ALTERNATE TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS
FIXING A HOLE
Being the second part of THE RIKASHA INCIDENT
By: Frederick P. Kopetz
Elements from Star Blazers and Space Battleship Yamato are (c)
2000 by Voyager Entertainment and Leiji Matsumoto
Elements from Doctor Who are (c) 2000 by the British Broadcasting
Corporation
Elements and images related to The Beatles are (c) 2000 by Apple Corps, Ltd.
All characters portrayed in this tale are purely fictional and bear no
resemblance to any real persons, either living or dead. Any such resemblances
are either purely coincidental or are intended for historical verisimilitude
within this fictional universe.
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ACT ONE-I'VE GOT A FEELING
"I've got a feeling, A Feeling I
Can't Hide…."-1969-John Lennon & Paul McCartney
I. THE TOWN NUT
A Trailer in a Junkyard
Along
The Vicinity of
Thursday, June 22, 1967
The glorious universe stretches into infinity...
It is filled with many different lifeforms, all of which exist as part of a cycle of life that began in the distant past. New stars are born from the cosmic dust of space, while others age, die, and return to the cosmic dust from which they were made.
Unknown to him, the Entity known as Lord Ekogaru, in his quest for Absolute Dominion, now has in the hands of his servant Gralnasz an unparalleled opportunity to rid himself of a great annoyance, once and for all.
In the year 2202, through an unforeseen accident resulting from the appearance of the planet Pellias, the Argo and Gralnasz have passed through a rift in subspace, both having emerged helpless in the general vicinity of an Earth where the Earth Defense Forces do not seem to answer the Argo's urgent messages…and where both are in the hands, unknown to them, of a rather odd power, another great power from the depths of the Cosmos.
"Arrrrrrr, so what's goin' on here?" wheezed the owner of a nasty, irascible old voice.
"I don't know, mein Herr," grumbled another voice whose owner stood behind the counter of a junkyard; the office of the junkyard was located in a rusty old house trailer that looked derelict even in the twentieth century. "Why you haff to disguise der Schlactschiff like this?"
"It ain't a Schlactschiff, or a battleship as ya just said, it's a time ship, ya goon," wheezed the old man, who was clad in a dirty green workers' coverall. Its grungy green surface was broken only by a red patch with the name MELVIN emblazoned on it in white script. "Get me another cigar, wouldja, Von Schwein?"
"Mein name ist nicht Von Schwein!," protested the owner of the second voice, who was clad in a dirty old man's undershirt (a tank top), a filthy pair of slacks that used to be field-grey, jackboots, and a dark-colored ceremonial helmet that belonged to the Imperial Army of the Kaiser of Germany, circa 1917. "Mein name is Unterseeboot Kapitan Hermann Von Schweinfurt! In Deutschland, mein Vater was a noble! A Junker! The name is Von Schweinfurt! And you insist in calling me Von Schwein, which means, "From der Pig!" ???"
"Hey, I coulda just dropped ya back in the ocean where your U-Boat went down back in 1917 or 1916 or whatever. Then they can just play "Ich Hatt Ein Kamerad" at yer funeral, Hermann baby! And, I toldja, take off the spiked Kaiser Helmet ya bought in that junk shop in Philly as a souvenier of the Fatherland when customers are around. Part of this area has Pennsylvania Germans around, but the Kaiser ain't that popular, even half a century after the stupid war I plucked ya out of."
"What do you look like, never having shaved for two years, and talking about der space Schiffen all over der place? People think you are der town NUT!"
"That's because I AM the town nut!!!," wheezed Melvin. "If I was where you was, you'd be nuts, too. I'm outta my TREE! With a killer BEE!" Melvin coughed, his speech degenerating into a long stream of cackling and cursing, partly in five different Terran languages, partly in Gamilon, partly in Gallifreyan, and partly in the Black Speech of Mordor. "I'm part Time Lord, part Goon, and Part I don't know what I'm part of," chortled Melvin as he played with a greasy '51 Packard alternator with one hand, and drank from a filthy flask of booze with the other. His bloodshot eyes crossed about twice under his dirty grey eyebrows and then he smiled with satisfaction, with his wrinkled old face and demented, greasy grey hair and beard making him look like a distant relative of Captain Avatar's…who had spent about three years in the gutter, that is.
"GREAT!," he roared as he put his hand to his forehead. "Damnit! Von Schwein, there's a real Schlactschiff up in the sky, not like a bird or a plane, but more like a frog, and…me head senses a Techie scum around in space, and me heart senses another Brother around on Earth…ohh…noo, not HIM again! Damnit! Damnit, damnit, damnit, maybe they're AFTER me again! And me liver senses I need more booze, and me kidneys sense some kids in a jam! CRAP! Gonna have to play games with people's brainstems again, Melvin o' L'adj! Brainstems. Lots of fun!"
