ALTERNATE
TALES OF THE STAR FORCE
STAR BLAZERS—RADNAR’S
GAME
Being the sixth 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 FIVE: NEW LIVES AND
STRANGE PLOTS
I.
ANOTHER MEETING
Planet
Earth
The
Thursday:
April 30, 2207
1130
Hours: Local Time
Karl Forrester was back in the
He and Teri and their youngest children were waiting for two
passengers to debark from a plane at Gate Number 25.
Finally, after the jetway from the sub-orbital jumpjet transport
was opened, Teri’s eyes lit up as she saw a young couple emerging from the
crowd.
The young man had a tangled mop of dark brown hair, and he wore an
EDF flight jacket, white pullover sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. The young,
pregnant woman whom he was holding hands with wore a cute, short maternity
minidress, white straw hat, and matching woven straw sandals.
“Nova!” cried Teri as she ran up to her oldest daughter and hugged
her. She gave her a kiss, and then kissed Commodore Derek Wildstar on the
cheek, making him blush. Karl came up, gave his eldest daughter a kiss, and
then shook hands with Derek as David and Aurora ran up to their sister and
hugged her.
“Nova, are the babies ready to come out yet?” said
“No, honey, they aren’t,” laughed Nova as she tousled her young
sister’s hair.
“Not now and not here!”
laughed Nova as she accepted another hug from her little brother, who had on a
little-boy style suit with shorts.
“Are we all here yet?” said Karl.
“Not yet,” said another somewhat older boy in a suit as he came off
the plane.
Teri’s eyebrows went up as she said, “Nova, who’s this?”
“Oh, yes…he came to stay with us last night, and his mother, a
friend of ours from the Iscandarian Embassy staff, gave him permission to
travel with us for a few days,” said Nova. “Mom, Dad, this is Johanthan
Hartnell-Iiyama….a very dear friend of ours. He just turned fourteen. His
birthday was January the 11th… off when we were in space.”
“My mom and dad had a nice birthday for me, nothing like my ninth
birthday, thank heavens,” said Jonathan.
“Why?” asked Teri.
Jonathan began to sniff and said, “Around the time of my ninth
birthday, my parents took my sister and I with them on a cruise on the
spaceliner
“That’s terrible!” cried Teri as she hugged him.
“I was eventually rescued, and I ended up on Iscandar. There,
Conor and Astra…Astra is the Crown Princess and now the Earth Ambassador to
Iscandar…they became my parents. Mister and Mrs. Wildstar are my godparents.”
“You sound like you’ve been through a lot,” said Karl as they
walked along.
“Believe me, I have been,” said Jonathan. “I have been…”
At the same time, in the Tokyo Megalopolis (where it was the First
of May already thanks to the International Date Line), Conor of Iscandar was
sitting on the bridge of a spacecraft carrier in an underground dock.. He had,
as a symbol of Pellian-Iscandarian unity, been “adopted” by Astrena recently,
and he thus now had the “surname” of D’Shal.
The carrier was the former EDF Yorktown-class
spacecraft carrier Implacable. She had
taken heavy damage in a battle near Pluto with the R’Khells in February of this
year, and her place in Fifth Fleet was already taken by the new spacecraft
carrier Ranger, which had gone on
station in late March. She had been under consideration for repair as a
training ship when the Earth Defense Council had offered her to Alex Wildstar
and the Iscandarian Government in April. Queen Starsha had not wanted to accept
a wave-motion gun equipped large capital ship like this until Alex had
convinced her it was for the good of Iscandar.
Now, the newly-promoted Fleet Captain Conor D’Shal of Iscandar was
watching as work continued on “his” carrier, which would leave Earth in a few
weeks for Iscandar escorted by two EDF fleet cruisers and some newly built
Iscandarian Corvettes to be the nucleus of the new Royal Iscandarian Defense
Fleet. While Conor was the Captain of the new ship, it would eventually be
Prince Consort Alex Wilsdtar’s flagship when the entire RIDF was in action. The
ship already had a new name; the Princess
Astra, and a new pennant number; ISCV-1. Its gold EDF markings and anchor
marks were being painted out and replaced with the purple markings and
eight-pointed star of Iscandar.
