Sonya Newman, Part Three

[THE FIRST DAY OF THE FINAL WAR]

I remember the day the Final War began.

John had set up the headquarters of his administration in Omaha. We had hoped that this would be a temporary arrangement until former President Null could be persuaded to properly step down in Washington or was otherwise dealt with.

The actual office used by John, and myself as his chief of staff, were within the perimeter of Offutt Air Force Base. John and I actually shared a small office space in the Strategic Command’s underground bunker.

I had come into work early that morning and was in my little cubicle in the temporary presidential office catching up on the inevitable paperwork when an alarm sounded.

I ran down the hall, flashed my photo I.D. card to the Air Force sentry guarding the door, and entered the primary control center.

There was a flurry of activity in the control center as the primary display board, which dominated an entire wall of the room, showed some kind of activity in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean just off of Spain.

I caught my breath from my short run and stepped up to the watch officer, an Air Force Brigadier General, his name tag said “Curtis”, who was on watch in the underground command post.

“General,” I said, “what the Hell is going on?”

Brigadier General Curtis looked at me as if I was a Martian who just appeared in the command post by an act of teleportation. He then apparently remembered that I was actually supposed to be here and answered my question.

“Sir,” he said, “NORAD has reported the launch of three ballistic missiles from a submarine in the Atlantic off of Spain.”

NORAD was a combined American and Canadian military organization whose primary mission was to detect air and space borne attacks against our two respective nations and our allies. Their primary assets were a group of powerful radar stations and a constellation of satellites for detecting and tracking missile launches anywhere on the planet.

I asked the general a question.

“Any idea who launched them and where they’re going?”

“Not at this time, sir.” Curtis replied. “We still have the open line to NORAD, sir.”

I pointed to the nearest phone with a line button blinking.

“Line one, sir.” Said General Curtis.

I picked up the phone and punched the blinking line button.

“Hello.” I said. “This is Al Keller, Chief of Staff for President March, may I speak to the watch officer, please?”

“Yes sir!” Said the voice on the other end of the line.

The next voice on the line sounded French Canadian.

“This is Brigadier General Lambert.” He said.

“General,” I said, “any idea who launched those missiles and where they’re going?”

“We have no idea who launched them, yet.” He said. “As far as we can tell the target is the State of Israel.”

That’s insane. I thought.

No. I had not really thought that, I had emotionally felt it.

“General Lambert,” I said, “would you please notify the Israelis?”

“Mister Keller,” he said, “that would require a presidential order.”

Bullshit. I thought.

“Moot point, General.” I replied. “My next phone call will be to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

“Mister Keller,” he said, “you do not have the authority to do that.”

I looked over to General Curtis. He had been listening to the conversation with Lambert. He covered the lower part of the phone receiver with the palm of his right hand, turned to a staff officer, and spoke.

“Call the Israelis,” he said, “let them know what’s coming their way.”

“And while we’re at it,” I jumped in, “call the Navy and let them know where that missile boat is, I’m sure the president will want it forced to the surface or sent to the bottom.”

A Navy Commander, apparently representing our own ballistic missile submarine force in the command center, spoke up.

“I’m on it, sir!” He shouted.

General Curtis commented in a voice barely above the level of a whisper.

“I’ll settle for sunk.” He said.

“Yes.” I said in agreement.

General Curtis then barked out an order to another staff officer.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “call the NRO and see what they have on this attack.”

An Air Force Sergeant turned around at her station and spoke to me.

“Sir,” she said, “I have the Prime Minister’s office on line two.”

I didn’t bother to say anything to Canadian Brigadier General Lambert at NORAD as I switched over to the second line on my phone. The Prime Minister was actually on the line.

“Sir,” I said, “this is Al Keller in Omaha.”

“Al,” he said, “why are you calling? Where is President March?”

I had met the current Prime Minister when John had visited Israel during the primary campaign in order to obtain the equivalent of “street cred” in the area of foreign affairs.

“The president is boarding the airborne command post.” I replied.

Or John should be if we’re following the operational procedure that we rehearsed.

“Benny,” I said, “it is my duty to inform you that three ballistic missiles have been launched from a submarine toward the State of Israel.”

“Do you know who is responsible for this attack?” He replied.

“Not at this time, sir.” I said.

I then saw the Lieutenant who called the NRO coming up to me with a sheet of paper.

“Just a moment.” I said to the Prime Minister.

The Lieutenant gave me the sheet of paper with a note written on it.

It said:

NRO SAYS 3 FRENCH M51 WITH 18-30 110KT RV

I spoke again to the Prime Minister.

“Sir, the National Reconnaissance Office says that they’re French M-five-one missiles with a total of eighteen to thirty warheads of a hundred and ten kilotons yield each.”

I could hear the Israeli air raid warning sirens start up over the phone line.

“Benny,” I said, “if I wasn’t a goddamned atheist I would say a prayer for Israel.”

“I think you just did.” He replied.

I had to say something else.

“Benny, we’ll do everything we can for the survivors.” I said. “They’ll have a place here with us, you have my word on that.”

“Of course you will.” Said the Prime Minister.

I could hear someone speaking to the Prime Minister in the background over the phone line.

“I have to go.” He said. “May God be with you.”

The line went dead.

I was silent. I had to mentally pause for a moment.

“That was definitely a prayer.” Said Curtis. “You definitely expressed a desire for divine intervention, without the usual fluffery.”

I turned my head to look at Curtis.

“My Pop was very disappointed that I didn’t follow him into the ministry.” He said.

“What denomination?” I asked.

“Methodist.” He said.

“Okay.” I replied.

One of the sergeants in the control center stood up at his work station.

“General!” He shouted. “Fox News has someone reporting live from Jerusalem!”

“Put it on the big screen!” General Curtis commanded.

The image from Fox News appeared on the main screen to the right of the map showing the track of the three French missiles in flight.

It was midnight and Sonya Newman was reporting live from Jerusalem.

Sunny’s hair was a little more frizzed than usual and she clearly appeared to be afraid of something on the air. But she was trying to do her job.

After the election the management at Fox News had given her a choice of assignments outside of the United States. In part this was to allow her to get away from escalating level of violence being carried out by followers of former president Null against those who were perceived to be opponents of his continued and now illegal occupancy of the White House.

Sunny had no idea what was going on apart from the local civil defense sirens sounding off. She was saying that she and her camera crew were about to go down to a shelter when someone off camera shouted something. The camera shifted off of Sunny to something in the sky.

The display on the main part of the primary display in the command center showed that the warheads of the French missiles had reached Israel.

The view from the Fox News camera in Jerusalem showed three of the reentry vehicles dropping down on the city.

Sunny tried to describe what she saw. It was almost a play by play account as the locally based anti-missile battery tried to intercept the incoming warheads.

The first two warheads were killed on live television. The interceptor missiles failed to hit the third warhead.

Sonya Newman of Fox News made one final comment.

“One of the them got through.”

The was a very brief flash of light from the last warhead before the loss of the video signal from Jerusalem.

Everyone in the command center sat in stunned silence.

I had to say something.

“General?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I believe that the president will want to review any existing plans for action against the French.” I said. “There should be something on file.”

The fact that the French government, through their insistence on maintaining an independent foreign policy that was often antithetical to our interests, and by creating their own independent nuclear strike force, should have necessitated the creation of a separate plan for action against it.

And our field grade staff officers need to be kept busy in peacetime as well.

General Curtis sent the colonel standing next to him out to retrieve the relevant files.

When the airborne command post landed the general and I met the president on the ground. We all piled into one of the Chevy Suburban vehicles that our security group (the Secret Service was with former President Null) had scrounged up.

As we drove back to the headquarters General Curtis gave a brief summary of the existing options for dealing with the French. When he finished I spoke up.

“John,” I said to the President, “I made a promise to Benny that we would give their survivors sanctuary here in the States.”

John closed his eyes and nodded, and then thought for a moment.

“Al,” he said, “I think I’m going to have Susan fill in as chief of staff.”

I nodded.

John continued.

“This will be your project,” he said, “any asset you need, you got it. And anyone who doesn’t follow your orders goes straight to Leavenworth!”

“I’ll need a written executive order for that.” I replied.

“You got it!” Said President John Andrew March.

The driver of the Suburban dropped President March and General Curtis off at the command post. The driver then continued on to the field officer housing area of the air base where Susan and I were staying.

I found Susan sitting on the couch in the living room. The television set was showing the Fox News Channels continuing coverage of aftermath of the French attack on Israel. At the moment Fox News was showing internet video, apparently from the West Bank or Gaza area, of the glowing mushroom clouds rising above the cities of Israel. Some of the Palestinians were in the streets celebrating.

I was not consoled by the fact that those savages were now getting full exposure to some very dirty fallout from the attack.

I sat down next to Susan and gave her a hug. She held her teddy bear tightly and her face clearly showed signs that she had been crying.

“I saw Sunny.” She said.

“I know.” I replied.

Mr. Welch Is Still At It

1929. Ayn Rand has no affect on my alignment.

It does on mine.
_

Quote of the Day

"A Bolo is what a Cylon wants to be when it grows up."

-- The Other Les

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The Truth About Penguins In The Traveller Universe. (A Repost)

If anything, the apparently humble penguin is the central component to the mystery of why the Solomani, the Humans of Terra, were so slow to develop spaceflight and the jump drive.

The various species of penguin that we know of were Genetically Engineered by Yaskodray (a.k.a. Grandfather) as a means to suppress the growth and technological progress of Terrestrial Humans. The penguin brain while individually unimpressive, served as a component of a group mind which in turn functioned on Terra as a False Ruling Consciousness, an entity that the Solomani have commonly called "God."

The False Ruling Consciousness, being physically isolated on the Antarctic continent, would send psionic messages to various "prophets" who would in turn command their respective followers kill each other in progressively bloodier wars. This also had the unfortunate result of blackening the name of God in the minds of the Solomani as that the gods of most other races were more emotionally secure and far less prone to acting out.

