ALTERNATE
TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS—THE
PRINCESS AND THE SURFER
Being the seventh part
of THE NEW COMET--- BY: Frederick P. Kopetz
This Act is being completed with the
Cooperation and Assistance of Derek A.C. Wakefield (as usual)---Freddo
ACT ONE: MILITARY
INTELLIGENCE AND A CHRISTENING
I.
LIVE-FIRE EXERCISE
Planet
Earth
Vicinity
of The
The
Space Fighters’ Training School
Monday:
May 4, 2207
1830
Hours: Local Time
It was now late afternoon at the Space Fighters’ Training School.
Most of the Classes of 2207 and 2208 sat in their red-and-white
and blue-and-white Midshipman uniforms in bleachers on a hillside near a bleak
spot of bare, battered ground that still bore traces of craters from
planet-bomb hits back during the Gamilon War.
This
looks like a part of Earth that the Cosmo-DNA never healed,
thought Sasha in a depressed fashion as she sat next to her roommate, ready to
watch the show as a Space Marine Armored Personnel Carrier manuevered down
around a crater below in this nasty spot not far from the firing range.
Then, the Midshipmen gasped when two or three Bopper Gun rounds
slammed against the APC. They had been activated by remote control.
The APC’s rear hatch flew open, and the 255th Platoon flew
out, grunting and cursing as they took positions by the edge of a crater.
A moment later, practice-intensity laser rounds fell about them as
they returned fire to a bleak spot with their weapons; lasers and Bopper Gun
rounds went off like mad.
Then, some mines went off. The platoon hid behind their APC, and a
gunner got up onto the APC’s upper deck and let loose with its laser machine
gun.
The cadets were awed for about an hour or two as the messy,
explosive display continued.
Later on, when they got back to the main part of the SFTS, Lt.
Maples looked disdainfully at the shocked Class of 2208 as they stood in
formation in their blue-and-white midshipman uniforms and thought, You people must have been losin’ it…bunch o’
sheltered damn kids. Too damn stupid to be officers, I…
Then, Maples nudged Stovall in the arm with his elbow and said,
“Hey, Stovall!”
“What?”
“See that girl over there? The one with the weird long blonde
hair? I recognize her. I used to torture her durin’ her plebe year here at the
Academy. Almost got her thrown out.”
“What’s ‘er name?” whispered Stovall.
“Sasha Petrovsky,” said Maples. “Little creep…”
“Sir, I heard she’s really rich,” said Lance Corporal Nevland, one
of Stovall’s ‘boys’. “Heard she’s some kinda rich bitch distant relative of the
Wildstars or somethin’. She practically got her graduation purchased for her,
damn snot.”
“Where’d ya hear that?” said Maples, who was smiling.
“Scuttlebutt.”
“You said her name was ‘Petrovsky?’” asked Stovall.
“Yeah, I did,” said Maples.
“When I was on the
“So?” said Maples.
“She’s important to Commodore Wildstar,” said Stovall. “Like a
long-lost cousin, maybe. We screw her up, we screw Wildstar up.”
“Yeah, she’s gotta be more important than she is,” said Maples.
“I wanna get Wildstar for that bad performance report he gave me
back in October 2206,” muttered Stovall. Then, a flash of knowledge came to him
from the Dark Lord. “She’s under some assumed name and she’s someone else.
Oh…man, I wanna hurt her and Wildstar SO BAD.”
“How?” said Maples.
“Attack her,” hissed Stovall. “Leave her cryin’ in an alley
someplace….maybe even kill the little snitch.”
“And lose your stripes?” snapped Maples as a shap pain hit
Stovall’s head, making him aware Ekogaru didn’t like this plan, either.
“So, what do you suggest, SIR?” whispered Stovall.
“You said she’s under an assumed name?” said Maples.
Stovall nodded.
“Well, let’s find out who she is. They keep medical records in
Blackwell Hall, where the infirmary is, and I know they don’t guard it much at
night,” said Maples. “Stovall, you guys up to a little bit o’ midnight
requisitioning?”
