The Last Astrafighter: Next To Last

By Jonathan Blackbow

The Last Starfighter was released in 1984 and, as Rotten Tomatoes indicated, The Last Starfighter received an approval rating of 76%, based on 86 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While The Last Starfighter is clearly derivative of other sci-fi franchises, its boundary-pushing visual effects and lovably plucky tone make for an appealing adventure".  Metacritic gave the film a score of 67 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".  Over time it has developed a cult following.

 

It was also never greenlit for a sequel to the big screen, despite many efforts. 

 

This is one of those efforts.  If you liked the original movie, you'll love this sequel.  Yes, the names all had to be changed to avoid copyright infringement.  But all the characters are there.  

 

Greetings, Astrafighter.  You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Zor and the Pan-Ko Armada.

 

Welcome aboard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Blackbow
• Release date: Apr 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665558365

Jonathan Blackbow

Some autistic people are lightning calculators (Rain Man), some autistic people can play the piano.   Some autistic people can write. Jonathan  writes.

Book preview

Security Briefing 12-A

In 1984 an unidentified spaceship landed in the Astralight Astra bright Trailer Park in [City Deleted], California.  This spaceship contained at least one (1) sentient alien that subsequently kidnapped Alan Gordon and Elizabeth Mullins, aged 19 and 18 respectively.  (cf. Attachment 1- Bio of Alan Gordon, Attachment 2- Bio of Elizabeth Mullins)

The citizens of Astralight Astrabright Trailer Park (hereinafter referred to as AATP) witnessed the landing and kidnapping en masse, and maintain their story to this day.  The Army scientists delegated to investigate have concluded they are suffering from a persistent mass hallucination and have quarantined the AATP and all its inhabitants.  Notable exceptions to this include Alan’s brother Lewis, now aged twenty-five (25) as of this writing (10/21/2012).  Lewis Gordon was unfortunately remanded to the nearest federal sanitarium after threatening to take this issue to the public.  He maintains that his brother is NOT in fact dead, but is at this moment in space with the Star League defending the Frontier against Zor and the Pan-Ko Armada.  (exact quote)

The conclusion has been reached that Lewis is suffering from a dementia associated with jealousy over his brother’s well-documented talent for video games, most notably the only functional video game found on AATP premises called The Last Astrafighter which uses all the previously listed terms.  Zor,  Pan-Ko, Star League, and Astrafighter all were heard and recorded in videotapes of the machine before it stopped working several months after its initial investigation-in-place.

In 1995 an apparently-damaged craft similar to that which landed at AATP and is found on the Last Astrafighter game violated US airspace and ejected a pod in which was found an infant.  The craft disappeared, apparently pursued by several craft similar to those shown as Pan-Ko on the Last Astrafighter game.  It was not seen again and no craft have been seen since. 

Currently the AATP and its inhabitants have maintained an uneasy quarantine imposed by Project Starfire (cf. Attachment 3 for list of staff) since 72 hours after the original spacecraft landing in 1984.  They are restricted to the AATP area and are not permitted direct contact with the outside world; Alexis Gordon (cf. Attachment 1A – Bio of Alexis Gordon)  and other younger children in the community expressed a desire and were granted online access for gaming purposes, heavily monitored.  This breach of security was agreed to by senior staff as a means of controlling Alexis’ otherwise destructive tendencies – her skills in lockpicking, surveillance, recon and other related skills having been acquired through methods unknown (S-3 division believes it to be genetic modification) meant that it was necessary to put pressure on her to behave through familial coercion.  Alexis acquiesced on the condition that she be allowed access to online gaming, which was agreed via proxy server / realtime filter.  Note that this has not stopped Alexis’ infrequent yet continuous attempts to access the lab containing the Last Astrafighter game.

Damn right it hasn’t, thought Alexis to herself as she crouched in the mud.  Of course they didn’t think she’d seen the confidential documents with all the crap about her parents and her and the trailer park,  but even without those well-documented sources she would have pieced the story together from her grandmother, Jane; her godfather, Otis (at least before he died of cancer), and fifty or sixty other trailer park residents now living a comfortable-yet-embittered existence in the rundown Astralight Astrabright.  They’d all seen everything that night, and since they couldn’t tell the world, they found a ready audience in Alexis Gordon, who soaked up everything they could tell her about her dad and mom, and their strange, alien friend Gorg, who took them away all those years ago.  And Alfacent.  Alexis ground her teeth for what felt like the millionth time, thinking about Alfacent and the mess that the well-meaning but somewhat bumbling alien had left when he/she/it had snatched her dad and mom that night. 

Too many questions, too many radar traces, too many military personnel asking too many questions they couldn’t answer...the trailer park had been turned into a concentration camp, albeit a nice one.  Nobody could leave, nobody could communicate with the outside world directly; anybody who tried to talk to the outside world about what had happened had their communication rights revoked for who knew how long; and since the trailer park residents weren’t very high on anybody’s social radar to begin with, the military had been able to get away with it for twenty-six long, weary years.  Otis held on as long as he could, but he hadn’t been young to begin with; Alexis barely remembered him, but she remembered the pain in his voice as he looked up into the sky every night, sometimes saying quietly the place where Alan and Elizabeth left for the stars... 

Yeah, they sure left, didn’t they she thought while a searchlight swept past her concealed, black-clad form.  Left everybody in the dust, dropped me off a few years later because I was inconvenient, disappeared, probably laughing their asses off at us on Lytos-

The break she’d been looking for in the