It was when Claw and Beak disease was accidentally introduced to the primary penguin population by a British naval expedition ("Jenkins, STOP THAT!") that the False Ruling Consciousness became too weak to influence human affairs. Thus allowing the Solomani people to expand into deep space and attempt to take their rightful place in the Universe. ("Today, North Minehead...")
_

A New Project

[I'm writing a novel set in the Private Universe Mk 2.]


Frank reentered the room. He brought in a two page printout of something and a thick paper-bound book with a black-colored cover.

He stopped and looked at everyone.

“Did I miss something? He said.

Kira spoke up.

“The subject of Earth came up.” She said.

“Did you mention the lamp post?” He replied.

“What lamp post?” I said.

Andy sounded a little bit embarrassed when he answered.

“The lamp post that the senior senator from New York may have been hanged from.” He said.

“May have?” I said.

“Well we can’t be certain,” Andy replied, “the post in the recorded location may have been replaced one or more times since The Reformation.”

Alice jumped into the conversation.

“There was a lot of looting going on since the fall of the Earth.” She said. “We sent an expert team to the reported location of the artifact and recovered it, though technically it was an act of looting.”

“It’s called archaeology.” I said. “Where is it?”

Frank answered the question.

“We gave it a good home.” He said.

That answer sounded distressingly familiar. Unlike the fictional Captain Kirk I tried not to raise my voice in response.

“Where?”

Alice smiled when she replied.

“We put it in front of the new planetary government center in Landfall.” She said. “And we gave it a nice brass plaque to remind every member of the Senate and the Assembly to be on their best behavior.”

Quote of the Day

"We usually short roped them. We wanted them to suffer."

-- Allen Keller, Memoirs.
_

Quote of the Day

I'm thinking of doing another experimental chapter of Shadow of the Great Bear. The following lines came to mind during this process:

We're supposed to thank your god for an extinction event that killed off ten billion people? Why don't we rip out some beating hearts for him while we're at it?

-- First Lieutenant John Allen March, Ursa Major Confederation Marine Corps (2292)

_

News of the Day

Mr. Welch is up to 1375.

I've found that using a glowing-hot false grail in the Monty Python and the Holy Grail adventure for Dungeons and Dragons did not score me any popularity points as a dungeon master.
_

It's Up To 1350

Mr. Welch is up to 1350 things that he cannot do in a role playing game.

1329. The M203 is not for long range bocce ball.

1332. Even if silence is required for the entire adventure, we are not naming the Black Ops Operation: Mimecrime.

1333. I will tell the noob the game is about post nuclear Europe and not love struck vampires before we start.

1335. I can not filibuster in the middle of my dying speech to buy the cleric more time.

1336. Even if we are told to pick a manly name for the game, Genocidicles is a bit much.

1339. If unsure of what side of the road we drive on, the middle of the road is not a healthy compromise.

1341. Even if the rules allow it, I cannot become famous for not being famous.

1342. There is no god of Wombats, no matter how much I pray.

1344. No matter how cool it would be, we can’t use the time machine to loan Ike a few A-10 squadrons for D-Day.

1349. I will not program the medical droid for “aggressive dentistry.”

_

I've Just Updated My Flickr Page

Hitting The Woodline

Something I did for the Minicon artshow.

The guy in the commander's hatch is more a Gallaci canine than a Traveller Vargr.



The Wild Turkeys

This is an incomplete strip I did for an incomplete project I did with Dave Semkow.

We see a bunch of Traveller mercenaries in a scene from Apocalypse Now calling on a character from Dave Sim's Cerebus The Ardvark. The Ranger Roach of course tends to externalize his internal dialogue.

I actually wrote two versions of the Roach's dialogue for the final panel.


Early Version of UncleDenny

Troops In The Field

The Freyan Armed Forces

Another early incarnation of Uncle Denny in a blatant rip-off of a work by Phil Foglio.

(I had more hair back then too.)

Quote of the Day

"A copy of a Human Being is a Human Being. Period. To deny the Rights of Human Beings to a Human Clone is simply irrational and despicable. Those who created and voted for this appalling act of legislation are morally unfit to hold public office, and they should resign. Immediately."

-- President John Andrew March, Veto of the Clone Act.
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A Fictional Person's Thought For The Day

A sure sign that a civilized nation is in deep trouble is when a higher value is placed on the proper use of a salad fork than on the proper use of the weapons of a citizen-soldier.

-- Alice Keller March, The Path of Life

It came to me when I was working today.
_

Thought for the Day

"When your primary instrument of policy is a fusion warhead your problems tend to end up looking like Moscow, Mecca, and Mexico City."

-- Captain J.M. Stark, Ursa Major Confederation Navy.

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Statement of Policy

Those individuals who believe that they have a right to use other people without their consent as subhuman livestock or as any kind of resource, whom I usually sarcastically refer to as Self-Appointed Superior Beings^TM, are by their own choice a clear hazard to human life and must be identified and dealt with as such. And because physical isolation does not prevent such individuals from acting to regain the power over other persons that they persist in believing is rightfully theirs, the only truly effective way to deal with such individuals is the eliminate them altogether.

That is, to kill them.

Such an act is no more an act of murder than putting down a rabid animal. (Of course the rabid animal had no choice in the matter.)

Those individuals, and their willing followers, who assign an inferior legal and moral status to their victims in order to use the victims as a resource for the achievement of their own goals are nothing less than Enemies of Human Kind. Is is not possible to reason with them. It is not possible to negotiate with them. And driving them off or isolating them is not a permanent solution. Such individuals and their willing followers can only be killed. Such an act must be performed in defense of ourselves as individuals and of Humanity in general.

Ayn Rand once said this in regard to one group of Self-Appointed Superior Beings^TM: Better see the Reds dead.

I wrote this statement in response to an anonymous idiot who refuses to see the difference between those who subjugate and murder human beings and those who exercise force in defense of Human Life and Human Liberty. Those who refuse to see this distinction are for all practical purposes a willing part of the problem and thus need to be included in the solution.

Furthermore, I will not tolerate their insults in the comments section of any of my blogs.

_

The Keller Memoirs

December 9, 2059
March City, Mars


One thing an assassin should avoid is calling attention to himself before striking the target. I've actually broken this rule twice, but those were special cases.

I spent a good part of my 99th birthday giving a statement to the Federal Marshall in March City after some self-appointed superior being tried to stab me with a improvised plastic dagger. A badly made dagger at that.

Seriously, that idiot actually announced his intention to execute me for crimes against the People and the Earth while holding up the shank in the air with his right hand.

He apparently didn't think, or more likely, feel that I would actually fight back, let alone get in the first blow. I'm old and weak, but I'm not that old and weak.

I was in the process of rearranging the would be assailants face with my right fist when some good citizens of the Martian community pulled me off of him and others placed him under citizen's arrest. This did not stop the idiot from screaming out that I was a murderer.

Yes, I've personally performed a small number of homicides. And every one of them was a self-appointed superior being who looked upon and treated us mere mortals as nothing more than livestock. What I did was not murder, it was morally necessary.

Of course the assassination attempt is causing no end of consternation for the judicial system, both here and on Earth. No one has ever committed a capital crime here. Even though there is no shortage of personal weapons, including firearms. (This is, after all, a colony of the United States of Earth.) Which means no one has ever been executed here before.

And the investigation Earthside thus far has shown that the assailant could not have paid for the ticket to Mars and the repatriation bond on his own. He had a sponsor. The Director of CIS in Omaha has declared the search for that sponsor to be priority one.

Granted, anyone who would blow a major amount of money to knock off an old bastard like me, on another planet, is going to be a problem. But is he really, objectively speaking, that big of a problem?

If nothing else, I got some good exercise today.
_

The Keller Memoirs

January 24, 2009
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Saturday was a bit busy. (You didn't think we'd take the weekend off, did you?)

On the day of the inauguration we formally took over the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building down by the airport. We evicted every agency that had gone over to The Zero and his crew. Which is to say all of them. We did give the individual local workers the chance to work for us. We didn't get anyone from the EPA. (Fucking Gaianists...)

At about 0900 on Saturday a Marine Corps KC-130 came into the airport from the east coast. We counted seven bullet holes on the aircraft. To no surprise to us the media drones supporting The Zero didn't report any fighting in the DC area.

On board were the Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Deputy Chiefs of Staff of the Army and the Air Force, their aides, and their immediate families. We set up new offices for them in the Whipple Building for the time being. We also told them that if they order pizza for delivery to NOT call it the Whipple Building. It confuses the delivery drivers. (We had to learn that one the hard way.)

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chiefs of Staff of the Army and the Air Force went over to The Zero. Three nine-millimeter pistol rounds were duly set aside for them. (The nine-millimeter pistol is an acceptable weapon for (**COUGH**) administrative purposes, but anyone who reasonably expects to fight with a pistol prefers a .45.)

Around Noon a T-38 (that's a two seat supersonic trainer) came in from Offut Air Force Base.

In back seat was the governor of Nebraska, in the pilot's seat was the Commander of the what we used to call the Strategic Air Command. (Yes, I know general officers aren't supposed to fly airplanes by themselves.) They had an interesting proposition for us.

Oh, and we now own the U.S. nuclear arsenal too.

At about 1400 hours our time the United Nations Security Council voted to recognize The Zero and his crew as the legitimate government of the United States.

We expected that.

President March signed an executive order terminating our membership in the United Nations and repudiating all treaties sponsored by the U.N.

What we didn't expect was that the British Ambassador to the U.N. voted for the resolution.

The problem was that when FU died the Conservative Party didn't elevate his chosen successor to premiership, but instead voted in a very well polished dolt instead. Seriously, that idiot couldn't pass a mirror without preening himself in it.

