“I grew up on Mars one… A child of an inmate; I had a hand out of that or… I don’t know what would have happened. I thought that was bad, but what we just went through here? Those people were crazy… still are crazy, I guess. It’s like the way Mars One was on the private side, but if you took off all the controls. No Feds, nobody to stop you at all. Makes me wonder what things are going to be like in a few years.
The iron strapping had burst apart, and spun viciously down into the still draining molten rock, hissing as it touched the surface. The two men who now stood before them… #Armageddon #Mythology #ChristianFantasy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZJB7TJ6
City of the dead: Kindle 5 stars
I was caught up watching the sparrow so I paid no attention to the old man wandering slowly up the path behind me. The grit of a footstep at nearly the last second was all that alerted me… #Dreams #Fantasy #Horror https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZL3NMB6
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Mars prison colony 27:
Earth date 2197 315 -08:14:
Main bubble: Cargo-trap 4e: C.O. Tom Richards.
The com-link buzzed and Tom Richards answered. Part of the job required the com-link implant. It had bothered him more when he had initially heard about it than it ever had in the last twenty-eight years that it had been in.
The link consisted of a visual implant along with an aural implant. No one else could hear the low buzz and it wasn’t excessively noisy to him.
The vid-link materialized in the corner of his right side vision. Perfectly visible, but not blocking any of the screens.
“Richards,” Sims said. “I have an Intra freighter coming in about 15… Star Dancer. Captain Michael Watson: Navigator Petra Stanovich… Fed crew with their own security… Robert Baylor, likes to be called Bob… I trained with him: A by the book kind of guy, a little tight laced.” Boris Sims was the newest flight controller for the main docks at Twenty Seven. He and Richards had instantly disliked each other.
Richards wrote while he spoke. He took a lot of heat for using the write-screen instead of just typing or voice filing. Old fashioned. When he had looked into it he had been shocked to learn that very few of the new generation of C.O.’s could write. It was an old skill.
“You getting this? Uh, writing this down?” Sims chuckled.
“Uh huh, Bob Baylor… Straight laced, by the book,” Richards said deadpan. He knew that pissed Sims off and he lived to piss off Boris Simms.
“You know, you have no sense of humor,” Sims complained.
“Uh huh. Had it removed and I’ve never missed it. They popped it right out when they implanted the com link.”
“No sense of humor, but a real smart ass… Isn’t that humor?”
“Ship will be here before you are done at this rate, Boris.”
He cleared his throat. “Just making sure you’re on your game is all, Tom.”
“Well I knew about Star Dancer six months ago. You know I track it too. I have dealt with Michael Watson for nearly twenty years and every one of those trips was secured by Bob Baylor, good man; and we have Mary Ann and Julius tracking too.”
“It’s my job.” He sounded a little tight…
“Uh huh, I’m good with that… What else do I need to know? Obviously you’re routing it to my bubble or you wouldn’t be calling…. I’m locked onto it… Navigation beam is on… And … I’ve assumed control. Navigation shot it over to us… We’re good, Boris she’s coming in.”
“Maybe I’ll come down and look around,” he said.
“Clear it with the union reps,” Richards answered.
Management, and Boris was on the low end of the management scale, was never allowed to be directly involved with operations crews.
“… If you need me.” Before Richards could answer Sims broke the link.
Richards sighed. This was year twenty-eight, he had two years to go until mandatory retirement: Fifty-eight. The feds kept saying they would raise the limit to forty or even fifty years, but so far they weren’t too anxious to raise it. With the human life span hovering around one hundred and thirty years and steadily growing it didn’t make much sense to leave it so low. He keyed his com-link, selected the band and spoke.
“Star Dancer this is main cargo security chief C. O. Thomas Richards. I’ve got you locked in. Sit tight, enjoy the ride. I make it thirteen twenty-seven.” He keyed off.
“Navigation officer Petra Stanovich; Captain Michael Watson is present… Copy.”
