BLOGS

Not mad at you, though...

R&D: Record-breaking high-energy particles detected by telescope buried in Antarctic

I find most of my cable provided music channels to be mostly worthless. So using the excellent technology provided by WorldTV -- unless you can do your own coding which I can't, yet -- I created two channels. The channels are called "The Acid Jazz Channel" and "More Acid Jazz". I really think this is the personalized television of the future. I also think the channel is politically conscious, always nice. You can embed the channel anywhere. So here it is:

If you like some trad jazz, mostly acid jazz, some alt rock and left wing politics, then its the best music channel ever. There's also a steady diet of science fiction and political trailers. I'm curious about what people here think. Related: You can find my sites embedded here and here just in case the embed here doesn't work. More Related: The Acid Jazz Channel has 1000 videos in full rotation. Every single video I've ever played is at the More Acid Jazz channel which has around 5000 videos. So if you need something to watch for the rest of your life...The theory behind the channel is that you should always find something new to listen to. You can find the "More Acid Jazz" embed here. Not Related: Still upset about Gidas Flowers and the somewhat sloppy work of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC).

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for 'the universal brotherhood of man' - with his mouth. Mark Twain

 
Manifest destiny: 1.historical expansionist doctrine: the doctrine or belief prevalent in the 19th century that the United States had the God-given right to expand into and possess the whole of the North American continent.

 
We are children of this sense of destiny/entitlement (if ever truly used in its correct application), and a reflection of this mechanized distancing through technology of mankind from itself.

Graphene SEP

Physics World: Redefining the ampere with the help of graphene?

SETTING FOR MURDER ON SECOND STREET: So where is Jackson Ward and what's its link to American History?

"Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood is located on the northern edge of the downtown district. It was originally built by European immigrants attracted to and made prosperous by Richmond's status as a central retail hub. Freed slaves began moving into the neighborhood during Reconstruction, and by 1920 Jackson Ward was one of the most active and well-known centers of African-American life in the country.

Jackson Ward hosted a thriving entertainment district centered on the famed Hippodrome theatre. Among the names that appeared regularly were Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Richmond's own Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. The neighborhood was the home of a number of large and well-known African-American churches, including the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, founded by famous orator John Jasper. It also hosted a strong retail and business community in which Maggie L. Walker became the first woman in America to found and lead a bank in the United States when she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings. Jackson Ward was also the home and headquarters for civil rights advocate John Mitchell, Jr., editor of the Richmond Planet, which crusaded against the discrimination and persecution of African-Americans in the South."

To learn more about Jackson Ward in Richmond, VA, visit http://dig.library.vcu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/jwh. Or, order your very own piece of African American and America History with Murder on Second Street, part 1 (see additional posts for order link).

Hugens saw something…or thought he did twenty yards ahead. Shelves stacked with bags and crates extended as high as thirty feet. Hugens opened up, flaying shelves and everything on them in a fiery torrent of flechettes.

Chain and Josik directed their rifles in the same direction, joining their fire to Hugens’.

“He’s over there somewhere!” Hugens shouted. He ran toward the first aisle.

Josik followed, but Chain hung back. “You sure you’re not chasing shadows?”

“Shadows my ass!” Hugens retorted, infused with fresh courage. “I swear to the devil himself I’ll turn the bastard into one before this day is…”

A beam of deadly coherent light ripped from the darkness of the aisle, slicing through Hugens’ left side. His body burst into flame like dry kindling touched by fire. A second light beam ripped what was left of him apart in a blinding explosion.

“Before this day is done, to complete your sentence,” Dern taunted, briefly gazing at pieces of the dead criminal before turning his HIE on the second hijacker to dart into view.

A blaze of plasma surged from the bracelet, torching the man just as his finger depressed the RI4’s trigger. A spray of flachettes sparked across the ceiling before the  hijacker’s melting weapon tumbled out of his grasp

Chain didn’t bother to stick around to see what turned her comrades into bonfires. She hurled the CX charge and sprinted on panic-fueled legs out of the cargo section.

Dern leapt out of the aisle in time to spot the 3^rd hijacker racing for the exit. His suit’s warning censor flagged the airborne explosive. He caught a glimpse of the object and attempted to dive out of its path. The CX exploded and Dern absorbed its impact like a giant mallet to the body.

