TBT…

Interesting places, interesting faces…

Some of the readers ‘may’ recognize this place… Davis AFB

Adak

First time was 1974, in the middle of the winter… Gave a whole new meaning to COLD!!!

In and out for years, strangest thing that happened was back in the late 80’s walking in the club one night, looking over and seeing my cousin sitting at the table! We chatted and I found out he was the new field services manager!

He spent about five or six years up there and the cold finally got to him. They finally closed the base in 1997, after a number of fits and starts over whether or not to close it, the operational requirements, etc.

The flying was always ‘interesting’… Take off in perfect weather, land 12 hours later in a blinding snowstorm, or fly to Shemya or Kodiak, or Elmendorf, refuel and sit and wait… sigh…

Continue reading

Over regulation….

Not like the FAA does this routinely… maybe every OTHER month…

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth (1),
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings; (2)
Sunward I’ve climbed (3) and joined the tumbling mirth (4)
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things (5)
You have not dreamed of  (6)
Wheeled and soared and swung (7)
High in the sunlit silence (8). Hov’ring there (9)
I’ve chased the shouting wind along (10)

and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.(11)
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue (12)
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, (13)
Where never lark, or even eagle flew; (14)
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space (15),
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. (16)

FAA Addenda:

  1. Pilots must ensure that all surly bonds have been slipped entirely before aircraft taxi or flight is attempted.
  2. During periods of severe sky dancing, crew and passengers must keep seatbelts fastened. Crew should wear shoulderbelts as provided.
  3. Sunward climbs must not exceed the maximum permitted aircraft ceiling.
  4. Passenger aircraft are prohibited from joining the tumbling mirth.
  5. Pilots flying through sun-split clouds under VFR conditions must comply with all applicable minimum clearances.
  6. Do not perform these hundred things in front of Civil Aviation Safety Authority inspectors.
  7. Wheeling, soaring, and swinging will not be attempted except in aircraft rated for such activities and within utility class weight limits.
  8. Be advised that sunlit silence will occur only when a major engine malfunction has occurred.
  9. “Hov’ring there” will constitute a highly reliable signal that a flight emergency is imminent.
  10. Forecasts of shouting winds are available from the local BOM. Encounters with unexpected shouting winds should be reported by pilots.
  11. Pilots flinging eager craft through footless halls of air are reminded that they alone are responsible for maintaining separation from other eager craft.
  12. Should any crewmember or passenger experience delirium while in the burning blue, submit an irregularity report upon flight termination.
  13. Windswept heights will be topped by a minimum of 1,000 feet to maintain VFR minimum separations.
  14. Aircraft engine ingestion of, or impact with, larks or eagles should be reported to the FAA and the appropriate aircraft maintenance facility.
  15. Aircraft operating in the high untrespassed sanctity of space must remain in IFR flight regardless of meteorological conditions and visibility.
  16. Pilots and passengers are reminded that opening doors or windows in order to touch the face of God may result in loss of cabin pressure, engine ingestion of, or impact with, larks or eagles should be reported to the CASA and the appropriate aircraft maintenance facility.

Thoughts on Orlando…

The pettifogging and obfuscation have already started…

Knowns- Muslim, radicalized, problem ‘child’ at work, killed 50 LGBT in a club in Orlando called Pulse. Democrat since 2009.

Club had a policy of patting individuals down ‘most’ of the time. Florida has a prohibition of carrying armed into a club that sells alcohol. Effectively a gun free zone.

FBI questioned individual twice in 2013-2014 for ‘radicalization’.

Used an AR-15 in commision of the crime.

The spin-

It’s the GUN, an O.M.G ebil black rifle ‘assault weapon’…

Oh this was ‘domestic terrorism’… according to the administration.

No linking to radical islam or ISIS at all, even though it was known by the administration (and briefed by the FBI)…

blame gun

Predictably, the usual suspects immediately started dancing in the blood of the victims and calling for gun control…

However, the Pink Pistols came out with a different take… HERE.

Of course the HuffPo comes out with a different take… HERE.

Peter has a good post up HERE on his take on the whole thing and safety…

Aviation Art…

19

Ball”Bogies, 11 o’clock high!”, shouted Lt. Doug Canning, breaking a two-hour radio silence. Maj. John Mitchell had led sixteen P-38’s of his 339th fighter Squadron from Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field to Bougainville on 18 April 1943 to intercept the Betty bomber carrying Japanese Imperial Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Now, after flying 400 miles at 50 feet above the water, navigating by pure dead-reckoning, the flight sighted two Betty bombers escorted by six Zeroes descending toward Ballale Island.

