Mountain View Central Legal Center
Oddly enough, after all the preparation, the ceremony was brief.
A small chamber to the side of the main courtroom was used for marriages. Mike Junior stood at the front of the room in front of Tarbos’ Chief Magistrate. The few guests and family members filed in and stood waiting until the faint tones of music from some unseen speaker announced the arrival of the bride. A vision in a simple white silk sheathe of a dress imported from Earth, Maria glided in to the room on the arm of her beaming father. Next to Mike Senior, Sandra Gutierrez sniffled and dabbed at her eyes while Manuel Gutierrez actually ceased fidgeting for a moment to watch.
The Magistrate read the stock marriage ceremony from the OWME Legal Ceremonies Manual, Mike Junior kissed his bride, and the marriage was official.
Except for the nice clothes, that could be Jenny and me back on Forest twenty-three years ago, Mike Senior thought. Maria Gutierrez – Maria Crider, now – was tall and raven-haired instead of petite and blonde like his wife Jenny, but the important part was the same. The look the two young people shared, standing in front of the smiling Magistrate, lost in each other’s eyes, was just the same. As long as they keep that, Mike thought, they’ll be all right.
“Well, Mike, it’s customary to look at these things as ‘not losing a daughter, but gaining a son,’” Hector Gutierrez noted, “But I confess, it’s going to be hard on Sandy and I having Maria go off to Forest. But there’s sure a pretty good compensation, and that’s your son. We couldn’t ask for a better young man for Maria.”
“I’m pretty pleased, too,” Mike answered. “It’s a good match, Heck.” He watched, entranced, as Clomonastik approached his son and shook his hand. The tall alien then faced Maria and, with a broad smile, placed both hands on her head, her shoulders, and then he traced the outline of an oval in front of her torso with one clawed finger, chittering in Grugell all the while. “A fertility blessing,” he heard the alien tell Maria. “You will now have many children!”
Hector Gutierrez spoke again. “I hear the Bay of Biscay has dropped out of subspace, Mike. They’ll be in high orbit and ready for boarding in four days. I’ve arranged three days’ honeymoon for the kids down at the Tide Pool. You have any plans?”
Mike thought about that for a moment. The events of the last few weeks had been so overwhelming, and now that the Confederate Constitution was submitted to the planets for ratification, he had no plans other than getting home as quickly as possible. “I don’t know, Heck. Maybe I’ll slip out of town, do some hunting.”
“Hunting, eh? Well, I’d rather join you than follow along on Sandy’s round of socializing, shopping and restaurants – but I’d just slow you down.” He slapped Mike on the back. “You’ll be glad to get home, I bet.”
“I never expected to leave Forest,” Mike said. “And I never expect to leave again. I’m glad I was here, but I tell you what – I’m sure glad it’s over. I’m more than ready to go home.”
“Me too, bro. Me too.” The Vice President paused, thoughtfully. “We’ve made history here, man. Real, kids-reading-about-it-in-school-for-a-hundred-years kind of history.”
Mike considered that for a moment. “That’s fine. Let them write their books. History geeks a hundred years from now can judge whether what we’ve done here was worthwhile or not. All I’m worrying about from here on is hunting meat for the Settlement Mercantile.”
“I’m going to have to come to Forest and hunt with you one of these days. Your stories of those rocs are really something! I may stick with something safer, though.”
“You’d be welcome, Heck, anytime. Everyone in Settlement knows how to find our place.”
“You know,” Gutierrez leaned to speak conspiratorially in Mike’s ear, “after the reception out at the Retreat, the kids are going to be heading down to the Tide Pool, and Sandy and Manuel both want to go back to the hotel in Mountain View to get some rest. But I noticed a neat little bar and grille a few blocks from the hotel that we haven’t tried out yet. I think that maybe you and I ought to slip out later, have a steak and a few beers. One last celebration to put this thing to rest.” Mike laughed. “You know, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” A ‘guy’s night out’, he thought. That’s something I’ve never done before. “No, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.”
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Thank you for the story
Agreed, an enjoyable read for sure. Curious how many of Clomonastik’s fellow Grugell decide to become productive traitors to the Grugell Empire.
That “neat little bar and grille” is going to turn out to be the Blue Oyster Club, isn’t it?
I would have guessed the Sunset Grill.
I blame UnCiv for writing about the Police Academy movies.
The order was picked by random spinner result
A crossover with Police Academy?
Why do I suspect that a simple guys night out is going to be anything but simple?
If this were published by TOR, it would end up with them going to bed together.
From the ded-thred, trshy mentioned a fissure between MAGA and America First. My thought was splitters???
I’m confused at the idea of these being separate sets of people – what’s the distinction?
I don’t follow this super-close but my understanding is that MAGA will pretty much go along with whatever Trump says/wants. America First is committed to Trumps stated goal of ending needless wars.
Yet another one of the many internal sissy fights among the right.
The Republicans are never going to be anything other than a bunch of losers and failures, if they can’t get a handle on their message discipline. And that’s not going to be easy, because the Republicans still have some vague ideas about freedom of conscience and intellectual diversity.
The best republicans have jobs and going into politics is a paycut they won’t take.
Looking forward to a potential firefight at the Bar and Grill when the Grugell escape capsules start landing nearby.
Can someone explain to me why a home-built gun without a serial number is more lethal/dangerous/bad than a store-bought one?
https://www.northernnewsnow.com/2026/03/20/ghost-gun-bill-supporters-call-it-loophole-fix-opponents-call-it-gun-control/
Because it means the builder is defiant towards their diktats.
Fuck you, that’s why.
It’s not a “ghost gun” it’s an artisanal small-batch firearm!
No. Because it isn’t. A gun should not even have a serial number on it unless the owner wants that for theft recovery purposes.
Exactly like lisence plates RJ
It’s not, of course. There’s not a single ‘ghost gun’ design out there that has the capability of a commercially-available Glock 19 or AR-pattern rifle.
‘Ghost Gun’ is just a useful handle that the Left has seized on. It also has the secondary benefit of helping with the Left’s general opposition to tools, and tool-using humans.
Sheldon, many of the so-called “Ghost Guns” are Glock Clones or AR Rifles made with mostly off the shelf parts and a home printed or milled serializable part (ie the AR lower).
The number of majority printed “Plastic Luty” style designs is still limited and not the biggest “market share” so to speak.
This is true, and home printing/milling a Glock frame or an AR lower is the closest you can get to a commercial product. I’ve done a few of both (milling, not 3D printing – that’s in the future.) Both those cases are going to be inferior to the commercial product in terms of durability, and reliability is going to be a big question mark as well unless you really know what you’re doing.
I can see drilling the wrong spot or having misaligned pin holes as a problem, but what are you basing the durability claim on? I can’t speak for the Glocks but from what I’ve seen of the construction on the AR lower, the forces from the trigger/hammer/safety assembly and the magazine catch are not enough to make me worry that they’d have any issues on a home milled aluminum, or even many polymer frames. The overtuned detent springs might tear the thing apart, though.
It’s not illegal, just undocumented.
I’m stealing that!
No gun is illegal on stolen land!
The owner of OnlyFans has died at 43 from cancer.
https://nypost.com/2026/03/23/business/onlyfans-owner-leonid-radvinsky-dies-at-43-following-secret-cancer-battle/
Damn, that’s young.
Did he trust the Science?
Probably not prostate cancer.