Thirteen
July 2252
Earth
Earth’s high orbital graving dock had once belonged to Off-World Mining & Exploration, but the Confederate government had appropriated it for the duration of the war. OWME executives spent much of their time calculating the profits from the burst of shipbuilding.
Three ships occupied the three construction docks. The first, Project 955, was a twin to the Orleans. The second was a carrier, similar to the Mountain View but sixty meters longer and twenty wider through the beam. And the third was a frigate of the same class as the destroyed Ian Mac Vie.
An identical orbital graving dock at the planet Halifax was busily turning out two frigates and a light cruiser, while the smaller dock at Tarbos was preparing to build two heavy cruisers.
Denver, Colorado was home to OWME’s shipbuilding division, in fact the block-wide, gleaming stainless steel and glass OWME Shipyards building was a feature of the Mile-High City’s Denver Tech Center district. From the computer drafting desks of spaceship architects on Inverness Place East, designs for newer, faster, more heavily armed ships were hyperphoned to the spaceborne graving docks.
The most hotly contested of those designs was the work of Arnold Emory, PhD, a pale, thin man with no family, few friends, and no interests other than spaceship design. Emory’s design – given the planning number One Thousand, and known as the One Thousand Project – was generally considered a monstrosity.
Emory, on the other hand, considered it the possible salvation of the Confederacy.
Sixteen hundred meters long by five hundred wide, built around the most massive Gellar tunnel yet conceived of, the One Thousand ship would mount twenty batteries of particle beam projectors, sixteen Lancer missile bays, and ten bays for the new, larger, faster Hawk missiles. Arrays of force field generators and the latest design in inertial dampers would generate protection against anything up to a one-hundred kiloton nuclear warhead.
But Emory’s design – he called it the Dreadnought class after a British battleship of the First World War – had yet to make it past the Confederate Senate’s Appropriations committee. Emory was certain that it would take a major crisis to force passage of the necessary funding to build his ship.
He had no way of knowing that just such a crisis was only a few months away.
Grugell
To say that Emperor Apportamattid XIII was angry at the reports from the Imperial Navy was the grossest of understatements. Three Admirals had rotated through the posting of Fleet Commander, and all three had since found their way into the Imperium’s disintegration suite.
The Emperor did not suffer failure lightly.
Before the Imperial Throne now stood the fourth in a line of Fleet Commanders. Tillistik IX was young for the role, but his performance as the Commander of the task force involved in the rout of Confederate forces at New Albion recommended him for the job.
“Your predecessors,” the Emperor pointed out, “failed me at Fortune. They failed to follow up on the advantage you left them at New Albion.” (The Emperor used the Grugell names for both planets.)
“Indeed, Majesty.”
“What I require of you, Admiral, is simply this. Hunt down the Confederate fleet and destroy them.”
“I intend to, Majesty. If I may say so, the Confederates show a decided reluctance to become decisively engaged. They hit and run, strike from ambush, disappearing into subspace before we can bring the weight of our ships to bear.”
“Go on.” The Emperor was interested.
“At present, I have six cloaked ships in Confederate space. Their task is to use their long-range sensor suites to discover in which system the Confederate home world is located. Once that is determined, there will be an overwhelming strike carried out at once.”
“Have we not already done so? We know where their seat of government lies, yes?”
“We do, Highness. But that world is too recently developed, too sparsely populated, to be their home world. No, Highness, we need to look further.” Tillistik went on for some time. By the time he finished, the Emperor was more pleased with his new Fleet Commander than he would have thought possible.
Fortune
The gleaming silver form of a Grugell frigate swam into view briefly in high orbit over the Confederate world. It was the work of a few minutes to gather long-range scanner data that would enable them to reconstruct the debacle that had occurred there days earlier.
More importantly, the known presence of the Confederate Navy at Fortune, New Albion and other points would enable the Imperium to calculate likely systems that the human fleet would be using as rally points, as well as further understanding Confederate shipping and travel patterns.
Sensor sweeps complete, the Grugell ship turned out of orbit and, as it accelerated, shimmered and vanished.
Tarbos
Reports continued to trickle in from the field, and President Janine Cochet made a point of reading, personally, each and every one. From her office a stream of correspondence went out by hyperphone and by ground mail to Tarbos addresses, to the families of Navy personnel killed in the fighting as well as to Congress members embroiled in the ongoing budget crisis.
On the evening of December 31, 2251CE, President Cochet was in her office, ostensibly observing the New Year, but in reality, mooning over a growing list of casualty reports.
