Thursday 10 March 2016
Tuesday 8 March 2016
Trophy
The star-destroyer
Sultan Erdogan had just rounded the
gravitational well of the red giant star when the First Officer saw the blip on
the scope.
“Captain-Pasha,” he called excitedly across
the control room. “Look here.”
Putting down his flask of non-alcoholic
nonwine, Captain-Pasha Davutoglu peered into his screen. “It is,” he said.
“It’s a Durkish ship, sure enough.”
“It hasn’t seen us yet,” the First Officer
said. “Should I open fire?”
“Not yet,” Captain-Pasha Davutoglu
responded. His heart was thudding with excitement. “If we play this right, we
could capture it. Could you imagine what a colossal thing that would be?”
Turning to his console, he set a course brushing the corona of the red giant,
trying to keep the Sultan Erdogan
camouflaged in its heat and glare.
“It’s right there for the taking,” the
First Officer said. He rubbed his fingers, as though they were itching to press
the firing buttons. “It’s probably not even military. It’s not taking any
precautions at all.”
“That doesn’t mean we should just go
blundering right in,” Captain-Pasha Davutoglu said. “We don’t know what the
Durkish are capable of. Nobody’s ever seen
a Durk. Besides, don’t forget...” He glanced at the Navigation Officer. “Well?
We are in Durkish space, aren’t we?”
“Yes, my Lord Captain-Pasha,” the
Navigation Officer said humbly, fiddling with his fez. “As I reported earlier,
we’re well past the frontiers of Manspace. This star is clearly sited in
Durkspace in all the astromaps.”
“There you are,” the Captain-Pasha told the
First Officer. “We can’t let ourselves be seen here. We’ll sneak up on it until
we’re close enough to pounce.” He took a long swig of the nonwine to wet his
parched throat. “And keep a sharp look out for any Durkish warships!”
As the Captain-Pasha sipped the nonwine,
the Sultan Erdogan manoeuvred
carefully round the red giant, slowly closing the distance between it and the
Durkish ship. It was just visible now in the view scopes, at the largest
magnification of the cameras: a bulging, ovoid object vaguely reminiscent of a
pregnant whale, wallowing through space at a fraction of the destroyer’s speed.
“We’ll capture her for sure,” the
Captain-Pasha said to nobody in particular. “I’ll bet I get awarded the Ottoman
Medal, Second Class for this. I mean,” he added hastily, “I’ll bet we all get awarded it, of course.”
“It looks like a freighter,” the First
Officer said. “Look at those loading docks and cargo modules. Anywhere you go
in space, the freighters look alike.”
“Freighters are slow and defenceless,” the
Captain-Pasha said with satisfaction. “Let’s get her.”
“There’s no way it can get away,” the First
Officer said, as he touched the icon on the screen.
Engines pulsing greedily, the Sultan Erdogan edged forward.
*******************************************
“We thought it was sure thing,” Captain-Pasha Davutoglu said, looking
contritely down at the floor. “We couldn’t anticipate that the Durkish ship
could get away.”
Prince-General Khaled al Bandar al
Barbarabadi al Saud stared at him coldly, his fingers tapping on the hilt of
his beheading sword. “Your instructions, Captain-Pasha,” he said, “were to
penetrate Durkspace and get as much information as you could about them. And
after you got such a golden opportunity to capture one of their ships, you
managed to let it get away!”
The assembled officers and media people
glared at the wretched Captain-Pasha accusingly. “Traitor!” a young Sheikh-Colonel
with a long black beard hissed. “You ought to be tried and executed for this!”
“No need for that...yet,” Prince-General
Barbarabadi said, noting the queasy glances that passed among the assembled
officers and media people. “I believe the Captain-Pasha has managed to salvage
something from the ruins of his...expedition.” He turned to glare at Davutoglu.
“Well?”
“When we attempted to close in on the
Durkish ship,” the unfortunate Captain-Pasha said, “we had identified it
positively as a freighter, and, therefore, we didn’t think it could attempt to
escape at any speed. We...” He looked up
quickly, assessed the general mood, and looked down again. “We’d thought to
come close and then order them to stop so we could take the ship as a trophy.
And we did manage to come close, exactly as planned. And then we did order them
to stop, exactly as planned. Only, unfortunately...” He licked his lips.
“Unfortunately, when we ordered them to stop, instead of doing so the ship
simply fell apart.”
“Fell apart?” the Sheikh-Colonel snapped.
“Make sense, man!”
