During the last press conference, Governor Edwards stated that the next conference would take place the same time next week, and as of 9:30 AM, there hasn't been an announcement stating otherwise. I will update this post if the time changes.
LINKS TO WATCH SUMMARY
Gov. John Bel Edwards - We have had 3 weeks going in the wrong directions with cases and hospitalizations. Whatever we discuss today does not reflect what happened this weekend. Why do I mention this? We know Memorial Day was when our numbers stopped getting better and started getting worse. I pray the same is not the same for 4th of July.
- We have lost all progress made in June and are seeing some numbers that rival our peak in April.
- Today we report 1,891 new cases and case positivity is slightly over 10% (*Mod note: it is 10.4%).
- 95% of cases today are community spread with only 5% coming from a congregate setting.
- Reporting 20 additional deaths for a Toal of 3,231 deaths from COVID-19 for the state of Louisiana.
- There is a slight dip in hospitalizations (only 3 less than yesterday) but we are very concerned about the numbers we are currently seeing. We are also concerned with the conversations we are having with the hospital CEO's and Medical directors.
- The total of hospitalized with COVID-19 is 1,022, the last time we over this was on May the 19th.
- Hospitalizations have doubled since June the 13th.
- Recent case growth reflects the majority of cases are young people, with the majority of cases coming from those below 30 years of age.
- Difference between today and 2.5 months ago, is 2 months ago our numbers were driven by the New Orleans area, particularly Orleans and Jefferson parishes as well as the river parishes. [Back then] it was only one region of the state that was fueling rapid growth and high numbers. The rest of the state did not see cases to that extent. [Now] we are seeing more even growth in hospitalization and cases across the state. We are beginning to look like Texas.
- We have a statewide epidemic, not one that driven by a couple of Regions
- Testing sites are slow to get test results returned. Today the delay is due to a lack of reagent in the Commercial Labs. Because they do not have the amount of the necessary component they cannot report their results in a timely manner. This is being worked on as we speak.
- We are concerned about the delays because we want to know if people are positive, people may be asymptomatic, may not be taking the proper precautions by quarantining, and be unnecessarily exposing others to the virus.
- It is critical for anyone who has been exposed to someone who has tested positive to the virus to self-quarantine for 14 days while you wait for your test results.
- If you have been in close contact with someone who is COVID-19 positive, EVEN IF YOU TEST NEGATIVE YOU NEED TO QUARANTINE FOR 14 DAYS you may have contracted the virus but may not have had the appropriate viral load to be detected when you were tested.
- Some good news with testing surge testing in Baton Rouge got up and running yesterday, but was short-lived due to the bad weather. The White House Task Force chose 3 cities in the United States for this type of testing. This should tell you all you need to know about whether we have a serious situation and if it is getting worse. WE do and it is.
- The goal is to test 5,000 people above the baseline and get a better idea of just how many cases are in the Baton Rouge area.
- You do not need to a resident of BR you can live by a nearby parish and get tested.
- You can be tested if you are symptomatic, or been exposed.
- You can also be tested if you are not symptomatic.
- [LIST OF 5 SITES]
- Testing will run until July 18th.
- Pre-register DoINeedACovidTest.com (registration is not required).
- More info can be obtained by calling 2-1-1.
- This morning there was a conference call with about 20 hospital CEO and medical directors from across the state to get an update directly from the field.
- Nearly every CEO and MD on the call reported sustained increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations. We have completely lost the gains we made over the past couple of months and its all happened in less than 3 weeks. Very concerning.
- Some people continue to believe this state of Louisiana continues to do better, that is not the case.
- Some regions have more hospitalizations than they ever saw in March or April.
- The two hospitals in Lafayette each have more patients than they saw during the previous surge.
- Good News: Patients they are seeing are in the hospital are younger and the illness is not quite as acute. Stays are not quite as long, and a smaller percentage of these patents are in the ICU or on ventilators.
- Access to Remdesivir is been reduced, no one is out, but with the current caseload, they are concerned about not having adequate supplies.
- Hospital capacity is not strictly related to COVID-19. Just because we are in a pandemic does not mean fewer people are going to have strokes, motor vehicle accidents, etc.
- The biggest concerns center around staffing and keeping testing supplies and treatments in stock.
- Staffing issues are exacerbated by pronounced community spread, causing more staff members to call out because they are positive.
- We are seeing a slight change in COVID-19 hospitalized patient demographics as they skew a little more white and male than the previous cases, and as previously mentioned, the average age is down.
- Patients are more white, male, and young than before.
- Appears now, at least anecdotally, that the hospitalized patients reflect our state demographics as a whole.
- FOLLOW MITIGATION MEASURES.
- We simply have to wear a mask when we are outside of our homes and interacting with people who are closer than 6 ft.
- Everything we are learning from in this country, and around the world, indicate that mask usage is incredibly important to cut down the rate of infections.
- Dept. of Health is sharing an additional breakdown of race by parish to be published weekly.
- 41% of cases are from Black Residents and 29% from White Residents.
The "Great Doctor" Billioux - LDH continues to try to publish more and more data weekly. They have added more information such as the percent of positive cases by regions and hospitalization breakdown by region to the Dashboard. - The difference between this rise in cases and what we saw earlier on is that we have significantly more data which allows us to communicate to you a lot more early warning signs. - We haven't yet seen real big rises in ventilator usage like our neighbors in Texas, but if these curves continue we will probably see these numbers go up. - More individual information was added this week regarding race data. * Louisiana was one of the first states to provide race data for people dying by COVID-19. - LDH now feels comfortable putting out race data by cases. * There is still 19% of cases that they do not have race data. Whether it is from lack of information taken when someone is tested or inability to get information from contact tracing. - Still see there is a disproportionate number of African Americans who are contracting COVID-19 when compared to their white counterparts. * This is also true for our Latin-X communities. - The disparity is starting to narrow, at least for deaths. - It is important that we know where COVID-19 is and how to protect ourselves. - At the regional level, we can see other races beyond the Black and White races available for parish data. - Where is COVID Spreading?