Stovall nodded as Lance Corporal Nevland said, “Sir, that’s
breaking and entering…”
“”That I know, boss,” whispered Maples. He leered at Sasha’s
shapely bottom from afar as the cadet formation broke up. “Let’s do it tonight.
Twenty-three hundred; Blackwell Hall.”
The other Marines nodded. They liked the idea.
2300
Hours….
Blackwell
Hall
Maples, Stovall, Nevland, and one other Marine had stolen into
Blackwell Hall and past the minimal Midshipman guard like ghosts.
Following Maples’ directions, they ignored the infirmary and exam
rooms and easily managed to break into a small file room that held the medical
records of various Midshipmen.
They found the filing cabinet that held the “P’s” and found a thin
file reading “Petrovsky, S”
“What’s here?” whispered Stovall.
“Not much. Your girl’s a healthy one,” muttered Maples as he read
the file by penlight. “She hasn’t been here much, and…wait, man. Last page of the file! “See 225 file in Profile room for
more info…”
“Where’s the Profile room?” said Nevland.
“The room where they hide shit,” muttered Stovall. “That little
closet here. I was here before years ago.”
“When?” said Maples.
“I was finding confidential stuff on a cadet named
Nevland stole over to the small closet door and rifled open two
locks with his bayonet. The door creaked open.
The Marines were soon inside, breaking open two locked filing
cabinets.
“
“Lookit this, sir,” he
said as he pulled out a very thick file. He opened it, and Sasha’s picture
appeared at the upper left hand corner of the inside of the file. The name
below it read, “Wildstar (aka Petrovsky), Sasha, Princess of Iscandar
CONFIDENTIAL MEDICAL FILE: CLASSIFIED: FOR EYES ONLY”
“Holleee shit, she ain’t even human!” muttered Nevland.
“Shh…you want the whole place to hear us?” said Stovall as he got
out a portable digital spy cam. “Guard the door, Nevland. You hear ANYONE
comin’, either strangle ‘em or shoot em with your silenced Astro-Automatic.
What’s our escape route, sir?”
“Out the window,” said Maples as he got out his own spy cam. “I’ll
image the legit file and
Stovall nodded as they got to work.
II.
REPORTERS
Planet
Earth
The
Newsroom
of the Great Megalopolis Times and
Reporter
Tuesday:
May 5, 2207
0200
Hours: Local Time
The Newsroom of the Great
Megalopolis Times and Reporter was filled with hard-bitten reporters at
this early hour of the morning as gaggles of mean-spirited, cynical men and
women, many of whom still smoked archaic cigarettes and cigars, worked
feverishly to finish their articles and file them for the morning deadlines of
the Print and Web editions of their newspaper.
Phones rang, people slammed on computer keyboards, people
muttered, yelled and cursed; this room of nasty, cynical reporters was no place
for someone with a sensitive stomach.
In a small office, the Military Affairs editor picked up one of three
ringing phones and yelled, “Who the hell in the Great Casesar’s Ghost are you,
buddy? We got a morning edition to
finish!”
“Hiroshi,” said Maples in a honey-filled voice. “Ya mean you done
forgot me already?”
“Maples, you fool!” laughed Hiroshi Kamayama, an old platoon mate
of his. “Okay. I got time for ya. Make it five minutes, buddy,” said Kamayama
as he belted down a drink of whiskey, hard and straight. “What is it?”
“A scoop for tomorrow’s edition,” said Maples. “We got an alien
livin’ right here in the Megalopolis, at the Space Fighters’ Training School,
and I got proof. Medical files, psych profiles, reports on her psi-abilities,
where she came from, even printouts of the dame stark nekkid under a medical
scanner.”
“Okay, I’ll give ya ten minutes,” said Kamayama. “What’s her
name?”
“Sasha,” purred Maples. “And the little slut is half-Iscandarian
and is the niece of Derek and Nova Wildstar and the daughter of Starsha of
Iscandar and Alex Wildstar, and she’s married IN SECRET to this guy named Deke
Wakefield.”
