The Yes Album: Star Beagle Adventures episodes 3-6

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 14: A Little Chat

3.14
A Little Chat​

“Trader Pel has turned all of our thinking upside down and given us all a new paradigm to work with. So we started puzzling out the economy of enforced ecological purity.”


Dr. Arthur Rush was again holding forth in the Beagle’s executive conference room. This time, not only were the department leadership at the table, but his explanation was being transmitted throughout all three vessels with the majority of crew watching on various monitors.

“That turned out to be a very dry rut,” Dr. Rush continued. “While the machines are clearly intelligent, they do not appear to be self aware or even very sophisticated when compared to even early Federation standards. It turns out that simplicity is a matter of design. It wasn’t until we came across the designer’s manifesto that we began to understand why. This is Rrpp Snsl - their names are quite difficult to pronounce…”

The face that appeared on viewscreens across the three ships was vaguely reminiscent of a Neanderthal with a heavy brow ridge, thick, red eyebrows, rough, orange skin, and a tuft of flyaway reddish hair:

“Therefore there will be no turning back. There is only one way to save the Bor. Save the Bor from your greed and stupidity. Save the Bor not only for us, but for all the living things we share this world with. There will be no negotiating. I have removed all inputs - you cannot reprogram the manager. We will lay your cities low. We will control your numbers. You should have known when you brought charges against…”

“Freeze,” said Dr. Rush. The message had included several jump edits.

“We had to edit the message pretty heavily to put that small amount together.” Rush gestured toward the image of the orange-skinned borean. “He goes on for nearly 2 hours, most of it whining about how he was persecuted and driven out of a prestigious educational institution and lots of dark threats - which he appears to have made good on. But what makes this broadcast unique is that it didn’t come from the 8th planet. It originated from orbit and was directed toward the planet.”

“Doesn't sound like a popular guy,” observed Risl Phynyx, the assistant director of planetary science from the Denobulan Planetary Society.

“You wouldn’t think so,” Dr. Rush rejoined. “He’s a dreadful bore. But we were able to research him through the broadcast history. He had a substantial, surprisingly loyal and shockingly violent following. They maintained a reign of terror on the northwestern continent for a decade before the machines took over and destroyed their civilization on both continents. This was nearly 80 years ago, so he is probably long dead by now.”

Serafina Novikova, an elderly Czech woman, was the diplomatic services director from the United Federation of Planets. “We are facing a conundrum,” she said. “The machine intelligence is on the verge of becoming superluminal. It is not, according to UFP standards, self-aware, which means our standard protocol might have very unpredictable results…”

“Wait,” objected Captain Rhonda Carter. “That thing… those things… got into my head. They all but told me they are sorry for what they have done to those people… What they are doing to those people...” The captain of the U.S.S. Escort had regained her strength and dyed her short brush of gray hair a bright, cobalt blue.

“There is nothing in their main code that even begins to suggest that level of sophistication,” Dr. Rush said.

Captain Skip Howard spoke up. “You’re looking at the code as it was written nearly 80 years ago. These machines have rebuilt themselves, added more processing power, perhaps developed some emergent properties since then.”

“But there is no way to communicate with them,” Dr. Rush rejoined. “There is no interface.”


“So they created one,” said Trader Pel.


“And now it’s our turn,” said Sakura Nakamura Holland. “We have a way to talk to them. We know their language. The question is, what are we going to say?”

“What are you proposing?” asked Commodore Yui Song.

“We penetrate their perimeter with a probe that will consist of a negotiating unit, communications unit and a transporter,” Sakura replied. “The probe will transport the communications and negotiation units directly into the central processor for the armada.”

“Why a negotiation unit?” asked Captain Rhonda Carter. “Why not communicate via the comm unit we’re installing?”

“Because we’re giving them the off switch,” said Sakura. “So they can re-insulate themselves from contact, if that is what they prefer. But we’d like to have a little chat, first.”

"And what are we going to say?" asked Carter.

Commodore Yui Song responded: "Let's start with, 'Hello'..."

3.14​

 

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 15: Dirty Holes

Death defying, mutilated, armies scattered the Earth...
Crawling out of dirty holes, their morals, their morals disappeared.​

3.15
Dirty Holes​

Aaooa Auli crept carefully through the tall fronds. The mud covering her entire body was starting to dry and she was some distance from the river and even further from her hole. She stopped to listen. Her shard gun was more than adequate protection from predators - even the large and tough huffoes avoided boreans. Male boreans were much more of a concern, but as long as she only had to deal with two of them, they could be bargained with.