A CX charge was designed to breach the hardest material through the rapid release of hyper-condensed pressure. Limited strictly to military use because of its sheer devastating output, a CX had no business in the hands of a criminal. The sleeper ship possessed none of the external or internal impregnability of a military vessel; which is why it was so easy for the CX blast to punch through the bulkhead like a boulder through glass. Dern was pulled into a flaming pressure current that torpedoed him through a blast-gouged aperture into the adjoining engine room.

Hot glowing agony afflicted Dern when he collided with a thruster control generator, putting a deep dent in its titanium-layered surface. There was no specific area of discomfort he could pinpoint. The pain was all over, smothering him in a cruel throb. Dern heaved himself out of the dent and dropped to his knees, waiting for a fresh infusion of Flare to melt away the pain. In seconds, he felt refreshed and than ready to resume the fight.

The floor tilted sharply beneath his feet, toppling him off balance. Again, he crashed into the generator.

Status boards were mounted on every major piece of equipment in the engine room.

Dern didn’t need to check the data on any of those boards to tell him that the ship was going down.

Tunnal listened to Chain’s report after the woman’s near frantic arrival on the bridge.

Two more of his people dead! Whether Tunnal was aware of it or not, he bore an unsettling resemblance to a rabid wolf with his bared teeth and wide-eyed stare.

“Captain,” the pilot called out. “Controls are sluggish. I won’t be able to keep us in the in the air for long.”

“Generator conduits are bleeding fuel at a dangerously rapid rate,” Said the engineer. “If we don’t land within the next fifteen minutes we will definitely crash. What the hell is going on?”

“We’ve got a hero running around on this ship killing my people, that’s what’s going on.” Tunnal gazed coldly at captain. “Someone is going to tell who I’m dealing with or I’m going to be extremely upset.”

The captain spread his hands in an appeasing gesture. “Mr…Tunnel…I…”

Tunnal unholstered his Viper, walked over to a communications officer and shot the man in the back of the head. The officer slumped forward, blood and brain matter spilling out of a massive exit wound in his forehead, pooling on his console.

Bridge crew members cowered in terror at their stations. The captain stared at his fallen subordinate, pale with shock.

“I want answers!” Tunnal yelled, holding up his pistol. “Or I’ll be forced to express my displeasure a second time.”

“Lowtower, damn you,” said Alita. “His name is Dern Lowtower. He’s former SD.”

Tunnal lowered his weapon, pinning Alita with a baleful gaze. “Special Deployment?”

Mention of the Coalition’s ultra elite soldiers had a sudden and very sobering effect on the hijackers. They tightened their grips on their weapons as if expecting this Lowtower apparition to come bursting on the bridge at any second.

“What is he doing on this ship?” Tunnal asked.

“He accepted a job on Ceres 3 as a settlement patrol officer.”

“Does he have a suit?”

“Yes.”

“That’s crap!” The big hijacker, Welch, disputed. “You said former. How can he have a suit if he ain’t SD anymore?”

“Ex SDs are allowed to keep their suits if they go into a law enforcement capacity,” Alita explained. “But the suits are drastically reduced in capability to fit within a civilian context. His suit has been stripped of battle mode.”

Tunnal rubbed his chin. “Battle mode. Now that’s a sight to see.” He turned to Welch. “I served on Yuttrol during the Ish Insurgency. My brigade was tasked with taking out this huge ass mobile artillery platform. We launched so many attacks against that thing I lost count. Armored units were decimated, aerial bombardment couldn’t put a dent in the thing. A thousand troops, scrubbed out of existence in the first half hour of the first assault. Thousands more in the second and third. I don’t know how I survived that meat grinder.” Tunnal gave a twisted, humorless grin. “Somebody eventually came to their senses and sent in the SDs. Twenty of them. Twenty. They got inside the platform, eliminated the operators and disabled it in less than an hour. That’s Battle Mode for you.”

“But like she said, Boss,” Welch cut in, pointing at Alita. “He don’t have Battle Mode. He’s weak.”

“SDs are never weak,” Alita countered with a defiant edge. “Even without their armor.”

“But I get Welch’s point,” said the hijack leader. He looked at Alita. “Your friend may be formidable, but without a full suit, he’s not what he was.” He turned to Chain. “Do you think the CX did any damage to him?”

Chain lowered her eyes as if embarrassed. “I don’t know…I didn’t check.”

“That’s all right.” Tunnal thought for a second. “Captain, open a channel to Routh.”

The captain looked at the body of his communication officer. Since he had no backup officer to fill that capacity, he went to the blood smeared console and performed the task himself.

“What are we going to do, Boss?” Asked Welch with a jittery gaze.

            “We’re going to make Hooper earn this ship.”