Conor sat in thought behind the Captain’s station on the carrier, pulling
up status screens on the computer, He was lost in thought until he felt a
strong hand coming down on his shoulder. He looked over and smiled as he said,
“Alex!”
“How’s work going on our flagship, Conor?”
“They just finished repairing her main guns today, and they’re
still working on her wave engine. They’ve been switching people back and forth
between this ship and that new Earth space battlship they’re building…what is
she called?”
“The Nagato, Conor.
She’s due to be launched in a public ceremony in just a few days. I don’t think
we’ll have the same opportunity here on Earth. We’re supposed to get this ship
home and get ready for wargames with the Gamilons in a few weeks.”
“So you think you’ll be taking her home?”
Alex nodded. “We’re supposed to have a full crew by then; roughly
one-third Iscandarians, one-third Terrans, and one-third Pellians. Everyone’s
being issued EDF Standard Duty Blues with different recognition markers;
anchors for the Earth people, stars for our own, and the emblem of the dagger
for the Pellians.”
“I’ve been working with the Pellians,” said Conor as he got up,
brushing his beard. “They’re really tough, a really mean bunch. They’re even
impressing the EDF officers and men assigned to this command.”
“Good,” said Alex. “Starsha and Astra won’t agree, but the
tougher, the better. I have the feeling this war is not going to end up in a
pretty fashion…”
“I have the same feeling,” said Conor.
II.
SASHA’S REVELATIONS
Planet
Earth
The
Space Fighters’ Training School
Friday:
May 1, 2207
1530
Hours: Local Time
Later
that day, Sasha was back at the Space Fighters’ Training School in a very
melancholy mood. She had been back to class, but wasn’t showing much interest
in anything.
She had talked with her roommate for a while, but they hadn’t made
good conversation, so she sat alone in her blue and white Midshipman’s uniform
for a while before deciding to get something out of her locker.
She finally opened the window, letting the warm spring breeze blow
her hair around before she began to concentrate and thought of herself in some
neverland, a time and space where, to her, her room was a vast space filled
with stars, nebulae, and the blackness of space. The furniture of her room was still
there, but the bulkheads, deck, hatch that led to the passage, and windows had
disappeared.
Sasha continued to look in her locker as the space she was in,
half in, and half out of This World, continued to blow with a lonely breeze.
She was looking in her locker for something. She had a bit of a time finding
it, and she hoped she had remembered to bring it from Derek and Nova’s, where
she had had it sitting in a closet, but she finally dragged out a blue and
white gig bag with a shoulder strap on it.
Sasha opened the bag, and she then opened the inner case; a case
that held an alto saxophone in brass.
Sasha sat on her bunk, put a fresh reed in the instrument, and got
it nice and wet.
She hadn’t played for several months, but she was glad that Aunt Nova
had taught her how to play when she had been younger. Her Aunt wasn’t a
virtuoso with the sax, but their joint playing sessions had always brought a
smile to her face, especially at times when her growing pains had given her bad
fevers and had kept her in bed. There were times Sasha thought she might have
lost her mind if Auntie hadn’t been around to help her by getting her to come
out of her shell by playing a duet.
Sasha got the new reed in successfully and blew a honk or two on
the mouthpiece. Then, she cleaned the cork at the top of her instrument and set
everything up, putting the cord around her neck as she took a few breaths,
getting her fingers on the proper keys.
At first, Sasha just played a few scales, wincing a little at her
sour notes, that made weird honking noises (similar to the sort her Auntie made
on her sax or clarinet when she hadn’t played in several weeks.) Then, Sasha
began to tap her foot and play a slow blues piece as she ignored the tears
running down her cheeks.
She stopped as a few weird notes that she didn’t play came out of
the sax.