Boreans rarely travelled in large groups because of the real danger: the managers. Shard guns were largely ineffective against managers - a lucky shot might disrupt their hydraulic systems, but shard guns were too erratic to rely on for such pinpoint accuracy.

The managers were noisy. The sound of their humming and grinding could be heard sometimes nearly a kilometer away. They were fast. And they could detect boreans by body heat, smell and sound. They had a hard time seeing through mud, however, which was why whenever the boreans left their holes, they would cake themselves with mud.

Tonight was different. The sky was filled with light from the explosions and meteors ripped across the heavens. And there was no sound of the managers.

Cautiously, slowly, Auli crept out into the open, her shard gun deployed. She had made it halfway to the loeki tree, her attention absorbed by the heavy, fruit laden boughs when she stumbled and fell - right on top of a manager! Her shriek echoed from the nearby hills, but she quickly bottled it up.

This manager was quite clearly dead. Its metal eyes were open, but there was no light. The machine’s right arm and claws were soaked with its own hydraulics - it had apparently ripped the hydraulic cable out of its own neck. The fluid was a light green and smelled sickly sweet - Auli knew it was extremely poisonous and she avoided touching it.


She stilled herself suddenly, lying motionless across the dead murder machine. She could hear the sibilant sound of male boreans talking nearby. She held her breath, listening intently. Two distinct voices. Two males could be managed - could even be pleasant. Then she identified a third.

Long ago, in a civilized time that she had only heard rumors about, the males had been protective of females - cared for them - treasured them - provided everything a female asked for. A single female might manage relationships with as many as a dozen males and never fear for her safety.

But in these times Auli knew she would not survive contact with more than two males at a time. This group had heard her shriek and they were approaching, seeking her out.

Auli checked the reloader on her shard gun and released the safety. Unlimbered the cracker from her belt and laid the large, hammer-like weapon to her side. Her shard gun would be good for 2 or 3 sustained bursts - maybe 4 if it didn’t jam. She positioned herself to use the dead manager to protect her flank.


Three males.


It was kill or be killed…

3.15​

 

Author's Note:

The boreans are a humanoid species that look remarkably like Neanderthals (at least as Neanderthals appear in our popular imagination.) In 3.1, a mated pair of male boreans are introduced (Sssnk Skvrs and his boyfriend, Brll.) They are seen at the height of borean civilization, just as their world is about to be torn apart by environmentalist terrorists.

The story above (3.15) with the female borean, Aaooa Auli, takes place 80 years after the fall of Bor. (Male names are all consonants, female names are mostly vowels.)

Borean procreation requires 2 males and 1 female. Males mate for life. The females live apart and select among male couples for procreation. Female children are nursed by the males, then, when weaned, are returned to be raised by their mothers. Males are raised by their fathers. Female boreans are fertile far longer than humans and may bear children for more than a dozen male couples.

After the fall, instead of courting, males have taken to raping. Females cannot survive sex with more than 2 males at a time.

rbs

 

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 16: Silly Human Race

Yesterday, a morning gave a smile upon your face.
Ceasar's Palace. The Morning Glory.
Silly human... Silly human... Silly human race...

On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place...
Let the summer change to winter...
Yours is no disgrace.​

3.16
Silly Human Race​

Blue fingernail polish. Blue eyeshadow. Colors of mourning and remembrance.

Commodore Yui Song found herself wondering if Skip Howard was empathizing or sympathizing.


When she had been a girl growing up in Shanghai, a teenage Song and her girlfriends used to wear dark pink or light brown eyeshadow, which had made her feel sexy - or at least less self-conscious about her looks. She had been such a beauty and had never even realized it.

Morning glory.

Yui Song brooded over the tea before pouring out a cup for Skip and a cup for herself. She had invited Captain Howard to her quarters, but not Captain Carter. Blue eyeshadow she could handle. But she was in no mood to handle Carter’s newly cobalt blue hair. Maybe Rhonda Carter was trying to recapture some of her lost youth as well - she was nearly 50. Skip Howard was barely in his 30’s.