John and I spent about an hour on the phone with his Aunt and FU's former chief henchman.

Things are going to get a bit hot for the Prime Minister in the next week or so.

And then Mom called.

My Mom. On the phone. She lives about a mile north of Wadena, Minnesota. So she's out of the way for now.

Unfortunately she still has a serious problem with the concept of lawful authority.

I spent the better part of an hour explaining to her that under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment that John Andrew March, that kid who used to give me a ride down to the Little Tin Soldier shop for Friday Night gaming in his Triumph TR-6 three decades ago, is the lawfully elected President of the United States. And that The Zero, the Speaker of the House and her clique, and the rest of The Other Party caucus in the House of Representatives, are now criminals with absolutely no legal authority whatsoever.

Oh, and the United Nations has no authority either.

After Mom hung up I ordered a pizza from Dulono's on Lake Street.

Yes, that's how I deal with stress. So how was your day?

_

Alternate History

The Inaugural Address of President John Andrew March, given on the Twentieth day of January in the year of Our Lord 2009 in the City of Saint Paul, Minnesota.


Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens and Soldiers of the United States, Honored Guests,

We as a nation face a crisis that is unprecedented, but was not entirely unpredictable.

It is with great sadness we find that the majority caucus in the House of Representatives of the United States has consciously rejected the will of the actual, living and breathing, citizens of our Republic, and has maliciously defied the ruling of the Supreme Court. Instead of acknowledging the will of the actual electorate through the Electoral College, the House of Representatives violated the supreme law to which it is subject and has elevated to the highest office an individual who is clearly unfit to hold any public office in any civilized nation.

Senator Laurence Null of Illinois, who wrongfully claims the Office of the President of the United States, is a long standing adherent of an ideology which openly denies the Value and Right of Human Life. An ideology which has repeatedly proven to have brought about the deaths of not less than a hundred million human beings throughout the last century. A fact that the ladies and gentlemen of the press, in willful dereliction of the duties assigned to them by the Founders of our Republic, have refused to report.

Instead of the Chief Executive lawfully elected by the actual living citizens of the American Republic, the apparatus of the United States federal government is now headed by an individual who is for all practical purposes a primitive stone-age god king. An individual who is now worshiped by a personality cult we not seen since the darkest days of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.

In fact there is no federal government of the United States. There is now only an apparatus of violence which enforces the whims of what is for all practical purposes a barbarian chieftain.

The actual living and breathing citizens of the American Republic will now be denied their God-given right of Liberty and their Sovereign Authority. The working citizens and legal residents of the United States are now reduced to the legal and moral status of livestock, to now be used at the whim of a clique of self-appointed superior beings, or to be destroyed as if they were a diseased animal should they refuse to obey the self-appointed masters.

All Senator Null and his supporters have to offer the citizens of the United States are chains and death. This is an offer that we as Sovereign Citizens and as Human Beings must refuse by any and all means necessary.

We are now on the brink of a Second American Civil War, but there is still an opportunity to advert the coming storm.

To this end we call upon Senator Null and those who unlawfully elevated him to publicly acknowledge the fact that they are in violation of the Constitution. We furthermore call upon Senator Null and his supporters to resign from public office, and call upon them to leave this nation and go into exile.

Should Senator Null and his supporters choose instead to enforce their whims by violence then we will have no alternative but to reply in kind. In doing so we shall grant them no quarter and show them no mercy.

By rational persuasion or by open force we the sovereign citizens of the American Republic will take back our nation and we will restore the rule of law under the United States Constitution.

Thank you, and God bless the Republic.
_

From the Unpublished Memoirs of Allen Keller.

Saint Paul, Minnesota
January 20, 2009


There were two inauguration ceremonies in the rotunda of the State Capital in Saint Paul.

The first was the elevation of the Lieutenant Governor to Governor of the state of Minnesota.

Then at eleven in the morning, local time, we did the president.

John Andrew March took the oath of office and then gave a short speech. It wasn't really inspirational, but there were definite Randian elements to it.

First, John never mentioned Socialism or Communism by name. He did mention Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, but that was in reference to the personality cult that emerged around The Zero.

Second, as Rand did throughout Atlas Shrugged and her later writings John described the actions of The Zero and his followers as manifestations of primitive or barbaric behavior.

The look on The Beast's face when John said all that was priceless.

Yes, the Junior Senator from New York was there. I'm sure virtually everyone there had the same thought I had

What. The. Fuck?

I had yet to talk to the Junior Senator or any of the staff people that came with her but I do have a theory.

The Junior Senator (I shall refrain from calling her The Beast or The Bitch for the time being) still wants to be president and I don't think that she wants to go down on the Speaker of the House to get the job.

That's my theory for the time being.


Minneapolis, Minnesota
January 23, 2009


The Hennepin County Jail was getting a bit crowded.

The Zero ordered the arrest of President March and everyone else actively involved with the Provisional Government. (Oddly enough, he didn't order the arrest of the Junior Senator from New York.)

Believe it or not, someone actually tried to carry out that order.

The first were a bunch of idiots from the local office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in their SWAT Team "cool guy" gear who tried to storm the March family residence in the Kenwood area of Minneapolis. They were stopped by Military Police from the Minnesota National Guard.

There were one hundred percent fatalities for the BATF agents. (I didn't bother to ask our guys about the nine millimeter holes in the backs of three of their heads.)

Then the Major of Minneapolis, a partisan of The Other Party, got into the act.

He called up the chief of police and ordered him to make the arrest. Prisoners were actually taken this time. His former Honor, the now former Major, the Chief of the Minneapolis Police, and five of the officers who were stupid enough to follow orders are now in the Hennepin County Jail. Three more police officers are in hospital under armed guard. Four officers are in the Hennepin County Morgue.

Everyone else in local law enforcement got the message. Don't fuck with us.

The Special Agent in Charge of the Minneapolis office of the FBI tried to put a call through to President March. I took the call. First, he pledged loyalty to President March and the Provisional Government. Not surprising given all of the National Guard and Army Reserve Humvees parked around the Federal Building and City Hall (they're across the street from each other) in downtown Minneapolis after the BATF and MPD incidents. Second, he passed on a couple of pieces of information from the Bureau's Chicago office.

Then there was the fun (I'm being sarcastic here) we had with the local media.

We called a meeting of the managements of the local newspapers, television, and radio stations at a convenient location. Not everyone we summoned showed up.

The folks from KLMN-TV, KLMN-AM and KLMN-FM, which were the local branch of the Lackland Media empire were one hundred percent with us. Everyone else was to one degree or another being a problem.

I had to stomp on them. Hard.

"Senator Null and the caucus of The Other Party in the House of Representatives have by their own actions repudiated the Constitution of the United States." I said. "Without the Constitution there is no First Amendment, and without the First Amendment you are all dead meat. And anyone who opposes the Constitution simply cannot claim protection under it. Have I made myself clear?"

There was still a lot of grumbling, especially from the editors of Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the local rag of The Other Party. I originally wanted to hang the entire reporting and editorial staff of the Star-Tribune, minus the token conservative columnist and that Lileks guy, from the Third Avenue bridge in Minneapolis, pour encourager l'autres. But we had to tread carefully at the
time as there were still too many people, especially in the armed forces, who were sitting on the political fence.

Then there was the fun we had with the two radio stations that didn't send anyone to the meeting.

One was the local FM-affiliate of the Pacifica network. The other was the AM-affiliate of the former Air America network.

On air personalities on both stations openly called for riots and the assassination of President March.

We didn't shut the stations down. We simply seized them and put some radio geeks from Our Party in charge and had them play "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" By R.E.M. on continuous loop. The station staffs joined the other supporters of The Zero in the Hennepin County Jail.

The level of restraint we showed to the opposition lasted for about a total of ten days.

_

From the Unpublished Memoirs of Allen Keller.

November 22, 2008


I had to do an Urquhartcide today.

Al Stein was by his own claim and the opinion of the morally and esthetically dysfunctional members of self-styled intellectual class a comedian. In fact he was a boring old socialist drone with delusions of talent. He was also a political commentator with delusions of credibility. His most recent misadventure prior to standing as a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota was as a talk show host on the Socialist talk radio network known as Air America.

I recall when Air America -- more properly labeled as Radio Pravda -- started up, the local affiliate put up posters at bus stops proclaiming that it was "talk radio without the lies." Something that could only be achieved by a Socialist radio station by the broadcast of dead silence.

So anyway Comrade Stein ran for the Senate against the incumbent Republican Norm Colman. Norm is a nice guy, but like most Republicans he's too nice. He won but the margin of victory was close enough under state law to mandate a recount.

This was where the problem really became apparent.

Local election officials, all Democrats of course, began reporting misplaced ballots or other forms of counting errors to the state election board. All of these so-called corrections favored Comrade Stein. It was very readily apparent that this senate seat was about to be stolen.

On top of this some of Comrade Stein's supporters were camped out on the front yard of his residence in Minneapolis. This had the effect of severely limiting our other options for solving the problem.

However an opportunity opened up when the owner of a new Italian restaurant, who wasn't terribly fond of Marxists, tipped us off that Comrade Stein had made reservations for Saturday night. I asked the owner to reserve a table for two on the same night.

My companion for the evening was a junior secretary from the local British consulate. She was in fact one of Corder's people, sent here to support JM and I in our plot to "dominate the world." I sat with my back to Comrade Stein and his party.

La Gondola, the new restaurant, had opened in the space formerly occupied by a Tex-Mex eatery on the southeast corner of Seventh Street and Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. While waiting for the opportunity to solve the Stein problem I spoke to my dinner companion about the history of the building.

"Right over there," I pointed to the corner of the building on the intersection, "was one of the two Fanny Farmer candy shops I worked at after school."

"What did you do?" She asked.

