STAR BLAZERS: A VOYAGE TO REMEMBER

A fanfic recapitulation of Series One “The Quest for Iscandar” by

Frederick P. Kopetz

EPISODE TWO: GIRL

May 8, 2199

Near Mars, the mysterious vessel had reached the general vicinity of the dry, dead, and cold planet.

There were remnants of a prior Earth Colony on Mars; a colony which had been destroyed years ago in a local interplanetary war between Earth and its Mars colony, which was trying to secede, according to Earth, and which was seeking independence, according to the surviving Mars Colonists.

The alien vessel flew past the remains of those domed cities as she flew towards the North Polar Cap Region.

Lower in the atmosphere, the pilot of the alien vessel saw that there was no hope that the entire vessel could be guided to a safe landing, so a life pod was ejected from the main ship, which crashed in a fiery mess a moment later; with the escape capsule landing nearby.

On Mars, the alien bird’s crash was felt over much of the North Polar region as a ground tremor, including a heavy quake which shook throughout Mars Monitor Station Bravo.

Station Bravo currently had a crew of two new Ensigns, who stumbled to the deck in an undignified mess of arms and legs when the tremor hit.

The Ensigns were two young males who were twenty but on the edge of twenty-one. Both of them had some Japanese descent.

The first Ensign was of Japanese-American-Peruvian descent, and his carved Roman nose nearly hit the deck when he stumbled in his blue and grey spacesuit. “What was that?” he yelled as he kept his face from slamming into the deck with his hands. He was the younger of the two males, and he had short black hair that tended to be curly, with bright eyes and heavy eyebrows. His name was Mark Venture; his family had originally come from upstate New York in the United States, but business had drawn his parents to move to Honshu, Japan before he was ten. His skin had a slightly olive cast; he had been born on August 15, 2178.

“What’s going on, damnit?” yelled his partner and friend, an Ensign of Japanese-American descent whom Venture suspected also may have had a little Native American in his ancestral mix, since he had the interesting but unlikely name of Derek Wildstar, with a birthdate of July 7, 2178. Derek had been born in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, but the career of his family had also brought him to Honshu, or “Great Island” Japan not that far from Yokohama in his childhood. It would turn out there were other factors in Wildstar’s ancestry that were as of yet, unknown. Wildstar had a paler complexion than Venture, but his Japanese ancestry was more obvious in his “deranged matinee-idol features” as Venture described Derek’s tougher, more roguish-looking face, with its burning brown eyes, and wild mop of chestnut brown hair that went everywhere and sometimes hung slightly in his eyes.

“Instruments say we got hit by something, Derek,” said Venture as he looked at a readout near a set of meters.

“Yeah? Really?” retorted Wildstar, who was always up for a verbal fight. Mark had a calm, easy-going personality, while Derek’s personality was definitely not easy-going. Ensign Derek Wildstar was the classic Angry Young Man, filled with a visceral hatred for the Gamilons. Mark knew why, of course. One couldn’t be cooped up in a small station with a guy and not learn a lot about him, including the story of how a former girlfriend had done him dirty about a year and a half ago.

However, that was not relevant to our current story since an anonymous voice over the comm speaker said, “Orders to Mars Special Missions Monitor Station Bravo, check out unidentified spacecraft landing near your base!”

“Oh, that’s it!” said Derek as he grabbed a spacesuit helmet. “There’s a battle going on near Pluto; one of the ships must have crash-landed here on Mars…Here!”

Mark caught the spacesuit helmet that Derek threw at him and said, “Thanks! But I think we’re too far away from Pluto for that to happen!”

The two young men ran towards a small hangar, where a Type 100 Recon spaceplane, adapted with skis for Mars’ frozen surface, blasted out of the hangar after Derek did a cursory pre-flight check on the ship. Both Derek and Mark, like all recent EDF Cadets, had flight certification, but Mark usually let Derek fly their bird because he was obviously the better pilot; even if he was, well, a bit wild. Literally.

Mark was sitting in the back of the recon plane taking scans while Derek made his usual demented high-G takeoff.

First, they circled the wreck of the alien ship, which was still smoking.

The ship was of a strange design, and it was primarily of a golden color, with strange black and tan markings on her hull that neither of them had ever seen before.