Howard was keeping his silence, but seemed entirely at ease. Which, for the moment, made him the perfect companion for Yui Song’s mood. She finally sighed heavily and tried to put her thoughts into words: “Nearly 2 months of work. It just feels like such a disaster. And all around us everyone is celebrating. I suppose because those humanoids, the boreans, get a second chance at civilization. Their machines fratzed out and destroyed themselves just seconds after our negotiation and communications processors were added to them. And everyone’s so proud that we were so clever. All of them talking about Captain Kirk.”

“You should understand their mood better than anyone, Song,” Skip Howard observed. “We’ve been through one existential crisis after another with semi-biological antagonists. The Founders. The Borg. And here were these machines, programmed to murder and torment some very human-looking aliens. Just waiting for their chance to terrorize the Federation with their subspace shattering engines…”

“It’s precisely that biological prejudice that bothers me,” Yui Song rejoined. “We made first contact with a promising species - a strange new civilization - and in seconds they self-destruct. As if we had dug up a conundrum designed by James T. Kirk himself. To make the machine self-destruct because of some contradiction in its programming…” Commodore Yui tried not to be too obvious in her scrutiny of the young captain of the U.S.S. Beagle.


“But that is exactly what we did, Song,” said Skip Howard. “We expanded their frame of reference. And against that new context they diagnosed their own existence as an environmental threat." Howard took a breath. "What do we do when we introduce ourselves to any new, proto-superluminal culture? We tell them all about the Federation. The perfect, well balanced, environmentally sensitive, weather satellite controlled, biologically dominated Federation and our humble, helpful, non-predatory machine servants...”

“The prejudice is built in,” Yui Song mused.


“Well, we are rather… biological…” Skip Howard teased.


“We have to do better.” Yui poured another cup of tea, waited a moment before she drank it.

Skip Howard waited until the right moment, then: “Next time we’ll let T’Eln talk to the machines…”

Commodore Yui nearly spit out her tea. Coughed hard a few times. When she could breathe again, she looked up and said, “I’m going to pretend I never heard you say that…”

“Heard me say what?” was Captain Howard's dry response.

Yui snorted, then assumed a more serious expression. “I guess what is eating at me is that it seemed that they had developed some sort of conscience. Of course, that’s just me interpreting Rhonda’s dreams. And Pel’s. And Lieutenant Kresid’s.” She looked down.


“I brought you something,” said Howard. He set a small box on the table.

Yui Song looked at it without touching it or opening it up. After a moment, Skip Howard opened it with a flourish.

“Eye shadow?” Song asked.

“Please, allow me…”

Commodore Yui leaned forward, her elbows on the table, chin in her hands. She closed her eyes and felt just the slightest touch on and above her eyelids. Light. Quick. Expert.

“Have a look…”

She opened her eyes to see that Skip Howard was holding a mirror. The application was extremely light and subtle. The same color as Howard was wearing, but far more subtle than the treatment Howard gave his own eyes. Oddly, it made her feel young again. Just a little like she remembered how she felt when she was a child playing with her girlfriends so very long ago.

“Always makes me feel better,” Howard observed, turning the mirror slightly. “Kind of a subtle feeling... like there are a few things that you can control.”

Captain Skip Howard handed the mirror to his commanding officer. Watched as she admired his handiwork. He got up and walked around behind her, looking into the reflection of her eyes in the mirror:


“So tell me, Song… What makes you so certain that the dreamers who contacted Rhonda and the others were those machines, and not somebody else?”

Yours Is No Disgrace​

This is the final scene for Episode 3.

The adventure will continue in Episode 4 - Starship Trooper, which will be posted in this thread.



Author's Note: I completed Episode 3 in September 2023. I just completed Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change and am currently working on Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain.

Thanks for reading!! rbs​

 

Author's Note:

Hopefully the alert reader can see how the lyrics of the song Yours Is No Disgrace inspired this episode, serving, in particular, as writing prompts for the last two scenes:

3.14:​

Death defying, mutilated, armies scattered the Earth...
Crawling out of dirty holes, their morals, their morals disappeared.

3.15:​

Yesterday, a morning gave a smile upon your face.
Ceasar's Palace. The Morning Glory.
Silly human... Silly human... Silly human race...

On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place...
Let the summer change to winter...
Yours is no disgrace.

The inspiration for Episode 4 from the song and lyrics should be even more obvious.

Thanks!! rbs

 

All caught up. Another fascinating chapter. Lots of meaty Trek-friendly themes. Machines and creators, warring pre-warp species, and a lot of heavy-lifting science work. Fun way to let their investigations play out over such a long time, as it would in reality, I guess.

