ALTERNATE TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS--AND THEN THERE WERE TWO...
ACT THREE-CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR...
I. GORAIZU FORTRESS
The Vicinity of Neptune
Main Bridge of Technomugar
Goraizu Fortress Sukalnach
Earth Date: January 10, 2202
0102 Hours Spacetime
Far off beyond Neptune, a Technomugar Goraizu Fortress sat in a distant orbit of the planet.
The Fortress was a massive, 1.2 kilometer wide circular ship covered with black armor that had several towers atop its main deck. It looked a little like a cross between Ekogaru's Technomugar Fortress and the Comet Empire's late citadel Gatlantis.
The Goraizu Fortress was known as the Sukalnach, and it was the flagship of the Technomugar Lord High Protector Shardovan Gralnacz.
At the moment, Gralnacz was kneeling in a holographic communications room on his ship, awaiting a communication from his Overlord, Ekogaru.
A moment later, the room went dark as a chime went off over the speakers. Gralnacz bowed his bald head as the Presence of his Lord began to appear as a holographic image.
Ekogaru's visage was deceptively lively-looking; his face was strong, his eyes glowed like red coals, or blue, or green, depending upon his mood. The Dark Lord's hair was jet-black, tinged with grey, but the cyborg's eyes had deep blue circles under them, and his artificial skin was vaguely greenish with a slight tinge of corruption, as the still-living organic parts of Ekogaru's form, after all, should have by all rights died almost three thousand years ago. The Dark Lord's appearance as a living corpse lent him, as well as all of the other Eldest members of the Technomugar realm, an appearance of dread and terror.
"What do you desire, my Lord?" asked Gralnacz in a servile manner as he stared at the visage of his Master, being one of the three hundred men and women in the Technomugar hierarchy granted the great privilege of beholding the Dark Lord face-to-face...and then surviving afterwards.
"I desire to give you Instruction, Shardovan," said Ekogaru with a slight smile as his deep voice resounded around the chamber. "I desire to give you a final Briefing as to why you are there. You remember why I sent you, do you not, fool?"
"My Lord, you sent me on this mad million light-year quest to help strike terror into the hearts of the Rikashans, did you not?"
"I did," smiled Ekogaru. "After all, as my Ambassador, remade as an eternal cyborg, did I not give you some of the same dread and terror I inspire, but in power and in visage? You were ugly to begin with, due to your feeble dabblings in Necromancy even as you served Pellias. I think I just improved upon what you did to yourself."
Gralnacz smiled at that as he recalled how he looked. Before joining Ekogaru's legions, his once-handsome face had become horribly aged and skull-like; much of his hair had fallen out, save for a maniac's fringe around the back of his head, and his nose had become like a beak. He had been dying; Ekogaru had given him new life, and the option to have his face restored. Gralnacz had declined the offer, until the day when his daughter Aliscea would be brought before him naked and in chains as the Dark Lord's captive. Then, he would blame her for his withered appearance, for did not attempts on his part to control his daughter's wild psionic talent lead him to dabble in the Darkness?
"You brought me here, Lordship, to terrify the Rikashans, aye?"
"Aye. Have you done that, Gralnacz?"
"Considering I have killed five of their psionic R'jkharraz, or "Gifted Ones", in psionic combat and crucified the sixth alive with nails driven by the power of my mind, they fear me terribly as your Ambassador. And I have joined with their R'Khell priests, the red-clad fanatics who worship you as their God of War, in order to spread your will in wreaking havoc."
"And what have I told you to do?"
"Lordship, you told me to keep the forces of this... Earth.... away from Pellias by attacking their shipping with the Rikashans' dimensional subs to draw the fire of some of their capital ships. Then, I will destroy said capital ship in a raid and speed off, leaving Earth, which just defeated...barely, a power known as the Cometines, to lick its wounds and prepare for an imminent attack by the Rikashans. Then they won't be interested in sniffing about Pellias!"
"What of this vagabond race known as the Gamilons, also nosing around Pellias, Gralnacz?"
"Lordship, we have a reception planned for this Leader Desslok that'll cut down his arrogance a tad! Do you want him brought before you alive or dead should we capture him?"
