Fifteen (con’t)
The mountain meadow
Clomonastik left his hastily assembled temporary Headquarters shack when a shout came up from the perimeter guards. A critically wounded Grugell scooter troop limped his damaged machine into his group’s headquarters. He collapsed at the feet of his commander, but not before relating details of the encounter. Clomonastik sent a message out to the hunting troops once again, a tracking device in the stolen machine remotely activated, and several more units diverted to the chase.
“I want those aliens found,” he ordered the pursuers. “Alive, if possible,” he reinforced his original command. “If we can take prisoners, they may have useful information.”
“Sir,” his Assistant Commander asked, “How will we communicate with them? They are aliens, they won’t speak Grugell.”
“Then we’ll teach them, Apportamattid. If they can’t be taught, time enough to kill them later. But,” he lectured the younger officer, “A prudent Commander never squanders possible sources of information.”
Clomonastik’s motivations were more personal than that. These aliens, primitive as they seemed on the surface, had space-faring technology. They no doubt had developed in different areas than the Grugell, and that could be of vast use to the Empire.
He intended to be the first to tap this trove of new technological knowledge, knowledge he intended to retain personally to use to his own advantage. This, Clomonastik told himself smugly, will be the beginning of a truly great career.
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Animal, though I had bought and read this book a long time ago, I am enjoying the reread.
I dont see this ending well.
Yep. Should not take long to figure out the vehicle is tracked and divert it to an ambush location.
Speaking of inter-species wars, I think everything in the state of louisiana has taken a bit out of me this year. Currently healing up: a bee sting, a blister beetle wound on my finger, a wasp sting, constant gnat bites, an impressive collection of bedbugs, and just now while pulling weeds in the flower bed about a dozen fire ant stings. The oakworm stings by my ear has finally quit bothering me. Oh, and a tick bite I got about 2 months ago is still trying to heal. That one is a bit troubling.
Maybe I should spend more time indoors.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BSM6WTY?th=1
One can’t be too aggressive against the constant menace of the insects.
Yes, I want one.
🙂
Sounds like you’re losing the war.
The ticks aren’t too bad here. I’ve had to pull a couple off of the girls, and there’s a bite on my chest that is healing, but it’s nothing compared to last year.
On the other hand, we evidently have biting ants (not fire ants) here.
I’ve been having to knock wasp nests and black widows out of people’s mailboxes.
Dealing with those god offal critters is another reason I left TX. There are lots of ’em.
We are encountering a mosquito shortage this year, I see/hear about 1 or 2 a day, no deer flies yet. My sciency conclusion is that we had a shortfall of snow last winter and an extra ration of cold weather. Somehow it had an affect on the skeeter bugs. December had bare ground and a -30 for a few days. My worry is that all those folks that migrated south will start rethinking their move and turn around and head for Podunkville.
I did had a tiny tick that was buried on my ankle, for awhile I thought it may be a Lyme Disease carrier but after about a week the redness got smaller and finally disappeared after a few days.
We have very few mosquitos. I think it’s a large population of bats eating them. Every night there’s several of them swooping across the pasture. Probably live in the barn.
Way too many ticks though. I’ve mostly stopped going into the woods during summer because of the ticks and copperheads/rattlers. Guinea hens have done very little other than kill themselves off in stupid ways (Went from 28 to a current flock of 6).
Bumped off by the mob? (Sincerely sorry you’ve lost so many!)
How everyone (except Sgt. Floyd) survived for almost 3 years in the Corps of Discovery is freaking amazing.
2 years. And Floyd had burst appendix. How the bug- tormented others made it….
Bedbugs, Suthen? Yikes.
One of the nice things about the desert is we have pretty few insects. In a wet monsoon we’ll get these swarms of, I dunno, giant gnats? I typically get less than a half dozen mosquito bites per year.
Of course, we have scorpions. A whole lot of scorpions if you go out at night with a fluorescent light.
thank you for the story
Well, by my calculations, I got an excellent low on the fitness assessment today. Should have confirmed required numbers in advance of the test (particularly for the plank). Leave starts tonight…still no hot water (after my power surge misadventures last Monday night – since confirmed to be the fault of the power company). Looks like the water heater control board was toasted – not surprised – so hopefully the plumber will have a new one when he comes back tomorrow afternoon – same time the electrician should be here to validate all the fuses, etc. Hopefully this is the last time I’ll have to deal with this kind of mess (I think Landlord will get the total wattage for the apartment increased too). It’s a hassle doing everything through google translate, but it could be worse.
Getting really hot here too. I may be able to do some outdoor stuff in the gardens of the Caserta palace on Wed, but I don’t plan on too much outside stuff. Lots of hobbying to work on and movies to watch – once I can confirm that I won’t start blowing fuses again. At least there tend to be breezes outside…
I made it through the last stretch of 4 shifts (Wed-Sun) by staying on base (out of pocket) – the A/C and water was worth it. It’s all about opportunity cost.
I’ll probably be chewing on a washcloth while taking a cold shower in a few min.
Nice to see her wise up. However, given peer pressure I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision to make.
https://www.wsj.com/style/beauty/i-couldnt-understand-why-i-was-saving-so-little-then-i-tallied-all-my-beauty-expenses-aea5c739?st=1sGMTB&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Access blocked.
WSJ, so not missing much. From the context I think I can sum it up as “Economic Illiterate realizes luxury goods are expensive”.
And beauty products are the definition of a luxury good.
My wife used to refer to her hair color as field-mouse brown. She’s blonde and has blue eyes, but her hair seems to be getting darker every year.
Iron-fisted totalitarianism
But Trump’s stated rationale, legal scholars say, appears to be a flimsy and even contrived basis for such a rare and dramatic step. The real purpose, they worry, may be to amass more power over blue states that have resisted Trump’s deportation agenda. And the effect, whether intentional or not, may be to inflame the tension in L.A., potentially leading to a vicious cycle in which Trump calls up even more troops or broadens their mission.
“It does appear to be largely pretextual, or at least motivated more by politics than on-the-ground need,” said Chris Mirasolo, a national security law professor at the University of Houston.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment “unlawful” and said he would sue Monday.
“This is about authoritarian tendencies. This is about command and control. This is about power. This is about ego,” Newsom, a Democrat, said Sunday on MSNBC. “This is a consistent pattern.”
Gavin Newsom, famously humble advocate of democracy and compromise.
Your city is in flames.
You are doing nothing about it.
Until we can expel your state from the union, you are threat to the rest of us.
RIOTING in the fucking streets.
LAWLESS chaos.
DEPORT THEM ALL.
When the judge orders Trump to send the National Guard home (and you know xe will), I wonder if that will be the judicial order that Trump refuses.
California authorities and Trump critics say that local law enforcement was effectively managing the L.A. protests. And despite the National Guard’s purportedly defensive role of protecting federal property and personnel, some experts see the deployment as throwing a lit match into a tinderbox.
In that case, this should serve as a precedent in the next “disaster” befalling California. When Newsome comes begging, Trump can say, “You have proven you don’t need our help. Get busy.”
Effectively managing? Letting rioters use lethal force (rocks and fire) without check?
Domestic terrorists overpowering local LE. Managed.
🙄
“throwing a lit match into a tinderbox”
Maybe not the best metaphor for the PTB in LA to be using after this spring.