Challenge #03064-H141: To Deal With Reformed Devils
the Deregulation brothers meet and start to work with with the gentleman that bought trash worlds and developed them into resorts.
Being the Fiscal Empire of Lodalute IS still a deregulation, and given how suspicious Deregulations are of anything from the Alliance, they are happy (and only a little suspicious) to offload their waste, and walking assets onto another Deregulation.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-03010-h087-secrets-of-the-network
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02955-h032-we-the-undersigned
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02883-g326-learn-something-guys – Adam in Darwin
Rejuvinator Tars made sure ze had a full security escort when the two brothers turned up. Lodalute was Deregger space and anyone with CEO rank from Deregger space was automatically trouble. Ze pulled some Intimidators as well as trained Station Security agents and at least one of them had trained with the Immortal Master Twii. Just in case they wanted to step up from bringing the funny business and launch into an outright comedy contest.
The brothers Lodalute - Nigel and Steve - arrived in rather plain suits by Deregger standards and absolutely no tricks. They also came with a contract drafted by the CRC with their full consent. This was, as far as Deregger empires were concerned, unprecedented. Tars went straight for the fine print. All properly in order. No loopholes. No weird wording. Not even a giggle’s worth of funny business.
“I’m not selling my resort to you or any Dereggers,” Tars said, making hir limits known up front. If they were true to type, they would throw an outraged tantrum and try to intimidate hir. Which was why what they did next was such a shock.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03062-H139: Piracy - Just Say Nononono AAAUUUGH!
A tiger bite force is 1050 psi, a crocodile have a bite force of 5000 psi. A human, 126 psi. Not much but it’s a sign. If a human bite you, understand that they disregarded any self respect or proper thinking just to survive. Unless it’s a baby. – Anon Guest
There’s a reason why Humans consider biting to be “fighting dirty” and it’s not just because their mouths are cesspools of bacteria and partial digestive juices. Pound for pound, the Human bite is one of the weakest amongst all Terran fauna. Therefore, when a Human has to employ their teeth, they have run out of all other options. A Human in that position will go out making certain that their attacker is going to meet with some of the most aggressive microbiota and enzymes known to intelligent life.
That said, it is still a rather impressive bite force when compared to other cogniscents. As Pirate Jibz is discovering as a Human’s teeth are sinking past his natural biological armour and into his soft and sensitive underflesh. He had thought he had the Human helpless. If he survived, he would remember the axiom for all those who would try to oppose those weird maniac balding apes: The only safe Human is a dead Human, and even then, caution is advised[1].
The bite had its desired effect for the Human. Jibz let them go and used his remaining arm to aim a weapon. The Human, blessed with Deathworlder reflexes, ducked and sprang forward, into Jibz’s reach and pushing past that point with all possible force. Another axiom came to mind: There is no such thing as an unarmed Human.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03059-H136: Reaching Out
[AN: That’s definitely Weird Al singing… Video shows a clip from an animated series called Milo Murphy’s Law in which a boiler turns into a rocket and propels a group seated on a toboggan through a series of unlikely locations]
The wreckage was what only Humans and other Deathworlders could class as “survivable”. Several things were going wrong in rapid succession. Rob didn’t even know it was Del until long after they came to a safe halt, miles from the crash site. He just helped hir up onto the plate of a hull piece and more or less fell on top of hir when something went bang.
There was no way to steer, no hope of directing their path anywhere. In fact, it was sheer luck that had them headed on a reverse vector to the stricken ship’s path through plant life, stone structures and, of course, soil. It was a minor miracle that they came to a slow halt after skipping like a stone across a lake.
Now that there was time to breathe, the both of them were doing so in access, sitting up and taking stock in all possible directions in case something else came off the wreck of the Cruise Ship Hesperus while they were still celebrating their survival. Only after they had moderate shelter from the still-raining debris did Rob noticed who he was with.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03058-H135: In Deep
A: Captain the ship is being drag into the ocean!
B: How deep we’re in now?
A: 4,500… 4,800… 5,000…
B: Dear lord, that’s over 150 atmospheres of pressure!
A: How much can the ship take?
B: well it’s a spaceship, so anywhere between 0 and 1 – Anon Guest
The good news was that the superstructure was holding up. The bad news was that it wasn’t going to continue doing that for long. They were sinking fast and air balloons weren’t going to work to refloat them. This required some very quick jiggery-pokery.