"I do not want any martyrs left for the remnants of the Gamilons to rally around as we wipe their race from the Cosmos, Gralnacz. Bring me the blue bastard's bones, my friend. Maybe I can carve them into a belt buckle."
"I shall try, Lordship," smiled Gralnacz as he thought of the Dark Lord's grisly collection of trophies. His Lordship had a thing for turning the skulls of his enemies into drinking cups.
"What sort of capital ships are around the area, Gralnacz?" asked Ekogaru. "Not that I am concerned, mind you, just...curious about the dung-leaving organics we are fighting."
"Lordship, this is the major battleship around the area," said Gralnacz as he reached over to a control panel and brought up a hologram of the Argo.
"That is Earth's prime defender of this space? That thing?" laughed Ekogaru in disbelief. "It looks like the sort of toy boat I used to play with in my bathtub three millennia ago as a little organic child! Pray tell, is it powered by a little elastic band one winds up?" smiled Ekogaru.
"Perhaps it is. One never knows with slime like this."
"It amuses me, Gralnacz. Bring me a piece of the ship's wreckage after you destroy it so I can use a little piece of molten metal on my desk as a paperweight for my magical tomes. And, pray tell, bring me the Captain's burned leg-bone if you can find it after you kill the lot?"
"Why, Lordship?"
"I need a new D'rashkanna. Pardon me if you do not know the ancient R'Khand tongue I once spoke as a mere organic Rikashan once. A D'rashkanna, Gralnacz, is an implement we used on Rikasha long ago in order to dig snot out of one's nose."
At that, both cyborgs began to laugh like madmen. Then, when they calmed down, Ekogaru said. "That should be sufficient, Gralnacz. Go scare the R'Khell priest king warrior or whatever the heck he is and tell him I want the havoc to begin now. I want lots of people killed. Gralnacz. I enjoy murdering inferiors whom I cannot remold into our Image and grant eternal life to. Soon, all men shall worship ME, Gralnacz. The new Lord and God of a new cyborg creation improved in my image! Then, when all men are under my feet, then I shall look young again...being remolded, as the Lord of the Universe!"
"Yes, my Lord," said Gralnacz with a bow of his head as his Lordship's image faded away. He was grateful for that.
He is my God and my liege-lord and my Master, thought Gralnacz. He has given me much power and much wealth, and I love him. But still....he makes my skin crawl! He gives me the creeps!
II. A BRIEFING
The Vicinity of Planet Neptune
Space Battleship Argo
Central Planning Room
Earth Date: January 10, 2202
0120 Hours: Spacetime
Captain Derek Wildstar stood to Lieutenant Commander Stephen Sandor's far right in the Central Planning Room as the Argo's Mechanical Group Leader took over from Commander Mark Venture, who had begun the briefing with a long recap of their situation and the expected arrival of the wave of time-space disturbance.
Venture's lecture had set forth the basics. Now, Sandor was filling them in on additional information.
"An unsettling phenomenon that we have just noticed," said Sandor as he pointed to the large screen in the deck, "just happens to be this cloud of dense gaseous matter that we detected around oh-one-hundred hours as this meeting was just about to get underway. Royster detected it for us."
"Where is it coming from?" asked Captain Wildstar.
"It's coming from the extreme edge of the Pluto area, at an incredibly rapid rate of speed. Royster performed an analysis," said Sandor as a picture of the greenish-yellow mass of gasses appeared on the screen, "...and, luckily, it just seems to be a mass of nearly inert gasses, i.e.; a brew of argon, neon, and other such noble gasses."
"Pardon me, sir," said a bearded figure in a Living Group uniform not far from Nova Wildstar. He was Lieutenant Daniel Greenberg, the Argo's current chaplain on this mission. "I'm a Rabbi, not a scientist. May I ask what a noble gas is?"
"It's an unusually stable gas that's usually inert, meaning it doesn't react with much of anything," said Sandor. "I'm actually glad you asked that, because Royster and I noticed something very odd about a small proportion of this gas in this mix."
"Which is?" asked Captain Wildstar.
"Some of these gasses are actually strange isotopes of their normal analogues; isotopes I've not quite discovered before," continued Sandor. "The isotope of argon, in particular, seems to be mildly reactive...which is very odd."
