STAR BLAZERS: A VOYAGE TO REMEMBER

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

Frederick P. Kopetz

EPISODE TWENTY-SEVEN: “A BATTLE OF HONOR IN RAINBOW CLUSTER” (Part One)

Special Thanks to KaijuDirector for his guidance and editing advice in several scenes regarding his original character of Erich Nishizawa, whom he has graciously allowed me to use in this chapter.

Note: Some parts of this chapter are rather…gory. Such is battle. -- Freddo

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Space Battleship Argo

March 10, 2200

From Captain Avatar’s Log:

March 10, 2200

We are now about to cross the Rubicon.

The Argo is now about to face the Gamilons in what could be our last decisive battle.

At this point, the Black Tigers are ready to launch, led by Wildstar, who is assisted by Lieutenant Forrester, who has just left her post, to be replaced by Ensign Yuria Misaki.

Dash is manning Wildstar’s post on the First Bridge.

Ensign Robert Turner is at Gunnery. All other bridge officers are at their usual stations.

The main radar and sensors only work part of the time, but I have enough intel to realize that we are being opposed by one Gamilon flagship; three triple-deck carriers, and a combat carrier.

Homer and Ensign Sheena Hilgar are working together to monitor the Gamilons’ comm signals. They are beginning to launch attack planes; Hilgar tells us they are preparing to launch fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes.

I hope that this scrap of intelligence gives us enough of a lead to prepare ourselves for whatever happens….

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“Gamilon Fighter planes spotted, Derek, at seven o-clock,” Nova said from the rear seat of the cockpit of Derek’s Cosmo-Zero.

Derek spoke to the rest of the Tigers. “Everyone! We have bandits at one hundred eighty-seven degrees, coming in fast!”

“My boys will be the first to help you intercept,” said Grant over the circuit.

“Joining up with Grant’s squadron from vector one hundred twenty,” said Nishizawa from his fighter. “Ready to intercept.”

“Missiles armed and ready,” Nova said from her seat in Derek’s Zero.

“Good, let’s give it to them first,” Wildstar snapped. “Engage with missiles! We\re not blowing our whole load this first barrage, either, guys!”

“Ready to carry out our counterattack,” Erich said from his cockpit in his usual calm, controlled voice, even though he had already incurred a small, bleeding wound on his cheek from having been obliged to jink his plane quite hard.

“Take them!” snapped Derek from his cockpit.

Missiles blasted from the assembled nineteen Cosmo Zeroes towards the Gamilon fighter planes.

Explosions began to fill space like deadly cherry blossoms. Two, three, five Gamilon planes were blown apart.

One plane, under the command of Storm Leader Galand, just barely dodged the missiles.

Galand smiled to himself under his breathing mask before removing it and he thought, Well, Derek Wildstar, I told you that we would meet again. Judging from the carnage, you are doing a fine job, young Terron. Regrettably, it is my job to make sure that you do not return back to the Argo alive. Who knows? You and I may be sharing a drink together in Hell when this battle ends.

Galand streaked in, and the first plane he hit with cannon fire was Wildstar’s plane. Derek grunted with pain as a panel exploded and glass from a flying gauge hit his arm.

Derek ignored the blood as he looked back at Nova. “Are you okay?”

“Affirmative, but you’re wounded, Derek!”

“Nova, you can look at that in a minute. I wanna splash this guy,” he hissed.

Wildstar looped around, in just enough time to see Galand and his wingmen blowing apart one of Grant’s wingmen.

Derek aimed at the nearest plane; Galand’s wingman, and he blew him apart. Gotcha, buddy, he thought with a grim smile.

“What? What’s this?” Nova said.

“What’s what?” Derek snapped back.

“Eight flashes of light, ninety degrees, over Hardy’s squadron!” Nova cried. “Dive bombers! They just appeared from nowhere!”

“Hardy, watch your six!” Derek snapped. “Eight Gamilon planes just appeared over your planes?”

“Say what?” said Hardy.

In the distance, they could see four dive bombers blasting right towards the Argo herself!

A moment later, eight more dive bombers appeared over Erich’s squadron.

His wingman went down in a scream and an explosion.