I
didn’t play those, she thought. Who did?
Sasha got the urge to play again. To her horror and surprise, her
fingers were playing a melody she didn’t recognize…playing in a weird blues
fashion. She realized after a few notes that something…or someone…was leading
her to play a Bach fugue on the sax.
Why
the hell am I suddenly playing the Passicaglia and Fugue in C Minor?
Sasha thought. I don’t even like the damn
song!
Then, something that looked like a ghost with red eyes showed up
in this strange Neverland as the stars began to fade and everything went almost
black.
“Welcome to my Neverland, Little Princess,” said a deep, mocking
voice from beneath the black cowl the ghost was wearing. “Do you like it here?”
Sasha pulled her lips away from the sax and glared at the weird
spectre. “No, I don’t like it here. I
was trying to make this astral space nice when you had to show up. Who are you,
anyway? Something left over from last Halloween?”
The Entity laughed. “We
have not been properly introduced,
Midshipman Second Class Sasha Wakefield.”
“How did you know that? It’s a secret!”
“I was there when you
married him, there when your aunt and uncle rutted like animals in the shower
that evening, and there to watch you and him
rutting, screwing, and doing bizarre things like animals that night as the Dawn
came on little claw-like cat’s feet. You were very entertaining, Sasha.”
“I take it I know your name, you sick piece of filth?”
“Say it,” chuckled the Ghost.
“You’re the legendary Ekogaru, aren’t you? I will not do you any
sort of honor by giving you any of your so-called titles,” snapped Sasha. “By
all that is right and true, you should be dead and in some dark dimension someplace
eating at yourself alone like a virus.”
Ekogaru laughed. “I have learned how to transcend Death, Sasha. I will live forever. You and Deke will not.
Unless you join Me.”
“If you think I’ll join you like Yvona Josiah, you need your head
examined. Or whatever is left of it,” snapped Sasha. “You look like something
that should have been decently buried in a grave about fifty years ago. You’re dead!”
Ekogaru laughed and said, “Join me, my dear, or you might just die
in childbirth. Along with your Auntie Nova. I intend to be there the night her
children are born to take her life. You
will be the next to go.”
Sasha just glared at him and screamed into his face in rage. She
wanted to strike him, but he disappeared with an acid laugh as everything went
black.
Suddenly, the whole strange astral landscape vanished, and Sasha
was back in her room. Did I really
experience that? Did I really see him? Sasha thought in despair.
He
lives, unfortunately, came the voice of her mother in her mind. Forgive me. I have been trying to protect
you from him over the past few weeks. This time, it did not work…
“Why
are you hiding him from us?” screamed Sasha.
“What he is is a dark spirit of hatred trying to take shape again
in the body of an unfortunate petty-minded Earthling he has possessed,” said
Starsha as everything went dim and her spirit appeared before her daughter
before the sunset that had suddenly appeared in a new, much more tranquil,
astral space where Starsha had transported Sasha to so they could talk in
peace. “He is causing much hatred and
trouble. His greatest power is in terror and phantasms. He has other powers I
don’t even care to think of because they are so twisted and morbid…”
“What is his thing with twisting life, Mother?”
“He, Sasha, has fathered a boy, a twisted version of you, that he
created by twisting the genetic structure of a human child conceived by a clone
of Yvona Josiah and the body he has possessed.”
“Who has he possessed?”
“Why, Sasha?”
“I’d love to find him and break his neck. That would solve a lot of problems.”
“I wish I knew,” said Starsha sadly. “He does a very good job of
keeping the face of the Earthling he has possessed obscured. Also, the
Earthling is slowly dying as Ekogaru grows stronger. Eventually, given enough
years, there will be nothing left of the poor Earthling but a husk. Even I pity
him. And Ekogaru will again possess a body to do his sick work.”
“We have to find him, Mother! He threatened me and Aunt Nova
with….”
“The loss of your children?”
Sasha nodded. “Am I carrying Deke’s child yet?”
