Star Force

By D.J. Long

SOMEWHERE IN SPACE, THERE IS AN AWESOME POWER KNOWN AS THE STAR FORCE.

In AD 2144, Earth federation forces known as the United Worlds Space Force send two mighty starships into interstellar space on a mission to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, known as Mission Star Search. What they encounter on their way there is a power that could shatter the universe!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449735500

D.J. Long

DONALD JOHN LONG was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to a typical midwestern working-class family. His family relocated to Los Angeles, California, while he was still a boy; he grew up fascinated with two things: technology and the unknown. As an adult, he became part of the entertainment industry as an actor, writer, and performer; he has also worked in the aerospace industry, including work on the NASA Space Shuttle Program. Don is also developing a screenplay adaptation of this novel, his second registered script with the WGAw (Writers Guild of America West) in Los Angeles.

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Copyright © 2012 D.J. Long

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover Art by Craig Gardner

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-3551-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3552-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3550-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011963202

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/8/2012

Contents

PROLOGUE

CAST OF CHARACTERS

1. DISCOVERY

2. PIRACY

3. COMMAND DECISION

4. REVELATION

5. ATTACK!

6. CONFLICT

7. WHAT NOW?

8. EPILOGUE

End Notes

Special Thanks to Forrest J. Ackerman (1916-2008),

without whom all of the following

would not have been necessary.

PROLOGUE

We stare starry-eyed at the glittering dark expanse above. We wonder, we ponder, we marvel, we speculate:

Is there intelligent life out in the black void of space? And if there is life, what forms of life are there? What will we find when we travel in our life-pod cocoon starships into the dazzling firmament? Or will it, or they, find us first? Or have they already found us, catalogued us, studying us as aloof as a laboratory scientist studies microbes under a scanning electron microscope?

The successful NASA space shuttle runs and missions of late 20th Century and early 21st Century with combined Earth technology made it at last possible and feasible for the construction and continued maintenance of the first large manned permanent space station platform, the International Space Station, high in orbit around Earth, completed in 2010. This enabled the next phase of earth orbital missions, and the construction of the first wheel-shaped space station platform, Earthbase Alpha, completed by 2040.

This served as a useful jumping-off place for regular lunar excursions in new generations of space shuttle craft, taking military, scientific and tourist expeditions on interval-orbits of the moon. It was the beginning of the systematic manned exploration of the Solar System in the 21st Century - a time of pioneering, brave deeds, and volunteers for hazardous duty pay...

The moon became a mining colony, Mars an arid, inhospitable agricultural research site which developed 12 kilometers of terraformed land, upon which the first Martian colony, known as Mars City grew and evolved an urban sprawl of its own, with the sparse resources of an old 19th-Century western town, beckoning the first crowds of Astrotourists to it like some vacation spot on Earth; until finally by the year 2100 C.E., the entire Solar System had been scanned, mapped, converted into millions of bits of data, and explored in spacecraft by the courageous men and women of Earth Federation Space Forces from Earthbase Alpha, after the late 20th-Century robot probes had blazed a trail for Star-Navigators to follow.

The way was then opened for long-range manned interstellar exploration expeditions to be planned; as strides of progress in all technological disciplines brought the development of ion hyperdrive, a pulsed-ion magneto powerplant that could slingshot shiploads of brave travelers millions of miles in a few seconds, giving Mankind the ability, at long last, to travel near the speed of light...

Ultimately, Mankind was empowered with its collective new destiny, the means to achieve the age-old dream of reaching out and touching the stars...

From Earthbase Alpha, in orbit around the Earth at precisely 330 miles above sea level, in the early 22nd Century, the refitting and construction phases completed, twelve large cargo vessels, known as Mission Alpha Centauri, set out for the nearest star, carrying with them enough supplies and recyclable resources and cargo of construction materials to construct a smaller secondary space station in orbit around our sun, Sol, out between the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, at the rim of the Solar System. The secondary base, Starbase Beta, was then the jumping-off point for another dozen cargo ships for yet a third starbase station, christened Starbase Proxima, in orbit between the mean astronomical center of gravity inside of the Trinary star system of Alpha, Beta and Proxima Centauri, at 4.37 light-years from home.

