Maybe I've just been in a mood lately, but there are 2 movies I watched in recent weeks that played with my mind. Since I'm still thinking about them, I'm just going to skip ahead of my regular list and list them now.

129/2295. For All Mankind (1989)
It's a documentary about the NASA Apollo program comprised almost entirely of 1969-1971 footage. Personal note: before he helped create me, my father helped create SkyLab — yes my nutty father was once a legit rocket scientist — so there has never been any doubt in my life about whether or not man set foot on the moon. And I'll never not be amazed that I now carry around in the palm of my hand a computer with more processing power than Houston Mission Control had then^[1]. Watching NASA footage, it's mind-bending to be reminded just how big and empty space is and just how fragile our position is in it. It's amazing how determined so many of us humans are to push one another off this life raft. I'm as guilty as the next guy at letting daily life get us focused on the petty things; we can all do better.

133/2299. Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
Yeah, yeah, it's a fantasy children's fantasy movie where an American orphan becomes British nobility and is unchanged by the experience, but what struck me while watching was just how good Li'l Fauntleroy is and how his goodness makes life better for everyone around him. (It's a pretty Dickensian concept, sure, but there are also echoes of Fauntleroy in Harvey Comics' ultra-altruistic "Poor Little Rich Boy" Richie Rich.) There are certainly bad people in the boy's world — a dramatic plot requires them — but he doesn't let their bad behavior influence his. As my Catholic aerospace engineer father often said to me during my formative years: right is right if no one is right^[2]. Don't let him hear me say this, but he's right about that. The high road may be harder, but if you let them drag you down to their level, you're just another snake.

^[1] An "Apple iPhone 12 Smartphone... [is] about 900 million times faster than the Apollo 11 guidance computer." https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2022/11/08/fast-forward-comparing-1980s-supercomputer-to-modern-smartphone

^[2] According to https://fauxtations.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/st-augustine-and-rightwrong/, this is a paraphrase of a quote by G.K. Chesterton, creator of the Father Brown mysteries: "Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it." However, so far as I am aware, my father never read Chesterton, so it may well be that he is quoting some other source, maybe even ancient aliens. With him, one can never tell.

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As I mentioned earlier, I bought a new computer last week, and so far it has been nothing but trouble. it keeps spontaneously rebooting at what appear to be completely random intervals, and I just don't know why. In fact, it rebooted on me 10 minutes ago while I was typing this post.

Why did it reboot? Couldn't tell you. Driver conflict? Maybe. I've updated software and drivers for just about every component, but that doesn't mean I've eliminated any possible conflict. Hardware failure? Can't rule it out. I'm about to start memory testing. If that passes, I'll move on to the power supply.

If I ever solve this problem, I'll be sure to let you know. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to start counting ones and zeroes.

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My aging computer, which I use 8 or more hours a day, has been showing signs of senility lately, so last Sunday I decided to buy a replacement. Specifically, I decided to buy a Razer, as that's what was available on sale at BestBuy.com with the specs that friend (and boss) James recommended. Before going through a shopping cart, I did a little research and discovered that Razer.com had an even better price on their own product. So I decided to order directly from the manufacturer instead. That proved to be a mistake.

No sooner had I completed their checkout process than Razer promptly sent me an email to notify me that the transaction had been "unsuccessful" and urged me to get in touch with their customer service, which I did immediately via chat. The representative told me they would "forward a support ticket to the relevant team" to verify me as a legitimate buyer so that my purchase would be processed by their system "automatically." Except it didn't.

On Monday, I got another email, telling me that the whole problem was my credit card processor. They said I needed a payment authorization code to clear up the problem, so I called my bank. Turns out the bank's AI was naturally suspicious of such a large purchase of nearly $3,000 — don't judge me — and killed the transaction. Fine. It happens. In fact, I appreciate the caution. Except they could not give me an authorization code because no payment had actually ever been authorized. They said I'd need the merchant to run the transaction again.

I told Razer this, and they said they couldn't run a charge against the original order; I would have to just place a whole new order. One small catch: between Sunday night and Monday morning, Razer raised the price of the machine by more than 13%. Since I was only shopping from them because they had been cheaper than Best Buy, I asked their customer service to honor Sunday's price. They declined. I explained that in that case, there was no longer any incentive for me to buy from Razer.com... and they followed up by politely suggesting that I "explore authorized Razer resellers, where you might find attractive deals and promotions."