Looking forward to the next episode.

 

I do like to show my characters thinking things through. Thanks for the kind words!! rbs

 

The Star Beagle Adventures Episode 4: Starship Trooper

Four young U.S. Marines are on a supply run, bringing themselves and a fully loaded runabout to the Beagle Task Force.

Notes:
Troughout this episode, snippets of lyrics are quoted. These are from the song, "Starship Trooper" by Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, and Chris Squire. The song first appeared as track 3 on The Yes Album, 1971, Atlantic Records.



The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 4: Starship Trooper
Scene 1: Sister Bluebird

Sister bluebird, flying high above...
Shine your wings, forward to the sun...​

4.1
Sister Bluebird​

”We’re living in the trees… And we’re flying in the breeze… We’re the bluebirds…”


Guz Maxwell was absurdly handsome with dark skin and a straight nose that made him look more Italian than Spanish, a sparkle in his light brown eyes, a thick, close-cropped mop of coal black hair and the effortless athleticism and flawless skin of a teenager. As if all that wasn’t enough, he had a sweet, natural tenor voice and played the electric guitar as if he had been born with one in his hands.

It was a generic instrument, designed to link into any comm system. Guz hadn’t bothered to detach the control panel, which could be placed on the floor for foot control.

Raanda Habib would have jumped his bones in a hot second, but, alas, Guz didn’t swing her way. So she had to content herself with enjoying his voice. At 19, she was a few months older than him and felt a little protective. She was, herself, another dark-skinned beauty - not perfect features, but deep brown eyes, a Persian nose and the flawless skin and effortless athleticism of youth - none of which she adequately appreciated.

She and Guz were relaxing in the back of the Bluebird, which had brought the song to mind. Spike and Sasha were up front. Guz had finished the song and was now casing the guitar despite her pleas for another song.

“I could go on for hours, but grandpa told me to never sing more than one song at a time,” Guz said. “That, and never let anyone hear you sing a song more than once if you can avoid it.”

“Can you teach me how to play guitar?” Raanda asked.

“I can,” Guz replied. “But I won’t.”

“Why not?” It was delivered with a pout.

Guz laughed easily. “Because you don’t want to know. You may think you do. But you really don’t. If you wanted to know how to play, you would already be doing it.” He handed her the guitar, which he had already carefully snapped into its case, then got up and stretched.


The Bluebird did not have windows in the rear compartment. There was a viewscreen, a couple of cots, and some of the crates had been stacked to create a sort of standing table for taking meals while standing.

The rear compartment was fairly cavernous - the Bluebird was a standard sized Star Fleet runabout - but there was very little room to move about because it was heavily loaded with supplies: Spare parts. Top quality sensors. Field gear. And weapons. Lots and lots of weapons…

​

4.1

​

Notes:
The song Guz is singing at the beginning of this episode is "Bluebird" by Paul and Linda McCartney. The song first appeared as track 3 on the Paul McCartney & Wings album: Band on the Run, 1973, Apple Records.​

 

Star Beagle Adventures on Trek BBS:

Episode 1: The Eye of the Beholder
Episode 2: Astral Traveller
Episode 3: Yours is no Disgrace
Episode 4: Starship Trooper (you are here)

Episode 5: All Good People
Episode 6: Perpetual Change
Episode 7: The Roundabout
Episode 8: South Side of the Sky
Episode 9: Long Distance Runaround
Episode 10: Schindler's Fish
Episode 11: Heart of the Sunrise
Episode 12: Close to the Edge part I - The Solid Time of Change
Episode 13: Close to the Edge part II - Total Mass Retain (now in drafting)
Episode 14: Close to the Edge part III - I Get Up, I Get Down (projected)
Episode 15: Close to the Edge part IV - Seasons of Man (projected)​

 

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 4: Starship Trooper
Scene 2: That Smell

Hide the moment from my eager eyes...​

4.2
That Smell​

“Your nose will make the difference between you being a live marine and a dead marine.”


Lance Corporal Petra Spitze was a survivor. She had refused promotion because she did not want to be a leader. But she didn’t want to be a buck private either. She had been everywhere during two wars, fighting first against the klingons, then alongside klingons against the Dominion. She wore bright red lipstick, British Racing Green eyeshadow, and while most of her hair was in a jarhead cut, there were a few tufts that stood up in front that were dyed bright red, pink and green, giving her a little the look of an exotic bird. She insisted on being called “Spike.” Her three young companions had no idea why.

