ALTERNATE TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS---FROM BOREDOM TO UTTER DISBELIEF
Being the first part of THE
NEW COMET--- BY: Frederick P. Kopetz
(Thanks to Derek A.C.
ACT ONE: PLAYING BALL
(When You Don't Want to Play Ball)
I. NOT THE BEST OF
SITUATIONS
The Brumus Asteroid Belt
Space Battleship Argo
Friday June 7, 2205
0210 Hours: Earth Time
The Argo cruised outside of the Asteroid Belt
where Planet Brumus had once been until Ekogaru had destroyed it in 2202. Her
Black Tigers had just come back in from a combat simulation under Jefferson
Hardy's command as Flight Group Leader...but all was not well on the
"Mister Domon?"
said Commodore Derek Wildstar.
"Yessir?" said
Junior Lieutenant Ryusuke Domon, who had been the First Star Force's Combat
Group Leader each time the ship had been out for the past two years. "How
did that simulation go, Captain?"
"Not too good. I'm
disappointed, Mister!"
"What do you
mean?"
"I mean, are you sure
that you weren't asleep or something? You were terrible! Kitano, was he awake? Or just incompetent?"
"Sir, he was
present," said Tetsu Kitano, who was the Argo's Navigation Group
Leader this cruise.
Wildstar put a hand on Kitano's
chair. He paused before continuing. "Well, Kitano, you didn't push him
hard enough! As Executive Officer, your task is to watch your people, and make
damn sure they're doing their jobs. From what it looks like, Domon wasn't doing
his."
"Sir, I'm sorry!"
began Kitano. "I was trying to concentrate on my Group, sir. Some of those
people on Bridge Number Two are slow."
"No excuses! No
excuses for either of you!" snapped Derek. Wildstar paused to let his
words sink in. "Kitano...Domon, you did this, you two fix it! I'm
leaving you in command, Kitano. Domon, help him! You go run those drills all
over again at the next set of targets. And you're staying here, running
drills…until you get a ninety-eight or better! Got
that?"
"Yessir," said
Domon.
"You have the conn,
Kitano. Get it right!" snapped Derek. "I'll be back here soon, and
you two had better be on the ball!"
At that, he left the bridge
to tour the rest of the ship. I am gonna chew that second bridge crew out,
thought Derek. Then, I'll see what's up with the rest of these stupid
cadets!
Forty-five minutes later,
in his quarters, Wildstar kicked open the door of his cabin. As soon as he got
in there, he hung up his peacoat and got his desk ready for work.
Well, they finally got
it...but it took six practice runs for them to learn it, thought Derek. I wish they were a
bit more on the ball than that. I really do.
A moment later, the Argo
shook.
What's going on? Wildstar thought before the red
alert klaxons came up and Kitano's voice came up over the PA. "All hands
to combat stations! All hands to combat stations! Comet Empire destroyers
spotted off the bow! We're under attack! Captain to the
bridge!"
"This is Wildstar!"
said Derek over a microphone in response. "I'll be there in a
moment!"
The Argo was hit
again, and Wildstar yelled as the ship tilted under him; she had taken a hit at
very close range. He had a hard time keeping on his feet; indeed, he fell down
as soon as the ship took another hit.
"Crap! This is
all we need right now!" he said out loud after he cleared his head.
Struggling to his feet, he got up.
II. NIGHT DUTY
The Brumus Asteroid Belt
Space Patrol Cruiser
Friday June 7, 2205
0305 Hours: Earth Time
At about the same time that
night, the Amazon-class Patrol Cruiser
The Squadron Commander, a
man named Captain James Tomlinson, was working all of the two cruisers and
eight frigates of his patrol squadron overtime to try and find an answer to
this problem. At the moment, Tomlinson sat on his flagship, the patrol cruiser Dnieper,
anxiously awaiting an answer from his ships, and especially from his
second-in-command, the skipper of the
If she's so damned
smart, Tomlinson
had thought earlier that night, How come Mrs. Radar Wizard hasn't figured
out an answer yet? Unless she's overrated and just taking up a man's place in
that command chair on her ship?
The commander of the
"Okay, Mister
Kemper," said Nova as the
"Aye, aye,
ma'am," said the chubby figure of Kemper from the main Cosmo-Radar. "Ma'am, a suggestion?"
"Yes?"
"Can I flip up the
override?"
"Do so
carefully," said Nova. "We don't need another burnout." Nova
then added to herself. Do it, even though I've tried to tell Tomlinson this
ship needs dockyard time; she's been out too long without a refit, and she's
almost junk.
"Aye,
ma'am. Raising gain."
Nova tapped her fingers against the
arm of her chair. It was a good thing that she had no fear of heights; on this
class of ship, the Command station sat right on the edge of an opening that led
down below to the second bridge; an opening reachable only by a ladder one had
to climb. Needless to say, Nova had gotten used to going up and down that ladder
at all hours of the day ever since Tomlinson had put them to work tracking down
these "ghost" radar images.