“Hey, Venture!” Derek snapped. “Have a look! That thing’s not Gamilon and it’s not ours! It’s got to be from some unknown planet!”

Derek flew a tight circle around the alien wreck, and then he said, “Let’s land; we can’t see anything from here!”

“Take it EASY, Wildstar!” Mark said as Wildstar brought their plane to a skidding landing on the carbon dioxide ice-pack near another gold and black object stuck almost upwards in the frozen surface.

What is that? Mark thought. An escape pod, maybe? Maybe the pilot survived the crash?

The two young men popped the cockpit, and, securely protected in their spacesuits and white and green helmets, they walked over the ice towards the structure.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before…I wonder where it’s from?” Venture said.

“Beats me,” replied Derek. “It can’t be from Brooklyn.”

“Why not?” grunted Venture. Derek had a habit of razzing him about some of his relatives, who did come from Brooklyn.

“There’s no graffiti painted on it,” quipped Derek.

“Oh, grow up!” snapped Mark.

“Serious observation, Mark…I don’t recognize the markings on it. There’s no insignia!”

“There’s no identification at all!” said Venture as he looked over what had to be an escape pod; it had a hatch that was propped open. “Hmmm…what’s this?” he said as he picked a swatch of cloth off the edge of the hatch. It was a small bit of fabric, purple, with a rich reddish cast in it. It looked silken and delicate…a bit out of place around the mechanical escape pod.

“Hey, Venture…look over here!” called Wildstar as he pointed at something.

Derek and Mark looked in the snow. There was a trail of footprints in the snow. It looked as if there were small, left by a woman’s slippers. One of the slippers lay abandoned on a hillock of snow, where the footprints changed to one shod footprint and one bare footprint for maybe three or four steps…before they stopped.

Lying on the ice was a slender, delicate woman who looked like a regal Hummel-figurine princess or queen. Her long gown was of the same design and color as the fabric swatch Venture held, and the young woman’s trim figure was draped in long, dark golden locks the color of new summer honey on Earth before it had been ruined. Her eyes were closed in a dignified fashion underneath lush dark eyelashes surmounted with fine eyebrows; and the rest of the face was equally delicate; her skin was like fine porcelain, and her nose was long and somehow aristocratic with a cute little pert flip up at the tip.

“I wonder where she came from?” said Derek as he gently picked up her frail form; she was limp, and a bit of her neckline showed as Derek lifted her up. He could feel some slight bodily warmth through his spacesuit glove, but there was no reaction from the girl at all. “Mark, is she…dead…?”

Venture had gotten a life-sign scanner out of his pouch and scanned the girl’s limp form. “I think so…no life signs I can pick up…must’ve either frozen or suffocated. She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she was,” sighed Derek as he picked up what he now knew to be the corpse of this girl to check her for personal effects.

An object, covered in crystalline material of some sort, fell from her limp hand and clattered on the ice.

“What the heck is that?” said Mark.

“It must have been very important to her; she had a death-grip on it,” Derek said as he looked at the strange object before Mark picked it up. Something that looked like a few lights flashed on and off in its surface behind the crystal as Venture examined it.

Who is she…where is she from? Mark thought. She must be from some unknown planet.

Derek looked at the dead woman again. He was transfixed by her willowy build, and baby-fine luxurious honey-blonde hair.

Derek’s eyebrow went up as he saw that the dead girl was wearing a small necklace on a fine chain; the chain looked like gold, but the tiny pendant looked like an intricate Celtic-style cross of some silvery metal, trimmed in gold.

Why would some alien Queen be wearing a cross? Derek thought to himself as he again looked at that beautiful face, eyes closed in sleep Until That Day, as he had been taught by the nuns in the orphanage which he had spent some time in after his parents…had been killed in the bombings. Derek pondered her face, spellbound, as he again thought, I wonder what she was like when she was alive? What color eyes did she have? What did her voice sound like? Did she laugh? Did she know how to dance? Did she have a boyfriend?

A strange chill went down Derek’s spine at that final thought…and he didn’t know why. Wildstar, you always strike out with women, so you’d never know, probably. What good does it do, anyway? She’s dead. Who she is…is a mystery…I wonder…what did her voice sound like?

Then, a thought from Derek’s recent past hit him.

