ALTERNATE TALES OF THE STAR FORCE

STAR BLAZERS—THE ENTROPY WARS

By: Frederick P. Kopetz

Note: This tale has some rather “Mature” and disturbing content (Although the Author is not terribly confident about his own maturity.)

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Ch. 11 “A DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN”

Thanks to “Anonymous Reader” for Story Inspiration and Brainstorming near the end of this chapter

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I. FROM OUT OF THE SHADOW….

Space Battleship Yamato

Planet New Pellias

Wednesday June 29, 2231

The Starboard Observation Deck

1500 Hours: Local Time

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The sounds of the ocean that washed up on the beach at Beltane washed against the Yamato’s hull as the crew stood at attention near an open casket, guarded by an honour guard of Space Marines led by Captain Victor Knox and by Warrant Officer Thomas “Diesel” Dalton. Victor Knox was the cousin of the late Sergeant Knox, who was now a commissioned officer with several commands under his belt. “Diesel” Dalton was a Special Services Guard from captive Earth who had come here lately aboard another ship. He had been an old nemesis of Nova back in school in Boulder, and he had been surprised when Nova, as Captain of the Yamato and Earth President had taken a look at his Special Services record on a computer thumb drive, interviewed him in Captain Avatar’s old cabin, and then personally took him, a trained helicopter and jet boat pilot, on a check flight herself and had then commissioned him as a Warrant Officer in the Space Marines with a Commission Warrant she signed by hand in her cabin, and had ordered him into service with, “Go help Knox with his platoon. You’re a better pilot than he is.”

He had been quietly impressed that Nova had apparently forgotten their past and knew how to fly a Marine Jet Boat, until he saluted her and she said, “Diesel, a question.”

“Aye, ma’am?”

“Do you still put paste in the hair of blond girls and think it’s funny?” she said with a cracked grin.

“Ma’am, I might, with the right girl…” he said with a leer and a wink.

Nova rolled her eyes and chuckled a little. “You’re still impossible, Diesel. Totally impossible. Mind you, do it to me, and I’ll Court-Martial you myself. I’m a lawyer as well as a doctor by now. Get going, Diesel. Sometime, I’ll buy you coffee in the messhall and we’ll have to catch up on stuff later.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Diesel.

So, that was how Diesel Dalton and Vic Knox ended up head and foot at the open casket of Holly Venture, holding their laser carbines at port arms at attention as Mark Venture, sitting nearby, raised his head from his hands to notice Nova coming into the compartment carrying a folder.

He didn’t want to raise his head at that moment.

Mark Venture was lost in the past, mourning Holly.

To think we were just about to solve our problems, Holly, when we argued and you left, thought Mark miserably. Right as our world fell apart. Right as Earth fell apart, we fell apart. We only reconciled when you were taking your last few breaths, didn’t we? That’s always been what’s happened to me. We argued about our house, what car to purchase, the raising of our daughter, and you blamed me when she left home. Mark sighed to himself and looked at Holly’s corpse. I don’t want to get up, Nova. I don’t want your nice, sweet, Pollyannaish platitudes now, dear. I want to be left alone to get drunk.

“CAPTAIN ON DECK!” yelled Sandor as he snapped to attention.

Venture wiped his tears and he reluctantly stood with the rest as Nova took her place behind a podium, slender yet stern in her black peacoat, white cap, and brown sandals as she looked around and said, “Given that this is our second memorial service today, I’m sure we all know why we’re here. Don’t we?”

Nova gestured towards Holly’s body in her casket, dressed in her best white and green Star Force uniform with a blue peacoat.

“We all know, ma’am,” Mark said.

Nova pivoted and walked over to Mark. “Commodore,” she whispered. “You haven’t shaved, I smell sake’ on you, and between you and me, as friends, you look like crap warmed over. You’re dismissed. Go to your cabin, please.”

Mark shook his head. “Tell us the whole thing, Skipper. Don’t you think I already know it? You and Derek…”

“He’s not here now,” Nova said. “And I feel that. I know what you’re going through. Really,” Nova said as she patted his hand and turned back to the lectern. “About Holly Venture. The last I saw her on duty, she was arguing with her husband. I later found out she fought before she was captured by the enemy in Rome. As a prisoner, I saw her alive aboard an enemy ship, stripped, as those beastly Technomugars and their servants seem to do to all of us when we end up as their prisoners, and she told us to fight on, irregardless of her own welfare. For that deed, I have posthumously promoted her to Captain, and I think she would have had her own command, if she had lived…when she died, she told us, with her last breaths, she had reconciled with her husband, Commodore Mark Venture, and that she left in peace. I am sure she still is at peace…”

”She is at peace,” said a sudden voice from nowhere and everywhere that made even Nova jump. “I know this, for I met her on the other side, and escorted her into the Very Presence Itself…”

“Trelaina!” Mark said aloud. “What are you doing here? Or am I really drunk?”

“Mark, that is not important to us now,” Trelaina’s voice said. Blessed by the Eternal One Himself, I made a bargain with Holly, who asked me to tell you, Mark, she loved you and prays she could return, but knows her body is too broken to do so,” Trelaina’s voice said. “She gave me her very mortal remains, which I am now going to refashion for my own purposes, as I have been given a command, and a Commission, myself, personally, by the Most High, to do two things…”

Then, a visible, ghostly form, with swirling hair, appeared around and over Holly’s casket as Knox and Dalton stood back yelling in fear.

Mark jumped at the casket and yelled, “Don’t TOUCH her! Let her rest in peace, Trelaina!”

“But I must do this,” Trelaina’s voice said.

“Why? Why take away all I have left of Holly?” snapped Mark.

“It will be clear soon,” said Trelaina’s voice. “It is necessary, and has been predestined…”

A lightning bolt, and then a blast of white fire, hit Holly’s corpse as the swirling form of Trelaina seemed to melt into Holly’s body, which began to gleam in the casket and to undergo a shocking metamorphosis.

In a moment, Holly’s dead features seemed to swirl and melt as her whole body turned into a flaming thing made of Light that overwhelmed and seemed to either melt or absorb the clothing on Holly’s body.

There was a terrible blast of light, and a clap like thunder.

Then, the light around Holly’s body began to dim as the dead body began to sit up in the casket.

“H….Holly?” said Mark.

“I am not Holly,” replied a high voice Mark never thought he’d hear again in Life. “I am Trelaina…Trelaina of Telezart!”

Some of the crew screamed and ran away in fear until Nova ordered, “STAND FAST!” in a stern voice as she witnessed a newborn, slender form sitting up.

Like a newborn child, the form that sat up was naked and had unfocused eyes, and shook slightly, looking uncoordinated as she moved her limbs and pushed off her forehead strands of hair that had been red a moment ago, but which were now light blonde.

Mark looked in shock at the face as he gazed at fine features he had not seen on a physical form for many years.

Here was someone who had been a dream, a vision, a memory in his heart, whom he had occasionally seen as a mere phantom.

But now, sitting up, and gazing at him, and the others, sat Trelaina of Telezart, who now occupied a living body of flesh for the first time in almost thirty years…and who looked as if she had not aged a day since the last time that Mark and Nova had seen her embodied and alive.

“I’m sorry,” she said in her soft, high voice. “As…I was saying, I have been sent Back for two tasks. The first is to aid Nova, who is close to achieving her destiny as the adopted High Queen of the Pellians, to finish the evil of Ekogaru. The second…is to be with you, dear Mark…to finish what we started so long ago. Mark, will you marry me?”

“Uh…uhhh…uh…Trelaina, I…I guess so….,” he blathered as he ran to her, still crying, but awed as he held her hands. “First, don’t we need to…uhh…dress you?”

Trelaina smiled and giggled slightly. “We can try, but given the changes to my new body in this incarnation, it may not be possible. I can wear my Light, which is the garment the Most High gave me. I have no shame in being naked.”

“But…uh….on Earth…people usually don’t…”

“We’re not on Earth, dear Mark. We’re on Pellias. You know people commonly do without garments here. Need I be any different?”

“Miss Trelaina,” said Captain Knox as he bowed to the regal nude beauty before him. “May we assist you out of that…casket?”

“Mark and Nova can surely do a better job, my dear Victor,” Trelaina said. “Thomas, please stop looking at my hair. Putting paste in it would be terrible,” she said sweetly to Diesel Dalton.

Mark and Nova helped Trelaina sit up all the way, and then Nova helped a little as Mark took her in his arms in a Princess carry, dressing her in a blue gown that a female crewmember brought from a cubbyhole. It was actually a blue satin clerical gown, as it turned out, intended for Divine Services.

“Where should we take her, ma’am?” Mark said to Nova.