“No, but you will…when the right time comes. Do not forbid him his
martial perogatives when you two are reunited. It would be interference with
Destiny.”
“When will Destiny quit screwing
around with me and my head and my LIFE, Mother? When will I live a normal life
someplace?”
“Much has to happen,” said Starsha. “Oh, you are so much like my
late sister at times…and there is so much I wish I could show you…”
“Then why don’t you reveal it and save us all a metric shitload of
trouble?” snapped Sasha.
“I dare not. The future is not clear to see at all times. You know
that. Even as I slowly increase my powers by way of my greater practice and
meditation, I see how much I do NOT know and cannot control. The wiser I grow,
I find that I know less. I don’t even know if I have interfered enough…or too
much for everyone’s good, Sasha.”
“Mother, one can’t help interfereing.
It’s part of living. And if you had interfered sooner, Desslok would have been
defeated earlier than he was. Deke would still have his family. Uncle would
still have his parents. And maybe Aunt Nova’s Aunt Yvona would have remained
sane and been able to live out her life as a normal person.”
“If only you knew, Child,” sighed Starsha. “Rest in peace tonight.
You will be troubled no more. I can at least tell you that…”
“Thanks,” said Sasha as she shut her eyes and turned away from her
Mother.
Sasha came out of her astral landscape and began to play her
saxophone again. This time, she consoled herself by playing Moonlight Serenade. It sounded
beautiful, and it calmed her mind a great deal.
Sasha was beginning to play a second time as she began to get a major
headache. It was something that occassionally happened when she stretched her
powers too far. She realized then that she had been stretching her powers to
their limit to keep her sanity in the sick astral presence of Ekogaru a few
minutes ago…or was it a few hours ago?
She looked at the chrono on her desk. The time was now 1630. I was only floating around in and out for an
hour? Sasha thought. It felt like
years? Gets like that when I leave this plane…gets weird…
Then, a moment later, a knock came at the door.
Sasha came to attention and yelled “Officer on the deck!
ATTENTION!”
Instead, someone opened the door, and a young woman in a black
dress and unusual anklewrap sandals came in.
“Nova?” she said as she looked at the young face. “I thought you
were in
“I’m not Nova,” the woman replied in a lilting, strangely-accented
voice that sounded a little like her mother’s. “For one thing, the hair is a
bit longer,” she said as she did a pirouette on her toes that made her
hip-length honey-blonde hair whip around. “For another thing, I wasn’t even
born on Earth.”
“Who are you?”
“Think of your Recent Military History course, Sasha of Iscandar,”
she whispered. As Sasha’s eyes went wide, the young woman shut the door and
said, “I know they call you “Petrovsky”, but I know you are someone else. I can
see things that no one else can. And your mother just asked me to stop in and
comfort you. I was watching my husband do some guest-lecturing today in a
Gunnery Class, so I’ve been walking around the campus all day. My name is
Aliscea Rosstowski, late of Pellias. I can teach you things your mother
wouldn’t want you to know. Like this,” said Aliscea as she looked around. Then,
she opened her purse and pulled out a small ashtray and pack of cigarettes. Aliscea
said, “Pardon me. Filthy habit I picked up from Paul. Good old Reom 120’s.
Nothing to relax you like tobacco when you need it.”
Aliscea then put a cigarette in her mouth, puffed, and, to Sasha’s
surprise, Aliscea put up an index finger, shut her eyes, and made fire wink
from the tip of her finger. She used it to light the cigarette, and took a deep
drag. “Want some? It is relaxing.”
“You will give yourself cancer with that dried weed. I’ve talked
with Deke about that habit to no avail, so I live with it,” snapped Sasha. “And
if the tac officer smells that smoke in here, I’ll be marching with a rifle
again this weekend.”
“We all have vices, dear. And I will make sure no one smells a
thing. I have that power. What about you and your candy?”
“Oh, that…why are you here?”