Maj. Mitchell and twelve Lightning’s climbed to provide high cover while Capt. Tom Lanphier and Lts. Rex Barber, Frank Holmes, and Ray Hine – designated ‘attack flight” – turned to intercept the bombers. As they climbed toward the Betty’s, Lanphier saw three Zeroes diving to defend the bombers and turned sharply into the lead fighter, leaving Barber to continue the attack on the bomber. Curving in behind the lead bomber, Barber raked the descending Betty from wingtip to wingtip. Thick black smoke began to stream from the right engine and the bomber snapped to the left. Moments later is sliced into the jungle, the crash site marked by a rising column of black, oily smoke.

Turning toward the coast, Barber finished off the second Betty now under attack by Frank, and downed a Zero that had belatedly joined the battle from nearby Kahili Airdrome. Shortly after, Mitchell call “Mission accomplished!” and fifteen Lightning’s turned toward Guadalcanal. Lt. Ray Hine, last seen skimming the water with smoke trailing from his engine, did not return from the mission and was never found.

This extraordinary interception, executed by P-38’s based near Guadalcanal, was made possible through radio interception and signal decryption efforts by Navy intelligence facilities at Pearl Harbor and other Pacific locations.

Of note- For many years there were a number of books, articles, claims and counter claims over who actually shot down Yamamoto. Lanphier initially claimed credit, and later he and Barber were each given 1/2 credit. THIS article, done by a historian sides with Barber…

Interesting…

Couric has been hammered over her little “Under the Gun” video where they played 8 seconds of silence, trying to show that VDCL couldn’t answer a question…

Now we have the fact that John Lott was interviewed for FOUR HOURS, and not a single second of it made it in…

The NRA has the story HERE.

h/t John Lott

And then there’s THIS

I’m guessing nobody will be prosecuted… Just like Gregory- Meet the Press kerfuffle in DC… Sigh…

h/t John R

In other new, Hildabeast is at it again, claiming she’s the FIRST woman nominated for President. As usual, she’s not telling the whole truth… That is HERE!

Twilight of Manned Flight

From the April 18 issue of USNI Proceedings Magazine…

This is one more of those ‘social engineering’ agendas being foisted on the military. This after they tried to award ‘significant’ decorations to USAF personnel sitting at Creech flying drones, and give them ‘treatment’ for PTSD, since they were ‘traumitized’ by flying drones then going home and sleeping in their own beds at night, vs. actually flying combat missions in theater….

 The writing is on the wall: The next century of carrier aviation will be one of continued relevance, but considerably different composition.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2016 did much more than reform the military pension systemWhile the retirement plan adjustments garnished the most attention and evaluation, buried deep in the legislation were two changes to U.S. Code that should pique the attention of military aviators. The legislation, signed into law by the President in November 2015, reformed the authorized flight pay and aviation bonus. It seems like a trivial change—a proverbial drop in the bucket in a law that allocates more than $607 billion to all four armed services in the Department of Defense. The implications and repercussions of this minor change, however, should give anyone looking at the long-term strategic value of airplanes pause.

By law, as of this year, military officers are authorized a maximum monthly “flight pay” of $850—unless you fly drones. If you are a drone pilot you are authorized $1,000. The legislation also changed the maximum bonus. If you are a pilot, after completing your initial commitment your respective service secretary is authorized to give you an annual bonus payment of $25,000. Again, unless you fly drones. If you are “performing flying duty relating to remotely piloted aircraft” you are authorized $35,000 a year.  [The Law of Supply & Demand surfaces once again…….I guess some policy-flacks determined that the loss of joy-stick users is far greater than the loss of combat pilots!!!]

The changes were buried on page 115 of the 585-page bill. TITLE VI, Subtitle B, Section 617 made the following changes to Title 37, “Pay and Allowances of the Uniformed Services”:

Aviation Bonus.—The Secretary concerned may pay an aviation bonus under this section to an officer in a regular or reserve component of a uniformed service who is entitled to aviation incentive pay.

Maximum amount.—The Secretary concerned shall determine the amount of a bonus or incentive pay to be paid under this section, except that aviation incentive pay under subsection (a) shall be paid at a monthly rate, not to exceed $1,000 per month for officers performing qualifying flying duty relating to remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) $850 per month for officers performing other qualifying flying duty.

(B) an aviation bonus under subsection (b) may not exceed $35,000 for officers performing qualifying flying duty relating to remotely piloted aircraft; or $25,000 for officers performing other qualifying flying duty.