Outbreak Setting | Number of Outbreaks | Cases | % of Cases |
Food Processing | 11 | 423 | 30% |
Bar | 36 | 393 | 27% |
Industrial Setting | 16 | 117 | 8% |
College/University | 3 | 84 | 6% |
Restaurant | 16 | 68 | 5% |
Construction Site | 3 | 48 | 3% |
Casino | 4 | 38 | 3% |
Social Event - Private | 3 | 38 | 3% |
Office Space | 8 | 36 | 3% |
Wedding | 7 | 31 | 2% |
Gym/Fitness Setting | 3 | 26 | 2% |
Ship/Boat | 1 | 25 | 2% |
Other Worksite | 8 | 24 | 2% |
Social Event - Public | 1 | 24 | 2% |
Child Daycare | 7 | 17 | 1% |
Religious Services/Event | 2 | 17 | 1% |
Recreation | 2 | 10 | 1% |
Retail Setting | 3 | 8 | 1% |
Camp | 1 | 5 | 0% |
Grand Total | 135 | 1,432 | 100% |
- This is the information we are able to get through contact tracing or reports. This represents a significant underestimation of these different settings in the overall cases. Many people are unable to call specifically where they may have been able to pick up the virus, or if they were in a particular bar.
- If you go to any setting, whether it is on this list or not, and you do not feel comfortable because people are not following safety standards leave, walk out, protect yourself, and protect your family because that is what is most important. This will allow us to keep as many sectors of the economy open.
- These new parts of the Dashboard will be updated every Wednesday.
Questions by Dr. Billioux
Explain the 14-day quarantine... Gov referenced the need to quarantine for 14 days. As we do contact tracing and tell them they may have been exposed, we know that some people's initial urge is to go out get tested. More often than not its been several days since your exposure, so testing is reasonable. If you know you have been exposed today it is not advisable to get a test today. Regardless of being tested, 5 days after exposure and it is negative, you can still turn positive on day 13 or 14. Quarantining is for 14 days regardless of your test result. If you ae been exposed you need to do whatever you can to isolate yourself from other members of your household and certainly do not go out.
Why we are seeing cases in college universities when they are currently closed? So there is a couple of data points that we have around that. One is that for the last week or so more than 1/3 have been from 18-29 certainly 29 or less. So that is the same population we would see around college campuses. The other point that I may is that even though the universities may not be open hey still remain centers of our community were people of this age group reside. A university draws a large group from that age range so it is not surprising to see an increase in those locations. Note it is 3 we have identified out of 84 cases. We are trying to engage college students to make sure our message is clear to inform them on the best ways to keep themself safe. Even though are seeing very few people are needing hospitalization and even fewer are dying but if you increase the number of people who are exposed in this age group the number of people who will be hospitalized or who die will also increase. We now have 25,000 active cases statewide, even if these individuals are in a low-risk group for bad outcomes for COVID, but anywhere anyone else goes there is a higher chance of being exposed to COVID-19 whether they are going to bar or a gym the likelihood of catching the virus is higher.
Cannot hear question - will update later
We definitely see most cases coming from population centers but from the beginning, we have seen cases coming from rural settings. If you look at the map every parish has cases, as we increase testing in smaller parishes we see increases in cases. Some of our smaller parishes rank highest in the amount of COVID cases and deaths in the nation. It is a problem that is truly statewide. This is not a New Orleans or EBR problem, we have COVID cases rises spreading everywhere across the state in the way we did not in March.
Are you tracking cases in prisons and correctional facilities? Why isn't this reported on the Dashboard. We track cases wherever they come from. We want to know if they are from individuals that are residing in the setting or staff that work in a setting. We recently partnered with the CDC to do more comprehensive testing in a prison int he North, we work with the DEpt. of Corrections with their testing procedures, same on the parish level to help them support their testing. Individuals' locations are not identified to the public unless they are posing a risk to the public. If we take an example of the bars in Baton Rouge and were not able to identify everyone who had been there we did make a public statement. It is not mandated by the Federal government to be reported like nursing homes are.
How can we make restaurants safer We always look at how we can make any setting safer. Recently we are looking at how we can increase enforcement. Having people in these settings to makes sure staff and patrons are doing what they can reduce their risk in these settings. Bars produce a particular risk. You may be leaning in closer to yell over sounds or if you are slowly drinking a drink you are not taking a mask on and off. We are visiting those sites.
How many new citations or violations have been given from the LDH Data is not available. Normally we give a warning and then a follow-up visitation and if that is not corrected by the followup visit a citation is not ordered.
Are you planning to break up COVID-location exposure by regions No. Anyone one of these settings you should assume it is going on in your neighborhood. What is more important is to make a self-assessment when you enter a setting if it is safe for you to be there or not.
Gov. John Bel Edwards - As you can see with the known outbreaks the majority are associated with bars.
- Food processing settings dominate those numbers but those individuals work and often times live in close proximity with one another as well.
- No matter how you slice and dice the numbers, COVID-19 is probably more present in Louisiana today than it has ever been
- Need the people to step up, pay attention, and do their part.
- One number that was not previously highlighted, is the amount of per capita cases in the country. We were as high as number 2. AS things got better we were number 10 in per capita cases. *Today we are #5 in country for highest amount of cases per capita
- More known COVID-19 in Louisiana today than we have had at any point up to now.
- Another number that Gov. Edwards forgot to give is we are in the 8th day and we have reported 137,000+ tests already. The monthly goal set forth by the White House Coronavirus Taskforce is 200,000 tests per month. WE are working hard to know what is going on in Louisiana and get in front of it.
- Everyone in Louisiana you have a role to play. Let's take care of one another by wearing a mask. When you wear a mask you are not protecting yourself so much as you protecting others from you, and when they wear a mask they are showing the same courtesy you are.