"How do you think these gasses got like that?" asked Nova Wildstar.
"They seem to be coming out of the time-space rift like that. I think that something within that rift is causing such a grave disturbance that it's changing the very form and nature of these gasses. Whatever it is, I don't think we want to be in the center of such a disturbance...or have a passenger liner in the center of such a disturbance, either. Captain, I suggest that we increase speed and get that liner to safety on Triton by 0200."
"It sounds like a good idea...but are there any other reasons why we should do so?" asked Captain Wildstar.
"Captain," said Venture "...when we replotted the course of the wave, we had to rework the mathematics of the plot. You'll note that IQ-9's been busy over there at the console. We're going to have a revised estimate of the time the wave will hit in a moment."
"Why did we have to do that?" asked Homer.
"Because we noticed it was speeding up," said Holly Parsons with a slight measure of annoyance as she glanced at a printout a yeoman handed her. She glanced at it, and her eyes went wide. "...HOLY crap!...ma'am...look at this," she said as she walked over to Lieutenant Wildstar.
"What?" asked Nova as Parsons handed her the sheet of paper while IQ-9 came up.
"Nova, there's no need to let your beautiful face turn red," said IQ-9. "I'm not doing anything."
"It's not that...it's this estimate!" said Mrs. Wildstar. "An eighty-two percent chance it'll hit at 0210??!?"
"No, you're wrong," said IQ. "According to my calculations, the probability that the wave will hit at 0210 Hours is actually ninety-five point four two zero one percent."
"And it's 0128 now," said Lieutenant Wildstar. "Derek..."
Captain Wildstar just nodded. "Sandor, Parsons, IQ-9, Nova...thank you. This meeting is dismissed right now. If we want to save lives, we're going to have to give the passengers of the Westhampton Beach something of a wild ride. Homer, notify the Powell ASAP. Venture, Orion, when we get on that bridge, we'll need as much power as you can give us to get to Triton as soon as we can manage...and if we have to take that damned liner in tow, we'll do it! Let's get to it."
The Central Planning Room cleared a moment later, save for Rabbi Greenberg.
Under his breath, he was reciting prayers.
III. RAIDERS OF DEATH
Subspace
The Vicinity of Neptune
Main Bridge of Rikashan (R'Khell)
Dimensional Submarine K'Hantanga
Earth Date: January 10, 2202
0132 Hours Spacetime
Commodore-Prefect Degal Hallacher, a member of the R'Khell Priesthood (and sub-race) of the Rikashan Star Empire sat drumming his fingers as a ghastly greenish light from his periscope shined on the gold insignia on the high collar of his bright red uniform tunic.
Hallacher was in his thirties, and he was thirty-seven in the years of both his home world of R'Khell and the Capital World of Rikasha itself, both of which had a solar year just a few days longer than that of Earth. He looked much like a Caucasian Terran with dark brown hair, save that at seven feet tall, he was just a little taller than the average Terran.
"Where's the announcement?" he demanded.
"Sir, the Prophet said that he would be sending the Lord Ekogaru's orders any moment," said the submarine's comm officer.
"His Lordship, not meaning to blaspheme, had better hurry," said Hallacher nervously. "That thing out there is getting too close to that planet for comfort! I want to have that liner taken, burning, and take some slaves, kill a few others, and leave a tale of terror and horror and leave that damn ugly red and blue Earth battleship we've been shadowing to the Cosmos before that creation of His Lordship eats us up, too! Maybe this is a test of faith?" he mused.
"Perhaps," mused his comm officer as he began to murmur a prayer in the old form of his native tongue. "Ach'Ekogaru...drasta ego velda r'kaneliech. Drasta vego eich R'Khelleva. Drasta vego ech Ri'kasha ank elda varakuns." Then, murmuring the prayer in the modern R'Khand language, he muttered, "O, Lord Ekogaru, god of war, god of vengeance, maker of Wrath under the Hand of the Unknown, Thy Ruler, hear us. Guard Our Sacred Priesthood. Guard our Sacred Homeland and bring us victory. Let us drink the blood of our enemies!"