“Sickbay,” Nova said. “I’ll examine you there, Trelaina…if you won’t…mind…”

“Not at all,” said Trelaina. “This gown itches…”

“Needless to say, these services are ended,” Nova said. “Save the casket for later…”

As everyone cleared out, Nova looked at the beautiful, transparisteel-covered casket as it lay empty on the bier, its transparent lid up.

“Derek, I hope you can see and hear me…but…I know who will be laid in this casket next.”

Nova sobbed and knelt before it, stifling her tears as she said, “Derek, the Matrix is showing me…that I will be laid out dead in this casket myself in just a short time. Oh, my God….how can I leave you?”

At that, all alone, Nova wept bitterly.

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II. THE PRINCESS AND THE QUEEN….

Space Battleship Yamato

Planet New Pellias

Wednesday June 29, 2231

Near Sickbay

1522 Hours: Local Time

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Mark was kissing Trelaina as he carried her down the passage.

“I wonder where Nova went?” said Mark.

“She will meet us in Sickbay; she’s coming by another means,” Trelaina said. “She has her own bitter path to tread.”

“Trelaina, when I almost died, when you gave me your lifeblood, did you know then you would return someday?” Mark said. “One minute I was mourning Holly…now you’re back….I don’t know what to make of this…”

“Mark, when I saved you and gave you to Derek and Nova years before to take back to Terra, I knew we would be together again someday, but I knew I first had to change the evil of Prince Zordar and do many other things. I had no idea how long this errand would take, and I did not know when I could come to you again, which was why I led you to Holly long ago. I was waiting until death parted the two of you to come to you again, but I thought you would be much older then. I underestimated Ekogaru and his twisted plans.”

“How old is that monster?” said Mark.

“He is as old as he claims to be; dear Mark. He is over three millennia old, and he was born on Terra when the Biblical prophet Moses was a child at his mother’s breast.”

“If he was born on Earth,” Mark said with a shiver, “how did he live so long and leave Earth in those ancient days?”

“Queen Pellas’ people, who once came from Iscandar, with a contingent from old Telezart, came to Earth now and again in those ancient times. Ekogaru was part Terran in descent, part Iscandarian, part Rikashan…and partly…of demon blood,” Trelaina said with a shiver. “Yes, long ago, the fallen Sons of God melded with the daughters of Men, and some of the offspring of these unions were your heroes of old legends, Achilles, Apollo, Jupiter, Herakles, Gilgamesh…those men that your ancestors saw as heroes and gods were beings of mixed heritage. Some were not evil in themselves…others…were monsters…Nimrod, King Og…the being known as Goliath…were among these. Among these beings, whom some among you have called Titans, were some of the Egyptian Priests of Set, the being you met once known as Flagg, and…Ekogaru himself. Ekogaru and Flagg are among the last living Titans I know of, but there may be more of their unhappy kind scattered amongst the Cosmos.”

“What are they, exactly?” said Mark.

“An admixture of demon and humanity. Flagg is mostly of demon-kind. He has no care of how many bodies he embodies his foul form with, as he feels he will be on the winning side with his Dark Master and will never die. He is old, far older than Ekogaru, and he is as cold as a snake. The Highest feels probably rightly this monster is beyond redemption. He was born before the Great Flood, died in it, but returned to life when Babel was rising. Ekogaru is of a far different sort. He is more human and alien than demon, and he desires to live forever embodied as a human, even if he is a machine being. He desires to be of Humanity, but also aspires to be a God. Blasphemous, I know…but the Most High King feels that he is not entirely past redemption.”

“Trelaina…are you sure you heard that right?” Mark said. “After all he’s done…after all he’s doing for now…for now…who knows what he’s doing to Derek, for one thing?”

“Nova knows,” said Trelaina. “And she is not happy with it and means to do something about it.”

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In the meantime, five hundred lightyears away, on the Grand Technomugar Fortress, Admiral Derek Wildstar was being tormented by the Dark Lord in the Sphere of Joy.

Derek’s screams echoed around the Sphere as bolts of energy slammed into his body.

He was now completely naked, and he bore the pain with gritted teeth.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT, DAMN YOU?” he yelled at the Dark Lord.

“I mean to break you, and to use you for bait,” Ekogaru’s voice said into the darkness. “You are bait. Foxy whatever his accursed name is also bait. Katrina Savela, the bitch who betrayed me over and over and over again, is also bait. I want your bitch wife, Wildstar. I want her to kiss my feet, and I will give her everything the Matrix would give her, and more. You can all live forever and this war can end. Don’t any of your morons get this yet?”

“I will not fall down to worship you, you bastard!” yelled Derek. “I know what you are doing to Earth!”

“You will serve me or I WILL BREAK YOU!” roared Ekogaru. “I AM ALREADY YOUR LIFE, YOUR DEATH, YOUR GOD! I CAN GIVE YOU HEAVEN OR HELL! IT IS YOUR DAMN CHOICE, YOU NAKED PIECE OF ORGANIC SCUM!!!”

“I will never surrender to you!” yelled Derek.

“Then I will make you lose control of your body…”

Derek screamed as his bladder let go and he was soon wet with his own wastes.

His bowels let go a moment later.

As he hung in the field, two monstrous things that looked like apes came into the room and began to burn his skin with torches.

Derek screamed again.

And as the energy bolts and the fire tormented him, he thought of Nova, and he laughed as he felt his body beginning to respond.

“I LOVE MY WIFE!” he roared back. “You will never take that from me, Ekogaru! I will reach out to her!”

“Let’s see you try it,” said Ekogaru.

“Oh, believe me, I won’t try it…I’ll do it…”

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After sitting with Trelaina for a while and just holding her, Mark noticed that the blue choir robe she was wearing had begun to go transparent.

“Uh…Trelaina…what’s happening to your dress?”

Trelaina looked down at herself and laughed. “Oh….that,” she said with a small laugh. “Mark, when I returned to physical life and I remade a form for myself out of Holly’s body, I could not help but run on a higher vibration of existence. I am also far more powerful than I was when I lived the first time.”

“So, what does that mean? Is it safe for me to touch you?”

“Oh, of course, Mark,” she said with a laugh. “What that does mean is that inorganic material, such as, say, clothing and shoes, that only has a light existence, will be slowly sublimated by my vibrations, grow transparent, and eventually dissolve. I wasn’t sure if this would happen or not, so that’s why I did not say anything. What this means for us is that…unless you dress me in chain mail or a suit of armor, as far as I know, I can’t be clothed for long, and as a matter of fact, will have to go naked.”

“Trelaina! Won’t you be cold like that?” said Mark, horrified. “And…well…we have laws against indecent exposure here in the Earth Federation…”

Trelaina put up her hand over her mouth and laughed so hard as Mark picked her up and carried her that he thought she was crying.

“Are you weeping?” he said. “What am I going to do with you?”

“No, I just think it’s amusing,” she said. “I can now swim through a star, float in space, kick my way through the gasses of a nebula, brave a radiation belt about a planet, all without benefit of a spacesuit or clothing because of my power. And you’re worried that I’ll be cold? Or breaking some law? Nova is your President now. If I explain the situation to her, I’m sure she’ll understand, and make an exception for me, before this war ends and you and I live on Pellias for the centuries we have lying before us, where people are not so concerned about externals such as how much cloth you have covering your body, or silly things like that.”

“Why did you wear that ragged dress on Telezart, then?”

“It was the custom, when I was a mortal. But I’m beyond being a mortal now. Haven’t you noticed that yet, dear Mark? And Nova herself is on the way there, and….where are you taking me?”

“Sickbay, Trelaina…we need to examine you to see if you’re dangerous or…or…something…I…”

“Mark, that’s silly. I have more power, but do you think I could, or would, hurt you now that I’ve reverted back to being like this…?”

Mark looked Trelaina over from head to toe, and nearly dropped her.

He had to catch his breath.

She was just smiling and batting her eyes at him.

She was now also again completely naked in his arms…and Mark thought she looked just…adorable…

Her slender body, down to her toes, looked helpless and frail, but Mark could see the aura of her power burning around her.

He could also feel that her skin was uncommonly soft and warm.

He kissed her, tempted to just lie her down on the deck in front of Sickbay and to begin making love to her.

She kissed him back, but then she said, “Take me in, Mark. Let’s get me cleared with Nova and the other doctor…and then we can go back to your cabin…or I can take you to a nice lawn or a beach on New Pellias, and we can do…well…what you’re thinking about. I’ve always wanted to try it. What do they call it again…love-making?”

