THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
A Star Blazers short tale
By Frederick P. "Freddo" Kopetz
Thanks to Gail Kopetz, Jamie Tucker, and "Yuki Wildstar" for support and ear-bending
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ACT
ONE: SEVEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
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I. HOSTAGES
The Vicinity of Barnard's Star
Earth Space liner Seal Beach
May 26, 2214
1400 Hours: Earthtime
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Richie Hartcliffe was having a real problem.
He had recently turned seven, and his father, Clive, on leave, had
been taking him on his second space cruise to see family at the Barnard's Star
Colony. His Uncle Howard had come on leave with them. His mother Angie, he
knew, was active again as a pilot, too. In fact, the last time he had seen his
mother, he had been proud to see her in the uniform of the Black Tigers, about
to embark on the Argo as the Tigers' fourth squadron leader under the
command of veterans Deke Wakefield, Cory Conroy, and Jonathan
Hartnell-Wildstar. Rich liked all of them, especially Cory with his interesting
accent, and Deke, with his California surfer twang and funny comments. And
those funny drumsticks he was always hitting things with.
What happened there next was a tragedy.
Their ship, the space liner Seal Beach, had been ready to
warp home from Barnard's when the ship and her two EDF escorts; two little
space frigates, came to a complete halt…right after his father Clive had
received emergency orders and had left the ship, leaving him with his uncle.
Richie didn't know what had happened next, except that it happened in a hurry. Before long, the ship had filled up with Bad Guys in ugly dark-red and white uniforms. Most of them looked like normal Earth people; most Caucasian, with a smattering of black and red-tinged faces among their ranks; but some were obviously of Rikashan descent; they were orange, had greasy-looking hair, and spoke with the same nasty, abrupt accents that the other bad guys used.
Some of them were fat and very light blue in color, and some had
ugly grey and red uniforms of a different cut than the majority of them. At
first, Richie thought they were evil Gamilons turned renegade,
but their accents sounded weirdly Bulgarian and they had weird laughs. He heard
something that sounded like balalaika music and had heard one of them yelling
at the guys in the red suits, stating, "We do this in the Name of the
Warbringer for the joint glory of Bolar and R'Khell! PROSITSKIYA!"
The blue guys were yelling that word, "Prositskiya! Prositskiya!" over and over again. It sounded ugly to
Richie's ears, and he knew he hated being tied up.
And, last of all, there were the other blue guys. Some were bald
and had weird, ugly blue-on-blue eyes and black and red uniforms; and then,
worst of all, there were men with blue skin taller than they were, all in
black, with horrid faces that seemed to be blue skin over skulls. They looked
hideous, were horribly strong, and their eyes literally glowed like coals. All
of the other Bad Guys seemed to be afraid of them.
Richie was broken from his reverie by a slap in the face. He was
tied up, so he could not raise his hands, but he looked up at an ugly blue
face. "Who are you?" Richie demanded.
"Scum. It is I
who should demand that of you, not you of I, you
little worm!" yelled back the man with one of those heavy Bulgarian
accents. "I am Colonel Petraska of Bolar, on duty with unit two of this
slaver mission! You are all now slaves of the joint R'Khell Union and Bolar
Federation, boy! You will obey all orders promptly, and you will not protest
any of our orders or directives! That clear to you, little boy?"
"If I were free right now, I'd spit on you!"
"SILENCE!" yelled Petraska. "For that, you will
face…"
Petraska began to pull out a hand-blaster, but one of the men in
the red came up to him and said, "Colonel, I know you want to terrorize
this lot, but we kill them on the schedule that the First Marshal established.
One per hour until the Earth Federation meets our demands. One
per hour only. This little creep is number nineteen on the list. Which means he is the nineteenth one we kill, preferably in front
of his damned father, whom we have identified, unless Earth begins surrender
proceedings and breaks off relations with Rikasha. And these orders come
from both the First Marshal and He who is over him,
and I, General Torgis Hamad, have the authority to make sure we carry them out,
aye! See the Vanguards watching us?"
"What are those…things?" Petraska whispered.
"The Apples of his Lordship's eye and the next step in human
evolution; the New Technomugar," whispered Hamad. "They say He can
see us through them. They say wherever there are two or three of them, He is
with us. They are the Hands of the Dark Lord, his most terrible servants,
shadows under his Great Shadow. I can't tell you more now…have to get back to
my flagship. Do not mess this up, Petraska! I place you in
command!"
