“Good morning, North America!” A fetching young woman said as she sat behind her news desk. “I hope you are having a wonderful day so far!”

“Velut Luna!” her co-anchor, an elderly man, exclaimed as he raised his metal fist.

“In the news today,” the woman said with a little smirk, “A demonstration and display of force by the True Terran National Front in New Pitt has been… disrupted.”

A hologram depicting scattered bodies, limbs, and viscera appeared behind her.

“The Republic, First Nations, and the Pennsylvania Regional Authority would like to remind all citizens that the use of indirect fire weapons, or any artillery for that matter, is illegal in the greater New Pitt area as well as all municipal zones in the Republic, no matter how accurate you may be or how little collateral damage is inflicted.”

“Yeah,” the old man said, “What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned drive-by? You kids have no respect for tradition.”

“Oh, Trey,” the pretty young woman laughed. “It isn’t the Sol Wars anymore. You can’t just pop a cap in someone’s ass because you don’t like their opinions, no matter how annoying.”

Trey rolled his eyes.

“Still,” the woman said, “you do have to admire that mortar work. That hit was clean… Still, you really shouldn’t be firing mortars inside a city.”

She smiled at the camera.

“The Republic is requesting any information related to this incident,” she smiled. “However, I would like to remind our viewers that snitches get stitches.”

“Well put, Tara,” Trey said approvingly, “The only worse than a True Terran or a mad bomber is a fucking rat… However, we are required to inform the entire truth, and this time it just happens to include a request from the Republic for a fine upstanding Terran to rat out someone who was just taking out the trash… Just don’t use a mortar next time.”

“Now Trey,” Tara laughed, “We can’t condone such terrible acts,” she grinned, “It would be wrong.”

“Of course, Tara,” Trey chuckled, “We aren’t condoning anything. We are just reporting the news… Holy shit!” he exclaimed as a holo of the incident played. “Did you see that one guy? What was in that thing?”

“It looks like hyper-x,” Tara mused. “Perky!” she called out, “What do your eyes see?”

“Got it in one,” a synthetic voice chirped as a floating holographic young man said as he appeared, “AI analysis of the wavelength of the light emitted from the blast indicates that hyper-x was the filler with a little magnesium added in, a good old fashioned thermobaric clam bake. And Trey was complaining about not respecting traditions. You know all about clam bakes, don’t you, Trey?”

“I love those things!” Trey said, “They ripped apart wigglies even better than fascists!”

“I’m sitting right here!” the Juona weatherperson yelled from offscreen to the laughter of the crew. “I hated those!”

“You ran into some of those, did you, you old wiggly bitch?” Trey laughed.

“Yeah, I did, you fucking traitor!” the Juona exclaimed as the camera switched over to her. “I was with the 5234th Mechanized Infantry back then. Empress, I hated those things...”

The Juona chuckled.

“Nice to see one of those old things used again… on someone else. Hey, Perky, does it look new, or is it an old one?”

“Hard to tell from the footage… Wait! It is a legacy round!” Perky the AI exclaimed. “It looks like terminal guidance was provided by a very noisy Old Earth thruster, probably from a toy or something. Looks like an OG pulled up the floorboards again.”

“Explains the accuracy, too,” the Juon mused. “They put in exactly the right spot… This reminds me. I have some vacation days built up, and if you assholes are starting to lob clam bakes around, it’s time for me to go on that pilgrimage to the Imperial palace I’ve been meaning to take.”

“Sounds lovely!” Tara exclaimed. “Bring back some souvenirs!”

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“Certainly,” the Juon weatherperson replied, “Oh, and aside from the occasional mortar round, the weather looks great.”

“Wonderful!” Tara exclaimed, “Looks like perfect weather for you True Terrans to gather in one convenient place a few hundred meters from anything important and exercise your freedom of speech.”

“Yeah,” Trey snerked, “Don’t let them take away your rights! Get on back out there… Unless you want people to think you’re pussies.”

“The station would like to request that if any ‘noble’ True Terrans do plan on a response to please let us know,” Tara said with a pleasant smile, “I have a new culling rifle I need to sight in.”

“Oh?” Trey asked. “What did you get?”

“A Diana thirty ‘aught six.”

“Nice!” Trey enthused, “How did you manage to get your hands on one of those?”

“Estate sale, if you can believe it.”

“Sweet!” Trey replied approvingly. “The thirty ‘aught six is one of my favorites.”

“Of course, it would be, you old fuck,” the Juona weatherperson said from off-screen. “It’s as obsolete as you are!”

“If you start about the Harbingers again, Vk-Teth, I will rip out your beak and put it on the shelf with all of the other ones.”