So to be clear, if you are a forward-deployed Air Force F-16 pilot and flying in combat you are authorized less “flight pay” than someone of the same rank living in Las Vegas and operating unmanned vehicles from an office building. Similarly, if you are a Navy lieutenant in Patuxent River performing “duty relating to remotely piloted aircraft,” law authorizes the Secretary of the Navy permission to pay you a bonus of $35,000 a year. If you deployed at sea in combat on board the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) flying the E-2 (a 30-year-old plane off of a 40-year-old aircraft carrier) your bonus is capped at $25,000.

Congress, of course, is not passing judgment on organizational value. The aviation bonus and flight pay are not by any means compensation for hazardous duty, nor are they meant to alleviate the hardships imposed by extended family separation and repeated duty-station changes. Conversely, they are not adequate enough compensation to inspire a current pilot to forgo the opportunity of a post-military airline career and become a drone operator. The adjustment to the law addresses a uniquely 2016 problem: There is a significant shortfall in recruiting and retention for personnel operating unmanned systems.  *** All they really had to do to recruit more unmanned aircraft pilots was to relax physical fitness standards and uniform requirements, and then troll videogame conventions ***  

Despite the short-term motivation of the legislation, military aviators should nevertheless take notice. As of 25 November 2015, U.S. Code instituted a higher value on drone operators than pilots. Though directed at our sister service, the irony of that date should not be lost on naval aviators. Last fall, for the first time since 2007, the United States lacked an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. A few short months prior, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus remarked that the F-35 “should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.” Meanwhile, the F-35 delays continue, and military advances languish in the defense-acquisition process while civilian technology gets faster and cheaper.

These unrelated events should alarm those involved in carrier aviation. The naval aviation enterprise successfully implemented the core business principles of accounting, supply-chain management, and human-resource allocation. Perhaps in 2016 we should begin to look at the sobering aspect of capitalism—most, if not all, businesses eventually fail. We can either wait for a catastrophic end or we can strategically and methodically manage the unmanned and autonomous vehicle takeover. In either event, it is happening.

On 19 January 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. At the time, the film manufacturer employed 13,000 people and its stock was trading at about 35 cents a share. The bankruptcy was not a surprise but instead the culmination of a decades-long downward spiral. Kodak was a 130-year-old company that at its peak employed more than 65,000 people. It made aggressive moves in acquisition, advertising, research, and development. It was a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, paid a dividend, was the dominant player in its market, and was by any measure a mature “blue chip” company. In the mid-1990s the stock peaked at $94.75 a share.

Kodak was also willing to invest in new technology. In 1978, a young Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson patented the “Electronic Still Camera.” Sasson’s invention (soon known as the “digital camera”) was a disruptive technology Kodak could not incorporate into its business. Expanding digital would cannibalize Kodak’s primary profit sectors—film and development. Kodak could not reconcile these conflicting interests. Eventually, as we all know, Kodak failed to adapt to the changing habits of its consumers.

Four months after Kodak went bankrupt, two 20-something Stanford grads, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, had a small company named Instagram. They, like Kodak, were in the business of photography and documenting memories. They had 13 employees, had never turned a profit, and had been in business for 18 months. On 8 April 2012, they sold Instagram for $1 billion to Facebook, itself a company in existence for less than a decade. Recent Instagram price-evaluation estimates put its value closer to $15 billion.

Bankruptcy is not pretty. It is a bad way for a business to end. If carrier aviation were to go “bankrupt,” it would look very similar to Kodak—a century of growth, then a short period of slow, steady decline, followed by a cliff. The main advocates of carrier aviation make the case for “presence.” “Presence matters,” as the slogan says. The main detractors make the case about cost. The first-in-her-class USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is surpassing $14 billion and deploys Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) squadrons at $135 million a pop. It is not that presence does not matter. It is just that presence is expensive.

So what would “bankruptcy” look like? It looks very much like the fall of 2015 when the U.S. Navy did not have a carrier in the Persian Gulf. During the ISIS attack on Paris, as Russia deployed into Syria, as Iran began compliance with the P5+1 nuclear deal, and as the Syrian refugee crisis continued to explode, there was no aircraft carrier in the region. President Bill Clinton is famously quoted as saying, “When word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it’s no accident that the first question that comes to everyone’s lips is: ‘Where’s the nearest carrier?’”  Unfortunately, in the fall of 2015, that answer was Norfolk, Virginia.

