STAR BLAZERS: SHEENA HILGAR’S STORY

A fanfic based upon Star Blazers and a companion piece to “A Voyage to Remember” and “The Death Comet” by

Frederick P. Kopetz

 

April 1, 2201

Planet Earth

Bachelor Officer’s Quarters

EDF Cliffside Space Naval Base

BOQ Billet 2214

It was a Wednesday.

Ensign Sheena Hilgar drove her small aircar (purchased on credit; a concept little-used on Gamilon, where consumer goods had been rationed by the State) home to where she lived on Earth.

Where she lived on Earth…which she still called Terra in her head when she thought on Gamilon.

It had been a long journey for her from Gamilon to Balan, where she had served as one of Major General Garamond Volgarr’s “playthings” and had been badly misused by Volgarr. Raped was the proper word. She still didn’t like remembering those few moments of pain and humiliation beneath Volgarr when, as usual, he was drunk, and…

No, no, NO, Sheena thought to herself.

Sheena was now in an EDF practical nurse’s uniform; a purple scrub dress; boots, and a light jacket to keep off the rain this Wednesday. She was a pretty young woman in her twenties; height five foot five, weight, about one hundred twenty-two old pounds. She had reddish blond hair…

…and blue skin. Well, why don’t I have blue skin? Sheena thought. I am, after all, a Gamilon…

A hot car screeched up, driven by one of the pilots on the nearby base who also lived in this complex, which was basically an apartment complex for young (officially) unmarried officers of the Earth Defense Forces.

A pilot with a crew cut in EDF blues got out, stared at her, and said, “Holey Moley! Are you really a Gammie or are you ready for a costume party?”

“I am a Gamilon who was rescued from Balan Base by two members of the Argo’s crew over a year ago!” snapped Sheena. “Two heroes and respectable officers; Peter Conroy and Nova Forrester. Do you know them?”

“Yeah, I know Conroy, and I can outfly him any day of the damned week!” said the arrogant young flyboy. “As for Forrester, I hear she’s knocked up and is gonna leave the EDF soon and be a housewife for Wildstar when he gets back from patrol. Serves her right! She has soap suds in her head where her brains should be!”

“Lieutenant Conroy currently commands a Flight Group known as the Red Devils, and Lieutenant Forrester is leading a team on a survey mission in the South Pacific!” retorted Miss Hilgar. “And you take your attitude, and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, Ensign!”

“I wish they had killed ALL your kind, Gammie, when the Star Force wiped out Gamilon!” mocked the flyboy. “Better yet, why don’t ya go back there and die with the rest of ‘em? All of your kind are murderers!”

“I am trained as a medical technician and I am now a practical nurse!” snapped Sheena. “When you crash your plane, don’t expect me to be nice to you!”

The pilot shot back a very disgusting curse at Sheena.

She ignored him and went to the door of her apartment, which was under a small veranda. Her two neighbors were both away; namely, Lieutenant Michele Sakamoto on one side, and Lieutenant Nova Forrester on the other side.

What was at her apartment was a nasty message spray-painted in red on the white door.

It read: GO HOME, YOU F____ING GAMMIE BITCH. YOU DON’T BELONG ON EARTH, KILLER!

Below it was painted a skull and crossbones emblem.

Sheena saw the emblem and the obscene graffiti, and she yelled and began kicking her own door.

Two people overheard and yelled at her to shut up.

One of them cursed.

Then, a bottle was thrown at Sheena.

Oh, she should have expected that. And it took her right back to a bad night on Balan Base, which went as follows:

Volgarr looked nowhere near as dignified as his commanding officer since he had drunk a great deal of liquor in his rage over being made a fool of by Lysis.

He was very drunk, and was yelling, and was wrecking things in his suite like a bull in a china shop.

“Who the hell am I?” he roared at his staffer as two nearby concubines he had summoned for a night of “fun” cowered, almost bare under their cloaks.

“Sir, you are Major General Volgarr, the vice-commander of Balan Base,” said the staffer.

“May you fall into the Black Pits on Gamilon for that!” roared Volgarr as he threw more bottles of liquor at the hapless staff officer and smashed a table. “I am the Great Volgarr! The unparalleled tactical genius who shall destroy the Argo on his own!”

The bottle missed but the staffer was covered with a Gamilon liquor somewhat like brandy.

“You have another chance to get that right, Varka!” roared Volgarr. “WHAT IS MY NAME?”

“Sir, you are Major General Garamond Volgarr, the vice-commander of Balan Base!” said Varka.

Volgarr went into a total rage, grabbed Varka by the throat, and strangled him until his neck broke.

He threw Varka’s corpse against the deck and roared at the concubines, “Clean up that diseased mess! I go now to seek GLORY! I will destroy the Argo myself and make Desslok and Lysis choke at their rotten arrogance and bow to me, the great tactical genius Volgarr! My Balanosaurus will save Gamilon! Stay out of my way, strumpets! I have no desire to share you in my bed now! I go for the glory of Gamilon!” he yelled as he staggered out.

“What do we do?” said one of the concubines, who was named Sheena.