- Wear your mask anytime you re outside of your home, interacting with people who are not part of your household. Stay 6 feet away. Stay home when you re sick. Wash hands with soap and water frequently.
- The next press conference will be next week, with no set date or time yet.
Question by Gov Edwards
Earlier you compared us to Texas. Texas is limited crowd size, cracking down on restrictions, and adding a statewide mask mandate. Are you considering limiting crowd sizes, adding restrictions, or instituting a mask mandate?*
- We discuss everything I am not currently contemplating a statewide mandate. We are not up to 4 local mandates, Orleans, Jefferson, East Baton Rouge, and Shreveport (he misses Kenner), these are the largest populations of the state.
- We want to be fully consistent with the White House Coronavirus Taskforce guidance which recommends that mask mandates be declared by local governments.
- Whether we have a mandate or not, we cannot be clearer in the messaging we have been stating for months. **If you are interested in having more customers in stores and in restaurants, then you want mask usage because it decreases the number of cases. Anything that reduces the case count and flattens the curve is ultimately going to be very very helpful. The single most important thing people can do is wear a mask. Gathering sizes are being looked at, in regards to venue capacity right now we may be more liberal with that than Federal guidance we are getting.
Other states are considering closing bars and indoor dining. Seeing the surge in cases have you reconsidered the current restrictions on restaurants and bars? I will tell you that we are getting the guidance directly from the cOronavirus task force as well we have done over 3,100 site visits over the last 10 days or so. Primarily working through the Free Marshall Office we are trying to gain more compliance with existing restrictions and are having success in almost every case. We will be starting our followup visits and if there are repeat violations actions will be taken there. In regards to 50% occupancy for on-premises dining, we are on par with what Texas is doing now. Our decision not to go into Phase 3 was the right decision. I can only imagine what the case would be if we removed to Phase 3. We are paying attention to all of these things and maybe making some adjustments to the restrictions. Currently, we remain focused on getting compliance with existing restrictions. If this proves to be insufficient to get our numbers under control we whatever is necessary to not put a strain on our hospitals. We are not there today but we are on-trend to get there.
President Trump says he wants all students returning to school for in person instruction, do you have guidance on what you would like to see with schools reopening? First of all, I would hope aspirationally we want to see our schools open 5 days a week for in-person instruction, but at the same time, we have to balance the interest of preserving the health of students, staff, and faculty. We need to look at what situation is at any given time of the situation, particularly in advance of when that school year will commence. You will see school districts implementing even more measures to protect students, staff, and faculty. Under no circumstance do we anticipate a return to pre-COVID normal. Even if we have in-person instruction on campus it will not look like how it was prior to COVID. Not like to see school assemblies, students eating in lunch, students will not be coming into contact with people who are not their immediate cohorts. It is important to get students back onto campus not just for education but for nutrition, social well being, mental health services, and we have to remember that teachers and school counselors are mandatory reporters when they suspect a child has been subject to abuse or neglect. For all these reasons we ant them back on our campuses but we ate to do it safely. Only recently the CDC related a plethora of guidance. K-12 leaders are pouring over that now to make sure it is incorporated into our plans of reopening.
Impossible to know on July 8th what it will look like or whether it will even be possible to open schools a month from now. Question about fall sports and Senators Fields request that K-12 sports be cancelled for the Fall It is a little too early to say on July 8th what this will look like. I appreciate the concerns of Senator Fields, that decision may be a prudent decision but we are not at the time where that decision needs to be made. WE need to know al little more and get a little deeper into the calendar before the decision is made.
Question about how Gov. Edwards feels about then comparison of wearing a mask to the holocaust It is utter nonsense and sad. My best advice to anyone who wants to talk about any person or situation today and compare it back to the nazis or the holocaust is not appropriate. Certainly not in this circumstance where mask-wearing is recommended across the world now, including by our own Federal Govern and White House to wear masks to stop a disease that is highly contagious and highly lethal. It just misses the boat on all fronts to compare that to something related to the holocaust.
cannot hear question Dr. Birx called me last week they were looking at certain hot posts across the country where you had increases in cases and positivity that were very pronounced. They wanted to assist going into those areas with additional testing, with the hopes of identifying more people with the coronavirus, put them into quarantine, and cool off these hot spots. In EBR we may be seeing this because of the younger demographic, we are a college town, we do not know why we are seeing it but we appreciate the help and hope to get the 5,000 additional tests today between now and July 18th. This is the only federally sponsored testing taking place in Louisiana presently. If you have questions about this testing or how to take advantage of it call 2-1-1 doineedtogetacovid19test.com to pre-register. [location of testing sites]
submitted by Roy "Sarge" Jovanovic lounged in his pilot's chair scrolling through ship designs, trying to find the one that would make the most tempting target. A screen to his left listed all of the transponder codes in the ship's database and the fleets with which they were associated, a screen to his right held a dizzying array of maps, graphs, news searches, and other information about shipjackings in the local sector over the past year, and the front screen showed a live feed from a scout drone's camera, floating about a klick off the port bow to give him a good view of the ship's current appearance.
Roy was the executive officer of one of the many small, unaffiliated fleets that plied the spacelanes in Human territory. Once humanity finally got around to colonizing other solar systems, seemingly everyone on Earth wanted their own slice of the interstellar pie, but not everyone had the resources for it. Where many governments and international corporations commissioned their own fleets, and the largest governments and megacorps were even able to build multiple fleets for their various departments and business units, a lot of the smaller nations and domestic companies simply didn't have the funds for more than one or two ground-to-orbit transports, if that. So dozens of independent fleets started popping up to service those needs; these fleets often came with range limitations, exorbitant fees, slow jump drives, low cargo capacities, and other annoyances, but their clients couldn't exactly afford to be picky.