Meanwhile, a month after the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) left the Persian Gulf and two months before the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) arrived, a strike in Syria killed the British militant Mohammed Emwazi. Dubbed “Jihadi John,” Emwazi rose to infamy as the masked member of ISIS seen executing hostages on several propaganda videos. An unmanned remotely piloted drone carried out the strike. It is not that a carrier could not have conducted the strike, it was that someone else was there to do it more cheaply, more quickly, and with less risk.

In 2012, people were still taking pictures. They were just doing it more cheaply, more quickly, and without film.

Manned flight on board an aircraft carrier will end by 2030. Just ask Google.

Google is one of the leaders in “driverless car” technology. Imagine flight-school students at Pensacola, Florida, 15 years from now. Like aviators from the previous century, they are right out of college, young, ambitious, and aggressive. Except now, instead of buying a corvette they buy a brand new driverless Tesla. The car is great. It drives them safely home on Friday night from the FloraBama, and drives them to flight school on Monday morning where they get in the simulator and learn to manually fly an airplane.

That makes no sense and will never happen. If the technology exists to autonomously drive a car, why would we spend the time and money to train a pilot to manually fly a plane? Nobody will ever ride in a driverless car to U.S. Navy flight school and learn to manually operate an airplane. The fact is, we cannot afford to teach them.

The Naval Safety Center is quick to point out that the primary cause of aviation mishaps is human. Mechanically, the shortfalls are also often related to the proverbial “man in the machine.” The most prevalent mechanical gripe in all models of the FA-18 Hornet is not with the hydraulic systems, airframe, or fuel. It is with the oxygen generation.

With finite resources, the military must embrace the safest and most cost-effective tactical platforms. You do not get extra credit for degree of difficulty. If we can fly a drone off an aircraft carrier and conduct the same mission as a manned aircraft, we must do so.

“Naval Aviation Safety & the Cost of Aircraft” was published by the School of Naval Aviation Safety. Overlaid on the chart is the cost of aircraft. Adjusted for inflation, $51,000 in 1954 would be worth $449,000 in today’s dollars.  The 776 aircraft destroyed in 1954 would be the equivalent financial loss of two Joint Strike Fighters. In other words, a midair collision between two F-35s would be more expensive than losing more than 700 aircraft in the 1950s.

Nobody is arguing that manned aviation is not effective. We need to be as effective for less money.

If Secretary Mabus is correct, that the JSF will be the final manned fighter, when will the last flight be? By Air Force standards we could still be a century away. The B-52 is scheduled to remain in service through 2040. Amazingly, there have been generations of pilots who have all flown the same aircraft—grandchildren taking the controls of literally the same bureau-numbered aircraft as their fathers and grandfathers. Those days are over. Despite its forward thinking, the JSF is already a ten-year-old design. By the time it gets to the fleet it will be 15 years old. Imagine giving a high schooler a 15-year-old cell phone. That is not how technology works in 2016.

If the JSF is around for 15 years, we would be lucky. If that date is correct, that the last aviator will fly on board a carrier in 2035, that means the last naval aviator is in elementary school right now, her air group commander is in flight school, and her admiral is the executive officer of a squadron. This is not science fiction. The transfer to autonomous and unmanned platforms is very much a current event.

In 2010 the lead engineers and contractors for the Navy’s unmanned aircraft program attended the Landing Signal Officer Operations Advisory Group. Hosted in Key West, Florida, the purpose of the event was clarification of the program’s requirements. The engineers gave the 30 pilots in attendance a brief on the capabilities of the jet and then opened the floor to questions.

How does it taxi?” asked one enthusiastic pilot.

“It can’t taxi. After an arrested landing it will shut down and be towed out of the landing area,” came the response from one of the lead engineers.

The pilot was appalled. “That won’t work!” he proclaimed. “During carrier qualification you can’t shut down between landing and launching! We need to train quickly and efficiently. You need to get the thing straight over to the catapult and launch it again!”

The engineer looked embarrassed. “Sir, I don’t think you understand. This is a robot. It will always be qualified and doesn’t need to train. It is always ready.” Twenty minutes later another pilot declared, “Well, this is all fine and good, but how has the performance been at night? Night operations at the carrier are incredibly dangerous, so I’d like to see what the safety record would look like then.”

“Sir,” the engineer again sheepishly relied, “We haven’t done any testing at night. Again, the aircraft is a robot. It doesn’t have eyes, and can’t tell whether the sun is up or not. It’s autonomous. There is no pilot. It can’t see because it doesn’t have to.”