In hindsight, perhaps I should have expected that. The Sunday representative ended our chat by telling me that "right after you end the chat, you might receive a survey for you to provide us with feedback. The survey is all about ME as your assistance buddy as how I tried my best to assist you today, and not with Razer services" (emphasis mine). Hint, hint, Walter.

Anyway. This is all just a longwinded way of explaining why I will not be buying a Razer computer from any Razer reseller, authorized or otherwise. If they don't want me to buy their product, I'm more than happy to oblige.

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In the past week, I bought a new 32" curved-screen computer monitor and a new pair of progressive lenses eyeglasses. In hindsight, I should have done only one of these things at a time.

Or at least I should have also bought a new bottle of ibuprofen.

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EPISODE FOUR: SURVIVAL, PART ONE

Sahara leaned back on the bench and allowed herself a moment of self-satisfaction. Haze was pleased with their successful raid against the Wolf Pack slavers, and despite herself, she was pleased he was pleased.

Haze's computer-modulated voice continued from the speaker. "The remaining members of the Wolf Pack assumed the attack came from the Garbools and destroyed their primary weapons factory in revenge. And just like that, the once unassailable Three Families have been brought to their knees. There is only one more thing to be done...."

Sahara frowned at the sudden silence. "Did we lose the connection?"

"Not on our end," Quig answered from his seat beside the communicator. "The line is still open. Haze just stopped talking."

"Mid-sentence? That's not like him at all," said Striker. "His communiques always sound almost as though he is reading from a script."

"I've got a bad feeling about this," said Cobryn.

So did Sahara.

Haze returned. "I'm detecting ships tracking to your location. They appear to be.... Yes. It's the Families: Wolf Pack and Garbool ships. They must have tracked you somehow. They'll be at your headquarters within minutes. You must get out of there. Now!"

"This is very, very bad!" said Cobryn. "The Chutoi is no match for Three Families fighters."

In his irritatingly calm manner, Striker asked. "Should we stay here? The bunker is protected from direct bombardment."

Sahara started gathering her gear. "The bunker might be, but the Chutoi isn't. Haze is right. If we don't get out of here quickly, we're sitting ducks waiting for the Families to overrun us."

"Where are we going to go?" asked Quig, as he packed his drone.

"We'll worry about that when we're airborne."

The truth of the matter was that Cobryn was right: the Chutoi was a transport, not a fighter. It was slow and weak. If they were forced into a direct confrontation, they might as well be flying a coffin.

But as Sahara and the others hustled to the landing pad, she couldn't shake the feeling that Haze knew more than he had said. If everything had gone so well and the Families were really on their heels, why were the Wolf Pack and Garbools working together again? How had they found the bunker safehouse? And what was Haze's last task?

If by some miracle she survived this, she'd be sure to ask him face to face.

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EPISODE THREE: THE SABOTAGE, PART FOUR

Cobryn watched helplessly from the control booth window as Bronson stepped over Striker One's limp body and faced Sahara. The Wolf Pack lieutenant wiggled his finger at Sahara in a "come hither" gesture. Sahara shook her head in refusal. The roaring crowd was eating it up.

"Do something," Cobryn urged.

"What?" asked Quig.

"Anything!"

Quig's claws flew across the console, and Cobryn was relieved to see the arena floor around Bronson begin to rise, trapping the lizard man. Sahara hustled over to Striker One and began helping him to his feet. The crowd's roars faded and quickly returned as boos.

"You better hurry up and release the slaves from their pens," said Quig. "I don't think we have long."

Cobryn had already identified the slave pen master control, and it didn't take a computer genius like Quig to figure out which button freed them. It was helpfully labeled "Do not press this it frees the slaves!" Cobryn pressed it.

It didn't take long for someone to notice.

Somewhere outside the control room, an alarm went off. The Wolf Pack spectators began to flee the stadium, forgetting about Bronson, Sahara, and Striker One in their haste to confront a slave uprising. Cobryn didn't give them good odds: slaves outnumbered Wolf Pakers on this asteroid ten-to-one. The only way they could regain control was through the computers in this control booth.

"I've opened the arena doors for Sahara and Striker One," said Quig as he moved to the exit. "That's all we've got to do. We can meed the others at the ship and get off this forsaken rock."

"I'm right behind you," said Cobryn. He turned to the console Quig abandoned. Cobryn knew a thing or two about computers himself; if he could lock the computer down, the Wolf Pack was doomed. Fortunately, the computer system was idiot proof.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOCK COMPUTER TO PREVENT ALL FUTURE ACCESS? [Y/N]

Cobryn gleefully pressed the "Y" button and was rewarded with a smiley face and timer counting down from five minutes. Once the countdown was complete, the computer would only be useful as a doorstop.

