He sat on the beach thinking about home and rescue, and he just thought of where and how he ended up here. The storm came out of nowhere and clobbered his little ship, tearing holes in the hull. He found this place on the charts and prayed he made it here. It took less than a day, but it felt like it was a lot longer. He was extremely off course and off the trade routes, so he knew the rescue teams were looking for him in the wrong place.

A few hours later, he had the antenna laced perfectly over the tree tops. He went into the shelter he made on day one and turned on the radio. Pushing the test button, he was rather amazed. A very low reflected signal is returning to the radio. This means that all of the available power from the transmitter goes out of the antenna and, hopefully, to his rescuers.

He flipped the radio to voice and picked up the mic. Tentatively, he spoke.

“This is Captain Thomas Marcel, commanding the exploration ship Marco Polo.” It felt odd to him to call it the Marco Polo, he refers to it as the Astral. Each pilot has a nickname for their ship, like a call sign but very personal. “I landed on a small moon orbiting a planet similar to Earth. My ship is damaged beyond repair, but I am well. I found food, water, and shelter. I have been here a month and a half, and I would really want to head home. I would really like to be rescued, and you would definitely be my hero. I will put this on the emergency channel on repeat in the event you can use it to home in on my location.”

Thom released the mic and waited. It may be a few seconds before he hears a response. He waited. Ten minutes passed, and he decided he needed water and headed toward the well, as he called it. A fresh water spring.

He stepped out of the hutch he created, and a few steps away, there was a voice.

“Tommy, it’s Gil. I hear you, somewhat. I have your bearing and am on my way, seven ships. We believe you are about three days from us. So, see you in a few days. We are using your signal to guide us to you.”

Thom picked up the mic, “Gil, glad to hear. See you in a few days.”

Thom began sobbing. Relief.

Over the next few days, their signal strengthened and the delay decreased.

“Tommy, I’ll be making orbit in a few hours, and a few minutes later, I will drop in on your party. Do you have strobes available I can home in on for landing?”

“I do, Gil. Already set up. It is the middle of the night here, and the landing area is the beach; you should be able to see the strobe from orbit.” He flipped on the strobe.

Roughly two hours later, Gil told him, “Tommy, I got the strobe. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Thom saw the fireball descending on a direct course to him. He knew Gil would power the ship to slow his descent and come to a soft landing inside the six strobes on the beach. He turned off the radio and covered he water container.

Looking around his home for the past six weeks, he realized there was nothing he wanted to bring home with him. Then his eye caught his carving. About the size of his fist, it was of his plane, a ship that he had flown for the past four years, exploring the great unknown.

His plane is about half a mile away, on the shore of this beach, but it is being pulled into the water inch by inch.

Picking up the carving, he made his way to the strobe area and in a short time, Gil landed. Jumping out of his plane, Gil and Thom hugged.

“Need any help loading up?”

“No, Gil. This is all I am bringing with me from here.”

Gil looked at the carving, “That is a dead ringer for your plane. I saw the Astral as I came in, sorry to hear that she gave up the ghost.”

“She may be gone, but before she gave up her life, she saved mine.”

“Well, if there is nothing else, get in, and we can head home. You’ll be on the carrier tomorrow afternoon and home a week later. As a matter of fact, we will all be home at the same time. They gave us a month off of free R&R.”

“In that case, come to my wedding. I need a best man.”

“I would be honored!”

A new VP came in and took a dislike to me as a Product Manager in a small start-up providing computer security for power stations and oil refineries, etc. He hounded me frequently. As part of my job, I made schedules for product releases, just as I had at Cisco. I was not one for bullshitting so I always made “real” schedules and not the ones that magically delivered a product when Management said it would. Instead, I went to each leader and asked how long it would take to do X and then I marked out the schedule consistently. When you summed up all the times, the date for release was faaaaaar beyond what Management had declared, making impossible promises off their cuffs without talking to anyone. Work harder, not smarter was their goal, but no matter what you do – nine women cannot make one baby in one month. Things take time and many things cannot be done concurrently. Although the engineers liked my realistic schedules, the Sales Department and Management hated them. Because telling a lie makes the problem a problem for the future but provides a “solution” for today, that they can sell. So I was often chastised for the schedule. They WANTED me to formulate a fake schedule, where “If a miracle occurs” we deliver on time. That never happens. And of course, as PM, it was always my fault when a schedule was missed and I was the one who had to call the customer and deliver the news. So I wanted a realistic schedule. They didn’t.