Mark nodded, blushing as he stepped through the hatch with his naked soon-to-be bride in his arms, while vaguely wondering How do we perform a nice open wedding ceremony if she can’t wear a wedding gown?

Trelaina giggled and whispered to Mark, “We can do a double wedding with Derek and Nova when they redo their vows after she comes back from the dead with the full power of the Pellian Matrix. And Nova and I will match. By then…for the same reasons I am, as well as her having had to take an Oath…she may well be naked, too.”

“Uhh…that’ll be weird,” said Mark.

“It’ll be cute!” laughed Trelaina.

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They were laughing when they came into Sickbay a moment later.

Nova was standing there in her white lab coat and white sandals, talking to Doctor Bixley.

The African-American assistant doctor’s eyebrows went up, as he looked at Trelaina and Mark and said, “” Uhhmm…Lady Trelaina….do you think the Yamato is a nudist colony?”

Nova took off her glasses and glared hard at the junior doctor. “Darrell Hiram Abiff Bixley, MD, first, Trelaina is not a Lady. She is a Princess of the New Pellian Commonwealth, effective now, and she should be addressed as such. Secondly, she can’t help being naked, the poor dear, I happen to know the vibrations around her are such that she can no longer be clothed in this incarnation, so I excuse her from the need of being clothed. Mark, just lay her on one of the examining tables so I can do a physical on her. Please be very gentle with her.”

Mark kissed her, and gazed in her eyes, shaking, and obviously smitten with her.

Nova touched her and Mark and said, “Well, well, well. You two scamps are beginning to psychically bond. Or, should I say, an old bond is being reactivated?”

“When did this start?” said Mark.

“Thirty years ago…when we almost made love on Telezart,” said Trelaina.

“Trelaina, dear…we swore we’d never mention that,” said Mark.

“So, why bother hiding it now?” said Trelaina. “I sure can’t hide myself,” she said, wiggling her toes while she smiled at Nova, who began to listen to her innocently bare chest with a stethoscope.

“This…is…interesting…” said Nova. “I’m not picking up one heartbeat…I’m picking up two,” she said.

“I experienced some renovations when I returned to life,” Trelaina said.

“Your aura is protective,” said Nova as she scanned Trelaina’s body with an instrument. “It keeps your body temperature constant, and would probably deflect laser fire. Doctor Bixley, can you go to my locker and get my Astro-Automatic?”

“What are you going to DO to her?” screamed Mark.

“Just a test,” Nova said calmly. “Sit up, Trelaina. Do you agree to this?”

Trelaina nodded eagerly. “I know what you’re planning, Nova. Don’t worry, Mark. No weapon can hurt me now.”

Bixley handed Nova her weapon.

Nova stepped back two meters, sighted on Trelaina’s chest, and fired three times.

Three laser bolts blasted towards Trelaina.

The shots were just absorbed by Trelaina’s aura with a loud crackling noise and vanished. None of them hit her as she sat there serenely smiling at the group, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Are you all right, Trelaina?” said Mark.

“What does it look like?” she said softly. “Of course, I am.”

“Did you feel anything?” Nova said.

“It tickled,” Trelaina said calmly. “If you put me in front of your wave motion gun and fired it, it would feel roughly the same.”

Nova continued with her physical, performing various tests. She had to ask Trelaina to drop her defenses so she could take a blood sample with a finger.

Mark noticed that it would be the only time (for at least the next few hundred years) that Trelaina would physically wince at anything as her finger was carefully pricked by Nova and a small amount of her reddish-pink blood was taken.

About an hour later, Nova said, “Well…we’re just about done, now, Trelaina…you can go off with Mark, shortly…and do whatever you like, and…”

“You are to be examined soon yourself, Nova,” said Trelaina.

“I didn’t know that,” said Nova.

“I have you scheduled next, ma’am,” said Doctor Bixley as Trelaina got off the table and he pulled down some fresh paper for Nova to lie on. “If you would undress, please…behind…”

“May I do the honor?” said Trelaina as she clasped Nova’s hands. She began to gently unbutton Nova’s lab coat, and slipped it off her, revealing her bra and panties. Before Nova could protest, Trelaina had her bra off, and was sliding down her panties. “Please sit, M’Lady,” said Trelaina gently as Nova sat down on the table. Trelaina took off her sandals, and slid off her panties, leaving Nova herself nude on the examining table.

Nova laughed a little and said, “That was very kind of you, Trelaina. May I ask why you did that for me?”

“Nova, dear, your Time draws very near. I think it is more fitting that I Benude you to begin your reign as you choose rather than to have Ekogaru strip you of your raiment.”

“You mean?” said Nova as a bolt of cold anticipation hit her.

Trelaina nodded. “Nova, you will soon be like me, but you will have to suffer greatly first. Your Majesty, High Queen of Pellias, President of Terra, and soon-to-be Matrix Bearer, you, like myself, are now Naked. You need feel no shame, Nova. It was your destiny. You now begin it,” she said.

Doctor Bixley took Nova’s clothes to her locker. When Nova heard it slamming shut, she was not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry at her nakedness.

Then, she shut her eyes as Doctor Bixley began to examine her as she had examined Trelaina.

Trelaina kissed Mark, and they vanished together.

Nova was left alone with a cold stethoscope on her bare chest, shivering a little as the exam continued…

Uncomfortable in the cold Sickbay examining room, Nova sighed and tried to make the best of it.

AN HOUR LATER….

Doctor Bixley sighed as he looked at Nova. “By all rights, with how the cancer inside you has advanced, you should be dead by now.”

“Explain those findings, please,” said Nova.

Bixley showed Nova some scans. “The residual cancer that was left in your hip after we performed a hysterectomy on you two years ago is growing again in all of your bone marrow, and it’s left your spine and has begun to invade your lungs. I can see the blood in your sputum when I tested it. In fact, we can see it unaided now. Why didn’t you tell me of this? You must be in horrid pain right now.”

“The power in me is the only thing that is keeping it back,” Nova said breathlessly.

“You should have never accepted the post of President, much less assumed command of this vessel in wartime, ma’am. Your temperature and capacity to regulate it are falling away with the wind. I don’t know what was being said about you and Trelaina about your destiny, but to keep from hypothermia, you need to be fully clothed, and booted, so that you do not scratch the bottom of your foot and get some infection.”

“Thanks to my power, I can do without your suggestions, Doctor, and do without clothing, even if I suffer during it.”

“You’re going to only hasten your death!” snapped Bixley. “You’re not a healthy woman anymore! You should be in hospice now, you Goddamn stubborn donkey!”

“How long do I have?” said Nova.

“Maybe three months…maybe two.”

“Good. I only need to be going for three more weeks. Then, I will be killed. Tell me, Doctor. You read the chart I left on Trelaina. How would you describe her?”

“Trans-human, ma’am. That’s the only way I can describe it. She’s close to an angel, or ancient legendary goddess now…”

“I expect to die a bloody, painful death soon at Ekogaru’s hands, and I will die. Then, I will be granted the Matrix, and I will return to life…much like Trelaina herself. Examine me then, Doctor. There will be no cancer, and I will soon have a uterus and new pair of ovaries, and be much younger again. I’ll be just fine.”

“Maybe I should confine you to Sickbay, ma’am,” said Bixley.

“Why?”

“It’s obvious, Nova. You’re losing your health. And your marbles!”

“No I’m not,” said Nova as Bixley stamped out of Sickbay, and Nova lay back down on the table.

“Why does it have to be so hard?” Nova said, as tears ran down her cheeks. “He’s right. I AM cold….”

There was no one there, so Nova ran her hands right down her body…and she began to touch herself her bare skin as she put her legs up.

“Derek, my darling…where are you? I…I…miss you so much….”

At that, Nova cried. She shut her eyes and said, “Derek, I need you…I need you so badly! I need to be with you! I need to be near you, and I’m scared and I need you to hold me! Where are you?”

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Derek was being dragged around in chains by the ape-like beings who had tormented him before.

He soon learned that these loathsome beings were mutated R’Khells, affected very badly by radiation. Their forms had been twisted, and they called their loathsome sub-breed of the R’Khell race “Orcs”, or such Derek was able to make out of their snarling, vile speech.

“You damned fool!” yelled one of these monsters in his ear. “You think you’ll win? You’re half-dead, Wildstar! You look funny!”

“You are a major hunk of crap from the bottom of the septic tank left to rot in the fucking toilet with worms crawling through yer ugly brain, you Terran asshole!” yelled another Orc in his other ear.

“You two are funny. You remind me of drill instructors from the Academy,” said Derek with a laugh.

“I should eat your ear for that!” yelled the first Orc. “But I can’t, because I ain’t supposed to!”