Investigations would then be conducted by scouting parties of starships to determine if any planetary systems discovered by NASA in the late 20th Century could be inhabited by intelligent lifeforms, any Earth-type Class 3-M planets exist, and if these planets are capable of life-support; as humans from Earth are accustomed to enjoy their meals, music, videos and recreational sports, etcetera. And - ultimately - if any of these planets have life as we know it, or a variation on a theme thereof. This was the prime directive - to detect and make contact with any intelligent alien lifeforms, after mil-spec protocols were conducted to determine if there would be any percentage of a chance of biohazard risk, aggression, aggravation, or other unknown factors. Until these protocols would be in place, all contact would be considered hazardous and prohibited.

Hurtling headlong into the stars, we shot our little rockets and space probes into the stardust void, while the nations of Earth continued their rituals of tribal warfare, corporate greed, and official denials about climate changes which would render vast regions of Earth’s continental land masses uninhabitable by the beginning of the 22nd Century, and other portions of land submerged below sea level as a result of Earth’s shifting crust, earthquakes, volcanic activity, and the accompanying hurricanes, typhoons, and tsunamis.

Thus the colonization of the black depths of interstellar space slowly became a reality, the result of nearly two centuries of the combined efforts of research and development by all Mankind...

Now, over four light-years away from our home world, the light from our own sun Sol shone as a bright star in the distant starry expanses. Space Station Starbase Proxima became functional and operational, this 25th day of October, 2144 C.E. The officers and enlisted personnel checked their duty rosters wearily as the preparations were made for the base to have its inaugural operations alert and gala launching party.

Looking out to the nearest stars in our own cosmic neighborhood for signs of extraterrestrial life, with its full array of technological sensors, Earth Federation Forces prepared to launch the newest operation into life, Mission Star Search for its maiden voyage across the orbital plane of the Centauri system...

(Excerpts from the computer training manual Reaching For The Stars, a college-level textbook mini-disc about the pioneering era of Space Exploration, issued 2236 C.E.)

CAST OF CHARACTERS

in the order of their appearance

Commodore Admiral Ruric Andor, of the Starship Centaurus; middle-aged, gray-haired, and bearded veteran of Earth Federation Space Forces.

Commander & Vice-Admiral Nicholas Jordan, of the Starship Arcturus; about 40 years old, athletic, fit, and handsome.

First Officer Yolanda Montez, of the Starship Centaurus; about 30, trim, fit, pretty, with long black hair and pretty brown eyes; from Costa Rica.

First Officer Michael Morrison, of the Starship Arcturus; about 32, gung-ho sports jock, butched hair, from Chicago.

Nav-Tech Jeffrey Rogers, of the Starship Centaurus; about 28, well-groomed high-techie.

Captain Vultaran Bharat, of the Cargo ship Delta-Seven; swarthy, dark-complected, black-haired and bearded Tamil tribal lord from Sri Lanka.

Com-Link Darissa Palavi, of the Cargo ship Delta-Seven; pretty, long-haired, dark-eyed lady from Calcutta, India.

First Lieutenant Zora Landus, of the Starship Arcturus, and her tactical fighter, the Corvus; pretty, athletic, fit, attractive blue-eyed blonde in her young twenties, ex-pilot trainer back at the Academy, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Astrobiologist Dr. Joshua Crane, of the Starship Arcturus; tall, thin, balding 45-year-old scientist, from Harvard University, Boston.

Captain Richard Steven (Rip) Buckley, of the Starship Centaurus, and his tactical fighter, the Star Hunter; ruggedly handsome, muscular, athletic, 6’-0", 200-lb. 25-year-old ex-military pilot from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Astro-Nav-Tech Dotan Shange, of the Cargo ship Delta-Seven; black African from the Nigerian coast; takes his job very seriously, but likes to party on his time off.

First Lieutenant James O’Reilly, of Starbase Alpha; European-Irish features, no-nonsense data officer, from Londonderry, Ireland.

Tech Officer Barry Fielding, of the Starship Centaurus; red-haired and red-bearded high techie, from Cal-Tech in Pasadena.

