…So This is Christmas….
A Star Blazers Christmas Tale of
Christmas in the Year 2207
By: Fred & Gail Kopetz (A Companion
Story to The New Comet)
Star Blazers is © 2008
by Voyager International, all rights reserved, this project is for fun, please don’t
sue me. J
With
Apologies to Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, and Jacob Marley’s Ghost.
Part One of Two: General Stone’s
Christmas (Making Everyone Miserable)
I. Of
Trees and Baby’s First Christmas
Earth:
Inside The Wildstar
Residence
December 24, 2207:
0800 Hours
“Hey! Let me get another picture of you
in front of the tree!”
Nova Wildstar smiled, and picked up a bottle of sake, after saying, “Okay, Derek!”
Standing there in her gold and black Star Force uniform, she allowed her husband, Commodore Derek Wildstar, to photograph her in front of their Christmas Tree, which they had just finished decorating with Jonathan’s help. Alex and Ariel, of course, were still too small to do much more than smile at the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments that Nova had just purchased and put up.
After the picture was taken, Sasha Wakefield, who had just
arrived yesterday on leave from
“No, Santa Claus did it,” Derek said with a laugh and a wink.
“Silly, he’s not supposed to arrive until tomorrow after
midnight,” said Sasha. “Do you guys even have a fireplace? And why aren’t we in
“Not enough room there for my mother,” Nova said. “She’s arriving today with
Dad and my brother and sister.
“So where are you gonna put everyone?” yawned Deke as he came out in a t-shirt and gym shorts drying his hair.
“There’s room in my former home office,” Nova said. “I stuck all the stuff in the storeroom downstairs. At least until we get the addition to the house built sometime next year after we buy it from the Government.”
“Why do you have to buy it?” Sasha said.
“They wouldn’t let us build an addition as long as the EDF owned it,” Derek said as he adjusted his sweater-vest. “Is it snowing out there yet?”
“Weird,” said Deke. “I was surfing in
“Blame
Invidia,” Derek said. “She’s messed up the climate.
“Mom, can I turn on the train?” asked Jonathan.
“Sure,” said Nova as she knelt by her adopted son and kissed him. A moment later, the former Forrester family Lionel set, which Karl had given to Nova, was circling the tree as Jonathan lustily blew the horn on the model Rio Grande F-3’s that led the train.
Jonathan was laughing as he made the horn blow and the bell
ring on the electronic-
sound
equipped toy train locomotive, which pulled a variety of freight cars around an
oval controlled by a Lionel ZW transformer set with its big handles and green
pilot light. Derek was only mildly interested in the train, but Jonathan loved
the set, and he and his new mother were talking about buying some tables and
taking over part of the rec room sometime next year to build a bigger and more
permanent layout similar to the sort that the Rosstowskis had.
The phone rang a moment later.
It was General Stone.
“Sir,” said Derek. “Merry Christmas!”
“You’re a day early,” growled Stone.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Derek. “What do you want?”
“I have this incompetent woman here helping me with a special project,” snapped Stone. Nova thought she could hear Wendy Glitchman crying in the background. “I need Nova here for part of the day, Commodore. Order her to get here by 1100 in Headquarters Uniform.”
“Sir,” said Nova as she picked up the phone. “We have leave for two weeks.”
“Do you want to be up on charges?” snapped Stone.
“No,” said Nova.
“Then get your ass in here.”
“I will have to bring Alex and Ariel,” Nova sighed.
“Why?”
“They’re babies!” Nova cried. “They need love, food, diaper changes, and their food comes from me because they are just three months old! I hope you won’t be offended by me nursing babies in that outer office, because that is what you will get if you make me come in!”
“Get your ass in here or face a court-martial, Wildstar!” yelled Stone.
“Yessir,” said Nova. Then, she cut off and slammed down the phone, crying.
“I’ll drive you in,” said Derek. “I’ll be nearby in my own office in Headquarters which I like never use.”
“I wanted to cook,” sobbed Nova. “I wanted to wrap presents for all of you! I wanted to put the mistletoe up! Instead, I have to have that creep yelling at me!”
“Sometimes, ma’am, we don’t get what we want,” sighed Deke.
“I can cook,” said Sasha.
“Thanks,” said Nova. “I’d better get my whites on….”
II. Of General Stone’s Nasty Christmas Eve
Earth:
General E. Jackson
Stone’s Residence
December 24, 2207:
2200 Hours
At home, General Jackson Stone began to fall into a miserable sleep beside his wife on the night of the 24th after he had yelled at her yet again.
Stone was not a happy man.