“Uh, first time in?” Richards asked. “I know Mike’s been here about three million times.
She laughed. “Yes.”
“Never fear, Petra you’re in good hands. Let me run this down. I’m sure Mike has told you, but it’s what they pay me to do… Okay… We’re a max prison colony. That means all the hard cases; the permanents. On most colonies the inmates are used as workers, not here; except a small staff of worker inmates we shipped in to deal with the inmates directly. There is no contact at all with outsiders. It only means that you won’t have to ever wonder if the guy you are talking to is an inmate or an officer. It will always be an officer. At other colonies, max b and down that won’t be the case.
“So because of that you’ll be somewhat restricted. Mike usually hangs out with me. I don’t get many civilized visitors so if Mike hasn’t made you uncivilized by now you’re invited too. I’ll give you the ten cent tour and we have real beef. Real beer!
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I knew that would get you. We raise the cows on the prison farm and I brew the beer myself.”
“Mike says the beer is good,” she laughed again. “Beef? He told me only synth beef.”
“Mike never lies,” He told her in a serious tone. “The beef is brand new. They decided to cut us in. Synth beef? No. I got real steaks waiting for both of you.”
“I’ll have to write that down,” Mike said.
“Richards laughed. “See you in about ten, buddy.”
“Get the beer cold too,” Mike told him.
Read More: Michael Watson is the captain of an inner galaxy cruiser: He has spent the last twenty years running people and supplies to outposts within the confines of the Solar System and the established bases on the Moon and Mars. https://goo.gl/MUwPby
by
W. W. Watson 2018 all rights reserved foreign and domestic.
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This
is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are
products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons
places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.
This material is NOT edited for content
A DRESS FOR JANEY
I
rode slowly watching the trail side. There wasn’t much to see in the moonlight,
but enough to follow if you knew where to look, and I did.
The
thing was, this fella was not no kind of careful anyways. And he was not no
horse man neither.
I
rubbed my geldings rump, patted a time, and silently promised him a little
extra rest time once we caught up to this fool sometime later in the night.
Mister
Johnson was a good horse. More used to plow than saddle, but circumstances
dictate those positions more’n I do. And this man I was trackin’ had dictated
tonight’s circumstances clear and straight.
I
turned Mister Johnson down a short chute of a canyon, keeping him to the side
so as not to mark the trail, and to keep his iron shoes from ringing out on the
stone. We come to a little stream that cut the canyon and I stopped, rolled
myself a smoke. I sat, hand cupped and smoked. Listening to the surrounding
night.
If
this was a smart fella, no way would I have lit no smoke. But this was no smart
man at all. This, from what I could see, was a desperate man. Desperate or
dumb. Or, possibly, both. I’d know for sure before dawn.
I
finished the smoke, flipped it into the crik and went on my way again,
following the trail of my own other horse, Mizz Johnson.
I
had, had her as long as I had, had Mister Johnson. Truth be told I thought
Mister Johnson might be even more pissed off about the situation that I was. He
just didn’t know how to use a rope, if so I’m sure he’d a been out for a
hangin’ too.
I
worked my way sideways down a gully, leaving the actual trail behind me where
it out and did a loop back onto itself. The direction was clear enough, and he
was far enough ahead that I wouldn’t come up on him, and the shortcut would
save me time considerable.
I
had me a farm, a good woman and two boys old enough to help a little already. A
girl child who made me feel like crying ever time I looked at her. I don’t
figure how that is: That a girl child can do that, ‘cept I can see she will
have to live her life, and it’s a hard one, and I wisht better than what I got
to give her.
Men
is men. The boys will grow up rough and tumble. That’s boys. That’s boys comin’
to be a man. But a girl child, seems to me, looks out at the world all pretty
and hope, and then the world sort of breaks her down. Sometimes fast, sometimes
slow.