He eyed a particular scatter plot to his right for a moment, pondering, then tapped a name on his left. "Hello Alibaba," he called, "Set ship identity to FENL." The ship's virtual assistant acknowledged the request with a cheerful chime. Within moments the front screen showed that the ship's hull now bore the bright and blocky red-and-green-with-yellow-highlights pattern of the Frota Estrela Nacional de Lisbon, the Portuguese starfleet, and the ship's bland flattened-oblong shape now boasted the sweeping curves associated with products of the Lisbon shipyards, thanks to some incredibly illegal nanofabricators placed strategically throughout the hull; actual physical modifications would hold up much better to EMPs and invasive sensor scans than the standard holographic emitters that freelancers generally used.
Independent fleets were hired for all sorts of tasks of all degrees of legality, depending on their individual capabilities. Sometimes they were glorified delivery drones, sometimes
pirates asset acquisition specialists, sometimes scouts for colony fleets, sometimes covert assets for larger organizations who wanted to keep their hands clean. Roy's fleet, Charlie's Chameleons, was a well-equipped and experienced mercenary fleet and one of the few trusted to play the deniable-asset role, as they were doing now. While humanity was nearly a decade into the process of officially integrating with the larger galactic society and it would probably be a decade more before their laws, technology, and such were fully integrated with the other species', unsavory types had already set up shop near the borders of Human territory years before and had started to make a nuisance of themselves, and now several Human colonies were quietly starting to take steps to deal with them.
The Chameleons' current target was one Rit!tkatp, an unpronounceably-named and incredibly cunning member of a major T!ka!irtk gang that had steamrolled the other criminal organizations in several systems a few years back and was now running basically every illegal enterprise in the sector from black marketeering to smuggling to things best left unmentioned. If that gang was the Italian Mafia in Space--and they did try to cultivate that impression, to the extent that a bunch of ugly pseudo-insectoids could pull off the "gentleman criminal" look, anyway--then Rit!tkatp was their Godfather, and he had a particular penchant for shipjacking that had led the colonies of Abydos Prime, Malcor III, and Newer Zealand to hire the Chameleons to do something about it, before the gang scared away all shipping from their respective solar systems and left them cut off from the wider sector.
The virtual assistant chimed again. "Ship designation?" it asked in a dispassionate, slightly Chinese-accented voice. Roy tapped his chin and stared at his right screen, not responding. "Ship designation?" the ship asked again after a brief pause, and Roy waved a hand in irritation. "Bah, that won't work. He goes after eighty-three percent of FENL shipping in this region, but we still don't know what makes the bastard pick one ship over another and we can't afford to guess wrong."
"That's a bit long for a name, boss, and it's not Portuguese," the ship remarked, this time in a much more human-like voice and one tinged heavily with sarcasm.
Roy glared briefly in the general direction of the front viewport, trusting that the ship's ex-military AI, Karma, would have no trouble seeing his expression through one of its many cameras scattered throughout the bridge. (Having an AI on a non-military vessel was just as illegal as the transponder database and the nanofabricators. Something of a running theme with the Chameleons, really.)
"What did I say about breaking character?" he asked mildly.
"Hey, I have to play dumb when clients are around, so I have to get my snark on when I can," Karma replied. "Plus, Charlie decided on this personality when you know I like playing Siri better, so you can just deal with disappointment. And before you ask, no, I wasn't able to find any good correlations in the FENL data either, so if you haven't had any brilliant ideas in the past ten seconds you might as well try another one."
"Fine," Roy grumbled. A bit more scrolling and pondering, then: "Hello Alibaba--" "Still right here, boss." "
Hello Alibaba, set ship identity to IDF." As the cheery yellow-and-blue-circles pattern of the Ikea Delivery Fleet rapidly painted itself across the hull, Karma asked, "You're thinking he might go for quantity over quality, then, boss?"
Roy glared again, then sighed, giving in. "Maybe. We know he likes the bigger consumer goods shipments, for whatever reason, but none have come through here in a while so he might go for a smaller cargo."
"Makes sense. Designation?"
"Hmm. The IDF
Some Assembly Required."
"Good one, boss."
"Nobody asked you."
(The first generation of Earth starships bore exactly the kinds of names one would expect. Every country had so many ships named for historical and pop culture references--the most popular in America being
Serenity,
Millennium Falcon, and
Enterprise among the civilian fleets and
Washington,
Midway, and also
Enterprise among the military fleets--that even prepending ship designations wasn't enough to tell them apart. That, plus several fleets being sued into bankruptcy by Disney's intellectual property division, made most everyone change naming conventions. After First Contact, when it was discovered that a short-irreverent-phrases scheme was both unique among known spacefaring species and also incredibly irritating to quite a few of them, even the most humorless bureaucrat was happy to go along with the trend; the first few years even saw informal contests for the most innuendo-laden ship names until the diplomatic corps begged for it to stop so they wouldn't have to keep explaining the jokes to other species' fleet registrars.)
Within seconds the ship's new name was added to the hull and the ship's transponder was switched to broadcast the new identity, but Roy still wasn't satisfied. "That won't work either. They never send high-tech stuff in their midrange transports, so there's no way he wouldn't pick up the signature of the bombs or the trackers, or both."
"I think maybe you're being too paranoid, boss. T!ka!irtk scanners aren't
that advanced compared to Human ones. We can probably risk it."
"Easy for you to say; if he blows us out of the sky, you can just reload from backup. Let's see. Give me SAF colors, designation
Not All That Glitters. No, cancel that, same problem...."
Their wannabe Space Don Corleone was one of the best in the business. His organization operated in eighty sectors falling under at least fifteen different species' legal jurisdictions, and not once had any court managed to get any allegations to stick. Rit!tkatp worked through shell companies of shell companies, always had bullet- and plasma-proof alibis, employed legions of lawyers to ensure he never saw the inside of a law enforcement vehicle (much less a jail cell), never put his name on anything if he could help it, and never left witnesses in any state to testify against him. At least three Earth-based governments and several colonial fleets had task forces waiting on hot standby at all times to jump in, arrest the gangster, and seize his assets the moment he gave them the slightest excuse...but he never gave them that excuse, and so their ships were continually restrained by leashes of red tape and impotent fury.