Not surprisingly, there were no further questions. Naval aviators are no more likely to incorporate and innovate unmanned systems into their operations than Kodak was to incorporate digital cameras. In today’s Navy aviators command aircraft carriers, run the aviation office in the Pentagon, and test our future systems. Initiatives by the Pentagon to foster innovation miss the point. It is not that large successful organizations—Kodak, Ford, IBM, or, for that matter, carrier aviation—do not want to innovate; it is that they cannot innovate. There is a reason Tesla made a more successful electrical car than Ford, Google was not a division of IBM, and Kodak did not take advantage of digital cameras. Asking pilots to incorporate unmanned and autonomous technology into carrier aviation is not only unproductive but also impossible.

The mission of the Naval Aviation Enterprise, according to its website, is to “sustain required current readiness and advance future warfighting capabilities at best possible cost.” Naval aviation can expand and ensure future readiness by incorporating three additional principles of successful adaptive organizations:

Acquire. The true skill of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is the immediate recognition of their own flaws. While the average American still thinks of Facebook as a technology company, Zuckerberg recognizes that its time has already passed and that the future of technology is to be created by the next generation of young men and women in their dorm rooms. Since its public offering, Facebook acquired not only Instagram but also messaging service WhatsApp (for $22 billion) as well as more than 50 other companies and properties.

The Navy acquisition process is not in a position to facilitate incorporation of unmanned systems. We cannot be writing “requirements” for incorporation of unmanned and autonomous technology. If the carrier of 2030 is to remain operational, manned platforms should be adapting to the capabilities and limitations of our unmanned counterparts.

Consolidate. The carrier air wing of the 1990s had the S-3, A-6, EA-6B, FA-18C, and F-14. The air wing of 2016 has consolidated all of those platforms into a single Super Hornet airframe. Despite the technological similarities the Navy is just beginning exploration of opportunities for efficiency. Only by aggressively finding solutions to manning shortfalls and cross-platform capability will carrier aviation operate efficiently enough to remain a viable national asset.

Cannibalize. Never hesitate to cannibalize your own market share. In the late ’90s AOL was a subscription service and incredibly profitable. It had the opportunity to change its business model but did not. Though now it appears like a no-brainer, Apple took significant risk when it developed the iPad. At its introduction tablets risked taking market share from the personal computer. With a lower price point, Apple risked reducing profits in the personal-computer market.

Leaders and operators of manned airplanes should embrace the opportunity to work with and deploy with autonomous and unmanned vehicles. The most adaptable vision of carrier aviation incorporates autonomous, unmanned, and assisted platforms.

Carrier detractors tend toward the financial argument—“too expensive, too complex, too risky for today’s world.” Carrier proponents rely on presence—“presence matters whatever the cost.” The truth is, without a doubt, more nuanced. Carriers are expensive, and presence does matter. Only by reconciling those two competing thoughts will the platform stay viable for another hundred years.

Aircraft carriers will always be relevant. However, they can only be effective if they are deployed and prepositioned for immediate crisis response. The core capability of carriers is indeed presence. It can only be achieved if it is cost-effective and adaptable. Those characteristics will require the use of manned, unmanned, and autonomous systems. This operational triad must work together safely, efficiently, and tactically. Lest we bankrupt the naval aviation enterprise, it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Congress is justified in paying more money to officers “performing qualifying flying duty relating to remotely piloted aircraft.” If carrier aviation is to remain relevant past 2030, however, every aviator should fully embrace the future of assisted, unmanned, and autonomous technology. All aviators—those strapping into machines and those operating remotely—should buy into a future combined and consolidated force that acquires new technology and efficiently adapts to the long-term changing economic pressures.

Commander Stickles is the executive officer of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130. He has more than 2,500 flight hours and 350 traps in EA-6B, F/A-18, and EA-18G aircraft. A 1999 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he has an MBA from the University of North Carolina and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. During his career he spent only one year out of the cockpit, and despite what he says in this article will never, under any circumstance, fly a drone.

Of note, one thing that isn’t being addressed is computer and systems security… That is the black hole of unmanned or unpiloted systems of any type… Where there is a comms link, there is a hacking vulnerability…

Rimworld…

Okay, you asked for it… So I’ve started it… Tentative title- Green Hills…

Prolog

The scout team had been landed on X423W two days earlier to perform a second-in scout of the T-2.C class planet to see if it was as habitable as the first-in scans indicated, and to conduct an inventory and survey of the world. As a team, they’d been together for twenty-five years, and settled into their roles like an old comfortable polygamous marriage.