It was a basketball game; it was the Space Fighters’ Training School versus a civilian college from around the underground city of New Denver, Colorado. He and Venture had been at that game, and Derek had been struck for a moment by the Colorado cheerleading squad as they danced in their white, black, and gold minidresses. They were dancing and singing to a song, and there was a guitar break.

Derek only saw the “enemy squad” cheerleaders from the back, but one of them seemed to have honey-blond hair of the same color as the dead woman here. All he could hear of her singing was a beautiful, wordless harmony part, with a gentle, powerful, and totally mesmerizing contralto (??) voice, that sounded forlorn, lonely, and somehow magical….

Derek looked at this dead woman, and thought, offhandedly, maybe this woman had that same mellow and magical voice? I would have loved to hear this woman sing…but that’ll never happen now. She’s dead. And we need whatever she was carrying…for evidence, I guess.

Derek then thought, I’m so sorry, Miss…whoever you are…but you’re going to end up on an autopsy table eventually. I’ll try to be gentle with you. I swear it. I wonder. They say every person who has ever lived has a twin somewhere in the Universe. I wonder what your twin looks like?

Unknown to Ensign Derek Wildstar, the alien messenger had a twin, who was on Earth, quite alive and well, in the Physics Section of Headquarters.

The twin of the alien girl was hunched over two computer monitors at her post, and her fine fingers flew over the keyboard as she pushed one of her honey-blonde locks out of her dark brown eyes. We met her in the previous chapter; she was the aforementioned Ensign Nova Forrester.

Nova was a little older than Wildstar and Venture; having just turned twenty-one three months ago; birthdate, February 2, 2178. Her fine honey-blonde hair was in a shoulder-length shag cut, and she wore a white EDF Junior Officer’s uniform top and skirt in white, with a brown jacket and white ascot over it. Her features were just as fine as those on the alien messenger, probably due to her own Japanese/American/French ancestry, having been born in Boulder, Colorado…and, there were also factors unknown to her in her own ancestry that were…interesting. One of her white-booted feet tapped a little with nervous tension as she scanned again. “I hate to say this, Steve, but this telemetry is a mess. Have a look. This can’t be!” Nova said as she locked her dark brown eyes on the computer data before her.

A somewhat older man, maybe twenty-seven years of age, clad in a dark green EDF uniform with a white ascot, leaned over Forrester’s shoulder and muttered “Hmmm…if you’re right, and if the equipment is right, we’re down to three ships out there: the Kirishima, the missile ship Paladin, and the cruiser Northampton. I really hope the Paladin makes it. Nice job on the telemetry analysis, Nova. Now the student shows her teacher what she can do, eh?”

“I guess so,” Nova said with could only be described as a girlish blush. “Doctor Sandor,” she said as she addressed the physics genius who had been her professor in at three of her formal classes in the past, “what’s your connection to the Paladin?”

The stern-looking officer, recently promoted to Lieutenant Commander, never stood on ceremony with this girl, who was one of his prime students, as he said, “I have a friend out there on the Paladin, Nova. A very close friend. I really don’t want to talk about it until the battle’s over. You need more coffee? How long have you been on watch?”

“Nine hours,” Nova said with a yawn. “I only got up from here to go powder my nose before. Could you get me some coffee, please? You know how I like it!”

“Black and strong enough to melt the spoon?” laughed Sandor.

Nova nodded. “I wonder where our robot friend is tonight?”

“Probably on duty in the Hospital Wing,” said Stephen Sandor as he brought Nova her coffee.

“Where I have to serve a watch later on…” Nova said as her seatmate came back from “powdering her nose.” Nova found her co-worker, Senior Lieutenant Kaoru Niimi, to be just a little strange…a good friend at times, but strange, distant and almost obnoxious at other times. Niimi had dark blue hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and an observant but somewhat cold manner. Her skills were in intelligence, analysis of enemy transmissions and technology, and counseling, since she held a PhD in psychology. Her uniform was a dark blue jacket and skirt, with a trim necktie, and black pumps. She was five years older than Nova, and obviously knew Sandor quite well from some time in the past.

“I like you. You complain a little, but you do your job anyway, Forrester; not like some of the other goofballs in this unit,” said Niimi.

“Like Henson?” Nova whispered.

“Affirmative, Yuki-chan,” Niimi said a little ironically, referring to Nova by one of her two middle names. Niimi herself found Nova to be a good junior officer but sometimes a bit too chirpy for her tastes.

