#SpaceOpera#midjourney#vss365
ALLIE and NAOMI
(A daily YA Science Fiction novel on X. Sixteen-year-old Allie joins forces with the crew of a five-thousand-year-old deep space explorer to track down a rogue fleet led by Naomi, a genocidal AI warship.)
THREE HUNDRED EIGHT (331 wds)
SHIP'S IMPULSE drive burned a petulant aquamarine as it reached low orbit and the sky opened on a great field of stars. The moons returned, huge and bright.
Animals crossed the glade, one willing, one not. Allie covered her mouth but failed to suppress a laugh as a fabulous vanilla unicorn with blueberry stripes and a cherry horn bent its neck to prod a creature across the grass.
About a meter from head to tail, Allie guessed it weighed about ten kilos. She asked Ship, “What’s that thing?”
“That is a Chaoyangsaurus.”
“A what?”
“A tiny Earth dinosaur, lost in a great extinction event sixty-five million years ago.”
“It’s cute.”
“But not happy,” Gem said.
A voice, booming and scary, sounded over the glade. “We found something of yours. Take it and go.”
“The zookeeper?” Allie asked.
Evi fell to her knees. “Yes.”
The Chaoyangsaurus clutched a baseball-sized egg in its short forelegs. The unicorn gave it a final push and it stumbled forward, placing the egg at Allie’s feet.
The dinosaur stomped around in angry little circles and hissed at the humans.
Allie searched for the source of the voice. “I don’t mean to be rude, Zookeeper, but we’re not missing any eggs. You’ve made a mistake.”
The unicorn spoke, winking at Evi. “The zookeeper is infallible. If it says that’s your egg, that’s your egg. Ignore the Chao, she’ll get over it.”
“I told you they talk!” Evi shouted, her tattoos glowing.
“But why me?” Allie asked.
“The zookeeper is less forthcoming than many of us would like,” the unicorn said wiggling its ears, “but someone must care for it, and you are the bravest. You gave the most.”
Allie picked up the egg. “What’s so special about it?”
The unicorn pointed at the stars with its horn. “It will take you from here to there and back again.”
Allie, confused but happy, smiled at her friends and asked, “Does it have a name?”
“It calls itself Naomi.”
THE END
@JohnnyNash77 I think Trump figures if he talks total shit, it will distract from the facts on the ground. He will become the story, rather than his snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and abandonment of the Iranians.
@DrEliDavid For the last 10 days or so, Trump has made a real effort to say or post something more outrageous than the day before. He's in uncharted waters. God only knows what he'll say tomorrow.
@DanielleNorgedm@TrumpWarRoom I've seen this brilliant piece of detective work before, you twit. Too dumb to know 5 million+ US passport holders live overseas? Yeah, I thought so.
@GuntherEagleman Trump has humiliated Caine, Cooper, and every member of the US military. Actually, he's willing to tolerate anything that lets him bug out and declare a fake victory.
@mdubowitz Unlikely, Trump will do anything the Regime wants for a deal. When he talked of the war taking weeks, he wasn't kidding. He wanted a quick win and out. Now what, Big Don?
@jihadwatchRS "He was always focused on quick success, spectacular performance, and theatricality at minimal cost."--It was never so clear until we got here. The IRGC knows they got lucky with this narcissist.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
by Alexander Maistrovoy
The brilliant phrase snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, attributed to Winston Churchill, perfectly describes U.S. President Donald Trump’s impending deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Victory seemed closer than ever. Following the strikes first in June last year and then in March of this year, Iran lay in ruins: military infrastructure was destroyed; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ top command was eliminated; the supreme leader was killed; Iran lost two-thirds of its missile and drone production capacity, hundreds of launchers and 250 air defense systems; damage to the economy reached $140-150 billion; major factories, power plants and bridges were destroyed; and more than 85% of Iran’s petrochemical exports were disabled.
The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz deprived the IRGC of a much-needed flow of petrodollars.
Iran was little more than a depleted skeleton of a state without a functional leadership.
And at that moment, Trump obsessively wants to agree to a deal that lifts sanctions on the regime, unfreezes its assets, and allows oil sales. He agrees to play with a cheater he can never beat.
The deal being floated with Iran seems straight out of the Wendy Sherman-Robert Malley-Ben Rhodes playbook: Pay the IRGC to build a WMD program and terrorize the world.
Not remotely America First.
“It’s straightforward: Open the damned strait. Deny Iran access to money. Take out enough Iranian capability so it cannot threaten our allies in the region,” Mike Pompeo wrote, and he is absolutely right.
Moreover, Trump reportedly insults Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his main ally, ties his hands and prevents him from finally crushing Hezbollah, because Iran does not want this.
How unexpected was Trump’s decision? Not very. A man with the instincts and methods of a businessman, Trump never had a strategic vision or understanding of the nature of those with whom he was dealing. He was always focused on quick success, spectacular performance, and theatricality at minimal cost. In some cases, this was beneficial, such as the move of the embassy to Jerusalem, the Abraham Accords and the kidnapping of Maduro, freeing the hostages. In others, it resembled eccentric posturing with elements of farce and tragicomedy. This is what happened with the notorious Gaza Peace Council, with the “annexation” of Canada and Greenland, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, etc.
Trump was generous with compliments to those who least deserved them: Erdogan, Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi, al-Jolani.
@marklevinshow A Trump voter, I am looking forward to the end of his presidency. Letting Kuwait get attacked, US troops wounded, smacking Netanyahu around, and wanting to meet with the Ayatollah is too many bridges too far.