Eight
September 2251
The Shade Tree
Captain Barrett had almost gotten used to the gut-wrenching feeling of dropping out of subspace. Suddenly the weird shifting lightshow of subspace gave way to a normal starfield, and immediately…
“Captain, multiple radar returns, scattered metallic objects – looks like a debris field.”
“Where are we? How far out from New Albion?”
“That’s New Albion’s sun, Captain, that big bright dot to the upper right of the screen. We’re about a day and a half out.” The Navigation tech was on the ball.
“Indira, get scanning on all bands, I want to know what this debris field is.”
“Working on it. We’re getting short-range and medium-range radar and spectrographic returns now. Lots of metal, some semi-transparent stuff that look like plastic, and about six hundred meters off to our starboard bow, looks like organic matter.”
Barrett’s eyebrows shot up. “Organic? What do you mean?”
“Resolving… Looks like bodies, Captain. Three of them, right near a concentration of debris. I’m guessing that we’re looking at the remnants of a starship that was destroyed.”
“Wonderful. Signals, get on the hyperphone to New Albion Ground, give them our ETA, request a parking orbit, and find out what the hell went on out here.”
“Right away.” The Signals tech immediately began programming a burst transmission to New Albion Ground, which would take about three hours to reach the planet and get a reply back.
Indira Krishnavarna looked up from her readouts, a frown on her face. “Captain, something’s under power about six hundred klicks to our nine o’clock low, looks like Grugell drive field at about quarter power.”
“That explains a lot,” Barrett snapped. “Let’s get them. Helm; get us on an intercept course. Ahead three-quarters. Weapons, as soon as we’re in range get me a particle beam lock on their drive pods. Someone wake up the Marines, we’re going to have a job for them here in a minute.”
“They’re on the way to the lander now, Captain.” One of the Shade Tree’s latest modifications had been the addition of a tiny clampon lander, a smaller version of the sort carried aboard Navy frigates.
“Four hundred kilometers and closing,” Helm reported.
“I’ll be able to get a lock at a hundred klicks,” Weapons chimed in, “but I recommend holding fire until ten to get a precise shot.”
“Very well,” Barrett agreed. “Continue to close.”
Two levels down, Barrett’s four ex-Marines were climbing into the claustrophobic lander, clad in full battle armor and toting submachine guns firing frangible polymer slugs.
“Coming in now, Captain, I’m firing braking thrusters now to cut our overtake speed. Sixty kilometers. Forty. Twenty. Slowing down… Ten klicks.”
“Fire particle beam.” Captain Barrett’s voice was strangely calm, with an undercurrent of repressed tension.
“They’ve got two of four drive pods functioning, targeting the left-hand side – there it goes, cut loose from the ship. Targeting the right-hand side – target!” The Weapons tech hooted. “They’re dead in space, Captain, only retained velocity.”
Barrett uncoiled out of her Bridge chair. “Away boarders!”
The book-shaped clampon lander shot away from the Shade Tree, thrusters firing to drive it towards the wallowing Grugell ship.
“No signs of weapons powering, Captain, no signs of hostile activity,” Indira Krishnavarna reported.
“Too bad. They’re intruding on Confederate space, and I bet they’ve got something to do with that wreckage back there.”
“Look – the lander’s making contact now.”
On the main screen, the lander swiveled to face the enemy ship, opened, and slammed against the gleaming silver hull. Several interminable moments passed before the Signals tech spoke up.
“Captain, call from the boarding party.”
“Put it on speaker,” Barrett answered. She got up to pace nervously about the ship.
“Go ahead, boarding party,” the tech called.
The reply came over a hiss of static. “Five prisoners, Shade Tree, we’ve had sixteen enemy killed in action. Sorokin has a bad burn on his arm, but he should be OK. These things are no damn good at hand-to-hand. You want we should bring the prisoners back to the Shade Tree or what?”
Prisoners, shit! Barrett was more than a little angry she hadn’t considered the possibility. Her claustrophobic ship had no brig, no facilities for prisoners. “Boarding party, this is Captain Barrett. Negative on that, keep them where they are. One of you come back with the lander, now that the ship is secure, I want a couple of the techs to come over and see if there’s anything we can take with us that the Navy might be interested in.”
“Roger that, Captain. Anything else?”
“No. Just send back the lander. Shade Tree out.”
On the Grugell frigate, a former Lieutenant of Marines grinned at the other three boarding party members, one of whom guarded a despondent gaggle of prisoners. “Klept, take the lander back to the ship for passengers. Captain wants to send over a looting party.” They all shared a laugh.