Sergeant Ethan Fargo, Earth native and team lead, empath and intel, had doled out the missions they’d pre-planned at the GalScout base before they ever climbed into the scout ship.  Pop, resembling nothing less than a five foot tall bipedal weasel, from Kepler 62E was the scout and primary security.  Hardt, Earth stock from Waldron-Antaries 4, was the science lead and primary pilot for the small drop shuttle they had been using.  DenAfr, the huge Taurasian symbiote pair, was the sifter and primary medic, checking the air, water and soil for composition.  In addition, it was the back up security with Pop.  Diez, also Earth native, was the comms, linguist, backup medic, and a level five Psi. Diez also maintained their armored suits and comms software and hardware they used in the field.

What they hadn’t expected was to encounter Traders or a Dragoon…

Countless briefings flashed through Fargo’s mind- DragoonsPatriarchal society. Air breathers. Six to seven feet tall. Two to three hundred pounds. Bipedal, opposable thumbs, three fingered clawed forelegs, three toed clawed feet. Vestigial tails, vestigial wings. Prominent fangs. Carnivorous, eat prisoners and dead, including their own. Warriors ruling class. Expansionist slave culture. Males start training as warriors at three years or age. Can live to a four hundred years of age. Females mainly breeders, administrators.

      Partnered with or subsumed human traitors and Consolidated Unions in the outlying star clusters in the Hundred Years war. Gained access to then current human space technology and weapons. DMZ established after Galactic Patrol cease fire in twenty-four-oh-six, after humans and coalition stalemated the ‘Goons’. Still using unions as ‘Traders’ when humans are captured in raids, and as raiders/pirates to steal new tech. Dragoons continue expansion into the DMZ and other galaxies to this day.

Pop was the first one down, just after he yelled the warning and fired the first rounds from the top of the karst ridge. Hardt had recovered Pop’s can after he’d fallen down the ridge. Hardt was hit just as he made it to cover, dying before anyone could get to him. Fargo had finally managed to get to Hardt, confirmed the red tattle tale, and keyed the destruct code.

Fargo picked up Hardt’s can, then Pop’s can as Diez came over common saying the Traders were targeting them remotely. Gotta remember to report that, I wonder if that targeting works on battle armor too, Fargo thought.

Diez said dump armor, and cued a location a half mile away. Fargo, Diez and DenAfr made a run for it and jumped into a ravine a hundred or so feet deep on anti-grav, giving them momentary cover.  They’d climbed from their suits, with DenAfr, having a few problems extracting itself from the armor, but that wasn’t unusual for them.

Diez had run a code, repowered the armor, and commanded autonomous recovery mode. The code sent the armor climbing toward the upper end of the ravine enroute to the drop shuttle. The three of them, now in skinsuits and masks headed in the opposite direction going down the ravine as it shallowed out. Fargo remembered looking up at the twin red suns, and being thankful the temps were manageable by the skinsuit, and the air was marginally breathable as they moved quickly to put distance between themselves and their armor.

Fargo missed the armament including the heavy pulse rifle, but his implicit trust in Diez and his intel expertise overrode that desire. At least he had his 6mm bead pistol and 13mm bead rifle that he’d recovered from the suit’s locker, as did Diez.  DenAfr, due to its size was able to detach the 20mm pulse rifle from its armor and carried the one hundred pound rifle with ease in the pseudopods it had extruded. The other thing Fargo carried, was a 40mm bandoleer, with the two recovery cans from Pop and Hardt.

They’d made it about 10 klicks down the ravine when DenAfr rounded a blind corner and ran head on into four Traders.  He’d shot two, bludgeoned one, but wasn’t fast enough to get the fourth one.  Neither Fargo nor Diez had a shot until they’d cleared DenAfr’s bulk, but by then it was too late.

That they had killed the last of the four Traders wasn’t much comfort, as the loss of DenAfr meant they were really in the hurt locker. Without DenAfr, they would have no cueing if the Traders decided to throw a Biowep at them. Fargo remembered checking the telltale on their skinsuit, confirming it was red, then keying the suit and turning away as it burned down into a can.  Surprising Fargo, it was exactly the same size as the cans for Pop and Hardt.  He added it to the 40mm bandoleer he’d grabbed out of his armor. He ran his thumb over the tabs on the ends of the can and watched as each lit with the GalScout personnel code for the individual’s remains.