Everyone on the bridge put up one fist and screamed, "CHA'TA!" in loud and savage unison.
Someone else began to chant "CHA'TA KUNZ ERKANELIECH VAR!" over and over again in the Ancient R'Khand. Some repeated the chant, others roared the modern equivalent, "TERROR! BREAK THE HANDS OF OUR ENEMIES!"
Cries of "CHA'TA!", the "Cha'ta Kunz...", and chants praying for honor for the Rikashan ruler, Lord Zaden, filled the sub for about three minutes as Hallacher stood sweating. He gritted his teeth a little as someone began to bang on a gong in the confines of the bridge, but as both an experienced priest and a Templar-like warrior-monk of his people, he smiled a little at the enthusiasm of the younger priests who made up the clerical officer corps of this sub, along with the monks and sworn religious acolytes who served as the ship's enlisted men.
In Rikashan society, it was common for special military missions to be undertaken on behalf of the Homeworld by the servants of Ekogaru, either with our without the express blessing of the Fleet, whom they served under (technically) as part of the Empire's command structure, along with the regular Fleet and the Fleets and Task Forces of the Seven Great Ducal Houses that aided Zaden and the head priests in ruling the Empire. Just as the Star Force was an elite unit of Earth's military, these warriors were an elite unit of the Rikashan military. However, unlike the Star Force, whose mission was to defend Earth and investigate natural and alien threats as well as to fight, the R'Khell warriors' only mission was to kill in the name of Ekogaru.
The cacophony continued unit the comm officer handed Hallacher a piece of paper. At that, the senior priest raised one hand and drew his ceremonial scimitar with the other. A silence fell.
"Vargenz, connect me to the task force."
"Aye, sir," said the comm officer as he flicked a switch. Soon, Hallacher's visage appeared on the small, round, cramped bridges on the seven other subs that made up the wolf pack.
"The word is GO! Follow Plan Zerga: and take them! Two to a ship! We are attacking the battleship! Run silent, run deep in hyperspace! May Ekogaru bless us!"
A fierce cheer filled the bridge of the ship as harsh klaxons went on. Submerged in hyperspace, the dark-red subs split up and roared off to begin their attack runs.
"Main firing room, I need a spread of six torpedoes and six lesser missiles. Target: The battleship!" roared Hallacher as he signaled for his periscope.
IV. FAREWELL, DOVE OF PEACE
The Vicinity of Neptune
Space Liner Westhampton Beach
Main Bridge
Earth Date: January 10, 2202
0140 Hours Spacetime
"I tell you, I've GOT to see Captain Wordsworth!" demanded Glenn Hartnell-Iiyama as he gesticulated fiercely at the two burly security men that the bridge crew had called to escort the raving man to the brig as he had argued with them for half an hour, demanding to see the Captain.
"Listen, bro," said the commander of Security, a burly African-American man who looked somewhat like the Star Force's Ensign Paul Hemsford of the Space Marine Group on the space battleship. "I told you once, I told you a thousand friggin' times! No passengers on that bridge without the skipper's permission! You gonna see reality, or do McKenzie and I here have to drag you away from that damn locked hatch like a sack of garbage?"
"I'm an important man! No one drags me around! Try it, and I'll have your job."
"Yeah, and you'll get two to five on a work farm! You gonna shut up or..."
Abruptly the hatch opened from the inside. At that, the Security Lieutenant, named Brooks, and his mate McKenzie stopped their diatribe and saluted as Captain Wordsworth, resplendent in his whites, came out. "What in God's name is this racket?" he said.
"Sir, this passenger here wants to get on the bridge. He's been giving us and Purser Shanfield a hard time. Shanfield called us from his post, sir. Said he heard this crazy man here banging on the hatch."
"Let me get a look at the man before you arrest him," sighed Wordsworth. "Not that he deserves leniency, and..." Then, when Wordsworth noticed Hartnell-Iiyama's face, he stopped. "Glenn?" he asked. "Have you gone stark raving mad?"
"You know him, sir?" asked Brooks.
"Unfortunately, yes. Old college friend who went a little potty in the Gamilon war, but he'll listen to me.," said Wordsworth reassuringly. "You boys can go. I'll take him on the bridge, see what he wants, and then walk the poor devil back to his cabin myself. I can handle it, gentlemen."