“Oh, you mean you have orders?” said Derek. “You mean you can comprehend something? Nice. My wife is coming for me, and she’s gonna let me loose and I’ll turn YOU into crap! Like that role reversal, boys?”

“How can she like you with such a small manhood?” yelled the other Orc. “She must like cripples.”

“Cripples who need crutches!” laughed the other Orc as he smashed Derek’s face into the wall.

Derek grinned, and even though his nose and mouth were bleeding, he spat on one of the Orcs.

“We’re gonna shove you in a meat grinder, and turn ya into hamburger meat!” sang the Orcs as they kicked him again before throwing him into a cell.

They laughed at him as they slammed the iron door shut and left Derek alone in the dark.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Now, Alex had to find his mother for some business. He was finally told she was in Sickbay.

Alex found his mother, Nova, kneeling naked on a bed in Sickbay, crying her eyes out.

Now, to young Alex Wildstar, the sight of his mother in the nude was not particularly startling or unusual. As part of his traditional classical Japanese-style upbringing, she and Dad had bathed with him until he was ten or so, and he had also often seen his mother nursing his siblings or enjoying a swim or sunbath on their the beach or their pool naked, and he also knew that quite a few of her duties as the Pellian High Queen required her to either appear in her filmy white ceremonial gown (which exposed her entire body anyway when worn with nothing beneath) or in the nude, especially when she travelled to Planet Ralkhandar, where in honor of the Rahlkens’ customs, she went naked as they did on the warm jungle planet.

What was startling to Alex was seeing his mother hugging one of his missing father’s old jackets, crying, calling out his name softly….

…And dealing with what Alex realized had to be heart-crushing loneliness and anguish for his father by kneeling there herself while she held one of his old peacoats and smelled it while also rubbing it against herself.

This was something, though; Alex knew he was Not Meant to See. Alex just stared at his naked mother and felt a deep sadness and pity as she just cried and touched the jacket and herself with her eyes closed, her anguish, utter vulnerability and need for her father obvious and unashamed.

With her eyes closed, Nova then cried out, “Oh, Lord God! Oh, Lord, my God! Please bring him back to me!”

Alex thought, My Mom’s President of the Federation now, and the skipper of this ship, but…she’s just another lonely woman torn apart from her husband by this war, as strong as she tries to look on the outside, she must be dying on the inside….Alex thought. Oh, God, why can’t You answer her prayer and bring back Dad from Ekogaru’s grasp….and let him be alive so Mom doesn’t have to cry like this anymore? Please bring Dad back to us…Mom needs him so much….

Alex then slipped out of that area of Sickbay as quietly as possible so that his Mom wouldn’t hear him, and so that she would be respectfully left alone with her private thoughts, needs, and spiritual, emotional, and physical longings

As he left, Alex quietly made sure the hatch to the compartment was locked so that no one else would catch her like this. It was the least he could do for his CO and mother.

Needless to say, Alex never told his siblings or anyone else about the pathetic scene he had witnessed, and he never even wrote it down in his personal journal.

The only record remained in Nova’s own personal journal, where she recorded it, complete with her awareness, through the Matrix, of her son catching her in this moment.

From Nova’s own point of view, as she touched her body, while hugging Derek’s peacoat, and smelling the feel and scent of him, she reached out through the Matrix, wondering if he was still with them alive, or not.

After all, it had been three days since he had been taken by Ekogaru…and three days since she had last touched his conscious mind in the Matrix.

Finally, she reached out, and felt him again.

Nova suddenly knew that Derek was alive, but, at best, only semi-conscious as her mind touched his in their Bond.

Where are you? Nova cried out at last in her tormented mind.

I....Don’t know…except that I’m on Ekogaru’s Fortress…and I’ve been tortured, Derek sent back. Hard for me to move...all fuzzy…and they…they…I don’t want to think about what they did to me!!

Nova picked up the awful, blunt reality of what they had done to Derek, and she hissed, Why…why…did they do THAT to you? They’re sick!

Nova, they polluted me, in the worst way they can physically pollute a man…or, a woman. What are you doing, Nova?

Thinking of you, and in the worst possible way. Nova sent back with a blush. I want you in the bunk with me…to hold you…to make love to you…right now!

You can’t still want me after what they did to me! Derek sobbed. It’s the same thing they do to men in prison!

You’re my husband, Nova thought. Yes, I still want you! You couldn’t help what they did to you! They had you in chains, my darling! The Yamato is on New Pellias….Where are you near? Can you tell?

Procyon…we just warped…I can see it out a viewport…I’m naked and I’m cold….Where are you on the ship? Derek sent. Are you hugging my jacket? Are you cold? Do you have anything on?

Still on the Yamato and in Sickbay, yes, I’m hugging your jacket, and no, I have no clothes on, Nova sent as she smiled weakly.

What are you doing? Derek sent back.

Missing you with all my heart, my darling…imagining you inside me…beginning to fantasize….yes…yes…yes…Ohh...yes! I’ll come for you soon, my darling.

You’ll come for me?

Yes, I will. I’ll come right to you soon to rescue you. Hang on. I love you! I’M COMING FOR YOU!

I love you, too, Derek sent back, and then he imagined himself placing a butterfly kiss on Nova’s naked body, right between her legs…

Nova felt the kiss, as she tossed aside Derek’s jacket, put both hands on herself, and just let Nature take its course, riding her almost painful pleasure like a wave, its utter intensity reminding her of one of the times she had body-surfed in the nude on New Pellias in the warm water.

A moment later, she was surprised as Trelaina, still in the nude herself, reappeared to her and grasped her hands. Nova found Trelaina’s hands were warm, vital, and alive, and her touch helped dispel some of the dire cold that had washed over her ever since she had undressed for her physical exam before.

“I know what you are planning,” Trelaina said. “Let me help you.”

“You were just with Mark, weren’t you?”

“Yes, he needed me…but now you need me.”

“You still have nothing on you,” Nova said. “Of course.”

“You’ve seen it,” said Trelaina. “In my new state, my external vibrations are such that clothing soon dissolves off my very body. I can touch Mark, as I am now holding hands with you, since you too are alive, but my new form cannot be clothed for long now, since I am no longer subject to Death, and I am no longer quite Mortal. It may change when I have a child with Mark. I do not know.”

Trelaina stared hard into Nova’s eyes. “After you pass through the Fire, and give your very lifeblood fighting Ekogaru and saving untold billions of souls, you will be sent Back bearing the restored and cleansed Matrix, and you will then exist for a Time as I do…on a higher plane, not subject to Death, flaming with Light like me probably just as bare for a time and not subject to heat, nor cold, nor even the very vacuum of space. You will live like this, until you control your abilities, Then, you shall be with Derek, who shall share your Gift, for some centuries, until the last traces of the evil of Ekogaru are laid to rest, and then you will be able to lay down your physical head, rest, and pass into eternity.”

“I know this will happen. Indeed, in the natural plane, I’m already dying from cancer, and I am in some pain, so it will be a blessing to pass on from my mortal life. When will this happen?” Nova said.

“Soon. Very, very soon,” said Trelaina.

“I know,” said Nova.

“So. Let that thought comfort you as you take this Oath with me before we enter the Blue Council on New Pellias again.”

Nova nodded, and repeated after Trelaina as she took the Oath of poverty and surrender established by Queen Pellas when she accepted the full power of the Matrix and, as Nova realized, gave her life once fighting Ekogaru before she was resurrected to life for a time to end her peoples’ war with him.

I, Nova Dawn Yukiko Wildstar, now take up certain rights and obligations, while giving up others. I take up the right to rule the Pellian Commonwealth when needed, command our Forces faithfully, and to fight on until our Enemy is defeated. I take up the Obligation to give of myself to the People of the Realm. My wealth is theirs, and my gifts are theirs, to be used in Service, and not in raw power. As their High Queen bearing the Matrix, in memory of Queen Pellas’ poverty and simplicity within the Commonwealth, I will also live in her simplicity…and do without so many comforts.”

Nova shivered as she realized that now, it is beginning. I was right. When I was undressed two hours ago in the examining room, I laid aside my regular apparel for my Passage Through the Fire.

“You are correct,” Trelaina said. “Soon, you will be like myself…almost exactly like I am, and you shall bear a reflection of the Glory of the Highest Himself; a pale reflection of His glory, but showing some of His Glory, nonetheless. We shall continue, now, Nova.”