“To show you how to keep Ekogaru out of your head…with some rather
unorthodox methods. And to tell you how to let us know if he shows up again. We
have to find where he is so we can kill his host dead, dead, DEAD.”
“Amen to that,” said Sasha as she smiled at Aliscea. “You don’t
take any crap from anyone, do you?”
“Hell no,” said the Pellian.
“Good, I like that,” said Sasha. “Teach me.”
Aliscea nodded. “It goes like this, Sasha…shut your eyes…”
And, at that, Aliscea began to teach Sasha the rudiments of mental
disciplines she had never even dreamed of. Disciplines that were definitely not the current pacifistic disciplines
of the Iscandarians…
III.
DIFFICULTIES FOR
The
Vicinity of Tethys
The
Moons of Saturn
Friday:
May 1, 2207
1615
Hours: Local Time
“People, that last run wasn’t anywhere near good enough!” yelled Deke Wakefield irritably into his lip
mike as the Trojans flew manuevers off the Wasp
over the frozen surface of Tethys near Saturn. “We’re doing it again! NOW!”
“Gotcha,” said Brew irritably. “Second squadron, let’s do that
again.”
“Is he getting better or worse?” asked “Bangs” Capistrano.
“Worse,” said Brew.
“He needs something,” said Capistrano.
“I’m tracking the radio traffic!” snapped Deke. “Cut the chatter,
squadron! We’re flying that again until we get that right! Got it?”
“Roger,” said Brew, all procedure now.
“Roger that, sir,” said
Capistrano.
At that, they flew their manuevers again.
An
hour later, the exhausted Trojans landed on the aft deck of the spacecraft
carrier Wasp (SCV-4) as she took on
the Trojans and one of her other Flight Groups, a Group called the Blue Devils.
A few minutes later, Deke came out of his plane and went to his office to begin
furiously writing up a report while someone banged at the hatch.
Finally, Deke thumbed the control and let the hatch slide open and
snapped, “YES?”
A large, tall, hefty man in a Space Marine uniform was looking at
him. “Mister Wakefield, I’m Master Sergeant Bianca, Chief Master of Arms on
this vessel. I see you have an unauthorized weapon on this command?”
“Oh, this,” said
“I haven’t been able to find you for the past two damn days and
had to report it to the Skipper,” snapped Bianca. “And now you owe him one hell
of an explanation. Take that thing and get your ass out of this office NOW, Mister. You’re coming with me to see the
Captain.”
“I’m busy, Sergeant, and I need a damn cup of coffee,” snapped
Deke. “MAKE me…”
Bianca grabbed up DJ with one hand and gave
Deke snarled at Bianca, but he thought, I have Sasha to think about. I can’t screw my career up now, as much as
I want to have this jackass run his face into my fist. Deke sighed and said,
“Let’s go up to Officers’ Country and work this out with the Skipper, Sergeant. I have a damn good explanation
for carrying that weapon.”
Bianca nodded. “I thought
you’d see reason sooner or later, sir. I know this cruise began to suck from
Day One. Follow me…”
A while later, Wakefield was standing at attention before the XO
of the Wasp, the Mechanical Group
Leader, a nasty-looking man with a sharp nose named Commander Max Dettweiler,
and the ship’s skipper, a shorter African-American man with dark hair in a
short natural cut named Captain Jacob Jackson.
Bianca finished reporting to the XO, stating, “And, to sum it up,
I’ve seen this new officer carrying that old Shetland relic everywhere. It
looks like he has ammo for it, and he never checked it into the armory or
filled out a 6-295 Form for it as we require in the few cases when we have
officers bringing non-standard personal sidearms with them aboard a command,
like, as the scuttlebutt says, Commodore Wildstar does with his brother’s old
Astro-Automatic. His only explanation is this letter, which he neglected to
show us when he piped on…”
“Let me look at zat,” said Dettweiler, who grabbed the letter from
Deke’s hand. “He forged this, sir,” said the nasty Mechanical Group Leader a
moment later. “My recommendation is; let’s dismiss him and leave him at the
brig at Saturn-Titan for a special court-martial…there is no excuse for this
sort of flagrant breach of…”
“Wait, Commander,” snapped Captain Jackson in a deep, but almost
good-natured voice. “
“But…?” said Dettweiler.