"Aye, sir," said Brooks without another glance at Hartnell-Iiyama. "McKenzie, let's go. According to my pager, someone's hyperventilating on Deck Five. We'd better go play paramedics for a while."
"Right," said McKenzie. "Leave the damn Jonah here to the skipper." With a nasty look at Glenn, McKenzie followed his superior away.
"Now, Glenn, why are you raising such a blasted ruckus?" asked Wordsworth as he grasped his friend's arm and walked him onto the bridge.
"That announcement you made...something's up, isn't it?"
Wordsworth nodded. "See out there, past Neptune? That glowing string of matter in the distance? The greenish gas that's beginning to fill the area? What you are looking at my friend, is the doorway to Hell itself, I think. Some sort of time-space rift, that is. Why it appeared, and how, we don't know. All we know is that the frigates just told us to boost our speed up to twenty-seven space knots, hold on, and follow them and a battleship in the area to Neptune as fast as possible. That thing's speeding up, and we have to get battened down as rapidly as we can manage."
"What's our maximum speed?"
"Twenty-five. We can do twenty-seven in an emergency for ten minutes, and twenty-eight for five minutes. Any longer than that, and she'll shake apart like a house of cards, Glenn. The damned engine will fall off!"
"No wonder you decided not to tell anyone," mused Glenn. "But how can you keep people from looking forward when that thing is out there, plain as..."
"All the forward viewports are closed and locked," said Wordsworth testily. "If you have a whit of honor, don't tell a soul until we reach Triton Base."
"We're somewhat like the ancient Titanic, then?" said Hartnell-Iiyama fiercely.
"Yes, and yonder in space is our iceberg. But, with God's help, and the navigational skills of the battleship near us, we can win through."
"Battleship," snorted Hartnell-Iiyama. "Our steel saviors failed us at Saturn-Titan against Zordar! How competent is the Fleet, anyway? Just a few ragtag scraps of a defeated..."
"I'll have you know that we're being shepherded by the best Earth has to offer. Literally."
"You know, you're crazy," mused Hartnell-Iiyama. "What makes you think we're going to...?"
"Sir, if I can ask," said the First Mate, an Indian named Pasheev. "What battleship is out there beyond those frigates, anyway? She's out of visual scan range, and the only communication you got about her was Captain's Eyes Only. What's going on?"
"This is a matter of some import we've stumbled into. That's all I can tell you....the government has the specifics under wraps, save for what you just saw...and..."
"Sir, the Captain of the battleship is signaling you," said the Westhampton Beach's communications officer. "He needs to break relay silence and security and needs to communicate with you directly and visually. Right now. For...emergency reasons, sir. Do you wish the bridge cleared?"
"No. Not at all. Stay, please. You too, Glenn. Just don't breath a ... word," said Wordsworth. "All right. Mister Holland! Put him through."
"Yessir," said Holland nervously as he flicked a switch.
On the small screen above the windows, an image began to come in, and every face on the bridge looked up in awe, surprise and some apprehension as they saw the face of Captain Derek Wildstar appearing on visual.
Glenn, you are a Jonah! thought Wordsworth testily. I never guessed it could be that bad...the Star Force...my God!
"Which one of you gentlemen is Captain Clive Wordsworth?" asked Wildstar.
"I am, sir," said the much older skipper of the passenger liner, in deference to Wildstar's military rank, his position, and his honored reputation, even though Derek was far younger than he was. "We heard from Captain Fuentes and Captain Delgado. They want us to increase our speed to twenty-seven space knots, Captain. Can't you tell them it's not safe? Aren't they your inferiors in military rank, sir? I'm conveying passengers, sir. Not iron ore from Brumus."
"Captain Wordsworth, my Mechanical Officer, Lieutenant Commander Stephen Sandor, just called up the specs on your liner from your line on Earth. According to the plans we have, your ship is capable of twenty-eight space knots, emergency speed...and that for ten minutes."
"Yes, but there's a ninety-percent chance our engines will burn out at that speed."