New Albion
They had turned the Grugell survivors and what remained of the ship – minus a few objects that Captain Barrett deemed to be of obvious monetary value – over to the authorities on New Albion on Tuesday. It was now Thursday.
The Shade Tree’s Captain and crew were anxious to get back to open space, the tiny, claustrophobic ship notwithstanding. New Albion, the world in whose system the Orleans Incident had taken place, was clearly on a war footing.
“Another call from New Albion Ground, Captain.”
At least the Guest Quarters on the tiny New Albion Militia base were comfortable. More so than her quarters on the ship, certainly. Captain Barrett, Indira Krishnavarna and the two ex-Marines that had escorted them to the surface had been assigned a four-room suite.
“I’m coming.” Jean Barrett called through the door. She stretched and climbed off the narrow bed in the high-ceilinged room she had appropriated for herself. Six steps – three times the number that it took to cross her stateroom in the Shade Tree – took her to the door. In the main room, she took the handset offered by a bored Crewman Krishnavarna.
“This is Captain Barrett,” she barked into the handset.
She listened intently for a few moments.
“All right. We’ll be leaving orbit within the hour.”
She broke contact and laid the handset down on a nearby table. Three pairs of wide eyes were turned on her as she looked up.
“Back to the ship, everyone, as fast as we can go. There’s a Grugell Occupation group headed our way. New Albion Ground recommends we get the hell out of here as fast as we can. I concur. The smart thing for us right now is to get the hell out.”
“Captain,” one of the Marines protested, “we’re the only armed ship in the area! We can’t just leave New Albion undefended, can we?”
“I said we’d be leaving orbit within the hour, John, and so we will,” Barrett snapped. “Did you hear me say where we were going?”
“No,” the Marine answered, a thoughtful look on his broad face.
“Good. Now, if nobody else has any objections, all of you get your gear together, right now. Indira, call down to the desk, get us a cab over to the Skyhook. New Albion’s about to be occupied, the Governor is ordering all the citizens into the hills, and we can’t stop them by ourselves. We’re out of here.”
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
America should bring back privateers, and congress should go back to granting letters of marque and reprisal.
That would end the governments argument that certain firearms are not in common use and upend the NFA and the existence of the ATF.
They can’t have that.
Occupation group?
They’re gonna give them jobs?
New Albion? If they’re anything like the old Albion, they’re gonna give them free housing, welfare payments, and plenty of kids to fuck.
When the humans head to the hills and fight a subversive battle, will the Grugell call it…
Gorilla warfare?
That would be bananas.
Hmm.
If NY were to be invaded and occupied, I can’t imagine Hochul ordering all the citizens into the hills, nor that said citizens would have the vaguest idea of what to do once they were there.
Write bad Yelp reviews.
New York is being invaded, and Hochul is aiding and abetting the invaders for personal gain.
Back in the days of cheap ammo, I’d feed the CZ $0.13/round Wolf steel cased.
Target Sports USA has Magtech steel cased that’s 5 cents a round cheaper than their cheapest brass cased, and the only thing that’s stopping me from buying a couple thousand rounds is irritating the reloaders at the club. But I guess they all have magnets and such to easily sort it out.
I was in the range on a quiet day once. As I was starting to pack up my gear, the only other guy there walked over and asked if I was going to keep my brass. I said no. He said he saw what I was shooting and was hoping he’d be able to collect my spent brass when I left. I don’t remember what it was, but it was most likely American Eagle 9mm. At any rate, I didn’t have to clean up after myself that day.
$0.13/round Wolf? Dude, I still remember the days of hitting WalMart on the way to the range and stocking up on 100-round Winchester White Box value packs for $10 each.
The Magpul steel-cased stuff is interesting, and it’s trivial to strip steel cases out of your reloading stream with a big magnet…but I find myself unwilling to run steel-case ammo through my Atlas or other 2011s. I have shot a few cases of Wolf through my AR, and I have the stuck cases to show for it…
I wish I had been shooting back then. Alas.
I sometimes wish I had started shooting and competing earlier in life. Usually when some 15-year-old hotshot beats my ass at a Major.
But there’s so much cool stuff to shoot now!
I had my gf pick those up with her employee discount.
😛
I wish I had been making median income back then.
I miss cheap spam cans.
*wistful sigh*
My SIL just quit working at ATK or whatever they call it now.