Eventually, they had enough. I was told that making schedules was no longer my job. In fact, no one would make schedules except the VP of Eng who only controlled the engineering portion, not the manufacturing or documentation or QA or so on. Because when he said it would take x months to make a new widget, he meant complete the prototype engineering and to Management, that was enough. Poof! As soon the proto was done, the actual product would, they seem to think, be rolling off the assembly line.

Nevertheless, I was still often asked what the “real” date was by various individuals and so I would tell them. Management had enough of the shitty truth. In the next layoff I was cut.

The cruel part was when the VP who hated me joined me in HR to ridicule and name-call me while the HR Director tried to lay out the layoff package. For example, he said, “I didn’t know your real name was John. How does it feel to be named after a toilet?” Even the HR Rep was shocked and nervous. He wanted to tell the VP to leave but of course he didn’t want to be laid off or fired. So he sat there and tried to talk over the stream of vitriol directed at me in a constant stream by the VP, who even followed us down the hall with a litany of abuse until I walked out the door.

I have a rule. If something like a layoff affects you, straighten your tie, smile, relax and tell a few jokes. Never, ever, ever let them see you sweat. Let everyone hear you laugh heartily at some joke you made. I did this the entire time the VP was railing at me, though I was dying inside. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction and when I walked out the door, I stood up straight, smiled at them both and said, “Thanks for the opportunity. Good luck in the future!” as sincerely as I could. Never, ever cry til you get home. Never give the bastards the satisfaction. Illegitimi non carborundum

That was without a doubt the cruelest thing that ever happened to me at work, all because I contradicted him on a schedule with the truth.

The Admiral’s gloved hands rested on the cold railing as the wind tugged at his long, dark overcoat trimmed with the deep blue sigil of the Nemoan Admiralty — three interlocking spirals representing the triad of Depth, Silence, and Freedom. His uniform was immaculate, but his face carried the lines of someone who had lived several lives in one.

He had once been a boy, barefoot and starving in the alleys of London’s East End — a nobody who stole bread and salted pork to keep his sister alive. The law hadn’t cared about reasons. They had branded him a thief, a conspirator, a “public danger.” He remembered the iron chains, the stink of the prison transport bound for Botany Bay, the lashings when he protested the cruelty of the guards.

When the typhoon came, he had thought it divine punishment — that the sea itself would be his gallows.

He remembered the screams of men, the thunder, the black waves swallowing the ship whole. The world had gone silent but for the roar of the storm. And then — that sound. A mechanical groan rising from the depths, like a god stirring in its sleep. A colossal shape breaching the ocean’s fury: a steel whale, its body patterned like the scales of a large reptile, its eyes glowing a spectral blue through the rain.

He remembered the divers — faceless behind glass helms — pulling him from the water. He remembered their calm voices, their precision, their utter defiance of the chaos raging around them.

That night, British convict Holt died, and the Nemoan Holt was born.

Now, decades later, he stood as Admiral of the Abyssaran Fleet, one of the three who ruled the unseen empire of the deep — the inheritors of Captain Nemo’s dream.

A dream that felt increasingly fragile.

The British Empire that once convicted men like him was no longer the monster Nemo had fought. It was now dying, exhausted by war. The French, too, were broken, their colonies trembling under new flags. Even the Americans — once a confusing dichotomy of freedom and conquest — now bled across the Pacific in the name of liberty from extinction.

The world had changed. And perhaps, Holt thought bitterly, Abyssara had not.

They still hid beneath the ice, beneath the waves, guarding their technologies and ideals while the world above tore itself apart. Nemo had sought freedom from the tyranny of nations — yet now, in their silence, were they not complicit in humanity’s suffering?