"You'll have to risk it for the sake of the lives of your crew and passengers. It is now 0148 Hours. Our calculations indicate that the wave will hit in twenty-two minutes. At twenty-eight knots, we can get to Triton in ten minutes, with twelve minutes to spare to lock into the docks and tie in to base power. If you require it, we can take you under tow. To make it, you'll have to begin accelerating in two minutes. Do you require a tow?"
"No, Captain. We can do it, but it'll be a risk...a risk we'll have to take."
"I can sympathize, Captain Wordsworth. Our engine is newly fitted, too, and untested at her maximum speed. Looks like both our ships are going to have their speed trials now, sir."
Wordsworth grinned a little at that. "We'll have her up to speed as soon as we can manage, Captain Wildstar. Thank you.."
Wildstar cut off, and Wordsworth said to Hartnell-Iiyama. "Glenn, sit over there, in that vacant station and buckle in. Mister Harley," said Wordsworth over the intercom to his engineer. "Pull all the overrides. We need twenty-eight space knots, on my authority, NOW!! We have a Class Two Emergency, according to the EDF. Class One is when we're being shot at, Class Two is risk to life and limb. Therefore, power us up to 28 knots NOW!"
"I canna guarantee my bairns will hold up..."
"Damn your bairns...we need our asses saved," barked Wordsworth. "I want twenty-eight or I'll get below and do it myself."
"Breaking all override seals....we're doing it now," sighed Harley.
All over the ship, passengers began to scream as the ship lurched and began to accelerate like a mad dog.
Soon, more screams came as, suddenly, orange trails of flame appeared from nowhere and streaked towards the ship. The light R'Khell missiles came so fast that they couldn't be seen with the naked eye, but when they hit the liner, everyone knew of their presence.
As the engines roared up to full speed, the metal hull of the engine room was torn open by a hit, and the room was vented into space. With rapidly fading screams, Harley and his men were sucked out into space, followed a moment later by some screaming children and their negligee-clad mother as another light missile banged into the ship.
The first victim of the war was one of the mother's children, a 6-month old infant named Patrick Halligan who had just been christened a few days before back on Earth. He was in bed, clad in only a diaper, and he froze solid as soon as his exposed little body hit the cold vacuum of space. Harley and his men joined him and his mother in death about ten seconds later.
On the Westhampton Beach's port side, something like another missile hit the ship. But it remained there, and did not explode.
It wasn't a missile. It was a boarding pod from one of the subs. A boarding pod that opened and filled the earth ship with a squad of eight bellowing R'Khell monks clad in dark blue armor that hid all of their features who came out firing at anything that moved, be it man, woman, or child.
They looked inhuman. And, they acted like it, as well.....
"Wildstar!" cried Homer. "We're getting a message from the Thaddeus Kosciuzko! It's an SOS!"
"Let's hear it," said Wildstar.
Homer flicked a switch, and the voice of Captain Delgado came over the speakers.
"SOS! Frigate Thaddeus Kosciuzko hit by unknown object, possibly torpedo fired from unknown and unidentified space submarine. Enemy vessel does NOT seem to be Cometine. ..based on capabilities. Seems to be in subspace. Saw only torpedo trails! Hold #1 penetrated, losing air. Slowing to 18 space knots and beginning countermeasures. Please assume close escort formation! Westhampton Beach also reporting hits.....major damage...AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
An explosion came over the speakers, and, off to starboard, a bright flash of light marked the first frigate's passing and the resting place of her entire crew.
Wildstar didn't have much time to mourn...since, a moment later, the Argo herself took a hit to starboard, near her stern, as a heavy torpedo smashed into her superstructure near main turret #3, followed by another missile on its heels.
Captain Wildstar knew that if they couldn't spot the vessel, or vessels, launching the missiles, they'd be finished.
At her post, Nova worked furiously, possessed by a sudden inspiration to try something.
"What are you doing?" asked Captain Wildstar.
"Trying to see how far forward I can bring the Time Radar! Maybe I can spot when the enemy submarines camouflaged themselves, Derek!"
"Good idea! Give it a try...and quick!"
Here ends Act Three of
And Then There Were Two....
To Return to the Introduction to the Rikasha Incident