Stovall laughed his butt off at that one. “
“SHUT UP!” snapped Maples. “Hiroshi, they had her covered up good
at the Academy. Ya want the files, it’ll cost
ya,” said Maples as he talked from a pay phone near a diner off-campus; he and
his unsavory squad had gotten digital images and had stolen the paper files as
well, leaving everything locked and secured behind them. “I got three guys
here. Each of us wants a hundred thousand credits for his share. Four Hundred
Thousand Credits, bud. Take it or leave it.”
“That’s robbery!” yelled Kamayama.
“Take it or leave it,” purred Maples. “I got a card for someone at
Asahi Shimbum to talk to next, my
friend. Wanna lose the scoop of the century? If not, pay up. Have checks ready
for us when we get there…”
Kamayama sighed. “It’ll be cash money, bud. I know where we can
get it. My editor has this little safe, and…”
“Well get him to open it,” said Maples. “Deal?”
“Deal,” said Kamayama. “Meet me here at the paper at 4 AM. I’ll
have everything you want.”
“Nice,” said Maples. “Bye now.”
He hung up, and the Marines whooped and hollered as they prepared
to give their stolen booty to the Press.
Like it or not, Sasha’s secret was about to come out.
The drop happened on time and Sasha’s life story was sold to the
Press while she slept. Kamayama got the files by 0430 Hours and began to call
in some old favors, calling up EDF officers and former EDF officers he knew in
the middle of the night. He called ten of them; only two talked, and the
confirmation he got of the story cost him and his own pissed-off editor in
chief another three hundred thousand credits in bribes and favors.
Finally, Kamayama was given a “go” to begin writing his
rough-draft story at 0600 Hours while his editor, Jenkins, made some calls to
their video subsidiary to get a camera crew to the Wildstars’ later that day.
Soon, leaks of the info were boiling out (for more bribes) to CNN, Federation News,
NBC (in its Washington, DC main office), MoskvaNet, the BBC,
DeutscheTelefunken, Reuters, Cosmo News, Al Jazeera, 23rd Century
Fox News, name the news branch, it went out. A stringer from the
State-Controlled GamilNet was even getting wind of the story at the Gamilon
Embassy by 0700 and was calling his Propaganda Minister on Gamilon for
permission to run with the story. The Propaganda Minister he was talking with
would only have about another day and a half to live (he would be called in for
a ‘conference’ with Leader Desslok about this in a while…a conference he’d be
carried out of with several mortal blaster wounds) but he gave the nod for the
story to be released.
The story went out on the World Press wire as a brief squib at
0730 Hours Tokyo Megalopolis time while the Wildstars were washing up. None of
them turned on the news, so they didn’t catch the first announcement in the
Megalopolis at 0750 Hours local time on a small video station, but Al Jazeera
and Action News 6 in Philadelphia formally broke the stories as soon as they
got them in their local time zones, at 6PM the previous day in Philadelphia,
and 1AM the same day, Riyadh time, in the Arabic countries. By 0800 Hours local
time in the Tokyo Megalopolis, insomniac news hounds in Arabia and the
Other news outlets in the Tokyo Megalopolis held the story until
they got confirmation. As a result, many outlets didn’t break with the story
until later in the afternoon in the Megalopolis.
Nothing much was happening at the Wildstars’ house because Derek,
Nova, Alex, and Sasha were getting ready to go to a stadium near the Kure Space
Naval Shipyards.
That day, by request, Nova would be christening the new EDF space
battleship Nagato before the ship
took off on her test run.
The Nagato, SBB-9, was an Arizona-class space battleship that had
been authorized under a Parliamentary
Emergency Fleet Building Program of August 2206. Her SBB-9 registry number was
authorized on the motion of Senator Hiroshi Miyama of
So, upon Senator
Miyama’s request, Nagato was first
chosen in 2201 as the name of the SBB representing Japan/Great Island in the
EDF, and the second Nagato was named
in memory of that ship, which had been credited with the kills of six Cometine
space battleships and five destroyers at Saturn-Titan before her loss in the
coma of the White Comet, where she was destroyed with all hands lost. Lost with
her was her Captain, Captain Jonathan Miyama-Parkersburg, a distant relative
(cousin four times removed) of Commander Derek Wildstar and Admiral Alex
Wildstar. The fact that Nova was thus a distant relative of the first Nagato’s Captain by marriage is what had
led to her being invited to launch the new ship.