“That Diane. She’s been gone for the past forty minutes, and I’ve been running her inputs as well as mine,” Nova said.

“Emmmm…uhhh…,” Kaoru nodded with a knowing smile.  Then, she looked at her screen and then at Nova’s. “What’s with this damned telemetry?”

“They’re taking a beating out there,” Sandor said.

“Lovely,” Niimi said in a sarcastic voice. Nova was keeping her mouth shut, concentrating on tracking her targets.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” sighed Sandor. “Niimi, any more communications from the enemy?”

“None,” she said. “They’ve been keeping quiet; except for shooting at our forces.”

“The telemetry from the Northampton’s getting weak,” Nova said. “Sir, this does not look good for the mission.”

“No…it sure doesn’t,” sighed Steve.

The Kirishima took more hits after the Gamilons surrounded the fleet.

Another crewman was sucked out into space, grabbing for the airtight hatch before it closed.

A Gamilon destroyer hit the Northampton with a withering blast of fire and blew her apart.

In the meantime, another destroyer was making a death-dive straight for the Kirishima.

However, another ship was locking its sights onto the same destroyer.

“Locking on target,” said a crewman.

“Missiles ready!” snapped the weapons officer.

“Go for it, Adam!” snapped the vessel’s young Captain.

The missile destroyer, the Paladin, fired her heat-seeking missiles, which followed the Gamilon destroyer’s engine heat as the enemy ship tried to evade.

“Comm, lock me in to the flagship,” said the Captain.

“Yessir,” he replied.

The Captain of the Paladin then said, “This is Missile Ship 17, Paladin, Captain Alex Wildstar reporting! Destroyed one Gamilon destroyer; tracking a second!”

“Message sent, Kirishima acknowledging with signal lights,” said the crewman. “They’re reporting, Comm systems damaged. Should be back up shortly.”

“Kirishima? That’s Admiral Avatar’s flagship! She’s badly damaged!” said Alex. “Any other vessels in the area?”

“Negative, sir,” said Wildstar’s helmsman.

“Lock on course with the flagship,” ordered Wildstar.

Aboard the Kirishima, Avatar looked out at the Earth Defense Fleet, which, after less than an hour, was mostly wreckage.

We went out here, and they handed our tails to us on a silver platter, Avatar thought miserably. I must admit this mission…has failed…

“How many ships do we have left now?” asked Avatar.

“Only our flagship, and one missile ship.”

“Which one?”

“Number Seventeen; Wildstar’s ship.”

Avatar took a deep breath; he was in pain from his wound. “I see…this is enough; we’re going home!”

“Captain, are we retreating?” asked Eager.

“We’ve done all we can; there’ll be other battles to fight,” Avatar replied. “Connect me to the Paladin.”

 “Wildstar?” said Avatar. “Do you hear me? Follow me. We’re heading home.”

“Yessir, I’ll bring up the rear,” said Alex over the Kirishima’s bridge speakers. “You’re unprotected now; see you later.”

“Wildstar, I don’t need or want your protection, but Planet Earth does!” Avatar barked. “This is a direct order that I expect you to obey!”

Wildstar retorted with, “It’s just a simple matter of mathematics, Captain. There are four hundred and seventy men in your flagship; there are twenty men in my ship. You’ll get back…we’ll see to it!”

“Wildstar, it’s an ORDER!” barked Avatar.

“One-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn completed, Captain!” said Eager.

“Captain, Wildstar isn’t following us!” snapped another officer on Kirishima’s bridge.

Alex, you are probably taking my son Adam to his death, too, Avatar thought. He’s your XO.

“WILDSTAR!” snapped Avatar.

 “Can’t talk now, Captain…there’s a bunch of Gamilons coming at us,” Alex said. “I’ll keep them away from the flagship and see you back on Earth….”

“Good luck, Captain Alex Wildstar,” said Avatar.

A moment later, Avatar and the crew on the Kirishima watched as the Paladin drew the fire of the enemy in a last, ultimately futile fight that drew all of the Gamilons to swarm his ship and attack it, allowing the Kirishima to escape.

“Wildstar!” snapped Avatar as he saw the burning Paladin retreating off into the distance with Alex saluting him as he went off to his destiny.