Five more fighters flashed in from nowhere, and swooped down on Erich’s squadron. He fingered his special blued Cosmo Dragoon sidearm in its holster for good luck, and then he concentrated upon the bloodbath outside. If he ran out of ammo, he probably would have released the canopy and tried to shoot down the remainder with the pistol if he could have.

Taken by surprise, one, two, three more Cosmo Zeroes were blown apart.

“Wildstar! More planes! They just came from nowhere,” Erich commented.

“I’ve…been observing that,” Derek grunted as Nova began to bandage up his arm. “Grant! Nishizawa! Regroup behind me! Those fighters have to go first, then we have to get back to the Argo!”

“Conroy here!” Conroy snapped. “Six torpedo planes, out of nowhere! They ripped my squadron apart and they’re attacking the Argo!”

“Can you fly with that arm?” Nova said.

“I’ve got it so far,” Derek hissed.

“If you’re in too much pain, I’ll take control from here,” Nova said. “I’ll help you take these guys if I have to throw rocks at them! What a dirty tactic they’re using!”

“Chill out, love…I’ve got this!” Derek said.

He swooped around, aimed again, and fired right at Galand’s plane with a grim smile.

Galand was hurt, and he withdrew from the battle cursing with smoke trailing from his plane.

On Lysis’ flagship, Volgarr was laughing like a madman.

“Look at this!” he said to Lysis. “The SMITE system is working perfectly! This is the greatest success I have ever seen! Ten minutes of battle, and the Argo’s planes are scattered and burning, and the ship has taken six hits! I can’t wait until we send every one of their pilots straight to Hell and leave them totally, entirely, defenseless!”

“You have no idea how pleased I am with our efforts,” Lysis said, smiling. “Now, granted, they are putting up a great fight, but when we sink every one of those fighters, that is when the real fun begins!”

“Are you ready to launch the second wave of dive bombers, Berger?” said Lysis over Captain Fomt Berger’s headset on the main deck of his carrier Diamond.

“Awaiting your signal, sir. We will be transported directly over Argo?” he asked.

“Affirmative; Launch!” said Lysis.

“Launching now!” snapped Berger.

His twelve planes launched and gathered in front of Lysis’ flagship.

“ACTIVATE SMITE!” said Lysis.

He pressed his handgrip, and Berger’s squadron faded out in flashes of light.

It reappeared a moment later right over the Argo and began to attack the ship, starting with the Captain’s cabin and radar aerials, followed by the First Bridge.

“Main radar is out again!” said Yuria.

“We’re losing helm control!” cried Venture from his post.

“Main power trunk out!” barked Sandor.

Sheena Hilgar fell and broke her nose when she hit the deck.

Captain Avatar clung to his station and said, “Wildstar! Where’s your fighters?”

“Did the ships appear from nowhere, sir?” said Derek.

“Yes. The ship’s taking heavy damage!”

“We’ve been dealing with planes coming down on our heads like hail! The Gamilons must have some new instant transport system!” Derek snapped. “Half the whole Flight Group has been blown to bits. I’m out of touch with Hardy and Nishizawa, but I’ll try to regroup and get back to the ship ASAP!”

“Wildstar, get your butt back here!” yelled Venture.

“That’s what I just said I’d do!” he cried.

“Derek, bandit at three o’clock!” Nova cried; her uniform soaked with sweat.

“Clearing my own way out, talk soon!” Wildstar said.

At her post, Yuria began to shake, and she twirled her hair around her finger in a strange gesture.

“Erich, it is not yet hopeless!” she said in a strange voice.

Nishizawa’s Zero was buffeted from a near-miss as he saw three more members of his squadron blown apart. Then, his wingman was killed.

His hands began to shake as he heard in his mind It is not yet hopeless!

“Who is this?” he said with a shaking voice as the last of his wingmen was killed.

Then, he looked around.

None of his squadron was left.

None of them.

He saw the dead, frozen body of one of his comrades floating past his cockpit and he had to hold back the desire to vomit.

Not far away, another one of Grant’s planes was blown to bits.

With horror, he saw that the pilot had ended up the same way.

He couldn’t clearly see who it was, but Nova looked on with horror as the severed head of her friend Dana Starion bounced off her cockpit, close enough for her to see the look of horror on Dana’s face as she had died.