The Chameleons' employers were well aware that they weren't exactly squeaky clean themselves--very few of the transponder codes they used were obtained through legal freelance work, and "aftermarket modifications" didn't begin to cover what had been done to the jump cores and shield generators of the five ships in their small but heavily-armed fleet--but figured, hey, the legitimate government forces can't do squat without evidence and it takes a thief to catch a thief, so here they were.
The next hour or so passed slowly as Roy thought up and discarded dozens of possible fake identities that might tempt Rit!tkatp into a trap, accompanied by Karma's ever-so-helpful running commentary, from the APF
Free Two-Jump Shipping ("You know we don't have enough ships to fake an Amazon convoy") to the RSN
Duke Duke Duke Duke of Oil ("Nah, he hasn't jacked any Saudi ships since that new petroleum refinery started up on Epsilon Eridani 3") to the RKF
Package Delivers You ("He has friends in the Russian Federation and you don't speak Russian, you'd give the game away if he has native speakers in any of his picket ships") to the NSWS
Beware of Drop Bears ("Come on, boss, Newer Zealand would never allow a Newer South Wales ship in their territory after that last incident").
Finally, Roy slammed a fist on his armrest, cutting off Karma's latest comment. "This isn't going to work. We're not the first ones to try something like this, and no one's ever pulled the wool over that bastard's compound eyes before. We have to try something
new, but how can you possibly catch a gangster who's thought of everything!?" He dropped his head into his hands and gave a muffled order through his fingers to recall the drone and reset everything to defaults.
"You sure, boss? For what they're paying us, you really want to just let Space Tony Soprano off the hook like that?" Karma asked as the drone headed back toward its hangar and the ship's outlines flattened out into blandness. "You tell Charlie you're out of ideas and she's not going to be happy, and after all the wining-and-dining she had to do for the bigwigs on that New Phobos gig, neither is her bank account."
For a long moment, Roy just sat there, thinking, as a smile slowly grew on his face. "Bank account, huh," he murmured to himself, then lifted his head and spoke with renewed enthusiasm. "Karma, change of plans. Load up the Skreaming Skulls paint jobs on all the ships, and then I'll need to talk to the captain."
A burst of static blasted from the speakers before Karma responded, "Sorry, boss, had to do a systems check on my hearing. I could've sworn you just said the Skreaming Skulls."
"You heard me."
"The ridiculously-over-the-top space pirate getup you use when clients just want tons of property damage and for us to scare the bejesus out of whoever the target is? The one that would make me bluescreen with embarrassment if it were possible for my personality template to have gone through a goth phase in its youth? The one with absolutely zero capability for stealth or discretion whatsoever?
That Skreaming Skulls?"
"That's the one."
"Are you insane? What happened to being subtle?
"Probably. And fuck 'subtle'."
"Well...you're the boss. Just don't mind me if I take a fresh backup and sync it back to base before we go."
"You do that. Now, give me a minute to write up a proposal and then ring up the captain."
A little while later, Roy leaned back comfortably as the face of Captain Charlotte "Charlie" van den Heuvel filled the screen in front of him. The pair of welding goggles perched on her forehead indicated that he'd caught her in the middle of fixing something, probably the dodgy recirculator on Chameleon One that kept breaking because they hadn't had the time or money to give the life support systems the full overhaul they needed.
"Sarge! I was beginning to think I wasn't going to hear from you today."
"I keep telling you, I hate that nickname."
"Well, tough. Captain's orders. I take it you've figured out a decoy job that'll fool every last one of those bugs?"
"Nope, not a clue!" Roy said with a cheery grin, causing the captain to lose her own grin. "Complete change of plans, and I think you'll like the new plan. I think it's time we called in the big guns."
Charlie raised an eyebrow. "We don't
have big guns, Sarge. The Chameleon Base retrofit got delayed, remember?"
"Not those big guns," Roy shook his head as he sent his proposal over to her. "
Those big guns."
The captain read it over, as did the instances of Karma on both Roy's ship and hers, then whistled softly. "Gutsy, and stupid, but he'll never see it coming. Gold star, Roy. I'll tell Ace, Tiny, and Eagle to prep for departure. Briefing in twenty, jets up in forty."
A space station floated in the void, far off the established spacelanes and nowhere near anything resembling a planet, or even a large asteroid. Its only company was a fleet of ships and a handful of smaller defense stations, ranging in quality from the finest models that laundered money could buy to lightly used models that had been repurposed after what was left of their prior owners had been rinsed off of the bulkheads. The former sort had been built with the sorts of odd angles and strange proportions that their T!ka!irtk owners found aesthetically appealing and other species found headache-inducing, while the latter sort had been retrofitted to that design as best as possible, and in both cases they were all decorated in a manner that appeared to be boring sheets of uniform whiteness to those inferior species whose visual organs were limited to sensing what they laughably termed the "visible" spectrum of light.
This gathering of vessels was not hidden nor kept secret in any way, despite its remoteness. On the contrary, its master Rit!tkatp delighted in welcoming all comers to enjoy the creature comforts of his station, whether their tastes lay with gambling, racing, mind-altering substances, negotiable affections, or even more exotic pursuits. All beings, from the poorest sight-seer to the most inquisitive government investigator, were invited to partake in its pleasures--provided, of course, that they did not stick their olfactory organs where they didn't belong.
On this particular occasion, Rit!tkatp, patriarch of his extended family and clutch-master of the station, reclined regally in something that only a member of his species would recognize as a chair, as two of his employees filed his dorsal phalanges and several more polished his forearm plates. The T!ka!irtk species was semi-insectoid and covered with something that wasn't quite an exoskeleton, from which protruded many bony outgrowth that served both as defensive spines and as sensory apparatus. They had four bulbous eyes, two compound eyes for seeing motion and two simple eyes for distance vision; four arms and four legs, all multi-jointed and bone-plated; and a mouth both filled with sharp teeth and ringed by pedipalps.