"Light janitorial stuff." I said. "Two days a week here. Tuesday and I had the choice of working on either Thursday or Saturday. I picked Saturday."

"Well...why Saturday?" She was puzzled.

"I didn't want be dragged up to my family's lake place on the weekends... boring as Hell."

"I didn't know you were that well off?" She was surprised.

"We weren't" I replied.

She looked over to Comrade Stein's table.

"Some of those people are making obscene gestures at us," she said.

"Being a Superior Being means never having to behave like a civilized person." I said. "Marxists are funny that way."

She looked over there again.

"Stein's up. He's going to the rest room," she said.

"If you will excuse me." I said as I stood up.

I removed a stainless steel ball point pen from a pocket and placed it in my left hand as if it were an unlit cigar. Comrade Stein was alone and preening himself when I entered the rest room.

"Al," I said, "we need to talk."

"Fuck off!" He replied.

I ignored it.

"You know," I said, "FU could get pretty rough on his opponents, but there one thing he never did, and that was to fuck with the ballots."

Comrade Stein's image in the mirror glared at me.

"What part of 'Fuck off' did you NOT understand?" He growled.

"Nobody steals an election in this state." I said. "JM's going to appoint a special prosecutor after the inauguration. You will be removed from that seat and Lieutenant Governor Pawlenty will appoint Norm to finish out the term. You can walk away from this and save us all the fuss and bother. All you have to do is concede."

Comrade Stein turned towards me.

"We WILL take the White House!" He snapped. "And we WILL snuff out you FASCISTS once and for all!"

He was referring to the ongoing effort of his party to lawyer their way into the White House. And of course he also referred to the well documented homicidal tendencies of the Left toward those who refuse to submit to their will.

He returned to the image in the rest room mirror.

Of course the basic difference between Comrade Stein and a proper old-school Fascist was the silly uniform. But mentioning that would do no good at this point. I consciously decided to emulate JM's late uncle, Francis Urquhart.

"You may very well think that," I said, "but what you're moving towards is a civil war, and I seriously doubt that the United States Army will obey the orders of a Chicago Marxist who has obviously stolen the election, like the Big Zero. You will lose."

Comrade Stein snarled one more time.

"You're going to a supermax!" Which was the worst type of prison in the United States. "You're going to get raped and die of AIDS you piece of shit!"

It is simply not possible to reason with someone who believes that you have no right to live.

There was one thing that could only be done at this point. I switched the pen from left hand to the right and jabbed the point into Comrade Stein's back. I clicked the stud that would normally extend the ball point for writing but which instead extended a tiny needle into his back.

I pulled the pen out and put it back into my pocket.

Comrade Stein spun around.

"What was that?!" He yelled.

"A nonpersistent neurotoxin." I replied. "It won't show up in the autopsy."

Comrade Stein tried to leave the rest room. With my right arm I stopped him and shoved him back into the wall. The toxin was already weakening him.

"Comrade Lenin once said that the ends justify the means." I spoke softly. "You didn't really believe that we would be any less ruthless?"

Comrade Stein tried to speak one more time as I held him to the wall with my right hand.

"Mother...fuck..."

I replied.

"It's not personal Al, it's politics."

Comrade Stein collapsed to the floor and ceased breathing.

It was at this point that I stepped out of the rest room and raised my voice as if I were still a sergeant in the Army.

"Al Stein just collapsed on the floor, someone call nine-one-one!"

All of Comrade Stein's dinner companions, regardless of their gender, entered the Men's rest room while I returned to my table.

Our meal for the evening had not arrived at the table yet. I gestured to our waitress and pulled out a credit card.

"Is there a problem, sir?" She said.

"Apart from the commotion, no." I said as I handed her the credit card. "Could we have the check please?"

Two of Comrade Stein's companions, one of each gender, stumbled out of the Men's rest room. The female was moaning something about Stein being dead. The male stared at me for a moment and then began to look around for something. I placed my right hand on the Glock 36 that I carried concealed in a belt holster, ready to draw on the thug. He grabbed a wine bottle off of one of the tables when two Minneapolis officers entered the restaurant.

The waitress returned to the table with the check and my credit card just as the cops were placing the agitated Marxist goon in handcuffs. I wrote in a substantial tip and then handed the pen to my dinner companion.

"Your pen madame." I said as she accepted the pen and placed it in her purse.

With that gesture the instrument of my latest homicide was placed beyond the reach of the police.

I had to give a statement to the local cops. I said that Al Stein had collapsed when I told him that he would be prosecuted for election fraud.

"Some of his people are saying that you killed him." Said one of the cops.

I replied.

"Only if 'President-March' is a killing word."

I had to explain the reference.


###

From the Unpublished Memoirs of Allen Keller.

January 2008


I hate ceremonies.

When I was in the Army I would find something that absolutely had to be done that very day so I wouldn't have to show up for the payday formation and any other ceremony that the C.O. would lay on for that day. Seriously, I would rather skip my own wedding if I could get away with it. (Fat chance on getting married).[1] And as a Randroid [2] you can only imagine how I feel about attending a Christian funeral service. Fortunately I really didn't have to. It wasn't my uncle who was being buried.

Most people have no idea how FU's [3] funeral service at Westminster Abbey came to being a total clusterfuck.

They had to bring in the vicar from FU's district [4] in Southampton to officiate. Most of the senior Anglican clergy, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, who very thoroughly loathed FU wanted no part of the whole affair. My (lack of) God! What a fucking waste of mass and energy! The current Archbishop of Canterbury would rather quote from Marx and Engels than from Jesus Christ and he'd rather do a blowjob on an Ayatollah or a Soviet Commissar than say a kind word about Western Civilization.

I once asked Corder [5] if anything could be done about that idiot and he said that offing a member of the clergy was still considered to be bad form. Really?! That Becket mess was how long ago?! Sure, they can pop a pesky journalist, but lay hands on a turbulent priest? No way!

Of course as an atheist I really shouldn't care. But if someone is going to do something they should do to properly. The Universe is supposed to make sense. Where is General Loan [6] when we really need him?

The local anarchists and other trash were of course were planning to disrupt the funeral. The security services were working overtime to preemptively disrupt those assholes. No proper arrests. Just a few convenient drug overdoses, suicides, and one case of "revolutionary justice.'

I asked Corder if I could help out. He said no. Spoilsport.

JAM [7] got to sit with his Aunt Elizabeth and other family members, ahead of Dubya [8] and the other heads of state, and the cabinet ministers and, and the other MP's, and a bunch of Lords and Ladies. [9] There was no space in Westminster Abbey for a mere henchman like me. I ended up watching the whole thing on the TV with Lady Lackland at her place. So I can't say that the trip was a complete waste.

Did I mention the fact that I hate ceremonies?


1. Allen Keller would eventually marry Marlene Lackland in February of 2010.
2. The correct pejorative term for an Objectivist.
3. Sir Francis Urquhart, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the uncle of President John
Andrew March of the United States.
4. Keller is using the American term for a parliamentary district.
5. A senior member of the British security services. In most conspiracy theories believed to be the head of Urquhart's goon squad.
6. South Vietnamese general officer who performed a summary execution of a illegal combatant and murderer in front of a newsreel camera during the Tet Offensive.
7. John Andrew March.
8. President George W. Bush of the United States.
9. Members of Parliament.

Quote of the Day

When your primary instruments of policy are fusion bombs your problems end up looking like Moscow and Mecca.

-- Admiral Elizabeth Weymouth

_

Quotes of the Day

"Ideology is the story that we tell ourselves... that what we are doing is right... and that it turn out well for us in the end."

-- John Andrew March, surveillance transcript, MI-5 Archive


"Politics is inherently violent, the best that we can do is limit the damage."

-- Ibid

_

Demeter

Note: One of the problems with writing fan fiction is that sometimes one can come up with a better story. I'll have to incorporate stuff from THE WAY OF BEING into the background of this one.


Demeter

by Leslie Bates

Chapter One





The klaxon suddenly woke her up.

As she came to consciousness she could hear the voice of a slightly annoyed young man announcing something.

“GENERAL QUARTERS! GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL HAND TO BATTLE STATIONS! ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS!”

The ship’s klaxon sounded again.

It took her a moment to remember that her name was Joan Sherman, and that she was a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) in the Navy of the Republic of Freya.

Oh, and that she was also the captain of the Freya Navy Ship Reliable.

Joan donned and zipped up her gray shipboard jumpsuit. She didn’t bother to put on any shoes before punching the button that opened the door of her tiny cabin.

The first thing Joan noticed as she stepped onto the cramped bridge of the Reliable was that there were no stars, planets, or other bodies visible in the forward windows. There was only the unlit dull gray of Jumpspace.

There was no real emergency, only a randomly scheduled battle drill.

But as the captain Joan still had to play her role in the exercise.

There were three other people on the bridge when she entered it.

Sitting in the pilot’s seat was the executive officer, Ensign Hal Banning. At the fire control station running a simulation of the tactical scenario was the gunner, Petty Officer Third Class Jim Ripley. He was only wearing the tee shirt and boxer shorts that he normally slept in.

Standing on deck was the Chief of the Boat.

Normally a vessel such as the Reliable, an elderly Swift class multi-mission sloop, one of the smallest craft capable of transiting Jumpspace, would only rate a Petty Officer Third Class, or Second Class at best, as the senior noncommissioned officer on board.

The Republic of Freya Navy had very politely asked a retired Master Chief Petty Officer of the Freya Colonial Space Guard, the predecessor service to the Navy, to come out of retirement for one year. Dennis Compton wasn’t quite old enough to be Lieutenant Sherman’s grandfather, but he was fairly close to it.

It was time for the captain to speak.

“What’s the situation?”

Master Chief Petty Officer Compton replied.

“Captain, we have a Federation Tango class patrol ship on an intercept vector to us.” He said. “We are running evasive maneuvers.”