Nova screamed. “DANA! NOOO!”

“Starion?” Derek said.

Nova nodded tearfully as they both heard Erich screaming over the commlink. She didn’t blame him. Nova was a kind person, but she was so enraged that she would have killed a few Gamilons herself if she had to strangle them one by one.

Erich saw eight torpedo bombers coming right at him.

He threw himself into battle against them like a demon.

The first one he hit was Captain Zadic, the skipper of the Gamilon carrier Eliasite, who was blown to bits.

Disregarding the hits to his own plane, Erich then attacked the second, the third, and then the fourth torpedo plane.

There was a pain in his head, but he ignored it as he kept on flying like a demon. He brought down a fifth torpedo plane, a sixth….

He barely paused as he saw Wildstar firing a missile at two of the planes. They blew apart. He got a glimpse of Derek and Nova whizzing past him, their faces curled up in rictuses of utter rage as Wildstar’s Zero pursued two more fighters and blasted out of his range of vision.

There were two more planes. Erich heard that voice in his head again, Do not give up. Do not die. It is better to live battered and bleeding than to die without reason.

On the Argo’s bridge, Yuria looked blank. Sandor came to look at her. “Miss Misaki?”

“I am not Yuria,” she said. “My name is Yurisha of Iscandar. Princess Yurisha of Iscandar. Erich must live. I must survive to go home. Her Majesty Starsha must live. Her Majesty the High Queen must live to bear the Fire of Heaven in her heart!”

“Yuria, are you there?” said Sandor.

“I am…but I am not. The Princess awakens,” Yuria said. “I must go meet her.”

Captain Avatar was ready to bark an order at her, but then he said, “Sandor, let her go. The radar is out anyway!”

In something like a trance, Yuria walked off the Bridge, knowing right where she was headed.

To the Auto-Pilot Navigation room.

Erich ignored Conroy on the comm circuit as he said, “Wildstar! We’re running out of fuel!”

“Understood; I’m out of missiles and ammo; can’t move my arm right, and we can’t do crap out here anyhow,” Derek said. Nova took a deep breath of appreciation as he said, “All Black Tigers, back to base! We’re done out here!”

Erich clicked his firing pickle as an eighth torpedo plane approached. Nothing but an empty click. Damn. Very well. There was not much that he could do now. The eighth plane was still in full view... He snarled as he began to aim at the enemy plane, ready to begin the final rush. How did the old quote go? "You rascals! Do you want to live forever?!"

He then heard that beguiling voice again. “Erich! Please! It is better to live a day in defeat than to die for no reason. We need you!”

Aboard the Argo, Yuria clicked a combination on a coffin-like chamber in the auto-pilot room. Then, she jumped back as it began to hiss and whir open.

There was a light, and a slender figure, in white, purple, and silver, stepped delicately out of the chamber, smiling at Yuria as Yuria genuflected before her.

The woman smiled at Yuria and said, “Fear not. The time has come for me to awake, to save lives, to bear witness to what must be, to love a man I saw from far away and long ago, and to swear allegiance to a woman who, even though she knows it not, has been appointed an Angelos, a messenger from the Most High. I am Princess Yurisha of Iscandar, the youngest sister of Queen Starsha of Iscandar. Erich Nishizawa, please come home. Now. Your task today is over!”

Yuria looked on at Yurisha.

She shook, her eyes rolled up into her head, and she fainted.

Yurisha tenderly picked Yuria up in her arms, and with purpose in her mind as she whispered to Erich through their new mental bond, she began to walk towards the lower fight bay, oblivious to the sudden yells of shock and surprise as she was seen for the first time by the Star Force. However, such was the authority about Yurisha that no one dared to stop her or even question who she was.

In a daze, Erich followed Wildstar’s smoking Cosmo Zero into the flight bay, the second to land. He had decided that he would not follow Frederick the Great into eternity. There was still some fresh blood on his face, but nothing too major. In his typical, straight-to-the-point manner, he asked:

“Who was the angel that spoke to me?”

“Angel?” Nova said as she helped Derek out of his cockpit. “Erich, what…what has gotten into you? My God, are you all right?”

“He will be now,” said Yurisha as she strode up through the smoke and fire extinguisher gasses. I saved him. From afar,” she said as Erich passed out.