Nova nodded, and repeated after Trelaina as she said, “I now show myself, not to be in the Image of the Machine…but in the Image of the Highest, when He, the Word, was made manifest in the Flesh…and as my flesh is always ready for combat in the Realm, with my skin and very form ready to be changed at a moment’s notice, my mind is likewise ready to fight as I suffer, pour myself out for the Realm, and die, casting myself upon His Mercy and Grace and Will. I do this now in the Name and to the Glory of the Highest. May He guard me and keep me steadfast in my obligation…”

Nova shivered again in Trelaina’s arms, and she wept a little as she realized she was now one step closer to her own death.

The tears turned even more bitter a moment later as the Matrix opened and Nova realized that she had taken the first steps toward her path of suffering when she had stripped earlier.

She realized she would suffer extended period of blazing heat, severe cold, and incredible physical pain and torture dressed in nothing but her own bare skin.

She realized that she would be molested by Ekogaru’s troops and lackeys, and raped by Ekogaru himself and some of his lackeys as part of her horrible ordeal…just as she knew they had done to Derek.

She realized she would rescue Derek, but only after suffering many tortures in front of him and before him…and before the polluted Aliscea, before Katrina and Foxy, and before her own mother.

She realized she would be burned, beaten, starved, humiliated, lashed, and then at some point even crucified on Ekogaru’s orders.

But Nova realized then that even though suffering hours of pain would take her to the point of death, she would not find the release of death there, but would return to the Yamato, fight Ekogaru again…

…and then die exposed, possessing no weapons or even garments on the First Bridge before her crewmates, Derek, her mother, Foxy, her surviving children…and before Katrina…who was truly Princess Invidia.

“My God!” Nova cried out. “She lived? I’ve been harboring that snake all along, Trelaina? BUT WHY?”

“You did so out of your mercy, Nova, and your mercy has partially redeemed her,” Trelaina said. “She is imprisoned, too, and like you, Foxy, Derek, and your mother, she has been stripped of every bit of clothing she possessed, and has only her own dignity and her Royal Jewel as her cloak. Please continue to show mercy to her, Nova, for this was her story…and I have been complicit, as well, in hiding her until now…”

Trelaina then coupled to the Matrix and showed Nova Invidia’s full tale of how Ekogaru had used and betrayed her repeatedly, and now intended to kill her, and Nova also understood Invidia’s pain of leading a double life as Katrina Savela, and she understood her rejection and mockery by the people of Earth and Pellias, and by her own father, Zordar, alive and far away in his darkness in the Andromeda Galaxy. Indeed, it was a shock like in the slap in the face for Nova to comprehend that Zordar still lived.

Nova wept even more bitterly after this in Trelaina’s arms, but she was not weeping for herself.

She was now weeping for Invidia, whom she now knew as Katrina.

And, suddenly, her mind reached out to Katrina’s and snapped upon her consciousness.

Like her, Katrina, also known as Invidia, was naked, except for the Royal Jewel she wore as a Princess of the Comet Empire in her hair.

Invidia was not in a peaceful place, though, as Nova was in the arms of Trelaina.

Instead, Invidia was in horrible pain in Ekogaru’s Sphere of Joy.

The energy beams she was all too familiar with by now, in this imprisonment, and her previous tortures years ago in the Hell were hitting her. She had already soiled herself several times in the horrid field in which she was suspended naked as energy and fire hit her body, making her cry out.

Invidia! Nova’s voice came in her mind. Or, should that be Katrina?

Nova! How do you know where I am now? Invidia cried. And how do you know who I truly am and that I am alive?

Through Trelaina and the Matrix, Nova responded. Trelaina lives again. She told me the Truth at last.

That bitch! Invidia screamed in the Matrix. Tell her not to look at me! And don’t you leer at me! I’m dirty! I’m naked! Ekogaru is laughing at me!

We are all the same, Nova said soothingly. We are all on the level. Trelaina herself goes naked now. And I am also naked. But your deeds were made as naked to me as your skin is. I understand you did much evil but that you were lied to by HIM. I forgive you, and as High Queen of Pellias, and Terran President, I now pardon you for all your crimes, and I forgive you and I love you as a friend and as adopted kin. I will protect you. I am coming for you and for my Derek!

To torture me more?

NO! To free you, my dear, Nova said as she projected her face, naked shoulders, and tear-stained but smiling face on Invidia’s consciousness. I will hug you to my bosom like a sister when I come for you, wash the filth from you with my tears, warm you against my naked breasts, and I promise you I will free you and see you safely returned to the Yamato and clothed and cared for.

HOW DO I KNOW YOU WILL, NOVA?

Behold, Nova said as she raised her hand to Trelaina’s nod.

The power supply of the Sphere of Joy exploded and burned.

Some of the shrapnel flew past Invidia and smashed into the observation booth where Ekogaru, Flagg, Stone, and Teri Forrester, who was naked and chained, were watching.

Some of the hot shrapnel hit Stone, Flagg and Ekogaru himself as Nova’s laughter resounded through the speakers. The sheer joy in her voice was like a slap in the face to those vile torturers in their chambers of darkness.

Teri shrank when she heard her daughter’s laughter but she gritted her teeth.

Ekogaru, who had just lost an eye to Nova’s angry onslaught, put his hand to his bleeding face and roared, “I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, YOU ROTTEN WHORE, NOVA! I’M COMING FOR YOU!”

“You misunderstand me, Lordship!” Nova said as she made a projection of herself, shining with the Crown Imperishable and naked, appear before Ekogaru. “You will soon see me…because I am coming for my husband, and for YOU!”

“I’ll put you in the Sphere in Invidia’s place, you bitch!” Ekogaru roared back. “And I’ll roast you like a holiday turkey! DOWN TO YOUR BONES!”

Nova again laughed as Flagg said, “She’s serious this time, M’Lord. She’ll rip you to shreds!”

“She can be beaten if we push her buttons!” yelled Teri.

Stone slapped her across the face and yelled, “Who asked you, you slut?”

“Mother, your current company surprises me,” Nova said. “I feel sick for you!”

“I DON’T NEED YOUR PITY, CHILD!” roared Teri.

“If you continue to defy the goads, Teri, you shall receive no pity from me…when we meet again,” Nova said. “I know you for the traitor and criminal you are. You do not deny that you are the one who told Stone where Father would be the night you two connived to assassinate the President, Parliament, my father, and Derek and I?”

“I do not deny it, Nova…but how did you know?” yelled Teri in fear.

“You always said my eyes could gaze through a wall. Now, I can gaze through the walls you have built around yourself in your rage and fear. You have become a bad parody of the good person my mother once was…but she is still there, deep within you. You can be forgiven for your evil…but…”

“And you’ve taken all this power and wealth upon yourself?” Teri said.

“We knew it was coming someday,” Nova said. “Or have you been asleep the past two decades? As for wealth? I have none. Due to a vow that I have taken, I now own nothing…no home, no car, no money, nothing at all, not even clothing to put on my back, and I have even given up the right to fight for my own life! I have renounced all wealth and goods for now like a Franciscan Friar, and I have never felt freer in my life! It is a shame Ekogaru and Stone have taken everything from you! Had you renounced it, you would have nothing to lose.”

Nova then vanished from Teri’s sight.

______________________________________________________

III. NOVA’S PASSAGE THROUGH THE FIRE BEGINS….

Space Battleship Yamato

Planet New Pellias

Thursday June 30, 2231

The Captain’s Quarters

0025 Hours: Local Time

_______________________________________________________

It was the cold hour of midnight on the Yamato.

Sandor was now overseeing the ship as XO, and had spoken briefly with Nova, who was alone in the Captain’s Cabin, only twice on the intership phone; once to inform her that Mark and Trelaina were off the ship and were somewhere on New Pellias, asking not to be disturbed for a day. Sandor found it a little strange that Nova had not come down to tell him in person. In fact, no one on the ship had seen her since the afternoon of the previous day. That was the day Nova intended it. She did not mean to tell the crew of her vows or of her new appearance in her bare skin like Trelaina until she could call a meeting with them at some point.

The other communication concerned the Officer of the Deck schedule for the next day. Nova arranged with Sandor to have other officers in command of the ship, with him to assume command in an emergency until Mark returned. She told him she expected to leave on a journey, but expected to return with Derek in three days or less.

“With Derek?” Sandor had said.

“Yes,” Nova said. “I have an idea where Ekogaru has taken him. I mean to bring him back. When I return with him, we will probably be very battered physically, may be sunburned, and will have no clothing on. Kindly have Doctor Bixley prepare to treat us. When we recover, I will speak with you, the other officers, and the Exile High Command on the next steps we shall take to defeat Ekogaru. This war is approaching a crisis, and after Ekogaru’s power is broken, I anticipate that we will be able to begin planning with the Pellians and the Gamilons for an assault upon Earth to retake it. Kindly notify Astrena and Desslok of my intent. I will not speak to you again for a while; I do not know for how long. Best wishes.”