“Let me at least see the
letter,” said
“Shall I record it?” said Dettweiler as Deke gave him a black
look.
“You will do no such thing, Mister,” snapped
Both men saluted and left Deke alone with the Captain.
A moment later,
“Sir?” said Deke.
“You are dedicated,
son,” said
“And?”
“I know that you are a newlywed, I know who the girl is, and I
know the circumstances. I know you cannot discuss them, and that those circumstanves
will never leave this office. Given what has happened, and given how you were
torn away from her, I can understand how you may have forgotten to check in
your weapon. Is that the reason?”
“Yessir,” said Deke as he morosely sipped at his drink. “Sasha…I
wish I could have smuggled her aboard this ship in a seabag, sir. Or something.
I finally get married to her, and they rip me away from her the next morning
after we consumate our marriage, and…”
“Say no more,” said
Deke nodded.
“Yessir,” said
“Good luck to you,” said
“Thanks, sir,” said Deke. “I’ll need it…”
IV.
LYNN, DAWN, AND JEFF…
Lynn
Westland’s Apartment
Saturday:
May 2, 2207
1416
Hours: Local Time
To say that Lynn Westland was shocked when Dawn brought Jefferson Hardy
into their apartment and introduced him to her mother as her “husband” was a
major understatement.
“What?” said
“Mom, I said, this is Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Hardy, my new
husband…”
Hardy said, “Pleased to make your acquaintaince, Mrs. Westland…”
“I’m
not!” snapped
“Excuse me, ma’am?” said Hardy.
“It’s not you,
Jefferson,” said
“I had a good reason, Mom,” said Dawn as tears formed in her eyes.
“We came home together from a long mission, and you know the way this war has
been going…I had no idea when we’d be together again, so I thought we’d elope…”
“And hide it from the whole world? That was a class act, Dawn!
Okay. How did you meet this young man? How and where?”
“Ma’am, I’ve known yoah daughter for quite a while. I met her at a
World Services Organization canteen some years back before she graduated from
college. We started talking there, and swore to keep in touch. We wrote, and
then we met up again on the Argo last
year…”
“The Argo?” cried
“Special mission we couldn’t and still can’t discuss,” interjected
Dawn. “We met again on that mission and gradually decided we had to get
married…we just had to…”
Dawn and Lynn looked at each other for a long while. Finally,
“Why?” said Dawn.
“We’re going to Campobello’s, that’s why. My treat,” said
Jeff smiled at Dawn, and she smiled at her mother. “Sounds like a
plan…”
That afternoon, the three of them took a nice walk on the nearby
beach, watching the surf, the gulls, a few surfers, kids flying kites, and
smiling at a few sunbathers in passing, some of whom were topless or in nothing
at all (the beach was clothes-optional starting around the apartment complex).
Later, at dinner, (during which Dawn had changed into a long skirt
she had in her bags along with a pair of open springtime heels), Lynn was quite
impressed at Jeff’s gallantry as he pulled out chairs for both Lynn and Dawn
and made sure they were both comfortable.
At dinner,
After dinner, they returned to
Before they turned in,
“Thanks, Mother,” said Dawn.
“But, I wonder,” said
Dawn fiddled with the small star, but remained silent.
Dawn shook her head no.
“You never told him?”
“Mom, Jeff has been through some painful times, and so have I…”
Dawn then traced a crack in the cement nervously with the open toe of her pump,
with the bit of light visible that night glinting off her mother-of-pearl
polished toenails as she did so. “We..Jeff and I….agreed it was best to leave
the past in the past…”
“I’m not happy, Dawn,” said
“I’m confused, Mother…”
“So am I,” said
“It’s not quite that…it’s…Well, Mother….every time that we…Jeff
and I…started to discuss our past relationships, we realized they were just too
painful to recall….”