A gull cried overhead, snapping him from his thoughts. He turned slightly as the rhythmic pulse of turbines reached his ears — the deep hum of a submersible ascending through the harbor’s shaft.

His heart tightened.

From the ocean below, a column of white mist erupted as the NSS Tridentis broke the surface. The sleek black vessel shimmered under the rising sun, its curved hull glistening like wet obsidian, emblazoned with the trident insignia of the Nemoan Fleet. Its airlocks hissed and opened, sending out clouds of vapor as smaller service craft began to swarm around her.

The Admiral’s voice caught in his throat. Relief, pride, and dread intermingled in the same breath.

“Adrian…” he murmured.

The elevator platform began to rise from the dock below, carrying a handful of figures up toward the terrace where he stood. The central figure was tall and broad-shouldered, his uniform stained with seawater and oil. His eyes — gray as tempered steel — were unmistakably his mother’s.

Captain Adrian Holt, commander of the Tridentis, saluted sharply as the platform came to rest.

“Mission complete, Admiral,” he said, his voice carrying the disciplined composure of a career officer, though the exhaustion beneath it was plain. “We recovered eighty-seven survivors from Mindoro. Several wounded, but all alive.”

Edmund allowed a rare smile. “You’ve done well, Captain.”

Adrian hesitated. “There is more.”

The Admiral’s brow furrowed.

Adrian stepped forward, lowering his voice. “We were pursued. Japanese destroyers — one of them, Kagerō-class, forced us to dive deep under the Sulu Sea. They have sonar technology now — primitive, but improving. They nearly detected us.”

Edmund turned his gaze back to the sea, the joy of reunion already fading.

So it was true. The world above was catching up.

“Did they see you?”

“No,” Adrian replied. “But it was close enough that I doubt we can assume our anonymity much longer. Father… they are building machines — underwater mines, sonar, submersibles of their own. They’re learning what we’ve kept hidden for nearly a century.”

The Admiral said nothing for a long while. Only the sound of the waves filled the silence between them.

When he finally spoke, it was quietly — almost to himself.

“Captain Nemo once said, ‘The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is the vast desert where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.’”

But even as he spoke those words, Edmund Holt could feel the weight of darker tidings pressing at the edges of his mind. Only a week before, Abyssara’s intelligence branch had confirmed the impossible. Reports from covert observers on the surface told of German scientists under Hitler’s Reich, Soviet physicists in the Urals, and American engineers in the deserts of New Mexico—all racing toward the same revelation: the splitting of the atom. A power that Abyssara had mastered quietly for nearly eighty years, used only to sustain their fleets and deep cities while lighting the eternal darkness beneath the sea, was now on the brink of becoming the world’s most terrible weapon. The thought turned his stomach. What Nemo had envisioned as humankind’s emancipation from want and dependence, the surface nations would soon twist into a means of annihilation.

He looked to his son, his eyes cold but not unkind.

“I fear, Adrian, that the nations have finally reached that desert.”

————————————————————-

The journey from Naval Base Nemo — a secretive underwater base southeast of Australia — to Nautilia took less than five hours aboard the Abyssal Rail, a magnetohydrodynamic transport tube that cut through the dark beneath the southern seas. Admiral Edmund Holt had made the voyage countless times, yet each descent into the Antarctic depths still stirred something between awe and reverence within him. The temperature dropped, pressure climbed, and the light faded until only the bioluminescent glow of the tunnel’s lining marked the way.

When the capsule emerged into Nautilia’s docking chamber, the vista before him was breathtaking even to an old man of the depths.

Nautilia — the beating heart of Abyssara — sprawled across the seabed like a constellation of light beneath the black ice. Its domes gleamed in sapphire and emerald hues, tethered by colossal pylons sunk into the ocean floor. Luminescent algae flowed through conduits, illuminating thoroughfares where sleek submersibles glided past towers of coral-reinforced steel. High above, the Antarctic ice shelf formed a pale, ghostly ceiling — an eternal sky of frozen silence.