That talk had been an hour ago.

Now, Nova, still nude, sat on her bunk, cross-legged, meditating to find Derek’s essence, as she meant to jump physically directly to him, and…

Nova took a deep breath….

…and some other Power took her, and she jumped into a vast room where the first thing she saw was Derek, naked, kneeling before her in chains, with a blindfold and ball gag on.

“You poor dear,” Nova said softly as she touched him…

“Nova…don’t!” yelled Derek.

“What?” Nova said.

Before she could react, four strong Technomugar cyborgs fell on her.

She was held down, beaten, and as she struggled, she felt a metal collar shoved on her neck and a cold, heavy chain wrapped around her nude body.

The collar weakened her powers, but only to an extent, as Nova felt that a final lock was not sealed due to her struggles.

She lashed out with her power, and burned two of the cyborgs to ash with bolts of energy that came from her hands, even though the effort gave her a terrible headache and her nose bled for a moment.

“What’s that noise?” Derek yelled around his ball gag.

He coughed and wheezed, and one of their tormentors ripped away his ball gag and blindfold.

He looked at Nova with tears in his eyes. “I have never been so glad to see you in my life,” he said. “You poor thing; when did they strip you of your clothes?”

“I undressed of my own free will when I finally took my Vows soon after Trelaina reappeared as a solid being on the Yamato, Derek. Holly is dead, but Trelaina reincarnated herself using Holly’s remains. She is with Mark, and is alive again and on our side.” Nova looked at the light of the Crown Imperishable above her head. “Derek, my time has begun. We will be tormented here, but it will lead, somehow, to Ekogaru’s defeat…” she said as she tried to lash out mentally against the Dark Lord, and then only screamed as he evaded her grasp and somehow sent her own power back against her.

Derek stared in horror as Nova writhed in pain on the deck of this vessel.

“You’re far too confident, Nova, my dear,” said a deep voice from all around them.

“You bastard,” hissed Derek as the Dark Lord appeared from out of a black cloud. He seemed to be wearing only a black cloak, and he was grinning.

“Nova, my dear. You meant to be all noble and to come for Derek. Instead, I came for you first, Your Highness. I see you’ve discarded that silly uniform of yours for your bare skin. I’m pleased. Like your distant foremother Pellas, you look so much better in the nude. Very nice, Nova. Because you and I are going to talk. No, Derek. Do not worry. I will leave you be for now, anyway. You will just get to watch.”

“Watch what?” Nova hissed as she was forced onto her feet by some of the Technomugar. She was vulnerable, in pain, and very frightened, but she gritted her teeth and put on a brave front for her Enemy.

“Watch carefully, Derek,” Ekogaru said with a smile. He whistled, and three Orcs came into the room.

Nova tried to fight these ugly creatures, who stank, but they were immensely strong.

“Let her go!” Derek roared as he tried to come to his feet. “She didn’t do anything to you!”

“Shut your pie-hole, you disgusting ugly Terranisch piece of filth!” roared one of the Orcs.

Nova struggled as another Orc grabbed her breast and bounced it. “You’ve got nice tits, you little bitch,” said the Orc. “M’Lord, she looks delicious! Can we screw her?”

“NO,” said Ekogaru. “Pull her up on the balance chain, and give her back a little freshener with the lash, first, Ragdash!”

“With pleasure, my Lord,” said the Orc Sergeant.

“Pull her up…leave her balanced on her toes!” said Ragdash as the Orcs put Nova’s hands in manacles and pulled her up by her arms as they laughed.

Derek snarled, and sent to Nova, I’m gonna do something about this…but I don’t know what…yet….

It would be nice if you could do this soon, Derek, Nova sent back. My shoulders hurt….

Nova’s chains were pulled off, and she shut her eyes as behind her, one of the Orcs cracked a whip.

The whip whistled, and Nova screamed as the lash hit her exposed flesh. She held back a sob with great effort.

Derek roared with anger, and tried to escape, but two strong cyborgs held him down, and made him watch in horror as the Orcs lashed Nova.

Soon, her body was covered with bruises and bloody wounds. Her blood began to patter onto the stone floor like rain.

Ekogaru just laughed. “Ready to surrender yet, my dear High Queen? You are experiencing just the first of what we do to prisoners we capture on Earth, Nova. We strip them naked, starve them, and then we give them the lash. How do you like it?”

“I HATE IT AND I HATE YOU!” Nova roared, pointing her toes at him as she swung up.

She shut her eyes and screamed at the mental pain, but she again attacked the Dark Lord with electrical energy that she caused to flash out of her toes at her enemy. She wanted to both sing a song of Power and get to her sword, hidden about her in a small pocket dimension, so badly that the longing hurt her like a bitter draught.

The beam hit Ekogaru in the face and burned his face. He screamed, and he grabbed a lash from one of the Orcs and he lashed Nova’s back himself in his utter rage.

“Not bad,” he said. “Ragdash, let’s try something else. Get some fire and apply it to her body. Find a nice sensitive place, and make her burn!”

“With pleasure,” laughed Ragdash.

Ragdash and his men lashed Nova some more, and they paused to lash Derek.

Then, Ragdash came up with a torch, and he hugged Nova close to him with an obscene hug, and he began to slowly burn one of her nipples with his torch.

Nova screamed again at the pain, and Derek’s roars of rage filled the room as he saw his darling bride, his sick, dying bride, being tormented by these horrible beings.

“Oh, but the best is yet to come, Derek,” said Ekogaru as Nova screamed and kicked as hard as she could at her obscene armored tormentor. “Tell me, Nova, have you ever had sex with anyone else since your wedding night with Derek? Tell me the truth, my love. After all, by your own brave and rash renunciation of your clothes, you have nothing to hide at this point, and I love the view!”

“What kind of question is that?” Nova screamed back. “No! I’ve never broken my vows to Derek; not willingly! There were those Bolar guards under your influence, and once Zoltar stripped me and felt me all over along with Princess when we were at war with him, but…sleep with another man? NO!”

“This makes it better, then,” Ekogaru said. “Let her down, lads. Make it easy. I want her to enjoy what’s coming next,” he said.

“You sick and diseased bastard!” yelled Derek. “What do you mean to do to her?” he yelled as he felt something in his mind beginning to let go…like some long-dammed stream was about to break loose.

“Drag her over to the bar, lads. Wash the blood off her with salt water…it’ll hurt her nicely, and I don’t want her getting a skin infection down here in the torture chambers,” said Ekogaru.

Nova held back whimpers as they pulled her down, kicked her in the ribs, and made her walk towards an alcove in this room filled with machines of all sorts. She bit her tongue as her naked body was subjected to a harsh saltwater bath, and she was scrubbed hard with rough brushes, even as she used her powers, disregarding the pain in her head, to heal the worst of the cuts and hurts on her back and buttocks.

Nova then gasped as one of the Orcs forced her legs open, and began to touch her unwilling private parts from behind. “Gonna make you purr…honey….gonna make you nice and wet for your master, you diseased whore!” hissed Ragdash as he rapidly touched Nova’s womanhood, making her knees involuntarily weak as he rubbed some sort of potion on her womanhood that made her almost painfully responsive to the smallest touch.

Nova bit her tongue and gritted her teeth against the stimulation, her mind reaching out to Derek’s and connecting, as, with utter horror, he felt this diseased monster bringing his poor Nova to an involuntary orgasm in about three minutes.

“Make it stop,” Nova wept. “I want my husband, please! NOW! Derek, fight them and come and make love to me…please!”

Derek got up, and tried to fight his way towards his mate, but the Cyborg guards and two Orcs beat him down with hard rubber Billy clubs in their hands.

Nova screamed and tried to teleport herself and him away from this horrid place, but a hard shove bashed her into the bar.

She looked back as she felt hot breath on the nape of her neck.

It was Ekogaru.

And…he was now naked, and Nova noticed that his manhood was vile-looking, and as huge as he was.

As Derek yelled and cursed, Ekogaru took Nova, hard, and as she struggled, he raped her…in just the same blunt way that he had raped him earlier!

Nova struggled the whole time, but the act of violence that brought her to a second involuntary explosion of pleasure was almost mercifully quick, and was done and over with in only five more minutes, even though Nova screamed as the Dark Lord’s bizarre seed exploded inside her and felt like acid.

With an intent glare as Nova and Derek both struggled, the Dark Lord then withdrew himself from Nova’s trembling body and shoved himself into another part of her instead. He smiled as he saw that she was already healing rapidly from the Orcs’ torture, even as he polluted her flesh in a way that made Derek roar.