The new ship had been
under construction for several months, ever since September of 2206, to be
exact. She had taken the Earth Government seven months and nearly a billion
credits to complete.
So, while the news
media was mulling over Sasha’s story, the Wildstars were driving in an aircar
towards
They got to the ship, resting in the middle of Memorial
Stadium, at 1100 Hours that morning. They got there just as President
Mendellsohn was concluding a speech about the Nagato and her crew as 50,000 members of the populace of the city
admired the brand-new two-toned blue space battleship as she glistened in the
sun.
“At this time,” said
the President. “Earth is still caught in a great war. The Comet Empire, the
R’Khells, and the separatists on Earth are still endangering our way of life
and our peace. I wish we could stop building warships, stop fighting, and
concentrate on rebuilding. We cannot do so. Our enemies are not permitting us
to do so, and we must fight on. Perhaps, this time, we can stop the Comet
Empire. I pray we can do so. Today, we launch Nagato into our fleet in the hope that we can win, this time. In
the hope that we can finally stop this enemy, we bid the crew of this new ship
Godspeed with our other warriors…”
Then, as the crowd
cheered, Mendellsohn bowed and stepped off the podium.
A moment later, on a
platform near the Nagato’s bow, a
Shinto priest, Buddhist priest, Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, a
Jewish rabbi, and a Muslim imam came up to the ship and began offering prayers
and blessings in their traditional fashions while Derek Wildstar, Alex Wildstar,
Sasha, and Nova got onto a lift to ride up to the platform. While the Imam was
concluding his blessings on the Nagato,
Nova handed over her champagne bottle to a waiting enlisted man from the Nagato’s new crew, who tied the
champagne bottle into a ribbon-type holder.
Then, a staff officer
introduced Nova after she kissed Derek on the cheek. She came up to the edge of
the rail with many cheers, grasping the champagne bottle as she took the
microphone.
Then, she said, “To
protect the peace of Earth, I now christen thee Nagato! Good luck!”
Nova then stood up on
tiptoe and swung the bottle as hard as she could.
The bottle smashed
against the new ship’s bow below the wave motion gun, and the military band
played a loud flourish as confetti and streamers blew all over the place. The
crowd cheered as the Wildstars then bowed, and then they ran towards the lift
to board the ship as the building roar of her main engine’s energy buildup blew
over the crowd.
Before long, the
Wildstars and Sasha were aboard the Nagato,
and they were ushered up to the Captain’s Quarters.
The takeoff only took
a few minutes, but Sasha’s legs shook as she sat behind a table in the
Captain’s Quarters of the Nagato. I can’t believe this, she thought as a steward
began serving them lunch. I’m getting
spacesick!
“Admiral Wildstar,”
said Sasha as she looked at her father, being careful to hide her true
relationship to Alex (or, for that matter, Derek or Nova…). “I’m not feeling
well, sir…”
Alex looked at her
with concern as Nova opened her purse. “Just some spacesickness…the Midshipman
doesn’t have her space legs, yet,” said Nova as she dug in a pillbox for
something.. “Sasha, take this with the juice. It’ll help you.”
Sasha nodded weakly
as she tried to keep from throwing up her breakfast. “I feel terrible…”
“Take the pill,” said
Nova. “It’ll pass…”
Captain Jan
Vanderveer, the elderly skipper of the Nagato,
walked in a moment later. “Good afternoon, Admiral, Commodore..,” he said as he
shook the hands of the Wildstar brothers. “I don’t have a lot of time to be
here with you…I hope you’re enjoying the ride?”
“The Midshipman is
getting a little spacesick,” said Derek. “But, I’ve been aboard ships on trials
before…we’re fine…”
“She has a nice
ride,” said Nova as she got up to look at the stars as they began coming out as
the space battleship reached the edge of the atmosphere. Then, the ship
trembled under her, and she screamed and held onto the edge of the table to
keep her stomach from slamming into it.
