St. Remedius Radio: “He Walked Around The Dropships”

Introducing Major Piper, St. Remedius Chief of Security

(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)

Every educational institution needs a security force to enforce order or at least keep chaos to a dull roar. Because of its distinctive needs, St. Remedius Medical College needed a distinctive security force. At the center, organizing the handling of parking citations, escorting dignitaries across the campus, or ordering maintenance schedules on the College’s Kirby Suits, sat Major Piper, the definitive Head of Security for St. Remedius. Year after year, students and faculty started the new school year with his standing just outside the front gates, greeting or at least making eye contact with everyone coming in, watching for new or at least long-missed faces, and generally surveying his domain. St. Remedius Security was a law enforcement organization: for activities outside of the campus, it deferred to federal and state laws, city ordinances, innumerable embassy treaties, and the occasional dictate from the Wolfram Tor. On the campus, though, its authority was second only to that of the Colonel and his staff, and Major Piper liked nothing more than a campus at a dull roar.

As for how Major Piper earned his authority, that was obvious every time he donned a Kirby Suit to wrangle recalcitrant kaiju trying to cut through Dallas on the way to their breeding grounds in Galveston or he slapped leather to stop Beast Culture drunks from running amok in the dorms. As he related whenever anyone asked him about his aptitude with rifles, pistols, knives, and the occasional macuahuitl (proudly received as thanks for special assistance to the Alianza Aztlan), he had been a soldier nearly all of his life, chuckling “this time” before going into detail about his last tour of duty with the 119th Triphibious Cavalry Battalion halfway across the galaxy, “I think in 2371”. It was in a police action on a little world called Merry, where he was conducting a surprise inspection of troop dropships awaiting word that they would be returning to orbit and their parent vessels to take them back to Earth, that a thermonuclear shell managed to slide through ballistics screens and detonated almost in front of his feet. A brilliant flash, a second of sensory overload well beyond any understanding of pain, and he found himself standing in what he thought was a 21st Century reclamation park, stunned but alive and intact, breathing real air and hearing noises not heard on Earth in centuries. Just before him was the St. Remedius front gate, which he remembered from annual training and education updates while locked in dropship hibernation, walked inside, went to the Student Union, and asked the only 21st Century English patois he knew besides “!Mas cerveza!”: “Are you hiring?”

As with everyone else in St. Remedius Security, Major Piper resided on campus, and could often be found off-duty in civilian clothes under a tree outside his apartment, with a big pile of paper and a pen, writing and revising. “I’ve gone through this before,” he’d chuckle to anyone who asked what he was working on, before making mentions of military action against the Hesh Naz three billion years in the future and skirmishes with the Hittites in the past. “I’ve been all over.” He’d then go back to writing, telling the inquisitor “I’ve written the stories before, but I have to get them updated. I mean, nobody’s going to take seriously a spaceship named Enterprise, or Rocinante, for that matter.” He’d pull on his handlebar moustache, his only concession to fashion, before going back to his notes. “Last four times I did this, talking about a Federation or a Galactic Empire didn’t get me laughed at. Damn 21st Century.” He always promised to let people read these stories when he was finished, but after the disappearance of St. Remedius, all of his drafts and notes disappeared with him. People had so much to learn.

And while you’re at it, the request lines are now open, complete with playlist.

Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.

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