Read more: Towards an African telescope network - SouthAfrica.info

October 1, 1929. The body of Annie Hilks is found floating in the James River in Richmond, VA. The police don't pay much attention to it; it's just another Negro woman who probably took her own life. But within two weeks, the bodies of three more Negro women are found in various locations throughout Jackson Ward, a prominent Negro community in the City. This is bad for business, and with no other choice left to them, the community reaches out to Sy Sanford to solve the murders. Sy has three BIG problems: he's returned from the Great War with haunting nightmares, he blacks out periodically from drinking and he's in love with his beautiful, but physically abused married secretary, Lena Johnson. Reluctantly, Sy takes the case because, well, he needs the money. But can he find the killer in time to save Jackson Ward and himself?

Part 1 of this six part novel is now available as an E-book at http://www.lulu.com/shop/rebekah-l-pierce/murder-on-second-street-the-jackson-ward-murders-part-1/ebook/product-21048846.html;jsessionid=576F95DACB69ABE31955ECBD75064D25?mid=social_facebook_pubsharefb. Grab your copy today.

R&D: On board Mars Express, in orbit around the Red Planet

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

"I just read Murder on second Street. I absolutely loved it! I felt like I was in the telling of the story. I can't wait for the next part to come out!" (M. Hock). Grab your $1.99 e-book for part I today: http://www.lulu.com/shop/rebekah-l-pierce/murder-on-second-street-the-jackson-ward-murders-part-1/ebook/product-21048846.html;jsessionid=576F95DACB69ABE31955ECBD75064D25?mid=social_facebook_pubsharefb.

And send in your reviews!!

Science World Report:
Physicists Discover Artificial Magnetic Monopoles: Magnets Redefined

"It's 1929 and a local Negro neighborhood called Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia is booming. In fact, it's called "The Black Wall Street of America" by economists of the day. Things are booming financially and socially for the Negro community, but then a series of what appears to be random murders of poor working class Negro women begins to happen and everyone is on edge, especially the Negro business owners. The Ward is a very tight community – strangers cannot move freely about in this segregated town. They hire haunted World War I veteran and alcoholic Sy Sanford to catch the cold-blooded murderer, but murder is not the only thing threatening to destroy "The Black Wall Street of America." The real Wall Street is about to come tumbling down and plunge Jackson Ward and its infamous 2nd Street into a debilitative financial and social state it may never recover from."

Murder, race, sex and money run wild in this soon to be American classic featuring an African American WWI veteran, Sy Sanford. Available for $1.99, get your copy of part I today, and then join the fan page for Murder on Second Street on Facebook to get updates, book signing information and to share your comments with other fans. Part II will be released July 1.

So click on the LuLu link below and order part I of this six part novel, Murder on Second Street, at http://www.lulu.com/shop/rebekah-l-pierce/murder-on-second-street-the-jackson-ward-murders-part-1/ebook/product-21048846.html?mid=social_facebook_pubsharefb.

LARES

Physics arXiv:
LARES Successfully Launched Into Orbit: Satellite and Mission Description
Read more: The Extraordinary "Disco Ball" Now Orbiting Earth
From MIT Technology Review
Follow us: @techreview on Twitter | technologyreview on Facebook

http://allknightz.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/all-knightz-embark-on-kickstarter-crowd-funding-campaign/?preview=true&preview_id=52&preview_nonce=b7e6369fb4

Hey guys, check out the all knightz blog page, we are working on a kickstarter campaign that we shall be dropping in October but we have started the pre production for this project early.  Its going to be an animated 25 to 30 minute animated short.  