“What the heck?” muttered Captain Vanderveer as
his hat flew off. The klaxons immediately came on as
the lighting in the Captain’s quarters went red.
“Commander Mizuki,
what in blazes is going on down there?” snapped Vanderveer as he stumbled over
to his communications unit.
“This is the first
bridge…we’re under attack! Comet Empire planes just pounced on us as we went
through main engine cutoff!” snapped the ship’s first officer. “Bridge tower
took an indirect hit…helm’s damaged, cosmo-radar’s damaged…the officers at
those posts are wounded…”
“Are the Red Centaurs
aboard us yet?” snapped Vanderveer.
“Not yet, sir.
They’re fighting through flak, sir! We have two Superstars on board, Kamisama
knows who the heck on this ship can fly them…”
“You’ve got a
qualified pilot on this ship,” snapped Derek Wildstar as he threw off his
peacoat, ascot, and hat.
“Derek!” cried Nova.
“Thanks for the
concern, but I need a helmet and space gear,” said Derek.
“I’ll fly as your
Radar Intercept Officer,” snapped Nova.
“Nova, with all
respect, like hell you will,” said
Derek. “You can’t get into a fighter with that,” he whispered as he pulled her
close and patted her stomach.
“Oh,” she said as
tears formed in her eyes. “Right. Well, be careful…you can’t go out there
alone, Derek!”
“He won’t be alone,”
said Alex Wildstar as he threw off his cap.
“Sir?” said
Vanderveer.
“You have two
fighters, you have two qualified pilots to form a screen until your Tigers show
up,” said Alex as he shrugged off his coat as Sasha’s eyes went wide. “I know,
Sasha…it’s going to piss off your mother…but no one attacks a ship I’m on board
without me doing something about it,”
he snapped. “Derek, it’ll be great flying with you at long last, little
brother.”
“You remember how to
fly a Superstar?” said Derek as he looked at his brother with wonder in his
eyes.
“It’s like riding a
bike,” laughed Alex. “You know it. You never get that plane out of your blood
once you’ve flown a mission in her. C’mon, Derek…let’s go…”
Derek and Alex nodded
at each other, and then at Nova and Sasha, as they left.
“Where does this
leave us?” said Nova.
Vanderveer bit his
lip. “Mrs. Wildstar, I’m heading to the bridge. Take Miss Petrovsky with you
below to stores and draw proper space uniforms. Meet us on the first bridge
ASAP. I’ve got some work in mind for you two, based on what I know of your
records.”
“Yessir,” said Nova
as she saluted. “C’mon, Sasha. Try to hold it in..”
Sasha nodded. “I’ll
try…”
Before long, Derek
Wildstar, in his Star Force whites and helmet and gloves, was flying a
Superstar out of one of the Nagato’s
aft launch tubes, and Alex Wildstar, in a helmet, gloves, and his Iscandarian
Defense Forces uniform in blue, white and black, flew one out of the other
launch tube.
They had more than
enough work to do. They could see a space battle raging with a number of Tigers
and Scorpions and Paranoias off in the distance as the Nagato’s Flight Group tried to make it past the enemy to the ship.
However, four
Scorpions were flying around, using the Nagato
as a target for their guns. A few pulse lasers were going off on the new ship,
but it looked to Derek as if either the gunners were really green, or that
maybe they were not all fitted out yet.
Derek gritted his
teeth and flew his Super Starfighter down along the Nagato’s hull, snap-rolling and popping up just in enough time to
blast a Scorpion into the next life.
Then, he flew over
the deck and noticed his heart jumping into his throat as his brother, just
having brought down one Scorpion gunboat, flew along with another one right on
his tail. “Alex!” he bellowed. “Watch
your six, damnit!”
“You
don’t need to tell me twice, Derek!”
snapped Alex as he made a hard roll and turn, flying about to come almost
wingtip to wingtip with his brother before the Scorpion completed its roll.
Derek and Alex looked
at each other through their cockpits and nodded, both of them firing at once
into the Scorpion.
