ALTERNATE
TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS—THE ENTROPY
WARS
By: Frederick P. Kopetz
With the Cooperation and Assistance of Derek
A.C.
CHAPTER ONE: THE LITTLE
FOXES
Space
Battleship Argo
The
Vicinity of Beemira
Monday:
May 16, 2231
1500
Hours: Earth Standard Space-Time
The
Universe expands to infinity. Worlds lived and worlds died in the vastness of
the galaxies, but for a long time now, the Local Group of Galaxies had mostly
been at peace.
It was now the year 2231.
Except for some incursions by the still-hostile R’Khells, and their
allies, the forces of Spectra, the Earth Federation had been at peace for
nearly twenty-three years since 2208.
Under the constant vigilance of the Earth Defense Forces and the
continued cooperation of the Iscandarians, Pellians, Rikashans, and Gamilons,
Earth’s society had grown and expanded.
Earth now had colonies on Mars (which was almost Terraformed now),
Titan (also Terraformed), Pluto (thanks to its artificial sun, Invidia),
Centaurus, Barnard, Alpha Sirius V, Arcturus, Beemira, a base on Balan shared
with the Gamilons, and their base and colony of New Fiji Island on Iscandar.
What forces Earth knew of from House Gatlantis and the Black Fox
Nebula had troubled them little in the past twenty-four years since Radnar and
Desslok had made their compact at the time of the signing of the Treaty of San
Diego in 2207. Earth had no formal relations with those two interstellar
nations or the rest of the Cometines, but Earth had really had very little contact
with them in the past twenty-four years except for a few times in which their
ships had been seen in the space now occupied by the expanding Earth
Federation. What contacts Earth had had with the Cometines came indirectly
through Leader Desslok, who was, on top of all of his other titles, the
official “Prince” of House Gatlantis now, but, in reality, Radnar ran most of
the affairs of his House apart from Desslok’s counsel or oversight. The Black
Nebulans, on the other hand, were their own House of the Cometine Empire now,
and they were regarded as the potential Prime Enemy for Earth and Gamilon in
the future.
However, what Earth didn’t know was that their newest enemy was
another old enemy; an enemy who slept in their very midst.
An enemy who even now, was on the Argo herself, unknown, and unseen by his friends and enemies.
An enemy who most people thought was a friend…
An enemy that most people thought was sleeping or dead…
An enemy who had been making his vile plans in secret for the past
twenty-three years…
“Usual report,” said the Argo’s current Acting Captain as he sat
with his hands steepled together on the worn but still-familiar Captain’s desk
on the Argo’s
The Combat Group Leader and
acting First Officer of the ship, Captain Jonathan Hartnell-Wildstar, a young
man with a mop of now chestnut-brown hair who was the top-ranking graduate of
the Class of 2216 at the Space Fighters’ Training School, came to attention in
his blue peacoat and cap and said, “Sir, at fifteen hundred hours, Sixth Fleet
remains gathered together here at Beemira to act as your escort home. No
unusual activity reported, Admiral.”
“I trust that the Black
Tigers are on patrol?”
“Yessir,” said
Hartnell-Wildstar.
“Who’s out there leading
them?”
“Alex, sir.”
“Hmm,” nodded the Argo’s skipper…and the current commander
of both the Sixth (Colonial) Fleet and the Combined Fleet of the Earth Defense
Forces. “Explain that in more military terms, please.”
“Sir, to be more precise,
Senior Lieutenant Wildstar is on patrol leading the first squadron of the Black
Tigers.”
“Which ships are at station
at our flanks?” said the Argo’s
skipper as he pierced Jonathan with his steely eyes.
Is this a test, Dad? Jonathan thought irritably
as the aft starboard bridge hatch whizzed open. A figure in white came in and
adjusted her glasses as her long Medical lab coat flapped above her bare knees
below the hem of her tunic.
“All right,” said Jonathan.
“The space battleship California is
at our starboard flank, and the space battleship Volgograd is abaft a little to port. Peacetime formation, sir.
They’re just taking routine scans.”
“Skippers of those ships?”
“Sir, Captain Tatiana
Lubyanska is in command on the
“Commander of the second
ranking space battleship of the Sixth Fleet, Captain?”
“Commodore Mark Venture on
the
“Nice job. I just like to
know who’s got my back,” said the Argo’s
skipper. He then turned his head to starboard to hear a woman who was about his
age (fifty-three; he was now fifty-two) clearing her throat. “Nova, what are you doing up here?”
“Checking things out,
Derek,” said Captain Nova Wildstar MD as she grinned at her husband. “You’re
quizzing the Argo’s Skipper again?
You’re insufferable.”
“Malarkey, Doctor. As the
Commander of the Combined Fleet of the Earth Defense Forces, I can pretty much
run my flagship the way I like as long as I have my flag on board. I’m not
saying he’s not doing a good job…”
“Let’s not do that,” said
Nova.