I’d
seen that truth in the eyes of a whore down in Dodge several years back. A
young pretty whore, but resigned to be a whore. I’d paid my dollar and stayed
for a little conversation as it was a slow night. I don’t never want to see
that look in my Melissa’s eyes. But I can’t see that my Janey would ever let
her go down that path. We learn from our mistakes, we do: If we don’t we don’t
last long in this world.
I
made the trail and walked Mister Johnson on the up-slope at a steady pace. He
didn’t need much help or pointin’: I figured he could smell ol’ Mizz Johnson at
that point, and he was, as I said, a might upset himself.
I
was two days out from home. Me out from home meant that Janey had to do it all
with no help from no man. Plow what she could with that goddamn, son-of-a-bitch
mule we had. Be lucky if it didn’t kick her bad is what I’d be.
This
life don’t slow down for no horse thief. The kids got to be fed. The chicks fed
too. The cows milked. The other things a woman’s got to do. Cook, and clean,
what all. But she’s got to do all the things a man’s got to do as well. All
piled in there. No break at all. That was this life out here, how it had to be.
How it was.
I
caught the smell of fire and meat roastin’ on the air. Fresh, green wood. Not
much of a woodsman either, I opinioned. But, considering the horsemanship, the
theft itself and all of the rest of it, I’d say I was not too surprised. I
stopped, rolled another smoke, kept it cupped to hide the flame, didn’t worry
about the odor even though I was close now. The wind was at me after all, and
his own, smokey fire would hide all other smells if the wind did shift. Chances
were he had no idea of smells on the wind anyways.
I
let my eyes travel the sky, lookin’ and I spotted a few stray sparks as they
rose into the night sky not far away. All kinds of dumb. But I bet he
considered himself some sort of woodsman just because he could light that fire.
Some
figure if they can build a fire they’s a woodsman. I laugh at that. I have
slept in snow banks and stayed warm. I tracked snowshoes in dead winter and got
them. I have been lived in the wild with just a knife for two months while I
was working out of the back country and my first horse dropped a leg in a
chuck-hole and I had to shoot him.
I
was green then. Used up one of my last four bullets on the horse, when I
could’a used the knife and saved that bullet. Packed some out with me, dried
over the fire, and et better those two months. I was young, dumb and life to
come. And for me I was goddamn lucky to have lived through it that time. But,
as I done said the one time, you learn or you die. Life, it don’t forgive a lot
out here.
I
finished the smoke, crushed it out between my thumb and forefinger, then angled
Mister Johnson down toward the fire I’d seen. I could be, maybe, cocky and ride
right up on him, but I don’t like to misjudge. I tied Mister Johnson to a tree
to keep him out of it in case there was gun-play, which I intended there might
be. I’d just have to hope there were none that got Mister Johnson. But he’d
fare better hidden away. A man will always try in shoot a man’s horse at first
sight if he can.
I
walked the last hundred or so yards into his camp. My old sprung boots was so
mushy and soft they was like walkin’ in Indian mocs anyhow. He never heard me
comin’.
He
had a chuck spitted over the fire, and probably ever cat, wolf, bear and wild
dog for two miles around was sniffing on the air. He was stupid alright. I’d
seen some green eyes, and two sets of red eyes as I had made my way into his
camp.
He
sat before the fire. A fat man: I’d knowed that from the depth of the hoof
print though. And a stupid man just as I had guessed, as he had allowed me to
walk right up to him, too busy tryin’ to twist the cap off’n a store bought
bottle of whiskey he’d got from somewhere.
I
decided on the spot to save the bullet: Put my gun away and pulled the rope
that I had bought with me free from my shoulder. If a man ever works with
cattle, branding, he don’t forget how to rope. And, as a younger man, I done my
share of that. I had him in on one toss, and cinched it tight as I walked up on
him face to face like.
“Hey,”
he says, but me, I go about my business. I got me a limb picked out. We wrestle
a little while I drag him to the limb, shift that rope quick like to his neck,
and haul him up. He don’t say nothin’ after ‘Hey’, he tries to though.