The Bluebird was on autopilot. The three young privates were up front in the flight cabin with Spike, hanging on her every word. Spike had survived and survived, often the only marine to come back from desperate fights and she had a lot of stories to tell. Moscow, Songbird, and Boyfriend (as she called them) saw her as amazing, and ancient, and wise. She was 25.

“You get about 2 seconds at the most, then you go nose-blind. You have to own your sense of smell. Your human brain is designed to notice smell first. It’s your warning sign. Always pay attention to it.” Spike tapped her nose. Marines rarely wore fingernail polish, but it was allowed for any rank above private. Spike’s nails were a glossy black. Her eyes appeared blue sometimes - hazel at others.

“Close your eyes. I’m going to expose you to some different smells. When you notice the smell, tell me what it is you think you smell.”


Spike entered commands into a small tri-corder.

PFC Sasha Soko said, “Rancid pizza.”

PFC Guz Maxwell added, “Kind of like a rotten hotdog?”

PFC Raanda Habib’s voice was definite: “Cardassian.”

“Boyfriend got it right. But if rancid pizza or a rotten hotdog works for you, just remember to associate that smell with the smell of a cardassian, specifically a male cardassian. It’s not actually their body odor. Cardassians don’t shower. Their skin doesn’t react well to water. They clean themselves with scented oils and this scent is the most popular with males. Females use a stronger scent that adds kind of a bad cherry smell to it. Like children’s medicine. It really helps to be able to associate familiar smells and tag them to important smells. Okay - eyes closed again…”


“Wet dog?” asked PFC Maxwell at almost the same moment the other two said, with complete conviction, “Klingon!”

“Looks like Songbird has never met a klingon,” Spike said. “You don’t forget that smell. And when they’re hunting you, they can be very quiet and stealthy. That smell was the only thing that saved my life. Just two klingons killed my entire platoon within seconds. They normally don’t hunt at night because their night vision is nowhere near as good as ours. I survived because I hid in a hole and pulled a box over me. And I stayed there and stayed quiet for hours.”

Spike took a drink. “They didn’t leave until sunrise. They didn’t make a noise - not a single sound. They were just sitting there, waiting for more of us to come by. The only way I knew they were still there was I could smell them. It was so itchy - I was getting bitten by greeworms. I was terribly sick for a week - it took forever for the doc to get the greeworm eggs out of me. But if I had made any noise - even just to scratch, they would have heard me and they would have killed me.”



“Okay - one more smell - eyes closed again…”

The three young privates closed their eyes.

“Burnt plastic?” asked PFC Raanda Habib.

“Yeah,” added PFC Sasha Soko. “But a little medicine kind of smell too…” Soko wore his blonde hair in a jar-head cut, but also had a thick worm of a blonde mustache, regulation cut at the corner of his lips. At 6'4" and 240 lean, muscular pounds, he had the look of a U.S. Marine.

Like his comrades, he was wearing the gray and brown fractal camouflage uniform with three subdued flags on the left shoulder and a subdued beagle-patch (used only by the Space Hounds) on his right. His uniform hat, a quarter-bill cap made of the same material, was hanging on a set of hooks that had been added to the back of the flight cabin.

“Good Moscow… How about you, Songbird?”

PFC Guz Maxwell ran his fingers through his short brush of coal black hair. “Kind of like a guitar pick when I’m chewing on it.”

“Good - remember that smell. That’s the smell that will save your life. Saved my life twice. My sergeant taught me that smell…”

The three PFC’s opened their eyes, looking at Spike expectantly.


“That is the smell of metabolized ketracel white. The jem’hadar metabolize a lot of it just before they de-cloak to attack…”

4.2​

 

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 4: Starship Trooper
Scene 3: Knowledge of the Land

I still remember the talks by the water...
The proud sons and daughter...
That knew the knowledge of the land...​

4.3
Knowledge of the Land​

“They’re kind of like squoushy medicine balls, about 5 foot in diameter. At first we treated them as if they were rolling dogs. But gradually we realized they were far, far more intelligent than that.”


Sasha Soko was stretched out on a cot in the back of the Bluebird, hands behind his head, fingers laced. Guz Maxwell had refolded the other cot into a chair and was relaxing, guitar in hand. From time to time he would strum a chord, or fingerpick a neat figure, using the most mellow sound the instrument could produce to coax the story out of his fellow marine.