Her partner, Heida, said, “We keep our mouths shut and clean up before he gets back. Unless we want to end up dead next. After all, is it not our lot in life to please our betters and mind our own business otherwise? I was once a favored one of Leader Desslok. There, I learned discretion, my sister.”

Sheena nodded and began to clean up the mess.

 

We keep our mouths shut, Sheena thought in rage as she opened her door, threw her boots against the wall, and then slammed the door shut against the drizzle and the sunset.

“How long can I keep my mouth shut?” yelled Sheena in a black rage as she opened her small refrigerator, uncharacteristically took out a wine cooler in its glass bottle, and drank it.

Her apartment was small; a living room, kitchenette, bedroom, bathroom.

She threw herself onto a couch and drank her wine cooler, hoping it would shut out the intrusive thoughts about Volgarr that ran through her mind.

Volgarr had “liked” her.

For him, “like” meant wheedling her into sex like an uncultured swine, anytime he wanted it. And when she had finally said “no”… he had just taken what he had wanted and banished her the next day to an outbuilding on the base at Balan.

Being condemned to that outbuilding saved her life when the Argo had attacked Balan’s Artificial Sun with its wave motion gun.

And, when she saw the carnage, not for the last time, Sheena had decided to commit suicide.

She had been found with a blaster against her neck by some of the “barbarians” from Terra; a man with a crewcut who was totally unlike the pilot she had argued with a while ago…and a woman she swore was a member of the Iscandarian Royal House with honey-blonde hair and a twinkle in her dark eyes. The woman had knocked the weapon out of her hands. Sheena had been ready to fight, but the woman and the man had picked up translator buds from the wreckage of the Base and told her in a computer-approximated version of her own language that they meant her no harm; and did she want to come back to the Argo with them? Sheena had followed them. When they got out of a shuttle on the Argo, a man with long, wild hair with an arrogant face like the flyboy who had mocked her had looked at her as if she was scum on the wall and he and the woman and man had a heated argument in their own language with some idioms the translator bud didn’t…quite pick up…like “longhaired goon” and “chowderhead”. Sheena observed the man and the woman didn’t seem to like each other much…until the man gave her a hug and said, “Okay, Nova. Your lost blue lamb is your problem, Peppermint! She’ll be a good intelligence source…and if she really wants to defect…train her to do…something.”

“Oh, I will,” Nova said. “You’d better be nice to her when she gives you a blood draw, you hear me?”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” he had said. Then, he had turned to Sheena and said, “I’m Deputy Captain Derek Wildstar, in temporary command. Our Captain is ill. Nova’s our Head Nurse Practitioner, Survey and Radar Officer, and my girlfriend. She doesn’t let me forget that part.”

Sheena smiled, remembering that Derek had looked almost…boyish then.

Then, her training had begun.

 

Sheena didn’t have any paint; she had called Maintenance to have her door fixed. In the morning, they would send some enlisted person along with some paint along with a CID (Criminal Investigation Division) detective who would take down her story…and probably do nothing.

Sheena’s training was still going on. Opening her computer, she found an e-mail from Nova in her box. She opened it, read some of her typically cheery greetings, a little bit how she missed her Derek (her official fiancee’ but secret husband thanks to a small wedding ceremony that had taken place on Iscandar, to be followed by a bigger one).

Sheena read:

I’m hoping your study for the NCLEX is going well. Trust me; when you pass it, you get an immediate promotion to Lieutenant, Junior Grade. I found you some more practice questions as I sit here in my Quonset Hut here in Indonesia on one of the few remaining islands. Here’s the first question….

Question 15.

A client with a history of emboli is receiving Lovenox (enoxaparin). Which drug is given to counteract the effects of enoxaparin?

Sheena selected an answer and was pleased when it came up correct.

The Gamilon nurse did a few more questions, and then read near the end of Nova’s e-mail:

I should be back home in about two weeks, with much lighter hair than usual, an insane suntan, and still smelling like Banana Boat 50. Are they giving you a hard time again? If they are, don’t let the idiots get you down. I’ll buy you dinner or lunch when I get back. Take care and remember that you are in my prayers, Peter’s, and Derek’s. (He told me the other day in an e-mail he likes you now!).

Sheena began to cry and bang on her desk.

 

She was still crying when she heard the door to her apartment opening.

Who the hell is it? Sheena thought. She picked up a combat knife, ready to fight. She had received physical threats before.

Then, she relaxed when she turned around and saw Michelle Sakamoto behind her.

“Hey…I saw what happened,” Michele said. “Just got home.”

“Why do you smell like paint?”

“I had a can of spray paint, cuz!” said Michelle with a smile. “The nasty graffiti is painted over. Can’t see a bit of it. I don’t think it’s fair how you get picked on.”

“Neither does Nova,” said Sheena as she fell sobbing into Michele’s arms.

“Peter and Derek feel the same way,” said Michelle. “They both send me e-mails checking up on you…asking me to keep an eye on you…to check on your safety…”

“Funny, isn’t it?” said Sheena. “We used to be enemies…months ago, you would have probably shot me without a second thought.”

“But we found you in Hell on Balan Base,” said Michelle. “We sort of feel an obligation to look out for you…all of us.”

“Thanks,” said Sheena.

“Hey,” replied Michele. “What are friends for?”