Petraska crossed his hands over his heart, bowed his head with closed eyes in the weird R'Khell salute, and then watched as Hamad took off with his black cape snapping behind him as he walked, adjusting his turban as he grinned like a madman.
"You, you, and you," said Petraska, signing to
three guards. "Watch this little brat. He is in the line of those to be
executed. Make sure he is watched."
"How do we do it?" said one of the R'Khell guards.
"I will have Heymik do it," said Petraska. "He is
strong enough to cut off his head with one blow of the scimitar. "
"Of course," said one of the guards.
Like hell you'll do this, thought Richie as tears formed
in his eyes. You just watch. My dad will get loose and start something, or
Mom will show up with the rest of the Tigers.
Richie looked towards the stars as he thought, Where is the Star Force?
II. BACK IN THE SOUP AGAIN
The Vicinity of Barnard's Star
Space Battleship Argo
May 26, 2214
1406 Hours: Earth time
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"Hey,
Venture; this is hard to believe!" yelled Commander Paul Rosstowski as he
sat in the Argo's Combat Station as her newly appointed Combat Group
Leader.
"What's hard to believe?" snapped back Holly Venture
from the helm. She had been home enjoying some well-earned leave when they had
been called back into action just four hours ago. Their mission; get to Sirius
to back up Task Force 16, which had been formed around the space battleship Arizona
less than twenty-four hours ago. The Argo was the flagship of Task
Force 15, and Holly remembered something from Commodore Wildstar's briefing
that a Task Force 17 was being formed in the rear around Arcturus V around the
space battleship North Carolina to serve as backup for their backup.
"It's hard to believe they're shooting at us!" laughed
Rosstowski.
"Har, har, har, you're funny, Paulie," mocked Lieutenant
Commander Venture, the spouse of the famous Captain Mark Venture, as she looked
out at the green energy beams whizzing past the Argo. "Why is that
so hard to believe?"
"Four hours ago, I was playing with my trains back home.
Now…," said Rosstowski.
"We're not back home," said
Admiral Derek Wildstar as he came up and slapped his hand against the back of
Rosstowski's seat. "Why are we not firing back with the main guns yet?"
"Not in range, yet, sir," said Sasha Wakefield from the
Cosmo-Radar. Nova was not there for this mission because she was back on Earth,
since she had graduated from Medical School in 2212 and was now an MD, in the
last few days of her Surgical Residency. Derek and she had reluctantly agreed
that it was better that she didn't come out into space this time for this
mission. Sasha continued with, "Give us about thirty seconds at
twenty-seven space knots. Unless you want me to do
something about this bunch?"
"Mrs. Wakefield, your powers are our backup. I don't even
want the Dark Lord knowing you're here unless it is absolutely necessary,"
Wildstar replied
Lieutenant Chris Eager called out, "Third set o' enemy ships,
right above us! They're droppin' space mines!"
A group of mines fell among the Argo and her task force of
two fleet cruisers, two patrol cruisers, and nine destroyers. One of the
destroyers, known as the Newark, took a major hit, but she kept on
firing her guns at the enemy.
"I
wonder why those jackasses are keeping out of our range?" muttered
Wildstar from the aft part of the Bridge as he adjusted his Captain’s Cap.
"Sasha! Range to the enemy?"
"Eighteen megameters, sir. For
whatever reason, they're keeping out of the range of the main guns!"
"Captain," said Sandor from his post. "I suggest we
activate Measure Fifty-Five. We tested it in our trials last year. We can use
it to get the Black Tigers on top of them before they know we have it."
"What is it?" asked Sasha. "I never heard of it before."
"Oh…I remember; Nova was on the ship last year in your slot
between her Medical School classes in the summer war games, so you don't know
what it is," said Derek. "It's code for something that Steve, Mrs.
Sandor there," he said, indicating Diane Sandor, the chief engineer,
sitting at her post in orange and white, "and Nova reverse-engineered from
the Gamilons, with the last stages of it being with Desslok's assent after a
lot of negotiations. It took us twelve years to finally get it to work right after
we took some wreckage and plans off Desslok's flagship back in 2201 after we
boarded her. Therefore, I suggest that now would be a good time for our real
first battle test of Measure Fifty-Five. Rosstowski, order Hardy to take
off!" Wildstar had forced himself to think before saying that, because
Jefferson Hardy had been rotated back to command the Tigers again this cruise
because Wakefield, who had been the squadron leader of the Tigers, had instead
been transferred to act as the Squadron Leader of the Blue Devils on the
spacecraft carrier Shangri-La, which was with the North Carolina's
Task Group.