“The ship was all built of cargo
compartments put together, sir,” the Captain-Pasha said. “As soon as we ordered
them to stop, and fired a missile past them for emphasis, they simply dumped
everything – all the cargo compartments, in fact, everything they could – and
the central section took off at a speed we couldn’t work up to in a hurry. By
the time we managed to get up to speed, the central section was far away and
much deeper inside Durkspace than it was safe for us to go. We turned back to
at least capture the cargo compartments, but they’d dispersed and disappeared.
Most of them had probably spiralled into orbits close around the sun and been
burnt up.”
“And then what did you do?” the
Prince-General asked icily.
“We had to presume that the freighter would
report our presence in Durkspace, so we had to abandon the mission and
withdraw.”
“All I can see here,” the Sheikh-Colonel
said, “is evidence of colossal incompetence. What did you salvage from your
expedition, as the Prince-General said, that would excuse you?”
“Well, this, sir.” The Captain-Pasha picked
up the case he had placed on the floor at his feet. “The Durkish vessel had
dumped, as I said, everything it could as it escaped. We found this.”
Everyone stared at the flat black can he
produced from the case. “What is it?” the Sheikh-Colonel asked.
“It’s some kind of record of their world
and civilisation, such as it is.” The Captain-Pasha shrugged. “I haven’t the
equipment on the Sultan Erdogan to
decipher it, and in any case I don’t have the security clearance for that kind
of responsibility. But even though we couldn’t capture either the Durkish ship
or its crew, we still could get the information we need from this.”
The Prince-General took the can from the
Captain-Pasha and tapped it thoughtfully. “Very well, Captain-Pasha,” he said
at last. “We will look into this. You may go.”
“My ship...” Captain-Pasha Davutoglu began.
“I mean, I promised the men...”
“When we invade Durkspace, your ship will
lead the front line. Now go!”
Saluting clumsily, the Captain-Pasha went.
*******************************************
Message
from the Prince-General Khaled al Bandar al Barbarabadi al Saud to the
Lord-President Donald Clinton XIV, Emperor of the Realms of Man:
Your Sublime Majesty,
Greetings and humble salutations.
I have the honour to report on the
information so far received about the Durkish, and the projected action to be
taken against them based on this information.
I would venture to remind Your Sublime
Majesty first of the background events leading up to the conclusion I will
present to you, in order that you understand clearly why there is no other
solution to be arrived at.
Your Sublime Majesty will recollect that we
first encountered the Durks when exploratory ships, expanding the Realms of Man,
came up against signals and other indications that we were approaching the
frontiers of space controlled by another civilisation. We could find out
nothing about them except their name, which we can transcribe into Manspeak
most closely as Durk.
As you will readily understand, we could
not tolerate the existence of the Durks so close to our own space, since they
were a potential threat to our security. However, it was also both impossible
and foolhardy to attempt any invasion without knowledge of their capabilities –
and of those we knew, of course, nothing. We did not even know what they looked
like.
Therefore, and in total secrecy, Your
Sublime Majesty, we sent one of our latest ships into Durkish space on an
intelligence gathering mission. It was the star-destroyer Sultan Erdogan, under the command of one of our most dashing
officers, one Captain-Pasha Davutoglu. His orders were to penetrate Durkspace
without being detected, discreetly survey their defences, and pick up as much
information about them as he might find. You will understand that strictly
speaking this mission was illegal, but it being a matter of our species’
security and well-being, the question of holding back didn’t arise. The Durkish
had to be spied upon so we could decide how they were to be destroyed.
Soon after entering Durkspace, in the
vicinity of the red giant star H1LL4RY, the Sultan
Erdogan encountered a Durkish freighter. Unfortunately an attempt to
capture it as a trophy failed, but the star-destroyer was able to retrieve an
extremely important item: a recording which, on analysis, gives us incredibly
important insights into the appearance, culture, and abilities of the Durks. So
important are the conclusions that are to be drawn from it, in fact, Your
Sublime Majesty, that the following section of this report is for your eyes
only.
The Durks appear to be a race which is
incredibly ugly – so ugly that it would be a travesty to let them live.
However, ugly or not, they are, even by human standards, incredibly adaptable;
we have seen one, without any apparent effort, swim underwater, run at a speed
approaching that of a rocket car, and then fly through the air, all in the
course of a few minutes. They also seem to be quite amazingly strong; so strong
that we watched one lift the wreckage of a bridge off a trapped juvenile to
free it, all with the help of only its own spiny tentacles. And even more
amazingly, they can even travel at least for short distances through the vacuum
of space; we don’t know how they do it, but the evidence is clear that they do.