The memoirs of the Human diplomat who had first made contact with the T!ka!irtk famously described her first impression of them being "the result of a drunken orgy between a praying mantis, a wolf spider, and the ugliest porcupine on Earth," and if anything she was being too kind.
Rit!tkatp enjoyed surveying his domain from the control center that was the heart and brain of the station. The clatter of dice rolling in the gambling hall, the rustling of smuggled goods passing through hangars not depicted on the station blueprints, the pathetic wails of those who required encouragement to repay their loans in a timely fashion...these sounds were music to his aural receptors, the rhythm by which he lived his life.
Alas, a flashing light on the proximity sensor board informed him that the intricate symphony of station operations was shortly to be interrupted by an unplanned intermission.
"Look alive, people," the captain's voice sounded in everyone's earpiece, "we have reversion in two minutes. Remember, don't take any unnecessary risks, don't worry about picking good targets, just keep firing at anything and everything in weapons range until you get the signal, then stall as long as you can." Acknowledgements came from Chameleon One through Chameleon Five, and each ship's crew performed a few last-minute equipment checks.
"Cortana, status summary for all ship systems," Roy called. "All systems green," came the cool synthesized voice of the virtual assistant, followed by Karma's voice adding, "Except the long-range transmitters, which are...blue, I guess, since someone decided that pirates like Cortana for whatever reason. Or whatever other color you'd give a system that I'm giving extra-special attention to, so that I can transmit myself out of the mess you meatbags are about to get yourselves into."
The bridge crew laughed, one calling out, "We love you too, Karma!" as the timer ticked down toward zero. The navigator started counting down with it: "Reversion in three...two...one...now!"
Right on cue, the HMS Dead To Rights, Seasons Don't Fear The..., No Kill Like Overkill, Gallows Humor, and Do Unto Others, Repeat As Necessary of the infamous Skreaming Skulls Skwadron popped into existence in a spasm of warped spacetime and hilariously bad graffiti. Each ship immediately unloaded every railgun, missile tube, plasma launcher, and drone fighter on board at the nearest target. They'd chosen their approach vector very carefully to ensure that no civilian ships were in the line of fire, just Rit!tkatp's goons. There were likely to be few civilians around in any case, as station security didn't like having too many ships arriving or departing at any given time.
The ensuing three minutes or so were the highlight of Roy's career thus far. Nothing like blowing up bad guys with no concern for ammo limits or mission objectives to relieve some stress.
But far too soon, the party was over.
"Bad news, boss," Karma called urgently, "we've got a frigate at our two o'clock. Make that three. Make that six. Um. Make that a six and two drone carriers." Roy glanced to the tactical display, disbelieving, but the AI was right: somehow, a mere gentleman crime boss had not one, not two, but eight capital ships at his disposal--and that's just what he had within jump distance on short notice. That would certainly explain how he'd managed some of the more impossible-sounding feats attributed to him, and why most local pirate crews would refuse to cross him for any reason and also refuse to say why. Must have bribed a shipyard or something...or, hell, maybe they were a present from some species that wasn't a big fan of humanity and would love to see someone meddle with their affairs.
Vastly increased danger aside, though, it didn't change the Chameleons' mission profile. The frigates had almost reached firing distance when Ace made his move: in the most hectic region of the battle, two T!ka!irtk gunboats went charging for the No Kill Like Overkill, both sides firing volley after volley of missiles and countermeasures at each other, and only two ships came out the other side of the expanding field of shrapnel and debris that resulted from the skirmish.
On sensors, the two surviving ships were the two T!ka!irtk gunboats, one heavily damaged and one mostly fine, and the expanding hull fragments of Chameleon Three were all that was left of the fake Skreaming Skulls ship; in reality, however, one of the gunboats had been destroyed and, in the sensor-scrambling confusion, Chameleon Three had swiftly scanned its profile and transponder and taken its place. The "damaged gunboat" turned tail and limped back to "its" hangar, immediately forgotten by its fellows.
The plan at that point had been to keep blowing things up while Ace worked to keep the attention on the other four ships, but the frigates changed things. It was all the Skulls could do to avoid the capital ships' guns, and despite some amazing piloting from Tiny and crack shooting from all the Chameleon gunners they shortly found themselves captured by tractor beams and dragged helplessly within range of the station's even larger guns. The crews' former high spirits were understandably shaken, but Roy reassured the crew of Chameleon Two that if they hadn't been reduced to atoms yet they'd probably come out of this alive so just sit tight and wait and everything would be fine, and he was sure the other officers on the other Chameleon ships were telling their crews basically the same thing.
The speakers crackled to life unbidden. "You know, I was having such a good day." Rit!tkatp's smooth baritone echoed throughout the bridge--or, rather, the voice of his translator; T!ka!irtk couldn't make the appropriate sounds for any human tongue, and vice versa for humans. (Unless they were fluent in one of those African clicking languages, from what Roy had heard, but even then apparently they sounded like a dog trying to speak French.) So both species used translation devices to communicate, and fortunately he'd hooked his up directly to the comm system so they only heard the translated voice. Roy had dealt with them in person before, and the way all those conversations would go was that they'd first hear one of the bugs say something in his own language that would sound like someone firing a machine gun at a xylophone, then the translator would speak in a Human tongue, then the Humans would speak, then their own translator would fire yowling cats back at the bugs, and they'd alternate like that for the duration; it was enough to give anyone migraines.
"I slept so well, my breakfast was wriggling, my customers were happy...and now, you jump into my system, the system of a law-abiding citizen, and you commit property damage the likes of which I have never seen. I am well within my rights to confiscate your ships in recompense and send your crew back to T!ka!ir to pay off the damages with hard labor. But I am a generous and honorable being. Tell me who hired you to do this, and I may be willing to let you go. I may not even inform the authorities that you did this, so that you may remain free to continue your detestable activities elsewhere."