“Nice job, Derek,”
snapped Alex.
“Thanks…”
Alex then spotted a
Paranoia fighter coming up on Derek’s tail.
“Derek!” he snapped.
“Watch your six!”
“Huh?” said Derek. Then, he caught a glimpse of the enemy
bird as his plane took a hit and his arm got wounded when a panel blew up. “Damnit!”
“What happened,
Derek?”
“My plane’s FUBARED
and my arm’s hurt!” snapped Derek.
“Don’t worry, I’ve
got your back,” snapped Alex. “Just like in the neighborhood with those damned
Miyagi boys,” he muttered as he remembered a group of bullies who had enjoyed
picking on his then-peaceful little brother…a group of bullies who had stopped
when confronted one day by the very big and angry UN Space Defense Force
Midshipman he had been then, that is.
“Thanks,” said Derek
as he held his arm and tried to manuever as Alex swooped up behind him and took
aim on the enemy pilot.
“What do you think
you are doing, Earthling scum?” said the Cometine pilot in regard to Derek’s
plane as he manuevered the fighter from the strange prone position he was lying
in. “I…” Then, his heart stopped as he caught one other angry pilot on his own
six. “Oh, Arishna take you, you damn…”
Then, Alex fired, and
the Paranoia pilot was blown to bits.
Derek breathed a sigh
of relief. “Thanks, Alex…”
“Don’t mention it,”
said Alex. “Keep your head up…a second wave is coming!”
“Great,” said Derek as he ground his teeth in pain.
Sasha and Nova ran as fast as they could onto the Nagato’s bridge. Sasha had changed into
a blue uniform she had found that looked a little like a Midshipman’s uniform
in two-tone blue but which contained a full collar. Nova had squeezed into a
female space uniform and boots, and she also wore a blue and red peacoat over
it to help to protect her stomach, and she had also found an ascot somewhere.
She had also asked a Space Marine to be sure she had a weapon in case they were
boarded; he had obliged with an astro-automatic.
At the Captain’s
station, Vanderveer spotted them and snapped, “Midshipman Petrovsky, take over
the cosmo-radar from Miss Fey. Mrs. Wildstar, since you’re a qualified navigator,
take the helm from Mister Manglin. Mister Manglin, go to the battle radar; Miss
Fey, take over at Analysis.”
“Yessir,” said all
four officers as they switched places. Nova carefully bucked on her harness and
made sure her chair was locked in its track as she took the helm. “Helm’s a
little sluggish, sir,” she said as she looked at Commander Mizuki, the ship’s
First Officer, who was running Combat in the white gloves and blue and gold
peacoat he had been wearing earlier during the ceremonies.
“I know,” he said.
“Half the ship’s not working right. They were going to fix it in the shakedown,
they said. Yeah, right,” he said as
he pushed his long hair out of his eyes. Then, he looked at Nova. “You know
what you’re doing?”
“I was skipper of a
cruiser once, and stood some watches at the helm of my ship, as well as on the Argo,” said Nova. “If this thing will
let me compensate for these screwed-up thrusters, we’ll be good….”
“My stomach,” gasped
Sasha.
“Spacesickness bag is
over there in the port drawer,” said Nova in a monotone.
A few other members
of the bridge crew held back snickers as Sasha used the spacesickness bag. She
got rid of the mess and then noticed blips on the radar. “Oh! Enemy fleet
approaching! Four Cometine space battleships and eight destroyers at RX-235,
speed, eighteen space knots, range, fifteen megameters. Just getting into their own effective firing range!”
“Sure you know what
you’re doing?” smirked Ensign Manglin, a young blond man with a bit of a smirk
on his face.
“Affirmative, sir,”
snapped Sasha. “I just don’t have my space legs yet! I haven’t been on a ship
for years…”
“Helm, hard about,
port, fifteen degrees,” said Vanderveer. “We need to intercept that lot.”
Nova nodded from her post. “Helm, hard about, fifteen degrees,
bringing up speed to twenty-two space knots to intercept the enemy fleet in one
hundred seconds.”