Most important of all, however, Your Sublime
Majesty, is the fact that they are almost incredibly violent. Their worlds seem
to exist in a state of near-constant conflict, with immense amounts of death
and destruction. Not surprisingly, they also seem to have immense stores of
weaponry, which they use on each other at the slightest provocation. The
recording the star-destroyer retrieved gives us some idea of the capabilities
of these weapons, and, Your Sublime Majesty, they are far, far more capable
than anything our scientists have even imagined possible. Their weapons, Your
Sublime Majesty, are to ours as ours are to sticks and stones.
And this is why I must reluctantly reverse
my own position totally, Your Sublime Majesty, and advise you that, without the
slightest delay, we must cancel all our invasion plans, withdraw our assembled
fleet, make contact with the Durks and sue for peace. That is our only hope and
the only course of action open to us. If we attack, we will be quite
effortlessly defeated, and our own race probably enslaved or destroyed in turn.
If we do not attack, but do not make
friendly overtures, the Durks will – given their extraordinarily violent
tendencies – inevitably decide that we are a threat to them and invade us
anyway.
With immense sorrow, we must bow to the
inevitable, and recognise that in this instance the glorious path of warfare
has failed us.
I remain, your humble and most obedient
military commander-in-chief,
Prince-General
Khaled al Bandar al Barbarabadi al Saud.
************************************************
Hgrunth
High-Priest, this year’s Leader-By-Consensus of the Durkish Alliance of
Peoples, crossed his tentacles in some confusion. “Explain, please.”
Okanal Healer-Hands withdrew and extended
her eye stalks rapidly, signifying her own bafflement. “I can’t explain,
Hgrunth. But it’s perfectly correct. The humans have sent us a quite
unequivocal message asking for peace terms and a permanent treaty of
friendship.”
“But why?” Hgrunth High-Priest almost
wailed, his carapace plates clicking in his agitation. “From what we discovered
of these humans, they are a tremendously violent and aggressive species, whose
only interest seems to be invasion, conquest and slaughter. As you know, we’d
resigned ourselves to them attacking and destroying us at some point in the
future. Why would they ever ask for peace?
What would they get out of it?”
The Durks gathered in the Great Chamber of
the People looked at each other. “We are a defenceless and peaceful race,”
Bizek Science-Seeker observed, “and they are a violent and martial one, which
could overwhelm us without effort. Therefore, if they’re asking for peace
terms, it can only be because they fear us for some reason. It is extremely
strange.”
“There seems to be no reason for them to
fear us,” Okanal Healer-Hands agreed. “As far as we can tell, their only prior
contact with us was when one of their war vessels attempted to attack one of
our cargo ships. The cargo vessel successfully managed to jettison its
containers and escape.” She shrugged her tentacles. “I was aboard the cargo vessel
myself, and I can assure you that the human ship was more than capable of
wiping us out, and it was only by the use of the gravity-well emergency-escape
system that we managed to get away. Even then, we had to jettison everything, including all our personal
belongings.”
“Since they are sincere about their offer
of friendship,” Hgrunth High-Priest said slowly, “we will of course accept it.
It’s not only to the advantage of our own species, which would escape
inevitable destruction, but I believe that the humans would benefit from peace
as well. I wish I knew why, though.” He gestured impatiently with all his
tentacles. “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter, as long as we get there in the
end.”
“I’ll send the message accepting their
offer at once,” Gorth Many-Tongues promised.
As the meeting ended, Bizek Science-Seeker
slithered out alongside his old friend and occasional lover Okanal
Healer-Hands. “So you were on the ship the humans attacked,” he said. “Was it a
very traumatic experience?”
Okanal Healer-Hands swivelled her eye
stalks self-deprecatingly. “Well, you know me. I tend to panic at the slightest
thing. But, really, when it was over, I calmed down soon enough.”
“You said you lost all your belongings,”
Bizek Science-Seeker reminded her. “That must have been terrible.”
“None of it was in any way valuable,”
Okanal Healer-Hands responded. “The only thing I really minded losing was the
recording of that new movie, which I’d bought just before we left and I never
got to watch. You know, Flames of Wrath.
They say it’s got wonderful special effects.”
“That terrible piece of trash?” Bizek
Science-Seeker scoffed. “It’s awful.
Filled with violence and inanity. You’re lucky to have missed afflicting
yourself with it.”
“Oh well,” Okanal Healer-Hands said. “I
never much liked the science fiction-superhero crossover genre anyway.”
Tentacle in tentacle, they slithered out
into the warm Durkish evening.
Copyright
B
Purkayastha 2016
President Clinton: Putin to face "Severe Consequences"
Rueters,
9th March 2017, Warshington DC. In a
mass media conference today, US President Hillary Clinton declared that the
Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, would face “severe consequences” for his
continued and unprincipled support to the Islamic State.