Avatar returned the salute as the Paladin retreated so far into the distance that she could be seen no more. Then, there was an explosion…and she was gone.

Goodbye, Wildstar, Avatar thought as tears ran down his cheeks. Goodbye, Adam. May God Bless and Protect you both…

The battered, smoking Kirishima sailed on in near-silence as Pluto shrank to a dot on their viewscreen.

They had lost.

Now, what hope was there for the people of Earth?

TWELVE HOURS LATER…

May 9, 2199

Underground Tokyo Megalopolis Earth Time…

It was 0200 Hours on the next day, 9 May, when Derek Wildstar and Mark Venture received new orders from Earth.

“Secure the Mars observatory and return to Earth in the Kirishima, which is heading towards your location.”

Derek Wildstar looked at the message capsule in his hand. They had secured Astra’s body in their plane’s cargo bay earlier.

Venture replied, “We’re all ready to go, sir.”

The comm signal from Earth continued, “Captain Avatar’s ship will be in orbit of Mars in three hours. He’s expecting you. When you return, deliver your information on the unknown ship to the office of the Defense Forces Commander.”

Time passed.

The Kirishima arrived.

One of Avatar’s officers stated, “The Mars search boat is approaching.”

“Reception airlock open,” Avatar replied.

The recon plane from Mars came in for a landing as Derek Wildstar looked around outside. “Hey, Mark…this is strange. We’re the only ship here. My brother Alex’s ship should be here with the fleet. I wonder what happened?”

“Beats me,” Venture replied.

They made their landing. They left the ship, and two medics came to take the body of Astra. Her remains would be taken back to Earth to be autopsied.

A few hours later, the Kirishima made her landing on the ruined, dead Earth in an underground space dock.

Wildstar and Venture left the ship, wearing the regular duty uniforms they had been assigned to wear as Special Operations officers. They were white: Derek’s had a red arrow and insignia, and Mark’s had a green arrow and insignia; Derek had been assigned as a Tactical/Combat officer and pilot, and Mark had been assigned as a Navigation officer.

“It’s hard to believe how ruined Earth is,” said Wildstar as he looked around. “This whole area used to be a beautiful lake.”

He and Venture boarded an elevator tube which began to take them into the lower, habitable levels of the underground city complex of New Tokyo and its adjoining military bases.

Venture looked at a radiation indicator in the elevator tube as they descended.

“In the short time that we’ve been on Mars, Radiation from the planet bombs has seeped deeper into Earth. At that rate, in a year’s time, Earth will be unlivable, even underground.”

Mark looked at his friend’s crestfallen face. He had known Derek ever since they had been classmates and roommates at the Space Fighters’ Training School. They had been in class together, endured hundreds of inspections and military exercises, and they knew each other well. Mark looked sympathetically at Derek and added, “About your brother Alex…I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” sighed Wildstar as the elevator reached its destination, thousands of meters below the Earth’s surface.

They got out and walked down one of the many anonymous-looking corridors of the underground base.

Derek spotted the back of Admiral Avatar’s black and red Naval peacoat as they went down the passage, and he took this as an opportunity to introduce himself. “Admiral Avatar, sir, I am Ensign Derek Wildstar!”

“Then you’re…?”

“Alex’s younger brother.”

Avatar was expecting this, and he sighed, both due to the pain in his damaged and broken arm, which was in a sling, and from depression. “I see.” Avatar took a deep breath, and he said, “Your brother stayed behind to fight a delaying action against the Gamilon Fleet. If he hadn’t stayed behind to fight, we wouldn’t have been able to get back to Earth. His status is missing, presumed…”

“YOU LEFT HIM BEHIND!” snapped Derek in sadness and rage as tears filled his eyes.

“He chose to stay,” sighed Avatar.

“He was under your command, sir!” snapped Derek. “You could have ordered him back!”

“…He didn’t listen to my orders,” sighed Avatar. “I’m truly sorry, Ensign Wildstar.”

At that, he left. He needed to get to the Medical Wing to have his arm tended to ASAP.

Mark tried to comfort Derek by saying, “What your brother did was very brave. He saved the lives of many men.”

Derek didn’t reply. He just stood there and let the tears run from his eyes.

A few minutes later, when Derek and Mark were in an aircar going through the city’s complex Tube system to EDF HQ, Mark said, “I heard Captain Avatar’s own son was badly wounded in that battle near Pluto.”