Nova was one of the first at his side, and she yelled. “He has two head wounds! He has to be evacuated to Sickbay, STAT!”

“I’ve got it,” said Natalie Fisher as she appeared with a gurney with Michelle Sakamoto and Robert Turner accompanying her. Then, Natalie noticed Yurisha, “Miss? Who are you?”

As Nova taped Derek’s arm again after running a few combat stitches, Yurisha smiled at them and replied, “I am Princess Yurisha of Iscandar. Nova, I barely remember you. You worked on me two years ago. Before you put that sheet over my head,” Yurisha said with a slight smile.

“They told me you had died!” Nova said.

“Died, no. In a coma, yes,” said Yurisha.

“Wait?” Derek said. “Yurisha, you’ve been with us all along?”

“Yes. How do you think you got the course to Iscandar? It was in my mind; and it still is.” Yurisha then paused and dramatically genuflected on one knee before Nova, who was dirty, sort of blood-smeared, and messy as she sat on a packing crate both helping Derek and looking at Erich’s vitals before they took him away.

The Argo shook as the main guns went off, and then, she shook again from another hit.

Like it or not, the battle was still going on.

Nova saw Yuria being carried away, and she said, “Princess Yurisha…why are you bowing to me?”

“It is time for you to begin growing up, Miss Nova,” Yurisha said. “You are on the cusp of understanding who you are and why you are here. Why do you think my sister Starsha chose you as the point of contact with the Star Force until I awakened? Why do you think you bear an heirloom of the Pellian Commonwealth, our cousins from afar, on your finger? Why do you think Heaven loves you and smiles upon you, with as many mistakes as you have made, dear child? When you bear the Crown of Mithril on your brow someday, Majesty, you will understand. But do not worry much now, Take your intended back to this ship’s bridge, please. You are still under attack. You need to wipe your face and fight on. Yes. Fight on.”

“I’ll wipe her face,” Derek said, smiling as he wiped Nova’s dirty, bloody face with a rag. He kissed her on the nose and said, “Let’s go, kiddo. We have a ton to do.”

“What is that I have seen?” said a member of the flight crew.

“What you have seen is why you fight on,” said Yurisha. “Why do you fight on? The reason is Love,” Yurisha said. “And you need to note that they are not the only ones in this room touched by Love right now.”

“Princess, who else is it?”

Yurisha smiled. “I leave that for you to figure out, Mister Yamagata, my friend. Don’t look at me like that. I know all of your names. Yes. All of them.”

Yurisha winked at Yamagata before she left.

“So what do you think, Mac?” he said.

“I’m confused,” replied his friend.

Wildstar and Nova got back to the First Bridge just as a Gamilon torpedo plane pilot accelerated and fired a torpedo into “A” Turret on the main deck, blowing the interior of it to bits.

As Derek took his post, he felt sickened as he saw more burned, quick-frozen corpses drifting off into space.

“Sandor, how’s the casualty situation?” said Captain Avatar.

“Not good,” he said. He paused. “Including the losses in pilots that Wildstar sent me, I estimate we have forty dead, twelve gravely injured…ten ready to return to their posts. We have lost nearly one-quarter of the crew. Perhaps we should consider withdrawing from this battle.”

“No,” Avatar said after he coughed. “We have accepted Lysis’ challenge. If need be, we fight for Earth until the last one of us on this vessel dies. That is it!”

The comm unit bleeped at Nova’s post. “Doctor Sane? You need me down below? Understood.” She stood and saluted. “Derek, Captain, request permission to leave my post. I am needed in Sickbay.”

“Permission granted. Eager, take over Nova’s post for now.”

“You be careful,” Derek said as he grasped Nova’s shoulders.

“I will be,” she said. She took off like lightning.

Eager then said, “I’m spotting one of the Gamilon carriers approaching us…visually. They’re opening fire!”

The ship was the Diamond. 

Without orders from Lysis, the triple-deck carrier drew in and began to shoot from its medium-range guns.

Berger was smiling and laughing like mad.

“Sir, communication from the flagship!” said his comm officer as Galand ran onto the bridge and watched.

“Ignore Lysis!” barked Berger. “I want to earn the glory myself and blow that accursed Terron ship to bits!”