“I can’t understand that…”
“It’s us…you don’t have to understand, Mom…”
“Okay…I won’t,” sighed Lynn Westland. “However, I do not think
it's right for you, Dawn to continue wearing Deke’s pendant now you are married
to Jeff. That star belonged to Jess, Deke’s mother, and Deke gave it to you as
a symbol of his love for you. To continue wearing it now that you are married
to another man is a slap in Deke’s face.”
“No it’s not!”
Dawn banged down her drink angrily. “Mom….Well…that's obviously *not*
going to happen now, is it? I can't help what Deke’s been hoping for. He blew
it when he left for the space school. It is his own damned fault!”
Dawn kicked a small pebble off the balcony as she said “Mom, it is
because a little part of me still loves Deke, okay, and that part of me still
needs and wants to remember him, okay?
Jeff knows it was given to me by an ex, and he's accepted my need to continue
wearing it in spite of the fact we're now married. Maybe you don't approve, but
please, don't ask me to give this up, okay?”
“I’ll get that,” said
“I’d better go see if it woke up Jeff…”
“Good idea,” said
At his end, from the Saturn-Titan space station (where he had
liberty) Deke Wakefield was about to give up in his attempt to call
“
“No, not at all,” said
“That’s good,” said Deke. “I owe you an apology,
“Why not?” said
Deke sighed, “
“That sounds great? Where are you going?”
“I can’t say; except that it’s somewhere outside of the solar
system…”
Dawn tiptoed out of the bedroom on bare feet after kissing Jeff
softly. She shut the bedroom door and tiptoed down the hall, with her heart
nearly kicking its way out of her chest when she recognized the voice at the
other end of the visiphone. Deke?
Dawn thought. Why the hell are you
calling up?
Dawn came into the kitchen and spotted her mother on the
visiphone.
Dawn gasped, and had just enough presence of mind to get her hands
behind her back (explaining her new wedding band now might be awkward), but she
could not hide the incriminating star pendant, nice and exposed above her bare
collarbone.
“Dawn?” said Deke.
“Yes,” she said uncomfortably with a dry throat. “It’s me.”
“Funny, there’s someone in our squadron who looks just like
you…she’s named Capistrano…she has hair like yours…we call her “Bangs” but her
first name is Gabrielle. She made me think it was you when I piped aboard…my
new command.”
“Were you disappointed that it wasn’t?”
“No,” said Deke after a long moment. “I wasn’t.”
“Why not?” challenged Dawn with a flutter of her eyelids that
almost made her mother want to slap her across the face.
“You were haunting my dreams, Dawn.”
“Really?”
“No more,” said Deke in a dry voice. “Dawn, Lynn…the best way I
can say this…” he said slowly as he realized he could not spill the beans about
Sasha and his recent secret marriage. “Is…that I am involved with someone. This girl…”
“I hope it’s a girl,
Deke,” snapped Dawn as
“Lynn…Dawn…I’ll write both of you a letter. To explain. I’ve
changed a lot…in the past few years. You know that,
“Yeah…I…”
“Dawn, I’m sorry…but life goes on,” sighed Deke. “Why are you
still wearing my star pendant?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“I…I can’t explain it…but, Deke,” said Dawn. “You are not the only
one that life has ‘gone on’ for. It’s ‘gone on’ for me, too. Good night, Deke.”
Before
“Good,” said
“You don’t approve of me? Good. I’ve grown up, Mother. And I won’t
stop wearing this pendant. It reminds me of good times…good memories. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Dawn as she looked at her feet. “I’m going to bed,
Mother. Good night.”
“Good night, Dawn,” said
“Yes?”
“I think it’d be better if you and Jeff left in the morning. You
can come by another time.”
Dawn nodded.
Dawn nodded, tiptoeing back to the bedroom.