Dern’s eyes snapped open.
…we’ll make damn sure there are no witnesses.
Those words drifted into his awareness as the Flare surged throughout his body, mending wounds, stimulating muscles, clearing the fog from his head. Pain diminished, aggression heightened, and a burning rage that had nothing to do with the Flare roared through his rejuvenated body like a whirlwind.
He shut his eyes, feigning the dead.
Heightened hearing picked up footfalls moving his way
Someone moaned…a plea for mercy…an assault rifle’s deafening report…no more pleas. Footfalls resumed, getting closer.
The weight of Ura’s corpse was draped across his chest.
Dern kept his eyes closed, ‘observing’ the hijacker’s movement through hearing, smell, the ever-subtle caress of air displacement.
The footfalls stopped in front of him. Dern opened his eyes. Five Star stood over him, but the hijacker’s attention was elsewhere.
Dern threw off Ura’s body and hopped to his feet, lightning fast. He knocked Five Star’s rifle aside with one hand and gripped the hijacker’s neck with the other. Powerful fingers sunk into flesh. Dern snatched his arm back, tearing a bloody chunk out of Five Star’s throat. The hijacker emitted a death gurgle, blood pumping from his fatal wound like water from a busted pipe.
Dern grabbed the dead man’s RI4 and turned it on the next nearest hijacker. He triggered the weapon once, sending a round drilling through the man’s left eye. He fired twice more, taking down two additional foes. He swung the rifle around and ducked. A hijacker twenty yards on his opposite side had opened fire. Dern timed the reaction perfectly and unleashed two shots even as a stream of flachettes whisked inches above him. The hijacker flailed backwards with a pair holes in his heart. Two men behind him received headshots before they could raise their weapons.
Three hijackers were left standing at the far end of the corridor. They opened fire.
Dern dove forward, his weapon spitting rapid fury.
A hijacker was lifted off his feet as bullets cleaved diagonally across his torso.
The remaining hijackers turned tail, firing wildly behind them.
One did not make it far. Dern planted a round in the back of his neck, pulverizing the spine. The criminal dropped like a bag of rocks.
The last hijacker turned a corner at the corridor junction before Dern could target him. He considered giving chase, but thought better of it. He needed to get to the cargo section.
But first…
Dern checked Ura, Cyril and Theresa for life signs. He needn’t have bothered. Jagged holes riddled their bodies. He surveyed the corridor. Every passenger…dead. Teeth gritted, he massaged his head in anguish. All dead. He looked into Ura’s lifeless eyes. “I was too optimistic.” He reached down, applied a feather light touch to her eyelids and closed them.
He backed away, taking a final, sweeping glance at the carnage before him. The sight boiled away anything inside him that could have…would have remotely inclined him to mercy toward the rest of this vicious gang. He turned and headed for the nearest elevator with purpose branded into his soul.

Turbines revved to life as the sleeper ship’s propulsion transitioned from vacuum to an atmospheric environment. Routh’s ramshackle arrangement of squat non-descript buildings appeared like rusted ornaments on the view screen. With the close of distance, the settlement buildings took on more distinctness.
Tunnal beamed. Routh wasn’t pretty by any standard or stretch of the imagination, but it represented the conclusion to a very profitable venture. That alone made the place glow bright as a sun reflective gem in the hijacker’s avaricious perception.
“Come in, Tunnal!”
The hijack leader winced at the blaring transmission through his subdermal. He pressed the implant, his whispered response weighted with irritation. “What are you trying to do, blast my ear off? What is it?”
“This is Hugens, Boss. We have a situation!”
Hugens sounded breathless.
“What kind of situation?” Tunnal prodded, his irritation heating to anger.
“It’s…it’s one of the passengers…the one who was on the bridge…he somehow grabbed a weapon, shot us up to hell. Everybody’s down ‘cept me.”
It took every ounce of self-control for Tunnal to contain his reaction. He clenched a fist as red rage tinted his vision. “What about the passenger. Is he dead? Tell me one of you fuckups took him down!”
A heavy pause. Tunnal could almost hear Hugens rattling in his worthless boots. “Boss…we tried. He moved so fast. And the way he handled a weapon…it was as if we were facing a demon instead of a man!”
Tunnal breathed in deep, letting out a slow, calming breath. He dared not call up display footage of the stasis level for fear of panicking the crew. The ship needed to land first. This could still be contained. “Standby,” he ordered.
He called two other hijackers over, Josik and a bald, sinewy woman called Chain.
“One of the passengers laid our people out,” he told them in a low voice.
Chain and Josik’s eyes widened. They exchanged glances, but otherwise kept cool.
“Hook up with Hugens, comb this ship, find that loose end. If you can capture him alive do it. If not burn him and burn him good!”
The pair nodded resolutely and walked away.
He’ll get his due, Tunnal thought. The deaths of his comrades rankled him, dashed his pride. He’d built up quite a rep as a person to be feared. And those who worked for him were to be equally feared. Anyone who could so easily erase half his force threatened to seriously undercut that reputation. I hope you can be captured alive. I’ll make such an example of you, that you’ll beg me to cut your throat and be done with it!