“What the hell do they want?” Said the Lieutenant.

“They want us to surrender.” Said the Master Chief.

Up until about five years ago the Federation was the coalition of English speaking nations and their allies who held political domination over the Earth. The eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano brought an abrupt end to it. With the Federation capital buried under several meters of volcanic ash and anyone who could not leave the planet dying of starvation or killed in the vast planetwide food riot the Federation as an effective political entity was dead.

But the vast fleet of starships paid for by ten billion no longer living taxpayers still existed. Some of those ships were still operated by the coalition of core colonies that claimed to be the continuation of the Federation. Some ships went to those worlds who put in the highest bid for their services. Others simply went pirate.

And some of those had already attacked the Freyani homeworld.

The Tango class patrol ship had four times the size, mass, and firepower of the Reliable and had twice the acceleration. In a fight with conventional weapons the Reliable would lose.

But it didn’t really matter who was in control of the attacking ship. Surrender was simply not an option.

“We are not going to surrender.” She said. “Load the Bird.”

It wasn’t a technically correct order but the gunner understood it clearly.

“Load Mark Two anti-ship weapon, aye, aye.” He replied.

The Reliable carried a single triple weapon turret fitted in what the Freyan Navy called the Bravo configuration. Two beam lasers rated at 750 megawatts each, and a single missile launcher. The missile launcher normally carried three of the Mark One anti-ship missiles in the ready rack.

A basic anti-ship missile such as the Freyan Navy Mark One was a kinetic energy kill system. The warhead was a segmented mass of steel with a bursting charge to scatter the fragments should the missile’s guidance system fail to achieve a direct dead-on impact on the target.

But it was understood by the political and military leaders of the Republic of Freya that not all of their patrol vessels would have the upper hand in every situation. Thus a “battery-round”, which was one weapon per launcher, of Mark Two anti-ship weapons would be issued to each patrol ship regardless of its size.

The Mark Two anti-ship weapon carried a five kiloton boosted fission nuclear warhead. In the parlance of the patrol forces of the Freyan Navy it was called The Bird or The Finger. It was simply the weapon of last resort.

In the aft section of the ship in the accessway to the single turret the rest of the crew practiced the loading procedure with blue painted inert practice rounds.

On the bridge Lieutenant Sherman turned to the Master Chief and gave him an order.

“Chief of the Boat, unlock the safe.” She said.

“Unlock the safe, aye, aye.” He replied.

On the aft end of the bridge a bright and shiny box was bolted to the bulkhead. The Master Chief dialed the combination of mechanical lock on the box. With the final click of the lock he opened the box, reached in and picked out one of the two manila
envelopes in the box. The first envelope was marked with a red stripe and sealed with red colored wax. The other envelope had no markings and was merely closed with the flap in.

The Master Chief picked out the second envelope and handed it to Lieutenant Sherman.

Joan opened the envelope and removed the practice arming key for the Mark Two anti-ship weapon. She turned to the ship’s gunner and spoke.

“Fire Control, what is the status of the Mark Two?”

“Captain,” he said, “I show the Mark Two loaded and ready to launch. Firing solution is laid in.”

“I am arming the weapon.” She replied.

Lieutenant Sherman turned and stepped towards the pilot’s station.

On top of the forward control panel between the pilot’s and co-pilot/navigator’s seats was bolted a small shiny box with two key slots and red and a yellow light. Joan inserted the key into the slot under the yellow light.

“I am arming the weapon.” She said.

She turned the key and the yellow light lit up.

“Captain.” Said the Gunner. “I show the weapon is armed.”

“Launch weapon.” Lieutenant Sherman ordered.

“Launch weapon, aye, aye!” The Gunner replied.

The Gunner pressed a button and watched the results on the fire control display.

“Weapon away!” he yelled.

Joan heard the click of a stopwatch being stopped. She turned to the Master Chief to see that he had pulled the stopwatch from a pocket in his shipboard jumpsuit.

“How did we do?” She asked the Master Chief.

“We passed, Ma’am.” He replied.

“And?” She said.

“We could do better, Ma’am.” Said the Master Chief.

Ensign Banning in the pilot’s seat failed to suppress his own groan.




_

Quote of the Day

"There is no such thing as an Ubermensch. There are only deluded fools who believe that they are superior beings."

-- Patricia Weymouth-Clarke, President of the Ursa Major Confederation

_

Quote of the Day

"When one makes a bloodcurdling statement one should not have to also say. 'and I mean it!'"

-- Ashleigh Dahl, The Path of Empire
_

Quotes of the Day

The Universe doesn't care how neat your theory is.

-- Professor Simon Weymouth, on book tour for The End of Utopia, 2101.

Martians (colonists) take pride in their work, of course Martians actually do work.

-- Elizabeth Anderson, Chief Administrator, Hellas City, Mars. Quoted in the Report on the Failure of the Utopia Planitia Colony, 2095.

_

The Way Of Being, Chapter Two

The Way of Being

By Leslie Bates



Chapter Two

“There are those who believe that they are superior intellects. They choose to believe things which are often contrary to good old common sense. And of course they believe that the rest of us would benefit from listening to them drone on and on about what they believe ... in the aftermath of the loss of the third Mars Direct mission these voices, which had largely been silent since the end of the Final War, rose up and spoke as one saying that we, the Human race, should not waste any further effort in exploring and colonizing other planets until all our problems on Earth were solved. This, given the usual ideology of the self-appointed superior intellects, was taken to mean the establishment of the global socialist collective ... My Uncle John’s* answer to them was that we will NEVER solve all of our actual problems on Earth. And not only should we NOT bet the future of Humanity on the Final Peace actually being final, we should also note that we live in a dynamic universe and that unstoppable extinction events are still possible. Therefore it is absolutely essential that we establish permanent self-sustaining Human communities off of the Earth. On other planets of the Solar System and ultimately on the planets of other stars in our galaxy.”

– Francis Harding, Fifth President of the Federation

Lieutenant Elizabeth Adams, the Captain (Gold Crew) of the Freya Colonial Space Guard Ship Reliable, finished her second set of fifty push-ups for the day and turned over to do her second set of fifty sit-ups, this in turn would be followed by a run on the ship’s treadmill. Doing two sets of exercises a day was not as much a matter of diligence on her part as it was more a means of relieving the inherent boredom of performing a patrol in space.

But it didn’t hurt her either.

The exercise routine also allowed Elizabeth to mentally focus on something other than the most recent message from her mother announcing the birth of a son to her youngest sister Hannah and the often repeated question of when she was going to leave the Space Guard and get married.

Elizabeth Adams was the third of five sisters. Colonial families, even well off upper class families like hers, were generally larger than the families who remained on Earth. But was it really necessary for her to marry and add her own brood to the new generation of colonists as well?

And who the hell was she going to marry anyway?

Lieutenant Adams was called to the bridge before she finished her run on the treadmill. She folded the treadmill back into its stowage slot, grabbed her towel, and wiped off the sweat as she walked to the bridge.

It wasn’t a long walk. The Reliable was a Swift Class multi-mission sloop that the Freya Project had purchased second hand from the Federation Space Force. At 1400 cubic meters in volume the Swift was smallest standard vessel that could generate a stable jump field. And of course the designers would try to stuff as many components as possible into the tiny flattened bottle shape of the hull.

Elizabeth stepped through the sliding hatch onto the bridge. Standing watch on the bridge was the Chief of the Boat. As a general rule he preferred to sit in the navigator’s seat on the right side of cramped control space of the Reliable.

“What do you got, Chief?” Said the Lieutenant.

“Emergence from jumpspace.” Said the Chief. “It’s a two-hundred tonner. Transponder signal says it’s a space force Ashland class.”

Elizabeth picked up the clipboard she kept by the pilot’s seat and searched through the collected notes on it.

“It should be one of the ships carrying the new Governor General of Loki and his party.” Said the Lieutenant. “Transmit the greeting as planned.”

“Should we mention what’s been going on dirtside?” Said the Chief.

“No.” Said Elizabeth. I think he will far more pissed off if it is a complete surprise.”

...


The Meridian appeared after only six hours and forty-five minutes.

The immense disk of the Meridian was the first to settle on it’s landing legs at the primitive landing facility on Loki. There wasn’t much to the facility, which by the standards of the Federation only qualified as Class E, the lowest rating for an actual starport.

The control tower was a tiny room jutting out of the small whitewashed concrete block building that served as the administration building and terminal with three picture windows that slanted inward. The landing pad was little more than a cleared area that was covered over with gravel. There were also three sheet steel structures constructed as warehouses but with no wares to house.

What passed for a refueling facility was a small pump and a pipe to the nearest small lake. A visiting ship’s onboard fuel purification plant would have to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen and other contaminants.

The barely streamlined brick of the Epping Forest circled the field before she made her landing. She was about one third the size of the Meridian.

The manager of the starport floated his air raft, a gravitic descendent of the Jeep, out to the debarkation ramp of the Meridian. He settled the air raft onto the gravel and jumped out and strode confidently over to the large and obvious authority figure in civilian clothes who was the first to debark from the Meridian.

“Good afternoon, Governor General,” said the starport manager, “I’m Lloyd Robertson, the starport manager. Welcome to Loki, sir!”

The large obvious authority figure went into a fit of booming laughter.

“Um...” the starport manager ummed.

“Sergeant Major Anatoly Stedenko.” The large man introduced himself with an obvious Russian accent. “Formerly of the 58th Security Police Battalion out of Smolensk.”

Lloyd the starport manager stared.

“The Old Man asked me to come along when he got the job. He’s over on the Epping Forest.” Said the retired Sergeant Major.

“If you run over to it now you should catch him before he disembarks.”

Stedenko laughed again as the hapless starport manager leapt back into his air raft to speed over to the Epping Forest.