At Earth Defense Headquarters, he had been mean to the Commander, mean to Nova, (who had showed up briefly with her brood to help with the special project she had been dragged into Heasdquarters for) and downright beastly to poor Wendy Glickman, now four months pregnant and wearing what he thought were non-regulation sandals with her white uniform.
“Why were you so mean to those poor girls today?” muttered Stone’s wife Chelsea as she began to fall asleep, with her back turned to her husband. “All I saw was you yelling at both of them; the cute brunette and the little blond with the babies.”
“Pregnant women belong at home, not in Headquarters,” he snapped.
“Show some understanding,” said
“Not my fault,” muttered Stone.
Chelsea Stone sat up and glared at her husband. “I thought you said you’d stop blaming me for that! It was five years ago since we last tried!”
“Why don’t we try again now; you’re not that old?”
“Not with an attitude like yours,” snapped Chelsea Stone. “I’m going to sleep on the couch! Good night, and Merry Christmas!”
“Bah, humbug,” muttered General Stone as he was left all alone on Christmas Eve. “Christmas is an overrated humbug! May the next person who says to me “Merry Christmas” be boiled alive in a plum pudding and buried with a…a damn stake of holly through his heart…”
General Stone decided to have a hot toddy, heavy on the alcohol.
He sat morosely in his chair, dozing off.
Stone fell into a strange dream; or what he thought was a dream.
He sat up and observed that his mantelpiece had suddenly grown an old-fashioned twelve-hour clock that chimed the hours.
When the hands hit midnight, it began to chime.
Then, the door to his home opened, and, outside in the snow and cold, the sound of clanking chains began to filter in on the wind.
A rough, growling voice said, “Ebenezer Jackson Stone!”
“How do you do know my full name?” Stone barked.
“Ebenezer Jackson Stone!” snapped the rough voice as a dire phantom appeared, as if out of a fog.
The phantom wore an old-style black Captain’s peacoat, white slacks, ascot, black boots, and a white Captain’s hat. A bandage, like the sort that had once been used to close the mouth of a corpse, ran under the bearded chin and over the hat.
The phantom, who was also bound in chains, locks, and fetters, undid his bandage, and his corpse-like mouth fell open as he raised a walking stick at Stone.
It can’t be,
thought Stone. He is dead. Long decayed
under Heroes’ Hill. Dead for over seven years. It
can’t be him!
“Who are you?” said Stone.
“Do you not recognize me?” growled the phantom. “In life, I was your top Admiral, Abraham Avatar! I was once the Captain of the Argo!”
Lightning illuminated Avatar’s face as Stone gasped, “Why do you haunt me?”
“With the hopes of your reclamation,” said Avatar. “If a pathetic soul like you can be reclaimed, that is. I do not know that.”
“Why are you bound in chains?” said Stone as he dropped his drink and the glass shattered on the floor.
“For effect, and as a warning,” said Avatar. “In life, it is the task of every man and woman to walk abroad amongst his fellow man, and to let his light shine amongst man. If such a one fails to do so, his deeds bind him like a literal chain, and he is then doomed to walk aboard without rest for a time after death. I have found peace. I am not fettered. I died doing well, and my deeds helped save all of you here on Earth. But, you, Stone, you bear a most terrible and ponderous coil! Your soul is bound by its evil.”
“Evil?” gasped Stone.
“Evil,” said Avatar. “Not as evil as some, but it is bound. Desslok’s soul was bound worse than yours, once upon a time. Now, he is almost free of his chains.”
“Do not dare compare me with a mass murderer from Gamilon!” snapped Stone. “I never killed men and women with planet bombs like he did.”
“He repented of his evil deeds. You revel in them, on the other hand. You murder spirits, aspirations, and hopes with your hidebound attitudes. Your bitterness makes me sick to my stomach. Or it would, if I still had a stomach.”
“Stomach,” snorted Stone. “There is more of gravy than grave to you, Avatar! How do I know you are not a bit of yesterday’s sushi? Or a touch of bad beef?”
Avatar howled; it was a terrible scream of rage that made it clear he was definitely a Ghost.
Then, he slapped Stone across the face like he once had with Derek Wildstar. “That’s enough out of you! I should just leave here and let you go to Hell, but I won’t,” said Avatar.
For a Ghost, that slap hurt.
“I believe in you, I believe in you,” said Stone. “Forgive me!”
“My time grows short,” snapped Avatar. “For the hopes of your reclamation, you shall be visited tonight by three spirits!”
“Three?” said Stone. “Why not just one?”
“Be quiet! Expect the first spirit at the stroke of one. Expect the second spirit at the stroke of two! Expect the third spirit on the stroke of three!” Avatar said.
“Can’t I get all of them at once and get it over with?”