Dern stepped off the elevator four levels below. He kept his acquired RI4 raised to firing position, though he was reasonably certain no hijackers would be lurking about in this area…yet. The cargo hold was vast, cavernous, easily the largest section in the ship. Passengers relocating to another world typically never traveled light. On this trip, Dern was an exception.
After a minute or two of moving through the section’s aisles, checking storage shelves, he spotted his possessions. A small duffel bag stuffed with clothing, mementos, and a few old fashioned books, and a larger two-wheeled metal container with an extendable handle. The container held an item essential for his employment on Ceres 3. It could not be replaced like the contents of his smaller bag.
He slid the container off a waist high shelf and set it on the deck. On the container’s side were a keypad and a display strip. Dern tapped a string of numerals on the pad and corresponding numbers flashed on the strip. A clicking sound emanated from the container followed by a low hiss. The container’s lid opened automatically. Dern reached inside and pulled out a garment that felt like an odd meld of rubber and velvet.
He unfurled the garment, laying it out on the deck and then stripped down to his shorts. Dern put on the garment and waited briefly as it conformed snuggly to every contour of his physique. The garment covered him from head-to-toe, leaving only the front of his face visible. Dern pressed a wrist tab and the garment instantly solidified to a metal hard density. Yet it was elastic enough to be of no hindrance to the wearer’s movements. Layers of interlocking plates unraveled across the armor. A smoke-gray visor slid over his face connecting to a throat guard. He breathed in a lungful of the suit’s artificial air and flexed his arms testing its articulation.
Twelve IV nodes located at various points on the suit from chest to thighs punctured his skin. A testosterone solution, referred to as the Flare flowed through the nodes into his bloodstream, boosting the amount of Flare already present in his body.
He hadn’t felt this strong, this powerful in so long. The feeling bordered on intoxicating. And that was where Dern had to temper himself. It was all too easy to succumb to the rapturous headiness generated by the Flare. It could produce overconfidence in one’s abilities and overconfidence led to recklessness, which inevitably led to ruin.
Dern intended to wield his vengeance with a steadiness and discipline forged by brutally intensive training. Very few human beings could successfully fend off the strain the Flare inflicted on their psyches. As Dern managed to clear his mind, he demonstrated why he was among that tiny number chosen to wear the suit.

Josik and Chain met Hugens at a section of the ship near the engine regulators. Hugens bore the shaken look of a man who’d seen too many ghosts. That had Josik concerned. He knew Hugens to be ruthless and fearless, not afraid to plunge into a fight. Unlike a whole lot of lowlifes who could be guaranteed to exhibit bravery only when their foes were unarmed, preferably bound and gagged.
Chain threw an openly contemptuous glance Hugen’s way.
Josik caught the look and hid a smile. He liked a woman with balls.
“He sent just you two?” Hugens said with a discouraged frown.
“Yeah, just us,” Josik replied impatiently. “Let’s not waste time. There’s one area of the ship where this passenger is likely to go, the cargo section. It’s a great place to hide. That’s where we’ll flush him out.”
“That’s quite some speculating,” Hugens remarked skeptically. “This guy could be anywhere.”
“Well wherever he is,” said Chain, holding up a black palm size cube. “He’ll get a dose of this.”
Hugens eyed the CX charge in the woman’s hand and smiled. “Now we’re talking.”
Josik brushed past the pair. “Let’s get to the cargo hold and end this.”

Dern linked into Interface mode, activating the suit’s sensory enhancements. Suddenly the dimly lit cargo section appeared bright and vivid, as if someone had wiped a coating of grime from his face plate. He reached into the suit container and pulled out a gold colored metal bracelet. He wrapped the bracelet around his right wrist, clicking latches in place to secure it and then flexed his forearm. The bracelet sent a tingle of vibration racing through Dern’s arm up to his shoulder. He gave a tiny nod of satisfaction.
Hostile Interdiction Emitter. Ready. Dern had never ruled out having to use the weapon at some point in his new career. Ceres 3 was a largely crime free colony (emphasis on largely). He just never imagined having to deploy it so soon, before he even reached the planet. Now the question remained: would he ever get there?
Low beeping interrupted his musing. He had company. Dern snapped shut his container and darted swiftly down the aisle. A sensor display over his left eye revealed three sources of body heat moving into the cargo section.

I could see a precursor to a laser pistol, but I don't think any aspiring Jedi should duel with a pair of them any time soon!

I just updated my blog with a black superman movie fan cast go check it out at www.blacknerdfilms.blogspot.com also visit my videos on man of steel and the white savior syndrome in the video section of this site THANKS!