And, at that, the Diamond kept on firing at the Argo in its one-man war as Lysis tried to recall him.

Terron scum, thought Berger as he grinned.

“We’ve taken three more hits!” said Sandor from his post.

“That captain must be crazy!” Venture said. “He may be ramming us in a moment!”

“Wildstar! He’s only a megameter away! Open up with everything that’s working!” snapped Captain Avatar.

“DONE!” Derek snapped, working every control on his board.

The Argo’s main guns went off, followed by the forward torpedoes and the smokestack missiles.

The Diamond took six hits.

She keeled over on her port side and sank slowly into the black cloud, disappearing from sight.

There were two or three explosions, partly obscured by the gasses of the nebula, and then the Gamilon carrier vanished from sight and from the field of battle. Presumably, she was destroyed.

Derek laughed for the first time during this horridly miserable day. “Captain, scratch one Gamilon flat-top!”

“Good job, Wildstar,” said Avatar. “Now, we need to act before the rest of them pull any tricks.

“Captain!” Derek proposed. “The wave motion gun! I can see them in the distance…we can get them now.”

“Not yet!” snapped Sandor.

“Not yet?” Wildstar replied.

“The power cables to the safety lock were damaged in the battle,” Sandor said. “Give damage control four minutes, and I can give you the wave gun!”

“Get to it, Sandor,” said Avatar. “We need the wave gun!”

On Lysis’ flagship, an officer reported, “Sir, we lost touch with Berger and the Diamond.”

“What happened?” said Lysis.

“He ignored our orders and charged the Argo by himself with his mid-range weapons. The Star Force fought back. My guess is that he and his ship are destroyed.”

“That idiot!” hissed Volgarr.

“Regardless, he fought bravely. We lost a lot of pilots ourselves in this battle and he was close to the Terron ship and wanted to end it,” Lysis mused. “He is surely dead. I grant him a posthumous promotion to Commodore. Volgarr, connect me with the Omega.”

“Sir,” said Volgarr.

A moment later, Captain Borka’s face appeared on the screen. “The drill missile is ready, sir. Iroze is in space gear and has boarded the missile to help sabotage any repair attempts the Star Force makes. I will be boarding the heavy bomber in a minute. Is SMITE ready?”

“It is, my friend,” laughed Lysis. “Soon, we will make the Argo helpless. Does Iroze understand her mission is a suicide mission?”

“She does, sir,” said Borka. “She wants to take as many Terrons into Hades with her as possible.”

“Good. Make your preparations and prepare to execute!”

“Yessir,” said Borka.

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In Sickbay, Nova was finally cleaned up and scrubbed.

The battle had now been going on for one hundred and twenty minutes.

She was assisting Doctor Sane and the others with casualties who were flowing in like rain.

There’s more than nine casualties, she thought as she worked on setting a gunner’s arm bones while Doctor Sane and IQ-9 worked on a man who was writhing in pain in a pool of blood on the next bed.

Natalie Fisher ran in, accompanied by a confused-looking Yurisha.

Yurisha found Erich’s bed. He was only semi-conscious. His head was heavily bandaged.

“What happened to him?” said Natalie, whose pregnancy was very obvious.

“Bullet in his head,” snapped Sane. “Nova and I spent a bit of time on him getting it out!”

“Yurisha?” gasped Erich.

“I’m here. I’ll stay with you if the doctor and nurse-practitioner will let me.”

“I failed out there, Yurisha. I…I should be dead. I failed my men and women.”

“Doctor, please let Yurisha stay as long as she stays out of our way,” Nova said. “Natalie, get to work on that patient over on Bed Five. He needs a transfusion.”

“After she finishes, she and Yurisha are going down to Deck Three,” Sane snapped. “I need medics down there. You damn well know that…Nova!”

“Doctor…I don’t know how much medical training the Princess has, and Natalie is heavily pregnant. She and the baby should be kept out of harm’s way,” Nova said.

Natalie smiled at Nova, but Sane turned on her and barked at her. “Nova, I appreciate you and all your talents, but unless I’m unconscious or you earn an MD in the next ten minutes, I am in charge here! Fisher goes where I tell her!”

“No, she goes where it makes sense, Doctor,” Nova barked back. “We need hands in here!”