Should have sent her with another $1000 for the company store before she quit.
Last Century?
🙄 Brooksed.
Speaking of alien cultures
Japan fans left the stands spotless after their World Cup opener against the Netherlands in Texas on Sunday, saying it was “Japanese culture” to tidy up after themselves.
Spectators stayed behind after the 2-2 draw to make sure they left the stadium as they found it, meticulously picking up litter and stuffing it into blue plastic bags.
It is a habit first learned at primary school and Japan fan Eita Tanaka told AFP that “we have to think about everyone”.
“Japanese people think that when we use a certain place, we were told that you have to make that place look tidier when you leave than it was when you arrived,” said the 20-year-old, clasping a beer and a couple of cups, and wearing Japan’s blue shirt.
That’s crazy. They’re taking jobs from SEIU dues payers.
I have seen pictures of Mt. Fuji and the day after Cherry Blossom Festivals that call bullshit on that myth.
Sociologist and philosopher Masachi Ohsawa believes a mix of social responsibility and peer pressure is behind the fans’ behaviour.
“While Japanese people tend not to take much interest in justice on a large scale — issues like global inequality, conflict or climate change — they are extremely sensitive to moral considerations on a smaller scale,” he said.
“When it comes to people who they share the same space with or have direct personal contact with, they feel a strong desire not to cause them any trouble or make them feel uncomfortable.”
Picking up your trash is a small price to pay to avoid being beheaded.
It’s not new. It’s kind of their thing to do at foreign sporting events. Beheading is part of it, but it’s more broad than that. Its partly how the implemented a history of Buddhism and Confucianism.
Outside Japan, he is best known as a social scientist, often mentioned in reference to sociological and philosophical research on otaku culture and popular Japanese animation series such as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masachi_Osawa
I LOL’d.
Also I’m not a fan of AFP’s rules for Romanizing Japanese, but Shoei Ohtani does the same with “Oh”.
Either way, 大原 throws me as a last name. Particularly if the first name is something western looking.
How old is GITC SAC now?
Old.
Will there be dunce caps and self-abasement?
Starbucks’ South Korean operation said Monday it will close all of its stores nationwide early on June 22 for mandatory history and social sensitivity training as it reels from backlash following a marketing campaign that was widely perceived as mocking victims of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1980.
Shinsegae Group, which owns a 67.5% stake in Starbucks Korea, said group executives and employees at Starbucks Korea’s headquarters will attend training led by history and sociology professors on Wednesday. All Starbucks stores nationwide will close at 3 p.m. next Monday so employees can watch a recording of the session, Shinsegae said in a statement.
The coffee chain triggered an uproar when it attempted to promote a series of stainless-steel tumblers it called “SS Tank” by declaring May 18 to be “Tank Day.” The date marks the anniversary of the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju. It was violently suppressed by Seoul’s military government at the time, which deployed troops, tanks and helicopters, leaving hundreds dead or injured.
Genius.
Sounds like a waste of a day that could be a simple checklist.
It’s the baristas fault for that, obviously.
You know who else liked collective punishment?
Marketing for Tankies should be a degree requirement.
Insanity.
It doesn’t even come bundled with Duck Hunt.
SCAM!
The article did not mention that is also comes bundled with a launch edition NES, also unopened. Totally worth it!
it sports an unbroken glossy sticker seal
When you’ve got all the Ferraris you need.
1 is too many Ferraris.
You can pry my DuckTales and Metalstorm both in the original box from my cold dead hands.
Was it the version where you could access level -1?
They never patched out the minus level glitch.
You just have to clip through to a warp zone before it loads properly.
One of our trainers at the gym told me his dad has original Star Wars toys in sealed packaging. When he was a kid he’d buy one to play with and one to save. I never had extra money or discipline to do something like that.
It’s funny how every one of us had the ability to buy a Mario game and save it unwrapped, but you never know what will be worth something. That will also change as each generation gets old and dies off.
*dons Cape Verde team shirt*
I don’t want to hear anyone bitch about goalless draws.
If nobody has scored a goal, record it as a loss for both teams.
They can be a thrilling as a draw in a 4-day cricket match.
The next IPSC Handgun World Shoot will be in Mongolia.
I wonder if they’ll get The Hu to perform. And if I can get a slot working that match.
Are The Hu known for being good shooters?
I’ve been seeing all these “things Ocarina of Time Remake Needs” videos popping up.
My wish list is one item long (and almost certain to be implemented) – dual stick camera controls.