Roy had to hand it to him, the man was smooth. Perfect "incensed businessman" tone with a bit of "agreeable neighbor" thrown in, and only a barely-noticeable dash of "unrepentant murderer" in the mix to show he wasn't to be trifled with. He acted just as if he were talking into yet another journalist's holorecorder; he had to, since for all he knew the Skreaming Skulls were live-streaming this conversation back to their mysterious employers in the hopes of catching him admitting to something illegal. That, too, had been tried a few times before.
Before he could think of something to say Charlie responded first in the most insultingly casual tone she could manage. "No one hired us. We decided that you were scum, and your ships didn't have nearly enough holes in them, and it's a weekend, and we were bored, so why not pop in and say hi?"
Rit!tkatp didn't believe that for a moment, of course--mercenaries, do something for free?--so he and the captain traded polite, velvet-coated barbs for a bit while the newer crewmembers waited on the edge of their seats for the moment when the alien gangster tired of it and ordered them vaporized. Roy had stopped paying attention, though. He only had eyes for one tiny corner of his screens, where he waited for a message from Chameleon Three.
As soon as it came through, he grinned fiercely and accepted the data transfer attached to the message, and several minutes later--it was a pretty huge transfer--he gave the crew a thumbs up, waited for them to quiet down, and hit the transmit button while the alien gangster was still speaking.
"Have you heard of an old Earth gangster named Al Capone?" he interrupted, to an uncertain pause from Rit!tkatp. "This is your second who barges into our conversation?" he asked. At Charlie's nod he adjusted something offscreen and now appeared to be looking directly at Roy. "No, I have not. This is relevant because...?"
"Well, I was thinking you might have, since he bears a striking similarity to a Mr. Zhanpeng Lee, a bureaucrat in the office of the Minister of Finance on Xin Beijing. Also a Ms. Beatriz Gonzales, a sales director with Lockheed-Grumman Industries. And oh, I believe also Mr. Dan O'Neill, Mr. Lubo Denisov, and Ms. Sweta Chandragiri. Need I go on?"
No response from Rit!tkatp except a twitching of his pedipalps. The mentioned names were either false identities he used to do business in Human space or bribed and/or blackmailed intermediaries between real companies and his shell companies, discovered in the complete copy of the gangster's financial records taken by Chameleon Three's instance of Karma, and the twitching indicated frantic thought on the gangster's part as to how that information could have been retrieved.
Rit!tkatp wasn't stupid enough to keep his personal records on the station-wide network for any two-bit hacker to find if he or she rooted an information kiosk or gambling machine; everything was in an armored server room directly below his office, hard-linked to his office terminal and shielded from any sort of wireless access, which only he and his most trusted associates could access and in which he could withstand an assault for several hours at least. And of course there was plenty of surveillance and security teams between his enemies and his data, such that anyone trying to dash to the vault would surely be cut down before they got even one floor up from the casinos. He'd taken every reasonable precaution against every reasonable form of attack.
What his security policies did not take into account, however, was an illegally-enhanced military-grade AI gaining root access to the repair bay computers several dozen floors below his office, taking over the station's maintenance robots (glorified ten-foot-tall alien Roombas, basically, and not particularly difficult to co-opt), marking all the corridors between the hangar and his office as closed for cleaning to clear out any civilians, quietly intercepting the camera feeds from the empty hallways, and then using Chameleon Three's boarding lasers to drill straight up through all those floors and into the server room itself, at which point Karma had physical dataport access and the game was up. "Crazy flying AI with frikkin' laser beams" isn't the sort of thing usually covered by standard security policies, so Rit!tkatp could be forgiven for not anticipating that.
"You think to threaten me? In your decidedly helpless position?" Rit!tkatp demanded, still maintaining his innocent businessman air with some effort. "You think that I will be afraid of images of extracted endoskeletons and oxygen-bearing fluids on your ships? No, your Human superstitions do not apply to the T!ka!irtk. We know that death is certain, and because of this we do not fear it."
"Funny you say that," Roy continued, "since we superstitious humans have a slightly different saying. 'Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.' And that's the striking similarity: None of those individuals pay their taxes."
Now the alien looked honestly confused. "See, I know that a businessman such as yourself would scrupulously pay your taxes, and so would any of your cover identities. Excuse me, your business associates. But you forgot one little thing. There's one backwards little country on good old Earth that's always behind the times and out of step with the rest of the civilized world called America, you might have heard of it. Those crazy Americans have all sorts of crazy policies; for god's sake, it's twenty-one-forty-fucking-seven and they still haven't switched everything to the metric system. And one of their quaint little rules involves taxes."
Charlie chimed in from Chameleon One: "You're damn right it does. See, I'm an American citizen thanks to my mother. Doesn't matter that I've never set foot on Earth in my life, or any American colonies, or hell, even an American-built space station, they take their 'citizens living abroad' thing very seriously, and every year I have to file my taxes with Uncle Sam. Every damn year. Eritrea used to require that too, but they gave up that nonsense almost a century ago. And I complain about it to my XO here every damn year, too...which worked out nicely this time, I guess."
Rit!tkatp had reached both left arms offscreen and appeared to be quietly yet frantically tapping away at a terminal, paying attention to Roy with his right eyes and his computer with his left; it was a somewhat disconcerting sight. Roy glanced over at his tactical display where he was getting a jump proximity notification, probably the same one that had the gangster all upset. Unless he was looking up Al Capone in whatever Human historical records he had access to, which was also possible. "And seeing as no fewer than one-third of your false identities have American citizenship and many of your shell corporations are registered in American colonies, well, that brings us back to Al Capone. When the government managed to show he hadn't been paying his taxes back in nineteen...whenever it was, well, that was a federal crime."