Folks
think hanging a man is easy. And, it can at times be easy, but this wasn’t no
easy time: This was one a them hard times. A fat man, a thick neck, and me
being plain tired out. He kicked and thrashed for all of ten minutes before he
slowed. Me hanging on the end of that rope to keep him stretched, but I could
not get him to swinging. And then, me being tired as I was, I looped that rope
around Mizz Johnson’s saddle horn, the dumb bastard didn’t know enough to take
a saddle off’n a horse, and walked her a bit to get him swinging free. Goddamn
if he didn’t kick some more at that. I waited ten more minutes, ticked ’em off
on my Elgin. I seen men come back if they neck ain’t broke, and I was sure it
was not.
I
let him down after that time, rope don’t come cheap to me, and left him laying
there for the coyotes, wolves, bear and cats the damn fool had called down. Fat
man might not be their favorite, but when times is tough it will do I’d bet.
I
gathered up Mizz Johnson, went back and got Mister Johnson. They was happy to
see each other. Blowing and touching noses to necks.
The
fat man had two pair a saddle bags. The first had a food store, no surprise
there, except why he’d been about to eat chuck when he had bacon. The second
was a surprise: Gold, and not a little. I will tell you it was enough to sit me
right down there by the fire to look it over.
I
can count, but there’s a limit. What I knowed, I did, and then I had reached
the limit and there was a long ways to go yet. A very long ways. And the
trouble was I did not know for absolute what each piece was worth. Coin,
stamped, but I could not read none. I could only say there was five times
of counting to one hundred and a way to
go after that.
Janey
could read and write too. And she could cypher figures a sight farther than I
could when it come to that. Whoring had taught her that. No whore could afford
to get cheated.
I
looked at it there in the moonlight for a piece, then put it all back in the
saddlebags except a few pieces I kept for my pocket. Janey could count it;
whatever it was we were a huge sight better off than we had been. It almost
made me want to thank the fat man. I didn’t though. He stole my horse and he
got what a horse thief is supposed to get.
I
tied Mizz Johnson to the saddle horn of old Mister Johnson’s saddle by a longish
lead and we rode out of there. I did put that fire out before we left. I left
the chuck where it was, dug me out a piece of jerky my own Janey had made. I
chewed thoughtful, thinking about the money as I rode. I was gonna stop at
Abilene, which was on the way, and buy Janey a dress. She’d always had such
pretty dresses when I’d met her, but times being as they was there weren’t no
money for pretty dresses.
I
smiled to myself thinkin’ about Janey’s eyes when she saw a new dress or two
and then a saddlebag full a gold pieces. It made me feel good inside. I looked
up at the moon, sent a prayer to God above up there somewhere, turned Mister
Johnson for the next ridge and headed towards Abilene.
Open Directories – Places on the internet to find unprotected directories: Proceed at your own risk on these sites.
Open directories are places on the internet with directories that are unprotected. Normally when you create a new directory on your server you add and index.html or index.htm to it so that a search engine will not simply load the page along with an index of whatever may be in that directory.
I found that open directories are a hot subject, interesting places where you never know what you will find. At the link above, on Reddit, there is a whole sub-reddit devoted to it. You will find anything from movies, TV series, Software, Music and anything else you might wish to find. You will also run across virus files, hacked files, worms and just about anything else you can imagine; so my advice is run a scan on anything you decide to download and tread carefully. I would post some links here, but they don’t last long. The best thing to do is follow along at the link above…
“We’ll know when we get to the mountains. We’ll pass right through one of those gaps, and we’ll be in. Iit’s like one very big valley nestled between those mountain ranges,” #EarthsSurvivors #Apocalyptic #Horror #Preppers https://books2read.com/u/mv1NPX
“I grew up on Mars one… A child of an inmate; I had a hand out of that or… I don’t know what would have happened. I thought that was bad, but what we just went through here? Those people were crazy… still are crazy, I guess. It’s like the way Mars One was on the private side, but if you took off all the controls. No Feds, nobody to stop you at all. Makes me wonder what things are going to be like in a few years.