From the central dome rose the Hall of the Admiralty, its façade adorned with columns of abyssal quartz and black manganese that shimmered faintly with captured light. At its heart stood a statue of Captain Nemo — stern and commanding, cast in deep-sea alloy, one hand on his sword, the other outstretched toward the unseen world above. His eyes, twin sapphires, seemed to gaze into eternity.

Holt entered the great chamber, his footsteps echoing along the polished obsidian floor. The Admiralty Board sat in a triangular formation — a symbol of unity, mirroring the tri-spiral sigil of Abyssara. Each vertex was occupied by one of the three Admirals. To Holt’s right sat Admiral Rajendra Das, descendant of a sailor who had served aboard the Nautilus, his eyes deliberate and weighty with history. To his left sat Admiral Te Ariki Mahina, youngest of the three — a proud heir of Polynesian navigators who had guided Nemo’s expeditions. His bronze skin bore faint ancestral markings, his gaze steady as the sea itself. Behind each Admiral sat their Captain’s Board — semicircles of officers and strategists, silent but watchful.

When Holt took his place at the northern vertex, the chamber dimmed. A low hum signaled the activation of the Privacy Field, sealing the council in soundless isolation.

Admiral Das spoke first. “You summoned this council under urgency, Admiral Holt. I trust your journey north yielded more than news of your son’s success.”

“It did,” Holt said gravely. “The Tridentis returned safely with survivors from Mindoro. But the mission revealed something far greater — and far darker.”

He rose, addressing them beneath Nemo’s statue. “The surface nations have entered a new age. The Japanese Empire devours the Pacific, leaving atrocities that defy every principle Nemo built our nation upon. Cities burned, peoples enslaved in conquest’s name.”

A murmur passed through the Captain’s Boards. Holt’s tone hardened. “And now, intelligence confirms that the surface powers seek dominion over the atom. What we use for light, they would forge into fire. Germany, America, Russia — all race toward destruction.”

Admiral Mahina frowned. “You speak of nuclear power openly, Admiral. Surely the surface peoples are decades—”

“They are within years,” Holt interrupted. “Perhaps less. And when they succeed, the skies themselves will burn.”

Silence fell. Das folded his hands. “You fear they will destroy themselves.”

“I fear,” Holt said, “they will destroy us — or what we stand for. The surface already reaches into the depths with sonar and pressure hulls. If Japan discovers even a fragment of our existence, they will weaponize it.”

Mahina’s tone was cautious. “You speak as though we should intervene. That would end a century of secrecy.”

“Survival means nothing if it costs our humanity,” Holt said. “Nemo fought empires for enslaving and murdering in the name of progress. Are we any different now, watching as others commit worse horrors?”

He turned toward Nemo’s likeness. “Would he have stayed silent?”

Das answered, measured and calm. “You speak with conviction, Edmund. But Abyssara’s population is three million. Our fleets are few. To intervene is to invite destruction.”

“Perhaps,” Holt said quietly, “but to do nothing invites another kind of death — one of conscience.”

Mahina’s voice softened. “Nemo built Abyssara as sanctuary, not crusade.”

“Sanctuary becomes prison if its gates never open,” Holt replied.

For a long moment, only the ocean’s distant hum filled the silence. Then Das spoke, voice low and final. “Until this board reaches consensus, Abyssara shall remain as it always has — silent and unseen.”

Holt’s jaw tightened. “And when the madness reaches our door?”

“Then,” Das said, “we pray the sea still protects her children.”

As the privacy field faded, Holt looked once more at Nemo’s statue — the founder’s outstretched hand catching the dim blue light, as if reaching for a world forever beyond their grasp.

—————————————————————

The year was 1944. Two years had passed since that storm of conviction within the Admiralty Hall beneath the Antarctic ice. Three years since Admiral Edmund Holt’s impassioned plea — and the reluctant, fateful decision that followed. Now the war that once raged above had spilled across every current and tide, leaving even the hidden dominions of Abyssara touched by its ruin.