Quig was long gone by the time Cobryn got to the door. The sounds of combat and death screams echoed through the corridors, but the path leading out to the ship hanger looked clear. Cobryn punched the air in celebration. After the Corona's Light, it felt good to be ensuring the death of the right people for a change. Take that, slavers!

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EPISODE TWO: THE ASSASSINATION, PART FOUR

Quig had never cared much for philosophy, and he certainly hadn't lived a squeaky-clean life, but this mission was making his fur tingle. He forced himself to watch as the scanner tracked the plasma torpedo to its target before reporting his latest morbid success. "Scratch the last escort. That's two more lives lost."

"We wouldn't be able to outrun them on departure," Sahara said by way of justification. "It had to be done."

Maybe it was necessary, Quig conceded, but did it have to be done by him? He'd spoken out against her original plan to fly the Corona's Light into the sun on the grounds that too many relatively innocent people would be killed. Yet somehow, in her newer, "kinder" plan, Quig had ended up with all the deadliest tasks. He suspected that wasn't an accident.

First, in deference to his superior programming skill, he had been assigned the task of using the bridge computers to modify the security droid protocols, which had undoubtedly resulted in some crew fatalities. Then, ostensibly because only he had the necessary talent, he had been required to alter the ship's life support system to flood Eye One's state room with toxic gas, killing Eye One as well as his butler, chef, secretary, and bodyguards. Finally, with Cobryn busy preparing the Chutoi for departure and Striker One confirming Eye One's death, only Quig was available to rejoin Sahara on the Corona's Light's bridge and eliminate the fighter escorts. That was what, at least a dozen sentients dead by his hand now? He was legitimately a serial killer.

He reminded himself that their goal was the dismantling of a system-spanning criminal organization. If some people had to die on the way to that greater good... well, it was a rat-eat-rat galaxy.

Sahara interrupted his gloomy thoughts. "Before we depart, let's teach these dogs a lesson they won't forget about crossing the Wolf Pack. Jettison a suite."

Quig moved to the abandoned captain's station and found the sequence that would fire Eye One's luxury state room slash escape pod. A moment later, he felt the floor vibrate slightly as he triggered the pod to fire away from the superstructure. Trapped by the sun's gravity, all evidence of how Eye One had been killed would soon be burned away. No one would be the wiser that he was killed by a small band of freedom fighters....

Except, Quig realized with a start, someone would surely realize that the occupant of the only pod launched was one of the solar system's most influential criminals. That someone was sure to kick over every anthill on every planet until they found who was responsible.

Quig thought fast. But what if Eye One's wasn't the only pod launched? That just might work.

No one wealthy enough to afford a suite on the Corona's Light could be truly innocent. Quig triggered the launch of two additional suites. One he chose at random; the other was occupied by the man whose name appeared on their invoice for nabanas. Anyone who imported that much fresh exotic fruit across the galaxy for his personal consumption deserved to die.

Sahara grabbed Quig's shoulder. "What are you doing? I said jettison just one!"

Disappointed that she hadn't understood his intentions, Quig snapped back, "You wanted it to look like that dumb Wolf Pack killed Eye One by accident, didn't you?"

Sahara glared at him, her irritation made more obvious by her twitching antenna. She flicked her eyes sideways; Quig followed her gaze to the captain and the rest of the restrained bridge crew he'd forgotten all about. He gasped at the realization of what he'd done. They must have overheard what he said, and Sahara would never let them live to repeat it. Quig had gotten so good at killing, he could even do it accidentally.

"Go," Sahara ordered coldly. "Tell the others we're leaving. I'll clean up this mess myself."

Quig obeyed meekly. His saluted the Corona's Light captain and crew through the closing elevator doors, knowing he would be the last person outside that room to see them alive.

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EPISODE TWO: THE ASSASSINATION, PART THREE

Sahara watched over Quig's shoulder as the ysoki hacked the elevator controls. She knew a thing or two about computers, but Quigs proficiency was still impressive. He was a useful guy to have around when you needed to take over an entire luxury starliner.

"Success," he chirped. "I now have access to bridge level."

"Great." Sahara opened the box she was holding and dug through the disgusting nabanas within to withdraw a laser pistol and a couple of flash grenades. "Let's pay them a call."

When the elevator door opened onto the bridge, she tossed the grenades. In the ensuing confusion, Striker One grabbed the captain in a bear hug. His loyal crew surrendered without so much as a fight.