He and Diez had made it another seven, maybe eight klicks circling back toward their camp and drop shuttle before they’d been caught in the open by another group of Traders in light armor coming over a ridge line. Fargo and Diez taken cover into some kind of wallow.  Thankfully it was empty and deep enough to protect them from direct fire, but it was also hard to target the Traders without their armor. Instead they had to physically climb up to the top of the wallow, shoot and slide back down before the incoming fire took their heads off.

Diez had psi-linked with Fargo and confirmed he’d triggered the emergency beacon before they evacuated the camp and he’d also sent out a blind broadcast while they were on the run, hoping there was some friendly ship that might hear it.

Fargo had thought, Well, that’ll be a fat chance in hell, the scout ship isn’t due back for another ten day, and we’re so damn far out in the boonies I doubt there is anybody else in this star system.

Fargo knew he was at the end of his rope physically, but noted that even though Diez was a tired as he was, there wasn’t any indication of that in the telepathic link, which earned a chuckle from Diez, “See, as long as I’m breathing, telepathy works.  I stop breathing, it doesn’t work. File that one away Fargo.”

Fargo thought back, “Yeah, breathing is good. Getting out of here is going to be a problem.”

Diez crept up to the lip of the wallow, fired and slid back down to the bottom projecting, “Well, I think we’ve cut them down a few.  I see three out there and I think I got a hit on one of them.  The most you sensed was nine, right?”

Fargo thought back, “I screwed up, I wasn’t open enough. I was trying to sense if there were any animals, and I was blocking higher order in our band. But yeah, nine. And something else, probably a Dragoon. At least that’s all I could sense on the higher levels when I opened up.”

Fargo climbed up to the lip, stuck his head up slowly, and surveyed the plain to the east of their camp and the drop shuttle.  Looking slowly and opening his mind to any empathetic sources again, he was jarred to feel someone behind him with a sense of gloating.  As he started to turn, Diez had both projected and screamed, “Opposite lip! Drop!”

Cursing himself, Fargo was half way through turning loose and sliding, but couldn’t disengage his feet in time. He felt a blow to his leg as he dropped back to the bottom of the wallow, firing on the way down.  Diez had fired on full auto at the one weak point they knew on the Trader’s light armor, the connection plate between the body and helmet. From an upward angle it was actually fairly easy to kill them if you put enough beads on the seam. Diez was in the process of reloading when two more heads popped over the edge of the wallow.  Fargo yelled at Diez as he fired at the one he thought was aiming into the wallow and took him out, but the second shot down into Diez before Fargo could shift his aim.

Diez reared up, screamed both verbally and telepathically as he was hit across the chest and hips, but he fired on auto again and chewed up the side of the wallow, then the lip, and finally the second Trader as Fargo also fired.  Fargo felt a blow on his left arm, and lost his rifle.  He watched in horror as the arm and rifle cartwheeled away from him, then the pain hit.

Fargo looked down and realized most of his left arm was gone, just as the med-pack hit him with another dose of pain killers.  Fargo’s mind was a little fuzzy, but he realized he’d already had one dose, and wondered why. He started to get up to go to Diez, but fell over.  Rolling over, he looked down and saw that his right leg ended at the knee.  Oh, that’s where the other dose came from, damn good thing these skins have smart tech built in, he though.

Diez slumped to his knees, and his pain came hammering through the link hitting Fargo, until his med-pack dumped pain killers into him.  Crawling over, Fargo managed to get to Diez, and propped himself against the side of the wallow as he pulled him across his lap.  Panting, Diez thought, “Damn, this shit is not good!  Well, hate to say this Fargo, but I think they stuck a fork in us.”

Fargo thought back, “Stuck a fork in us?”

Diez coughed and pulled his breathing mask to the side, spit a mouthful of bright red blood, then left his mask hanging. “Old Earth term. We’re done Fargo. Well done.  It’s been a good twenty-five years. Had more fun than the law allowed. Got to see more shit than I ever thought I would. Proud to serve with you.  Couldn’t ask for…”

Fargo thought, “Diez you gotta hang on man.  You can’t leave me now.  Your med-pack is as good as mine and mine’s keeping my ass alive.  Diez.  Diez!”  Fargo leaned over and looked Diez in the eyes, then saw more blood dribble from his mouth.

Diez seemed to focus on Fargo, a half smile forming on his lips and one last thought came across the link. “Fargo, you’ll never believe what you missed.”  Diez shook his head, almost in sadness and continued, “You’ll never believe…”

Fargo screamed as he felt Diez die, and thought his head was going to explode.  He blacked out, then slowly came back around.  Something was wrong with his head, it was like he had double vision, except that it was in his mind.  He slowly reached down and checked Diez telltale. It was blood red.