Many of their islands — once sanctuaries for science, art, and the preservation of knowledge — lay in ashes. Some were bombed to rubble by Japanese patrols who mistook their disguised outposts for Allied stations; others were consumed by the Allies themselves, who sought to root out phantom enemies in the Pacific. The dream of isolation was gone, shattered beneath the weight of global madness.

The NSS Nautilion drifted upon the ravaged waters of the Leyte Gulf, where the greatest battle the Pacific had ever known had only recently ended. The sea was a graveyard of giants — shattered carriers listing in the swells, their decks aflame; broken cruisers and destroyers scattered like the bones of great whales. Columns of smoke spiraled into the gray sky, mingling with the smell of oil and charred metal. The once-blue expanse was now black and red, the surface glistening with fuel slicks that caught the fading light like molten glass. Waves rolled gently over the dead — sailors from every flag — their lifeless forms carried by the same waters that had borne them into war. The air hung heavy with silence, broken only by the distant groan of sinking steel and the hiss of fire dying upon the sea.

Admiral Holt sat on the deck, the salt wind stinging his weathered face. His once-proud uniform was torn, his brass insignia dulled by smoke. Cradled in his lap lay Captain Adrian Holt, his only son, his once-fiery eyes dimmed with pain. A deep wound bled through the fabric of his naval coat, its dark stain spreading like the slow ebb of life itself. The Admiral’s hands trembled, not from fear, but from helplessness.

Adrian’s gaze wandered to the horizon, where the sun — a muted ember through the smoke — cast fractured light upon the churning sea. His voice was faint, brittle as glass.

“Father… what do you think would have happened differently… if we decided not to get involved? Or possibly more involved?”

For a moment, there was only the crackling of flames, the groan of a distant sinking ship, and the rhythmic lapping of waves against the hull. Holt drew in a slow breath, the weight of decades filling his chest before escaping as a long, weary sigh.

“There was no avoiding it, my son,” he said quietly. “Whether we stood in silence or took up arms, the storm would have found us all the same. Abyssara would have been devoured in the shadows, or burned in the light.”

He looked out across the burning waters, his eyes reflecting the fire like twin embers in a fading hearth. “Humanity… is a restless tide. It builds, it conquers, it destroys, only to rebuild again. Empires rise like waves — proud, immense, and fleeting. They crash upon the shores of their own ambition… and vanish.”

He rested a hand on Adrian’s shoulder, his voice softening, almost poetic — as though speaking to the sea itself.

“But the sea endures. Always. It remembers all, forgets nothing. It carries life in its depths and death in its silence. It was here before us… and it will remain long after we are gone. The surface burns and crumbles, but the deep… the deep endures.”

Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die in the first season of Breaking Bad.

A combination of Aaron Paul’s fantastic performance and a Writers Guild strike kept the character alive.

Here’s how it happened:

Vince Gilligan originally intended for Jesse Pinkman to be a small-time character who died at the end of the first season

The season was originally planned to have 9 episodes, but due to a Writers Guild strike, only 7 were filmed. Jesse would have died in episode 8 or 9.

Jesse’s death would be caused by Walter White, showing a moral turning point where he truly crosses the line for the first time. After watching Aaron Paul’s performance and chemistry with Bryan Cranston, Vince Gilligan knew he couldn’t kill Jesse off.

The original plan was to kill Jesse by the end of season one. But by the second episode, I realised I’d be a complete idiot to kill him. – Vince Gilligan

Instead, Jesse and Walter’s relationship became the key dynamic of the show, and Walter’s true turning point was Jane’s death at the end of season 2. Throughout the show, Walter gets darker and more corrupted, but Jesse’s conscience remains, and by the end of the show, he’s clearly the better man, and a victim of Walter’s manipulation and cruelty.

If anyone else played Jesse Pinkman, the character would’ve died off early, and we would’ve missed out on an iconic TV duo.

Harissa

This sauce goes well with Spicy Moroccan Cigars.

Ingredients

• 12 dried chile peppers
• 4 garlic cloves minced
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cumin

Instructions

1. Seed and slice peppers, place in a bowl with warm water for 30 minutes.
2. Drain and squeeze out moisture.
3. Toss all ingredients into a blender and whirl until smooth.