ROBOR C-1, General Service Robot of the Starship Centaurus; a 4-foot-tall, domed cylinder with arms, a swivel-base, antennae, and flashing colored lights on its faceplate.

Astro-Tech Thomas Gates, of the Starship Centaurus; always carrying around charts & graphs, he loved astronomy when as a child he saw his first shooting star and never forgot it. Gates hails from Berkeley, California.

First Engineer Michael Callahan, of the Starship Centaurus; bearded, moody, heavily-built weightlifter, from New York City.

Com-Link Lisa Patterson, of the Starship Arcturus; cheerful, friendly, pretty brunette with her pretty smile and headset always at the ready. A surfer back home, she misses her beach apartment in Malibu.

First Engineer David Robinson, of the Starship Arcturus; ex-military operations officer, tall, slim. He studied combat training and military security protocols at Camp Pendleton while in the Marine Corps, lived in nearby Oceanside Beach.

Com-Link Laura Antonucci, of the Starship Centaurus; Italian brunette soccer player, raven-haired athletic jock, from New Jersey. She hangs out with Corelli.

Flight Deck Operations Officer Ray Montagna, of the Centaurus Launching & Landing Bay; from Brooklyn, New York. He is first officer to Ricardo Corelli, and his good buddy from the Italian days back on Earth hanging out in the neighborhood boroughs.

Operations Officer Ricardo Corelli, of the Centaurus Launching & Landing Bay; dark-haired, and bearded; always looking at his viewscreens, from Hoboken, New Jersey.

Science-Tech Astrophysicist Dr. Barbara Masters, Ph.D, of the Centaurus Research Lab; the scientific type: white lab-coated intensely serious lady, from Michigan State University.

Assistant AstroBiologist Jerry Watson, of the Starship Arcturus; black recruit from the Academy, born and raised in Los Angeles.

Flight Officer Don Kobayashi, of the Cargo ship Delta-Seven; black-haired Japanese 3-D anime videogame fan, from Tokyo, Japan.

STAR FORCE

2144 A.D. . . NEAR ALPHA CENTAURI . . .

4.3 LIGHT-YEARS FROM EARTH . . .

1. DISCOVERY

Commodore Admiral Ruric Andor peered over the colorful display of graphics before him on the control console aboard the bridge of Earth Colonies Starship Centaurus, now launched precisely 12.3 days from Starbase Proxima at .5x light-speed ion hyperdrive. The multi-colored splashes of light washed across his mature face as he studied the data intently from computer graphics, charts, and information analysis. He frowned, his furrowed brow crinkling with lines of age above his bushy eyebrows and intent, steely dark brown eyes. He stroked his graying beard, attempting to make some sense out of his findings.

The Admiral of Earth’s first deep-space combination battle cruiser and space colonies task force fleet, code-named Mission Star Search, looked thoughtful for another moment, then spoke into his communications headset.

Commander Jordan of the Arcturus, please. Laura! Top priority!

A disembodied female metallic voice replied, Yes! Right away, sir! The voice was that of Com-Link Laura Antonucci, followed by a computer-generated, modulated voice droning:

Acknowledge: cleared for transmission/data entry on Security Level 1 Priority alert. Proceed...

Commander and Vice-Admiral Nicholas Jordan’s visage soon appeared on the viewscreen before him. Andor was a forty-year veteran of the Space Force, and Jordan was a young cadet in the Space Academy when Andor was already commanding missions.

Yes, Ric? he inquired. What’s up? On alert status again, we see.

Andor was courteous but firm, as a veteran fleet officer is predisposed to be: he gets his message across with lightning speed, but misses no hint of official decorum:

Nick, I’m afraid we’ve got a serious problem with radiation shielding in Engine Compartment C-9. Our engineers can’t seem to account for it yet. Will advise you of our condition on priority status when we have more info. I really don’t know what to make of it. We’ve been in deep space now for roughly 12 days without incident, and now this. You’d better run all the usual diagnostic scans on your vessel as well, and see if you come up with anything similar.

Have you determined point of origin of this radiation leak? Nick inquired.

"Negative, Nick. I’ll have our technicians working double-shifts on this one, if need be. Will advise later if we have a breakthrough. Meanwhile you can check our data access files