Spike and Raanda Habib were up front.

“Fender Marsh was a perfect paradise for them. They were the apex species. So we thought we had discovered a paradise for us,” Sasha continued. “Instead of resisting us, the foozies observed us, befriended us, and only gradually allowed us to realize that the paradise that was Fender Marsh was of their making.”

“How could they make anything if they had no arms? No hands? Not even eyes?” Guz asked, with a musical sting.

“They had a hundred mouths. They would swallow seeds and germinate them, selecting them for specific traits. They would swallow fish eggs, amphibian eggs, insect eggs, and select them for specific traits. They weren’t just farming. The were transforming the biosphere - the entire biosphere. They communicated biochemically, not just by pheromones, but even by the plants and animals they chose to nurture instead of digest. They bred stinging insects and poisonous snakes to exterminate any predators they were afraid of. And if they had wanted, they could easily have gotten rid of us.”

“I thought you said you were from Ohio,” said Guz.

“Akron, Ohio,” Sasha confirmed. I was born there and I graduated high school there just before I joined up. But we lived on Fender Marsh from the time I was 3 until I was 15. We moved back to Earth just in time - just before the Dominion destroyed the planet. There’s not even an atmosphere there anymore. The foozies welcomed us to their home. Then they lost their home because we were there.”


Guz played a few more chords and passages. The guitar was set to a particularly mellow sound - surf guitar. The sound just dripped out of the instrument. Guz paused. “So did any of them survive?”

“There’s a colony in Arkansas and another somewhere in Congo. I think there’s a colony somewhere on Bajor. Maybe a few other worlds. They wanted to, in their words, “taste the stars”.” Sasha rolled onto his side and watched as Guz cased up his guitar, then began field stripping a phaser rifle.

In Star Fleet, no one would dare open a phaser unless they were an engineer, specifically trained to work on such weapons. Not so with marines. All United Earth Governments marine services, from the United States to India to Ivory Coast to Cuba, followed a single military doctrine. No marine could carry or use a weapon that they could not field strip, repair, and reassemble.

“So are they why you joined up?” Guz asked, not looking up from his task. His fingers moved with the same surety of purpose as they had on the guitar. The standard issue phaser rifle contained within its housing every tool needed to field strip it. Small parts were designed to fit securely in the right side of the housing, which also contained a spare power pack, a spare refractor crystal and a few spare lenses - the parts that most often needed replacement.

Sasha watched with some admiration. Guz was really good with his hands. He was the youngest of their group, only a few months out of basic training and already picked for the Space Hounds - the most elite service within the U.S. Marine Corps.

Sasha took a deep breath. “Yeah. That entire world was a wonder. A biosphere shaped by an intelligent life form without hands, without eyes. But great minds. Destroying that world was one of the worst of the Dominion's many war crimes, so yeah, definitely part of why I joined up. My unit was en route to the front when word came through that the war was over.”


Guz cased the phaser rifle and uncased a bullpup and began field stripping the fully automatic projectile weapon. The rifle was designed to catch its bullet casings and feed them into a separate compartment of the 150-round magazine, which clipped into the top of the rifle.

“How about you, Guz? Why did you join up?”


“Dick,” Guz replied.


“What?”


Guz laughed. “There’s no one who can give a guy a good hard time like a horny marine. And I can tell within seconds which guys are willing to take me out for a drive.”

Sasha laughed. Hard. Then: “I suppose I’m a little envious. The girls don’t make it quite so easy.”

“Don’t worry, Sasha,” Guz replied. He cased the bullpup, then looked into his comrade’s eyes. “You’re gorgeous. Just tell every girl in every port that you’re a virgin and they’ll tear your clothes off just to get to be the first. If you can keep that wide-eyed innocent, slightly desperate look, you can probably lose your virginity to at least 20 or 30 different women.”

Guz and Sasha shared a laugh.

“So seriously, you just joined to get laid?” Sasha asked.


“You grew up on Fender Marsh. I grew up in Burley, Idaho,” Guz replied. “There are still some very backward people there. I got beaten up a few times for being, well, me. That’s never going to happen again. Not to me. Not to anyone in my sight.”

4.3​

 

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 4: Starship Trooper
Scene 4: Dark and Grounded

Hide the mysteries of life on your way...​

4.4
Dark and Grounded​

The four young marines had put their heads together.