Tracking down the
"ghost" images was such a priority that she had even exchanged
messages at long range with the Argo a few days ago. However, Nova
didn't know what Derek was doing to trace down those images.
"Ma'am," said
Lieutenant Franklin Potter from Communications. "I'm picking up a signal
of some kind."
"Where is it?"
asked Nova.
"RP-112-A by
32-C," said the young African-American man as he worked. "Should I
boost the gain?"
"Yes, and try to
translate," said Nova.
"I'll try; it's just a
microburst."
Nova leaned over the edge
to the
"Yes,
ma'am!"
"May I suggest
something?" said a familiar robotic voice from Analysis.
"Shuddup,
you rolling hunk of junk!" snapped Senior Lieutenant Lionel Canning from
Combat.
"Belay that,
Mister," said Nova. "The Lieutenant may be on to something. Yes, IQ-9?"
"Lieutenant?"
muttered Canning.
"Yeah, now she says
that robot's an officer," said Lieutenant Michelle Parker, the ship's
Navigation officer. She and Canning were the official ship's couple; a status
they didn't mind.
"Think she's getting
space-happy?" said Canning.
"Belay it, she's
watching," whispered Parker.
"If you two want to
whisper and pass notes to each other, do it after watch," said Nova
tartly. She would tolerate the occasional glance on duty (she and Derek had
done the same on the Argo) but nothing more. "Got it?"
"Aye, ma'am,"
they said in unison.
"Let's hear what IQ-9
has to say," said Lieutenant Commander Grady Barnwell, the ship's
no-nonsense Executive Officer, who sat right at the forward part of the bridge
in a straight line with Nova's command station.
"No energy emissions I
can pick up," said Sill over the intercom from the
"I believe I have something!" said IQ-9. He
stood up and said, "We have picked up four of these microbursts
in the past two hours. I would like to compute to see if they are coming from
hyperspace or normal space. If normal space; a ship is nearby and trying to
transmit. If from hyperspace, I suspect that there is a ship
of some kind remaining in hyperspace; probably a partly submerged space
submarine. The code it seems to be using is probably Cometine in origin,
not R'Khell."
"Good idea, fella!" chuckled Giuseppe Barandini, the ship's
Mechanical Group Leader. He sat at the port side of the bridge as seen from
Nova's post, next to Barnwell, and next to the ship's engineer and computer
officer. Canning, Parker, and IQ-9 sat on Barnwell's right, with Artillery and
Communications at port and the cosmo-radar and tactical radar at far starboard.
Such had been the arrangement of the ship ever since she had been refitted in
2204.
"Mister Woodruff, Miss
Katz, Mister Selig!" said Nova into her
intercom.
"Aye, ma'am?"
said Woodruff, who was the commander of the
"Get ready to launch
on my command. We need to get a look at something."
"Got it," said
Woodruff. "We'll be ready to launch soon."
"Good. IQ-9?"
said Nova.
"Ready."
"Get to it."
"Then I will scan and
get to work," said IQ. Nova nodded at that. He's been my best friend
throughout this cruise, she thought. Face it,
he's the only member of this crew I really knew when I piped on board...even if
he likes to look up my skirt when I have one on! You don't get to make a lot of
friends as a Captain. Sad...isn't it? Now I know what Derek must feel like on
the Argo with those cadets.
Stephen Sandor was in a
situation similar to Nova's at the moment; he had been forced to assume command
of another patrol cruiser. In fact, he was in command of an entire squadron;
the 20th Interplanetary Defense Squadron. His flagship, the
"Sir!" said his
cosmo-radar officer, a young man named Ensign Parodi.
"We have five objects coming at our stern at thirty space knots! Range,
five hundred kilometers!"
"Looks like
missiles!" said the combat radar officer.
"Comet Empire missile
ship squadron identified off stern," said Parodi.
"Evade!" said
Sandor.
The
"Second wave of
missiles coming in!" said Parodi.
"Brace for
impact!" snapped Sandor. "Mister Baylor, open all forward guns!
Target! Enemy missile ships. Ready
to fire on my mark!"
"Aye, aye, sir,"
said Baylor.
I never thought I'd be
in this spot, but here I am, thought Sandor. Great.
I'm a scientist...not a captain!
A few moments had passed.
Now, the
"I was about to tell
you that," said IQ-9. "And, yes, they are Comet Imperial in origin.
We have sustained damage from that first barrage."
"Launch all
planes!" said Nova.
"Roger," said
Woodruff. A few moments later, the
Potter spoke up from
Communications. "We've lost contact with Captain Tomlinson and the
squadron flagship, ma'am...they don't respond to our repeated hails. I think
there's jamming in the area. We have also lost contact with the frigate Nelson.
The frigate Nogura is a confirmed total
loss."
"How bad is our damage?"
asked Nova, coughing as a burst of smoke came out of her panel. Then, she
screamed as a burning bit of material hit her tights-clad leg. She slapped the
fire out, wincing at the burn on her upper thigh. I'll have to fix that
later...or have the pharmacist's mate do it, she thought. Well, here I
sit with a rip in my pants and a second-degree burn. It could be worse...