"Hey, buddy," said a strange voice in the trailer. "Stop talkin' about friggin' brainstems and wait on me, damnit? You got a water pump for a '61 Rambler American, bud?"
"What are you, a miner?" wheezed Melvin.
"What are you, a
clown, bud? Like seven-tenths of the hard coal's been dug outta this part
of the
"Ain't hippie music, it's classical noise," wheezed Melvin over the sounds of the first notes of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band. "Got that water pump for ya, Bruce. It'll be fifteen bucks. Cash, check, credit card, ATM card, or Smart Card?"
"Melvin, you are a nut,"
laughed Bruce (his customer) as he pulled out a greasy wallet. "Cash,
check, I understand. Credit card…rich people and jet-setting hippies from
"I seen robots. They're all right."
"Yeah, I bet you see lots of things thanks to your bottle," laughed Bruce. "Thanks for the water pump, ya old creep. For the town nut, ya charge good prices."
II.WHAT HAPPENED?
Space Battleship Argo
The Vicinity of Earth
Unknown Time
At Captain Wildstar's orders, the Argo
was now in a high orbit of Earth as the Star Force attempted to analyze the
planet, in order to ascertain where, and when, they were.
"So, where are we?" asked Commander Mark Venture. "Is that our Earth below us, or isn't it?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," replied Sandor.
"Homer, do you have those scans of the comm bands finished yet?" asked Wildstar.
"I'm still working on it," replied Homer. "So far, I haven't found any activity whatsoever on any of the standard EDF frequencies. I've found a lot of activity in the old lower bands, though."
"What ranges?" asked Sandor.
"The old 500-1600 kHz band, and the old 88-108 MHz band," said Homer. "I'm picking up this transmission in the 740 kHz range, audio only."
"Switch it to the speakers," said Wildstar as a sinking feeling began to gather in his gut.
"And now," came the voice of an announcer, "by popular demand, we're going to give you, on this evening in June 1967, another spin of the fab new Beatles album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band, beginning with the title track…."
The transmission faded in static for a moment, and then came back up in the first chords of the song.
"It seems we're listening to a transmission from 1967," said Rosstowski.
"What I've picked up from around Earth seems to back up that conclusion, too," said Nova. "All I've scanned are a few early communications satellites, and one early, primitive manned spacecraft in orbit over the Russian landmass. If there's satellites, Derek, that means there's a tracking radar. We'd better get out of its range."
"Nova, please hold for a moment," said IQ-9. "I'm finishing a scan of the atmosphere."
"What have you discovered?" asked Sandor.
"A high content of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and various hydrocarbons over the North American, Eurasian, and East Asian landmasses, with a scattering of such pollutants over parts of the Australian landmass. Such large amounts of pollution could never exist in our own time. Also, bio-scans indicate that the population of Earth is approximately 3.5 billion humans, much higher than in our own time. Conclusion: the Argo has traveled back in time, most likely to the late twentieth century."
"The first order of business is that we'd better get out of here," said Wildstar.
"Slowly," added
Sandor. "We don't want to arouse the suspicions of anyone in the defense
establishments of either the Soviet Union or the old
"Venture, use our keel thrusters. Slowly accelerate us up into a higher orbit. Then, maybe, we can figure out what we'll need to do to get back to our own time," said Wildstar.
"If we can," said Sandor.
With a heavy heart, Venture began to get ready to activate the keel thrusters.
"Okay, here we go," said Venture. "Taking us up…slowly."
At that, the Argo began to slowly ascend into a higher orbit of 20th century Earth.
About thirty minutes passed. Suddenly, Sandor looked up from his instruments and said, "I might have a possible solution for our problem, Wildstar."
"What is it?"
"If we can reset the ship's chronograph to the exact minute, second, and millisecond that we're currently at, I might be able to calculate a warp profile that'll take us forward a great deal in time, but will move us only the distance we'd need to re-emerge near Neptune in order to save the Westhampton Beach."
"That sounds great!," said Wildstar.
"Yes, but there's several big 'ifs' involved."
"Such as?"
"We don't know the time down to the millisecond," said Sandor. "It can be calculated, of course, but we'd have to have some idea of the date and time in Greenwich Mean or Eastern Standard in order to set the chrono to a general range. We could then reset the astro-compass and sextant in order to take a reading from the stars and planets in order to reset the chrono. Also, we have just three days to do this."
"Why do we only have three days?" asked Rosstowski.
"The hyperspatial window, as I've calculated it, will close in just three days," said Sandor. "If that window closes, we could be stuck here…forever."
"What if we sent someone down to Earth to get the time, so to speak?" said Parsons. "Or, what if we tapped from their transmissions to determine the time, or tapped off an atomic clock?"