Vanderveer snapped,
“Mizuki, Hamlin, open main guns!”
“Turret number two
will be running four seconds behind, power level’s down,” said Miss Kira Hamlin,
the ship’s female artillery officer, from her post.
“Well, compensate for the dratted thing, Kira!”
snapped Mizuki. He looked over and saw that Nova had the ship right on course.
“Not bad,” he muttered.
“There was one little
action we had in the Rikashan war once late at night,” said Nova. “I was at the
helm, Derek was pointing those guns. We got them then, we’ll do it now…”
Nova then gasped as
the enemy fleet fired. Two shots hit the Nagato’s
bow.
She tilted the bow
downwards to evade the fire, and then she picked up speed another 0.5 space
knots.
“Engine room,” she
said into the comm tube. “Can you give us more power?”
“I’ll do our best,”
said the officer on duty below. “This is a real
test, ma’am!”
“Well, this is a real
battle, thank you,” Nova retorted.
Sasha grinned a little from her post. She thought… That’s good, give ‘em hell, Auntie!
“Radar
operator! Range to the enemy
fleet!” snapped Vanderveer.
“They’re at five
degrees to port, RZ-240, speed twenty knots, range, ten point two-two
megameters,” said Sasha as sweat ran down her face. This is harder than I thought, she thought to herself. Especially when the ship is moving and
you’re getting shot at. No way is this an Academy simulator..this is real!
“Mizuki, give us your
best,” said Vanderveer.
Mizuki nodded, “Kira,
fire main guns!”
“Acknowledged!” said
the young African-American officer. “Main guns, FIRE!”
At that, the Nagato’s forward main guns spoke in
anger for the first time. One Cometine space battleship and two destroyers blew
apart.
Not bad, thought Nova
as she squinted at the explosions outside. A destroyer came up at them very
fast, and, she cried, “
Sasha’s stomach
rebelled at that manuever. She began to think, Auntie, but bit off the words as she stammered,
“Mrs….Wildstar…please remember this isn’t the space coaster on the moon,
ma’am!”
“I’m doing my best!”
snapped back Nova as she braced her booted feet hard against the deckplates as
she began a turn to evade the ruins of a newly destroyed battle satellite that
the Cometines had just blown up. Of course, the battle satellite had fired at
the enemy ships and had done nothing at all.
The Nagato fired again, and then again,
blowing up two more ships in the process.
However, the battle
still raged on…
III.
THE STORY OF DANA HALL
Dana
Hall’s Apartment
Monday:
May 4, 2207
2130
Hours: Local Time
The space battle had
continued, with the ships involved passing the International Date Line into the
previous day over Earth, and also, incidentially, passing over the terminator
into Earth’s night side over the other side of the Pacific Ocean, aka The Great Easten Sea.
In the Rio Amarillo
apartment complex, a young raven-haired woman in a gauzy white dress stood in
her bare feet in the grass behind her large condominium, trying to take her
mind off the sadness that had perfused it lately by watching the stars that
night through the macrobinoculars her late husband had left her.
The woman was named
Dana Hall. Her husband, Lieutenant Alan Hall, had been a member of the EDF up
until February. He had been serving on the spacecraft carrier Wasp then, as a member of the Red Vipers
flight group.
He had never gotten
home. There had been a skirmish with the damned Comet Empire near Uranus in
early February. The Wasp, near the
end of her patrol then, had launched planes to protect a freighter. Dana’s
husband, Alan, had been one of the pilots who had met the Cometines. Two
Paranoia fighters, they said, had taken him away from her forever in that
battle and had brought two years’ worth of marriage to an untimely end.
Some of the units
here in this complex had been sold as condominiums the previous year, while
others were still rental properties.
Tears ran down Dana’s
face as she thought, It was about a year
ago, now. Alan and I bought this unit
with such high hopes for our future last April. He said he’d serve two more
tours in space and could then put in for reassignment to serve with the
Military Science Professors’ Staff at the ROTC unit at
Dana sighed as she
scanned space with the binoculars her husband had left her. He loved these so much…almost hate to use
them…I…
She stopped, dug her toes
into the grass and gasped as she saw bright flashes.