Sliding Diez off his lap, he keyed the destruct code and rolled away as Diez was consumed inside the suit and it shrunk into another can. He picked it up and placed it in the bandoleer with the other four, running his thumb across the tops of each can and getting the ID codes for the remains encased in the can. Pulling his bead pistol, Fargo leaned back against the side of the wallow awaiting the inevitable on World X423W as he dictated an updated status to his skin suit’s memory.

After a couple of minutes, Fargo decided to climb to the lip of the wallow and get it over with, rather than sitting in the bottom of a hole waiting to die.  He was a former Terran Marine dammit, and Marines go out on their feet, not on their asses.  Holstering his pistol, he started slowly scrabbling up the side of the wallow, every bump of his leg or arm sending shooting pain throughout his body.  Rather than give in to the pain, that pissed him off even more, and he redoubled his efforts.  After what seemed like an eternity, he made it all the way to the lip of the wallow, and rolled slowly over.

As he lay there, he wondered if anyone would ever find them, or even care.  He wasn’t much of a praying man, but he said a prayer for his team members, and hoped there was an afterlife so he’d seen Amy and Ike one more time. Levering himself up on the body of the Trader he’d shot, he looked across the flat, sensing and then seeing two more Traders and one Dragoon coming out of the forest in armor.

His thoughts turned to the last stanza of Fiddler’s Green he’d learned in The Basic School on Earth.

And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers’ Green.

He checked his pistol, settled down behind the Trader’s armored body and waited for them to get in range.  Then the world turned black.

TBT…

Continuing the family things theme…

This came to me through mama’s side of the family, she said this reminded her of one of the places they lived in the 1920s, when she was little…

DSC01724

It’s still in the original frame, and has this ‘doodle’ on the matting… I do remember Grandpa saying they kept a cow or two for milk and food during the Depression. He also said he was lucky, in that he was able to hold his job on the railroad during that time.DSC01725

My Google-fu came up with this on the artist… Which is strange, as this ‘appears’ to be a more western scene, but apparently he was from upstate New York…

John Hill Millspaugh, born at Crawford in New York State, became a painter and etcher in the late 19th century and earned much respect for the quality of his work. However, he is little known today.

He was raised at Crawford on the Hudson River. At age 16, he went to New York City to apprentice as a stereotyper, which was highly detailed work creating relief plates of metal from original woodcuts. By the mid 1840s, he was working in Waverly as a stereotyper, and then moved to Ithaca where he met his wife, Marion Elizabeth Cornell. Her uncle, Ezra Cornell became exceedingly wealthy from the telegraph business and founded Cornell University.

John had a brother, Edward, who showed early talent as an artist and studied with Henry Inman, a leading Hudson River School painter. He died at age 31 from smallpox. Hoping to carry on his brother’s work, John began studying art, and his most influential teacher was George Lafayette Clough (1824-1901), also a Hudson River School painter.

John Millspaugh’s career between 1851 and 1871 remains undocumented, but according to his obituary, he considered himself an amateur artist. It is thought he made his living during this period as a stereotyper. A description of one of his oil paintings shows a family picnic, and one person reported seeing an etching of Cornell University. The only known painting in a public collection is dated 1872 and is titled “Autumn in the Susquehannock.” It is a pastoral landscape in the Hudson River School style and is in the Palmer Art Museum at Pennsylvania State University.

In 1872, Millspaugh left Ithaca for New York City to take a job for an undetermined period of time at the Customs House. However, his family suffered when a severe depression, the Panic of 1873, hit a year later, and his son had to leave college.

By 1882, he reportedly was getting attention in New York City for his etching, an art form that was extremely popular at that time and tried by many artists. Millspaugh was invited to join the New York Etching Club, the country’s first organization specifically devoted to that medium. His etchings are highly detailed, and most of them depict quiet landscapes. The earliest one published was likely “Evening on the Delaware,” by fine-art publisher Christian Klackner. One of these works is in the Parrish Art Museum at Southampton, Long Island.

Millspaugh collaborated with Boston painter and etcher Louis K Harlow to publish works through Klackner. After 1889, Millspaugh did mostly self publishing. At an undetermined date, he left Manhattan and returned to Ithica to live. He and his wife spent the winter of 1893-94 in Denver, Colorado, and he died on the return trip to Ithaca.

I know there is a term for the little doodle on the matting, but I’ll be dipped if I can remember what it is… Little help???

Posted in TBT