"Yes…didn't the old atomic clocks send out their data on a radio wave?" asked Nova.
"Hmmm…if we could discover the exact frequency, and know what we were picking up," said Sandor, "we could avoid any contact with people from this time period."
"That would be preferable to going down to 1967 Earth," said Wildstar. "After all, if one of us ended up on twentieth century Earth, that might well change the course of history…"
"Derek!," cried Nova, who, to the surprise of everyone present, was beginning to glow slightly.
"What's wrong?" cried Wildstar.
"Something's happening!," cried Nova. "Everything around me is beginning to fade out! I'm…I'm…not…"
Before everyone's startled eyes, Nova glowed brightly, and then faded away like a ghost.
"NOVA!," cried Derek. "What the hell happened to you? NOVAAAAA!"
"Har, har, har, har, harrrrr," came a loutish voice over the radio. "One of you suckers is takin' a little trip, and now, her mate is gonna take a long, strange, trip, TOO! Say goodbye to all yer comrades, Wildstar, and be sure to pick up some love beads, MAN! Harrr harrr harrr arrr ARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
At that, Captain Wildstar began to glow, and he also rapidly disappeared like a ghost.
"WILDSTAR!!!!," cried out Venture as he vanished. "Sandor! He's gone! Can you guess what happened to them?"
"No…I can't," said Sandor, as the Beatles' song Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite played on in the background. "But, maybe I can find out."
In the meantime, even as Sergeant Pepper was being listened to by much of the Western World (by choice, by the enthralled young generation) and on the troubled first bridge of the 23rd century space battleship Argo, (by default), the great album was being listened to elsewhere, in England, on Radio Caroline in Great Britain by yet another member of the young generation on what was an unghodly hour on June 22, 1967.
The hand turning the dial to tune in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" was slightly nicotine-stained, and singularly unimpressed that he was tuning in this song on a very expensive piece of equipment. Neither was the owner of that hand all that enthralled at the freaky sound effects of this Beatles piece for a rather good reason: he was one of the few who had been present throughout all of the long nights of this album's conception.
Under his breath, the owner of the hand harmonized with the recorded voice of John Lennon on the words, "…There will be a show tonight, on trampoline…"
"Not bad at all," said the owner of the hand a moment later as he placed a cigarette below his slightly scraggly mustache and puffed at a cigarette. "I think Lennon actually knows how to write."
"What do you mean by that, Macca?" said a mocking voice beside him in an even thicker Scouse accent.
"What I mean, John, is that I liked the imagery," replied James Paul McCartney, "I don't think the bass line was bad, either, eh?"
"Come off it, Paul, you know that I hate playin' our old stuff over again," snapped a Liverpudlian voice as its owner, one John Lennon, glared at Paul McCartney through thick granny glasses. "It's like rewarmin' a souffle. Pepper's in the can, already , son. Besides, my voice sounds like crap on that one anyway."
"No it doesn't, John."
"It does! It always does! Stop bein' soft, Paul. We got a new record to make!," snapped Lennon. "What are we doin' up here in the booth playin' with the radio, anyway?"
"Wondering if we can pick up something to grab off the radio and stick in the song like you're planning to do with yours…you know, the one about the carpenter and the…"
"It's about the Walrus now, Paul," said Lennon. "The original capitalist pig. Anyway, let's get back to Slaggers' nightclub for a minute before we get back to our Love anthem."
"You know my name,
dooo ddoo doo de doo doo, look up me number," vamped Paul McCartney as
he passed George Martin, their producer, going up the stairs into the control
booth of Studio Two in
"All right," said a another thick Liverpudlian voice speaking in a even more decided Scouse accent. "That take was bloody awful. Could we go through that again, John?"
"I will if you put down yer sitar, George," quipped Lennon.
"
"What take number will that be, then?" said a more cultured voice from up above the band in the recording booth. It belonged, of course, to George Martin.
"I dunno. Fookin' take twenty-nine, for what I care," said John. Are we ready there on the drums, Richie?"
"Lemme finish me toast and baked beans, eh, John?"
"C'mon, luv, the red light's on," joked John as he fidgeted in his seat. Lennon, who would later record a number known as "Instant Karma" after the breakup of what was then the world's most popular rock group, was notorious for being incredibly impatient during the band's recording sessions as Richard Starkey, known to most of the world as Ringo Starr, set down his beans on toast and walked over to his drums.
"How's the game with Mal?" asked Paul McCartney as he played around with his Fender Jazz Bass guitar.
"I was about to throw in me cards," said Ringo, referring to the eternal poker game that he usually played with the Beatles' long-time assistants, Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall, whenever things ran slow in Abbey Road studios due to EMI's technological backwardness, which was incredible even for 1967.