“Balderdash, Stone!” snapped Avatar. “You always made me ill! You’ll heed this advice, and learn to keep Christmas in your heart if it kills you! Got that?”
Stone nodded as he saw Avatar stepping out the window, sliding along into an assembly of screaming Ghots he saw out the window. However, Avatar shook off his chains, saluted, winked, and flew upwards and vanished.
“That was just a weird dream,” said Stone. “Weird, weird, weird. I’ve watched George C Scott’s stupid movie one too many times. Damned movies! Damned Christmas…”
Then, he fell asleep again….
III. Love For
Christmas
Earth:
Inside The Wildstar
Residence
December 25, 2207:
0035 Hours
Inside
Derek and Nova’s house, the young lovers, alone at last, had just finished making
love, and were naked, sweaty, and comfortable in their bed. Jonathan and the
babies were in bed, while Deke and Sasha had also turned in.
Nova lay over Derek as she said, “This is a much better Christmas than your last one, isn’t it?”
Derek nodded. “You weren’t even there to enjoy it; sleeping in that tube. I never knew if I’d see you alive again, or if you’d have our children…”
“Now, the War is over, I’ve had our children, and I’m quite well,” Nova said.
“I’m very happy to be with you on Christmas Eve…”
“Did you get everything out for Jonathan, Alex, Ariel, and the others?” Derek said.
Nova nodded. “And I have gifts out for you, too…”
“Just like I have gifts out there for you.”
“When did you get them out there, Derek?” Nova asked.
“While you were in the shower singing,” Derek replied.
“That’s when you weren’t ogling me,” Nova said.
“Precisely,” Derek replied. “Now, what do you want to do?” he asked.
“Guess,” she whispered.
Then, she kissed him.
A moment later, they heard Ariel crying on the baby monitor.
Nova kissed Derek, threw a shirt around herself, and ran out of the room on light bare feet.
She came back in a moment later, with her shirt wide open, and their two little angels suckling at their mother’s conveniently naked breasts as Nova tenderly carried them.
Nova got into bed and cuddled back into Derek’s side as she fed their little boy and little girl, with their father admiring them, stroking their hair, stroking their shoulders in their little footed sleepers, and kissing their barely dressed mother as she smiled at her babies and their father with deep, abiding love in her eyes.
Derek then whispered, “I love you, Alex. I love you, Ariel…I love you, Nova…”
“I love you, Derek,” whispered Nova as she kissed her husband back.
To Deke and Sasha, the wood-paneled guest room looked very familiar.
It was the same room they had consumated their marriage in back in the Spring.
Now, Deke held Sasha, looking at her slightly pregnant naked stomach as she whispered endearments to her “Deekee” while he held her and kissed her in the afterglow of their own act of love.
“It’s so hard to believe, Deekee,” Sasha whispered. “Married to you for about eight months, and we are approaching five months’ worth of being pregnant already. Where did the time go?”
“It went down the same drainpipe the War went, Sasha,” said Deke. “Into the past. Did you foresee this?”
“Sort of,” said Sasha as Deke played with her breasts; like Wildstar had been with Nova, he was beginning to become fascinated with the idea that in maybe four more months, she would be feeding their daughter from them soon. Sasha had no apprehension with the thought of nursing her children, given that she had seen her Auntie Nova and Maria Carmody nursing their own twins in all states of dress from a decorously opened blouse to fully nude. Sasha then said, “I’ve been talking to Star in here.”
“Talking to her?”
“Mind to mind, silly. She knows who I am already, even though she will not be able to vocalize it for some time. She can’t wait to be born in the Spring. I’m so happy, and so is she. But why is Dawn Hardy so sad about her twins, Deekee?”
Deke sighed at that. “She’s not ready to be a mother yet, best I can tell. Jeff and I have had some talks about this…we don’t quite get it…”
“Neither do I,” said Sasha. “She’s said…”
“What?”
“She wishes she wasn’t pregnant,” said Sasha in a sad voice.
“That’s sad,” replied Deke.
“I know…”
IV. Stone’s Past
Earth:
Unknown Place:
Unknown Time
December 25, 2207:
0100 Hours
“WHY
DO YOU TORMENT ME?” yelled Stone as he found himself in a dark place,
confronted by a naked, beautiful, flaming phantom of a woman.
“I am Trelaina,” said the woman. “Trelaina of Telezart! My coming was foretold unto you!”
“You are too bright,” he said. “You’re hurting my eyes! And put some clothes on!”
“Spirits do not need clothing, but I will accommodate your cultural fetish with nudity,” said Trelaina as she made a blue dress appear around herself. “Is that better, General?”
Stone nodded. “Why are you here?”