“I’m just…checking on
things.”
“Good. Well so am I,
Derek…”
“Not bad…carry on,” said
Admiral Wildstar as he raised the visor of his cap a little.
“Captain Wildstar,” said
the young woman who sat at the Argo’s
cosmo-radar now. “Something’s on our course; approaching from starboard; range,
twenty megameters, speed, twelve space knots. It came up from Beemira.”
“Good identification, Miss
Wakefield,” said Derek as Nova went over to look at how Junior Lieutenant Star
Wakefield was running the radar as the Argo’s
new Living Group Leader. “Not bad,” she said. “Derek, looks like a Beemiran
ship. Or, rather, a Gamilon shuttle held together with chewing gum and baling
wire. It’s a dirty grey color, and it looks like it’s just barely flying. It’s
coming from the southern lowlands of the planet; the part we never explored
much of.”
“Hail them, Aaron,” said
Derek.
“Yessir,” said Lieutenant
Aaron Glitchman, the son of Homer and Wendy Glitchman. “Unidentified
spacecraft. This is the Argo! You are
approaching the outer limits of our defensive zone. Will you identify yourself,
over?”
The bridge doors to the port
side of Admiral Wildstar’s station whizzed open as a Space Marine officer
sauntered onto the deck. He was Colonel Gary Maples, the current acting
commander of both the Argo’s Marine
Group and the One Hundred and Forty-Ninth Special Marine Group, a rapid-response
Group under his direct command as the commanding officer of the EDF Special
Services Group.
SS Marines were the elite
of the elite; Marines who were crack killers and whose uniforms were invariably
black. Maples’ current shipboard uniform was all black except for his small
subdued gold anchor and green markings on black at his collar and shoulders.
The taciturn officer nodded
at Wildstar from behind his dark glasses; Derek just nodded back at him. While
his path to command had been greased by his undisputed heroism near the end of
the Second Cometine War in 2207, there was something about this officer (who
had largely lost his former good-old-boy accent) that creeped Derek (and Nova)
out.
“They’re not identifying
themselves, Admiral?” said Maples.
“No,” said Derek.
“Then maybe we should take
some target practice,” grinned Maples as he reached into one of the copious hip
pockets of the uniform he wore and touched the crystal Sphere he carried
everywhere. It gave him comfort, and, better for him, no one knew of its true
purpose.
“They’re upset enough at us,” said Wildstar. “We don’t need to incite them
more. Besides, give them time to reply. Our large space fleet probably scares
them somewhat.”
“Maybe it should scare them,” said Maples. “They’re
nothing but a bunch of primitives and savages. I wonder why we don’t just act like an Empire and crush them.”
“You know,” said Nova as
she tapped her sandaled foot against the deck and played with the stethoscope
around her neck. “That’s not the way we act. Captain Avatar never would have
approved of someone on this bridge talking like that, Colonel,” said Nova as she gestured at the metal plaque depicting
Captain Avatar that hung above her husband’s head.
“Avatar’s dead, Doctor.
This is a new age. And you’re too soft,” sneered Maples. “You don’t even have a
regulation space suit on, for one thing..”
“I’m fine like this,”
huffed Nova as she crossed her still-coltish legs.
“Enough, you two,” snapped Derek. “Glitchman. Did they respond to
your hails yet?”
“No, sir,” said Glitchman.
“Maybe they’re having
mechanical problems, Captain,” said Lieutenant Commander Kanye Parker, the
First Star Force’s current Mechanical Group Leader. By now, Star had gotten a
visual. “That ship looks pretty beat-up,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s not their fault
if their radio isn’t working,” said Commander Diane Henson-Sandor from
Engineering. “And if Steve wasn’t back in the Megalopolis, he’d agree with me,
Derek.”
“Sandor is a very logical man,”
piped up IQ-9 from his post at Analysis. “Far more logical than Doctor
Wildstar. After thirty-two years, I still haven’t figured out how her illogical
brain works yet.”
“Thanks a lot, Tinwit,” huffed Nova.
“They’re hailing us,” said
Glitchman.
“How nice,” said Commander
Jordy Venture a little sarcastically from his big brother’s old post at
Navigation.
“Here we go again,” smiled
Lieutenant Miguel Castaneda, the young man who was the Argo’s new Assistant Pilot.
“People, would you cut that
out? I’m putting the message up on the speakers, Captain,” said Glitchman.
“Hello, Star Force humans,”
said a somewhat slurred-sounding voice through a wall of static. “I am Lianas,
Shaman of the Third Hive from the far South. Queen Belinda sends me with greetings
and with a warning for you.”
“This is Admiral Derek
Wildstar, Commanding Officer of the Combined Fleet of the Earth Defense Forces
and Acting Commander of the First Star Force and the Argo at the request of Commanding General Hiram Charles Singleton of
Earth. What is your warning, over?”