“Something’s going
on,” she said to herself in a low voice as she looked on, and then she turned
her head to notice that her neighbor, Lynn Westland, was in the yard.
“Checking on me
again?” she said with a half-rueful smile.
“You could say that,”
said
“Oh?” said Dana. “You
mean the flight nurse?”
“Yes, her. She brought home someone.”
“Who? A puppy? A kitten?” said Dana.
“No, Dana, a husband.
I know it’s a bit of a sore topic for you, but…”
“Yeah, life goes on,”
sighed Dana. “What’s his name?”
“He’s a charming
young man, and a great hero, too. His name is Jefferson Davis Hardy.”
“Uh…repeat that name
again?”
“Jefferson Davis
Hardy…he was with the First Star Force.”
Dana whistled. “Your
daughter has quite a catch. You know, Alan put his name in the hat twice for
the Star Force. Twice, he got turned down.”
“I’m sorry…Sorry to bring
in these reminders of…”
“That’s okay. I can’t
get away from it in these times,” said Dana. She handed
“The air raid sirens
might be going off soon,” said Dana with a shrug.
“You’d better get
ready to run to the shelter, then!” cried
“Nothing doing,” said
Dana as she took back the binoculars. “Looks like one of our space battleships
up there with a lot of planes around it fighting some kind of enemy fleet.
They’re going awful fast, heading east, too. Soon, they’ll be out of our
sight.”
“But what if we get
hit?” said
“Won’t matter much to
me,” said Dana. “Then I can go home to be with Alan. He’s still out there, you
know, out by Uranus, floating dead and frozen in his cockpit,” she said as
tears ran down her face. “They told me they couldn’t retrieve him-the wreckage
is adrift someplace. Maybe it’s better that way. At least the worms will never
get to him way out there in space.”
“I told you not to
talk like that,” said
“
“Why?”
“I’m just…passing the
time. Marking time, rather. I won’t be around in a few
months…”
“Stop talking like
that, Dana,” said
Dana just sighed and
turned away.
A few minutes later,
after Dana got tired of watching the battle, she went back into her
three-bedroom condomium after looking around her yard. There was a high fence
around the small back yard, and she and Alan used to like the privacy, and she
had used to enjoy sunbathing and gardening there. Now, she did little with the
garden except pick the peas and beans that were still growing on their vines
with little attention from her. She had let everything else, like the other
vegetables and the flowers, go to waste.
A good gardener could fix this place up, she thought in despair. With those dreams I’ve been having, I think one will be here in a few
months…
Dana then went into
her living room after basicially ignoring the kitchen. She put some soft,
soothing piano-based jazz on her stereo and threw herself into her favorite
black plush beanbag chair to relax.
Dana shut her eyes,
and thought of the times she and Alan had enjoyed here; times when they had
been happy together; times when they had been so much in love…
She looked around
again as tears flooded her eyes. She looked at the white plush rug in the
middle of the living room, and blushed, remembering that she and Alan had so often
made love on that rug. She had wanted so badly for him to make her pregnant
that it hurt remembering it.
It had never
happened, of course. There had been one little “scare” dating back from
October, when they had last been together. She had missed a period, written him
letters, and thought she was…
I did a stupid thing then, so stupid,
she thought sadly as she went
into what had been the first spare bedroom. They had left the second one for
guests.
Dana tried to keep
from crying as she looked at how she had redone the room. She had painted the
walls in cheery stripes in blue and pink, had laid down a white rug, and had
purchased two cribs. One was trimmed with blue, the other with pink. A blue
mobile suitable for a boy, decorated with little Superstar fighters and Cosmo
Tigers in blue, hung over one of the cribs. A pink mobile, decorated with
angels and flowers hung over the other one. A window was slightly open, and the
mobiles turned slowly in the night breeze of
There were also baby
blankets, a changing table stocked with baby oil, powder, and safety pins for
diapers. She opened the drawers and found baby clothes that she had purchased
that she now knew she’d never use, because she’d never have any children of her
own. Yet, Dana refused to disturb them.