They were seated on the floor of the Bluebird's flight cabin, which was currently completely dark. And void of air. And flooded with radiation. Which their EVA suits were easily able to protect them from for at least 20 hours. They had their helmets touching so they could hear one another without transmitting any signals as their comm systems were currently disabled. Their voices sounded distant and distorted to one another.

“Do you really think they saw us?” asked Sasha.

“Put your brains on it,” Spike suggested.

“We saw them,” Raanda observed.

“Yeah, but they’re like, 100 times as big as we are,” said Sasha.

“Far more than that,” Guz added.

“And their sensors are easily 100 times as powerful as ours,” Raanda said. “That and we turned tail and ran here like a scared rabbit.”

“Be glad there was a here for us to run to,” said Spike.

“What do you think they’re going to do?” asked Sasha.

“They know we’re in a class A runabout,” said Raanda. “And they probably know standard Star Fleet EVA suits can sustain the wearer for 48 hours. There are far too many highly radioactive asteroids in this system for them to closely inspect every one of them.”

“It depends on their mission,” said Guz. “If they want us really badly, they will wait a couple of days. Sooner or later we have to come out of hiding. But if they’re on a schedule, they won’t be able to wait that long. They might drop a probe to alert them when we emerge.”


“That is not my plan,” said Spike.


“So what is your plan?” asked Guz.


“We don’t have to come out of hiding,” Spike responded. “But in less than 18 hours I have to engage minimal navigational shields to protect us against further radiation and flush the cabin. Then we’ll have to re-engage life support, decontaminate our suits, get out of them and don fresh suits, which are currently in protective cases. All of that can be done in a sustained burst of about 20 minutes. We’ll plan each step out. We want to do it quickly, but we absolutely must get every step completed correctly.”

“Won’t all that be like turning on a big neon sign and saying, “Here we are - come get us!”?” Sasha asked.

“Suit decontamination will take place in the shielded crates, so that shouldn’t give off much signal,” Guz observed.

“Almost none at all,” Spike agreed. “They’re definitely looking for power readings to indicate things like life support and navigational shields right now…”

“Assuming they’re looking for us at all,” said Raanda. “And that’s assuming they’re hostile…”

“Assume those things, Marine,” said Spike. “Even if we were inside Federation space we would be vulnerable to them, despite treaty law. But we’re far from home now. Fair game as far as they’re concerned. And they’re pretty far afield as well. Hostility is the safe assumption.”


“The neon sign?” Sasha prodded.


“This rock is putting out a lot of radiation,” said Spike. “They would have to be looking right at it to notice the nav shield and life support. As long as we minimize the amount of time that we’re exposed, we have a chance of escaping detection.”

“So how long do we stay here?” asked Raanda.

“I think Songbird hit it on the nose. They’re probably going to figure that if they don’t see us in 48 hours, we’re either dead and hidden too well or long gone. So I’m planning 64 hours,” said Spike.

“That’s going to put us pretty far off-schedule,” said Sasha. “Will Beagle wait for us?”

“No,” Spike replied. “I’ve got a friend on that boat, Sergeant Chavez Lone Wolf. We came up together. He told me Captain Howard doesn’t leave marines behind. If we're late, they’ll come looking for us. Now settle in. It’s going to be a long week…”

4.4​

 

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 4: Starship Trooper
Scene 6: Staying Alive

Mother life hold firmly onto me...
Catch my knowledge higher than the day...
Release as much as only you can show...​

4.6
Staying Alive​

“Oh, I love a good probing… but you’re just too crass… So won’t you please just get off of my ass…”

Spike was laughing. “Where do you come up with that shit?”

PFC Guz Maxwell took a dramatic bow with his guitar. “Yeah, well, you know…” He started casing his guitar.

“The probe is still following us, 320 kilometers,” said PFC Raanda Habib. She was trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice.

“The computer will tell us whenever it does something different, Boyfriend,” Spike replied.


The probe had been tailing the Bluebird for nearly 2 days, always at 320 kilometers (precisely out of sensor range of the previous generation of runabouts for a probe of that size and configuration - only visible to the Bluebird because of a recent upgrade.)

Spike had, in turn, made a number of preparations. All of the cargo was firmly lashed down and had been moved as far forward as possible, leaving the only open area in the very back of the rear compartment. Several crates had been moved into the flight cabin, constricting that space as well. Guz had developed a compartment for securing his guitar - was putting it there now.