"Yessir!" said Rosstowski. The Argo fired
her smokestack missiles at some Bolar destroyers that had come in above her,
while two of the blisters in the keel had opened up, and the four new
all-purpose heavy pulse laser mounts on the ship's keel above the Third Bridge
were helping to ward off enemy fighters that were trying to hit the Argo's
keel with torpedoes. One had gotten through, and the aft part of the Third
Bridge was smoking already from a small fire.
A moment later, Hardy's squadron was roaring out of the Argo,
followed by Cory Conroy's squadron. "When we get in there, Conroy,"
Hardy said, "We're gonna be hittin' them like roaches comin' out of a hole.
They won't be expectin' that. The first target is the enemy flagship; she looks
like the old B'eoneraze of the Rikasha Incident, except she's red
instead a' black. We have to disable her DIATS Cannon ASAP. That's their
equivalent of our Wave Motion Gun, except that it uses antimatter instead'a
tachyons. Nasty stuff."
"How are we getting' there in time?" asked Cory.
"Measure Fifty-Five," said Hardy as they flew in front
of the Argo's bow and throttled down abruptly. "We practiced this
stuff last year. Use belly thrusters, and make sure we're on line with the
Second Bridge. Then we wait for the Cap'n's signal, and shut our eyes…"
"Captain!" said Sasha from her post. "Squadrons One and Two are lined up on Bridge Number Two."
Derek nodded, and said to Sandor, "Blow explosive bolts. It's
time we uncovered it. Mrs. Sandor, give me five percent energy charge to the
circuit intercoolers."
"Five percent energy, ready," said Diane as she flicked
some switches.
"Blowing bolts," said Sandor.
A number of bolts went off, and a light fairing was uncovered on a
fairly small structure on the top of the Argo's Second Bridge. The new
structure was a hooded unit that had a glowing red energy grid at its center.
The energy grid, which looked a bit like the multi-faceted eye of an insect,
glowed with energy as some new circuits in the Argo's systems began to
come up…
Then, the Tigers sat waiting as Wildstar pulled a control grip out
of a small access hatch at the Captain's station. He opened the electronic
speaking tube mike at his post by hitting a button, and then, he held up the
control grip, on its coiled cable, and hit a switch. He then barked,
"Activate Measure Fifty-Five! ACTIVATE SMITE!"
The new reverse-engineered SMITE unit lit up, and Hardy and Conroy
shut their eyes for a second as the concentric energy wave roared over their
Tigers, making them vanish in flashes of blue-white light.
They reappeared a moment later over the R'Khell fleet flagship L'Jarrnia,
coming in from out of nowhere as they flew in and began to strafe the enemy
vessel, going after her bow first to disable her D'IATS cannon. Hardy grinned
to himself. We got them just in time, he thought as he flew hard right
to evade some pulse laser fire from the enemy ship. His missiles had gone up
the firing gate of the enemy ship's weapon right as the dull green energy of
its charging sequence had begun to light the thing up.
Hardy looked up, smiling as more Tigers were transported in via
the new SMITE device. There's Wakefield, and there's Angie Hartcliffe
backing him up, thought Hardy, thinking back to last summer when, after
testing the SMITE unit with many different kinds of robots flying the Tigers,
he remembered that Nova had won an argument with Sandor, and she had consented
to be the first human to be transported via the SMITE unit as a test pilot and
volunteer guinea pig.
Derek had hated the idea! He also remembered how Nova had
looked that day-sitting in the cockpit of a Tiger in her helmet…and flip-flops
and a bikini; her body covered from head to toe with sensors, some wireless,
others connected by wires to a small computer unit Nova had stuck in the aft
place of the Tiger.
If it wasn't for her flyin' ten missions and consenting to be monitored
like crazy, we mighta never got this to work right. The lady had a tough job, he
thought, remembering how Nova, nauseated from the tests, had made the last
adjustments herself to the computers so you could fly a mission with that thing
pushing you through subspace so you didn't come out of warp vomiting your guts
out, or come out of it with a nosebleed, or come out of it whizzing on yourself
(all of which had happened to poor Nova in the tests).