“You are cordially invited to try, rebel scum,” the Juona laughed. “At least interview that cute little xeno before you finally meet the Empress’s justice.”

“Get a room, you guys,” Tara said with a musical laugh as she rose and walked to another part of the set where Neeph fidgeted nervously in front of her charcoal brazier.

“Something smells good,” Trey said as he followed.

Neeph squeaked nervously.

“Thanks!” she said (also nervously).

“Neeph here hails from the Miami Free Port area where she is fast making a name for herself and her… What do you call these again?”

“My people call them ixeeeeeaiii,” Neeph replied, “But everyone calls them dumplings, which is what they are.”

“Well, they smell heavenly!” Tara said.

“(monch) They taste heavenly, too!” Trey said as he chewed happily.

“(nibble) Oh my God,” Tara said as her eyes sparkled with delight. “These are amazing!”

“Thanks!” Neeph replied, a bit more sure of herself. “You had a mealworm one, and you had a cockroach special with poppyseed!”

“This was roaches?” Tara asked, both impressed and horrified.

“Lemme try one of those… (monch)… Holy shit!” Trey exclaimed.

“And you are going to make a few for us?” Tara asked, “I’m surprised you would reveal your secret recipe.”

“Oh, it’s no secret,” Neeph giggled, “You just put some stuff in some other stuff and put it on the fire! Here! I’ll show you…”

***

After Neeph’s demonstration. Tara looked indulgently at Trey, who was happily stuffing his face.

“If you want to try some of Neeph’s dumplings yourself,” she said, “Neeph and her food cart can be found at the Miami Free Port just outside a… um… place called The Drop of Oil.”

“Right next to the coffee shop!” Neeph exclaimed, “Charlotte looks scary, but she’s really nice, and the coffee is good!”

Neeph beamed at the camera.

“Just look for the giant Sheloran!”

“Sheloran?” Trey said from around a mouthful of cockroach dumpling. “Is that (monch) that blue frog thing?”

“Uh, Huh!” Neeph said. “I’ve never met her, though. They say she’s real nice!”

“So we’ve seen,” Trey grinned.

“She really is!” Neeph insisted, “It’s because she is so nice that all that… stuff happened. They say that she really doesn’t like bullies very much.”

“She sure doesn’t!” Tara laughed with that musical laugh that made her loved by millions, “But we aren’t here to grill her about Sheloran. We’re here to let her grill some of her delicious dumplings!”

Tara beamed at the camera for a moment before smiling angelically at Neeph.

“Tell our friends out there where to get these,” she smiled. “You say you have a food cart?”

“Oh yes!” Neeph replied happily, “It’s green and has flowers and bugs on it and…”

Tara smiled happily while Trey shoved dumpling after dumpling into his face, making orgasmic noises.

That little… caterpillar(?)… couldn’t be more photogenic if it tried, and its enthusiasm and happiness when describing its food cart in detail was infectious.

This was great holovid, and the data scrolling across her vision only confirmed it.

“So, Neeph,” she said with an innocent smile. “You are set up next to the Drop of Oil?”

“Yep! We just call it The Drop, though.”

“That’s a xeno brothel, right? I bet things get pretty interesting over there.”

“It gets crazy!” Neeph exclaimed as she turned the next batch of dumplings as Trey gazed at them lovingly, the program forgotten. “I used to work there and there was always…”

“You worked there?” Tara asked, truly shocked (which took some doing). “Were you a… a…”

“A prostitute?” Neeph said with a wiggle of her feet, “Sort of. I wasn’t very good at it, though. I was getting better but then I started making dumplings and Craxina, she’s the boss, said that I should do that, at least on the side, so I did! Craxina is so smart!”

“Oh you have to have some great stories!”

“Oh, do I!” Neeph exclaimed, “There was this one guy…”

Poor Trey almost needed medical intervention a moment later. Swallowing dumplings while laughing your ass off is nearly impossible.

Tara wasn’t in much better shape, as the entire studio was in stitches. Vk-Teth, the Juona “weather girl,” lost complete control of her chromophores and her grip and fell from her stool, a kaleidoscope of colors washing over her body (also caught by the cameraman desperately trying, between guffaws, to capture the chaos).

As Tara was reluctantly about to go to commercial, Neeph started talking about The Battle of Free Port.

Keep it rolling! Flashed across her feed, a message from the producer. The advertisers will understand, or they won’t. Fuck them. I have to hear what happens next before this little gal regains their senses. Also, find out what the HELL she did at that brothel because dammed if any of us can figure it out. And tell Trey to leave at least a few of those dumplings for us! The smell is driving all of us crazy!

Tara grinned and kept feeding the chaos as Trey kept feeding his face. They were going to go viral!