“To help you learn a new way, another way,” said Trelaina. “You can call me the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“Good, because my past stank,” he muttered.
“Take hold of my garment,” said Trelaina as she made Stone grab her dress. “Come walk with me…”
“In my sweaty uniform?” he said as she took him out the window into the snow.
“No one will see nor hear us,” said Trelaina as she floated up with Stone.
“Yeah, right,” said Stone.
Stone found himself sitting in an orphanage. “Do you remember this place?” said Trelaina.
“I was at school here,” said Stone. “My parents had died, and my Aunt and Uncle didn’t want me at home, so I was put into this military school.”
“You were commanding people from a young age?” said Trelaina.
“Yes. And being commanded,” said Stone as two older cadets came in.
“Hey, look at the ugly plebe,” said one of them.
“He can’t go home for Christmas because no one wants the ugly little piece of crap,” sneered the other.
“Pop off, boy!” yelled one of the cadets. “How is the cow, Stone?”
“Sir!” barked Stone. “The cow walks, she talks, she is full of chalk, SIR! The female of the bovine species is prolactic to the nth degree, SIR!”
“How many main guns did an ancient
“Nine main guns, 16 inch calibre oldscale, sir!” said Plebe Stone.
“Do you miss your mother, douchebag?” sneered the first one.
“Sir, my mother is dead, SIR!” said Stone.
“That ain’t what I was asking you, shit-for-brains!” yelled the older cadet. “Do you miss sex with your mother, Plebe?”
“Sir, I never had sex with my mother, SIR!” said Stone.
“Shut up,” said the second cadet. “Stone, clean all the Goddamn blackboards! NOW!”
“YESSIR!” said Stone as they threw a sponge at him.
“I’ll make them pay,” Stone muttered. “I’ll make them ALL pay! I’ll be harder and tougher than they were! I’ll make them disciplined and hard, and I’ll make them pay!”
“What do you make of this?” said Trelaina.
“They were cruel to me. I must be cruel to them,” said Stone. “The only way to get your subordinates to listen to you is through fear. Fear breeds respect.”
“You sound as bad as Zordar,” said Trelaina.
“Fear, fear, fear breeds respect!”
“You make me very sad,” Trelaina said, as she left him….and Stone fell into darkness.
In
his dream, or whatever it was, Stone heard the clock chiming two, and he heard
weird organ music and found himself in a vast palace.
He looked up from the floor and saw that he was kneeling….
…before a massive, green Cometine. Namely, Prince Zordar.
“Who are you?” said Stone.
“I am Zordar, ruler of House Gatlantis, the Ghost of Christmas Present,” he said, as he began to laugh maniacally. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, HAA! They sent you to me so you could see what you do to people and see the errors of your strange ways. Fear does not control people. I thought I would make you fear me when I melted the surface of your Moon. Instead, your Star Force only fought all the harder. You cannot dominate people through fear, Stone. I learned that lesson too late, and I am now paying the price in torment in the next life. They sent you to me so you could avoid my fate. Although, I do not care, myself. I would rather enjoy torturing you, Stone.”
“Well, get on with it, Zordar,” said Stone.
“Touch…”
“your cape, right? And they will not see us, right?”
“You learn fast, Ebenezer,” said Zordar sarcastically.
A moment later, Stone and Zordar found themselves observing Wendy Glitchman as she cried in Homer’s bed.
“Why was General Stone so vile to me today?” she said with a sob.
“Wendy, he hates you,” said Homer. “I can’t wait until that bastard retires from the EDF. He has issues. No one likes him.”
“I wish I didn’t have to work for him in Headquarters,” Wendy sobbed. “I was so tired today due to my being pregnant, and my feet hurt! Doesn’t he have any feelings?”
“I guess not,” said Homer as she held him.
“What lesson do you draw from this?” said Zordar’s spirit as he looked at Stone.
“All pregnant women should be discharged from the Defense Forces?” Stone huffed.
“I’m going to have a hard time working with you,” Zordar moaned. “I swear…Stalin was a better student than you.”
“Stalin?” said Stone.
“Who do you think I had to drag out of Hell last week?” Zordar grunted. “This is a miserable penance. Teaching idiots like you and Stalin….”
“I don’t believe in you,” said Stone. “I don’t believe in this, either…”
“Then, damn you!” said Zordar. “Stay here!”
“Where?” said Stone.
“Alone, in your nightshirt!”
“No!” said Stone as he realized he was left alone in the cold. “Zordar, come back…Prince Zordar…come back! Don’t leave me like this!”
But, Stone was alone, in only a thin nightshirt, in the dark and cold of a slum in the Megalopolis.
Unknown to him, stranger things would soon be happening….
TO BE CONTINUED…