I wonder if Nova's doin' any better than I am right now? Hardy thought as he dodged some enemy fire. And what the heck is Dawn up to on the North Carolina? Good thing it was easy to get Lynn to watch the kids for a few days…or whatever…
Hardy would find out the answer to those questions much sooner than he thought…
III. A RESIDENT'S JOB IS NEVER DONE…
Earth
The Tokyo Megalopolis
The Wildstar Residence
May 26, 2214
1406 Hours: Earth time
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The alarm clock was going off again in Derek and Nova Wildstar's
bedroom.
At this time, in the early afternoon, there was only one person in
bed there, lying there in her underwear as the alarm clock bleeped. A hand came
up from under the covers and its owner muttered, "uuuuuhnnnnggghhh" as a very messy-looking dark
honey blonde mop of hair emerged from under the covers.
Someone was banging at the door.
"What
time is this?" muttered a sleepy voice. "Worse, what day is this?
I….oh…is Derek home yet? Not bloody likely," said
Nova Wildstar as she got up, flexed on her toes, yawned, and opened the door to
be faced with an angry-looking four year old girl with light brown hair.
"Anastasia," said Nova. "What are you doing home
from pre-kindergarten?"
"Mommy, Jonathan brought me home," said Nova's second
youngest daughter, born in late 2209 and usually referred to as
"Anya."
"Where's daddy?"
"Daddy left this morning at six; remember? Some
kind of alert? We probably won't see Daddy again for a few days. And
Fela and Hegen are at the Pellian Embassy helping with some business for a few
days. Since you know the Tsukikages moved out of the beach house last summer, that just leaves us."
"When are you going off on the Argo, Mommy? When do
you finish graduation and quit being a resident fake doctor and become a real
doctor with a cat and a bottle of spring water? Mommy, when is daddy coming
home? Mommy, why do you have gray gook in your eyes? And mommy, when are you
gonna make lunch? And when are ya gonna answer the phone?"
Nova looked at her adopted son Jonathan Hartnell-Wildstar; the
third-year EDF Academy Cadet just shrugged and said, "Mom, I think the
first order of business is that phone that is ringing."
Nova nodded dully, and quickly pulled on the first thing she could
find; a sleep shirt with a cartoon snail on it (Puffy the Snail, as a matter of
fact) and she picked up the phone. "Good afternoon, sir. Wildstar residence."
"Were you sleeping, Commander?" said a rough voice
through the phone as the image of a bearded doctor came up on the little
screen. "Oh boy, Doctor Wildstar, you look like crud warmed over."
"That's the way I feel, Doctor," Nova said as she spoke
to Doctor Knapp, her advisor (more like slave-driver, she thought) in
the surgical/trauma/ship's surgeon residency she had been accepted into at
Central Hospital after completing her surgical internship at Central between
2212 and 2213. Nova turned her head and said, "Jonathan, where's
Teresa?"
"Mark found her trying to eat something in the yard when he
came home from school," said Jonathan.
"What?" said Nova, thinking of Teresa, their youngest
daughter, two, just out of diapers, and just being weaned from her mother. She
was also a holy terror.
"Doggie poo," said Anya. "My yucky sister eats
doggie poo and puts worms on it for dessert! Tra la la
la la la
la!"
"Doctor Wildstar, if you need to, you
can bring your children to the hospital and leave them in the day care area. I need
you back in here at 2100, Doctor."
"Twenty-one hundred?" Nova
sighed. Nine at night, she thought. Great.
That gives me seven hours to have a life. Oh, well. Three more weeks to go and
I'll be a certified ship's surgeon in June. I remember that deployment they
stuck me on last summer before the space war games when I was both the skipper
of the hospital ship Helena Bruckner and the alternate ship's
surgical resident. Anderson and I went back and forth between the Operating
Room and the ship's bridge for that month, until I turned over command to
Captain Bramwell and flew over to the Argo again. Then, there was
that business with the SMITE unit….I hope they aren't having
to use that thing in combat yet.
"Mommy, what are we having for dinner?" yelled
Anya.
"Anya, is food all you can think of at a time like this?
Mommy has to work again, and is worried about Daddy in space," Nova said
as her other four-year old son, Stephen, came walking in while taking apart an
old alarm clock. "Steve, where are you putting those gears?"
"I'm cataloguing them for future use, Mother," said
Steve in a voice that had a funny tone in it; as if he was speaking to someone
younger than he was as he looked at his project through his glasses.
Nova nodded and turned back to the screen. "Okay, sir.
Twenty-one hundred it is."
"Be there, Wildstar," said Knapp as he cut off.
TO BE CONTINUED…..