“Wounded or not, at least he made it back home…but, Alex?”

Mark decided not to talk anymore as they sped towards Headquarters.

When they arrived at Headquarters, Derek and Mark handed the message capsule found on Mars to the EDF Commander, General Charles Hiram Singleton. Derek didn’t know it, but Singleton would remain the EDF Commander for the next thirty-two or so years, until a great tragedy happened in the future that Derek, Mark, and other people they had yet to meet would be involved in.

Singleton didn’t know it, but the long-haired, slightly nervous Ensign he was looking hard in the eye would someday be his successor as EDF Commander.   

“So…this is the message capsule you found on Mars?”

“Yessir,” said Derek.

“Good work, you two. We’ll analyze this capsule and let you know about our findings later. In the meantime, you will report all of your intelligence about the alien vessel to the Inter-Space Committee. For now, you two will be given orders to serve at the New Kure Naval Station underground. We may use you for other assignments later.”

“Yessir,” Derek and Mark said as they saluted the Commander.

About a half hour after their bitter meeting with Admiral Avatar, and about five minutes after meeting with the EDF Commander, Ensign Derek Wildstar’s life was about to be changed; irrevocably and forever.

Well, so would Mark Venture’s life, but he would not be hit quite to the same degree as Derek.

As they would report years later, Derek would say, “Okay. We were lost. Two dweeb Ensigns, who didn’t quite know where we were or where we were going in that anonymous corridor in the underground city of New Tokyo Base. We were totally lost.”

“I mean,” Mark Venture also reported, “We were so lost that we didn’t even have an idea where the nearest head was, for Heaven’s sakes. We were never down here on this level before…”

Then, Derek Wildstar and Mark Venture almost ran into a nurse, who just stopped to look at them.

If it was any other nurse, they would have nodded, passed her by, maybe saluted if they saw she outranked them.

They had no idea of this nurse’s rank, because she wasn’t wearing a rank pin or epaulets.

She had on a simple marigold-colored nurse’s smock, trimmed in black, red cross on one breast, with matching marigold-colored rubber nurse’s clogs on her feet.

She was slender, with a willowy build, legs that seemed to go on forever, and…

She looked exactly like a living image of the dead woman they had found on Mars.

The dead woman’s image flashed in Derek’s and Mark’s minds as they compared the memory of the messenger’s corpse to this…obviously alive young woman.

Alive, but was she…a ghost?

This young woman had the same long, almost regal nose, with the same little pert flip up at the end.

Her hair was in a short, currently fashionable shoulder-length shag cut, but it was fine and the same color of new honey as the dead messenger’s hair.

She had the same lush eyelashes, but her dark brown, thoughtful eyes were (obviously) open.

Her eyes glittered with intelligence, and maybe a little bit of embarrassment as she gracefully walked past Derek and Mark in silence, apparently lost in deep thought.

She glanced wordlessly at Derek, and he was shocked inside and shivered, thinking, this woman is a living Princess, and she just glanced…at me? What was she thinking? Whoever she is…I’m way out of her league!

“Where…where did she come from?” Derek stammered

“Uh…this is the Medical Wing,” said Mark. “I just saw a sign over there. Maybe she’s a nurse?”

Then, Derek and Mark heard the weirdest racket they had ever heard in their lives!

Hooves clattered down the corridor, and a…

…live pig came down the passage!

The pig had a rope around him…sort of.

A strange rotund little bald man in a set of white medical scrubs was trying to lasso the struggling, squealing pig.

He had wire-rimmed glasses hanging off his face, and his aged purely Japanese features were red with exertion as he yelled, “Hey, fellas, I could use some help here! Give me a hand!” he screeched in a voice just as strange as his appearance. “C’mon, you pig-headed porker, it’s time for your dinner!”

“Uhh…what was the name of that young nurse who just went down the passage?” Derek stammered.

“Yeah…the pretty one in the gold dress,” Venture added.

As he struggled with his…pig…the strange man said, “Oh, you young fellas don’t miss a trick, do you? That nurse is Lieutenant Nova Forrester, best nurse I’ve got; and more! She just certified as a nurse-practitioner!”

The strange man lassoed the pig, and said, “If you’re so hungry, dinner’s in here! OUCH!”