“Bad omens. Omens for you.
Omens for Earth. And I wish to make an appeal to you in person, sir. You have a
reputation as a man who gets problems fixed.”
“All right; are you
requesting a meeting?”
“Yessir,” said Lianas. “I
want to come to the Argo.”
“Okay,” said Nova. “We’d
better make sure he’s clean, first. We never thoroughly surveyed the part of
the planet he came from; God knows what kind of bugs he’s carrying up here.”
“He’s vermin, don’t let him come aboard,” muttered Maples in Wildstar’s
ear.
“Belay that, Colonel,”
muttered back Wildstar. “Nova and Miss Wakefield. Meet him below in the main
hangar bay and you two and Ariel are to see to his decontamination. Then bring
him up to our cabin.”
“Yessir,” said Nova with a
brisk nod. “Star, let Mister Castaneda take your post.”
“Of course,” said the young
woman, who bore a striking resemblance to her still-young looking mother,
Commander Sasha Wakefield, who was now the XO of the
“Captain Hartnell-Wildstar,
you have the conn,” said Derek as he adjusted his cap and left. “Keep watching
that ship, Jon.”
“Yessir,” said Jonathan to
his adoptive father. He nodded as Derek left.
“Well, people, back to the
usual,” said Jonathan.
“Good,” said Junior
Lieutenant Robert Jordan as he adjusted his glasses at Artillery. His father,
Dashell “Dash” Jordan, was now the skipper of the space battleship Nagato, which also served with Sixth Fleet.
“I mean, your dad’s a good guy and all, Jon, but…”
“Yeah, I know,” said
Jonathan. “Little overbearing at times.” Then he grinned.
II.
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE…
Earth
The
Parliament
House
Monday:
May 16, 2231
1600
Hours: Earth Standard Space-Time
On Earth, the venerable
(and now 83-year old) Commanding General of the Earth Defense Forces, Hiram
Charles Singleton, sat drumming his fingers on his desk as he listened to
Parliament going through a vicious debate in Joint Session.
“So?” said Prime Minister Tracy Davidson, the third Prime Minister appointed by
the increasingly shaky government of President Harrison Kueller. “That’s what
you think of our latest legislative program?”
“Yes, more of the same,”
barked Senator Egon Leslie from Euroland (
“Your pardon. We need to
finish stabilizing Mars. It was nowhere near as easy to stabilize as Titan and
Pluto were….”
“We need a more aggressive
posture,” said Leslie.
“Against whom?” said Davidson.
“Some people have thought,
sir, that maybe it is about time we dealt with the festering problem of the
R’Khells and their allies by offensive action. By open
attacks on their territory. We need to stop this Soecial Forces crap and
just attack them.”
”A course against which
both Rikasha and Gamilon have advised we should not take?” snapped Davidson.
“Precisely,” said Senator
Karl Forrester from
“We can take it out of them
by subduing them, Forrester,” said Leslie as others muttered behind him. Some
began to applaud.
“You’re saying that you’d
become like the empires we’ve fought and actually begin enslaving people?” said Forrester.
“Why not?” huffed
Representative Victoria Samuelson, from
“We work with Empires,” said Senator Beecham, a Senator from the
Hawaiian Region. “Why not become one ourselves?”
“Let us vote on Davidson’s
Government!” yelled one Senator. “Maybe it’s time to change it…”
“”I second this,” said
Leslie.
“Let’s get a new Government!”
yelled someone else.
Prime Minister Davidson
bowed his head and sat in silence as the votes began to come in a few minutes
later.
And, about forty-five
minutes later, a bare majority (355-340, with five abstentions) had voted
Davidson down as Prime Minister, and left President Kueller banging the gavel
as Acting Prime Minister as he knew that, yet again, he would have to pick a
new Prime Minister.
How much longer, thought Singleton as
Parliament left. How much longer until
the Government stops fighting and finally appoints my successor? The man I’ve
recommended twice? I’m old…I’m tired, and I don’t like what we’re becoming
anymore. We need a new man in my post, someone who can be the conscience of
Earth like I’ve been…before it is too late.
Singleton felt a special
reason for wanting to move on as he leaned on his cane and left Parliament
House.
He didn’t have long to
live, and he knew it.
It was space radiation
sickness.
It had gotten him…at long
last.
III.
A VOICE FROM THE PAST
Space
Battleship Argo
The
Vicinity of Beemira
Monday:
May 16, 2231
1600
Hours: Earth Standard Space-Time
“So what’s going on?” said
Senior Lieutenant Alex Wildstar as he leaned against his Cosmo Tiger III, an
upgraded version of the original Cosmo Tiger design that was still in service.