“Fortune, at least, has held up,” she observed to John Fund, her Vice President. “Two orbital bombardments, but the planetary government is holed up in an underground complex. It looks like it’s going to be a while before we can get New Albion back, though.”
“We’ve got three teams of Marines operating there now, training and supporting the guerrillas,” Fund pointed out. “Thanks to two different privateer ships, we’ve landed three Force Recon teams and six more drop boats of hardware, arms and ammunition.”
“Which privateer ships?”
“Shade Tree, from Earth, and Red Witch, from Halifax.” The Vice President had a head for details.
“Make sure they get paid on time,” Cochet snapped. “Those people are carrying a lot of water for us.”
“I’m not sure I like the idea of employing mercenaries.”
“They’re only mercenaries in the strictest sense, John. The concept of the privateer isn’t exactly new, you know.”
“So Senator Crider tells me. But the privateers in the eighteenth century were pirates, given a letter of marquee by a king to prey on enemy commerce. These people aren’t really pirates, I’ll grant you that, but they are carrying out military operations, and we’re paying them for it.”
“What exactly is it that bothers you about that, John? Are you afraid that they’ll change sides if the Grugell make them a better offer? They’ve got ships to supply and crews to pay – or do you expect the ship owners to feed their crews a diet of patriotic cant and inspirational songs? The Navy has too many tasks, not enough ships, and the privateers have been screened and approved by Fleet Admiral Kosake. What more do you want?”
“Why not simply conscript them?” The Vice President was losing his point, and he knew it.
“There’s no provision for conscription in the Constitution,” Cochet pointed out, “And Article Ten expressly prohibits us from carrying out any actions not specifically authorized. The individual planets can conscript troops for their own defense if their individual governments approve it, but the Confederate government cannot. So that’s not even an option, John, and you know it.”
Throwing up his hands, Fund conceded. “Well, I can’t argue with the results. Their mission success rates are higher than the Navy’s, and with no casualties to date.”
Cochet smiled, for the first time in several days. “That’s why I’m asking Admiral Kosake to approve two more privateer ships to begin operations next month.” She held up two dossiers. “The Cape Fear and the Pilgrim are offering their services; both are armed ships very similar to the three already operating, the Shade Tree, the Red Witch, and the Titan. I intend to take in as many privateers and can be confirmed as fit for raiding duty.”
Fund smiled and bowed his head. “You’re the Commander in Chief,” he agreed. “Yes, I am. And I may have to remind Fleet Admiral Kosake of that fact once in a while.”
To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.
Spaceship!!
….IN SPACE!
Jefferson Starship – Count On Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOMuK7YYxeg
Solid song, hard to believe that less than a decade later in the future past they’d be belting out such gems as We Built This City.
I thought about choosing that song, but I am not Ted S.
Nothing blew up.
>.>
*sighs…
Pull my finger.
Careful with that, if you’ve been eating a lot of lettuce…
Never trust a fart.
Do Grugells Dream of Electric Farts?
Need to take a breather every now and then.
Does Tillistik IX have any successes before he gets disintegrated in the end?
Tune in next week — same bat time, same bat channel.
I bet he does. Who is taking the other side of that bet?
The story needs conflict.
The Confederacy is going to take more loses before this story concludes.
Blue cities care about people. Which is why it took the Supreme Court had to rule that they couldn’t take the equity after selling someone’s home to satisfy a tax debt and it still took years for Cook County to stop the practice. You know, the public sector employees need the money more than grandma. Let her eat cat food with her social security check or something.
Then there was this shit from Roberts in his ruling:
What a just man.
Trigger warning: TOS. Recommend against wading into the comments.
https://reason.com/2026/07/16/illinois-will-finally-stop-stripping-people-of-their-home-equity-3-years-after-the-supreme-court-outlawed-it/?utm_campaign=reason_brand&utm_content=&utm_medium=social_reason_non_paid&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=
Also something something, orange man bad and doesn’t follow rule of law. It’s just consistently blue jurisdictions where people have to litigate and re-litigate for basic rights.
Huh, if I was Jesus I’d sue but even God would have trouble holding those douchebags accountable.
I dunno know, Jesus seems to be coming out ahead often in immigration hearings.
@Fourscore, you owe me a keyboard.
So…it wasn’t just that Cook County was ignoring the USSC ruling, but that they found a clever way to bypass it:
Hmm, I wonder how many of these ‘private investors’ had connections to the county government?
Cook County Friends And Family Reality gets an abnormal number of these sales
End property tax.
Problem solved.
At the very least, it shouldn’t be legal for the government to sell tax debt to private parties.