Then, a robotic foot showed up and kicked the doctor, pig, and all into a doorway. The automatic door hissed open and then hissed shut. The racket of the screaming, cursing little man and the squealing pig still came through the door.

“Well, what’s this handy gadget?” Venture huffed as he looked at a slightly banged-up squat red robot.

“I am not a handy gadget!” huffed the robot in a high-squeaky electronic voice that was totally indignant. “I am IQ-9, a genius robot!”

“And who was that…gentleman with the pig?” Derek asked.

“You nosy Ensign! That man is Doctor Sakezo Sane, and he’s very eccentric…about five degrees! He has all sorts of pets, including pigs! He is supposedly intelligent, but not quite in the fashion that I compute intelligence!” piped up the robot.

“Why do you have all of those dents?” said Venture.

“Women like to kick me, including my girlfriend! She’ll understand there is no one as romantic as I one of these days!” IQ-9 screeched.

That’s weird, Derek thought. I wonder what the heck his…girlfriend…looks like? Probably some other robot or AI unit? These robots get stranger and stranger every day!

Doctor Sane came out brushing his hands and said, “Now it’s time for **my** lunch!”

“Sorry, Doctor! I just linked to the computer in the cafeteria! They just ran out of lunch! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Derek and Mark slapped their knees and laughed at the strange robot.

“WHO ARE YOU TWO?” yelled Doctor Sane.

Mark tapped Derek on the elbow and said, “We’d better go! See ya later, Doc!”

Derek and Mark ran off.

IQ-9 turned his head and looked hard at Doctor Sane. “SHE would not approve of those Ensigns! They remind me of hooligans!”

“Who’s…she?” snorted Doctor Sane as he took his glasses off to wipe them.

“You know, who, Doctor! The greatest female ever created by the Almighty!” screeched IQ-9.

“If you worship her, why did you steal her drink the other day? She was very upset!” huffed Doctor Sane.

“I needed to cool down, so I dumped her Passionfruit vitamin water all over myself!”

“And you call me eccentric,” huffed Doctor Sane.

Junior Lieutenant Natalie Fisher was another nurse in the underground hospital wing.

She was working as hard as everyone else, and she was in her small dorm room, shared with one other officer.

Natalie was about twenty-one, with dark reddish hair that went up over one eye in a strange little flip, and she had dark green eyes and often laughed. She had a regular-issue nurse’s smock on in white today, with standard-issue white boots.

“I wonder if I am gonna be able to eat all of this lunch in my fridge, or if my roomie will show up and request that she share it with me? What’s with that stupid cafeteria this week? They’re closing too early!”

Then, Natalie heard a tap at the hatch outside. She rolled up her eyes a little when she heard the familiar “shave and a haircut, two bits” pattern that her roomie, also her college, roomie, and for that matter, her closest childhood friend announced herself. She huffed a little and said, “Nova, come in here! Is the cafeteria closed?”

“Uh-huh,” Nova said as she strode in.

Natalie looked her friend Nova Forrester up and down and said, “Why the funky yellow smock? And those rubber clogs?”

“I was helping Doctor Sane with the pediatric cases today,” Nova said as she came in, plopped down in her plastic desk chair, and kicked her clogs off. “You know the kids get scared when they see someone in white approaching! Consider my bright yellow dress camouflage for those poor little kids. They think I’m their buddy rather than just another nurse out to hurt them.”

“Okay, Nova, I see your point. That’s logical, and kind of cute. Raiding the fridge already?”

“I’m hungry, Natalie!” Nova said as she knelt bare-legged on the deck to dig out food that she liked that she knew Natalie probably wouldn’t. “You want the tuna roll? It’s your favorite. I’m happy with spicy salmon roll.”

“You’re a cute one. You’re even polite when you steal food,” teased Natalie.

“I paid for half this food, hush, would you?” Nova said. “Oh, speaking of cute, I got a glimpse of some cute Special Forces guy a few minutes ago. He’s Japanese, I think, has these dark eyes, and the craziest hair I’ve ever seen on a human being! I wonder if he knows what a hair brush is,” Nova chuckled.

Natalie didn’t know it, yet, but Nova would end up spending the next several decades of her life referring to that individual as “the guy who has no idea what a hair brush is” in her lighter moments.