Alex was now twenty-three years old, and had served with a variety of squadrons
before being given his first squadron command, that of the famous Black Tigers
itself. At twenty-three, he was close to the spitting image of his father at
that age, save for the fact that his hair hung a bit more in his right eye like
Captain Jefferson Hardy’s did.
“Looks like we got a situation of some type,
mate,” said Wildstar’s second squadron leader, his classmate and fast friend
Lieutenant Richard Clive Hartcliffe. “And not a nice one, either…”
“A situation,” said Alex.
“I like that.”
“So what’s the Old Man
doin’ on board ship, anyway, again?” said Hartcliffe.
“That diplomatic junket to
Iscandar and Gamilon,” sighed the younger Wildstar. “The President felt he had
to be in personal command. And since when all of Sixth Fleet is together, the Argo is always the ceremonial flagship…”
“When was the last time the
Old Man was aboard this ship anyway?”
“Five years ago, before he
took command of Second Fleet, and before he took command of Combined Fleet. We
had just gotten recognized then, remember?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t thinkin’
straight that May…all I wanted to do was quit salutin’ the bloody upperclassmen
who were raggin’ me because I was the son of a Star Force member; namely, me
dad Clive,” said Richard. He knew the sad life story of his original father
Bryan, who was lond-dead and barely spoken of in the Hartcliffe household. For
all he cared, his true father was his mother’s second husband, Clive, who had
married his mother in June of 2208 some weeks after his father Bryan’s death in
prison.
“I had it worse than you did,” said Alex. “Because of my Dad
and my Mom.”
“Hey, here comes the
shuttle,” said Hartcliffe as he punched Wildstar in the arm.
Alex and Rich watched as
the Beemiran’s battered ship, an old surplus Gamilon shuttle that looked like
it had seen better days, came to a landing in the Argo’s main flight bay.
As soon as the engines
stopped, IQ-9 and Star Wakefield trundled up followed by Doctor Nova Wildstar,
in her spacesuit, and by a young woman with delicate features and luxuriant
eyelashes who looked much like her; Alex nodded to his fraternal twin sister
Ariel Wildstar as she smiled back at her brother. Ariel and Star were also both
in full space gear in the white and red of Medical Group and the gold and black
of Living Group.
“You two make sure he gets
sealed in the decontamination unit,” said Nova to Ariel and Star. “Just to be
safe. We’re not that familiar with the microbes he might be carrying yet.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am,” they
said in chorus as they pushed the decontamination unit into the ship.
A few minutes later, the
two of them emerged with a very old Beemiran.
“How is he?” said Nova as
she looked into the capsule at him.
“Not in the best of shape,
Mom,” said Ariel. “He’s dying, as a matter of fact. He maybe…has an hour or two
left…clean of microbes, at least…”
Nova took a very deep
breath. “Well, we’d better see what he wanted before he dies on us. Let’s get
him to Sickbay. ”
In Sickbay, Nova had called
Derek, who came below maybe ten minutes later. The Marine guards let the
Admiral in as he walked towards the main examining table, where Nova was
looking over some scans.
“It looks like he became
very ill in flight up here,” whispered Nova. “I don’t have any idea what could
have made him deteriorate like that…and so quickly…I did all I could to
stabilize him…but…we’re still losing him.”
“I wish we could figure it
out,” said Derek. “Lianas of Beemira. I am Admiral Derek Wildstar. What made
you risk your life like that?”
“The Queen asked me to come
and see you,” said the old Beemiran. “But, even then…you are the famous
defender of the Peace of the Universe…but you have Death in your midst on this
very ship. Be careful or it will destroy you. Those were the visions I had. I had
the last while flying here. That is what killed me. But I had to tell someone…”
“Tell us what?” said Derek.
“You have in your midst
Life, your last weapon, and final weapon is Life. But Death is in your midst. I
must warn you, beware of the man you call…”
Then, he gasped. Nova
looked at the scanners. “Derek, his circulatory system is giving out!”
“Who is this man?” said
Admiral Wildstar. “Who is this man?”
“He’s not really a man,” said
Lianas. “He’s…Darkness…a Darkness you haven’t killed yet, even after thirty
years. Darkness…from…beyond…the Blackeye…”
Then, Lianas stiffened and
all of his vital signs went flat.
Nova shook her head and
sighed as she put the sheet over the Beemiran’s head. “He’s gone, Derek. Time
of death, 1622 Hours…”
“So…” said Admiral Wildstar
as Nova wiped her eyes behind her glasses. “I wish we had a better idea what he
was talking about…”
“I have a very vague sense
of something…not as good as my Mother at sensing this stuff,” said Star
Wakefield. “But, there’s bad juju around here.”
“That we knew,” sighed
Ariel. “How bad?”
“I’ve been having dreams,
too. Bad ones,” said Star. “Real bad ones…”
TO BE CONTINUED….