"Captain, you have a problem," said Sahara. "Namely, me. You've got a garbage scow full of the filthiest, richest pieces of trash in the solar system. We've come to make them pay for their crimes against humanity. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Wolf Pack gang?"

"The W-wolf Pack? Slavers? Here? We don't w-want any trouble," the captain stuttered.

"Too late for that. But I'm feeling generous today. Keep cooperating with us, and we might let you live." Turning to Quig, she asked, "How are we doing on security?"

Quig looked up from the computer at the captain's station. "I've removed the crew from the white list."

The captain's eyes went wide. "They'll be treated as intruders. They'll be shot on sight!"

Sahara would hate to be that officer in the cargo bay right now. "Maybe this will teach you to program your security droids to be a little less trigger happy against stowaways."

After finishing tying up the bridge crew, Cobryn had moved to the communications array. "I've disabled the ship's transmitters. We're running silent here now."

"Oh! You should see who's in the passenger manifest," Quig chirped. "Especially on Deck A."

Sahara knew he was speaking in code. Eye One's suite must be on Deck A. She nodded. "Fine. Move all the automated security droids to Deck A, then get yourself to engineering."

Next, carefully avoiding the use of Cobryn's name, she directed him, "Go back down to our ship and be ready. When we leave, we'll be in a hurry."

As Quig and Cobryn left the bridge, the captain summoned enough nerve to ask, "What are you going to do with my ship?"

"It's Wolf Pack's ship now, darling. If I was you, I'd be more a little more focused on what you stand to lose personally, if you know what I mean." She cocked an eyebrow at Striker One, and the android gave the captain a not-so-friendly squeeze.

There was nothing to do now except wait for Quig to do his job. In the meantime, Sahara had time for games. Mind games. "Tell me captain, have you ever thought about how much your life is worth? Have you considered how far you're willing to go, what you're willing to do, who you're willing to kill to get what you want? To survive? I have...."

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EPISODE TWO: THE ASSASSINATION, PART TWO

Cobryn opened the ship's coms system. "Starliner Corona's Light, this is the shuttle Chutoi making a scheduled delivery of nabana fruit for one of your guests."

"Chutoi, we've been expecting you. Please follow the docking beacon."

"Roger," Cobryn replied. He snapped the microphone off and reached across the piloting console to set the autopilot to the beacon's signal. He was thankful for the assistance. This close to the sun, he'd had to close all the windscreens and fly by instrument alone, which was something he generally preferred not to do. Cobryn hadn't become a pilot just to let computers do all the work.

Sahara leaned back into the captain's chair. "Remember, everyone, we're about to interrupt the vacation of some very rich and powerful people. The only way we're going to emerge from this safely is if we protect our identities scrupulously."

"What does 'scrupulously' mean?" asked Quig.

"It means we need to be very careful. If anyone finds out we're not just deliverymen, we need them to think we're working for the Wolf Pack."

Cobryn said, "It won't matter who they think we're working for if we fail to kill Eye One."

Sahara sighed. "Look, if that's all that's important to you, we could still go with my first plan."

Striker One shook his head firmly. "No. We must keep the killing to a minimum. Otherwise, we're no better than the families."

Cobryn chuckled at the android's naivete. "Who says we're better? Sure, they're liars, thieves, and murderers, but last time I checked, so are we. The only difference between us and them is scale."

"Let's keep it that way."

"Fine. Plan B it is, then," said Sahara. "But if anything goes wrong..."

"It won't," said Quig.

Technically, the decided course of action was plan C. The second plan suggested had been Cobryn's idea to drug the nabana shipment with sleeping draughts then give away free fruit to the entire crew. Sahara had judged that plan "unreliable," claiming they couldn't be sure the crew would willingly eat the fruit. Cobryn suspected it simply wasn't bloodthirsty enough for her.

Cobryn turned his attention back to the piloting console and watched as the autopilot brought the ship gently past the fighter escorts into alignment with the starliner's docking bay. Taking back manual control, he skillfully piloted the shuttle to a rest inside the Corona's Light.

An officer and two security droids were waiting for Cobryn by the time he walked down the Chutoi's loading ramp, nabana in hand.

"Permission to come aboard?" Cobryn asked, offering the standard courtesy when boarding a vessel.

"Permission granted," said the officer. "Your delivery is expected on D Deck."

Cobryn smiled congenially. "Great. It won't take us any time to unload. In the meantime, would you like a complementary nabana, sir?"

"I'd love one, thank you." The officer took the offered fruit and bit into it guilelessly. "What kind of person turns down a nabana?"

What kind of person indeed?

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