“Rerout the feed to the floater envelopes from the synthesisers and pump them full of simple hydrocarbons. Get everyone into their battle livesuits.” Captain Bae was already buckling on their greaves. Everyone had theirs ready by their stations, and a spare by their sleep niche. Bae sounded all alert with the same instructions.
Engineers were scrambling, one team per floater envelope. Bae could only get in their way and stress them out even further. When it came to doing a good job to survive, Bae considered the best motivation to be ‘tomorrow’. As in, living to see it with everyone else.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03057-H134: A Wilful Sacrifice
It was a race against time. Despite the Dereggers giving a weak attempt at a blockade, refusing to believe there was any danger, the alliance ships swooped in to yank every man, woman, and child off of the two colony planets before the sun engulfed the entire system. The colonists had asked for help but the CEO’s had been rejecting their requests, saying there was no danger, CEO’s hate being proven wrong. – Lessons
The CEO’s of Planetary Domains Inc. swore up and down that their colony worlds weren’t in danger around Spaetarin III. Their scientists had looked into the chemistry of the unstable star and their estimates said that it wasn’t due to collapse for five hundred years.
The fact that Planetary Domains Inc. had been saying this for five hundred years seemed to pass them right by. Nevertheless, the Alliance kept butting in with inconvenient facts and spreading an unprofitable panic amongst the living assets. Colonists. Whatever.
They also decided to steal those assets. Colonists. People. Ignoring the fact that there clearly wasn’t any danger and gouging into the bottom lines with their gung-ho hero complexes. CEO Mavros could no longer afford the security forces necessary to stop literal billions of ships coming in from the alliance and stealing his assets. Workers. It was a travesty. So he did what any CEO in his position would do. He filed suit.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03056-H133: Must Love Cats
They took in unwanted stray cats and dogs from around stations, especially taking them away from DeRegger places, and took them to a massive new station that, once they were spayed / neutered, they lived happily and were well loved, and learned to love, until they were adopted out. Unfortunately, not all visitors to Humane Station were the friendly sort. However, not all the unfriendlies were… all that unfriendly. Especially when two new faces saw a group of spacers bullying caretakers, and cruel to the frightened strays.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02975-h052-a-jay-of-sunshine – Anon Guest
It had once been a popular waystation before the local planet became a reserve for Pax Humanis. Many people think those two facts are related, but it is simply basic chronology. The popularity waned as other, more efficient trade routes opened up. The fact that the local planetoid was a Deathworld had little to do with it.
The point remained that many derelict areas had been overtaken by the station’s biota. Jay, not at home on planetary surfaces, took one look at the resulting wilderness and decided what improvements it needed on the spot. They could also see what it was perfect for. All that neglected space would never be shopping emporiums or living habitats again. What it could be, however, was the perfect catio. Not just for Skitties, though they’d be able to visit, but also for the regular varieties of Cattus Domesticus.
He liked cats, and so did more than a few fellow members of Pax Humanis. They were more than willing to help set up the space to be friendlier to felines, as well as assist in the fostering of abandoned or neglected felines. The station, now renamed Humane Station, quickly became a kitty haven. Some of the cats taken in would also be adopted out, once they passed strict inspection.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03055-H132: Worked Stone
It was an old custom on Earth that was once popular. Humans would paint stones with pretty pictures, happy sayings, and then, when they had a fairly large collection done, would take all of these intricate stones and scatter them all over the place so other people could find them. Often with a URL on the back for people to log in with a picture of the stone to show it was found and where. A way to brighten a person’s day. That person would then be encouraged to take the stone out and set it somewhere so someone else could find it. And let that cheerfulness spread. Some old customs don’t seem to die, even as humans have spread through the universe, so have the pretty stones. – Anon Guest
It was a smooth river stone that was light years from the nearest river. Large and flat and painted with a contrast code that could easily be read by any datareader. The other side of the stone, the one that had been facing up, had a stylised image on it. What it was a stylisation of was something Techie Del was unfamiliar with. Humans had been here.
Just how and why a Human would leave a river rock stuck to the underside of a desk in a derelict vessel was a mystery to Del. Further, that derelict had been marked for complete salvage by a roaming band of scavengers working the very same wreckage Sargasso. Since it had been painted, Del guessed that it was of some cultural significance and put it aside for analysis.