"Yes yes yes, I see your point," Rit!tkatp said hurriedly, chest plates clicking in alarm and dorsal phalanges folding outwards in frustration. "You have uncovered blackmail material on me, and now you will wish something in exchange for not alerting the Human governments, I am sure. So--"
"Nope, too late for that, sonny," Ace interrupted from Chameleon Three, his voice coming from Rit!tkatp's side of the connection since he was patched into the station's comms. "Already sent it all over. Would even have gift-wrapped it, if they had a tri-D printer in their office somewhere. Got a thank-you note back, too, ain't that sweet. Now, normally these things take something on the order of a hundred eighty business days, but I think in your case they'll make an exception. Right...about...."
Silence.
"...about...oh, come on, they said twenty minutes! Damn government bureaucracy, where's a dramatic entrance when you need one?"
More silence.
Then, flashes of light. Four unmarked ships in plain gray jumped into the system in escort formation, heading for the station. They definitely had the highly-functional-with-a-hint-of-muscle aesthetic of American ships, to Roy's eye; he thought the design was a bit boring compared to, say, the Brazilian or Italian fleets, but at least they'd stopped putting red, white, and blue stars and stripes on everything with an engine and a flat surface.
Rit!tkatp hesitated for long moments, all plates and phalanges going utterly still. "You're not thinking of resisting arrest, are you?" Roy asked mockingly. The alien glared at him with all four eyes, then spat, "If that is all the fleet your Bureau of Federal Investigators can muster, I don't see why not." The frigates dropped their tractor locks on the Chameleon ships to go engage the new Human vessels, leaving only the carriers and drone fighters (and of course the station itself) to keep them under guard.
Roy looked on with concern. Surely they didn't send just four ships? When even without the capital ships the region always swarmed with drones and the station itself could withstand a siege for days?
"That's not the FBI, buddy. They only have sub-orbital ships and no off-planet jurisdiction. Check the IFFs," Ace said smugly, and both Rit!tkatp and the Chameleons checked their tactical screens. "IRS? Io Rescue Service?" the alien said with bemused contempt. "Close, you're thinking IIRS, Io Interstellar Rescue Service. Nope, that there's the Internal Revenue Service."
On the far side of the fleet, the frigates were engaging the new arrivals. The front two ships turned out to be torpedo boats, the IRS In Triplicate and the IRS Red Tape, and they were unloading missile volleys on the frigates at a staggering pace while the support ships IRS Credit Freeze and IRS Wage Garnishment raised jamming fields and fired off the occasional EMP burst. The T!ka!irtk frigates, confident in their superior numbers, didn't even slow down as they approached the quartet of smaller ships, and so they were caught completely by surprise when three new ships jumped in right above the others, the destroyers Rapid Depreciation, Asset Liquidation, and Maximum Deductions.
"Your mere tax collectors have capital ships?" Rit!tkatp asked incredulously. Roy wasn't sure if the gangster had forgotten the Chameleons were still on the line or if he just didn't care at this point, but with glee he replied "Well, your mere civilian 'casino owners' have capital ships, so fair's fair."
The carriers were ordered to the station's defense next without even giving them time to collect all their fighters, as were the few smaller stations capable of independent movement. As soon as they were out of range of the main station's protection, though, they were ambushed by yet more ships jumping in. These ships, three frigates and five cruisers, were large enough that both Humans and T!ka!irtk could see that they weren't plain gray at all; they were actually white with thousands of tiny black boxes and tiny black text criss-crossing their hulls. Of course, thought Roy, forms and spreadsheets. Should've known.
The frigates Thorough Audit, Double Entry, and Mandatory Compliance made short work of the carriers without their drone screens to protect them, and the cruisers Let's Get Fiscal, Weighed in the Balance Sheets, Nine-Tenths of the Law, Accrual Intentions, and I've Got 1099 Problems made short work of the defense stations, both mobile and immobile.
Roy didn't know exactly what a crazed T!ka!irtk looked like right before it decided to do something incredibly reckless, but whatever expression was on Rit!tkatp's face probably qualified. The main station began firing every last weapon in the IRS fleet's direction to prevent them from approaching as its long-dormant engines slowly came to life and began propelling it far enough away from the other ships to make a jump; a few foolhardy civilian ships darted out of various hangars and began angling for jump vectors so as not to end up who-knows-where in the hands of an angry mob boss, but most decided that they'd rather not risk entering the crossfire of a major fleet engagement, thank you very much.
He may have lost his fleet, many of his henchbeings, and his untouchable status, but the alien might still escape to fight another day. Roy could hear Charlie swearing up a storm over the comms at the prospect, and he felt the same way, but they were powerless to do anything about it. The Chameleons were still close enough to the station that it had but to pivot a single gun away from bombarding the other fleet to turn them to ash, so all they could do was float there and watch it inch away to freedom.
Until, that is, one last ship jumped its way into the system right in the fleeing station's path, arriving with enough force that Roy swore he could feel the gravity waves rippling through Chameleon Two. It was a dreadnought, and the writing on its bow proudly proclaimed it to be the IRS 3949-A
On screen, Rit!tkatp stared at the dreadnought for a long moment, then drooped like a wilting leaf, all of his plates opening wide in a sign of submission. The station's guns fell silent and its engines spun down before they'd even had a chance to reach full power. Roy almost felt sorry for the bastard.
Almost.
As the dreadnought and cruisers sent out boarding shuttles and his crew started talking excitedly about sending the battle recordings to everyone they know, Roy put on a mock conciliatory tone. "Hey, buddy, don't worry." The soon-to-be-ex-gangster looked up at him with his right eyes. "Sure, you might have been involved in wire fraud, embezzlement, smuggling, theft, grand theft, bribery, robbery, burglary, murder, assassination, illegal gambling, illegal prostitution, drug running, and who knows what else on top of the major tax fraud, but at least you avoided one thing."
He leaned forward and lowered his voice, and Rit!tkatp leaned in as well.
"Count yourself lucky that you never, ever committed mail fraud, because US postal inspectors...well, those fuckers don't mess around."
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