#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
Spoken like the true terrorist that Mohsen Rezaei is. He's subject to an INTERPOL Red Notice over the bombing of the AMIA center in 1994. I doubt he was questioned over it. In 2021, he proposed that #Iran can address its economic needs by taking 1,000 American troops hostage and demanding $1 billion each for their release.
@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.