Using the White House’s favoured acronym
for the Islamic State, President Clinton reminded the world that the Russian
tyrant had been “backing ISIL for well over a decade, ever since 2003 when he
colluded with it in invading Iraq in defiance of world opinion and mass
anti-war protests. He overthrew the stable Iraqi government, and, as is well
known, threw the country into such total disarray and confusion that the United
States had to reluctantly occupy it in an attempt to bring peace.”
Not satisfied, she added, the Russian despot
then had gone on to help ISIL invade Libya in 2011 and destroy the nation, again
in the teeth of opposition by NATO and other freedom-loving Western governments
and institutions. He had also invaded Yemen, as she pointed out, and helped
unleash the Islamic State on Syria, thus compelling the United States and its
allies to most reluctantly go to fight to preserve freedoms in those countries.
“Putin,” she said, “is playing an
increasingly dangerous game, but one which can no longer be allowed to
continue. Not only is he supporting the Islamic State and other jihadist groups
all over the world, including al Qaeda and its various franchises, he is, as we
all know, forcing all LGBT people in Russia into concentration camps in Siberia.
Won’t anyone think of the gays?”
It is not immediately clear what kind of “severe
consequences” President Clinton had in mind, however. Noted economists pointed
out that though the White House’s first instinct would be to impose more
economic sanctions, this is no longer possible since there is absolutely
nothing in Russia that has not already been sanctioned. It is perhaps mildly
worrying that reports are coming in that US nuclear forces are on extreme alert
and showing high levels of activity.
“If we have to use military force,”
President Clinton said, before leaving for a business luncheon at Wall Street, “it
will, of course, be fully Putin’s responsibility. We would not have waged war
unless he had forced us to do so.”
While President Clinton’s media conference
was highlighted by all news networks, some historians and critics struck a note
of caution. “What she has been saying does not seem to be in line with recent
history,” one stated. “One should be careful about accepting her statements at
face value.”
These comments provoked a severe backlash
from White House spokesperson Barack Kerromney. “These revisionists,” he said, “are
merely Trumpist dead-enders who can’t digest the fact that their hero was
defeated in the election. We also have reason to suspect that some of them, if
not all, are paid Russian agents and trolls.”
Liberal commentators on social media had no
doubts at all. “Nuke Moscow for Peace,” a new page on Facebook, gathered half a
million “likes” in its first half-hour of existence. Other pages demanded the
immediate execution by drone strike of Donald Trump and anyone else who had at
any point of time shown any opposition to President Clinton whatever.
“Kill them all,” the Führer of the Liberal
Council for Peace and Freedom, D R "One" Reaper, declared. “We simply cannot risk
freedom and democracy being threatened by such people.”
Attempts to contact President Clinton’s
one-time electoral rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, proved unsuccessful. It is
suspected that he might have gone into hiding.
Monday 7 March 2016
Drone So Mean
Boom, boom, boom.
There was once a certain drone not so long ago
It followed me all over everywhere I'd go
And people looked around trembling and full o'fear
For they knew drones murder everybody far and also near.
It would fly through night and the morrow
Carrying cameras bombs and Hellfire
And it was controlled by PlayStation warriors
Given the best game their hearts could desire.
Hey hey drone so mean
Nobel Peace Prize winner pristine
Will you use a rocket or a bomb?
Hey hey drone so mean
Obama's own murder machine
How will you put me in my tomb?
It owned the sky and played at its killer war
And each time it killed it raised the war crimes bar
National airspaces were to it a breeze
And legalities it blew away in a dusty sneeze.
To liberals it was no evil death dealer
Their eyes tight shut to what it'd done
They condemned as a traitor and also as a squealer
Those who bared its crimes in the light of the sun.
Hey hey drone so mean
Nobel Peace Prize winner pristine
There was a killing spree it was on
Hey hey drone so mean
Obama's own murder machine
Dad and daughter, mum and son.
And then its crimes against humanity began to be known to more and more people. The demands to stop this mass murder became louder and louder.
"It can't be allowed to stop, they're enemies
And anyway they're raghead filth, like some vile disease
And if we kill them there, in their homes and farms
Our coddled soldier boys keep their legs and arms.
"Endless murder we'll keep rebranding
As an upscale video shooter game
And a kill list decided every Tuesday
Is our path to money and fame."
Hey hey drone so mean
Nobel Peace Prize winner pristine
When will you kill me, tell me do
Hey hey drone so mean
Obama's own murder machine
How much money am I worth to you?
Oh, those Americans.
[Copyright: Written by me, but belongs to all drone victims everywhere. ]
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