* John Andrew March, Founder and First President of the Federation. He was not actually an uncle to Francis Harding, the son of British Prime Minister Sarah Harding, but there are some grounds to believe that John and Francis were actually biological cousins.


_
###

Quote of the Day

"A Carthaginian Peace is better than no peace at all."

-- John Andrew March, Last President of the United States and First President of the Federation.
_

Yes/ I'm still working on it.

From FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES, PART TWENTY:

Most entertainment programs that depicted battles in space, even in the early twelfth century of the Third Imperium, showed combat as a rapid-fire slugfest at ultra close range. In reality any ship’s captain who brought his ship close enough to be visible to the naked eye would be summarily removed from command and cashiered for incompetence. Assuming of course that he survived the battle.

Actual combat in space was about as interesting as watching paint dry. Except of course for the fact that the freshly applied coat of paint wasn’t desperately trying to locate and kill you.

And:



The problem with reconfigurable holographic control panels was that they had no knobs to twiddle. Ditzie liked to twiddle knobs on control panels. It was fun. Especially when there was an adult around to complain about her twiddling the knobs.

"Those are platinum coated knobs, miss!" One of them once said with a something resembling a Cockney accent. Ditzie had only a vague idea what planet that fellow was from.

-

It's Friday!

It's also Talk Like an Ethically Challenged Merchant Day here on Terra.

Arrr.
_

Another Ship

Ship: Epping Forest
Class: Ashland
Type: Free Trader/Light Transport
Architect: Lockheed Martin
Tech Level: 9

USP
A-2211111-020000-10000-0 MCr 76.238 200 Tons
Bat Bear 2 2 Crew: 6
Bat 2 2 TL: 9

Cargo: 60 Passengers: 7 Fuel: 44 EP: 2 Agility: 0
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Architects Fee: MCr 0.762 Cost in Quantity: MCr 60.990


Detailed Description

HULL: 200 tons standard, 2,800 cubic meters, Cone/Basic Streamlined Configuration

CREW: Pilot, Engineer, Steward, Medic, 2 Gunners
ENGINEERING: Jump-1, 1G Manuever, Power plant-1, 2 EP, Agility 0
AVIONICS: Bridge, Model/1 Computer
ARMAMENT: 2 Triple Mixed Turrets each with: 1 Pulse Laser (Factor-1), 2 Sandcasters (Factor-2)
FUEL: 44 Tons Fuel (2 parsecs jump and 56 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, On Board Fuel Purification Plant
MISCELLANEOUS: 10 Staterooms, 20 Low Berths, 6 High Passengers, 60 Tons Cargo
COST: MCr 77.000 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 0.762), MCr 60.990 in Quantity
CONSTRUCTION TIME: 57 Weeks Singly, 46 Weeks in Quantity
COMMENTS: Standard light utility transport of the Federation Space Force. Surplus Units have been sold into civilian operation as free traders.

_

Boycott Uncle Hugo's

I will no longer do business with Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis.

I picked up the latest issue of the bookstore's newsletter at my P.O. box. After announcing that they were having a sale on used books someone inserted this charming paragraph:

We hope you can get here the first weekend, before the RNC begins, but who knows about the period while the RNC is in town. We suggest that you stop thinking of the RNC as the Republican National Convention and instead think of it as the Republican National Circus, with one team of clowns performing inside the convention center and a different team of clowns performing on the streets outside the convention center.

They have a right to their own opinion, regardless of how utterly distorted it is.

They do not have a right to my custom.

I've been doing business with them for three decades. Never again will I step into that store.

I would suggest a long term metaphysical destination for them but I have no reason to believe in the existence of Hell.

What are your questions on this block of instruction?
_

The Way Of Being, Chapter One

The Way of Being

By Leslie Bates



Chapter One



March 5, 2150

10 Ursae Majoris System



The Federation Ship Epping Forest dropped into normal space off of Loki, the fourth planet of 10 Ursae Majoris A. Like most vessels in the service of the Federation Space Force she was armed. But she was not a proper warship, merely an armed transport. Even so she was not flying alone on this trip.

On the bridge of the Epping Forest the command pilot, Major Franz Bergmann, softly cursed in his native German. Like all citizens and officers of the Federation, Bergmann was fluent in Standard Anglic, he just didn’t want the curse to be understood.

The problem was that the other vessel in the two ship convoy, a chartered liner named Meridian had not yet reentered normal space with the Epping Forest.

Bergmann rechecked the status display, cursed again, and then turned to the young lady who was his executive officer.

“We will wait here until Meridian drops in.” He said. “Watch the shop.”

“Yes sir.” Said the Exec.

As Bergmann turned to exit the Bridge the communications panel chirped.

Bergmann turned back to see the Executive Officer reading the message from her station.

“It’s a Freyani patrol ship,” she said, “they’re asking if we require assistance.”

For a moment Major Bergmann contemplated the damage the tiny colonial patrol ship could do to a space going piece of junk like the Meridian.

“Tell them ‘no’”, said Bergmann. “But think them for the offer.”

Bergmann exited the bridge.

On the civilian version of the Ashland class transport the next compartment would be the forward passenger lounge, with the crew lounge in a separate compartment just forward of the engineering spaces. On the Space Force version there was no separation between the crew and passenger spaces as in most cases the few passengers who flew on military transports were members of the Federation Armed Forces.

Except on this trip they were carrying a V.I.P., the newly appointed Governor of the planet Loki.

Ian March Weymouth was a descendant of the founder of the Federation and as a child of privilege he would have been expected to travel out to Loki on the chartered liner Meridian. Instead he chose to take a cabin on the Epping Forest because he felt more comfortable on a military transport than on a civilian liner. But then Weymouth was not a normal child of privilege.

Unlike many members of upper class families, who would drink and otherwise party their way through elite universities, Ian Weymouth chose to enlist in the Regular Army of the Federation and served out the full twenty years to retirement. And though he retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, Weymouth did not neglect his own education, earning a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Minnesota.

So when the Federation President decided to appoint a Governor for the planet Loki, Ian Weymouth stood at the top of the list of candidates.

In the crew lounge Major Bergmann found the newly appointed Governor attacking a small pile of scrambled eggs with melted cheese sauce, hash brown potatoes, and toast.

Weymouth took a sip from his cup of coffee, and then spoke.

“Good morning Major,” he said. “I take it that we’ve arrived in the system?”

“Yes, sir.” Said Major Bergmann. “We are still waiting for the Meridian.”

“I’ll bet it’s going to be another sixteen hours.” Said Ian. “That would be a reasonable assumption, sir.” Bergmann replied, politely declining to cover the wager.

“Right.” Said Ian.

Before Major Bergmann could turn around the aft door to the lounge slid open and two Federation Marines entered the crew lounge and moved straight to the breakfast buffet line. First Lieutenant Otomo and Gunnery Sergeant Burnette headed up the Marine Security Detachment for the new Governor of Loki.

“Good morning, Skipper.” Said Lieutenant Otomo.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.” Replied Major Bergmann as he picked up a tray and joined the two marines in the buffet line.

“We’re waiting for the Meridian again, sir?” Said the Gunnery Sergeant.

“Afraid so, Gunny.” Said Bergmann.

Major Bergmann watched as both marines heaped scrambled eggs, and other stuff on to the plates on their trays. Lieutenant Otomo piled on sausage patties and hash browns, and Gunnery Sergeant Burnette opted for bacon and grits.

“I’d bet that its going to be another sixteen hours before they drop out of jump, sir.” Said Lieutenant Otomo.

“That would be a reasonable assumption, Lieutenant.” Bergmann replied, again declining to cover the wager.

Major Bergmann picked up a plate and started piling his breakfast on it. Scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, and hash browns, all covered with melted cheese sauce.

The three officers sat down at the table with the Governor and proceeded to devour their morning meals.

“So was there anything else of note, Major?” Ian asked.

“The Freyani are still running an anti-piracy patrol, sir.”

Freya was the other inhabitable world in the 10 Ursae Majoris system. It orbited the G5 binary companion of 10 Uma.

The people who colonized Freya believed in Laissez Faire Capitalism and being armed to the teeth. And they had no love whatsoever for the small band of “Apostolic Socialists” who had settled on Loki.

“I don’t understand why the Freyans would run a patrol over Loki, sir.” Said Lieutenant Otomo. “Don’t they hate each other?”

“They do.” Said Ian. “That’s why the Freyani are running the anti-piracy patrol.”

“It means, sir,” said Gunnery Sergeant Burnette, “that we are going to have a very interesting deployment.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.


###

A Patrol Ship

I took a pencil sketch and fiddled with it in Photoshop.

This is the Freya Colonial Space Guard ship Reliable. The "S057" is her number in the Federation civil ships registry.

Here are the stats:

Ship: Reliable
Class: Type S-1A
Type: Scout/Courier
Architect: Lockheed Martin
Tech Level: 9

USP
S-11122R1-020000-10000-0 MCr 50.238 100 Tons
Bat Bear 1 1 Crew: 2
Bat 1 1 TL: 9

Cargo: 12 Fuel: 24 EP: 2 Agility: 1 Pulse Lasers
Craft: 1 x 4 Ton Air/Raft
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification

Architects Fee: MCr 0.496 Cost in Quantity: MCr 40.310


Detailed Description

HULL: 100 tons standard, Needle/Wedge Configuration
CREW: Pilot, Gunner,
ENGINEERING: Jump-1, 2G Manuever, Power plant-2, 2 EP, Agility 1
AVIONICS: Bridge, Model/1bis Computer
ARMAMENT: 1 Triple Mixed Turret with: 1 Pulse Laser (Factor-1).
DEFENCES: 1 Dual Sandcaster Turret organised into 1 Battery (Factor-2)
CRAFT: 1 x 4 ton Air/Raft (Cost of MCr 0.600)
FUEL: 24 Tons Fuel (2 parsecs jump and 56 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, On Board Fuel Purification Plant
MISCELLANEOUS: 4 Staterooms, 12 Tons Cargo
COST: MCr 50.134 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 0.496), MCr 39.710 in Quantity, plus MCr 0.600 of Carried Craft
CONSTRUCTION TIME: 38 Weeks Singly, 30 Weeks in Quantity

COMMENTS: Reliable is one of four surplus Scout/Couriers in service with the Freya Colonial Space Guard. The others are Resolution, Resister, and Red-Shift.