I’m charting out my character’s living quarters. I have gridded vellum (which I bought for making a cross stitching pattern from a big-ass mural on the outside of a restaurant) and my brain has completely glitched. Major grids are 1″ but it’s in 10×10 squares, so when I’m trying to translate that to inches, I’m just lost. The scale is 1:60. I know this because ChatGPT told me so. It’s a good thing I’m not an engineer or architect because abstract spacial relationships are beyond my little mind. Tell me a space is 5,000 ft2 and I have no idea what that looks like; can’t figure out how far 1/4 mile is no matter how many times I traverse it. But tell me a space is the size of a regulation basketball court, THEN we’re getting somewhere. I swear this makes me feel so stupid.
ALSO ALSO looking from the outside in, Theoretical Physics should be called Fantasy Physics. Asked a physicist friend of mine if I’m going to get screamed at if my sorcerer does X, and he gave me a long explanation of why yes, yes, you would. And you would be wrong anyway because your sorcerer cannot do what you want him to be able to do. So I said, “From MY research, it looks like if you put 10 physicists in a room, you’d get 11 opinions.” Him: Well, they’re searching for one unifying theory. Me: *googly eyes* Are you kidding me right now. Him: What. Me: Do you REALLY believe you can put all this in one theory? Are you people NUTS? Him: Well, there is M Theory. Me: *3 minutes on Wikipedia* So, what you’re saying is, I’m going to get screamed at no matter what I do. Him: Oh. Well. Yeah. Me: And what I’m proposing is no more far-fetched than anything these people have come up with. Him: Uh, well. I guess. Yeah. *sigh* Fine. Do you want you want.
Well, they’re searching for one unifying theory – Follow Sabine Hossenfelder on the youtubz 🙂
Oooh, thank you! The “free will” video caught my attention.
Quantum physics often seems indistinguishable from actual magic. That may be why Jack Vance described ‘magic spells’ as extremely complex multi-dimensional physics equations that actually cause minor brain damage when solved – requiring the caster to memorize the equation all over again.
And then Gary Gygax ripped this idea off, and now we have D&D!
ALERT: Dilettante on the loose!
I have a precognizant character who is fighting this because her theology makes her terrified of it and its implications. Another character is trying to get her to examine this in a way that takes precognition (i.e., “seeing the future”) out of Satan’s realm and into neutral possibility (which is that EVENTS are entirely separate from TIME). She can see events and then her subconsciously instantly assigns it a time.
One of MY foundational theories in MY world is that measurements are arbitrary, including the measurements for time, and that time doesn’t actually exist in any meaningful way, and that assigning time as a variable to any equation is gumming up the works. Schrödinger’s clocks! So when we say E=mc^2, c^2 doesn’t mean anything at all because the speed of light is unknowable. We ASSIGN it a number, but light doesn’t care what we say, it’s going to do what it’s going to do. But our concept of time is based SOLELY on our experience of the pinpoint where we are standing at that very second (I can’t even express my thought without using time as a reference).
I haven’t given this TOO much thought because, while I took physics in high school and did okay, I have ZERO understanding of whatever string theory or quantum mechanics is going on.
And I’ll tell you what got me started down this path. A LONG time ago, I heard the phrase “Everyone is the villain in someone else’s story,” which I thought was very freeing. Because it means two states can exist at once (similar to being able to hold two opposing thoughts in your head at the same time). Schrödinger’s villain! If it is possible for two states to exist at once, then there can be no one grand unifying theory. And the theories that these people are using are using Schrödinger’s clocks to try to prove it.
I will admit that I haven’t delved into all the theories, and I haven’t explored alternate universe theories, either, because (as I understand it superficially) I think that’s beside my point.
The speed of light is knowable in physical values. c = 1/sqrt(mu*epsilon) where mu is the permeability and epsilon is the permittivity, both of which can be determined experimentally.
Unless I’m missing something in what you are saying.
whatever string theory – some would very decidedly say its bullshit to this bit 🙂
Facebook is reminding me that it’s been 57 years since they faked the first moon landing.
They didn’t fake the landing. They just didn’t tell us who they went there to meet.
I fell for that shit when I was 12. I’m not falling for it now.
Were they picking up some more Nazi scientists?
Peenemünde was all out of them by 1969.
Ha!
Any fake moon landing memorabilia on marketplace?
How fake is that in terms of giraffes?
Assuming that the average adult giraffe is 17’ tall.
74,185,600 giraffes or there about.
One thing I can’t get my head around is the reason someone is compelled to believe in the less probable explaination instead of accept that we achieved a remarkable feat.
What was that old XKCD comic? “If NASA was given to faking great achievements, they’d have a second one by now?”