She never expected a rock to be a message in a bottle. After her shift was over, she scanned the code left on one side and found a message and a link to a social site called Dude, Where’s My Rock? It was a long-term cross-galactic game. Of course it was. Humans were baffling that way. This game had been going on for longer than an average Human lifespan, so it was a decent bet that the hands that had painted this stone were in their grave by now. There was a message.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03054-H131: Irrational Therapy
They are a therapist helping those who have severe phobias. How do they do this? They help the person through careful exposure therapy. If the person is afraid of something that is actually quite dangerous, they simply help the person learn to control the fear so they can think clearly if confronted by it. For those that are terrified of that which is actually quite harmless, tiny exposure times, coupled with therapy and mild relaxants, seem to help. – Fighting Fit
[AN: Having looked into exposure therapy, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Some of the more extreme phobias have to begin with obvious pictures of obviously distorted cartoon versions of the phobia, with warning ahead of time, and even then taking the image away when panic sets in. Fun times]
Therapists don’t always have to have a specialty, but those who go into the occupation generally do so for at least one reason, and the specialty… happens. Therapist Lar had found hir way into treating phobias simply because most of hir clients had them. Phobias, being irrational, cannot be easily cured. There’s no easy way to train a brain to not fear something it auto-panics about.
Human Ark, like most Deregger expatriates, had an irrational fear of crawling insects. Big ones, small ones, it didn’t matter. If they didn’t fly, they were horrible. If they did fly, then they dissolved into shrieking terror. Discipline, on their planet of origin, consisted of locking a child in a room full of things they hated. The phobia was the natural result. Lar and Ark were working together on finding where the boundary was.
Ark had a large bowl of warm tea, a blend that helped them feel calm and, as a matter of necessity, in control. The soft room was well lit and made entirely of colours that showed the dirt, so that Ark could see that it was completely clean and uninfested. There was a therapy Skitty on their lap. Everything was safe. Lar therefore began with a circular dot on hir datareader screen. “Is this safe?”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03053-H130: Wrong With Authority
They were a DeRegger CEO on their own private ship with the usual, mistreated, crew hauling a load of captured, unwilling, women to the new Dereg colony. The ship, trying to take a short cut by sneaking through the edge of Alliance space, went down due to several micrometeorites getting through, it happens when a person cuts corners on safety. The CEO learned quickly that, once on an isolated, if somewhat safe, haven-like planet, no way to force obedience and all the cages are open, their money meant nothing when it was either work or starve. – Lessons
Good news, bad news. Good news, they had all survived the crash. CEO Mukkys hit the release button on his personalised wearable life pod. He had been thrown from the wreckage, and the air read as breathable. The bad news was that there was nothing left of the executive suites. His swimming pool was ruined and all his wine had spilled for sure.
Good news, the larger superstructure had survived. Bad news, the cargo hold had split and all the livestock had got out. The soldiers had been overwhelmed by sheer numbers and those who were conscious when he arrived were quick to point out that they weren’t allowed to damage the merchandise. So now all the females had gone into the wilderness with some of the essential workforce. Worse, one of the guards’ corpses had had his armour cracked apart for the scanning hardware.
Good news, they had food. Bad news, all of his staff had fled with the cargo and nobody left at the wreck site knew the first thing about cooking it. Good news, the control units were still in place. Bad news, the boss unit to inflict punishment on the pain centers of the cargo… had been destroyed with the executive suite. No matter. Authority had its place and he would rise again. He ordered the dead stripped of their flesh and that flesh preserved in salt. He authorised two guards to get into the surviving computer systems and figure out how to cook. Two more were assigned shelter fabrication. The most important thing was, naturally, his new mansion.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Challenge #03052-H129: From One Cog to Another
You can’t break a man the way you break a dog or a horse. The harder you beat a man the taller he stands. – Anon Guest
[AN: Link leads to an audio clip from a video game where the quote is from (I think?) that is all edgy tough growling with a warning at the end]
There’s a saying in the Edge Territories: You can only try to break a Human. This is a warning, not an instruction. Many have made the mistake to their detriment. Many a tyrant has attempted to methodically grind down their subjects only to find that they were merely tempering the populace into having spines of steel.
CEO Tane of the Fiscal Empire of Divine Favourites thought he had the perfect method. Make it theoretically possible for someone to climb the ladder to success, whilst putting all sorts of obstacles in their way and then blaming them for it. Once every few years, Tane would random jerk to help along up the ladder by carefully arranged serendipity.
All that mattered was that there was hope. Hope was a better set of reins on the populace than fear, but fear worked too. Used in combination, Tane definitely believed he had it down to a fine art. What he overlooked was the fact that some people had longer memories than others, and actually tracked lie subsequent lives of the feel-good “success” stories after they faded from the notice of the mainstream news. That was where Tane went wrong.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)