“So, what have you been up to in the past few days?” asked Natalie. “I’ve always been asleep when you’ve stumbled in here off watch, probably like a zombie.”

“Physics section, planet bomb casualties, physics section, study for a test on the computer about basic clinical methods with a patient with Alzheimer’s, physics section, eat, read stuff in the computer, go treat my patients, take another test, eat, report back to the physics section half asleep and have Niimi yell at me because I’m still in my white smock, eat, sleep, have weird dreams, and so forth and so on; rinse and repeat,” Nova sighed. “Oh, heard from my Mom, too. She has more marriage candidates she wants me to meet when I get liberty again. Really? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nova, I’ve been asking that about your mother since the first time we spoke to each other in English that school year in Osaka before the bombings. That’s when you were calling yourself “Yuki.” Life has always been strange for us.”

“My middle name. I go along to get along, especially when I’m speaking Japanese,” Nova said. Then, she cleared her throat, and said, “Watashi ga Mori Yuki desu,” in a higher register than her usual alto voice in perfect Japanese. “Nan nimotozuite des’ka?”

“What is the basis of your conclusion?” sighed Natalie, translating Nova’s interjection into Japanese…or Yuki’s, one could say. Nova’s full name was Nova Dawn Yukiko Forrester which her family translated into “Yuki Mori” (Snow Forest) when speaking exclusively to Japanese speakers. Most people these days spoke Terranglish, but for those who spoke Japanese better than Terranglish, Nova’s mother thought referring to her daughter by her Japanese Buddhist Register name was a little more elegant. Like many people of Japanese descent, the Forresters/Moris wrote their children’s names in the old traditional register even though they were Christian and Nova had been duly baptized Catholic early in her life.

Nova had truly met and committed to the King of Kings in her own heart at around twelve years of age, right before the bombings had started.

A moment later, the phone rang in their room.

Nova picked up. “Nursing section, Lieutenant Forrester reporting.”

“Ah, yes, Nova!” said Doctor Sane. “In about an hour, please meet me in the main exam room. Admiral Avatar, the Captain of the Kirishima, just came in. He has a broken arm that we need to reset properly. Get ready for some work. I’ll see to it that you’re released for the rest of the day after we’re done.”

“Yessir,” Nova said. “Do I need to bring Fisher along?”

“No, just bring yourself. And please make sure that you are somewhat regulation in your uniform. General Stone might be nosing around the area, and…”

“Oh, I know all about him,” Nova sighed. “I’ll see you at 1300.”

Nova hung up and said, “Well, I have to run again. It seems old Avatar needs our help,” Nova said as she sat down on her bunk to pull on her standard-issue marigold-colored boots.”

“Shouldn’t you change into your whites?” Natalie asked as she handed Nova some salmon roll. Nova began to eat the sushi while she made a bowl of spicy Instant Ramen for herself in the microwave.

“No, I’ll be fine. If Stone tries to write me up, I’ll let him know I was working in Pediatrics today.”

“He’s still a sexist jackass,” said Natalie as the microwave oven beeped. Nova’s soup was ready.

There was a small bulletin board above the microwave, and on it, Nova had pinned a sketch she had done of Shin Kazama, the long-haired pilot from one of her favorite manga and anime series, Area 88, which had been redone periodically over the centuries. Nova had “adopted” the fictional manga character as a sort of mascot. She also knew how to fly herself, being checked out in a Type 100 Recon plane. Nova had been trying to get the base maintenance officer to paint an emblem of the Unicorn or Firehorse on the tailfins of her ship, surmounted by a snowflake, for the past few months, but the officer told her that was an impossible dream.

Nova’s other favorite anime series was Fullmetal Alchemist in its variations. She had once done a self-portrait of herself as Winry Rockbell, the female surgical genius and Automail (bionic limbs) technical wizard from that show. Considering that Nova was a real-life Nurse-Practitioner, having just passed her last certification tests and earned her Master’s Degree, who sometimes worked with installing bionic body parts on people and maintaining them, Winry was a second “Mascot” for Nova.  

Nova wolfed down her food, hungry from her efforts with the children earlier in the morning. Then, she gave Natalie a friendly “ta-ta” hug and she left.

“What a cheerful optimist she is,” sighed Natalie as she smiled at the closed door. “Amazing given the amount of crap life has dealt us.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

TO BE CONTINUED…