REACH

Just a reminder.
_

The Way Of Being, Prologue

The Way of Being

By Leslie Bates



Prologue


[Author’s note: While I’ve borrowed characters from the Urquhart Trilogy certain events happened differently or did not happen at all. Obviously the conflict that drove TO PLAY THE KING didn’t happen and whatever financial mischief that occurred in THE FINAL CUT was rendered irrelevant by the so-called Final War. And of course LEGACY never happened. No, I can’t say what happened to the tape. –LB.]



It was cold in the ruins of Moscow.

Yes, Russian winters were a bitch. But Allen Keller had experienced colder days in his native state of Minnesota. He was dressed comfortably for the morning’s event. Of course not everyone was as sensibly prepared for the weather and there was no shortage of whining, moaning, and groaning about it.

Standing with a military honor guard at a gap in the rubble that was once the wall of the Kremlin, Allen Keller waited for the last official delegation to arrive. There was a time when he would have expected the Italians to be late to today’s event but the only word they seemed to use these days was “Avanti!” Of course after the Vatican and most of Rome had gone up in a cloud of radioactive smoke this should not have been a surprise.

It had been years since a main force unit of the alliance, now known as the Omaha Pact, clashed with any organized opposition. But there were still insurgents and bandits to deal with in the territories controlled by the Omaha Pact.

A lifetime ago, when he was a mere rifleman on a grass cutting detail in the United States Army, Keller had once joked that his role in the big NATO war plan was to cut the grass around Red Square for the great NATO victory parade. Of course back then the Soviet Union was something to be feared. And if it was possible to win in a global nuclear was it would be the Soviet Union that emerged as the victor.

In a way that old joke was somewhat prescient. Not that there was grass to be cut, certainly not in the middle of a Russian winter, but that Allen Keller was in charge of the event that would bring to an official end to the final global war on the planet Earth.

And it wasn’t really a ceremony, only a simple act of justice followed by a simple act of disposal.

The chill air efficiently carried the sound of the last motorcade to enter the vast plowed expanse of Red Square. The sergeant in charge the honor guard called his troops to attention as the line of Humvees approached the former gate of the Kremlin.

The sergeant called out the command to present arms as the motorcade came to a stop. The rear seat doors of two of the Humvees were opened and a man and woman emerged from each of the vehicles. Keller greeted them as they approached. He nodded his head in a barely perceivable manner to the former occupants of the first Humvee.

“Your Majesty, Madame Prime Minister.” Said Keller.

King William the Fifth had inherited the position of Monarch of the United Kingdom when his grandmother, the Queen, his father, The Prince of Wales, and both houses of Parliament were effectively vaporized on the first day of the Final War. His prime minister, Sarah Harding, had been the protegee of Conservative Prime Minister Francis Urquhart and had been in Oxford attempting to reconcile with her estranged husband on the day the war started. A task made more difficult by her visible state of pregnancy at that time. However this didn’t stop her from inheriting Urquhart’s political machine and thus effective control of the United Kingdom, and bringing it into the Omaha Pact.

Keller then turned to greet the occupants of the other Humvee.

“Lady Urquhart, Commander Corder.”

The wife of Prime Minister Urquhart and his chief hatchet man were at the Urquhart estate in Southampton on the day the war started. Keller had his own suspicions as to what they were doing but he sensibly kept those to himself.

“If you will follow me, please.” Said Keller.

He led the official British delegation and the honor guard through the charred and shattered ruins of the Kremlin to a large heated tent next to a cleared area. He let the official delegation in before he entered the tent himself.

Upon entering the tent Allen Keller walked over to his boss, the President of the United States and Chairman of the Council of the Omaha Pact, John Andrew March.

“Everything is ready, sir.” He said.

“Let’s do it.” The President and Chairman replied.

Outside of the tent a set of bleachers had been set up. In front of the bleachers was a pile of wood that had been salvaged from the ruins of Moscow, some soldiers, and a Ford van that had been painted in army green.

When the official delegations of all the members of the Omaha Pact had taken their place in the bleachers behind President March, Allen Keller stepped forward, turned to the soldiers by the van and spoke clearly.

“Proceed.”

The side door of the van was opened and the soldiers reached in. Out of the van they dragged a white haired man in the tattered remains of a tailored suit. He had been bound and gagged. There would be no final words for him. The old man was dragged over and dropped on his knees before Allen Keller.

Keller spoke.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”

Putin glared up at Keller.

“You have been identified as an Enemy of Mankind. You are to be dealt with as such.”

A soldier in a black mask stepped up behind Putin, drew a Soviet era Markarov pistol from a holster, aimed at the back of the head, and fired one round in the old Soviet style.

Putin fell forward. Dead.

Other soldiers now stepped forward. They lifted up the corpse of Putin and laid it out face down on the pile of wood. Upon the body they placed the blood-red banner of the Soviet Union and then piled more wood on top. At the bottom of the funeral pyre volumes of Marxist literature and ancient copies of Pravda pulled from libraries and museums were laid down as kindling. One of the soldiers brought out a lighter and set an ancient sheet of newsprint aflame. Shortly thereafter the entire pyre was on fire.

The official delegations returned to their Humvees and drove to the airport. There was one more stop to make, one more act to witness, before everyone could return home.

With the end of one age comes the beginning of the next era.

At Cape Canaveral a massive rocket lifted off from the newly constructed Launch Pad 39-D. Aboard it was the Earth Return Vehicle for the first manned mission to the planet Mars. On it’s side was painted not the flag of any nation, but a flag with a white star within a white wreath on a blue field. The banner of the Omaha Pact. In two years another spacecraft would go out, it’s four-person crew would place human footprints upon the Martian surface for the first time.

There would further missions to Mars and other planets. There would be bases and permanent settlements to ensure that Humanity would not be trapped on one world and condemned to extinction. There would be new technologies such as fusion power, anti-gravity, reactionless thrusters, and ultimately the jump drive, which would take Mankind to the stars.

On that cold day in the ruins of the Kremlin someone within earshot of President and Chairman John March had said that world peace had finally been achieved.

March turned around and said. “Oh? Really?”


###

Quote of the Day

I've been putting this off for a while but I thought it would be a good time to do it now:

When the nations of the Omaha Pact came upon the smoking ruins of Moscow they decided to make an example that would be remembered through the ages.

The glassy ruins of the Kremlin were left intact. The forces of the Omaha Pact proceeded to demolish every whole structure or fragment of a structure within one hundred miles, not kilometers, miles of the Kremlin. Every brick was separated and smashed into small pieces, and every scrap of wood was burned to ashes. Every tree was cut down and uprooted and with every other form of plant life was also burned to ashes. When this task completed all the ground within one hundred miles of the ruins of the Kremlin was sown with salt.

While tourist groups are now brought across the Death Zone to view the ruins of the Kremlin, which remains as a monument to the evils of the Russian State, any unauthorized person, usually an ethnic Russian, found within the Death Zone is summarily executed and is covered with salt, lest the remains decay and renew the soil where he fell.

-- The History of the Omaha Pact, Joseph Douglas, University of Minnesota Press, 2150.

_

Definition

"Peace does not mean submission in the Freyani dialect of English. Some people had to learn that the hard way."

-- Ashleigh Dahl, The Path of Empire
_

Earth in 2150

I made up this map of the Earth in 2150.


As you can see the colors denote the political status of various states and territories.

I also redrew some borders.
_

The Flag of Our Forefathers

As part of this private universe project I've designed a flag for the political entity that ruled Earth at the time of the Yellowstone Supervolcano eruption of 2189.

I'm also thinking of starting the campaign in Private Universe Mk II in the year 2150.

Comments?
_

So Anyway

I finally started my own myspace page.

Whoopie!

_

Quote of the Day

We don't want to nuke everyone, only our enemies.

-- Admiral Elizabeth Weymouth, UMC Navy.

_

Quote of the Day

"The Freyani are really into that 'pour encourager les autres' thing."

-- Some Historian.

_

And Now...An Update

From Things 1101 Through 1125 That Mr. Welch is not allowed to do in a roleplaying game:

1101. I will not cut the vault guards in on the haul instead of fighting them.

1103. Just because I was paid in advance doesn’t mean I can let the incompetent expedition leader die.

1104. There is a limit to how much innuendo I can fit into one combat round.

1107. I will not attempt to clear out the dungeon using only Bangalore torpedoes.

1108. Picking his pocket means more than just turning him upside down and shaking him vigorously.

1113. I will not shoot vampires in the chest with a large pistol just so they have to explain the embarrassing sucking chest wound.

1114. I will not take a phobia of anything that doesn’t exist in the game world.

1117. Can’t strangle a werewolf with a roll of Kodak film, no matter what we all know it’s made out of.

1118. In the middle of a black ops I will not use up all the claymores just because I don’t want to take them back with me.

1119. I cannot have my mercy surgically removed.

1120. Even if I’m in charge I can’t order the Assault Lance to perform West Side Story dance routines.

1123. In the middle of a black ops I can’t call my girlfriend to remind her to pick up some Chinese on her way home.

1124. I will leave out mating rituals when presenting a cultural exchange with diplomatic ambassadors.

1125. Letting the Red Shirt guard the plane is really frowned upon as it doesn’t leave anybody to sacrifice to the Shoggoths.

