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There is an old adage that you can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies. This is not something that has ever vibed with Milkman. After all, idiocy attracts idiocy. Just look at politics, for fuck’s sake. A truly great hero would fight dangerous villains, not random people he meets in the street and assumes are actually supervillains despite all evidence to the contrary. As a point of fact, Milkman has spent more time than is possibly healthy wondering why his own personal rogues’ gallery consists of a single deranged performance artist, the former special adviser to Boris Johnson and his own social worker; yet not for one second entertaining the idea that, as the common denominator, he could be the problem. The story that follows illustrates this. For it was in The Year After The Year After The Year of The Three Prime Ministers that Milkman found himself locked in a multi-storey car park, armed with nothing but his wits, while facing a terrifying hoard of weirdness. The

With the Portuguese economy beginning to show significant signs of recovery by late 2022, the government in Lisbon turned its attention to several neglected areas. In particular, there were numerous areas of national defence that had been allowed to lapse during the Covid-19 pandemic. The two keystones of Portuguese defence policy revolved around meeting NATO and EU standing force commitments; and providing a rapid reaction force for meeting peacekeeping and multinational intervention requirements. A previous defence review in 2013 (Defesa 2020) established the existence of three sets of force: Immediate Reaction Force (FRI, Força de Reação Imediata) – a rapid action force, focused in missions such as the evacuation of Portuguese citizens in crisis or conflict areas and response in national complex emergency situations. Permanent Forces in Sovereignty Action (FPAS, Forças Permanentes em Ação de Soberania) – forces focused in the continuous missions of national sovereignty or

San Carlos Water, East Falkland, South Atlantic. 0800 local (1200 GMT), 30 June 1964. This was an idiotic idea. Nobody in their right mind could think any different, yet here they were. The previous 24 hours had seen six air raids against the British anchorage in San Carlos Water, as a mix of Argentine F-86 Sabres, F9F Panthers and Gloster Meteors tried to bomb the collection of ships there. Anybody with half a brain would realise that offloading all the men and materiel from the landing ships Bulwark, Fearless, Mounts Bay and Cardigan Bay was the priority, before getting those ships the hell out of there. So far, the mix of Sea Cat missiles and Tiger interceptors on standing patrol had proved effective and eight enemy aircraft had been shot down. The only damage so far was to the Type 12 frigate Eastbourne, which was now sporting several holes in her superstructure from 20mm cannon hits and a cracked propeller from a bomb near-miss. There was no way that could continue. Especially

Atlantean Iberia, 29,000 BCE Skechan, of the Family Mious, looked on as her comrades piled corpses onto the pyre in the valley below her. As an officer, she was pardoned such grunt work. This was fortunate, since despite their clear inferiority, the idea of piling up thousands of Morics for cremation turned her stomach. It had been a long campaign, waged across the globe by four of the five of the Great Empires. Skechan was convinced that the Hivan empire had it easy. All they had to worry about were the relatively peaceful Sovans and the island dwelling Warjets, tiny creatures that were a mockery of the human form. The Morics, that infested Atlantean lands, were bigger and stronger than humans, and it was only Atlantean cunning that won the campaign. Similar problems were encountered by the Muan and Shant armies in suppressing the Olmec and Recku populations on their lands, respectively. Only Zelan had not partaken in this necessary barbarism, as they had no subhumans to suppress in