“You ever had this before?” he hissed in her ear.

“Yes, with Derek, but he did me so gently, oh so gently! You are not gentle! Stop this! IT HURTS!”

“Ready to negotiate with me, yet?” said Ekogaru. “Or, Derek, do you have to watch as I burn an arm off her in the Sphere of Joy? Or, should I burn off one of her pretty legs, instead? Oh, she’s so pretty,” he said as he touched Nova all over while she tried to get out of his grasp to hurt him with her power, and then strangle him, even though the effort might well kill her.

“You’ll never do that!” Derek roared.

“Pray tell,” said Ekogaru. “Who’s going to stop me? YOU? Nova is currently non compos mentis due to the psychic damper on her neck and the sheer joy of having sexual relations with me…”

“This is not joyful! You have me in Hell! I’m close to going mad,” Nova said in a monotone voice. “Why don’t you kill me, Ekogaru, when this is done? I’m polluted,” she said as her toes pressed against the wall.

She screamed as Ekogaru finished with her and threw her to the floor like a broken plaything.

Then, he looked at his Orcs and guards and said, “Have at her, boys. After you get done with her, you can all watch as I go after Derek all over again next! You see, Admiral Wildstar, I go both ways! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”

“Nova, fight them!” cried Derek. “We have to get out of here….he’s been at me like that before…”

“I know that, my love…I…NO!!!” Nova screamed as she was picked up by one of the Cyborgs, who was now naked.

Nova was grabbed by the Cyborg, who held her against him as she kicked and struggled.

Nova did get a hand free and screamed in pain as she lashed out with her power at one of the Orcs, her energy ripping him in half as a bloody mess.

Derek remembered being beaten without mercy by Ekogaru as he watched Nova, with tears running down her cheeks, being raped again by the Cyborg while another one, who was also nude forced Nova to service him with her unwilling mouth. Tears ran down her face, and she gagged at the monster’s foul, foul deed.

Derek’s head reeled as Ekogaru beat him, and his psychic damper came loose and fell off his neck with a loud clang.

Then, he looked at Nova as his eyes opened, and a fierce, terrible light flicked on for the first time in his eyes as he touched Nova through their Bond, and touched the Matrix and the power that was held back in him.

Derek felt filled with energy he had never experienced before.

He screamed, and he reached out.

Nova’s loose psi-damper fell off, and, a moment later, as the Cyborg raping her was having a second go-round, Nova forced herself away, twirled on her toes, summoned her Soul Sword to her hand, and screamed in rage as she ran the Cyborg through with her blade’s crystalline shaft, giving her tormentor back what he had given her. Then, she lashed out with her power and reduced the Cyborg who was forcing her to suck him into a burning human torch. For good measure, Nova lashed out at Ragdash, too, causing his armor to melt as he was cremated alive with a horrid scream.

Derek, in the meantime, stood and advanced on Ekogaru like a ravening, terrible giant.

He grabbed the cyborg madman, picked him up by his neck, and broke his neck like a twig.

Then, he yelled, “THIS IS FOR RAPING MY WIFE, AND ME, YOU MONSTER!” as he threw the Dark Lord against a wall and furiously began to beat the paralyzed and now very frightened Dark Lord into a bloody pulp, smashing his mechanical parts in him like china, and then he reached down towards the Dark Lord’s manhood….

…and he burned it right off him!

“YOU’LL NEVER TOUCH MY WIFE AGAIN, YOU BASTARD!” Derek roared as he grabbed Nova and held her up as he snarled, and taking hold of the energy of the Matrix himself, he roared, “THIS IS FOR CONQUERED EARTH, WHICH WE ARE BEGINNING TO SET FREE!”

Then, Derek even shocked Nova as he blasted energy into the machines in this control room as he began to blow the Grand Fortress to bits from the INSIDE. Nova knew at once this would change many of the visions she had foreseen, and she had just enough time to get Foxy and Invidia off the ship to the Yamato, followed by her own mother.

Every single psi-sensitive from here, to the Magellenic Cloud, to Andromeda, felt Derek’s utter rage as he, aided by Nova’s power, just blew the prime reactor of the Grand Fortress to bits and it came to a stop.

Nova kissed Derek and said, “Derek, Sandor didn’t listen, it seems, to my orders.”

“Why?”

“The Yamato’s right nearby, advancing on the Grand Fortress. What should we do?”

“Take us home, dear, and I need to fire up the Wave Motion Gun!”

“NOOOO!!!” the dying Ekogaru roared. “You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what kind of energies you’ll release…I…I…”

“SHUT UP!” Derek yelled, kicking the suffering, bleeding form of Ekogaru in the face.

“Nova, please pardon me,” said Derek. “I have to use the bathroom, but there’s none around….”

“At a time like this?” Nova said.

“Oh, I’m going to give Ekogaru a little gift,” said Derek. Derek grinned and aimed himself at Ekogaru…and as the Dark Lord yelled, Derek let go right in his face as Nova suddenly laughed hard, not expecting this new wrinkle at all!

“Derek, I LOVE you!” Nova cried as she hugged her husband/

“Ta, ta for now, hope you die soon,” said Derek as Nova looked out a window and saw the Grand Fortress was burning.

Nova kissed Derek, and they vanished together as Ekogaru screamed and cursed in pain and rage.

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IV. CRISIS! THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR EKOGARU THE GREAT….

Space Battleship Yamato

The Vicinity of Procyon

Friday July 1, 2231

The First Bridge

0025 Hours: Local Time

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Nova and Derek reappeared back on the Yamato, naked, and bleeding in several places, before a shocked crew. Nova knew at once Foxy and Invidia and her mother were aboard ship and were safe.

“Derek, take command,” said Nova as she pushed aside her shocked daughter Ariel from the Cosmo-Radar and just sat down as she was.

“With pleasure,” Derek said as he sat down behind the weapons console, pushing away Anya as he did so.

“Dad, you…where’s your clothes?”

“Ekogaru sort of stripped me in there, but I’m going to give him a present he’ll never forget,” he said as he looked at his panel. “Why is it the first of June already? Nova and I were only in that torture chamber for two hours!”

“Time dilation,” said Sandor. “Time must have gone very fast for you there, but more slowly for us outside. Wildstar, that ship is badly damaged. How did you do that?”

“All explanations later,” said Derek. “Nova, how far are we from that thing?”

“Sixty megameters,” she said. “Ten ships have emerged from that ship…one warped out…the other nine are coming for us, not in their range yet, I guess.”

“Stop all engines!” snapped Derek. Then, he yelled, “Transfer all energy to the wave motion gun!”

“STOP ALL ENGINES!” said Diane. “Transfer beginning…”

Flames lit on Derek’s naked skin as he hissed, “OPEN TARGET SCOPE! Electric Cross gauge Intensity Full! Range to target, fifty-nine megameters!”

“Energy charge at eighty percent, two minutes to firing,” said Diane as the first Technomugar ships fired at the Yamato.

The green beams skipped off the space battleship as the lights dimmed and came back up.

“Derek, range to the Fortress, Fifty-Five Megameters….part of the Fortress just broke off! It’s moving off towards RPX-221! It warped!” Nova said.

“Where’s that enemy fleet, Nova?” snapped Derek.

“Thirty megameters…they fired missiles!”

“Nova, deflect them, would you?”

Nova nodded and used her power to cause a flash of energy to roar out from the Yamato. The missiles went off course.

“Energy level, one hundred and ten percent!” said Diane Sandor from her post at Engineering.

“Thirty seconds to firing; don goggles,” Derek said. Nova did as he commanded.

Anya smiled at her mother, thinking she looked amusing in only a pair of flash goggles and nothing else. On the other hand, Ariel thought her mother looked both pitiable and painfully beautiful, like an Elvish Princess or young angel in her bareness.

“Distress call from the Grand Fortress,” said Homer.

“Ignore it,” said Derek. “Begin ten second countdown. Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…”

Nova smiled, and curled her bare toes against the footplates at her post in anticipation.

“five….four…three…two…one…zero…FIRE!” yelled Derek.

He fired the gun.

The usual cataract of energy roared from the Gun.

First, the enemy ships perished, then, the beam smashed into the Grand Fortress itself.

It blew itself to bits like a new star.

Derek thought for a moment that they were all going to die as they dissolved into light, but then, he felt the Yamato going into warp.

The ship burst out of warp a moment later.

“Where…where are we?” he said.

“R’kell’evha?” Nova said as she looked at the desert globe that was before them.

Then, wild laughter burst out around them as Ekogaru’s face appeared on the screen.

“How did you live through that?” demanded Derek.