With the technological advancements the Beatles had made in their recording process over the past year or so, and given the fact that these advancements took hours to set up on the aging tape decks and mixing boards, Ringo often found himself doing nothing but playing cards when his services behind the world-famous silver and black-striped drum kit weren't needed…bored, just as George Harrison was bored at the moment. Even as the Beatles were picking up their instruments again, George found himself wishing that he was just sitting back playing the blues with his friend Eric Clapton, currently with Cream. At times, he reflected, being a Beatle was getting to be a major drag.
George played a note or two, beginning to count off, when he noticed Paul stopped in mid-count by John. Wondering what was going on, he looked over, annoyed, as the doors to Studio Two opened and a familiar figure strode in.
"Oh, shit, it's Eppy!," said Lennon. "What brings Mr. Epstein here at this hour of the evening?" joshed John.
"I wanted to check on your progress on your new song," said Brian Epstein. "After all, you're going to be premiering All You Need is Love on live television in just a few days, lads."
"Well, we were workin' on somethin' else for a break," said McCartney irritably.
"With your special coming up?" retorted Epstein.
"Look, Eppy," snapped Lennon. "You look after the percentages…we'll look after the records, luv. Got it?"
III. A TRAIN YARD
A
Along
The Vicinity of
Thursday, June 22, 1967
The first thing that Nova Wildstar noticed when she came to was that she was lying in a patch of weeds.
The second thing she noticed was the feel of the sun on her bare calves, and the pungent smell of the air.
Smells like plants, she thought sleepily… mixed with dirt and old motor oil and other scents I can't place. Is it the spring of 2201? Am I back on one of those Pacific islands sleeping next to a wrecked World War II plane? Did I dream everything about those two missions and about being married to Derek? Oh…..my HEAD!
Nova sat up, feeling the sun on her bare shoulders a moment later. What's this? I'm in a swimsuit? she thought. No, some kind of blouse…pink…off the shoulder…some kind of half-shorts…..white….brown sandals….long straps going up my legs. I don't have clothes like these! And where the heck am I?
Nova walked over to a
puddle and looked at her reflection in something that looked like an oil slick.
Better be careful not to step in that in these shoes! YUCK! And I look like
something Mimi dragged in to Dr. Sane's office! 
And where am I? I'm not on the Argo…..
A moment later, Nova stubbed an exposed toe on something metal.
Artwork: Sixties Nova (c) 2000 by Ken Mayes
A rail? she thought again. From an old railroad track? It's shiny…but half-sunken in the ground. Is this a branch line? Where am I? The twentieth century? Did they still have trains on tracks, then? Think, girl. Where are you? And where did I get these weird clothes from?
Nova started as she heard a sound.
Ducking down behind a bush, she finally saw that she was at the edge of a railroad yard surrounded by lush green summer weeds, grass, trees, and other growth. At least, to the edge of the yard.
The rest of the railroad
yard was filled with black, grimy hopper cars as far as the eye could see. As
far as Nova could make out, the cars were lettered in white for old twentieth
century rail lines that she had read about (in passing), such as the Pennsylvania
Railroad and the
Hiding behind a car that
was very faded and which read "LNE" along with an emblem that
read "Lehigh and
The approaching light was slowly coming on the front of a large, yellow and green object that Nova recognized a moment later as an old smoke-belching diesel locomotive that burned fossil fuel of some kind. Its exhaust, she noticed, stank a great deal.
While Nova watched the approaching train, she noticed that it was slowing down. A moment later, the huge train stopped with a long hiss of its air brakes.
Under cover, Nova waited as men that
she guessed were the train's crew disembarked from the huge diesel and walked
off towards a shack, either to change shifts or catch some lunch, she assumed.
Nova carefully climbed over the locomotive's front platform and crossed several tracks, noticing that there appeared to be a town off over a ridge to the north (Nova guessed that it was north by the relation to the westering sun).
Suddenly, while crossing a track, Nova heard a horn blowing, and saw an approaching headlight.
She screamed as she just barely dodged a speeding passenger train that consisted of three silver self-propelled diesel coaches.
"Who's that hippie girl down there?" said an older woman in a disdainful voice aboard the train as she saw Nova running.
"Some local kid?" said her husband.
"Look at those clothes. She's definitely a hippie, and she looks like she's on drugs or something!"
Nova wasn't on drugs, of course, but she was freaked out by the smoking train as it disappeared around a curve. Still, her mind wasn't completely discombobulated by fright; being trained in survey and analysis, she was analyzing the situation, and coming up with a guess.
If that train was slowing down, I must be near a town, she thought. If I follow the tracks…maybe I'll be able to get to town…if I can avoid being hit, that is. Then, maybe I can find out where…and when I am, and what I'm going to do next.
Here ends part one of Fixing a Hole
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the Rikasha Incident Please click here