BLACK SUPERMAN FAN CAST

The tattooed hijacker Dern dubbed Five Star paused in the middle of pacing and touched an area next to his right ear to activate a sub-dermal communicator. He nodded and turned in a slow circle. “Good news, people. We’re a few minutes out from our destination. This will all be over soon and you can get back to whatever mundane lives you were leading before you met us.”

            Ura flashed a relieved look at Dern.

            Theresa clenched Cyril’s hand tightly. “Now we have to worry about how we’ll get to Ceres 3.”

            “Cyril nuzzled closer to his wife. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. We’ll find a way.”

            Dern said nothing. He watched the hijackers, unable to shake the nagging voice in the back of his head telling him that the resolution to this crisis was all too easy, all too reassuring.

            Annually, thousands of deep space sleeper ships cruised to the farthest parts of known space and quite often beyond. Such journeys had become routine and safe enough for the most risk averse traveler to undertake with minimal concern. But they were not entirely void of hazards. A ship’s shielding could degrade, exposing passengers and crew to lethal radiation. A defective stasis system could fail in its IV delivery of nutrients to sleeping passengers, subsequently starving them to death. Engines might shut down, stranding ships or a faulty astrogation computer could veer a ship off course by years, perhaps centuries.

            Thankfully, those problems were rare to nonexistent in an age when the major wrinkles initially hobbling deep space travel were ironed out.

            And then there were occasional stories of sleeper ships disappearing enroute to their destinations never to be seen again.

Dern had heard of such occurrences over the years, but like most citizens paid little to no heed to them. Now, he had to wonder if those vanished ships had fallen into the hands of bandits and if so, what of the occupants? What was their fate? What would be the fate of he and his fellow passengers?

            Dern’s fears bounded to full fruition when Five Star and his comrades suddenly leveled their weapons on the sitting passengers and opened up. Diamond-tipped, carbon-jacketed flechettes ripped from nearly a dozen assault rifles and pistols, buzz sawing across rows of flesh. Dozens of men and women crumpled beneath jack hammering rounds. A few passengers tried to scramble away only to be riddled to shreds, their bodies twisting in mid flight and crashing to the deck in contorted positions.         

            Blood and gore splashed across polished white surfaces, mingling with flachette- gouged pack marks.

            Dern had enjoyed a relationship with violence that was disturbingly deep and abiding. But that was long ago, relegated to another life. To be so unexpectedly reunited with a specter from his past was so jarring, he could only sit, frozen in place watching death unfold around him as if he were outside his body.

A hijacker ten feet away pointed his RI4 at Dern and smiled. Dern peered into the weapon’s muzzle and saw his imminent demise, yet he still could not move.

            Ura jumped up screaming.

            The muzzle flashed.

            A spatter of flachttes punched through her body, exploding against the bulkhead. One flachette caught Dern in the collar bone. Another one grazed his head after passing through Ura’s lower back. She collapsed on top of Dern as he lapsed into anguished darkness.

            The ship entered the planet’s atmosphere, descending toward a settlement called Routh. Neither the Coalition nor the other five polities comprising the human Diaspora was aware of this settlement’s very unsanctioned existence. That was sure to change in time. The Coalition dispatched regular patrols to search for and dissolve rogue settlements on the planets it laid claim to. Most unsanctioned settlers accepted dissolution. If they were upstanding, law-abiding types, Coalition patrols, acting on the discretion of commanding officers, opted not to deport them.

Criminal settlements were another matter entirely. Routh’s unsavory inhabitants knew they lived on borrowed time. Until a patrol did discover them, they intended to squeeze as much profit from their varied criminal enterprises as possible. After that, it was on to another uncharted world… provided they escaped arrest and imprisonment.

            Tunnal slouched in the captain’s chair, his fingers drumming a delightful rhythm on the armrest. A place like Routh needed all the ships it could get, since it lacked the industry and skilled labor to build them from scratch. The latest model sleeper ship, with cutting edge propulsion, state-of-the-art spatialonics and high yield multi-range weaponry to fend off pirates (Tunnal smirked) was guaranteed to net him and his associates their biggest payday.

            His subdermal com buzzed. Tunnal sat up straight and pressed next to his ear to receive. “Go ahead.”

            An enthused voice responded. “The passengers have been liquidated, Boss.”

            Tunnal gazed surreptitiously around the bridge. Crew members sat at their stations, stupidly oblivious to the slaughter he green lighted below. Their turn would soon come…but not before they landed the ship. He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Good job. Check the bodies. Confirm that they’re all dead.”

            “Will do, Boss. We’ll make damn sure there are no witnesses.”