"It's somewhere in the
living block," said Barandini. "We have material and people being
sucked into the breaches."
"No," said Nova
as she clenched a fist. "Not now! Okay, looks like we have to stop
those subs, otherwise, we're deep-sixed! Suggestions?"
"Ma'am," said
Barnwell. "We've just tested that anti-sub hedgehog missile launcher that
Barandini and his men fixed the other day. If we can get a fix on those subs,
we can help our pilots take those guys out."
"Get to it," said
Nova with a sharp nod.
"Enemy destroyers
approaching off the port bow," said Kemper. "Range, 2,000 meters,
speed, twenty-eight space knots. I think they've just warped in."
"We've got a fix on
the enemy ships," said Woodruff from his plane.
"Okay," said
Nova. "Mister Canning, open all forward guns along with those
hedgehogs."
"Aye, ma'am,"
said Canning as he worked hard.
The
"We're in firing
position," said Barnwell. "The J'offre's
in firing position. Guns are ready. Anti-sub hedgehog rockets ready. Woodruff
says his people are ready to help clean up."
"Fire!" snapped
Nova.
The
Woodruff's planes swooped
in a minute later. They fired small but effective anti-sub missiles into the
enemy subs.
"Direct hit!"
reported Woodruff.
"Got them!" said
IQ-9. "The subs are dropping back into hyperspace!"
At that, the crew of the
For once, this is
looking good,
thought Nova. But what happened to our flagship? And where's the Argo?
Is she in battle, too? Oh, I hope Derek's all right...
III. COMBAT CONTINUED...
The Brumus Asteroid Belt
Space Battleship Argo
June 7, 2202
0410 Hours
In the meantime, just ten
thousand megameters away, the Argo was embroiled in her own battle.
Domon turned his head to
Wildstar as soon as Derek materialized out of the lift, sans his peacoat.
"Sir...we're under attack by fourteen destroyers and an antimatter missile
ship."
"All Cometine?"
asked Wildstar.
Domon nodded.
"Great," said
Wildstar, as he turned to the cosmo-radar and the young woman manning it; a new
Ensign fresh out of the Academy named Monica Cantrell. "Miss Cantrell, do
you have a lock on them, yet?"
"Negative," she
said. "Sir, they seem to have some sort of device that's interfering with
our radar! I'm getting doubled images!"
"Bando, check
that!" said Wildstar. "Cantrell, take over at Analysis!"
"Yessir," said Monica as
Bando took over at the radar. He took some scans and said, "Sir, it's
true. They have some sort of wave-guide unit in operation. It's producing
twinned images of the ships. We're not sure which ones to target!"
"What should we
do?" said Domon.
"Target all the
images," said Wildstar. "Both the fakes and the
real ones. Hardy!" he said as he snapped up his intercom.
"Yessuh!" said
Jefferson Hardy, who had recently gotten back in with his Black Tigers.
"Take off with one
squadron, see what you can observe, and attack a few, then return to the area
around the ship. Get close enough to observe the enemy visually."
"Got
it."
Hardy took off a moment later,
followed by his squadron-mates.
"Sir," said Angie
Hartcliffe, who was serving this mission separated by distance from her
husband, who was on the
"Yes?"
"What if they run into
the asteroid belt?"
"They won't."
"Why, sir?"
"We'll be on 'em too damn fast, that's why. Get ready to attack...report
visually on the enemy ships' locations...everyone..."
"Got it," said
Angie.
"I have locks on the
enemy ships," said Domon.
"Hold off until Hardy
reports in. When he's out of the area, open fire!"
"He'd better hurry
up," said Bando as the Argo shook again from another hit.
"We're taking more and more damage by the minute!"
"Report," said a
deep voice aboard the Cometine anti-matter missile ship Jaavitz,
which was the flagship of the fleet.
General Czernak, the enemy commander on the scene,
smiled as the image of Baron Gernitz, his commander and liege-lord, came up on
the screen. "It goes well, Baron. Our probe has drawn out two Earth
scouting squadrons, which we are in the process of mauling, as well as the Argo
herself, sir."
"Do you mean the Star
Force is in the region?" asked Gernitz.
"It is, sir,"
said Czernak, who turned to the right to look at a screen.
"Pull back all of your
other forces. I don't care about a few small ships; I can destroy them at my
leisure in the next year or so when we disengage from the Rotella region and
finally subdue the rebels I have been fighting for three years. I want the Argo
brought down today! That way, Earth's greatest rallying symbol is destroyed,
and their fighting spirit will be non-existent when I begin the grand invasion.
Do you understand that?"
"Perfectly, sir,"
said Czernak. "I think I can pull it off. Today,
comes the beginning of a new era for the Comet Empire, vengeance for the death
of Prince Zordar, and the end...for the Star Force and their battered rebuilt
old battleship Argo!"
At that, both men laughed.
TO BE CONTINUED....
To Return to the Introduction to The New Comet, click here