are “undocumented” or an undocumented CDL holder, right?
U.S. to Charge $45 Fee to Fliers Without REAL ID
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/real-id-flights-tsa-fees-bf171fc0?st=oSBVHv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Everyone knows that when you cough up $45, you’re no longer a security threat.
Terrorists are broke, it is known.
I’ll just buy one less beer at the airport bar.
Never let a tragedy go to waste.
Disband the TSA and fuck off with your cattle tags.
Seconded. I can go the rest of my life without another guy putting his hands down my pants.
Not mentioned, passport holders.
Or maybe passports are mentioned. Nevermind.
I don’t fly.
Neener neener.
I don’t know if I have it or not anyway. I remember having to bring proof of myself to the last license renewal. Maybe that was it,
I thought you skydove.
Not commercial. And not for years now. All my gear got sold some years back.
Well thanks a lot Donald.
I hate that blonde gnome.