_

And Now For Something Completely Different

Advice for the youth of The Far Future:

"Respect your parents, go to school, and stay out of trouble."

_

Motivation for the Day

Someone Else's Thought For The Day

Someone on an obscure forum had this thought:

Had a fun thought- if Monthy Python had been in charge at the (British) Admiralty, you might have seen BCs (battlecruisers) with names like Inadmissible, Inapplicable, Incontinent, Incurable, Indefinable, Indifferent and Wombat.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.
_

Legacy

Chapter Five



January 2008



Susan Korrel barely paid attention to the flat screen televison set playing in the office of her patroness the junior Senator from New York.

Until someone said, “who’s that?”

Susan looked up to see the image of an old nemesis shaking hands with the acting British Prime Minister. The television set was showing the Fox News Channel’s coverage of President Bush’s arrival in the United Kingdom.

“That’s Tom Makepeace,” said Susan, “he was Urquhart’s foreign secretary.”

“No,” the other staffer said with a tone of annoyance, “who the guy shaking hands with him.”

“Doctor John Andrew March.” Said Susan with a discernable tone of anger. “Formerly of the Collage of Saint Anthony, presently the Republican Governor of Minnesota. He’s Urquhart’s nephew.”

It was at this point that Hillary Rodham, the junior Senator from New York, interjected herself into the conversation.

“You’re angry at him.” She said. “Why?”

Susan decided to answer the question with a more level tone of voice.

“He’s the only teacher I had in my entire life who ever gave me the grade of F.”

“What for?” Said Hillary.

“For speaking the truth.” Susan replied. “For standing up for the helpless and underprivileged. But as far as he was concerned I was only a robot who was parroting ‘Marxist trash’ and that I should pull my head out of my ass!”

Hillary was shocked.

“He actually said that?” She asked.

“Yes.” Said Susan. “He also told me that the only way that I could undo the fail grade was to write a paper comparing the platform of our party with that of the Nazi Party.”

Eyebrows went up and jaws dropped throughout the room.

“That,” said Susan, “tells us what he really thinks of our party and progressives in general.”

Another staff member spoke up.

“How could he have been elected Governor... of Minnesota?”

“The God-squad and the other fascist filth love him.” Said Susan. “And I’m certain that he’s started his own American branch of the Urquhart Machine.”

Hillary leaned back in her chair. She was firmly convinced that the late Francis Urquhart was the initiator of the chair of events that forced her husband into a New York state mental hospital and caused her to drop her married name in order to continue her quest for the American Presidency. Nothing short of her own death would stop her from obtaining her ultimate goal. She had hoped that she would use her power as President to bring down Urquhart and his regime. Taking down Urquhart’s American nephew would be almost as satisfying.

“So.” Said Hillary. “What else do we know about him?”

Another staff member, Emily Redmond, spoke up.

“He’s hosting the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul.” She said. “And there’s rumors that some of their candidates are thinking of asking him to take the VP slot on the ticket. We’re certain that he will meet with Senator McCain after he returns from London.”

Hillary smiled.

Crushing them in the upcoming general election would just be the start. There was so much more that could be done once the Justice Department was back under her control.

It was once said that revenge was a dish that best served cold. This was sensible advice but Hillary, being a proper Democrat, would insist on ignoring it to her peril.

_

Quote of the Day

"Zhodani, you person with severe oedipal issues, do you speak it?"

-- Unknown Zhodani agent. 023-1107.

__

Legacy


Chapter Four



June 1994


Corder was listening through a set of headphones to the private discussion that Francis and Elizabeth had in the late hours after the funeral of Tim Stamper. After all, the Urquhart’s private residence in London as well as the Prime Minister’s official residence at 10 Downing Street were fully wired for internal surveillance.

Elizabeth was gravely concerned that her nephew would reveal the contents of the Storin Tape.

“He’s one of us, Elizabeth.” Said Francis. “There’s no question that he would betray us. He practically confessed to the murder of his own father right there in the office.”

Francis then recounted the conversation verbatim.

“But can you really be certain?” She replied. “Can we really be safe?”

“He forced the issue out of concern for his own safety.” Said Francis. “Of course it wouldn’t hurt for us to be absolutely certain.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“There are after all,” said Francis, “no shortage of minor pests on that side of the Atlantic that could be disposed of. But we’ll have Corder look into that.”

Corder grunted when he heard that through his headphones. He would of course wait to formally summoned to receive his orders before he would begin to work on the problem.

Elizabeth continued the conversation.

“Is he really serious about becoming President?”

“Well, yes.” Said Francis. “He has the right family background and there’s no question that he has the will to do it.”

Francis decided at the moment to tell his side of the story.

“Twelve years ago. Right before his father died John and I had a rather interesting talk on the telephone. It appeared that our dear brother in law Richard had decided to embark on a political career of his own and had forbidden John to enlist in the
American Army, even going as far to promise to pull strings to prevent it from happening as it would make him look bad to the leaders and the other ranks in the DFL party.”

“DFL, Francis?” Said Elizabeth.

“Democratic Farmer Labor Party of Minnesota.” Said Francis. “John says its every bit as bad as it sounds.”

Francis continued the story.

“I offered to use my influence as a junior whip to enroll John in my old regiment and he politely declined. He said that the last American President who served under the Crown was George Washington and that he didn’t believe that enlisting in the Scots
Guards was a really viable option for him.“

“Of course not.” Said Elizabeth.

Francis had to continue.

“I was aware of Richard’s bad habits but I couldn’t directly suggest that John put poison in his father’s cocaine over the telephone. So I asked John if he could find a tin of a particular kind of rat poison. He said that he would look into it. Three
days later Richard March was found dead in his office and a week later a slightly used tin of rat poison arrived at our Southampton manor by a parcel service.”

“What did you do with the rat poison?” Said Elizabeth.

“I used it on Roger O’Neill. Elizabeth.”

For Corder, the first task after receiving his orders from the Prime Minister was to perform a background check on John Andrew March. He was appalled to discover that the British security services had virtually nothing on the Prime Minister’s nephew apart from a note that John was keeping company at Oxford with Marlene Landless, an undergraduate student and the heiress of the Landless Media empire. Corder wrote a note to himself to also do a background check on Miss Landless.

There was a quick and dirty way of obtaining information on John March. Corder placed a call to the American Embassy in London. Two hours later Corder bought a pint for the FBI’s Diplomatic Liaison to the United Kingdom in a public house in Whitechapel.


The black haired Liaison Agent came straight to the point.

“So Corder,” he said, “what do you want?”

Corder thought that question was a bit abrupt but decided to play it nice.

“The P.M. wants to do a favor for his nephew, John Andrew March, he wants to arrange for someone to set up an endowed chair for John at an American university. We just need to know if there are any problems that we need to be aware of.”

“You need to see his FBI file?” Said the Liaison Agent.

“Yes.” Said Corder.

“Well, apart from being illegal,” said the Liaison Agent, “it might be a bit difficult.”

“Really?” Said Corder.

“F. U. is close to the top of the Hilary’s personal shit list.”

“I thought Bill was supposed to be in charge?” Said Corder.

“He’s the public face of the administration. He gets to make the speeches and sign the bills.” Said the Liaison Agent. ”Hillary is in charge of everything else. Nothing happens in the White House without her permission. Except of course, the trouser failures.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Said Corder.

“Believe it.” Said the Liaison Agent. “If Hillary could find a way to take down F. U., like through that nephew of his, she’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

“I’ll certainly pass on your warning.” Corder said.

“Pass this on too,” said the Liaison Agent as he leaned closer to Corder, “Hillary has made no secret of her desire to take the top job in her own right. If F. U. ever decides that she needs to be taken out, don’t piss around with the indirect approach, do it directly, a wood stake straight through the heart.”

“Right.” Corder replied.
_

Legacy

Chapter Three



January 2008


John's private moment of introspection was interrupted by his own Chief of Staff.

Allen Keller was a bespeckled, overweight and balding former solder who had recently refused to celebrate his own forty-seventh birthday. Even though he wore a suit and tie as his daily uniform he often gave the impression that he would be more comfortable in old camouflage trousers and a tee shirt.

As the Governor's Chief of Staff Al Keller kept a small office in the basement of the Minnesota State Capitol building. Over the course of the last year it had become known as the Dungeon. And woe betide the staff member who was summoned to it. When one of the local socialist newspapers started to call him the Dungeonmaster he simply shrugged and admitted that he still owned a complete set of rule books for the First Edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Al had two small bottles of chocolate milk with him. He handed one down to John and sat down in the adjoining seat.

"Here," Al said, "this should help you sleep."

Al opened his bottle and started chugging it down.

"You know," said John, "there are flight attendants on Air Force One."

"Some of the best in the world." Al replied. "But none of them are up to their eyebrows in your plot to dominate the world."

"I only want to be President." Said John.

Al Keller chose this moment to preach to his pope.

"The United States of America is the dominant nation on this planet. For example, nothing moves on the surface on our oceans without the permission of the United States Navy. And you know, I would like it to stay that way."

"I'm sure Senator McCain would love to hear that when I meet with him." Said John.

"Go ahead," said Al "use it."

"Thank you." John said.

Al finished his bottle of chocolate milk.

"Do you think Corder will be there?" Al had to ask.

"Of course." said John. "He and Aunt Elizabeth are practically inseparable now."

Al softly grunted. He always had the quiet suspicion that Corder wouldn't mind putting one round into Al's head in the old Soviet style.

There was a commotion at the front of the cabin, Al leaned over into the aisle to look.

"It's Dubya" Said Al, referring to President Bush. "Why the Hell does he have to come back here now?"

"He's just being a good Christian gentleman." Said John as he stood up to chat with the President.

"That," Al replied, "is a big part of our problem."

In Al Keller's view the people who led the Republican Party were simply too nice.
_