“I brought you here! I survived via a clone body, Derek. And I’ll deal with you later, for destroying my greatest creation!” he roared. “Nova, what I am about to do to you is against all advice of my advisors, but I got off my Grand Fortress and took my Entropy Cannon with me, and you are about to feel a taste of it now!” he roared. “Nova,” he said. “Watch your child Ariel DIE!”

Ekogaru laughed on the screen and raised his hand, and a burst of green energy roared from the screen towards Ariel.

She screamed, but was knocked to the deck by her father.

They expected to die as the beam blasted towards the Astro-Compass, but Nova thought about weeks of pain and agony that would follow…

…and she saw at last how Ekogaru had worsted himself and how he would be defeated, even as her mother staggered onto the bridge.

All it takes, she thought, is for me to do now what I would have to do in a few weeks anyway….to protect Derek and my daughter….

A confused Foxy and Katrina stumbled onto the bridge, holding rags against their naked bodies, as Nova jumped from her seat, howled, and turned her back to Ekogaru and his beam.

“THIS IS FOR ALL OF YOU!” she cried suddenly as she levitated into the air, and waited…

…for Ekogaru’s beam to strike her and save everyone else.

The Fire was waiting for Nova. She knew it. She knew, with open eyes, it was her time at last to fight to her death.

And…that is what happened.

The beam smashed into Nova’s back like a freight train, causing her nose to bleed horribly as the effects of unbridled Entropy flew across her.

Only her power, and the power of the Matrix in her, kept her from being reduced at once to bones.

Horrified, the crew watched as Nova hung there like a beautiful nude angel, burning with light, burning with the power of the Crown Imperishable, burning as Derek felt the Matrix power being pulled from him and felt clothing forming on his body. Teri Forrester screamed as she saw her daughter’s agonies as she writhed in pain like a woman crucified on nothing, and this Teri fell into something like a catatonic state.

Katrina shivered as the power was pulled from her body, and she changed form before them all from Katrina to Invidia, her disguise finally dropped. Nova saw Eager running towards Invidia to strike her, and she cried, “Don’t hurt her! I’ve pardoned her! Long story!”

On Ekogaru’s ship, Aliscea D’Shal reached for Ekogaru, yelled “You are never going to take the Matrix Root from me!” and shot him, her last move in life as her body began to crumble like a skeleton as the energy that had kept her alive was pulled from her into Nova like a piece of waste pulled into a vacuum cleaner. Ekogaru reached out in the spirit world for the psychic ball of flame that was coalescing inside Nova, but he howled as Nova gave up a hold on it, and the Matrix Energy was taken from him, and from all of them, falling down a black hole somewhere to the depths of Creation, to where even Nova knew not where it was going.

Before the Power left her, it whispered to Nova, “Behold, you and I shall be reunited soon before the Feet of the Most High…and you can soon do that which you were born to do….stop the demon who harmed you…”

Nova then thought, Is this it? Is this my passage through the Fire? This is my time to die, isn’t it?

It is almost finished, my Child, another Voice came to her. You must finish it by willingly surrendering your life…as did all the other High Queens before you…and as I did for Thee…

“Amen. And Amen. So, Mote it Be,” Nova whispered out loud…and she quit struggling and relaxed….

The last beam of Ekogaru’s malice thus ripped through her like a lance, tearing into Nova’s back, through her spine, her aorta, and brushing her heart, ripping a hole in it as it came out through her naked chest.

The beam faded as even Ekogaru looked shocked…and Nova crashed to the deck like a fallen, broken angel.

She hit the deck in shock, but was smiling, knowing that her pain would soon be over.

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V. FAREWELL, WHITE ORCHID

Space Battleship Yamato

The Vicinity of Procyon

Friday July 1, 2231

The First Bridge

0130 Hours: Local Time

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Red.

All Nova Wildstar could see was red.

The deck she lay on aboard the Yamato was red.

The pool of the hot, sticky heart-blood that spilled from her naked body was red. Nova now felt very little pain as she knew she was dying as she saw Homer carrying her unconscious mother from the Bridge. She began to analyze her own impending demise, almost clinically, like she was already outside her torn, battered body.

I did it, Aliscea, she thought as her mind reached out again and she saw Aliscea being welcomed into Peace and Light, her recent repentance proven by her refusal to grasp the Matrix Root, and to try and kill her Master, whom, as Nova knew, only had a tenuous hold on his clone body.

Nova looked up, and Derek was shaking her. “Nova, I’ve called the medics…I think we may be able to save you…Invidia’s called for Trelaina…”

“It’s sort of a little too late now,” Nova said with a slight smile in the only voice she could now manage…a barely audible whisper. “I was dying anyway. This way is better. Not as much pain…and I saved the Matrix from Ekogaru. It’s exactly what I had to do, Derek. All the High Queens who succeeded in taking the Matrix…they had to die first. They had to give their lives voluntarily to enter their inheritance. Aliscea never understood that….except on a very basic level. That’s why she gave me the Matrix. It’s all so clear now.”

“Are you in pain?” Derek cried.

Nova smiled and shook her head. “I’m in shock. Not a bad thing to be in right now…blocks the pain. Good thing I took my Oath before I died. Naked I was born into this world, and naked I shall depart. Blessed be the Name of the LORD.”

Nova motioned Derek down towards her, and she kissed him,

Derek felt her last breath gasping into his lungs.

Then, he held her as she went limp as her spirit left her.

Everyone felt something like a warm wind pass…

And then, Nova looked broken and shrunken in Derek’s arms.

She was dead, her battles over at last.

Derek wept long and loud, tearing the clothes she had dressed him in in pain, and he murmured her name again and again as he wept.

He lifted her limp and bloody body from the pool of blood it lay in, and was struck when Invidia silently took off the rag that was covering her. She was offering it to cover Nova’s face.

Even the Cometine Princess was weeping silently at Nova’s death.

Derek was about to cover her face with the cloth when a blast like thunder hit the bridge.

Derek looked up, and Ekogaru was there before him.

“Give me that,” he said, raging as he kicked at Derek and grabbed Nova’s dead body from his arms.

“PUT HER DOWN!” Derek raged.

“Oh, I will, in good time,” he said. “She’s too thin! Not much here for me to eat!”

As he held her, he said, “Nova. You fool! You could have joined me and lived forever, you know. Now, you have no chance of that. Derek, in memory of her sacrifice, meaningless as it was, I propose a truce of fifteen of your days. We’ve both lost a great deal today; I lost my Fortress and the body of Maples, you…well you, Derek, you lost this…and she’s so weak…she’ll never come back. Your High Queen is dead! AND I KILLED HER!”

Ekogaru threw Nova’s corpse onto the deck like a piece of garbage. Then, he began to laugh, and he paced the First Bridge as he said, “And what was she at the end? A failed High Queen. The Matrix lives no longer. You have no hope against me. But I can be merciful.”

Ekogaru cleared his diseased throat and said, “We shall have a parley on New Pellias in sixteen of your days to discuss your surrender terms with you, Astrena, and Desslok, I am prepared to give you New Pellias as a sanctuary if Astrena gives me the Pellian Commonwealth, Desslok gives me the Gamilon Empire, and you agree to dissolve your Terran Government in Exile and give me this space battleship so I can scrap it. You’ll find another person to love, Derek. Now, go bury Nova. Her last stand was foolish, but even I admire her devotion to you and her stupid bravery. I leave now. Go mourn her. I will send you Jean Saint Germain to negotiate terms of surrender. I have other things to do. I wash my hands of your lot. I have had enough. So much for Nova and her “Last Stand.” Earth and Pellias have died with her.”

Ekogaru then took off his cloak and he surprised everyone by covering Nova’s body with it.

He turned to leave, but stopped when he and everyone else distinctly heard Nova’s voice coming from nowhere and everywhere at once as she said,

“Ekogaru! Are you so sure this is the last stand? I am sure you and I will meet again…and soon….”

“Ghosts,” spat the Dark Lord. “This ancient ship is filled with ghosts. It would be better off scrapped…I shall go…for now…”

At that, he vanished…but Derek smiled grimly as he saw he was shaking…and he felt and heard a little bit of Nova’s laughter through their Bond….

…and he sat on the deck in wonder that he was still bonded to her, even though she was dead. Even though he could not touch her mind in her body anymore, Derek could still touch Nova, even as her spirit flew far away to unknown realms, he could feel her utter joy and rapture. Derek did not know it, but Nova was full of joy because she realized that she had won, she had laid her destiny in the Lord’s hands, and she laid herself upon the altar, and…the crucial juncture had finally happened, and the long, bitter journey that would lead to Ekogaru’s final defeat had begun at last.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

TO BE CONTINUED….