“You’re being insubordinate, Lieutenant Forrester!” yelled Sane.

“Then write me up! I’ll take a Captain’s Mast and tell the Skipper how pig-headed you have been acting!”

“I’m recommending you for court-martial, Nova!” snapped Sane. “You’ve gotten too damn big for your britches! Hope you like it in the brig the rest of the mission and like being knocked down to E-1 when we get home!”

“I’ll go,” said Natalie.

“No, you won’t!” Nova said.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” said Natalie to Sane’s face. “I know you have it in for me for being pregnant! Just don’t penalize Nova; that’s all I ask. And I smell sake’ on your breath!”

Nova saw the sake’ bottle under Sane’s cart and whipped it across Sickbay. It hit a bulkhead and shattered. “Doctor, you are not working on any more patients drunk!”

“My sake’!” yelled Sane.

“I’m going now. With Yurisha,” snapped Natalie.

Natalie glared at Sane and left.

Sane glared at Nova. “Drop and give me thirty! RIGHT NOW!”

“But, Doctor, my patient…”

“THIRTY PUSH-UPS FOR ME TO FORGET THIS, YOU CRAZY SMARTASS!” screamed Sane.

“Yessir,” Nova said as she shut her eyes, hit the deck, and began giving Sane push-ups.

“You drunken old bastard,” groaned Nova’s patient. “She was about to give me morphine! Don’t you care anything for your patients?”

“You shut up or I’ll break your other arm!” yelled Sane as the sound of Nova in her medical dress and boots calling up her pushups resounded through Sickbay.

And so it went.

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A FEW MINUTES LATER….

Natalie Fisher had just stopped crying. The Argo heeled over again, hit by a straggler Gamilon dive-bomber.

Fisher ran down a passage, carrying a medkit, heading towards the sound of someone moaning with her red hair streaming behind her.

She knelt down with her patient. “What happened?”

“Lost teeth!” he yelled. Smashed teeth were on the deck.

Natalie began to work on stopping the bleeding, when she spotted Yurisha about three meters behind her. “Yurisha! Look at that one over there! He has his head in his hands!”

“All right,” Yurisha said softly, ignoring the blood on her high white boots.

They heard a slam outside, and a Gamilon missile slammed right into that part of the ship.

The blast roared out into the corridor.

Natalie shielded her face and stomach as best as she could, but her face and head met the deck and she was burned, her uniform on fire, her slender body bruised brutally by flying pieces of the bulkhead.

Yurisha had the presence of mind to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher, thus saving Natalie’s life.

Things were not going so well otherwise, though for Natalie, because a flower of blood was showing between her legs in her uniform slacks.

As unconscious as she was…her child was coming…before he was ready.

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“Ready down below,” said Iroze from inside the drill missile.

Borka’s plane began to taxi and advance towards takeoff.

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Time passed.

Five…ten minutes.

“One minute to power for the wave motion gun,” said Neil Holloway over the 1MC near Sandor’s post.

“Good. Keep working it.”

The doors at the aft part of the First Bridge whirred open.

Nova came in, in a fresh gold and black shipboard uniform, looking very sheepish.

Avatar looked at her. “What happened?”

Nova sighed. “Sane and I had a fight about his drinking and his deciding to send Fisher out into the ship as a medic in spite of her condition. He threatened to have me court-martialed, made me do push-ups, and said I was relieved of duty in Sickbay for now.”

“He and I need to have a serious talk if we survive this,” Avatar said.

“What are you doing back up here if you were relieved?” Derek said.

“Derek Wildstar. We are in battle. I needed to do something!” Nova snapped.

“Okay, you have no argument from me. Take your station. Hope they fix your screen soon.”

“Thanks,” Nova said with a slight smile. “I hope Natalie’s okay. I’m worried.”

“Prayer is a good idea, Nov?” Derek said with a smile.

“Yeah. He like…seems to listen to you,” Venture said.

“It sure is. Thank you,” Nova said as she shut her eyes and began to address the Deity in silence behind the radar.

“You’ll have power to the wave gun in thirty seconds,” said Holloway from below.

“Wildstar, Orion, make the preparations,” said Avatar.

CONTINUED IN PART 2 of this Chapter….

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