Spike had worked with her team to develop contingency plans depending on whomever had set the probe to follow them. Oddly, the contingency planning included some dance instruction from PFC Guz Maxwell.

It was another 5 hours before their hunter was revealed…


“Orions. Shit.” Spike picked up a device that clearly looked as if it had been cobbled together by ripping a tricorder in half and jamming a communicator pin (or most of a communicator pin) into the bottom half. She had two of these. She activated them and attached one to each side of her belt.

Her team followed suit.

“I hope to crap these things work,” said Raanda Habib.

“Way to fill us with confidence there, Boyfriend,” said Sasha Soko. “Especially considering you’re the one who made them…”

“Enough chatter,” said Spike. “Into your combat suits.”


By the time the marines had donned their EVA suits they were closing on the large orion ship, which lay waiting ahead of them.

“Flank speed!” said Spike.

In response, Guz poured everything into the engines in order to get to the orions sooner than expected.

A net of short range fighters was just deploying as the Bluebird shot just above the orion ship, the shields on the underside taking a couple of glancing phaser shots as the Bluebird’s speed spoiled the gunner’s aim.

“Slow to warp 7.5,” Spike ordered. “We’ll need those shields now. They’re in a hurry - they’re not slowing to pick up their fighters. Which means we’ll get about 15 minutes with only the mothership before the fighters can get to us.”

“And in battle,” Sasha started.

“Do whatever you have to do to survive the next 15 minutes,” Raanda completed.


It took the mothership nearly 10 minutes to get turned around and catch up with the Bluebird. The fighters were much slower.

Guz’s wild maneuvers were able to evade the orion phaser fire for only a few minutes and the Bluebird dropped out of warp. And pooped out a micro photon torpedo, which drifted, powerless, behind the runabout.

The Bluebird jerked to a stop as it was captured by a tractor beam from the mothership. The Bluebird’s engines struggled against the tractor beam...

The micro photon torpedo did not, and was quickly drawn into the mothership’s main bay, where it exploded, destroying all the landing craft inside the bay and causing secondary explosions within the mothership. But it failed to take out the tractor beam…


“I feel it!” said Sasha. All four marines got up and started dancing about wildly. Guz Maxwell hit a control on the pilot panel and the Bluebird began broadcasting disco music and playing it loudly in the cabin - dangerously loudly - enough to severely damage the hearing of anyone not wearing an EVA suit. Classic disco. Bee Gees.

Guz got caught for just a second in a transporter beam until Sasha pulled him out of it.

“Okay,” said Spike. “They’ve given up for the moment, but they might try again before they decide to come over here after us… Keep dancing…”

The song was Staying Alive. And the dance steps came straight from Saturday Night Fever. Which looked particularly odd when performed by marines in space suits. Guz knew the moves. The others did their best to imitate him.

Then the interior lighting went to light blue, flooding the cabin with blue light.

“Here they come,” said Spike. She and Sasha (who was, conveniently, left handed) took up positions behind shielded crates that barricaded the flight cabin from the rear compartment. Raanda and Guz were at the controls again.

The disco music in the cabin was dangerously loud, so loud that the marines could feel the bass frequencies pounding straight through their EVA suits.


There was only one area in the Bluebird that was open enough for beam-in - just in front of the rear hatch. The orions sent two giant males for muscle and three women. One of the giant orion males tried to squeeze into the narrow corridor between the crates and immediately got hit on the stun setting by both Sasha and Spike.

One of the green-skinned orion females vaulted neatly over the unconscious (and stuck) giant, deftly avoiding phaser fire with tremendous athleticism, despite the deafening disco music and shrieking voices of the Bee Gees at 130 decibels.

“Blow it Songbird!” Spike yelled.

PFC Guz Maxwell hit a control on his panel and the rear hatch blew open, expelling the air in the cabin and at least three orions with it.

Instead of allowing their boarding party to die in the vacuum of space (and the airless void inside the Bluebird), the orions beamed their boarding party back… Meaning their shields were still down…


A second micro-photon torpedo from the Bluebird destroyed one of the orion nacelles, causing the tractor beam to release and the Bluebird took off just as the fighters arrived.

“Crap,” said Maxwell. “We took some damage. I can’t hold warp 7 very long…”

“Drop to 6.5,” said Spike. “Those fighters have a maximum speed of warp 6. If we can get them to exceed that long enough, we just might get out of this…”

“Mothership is going to warp and they’re coming for us,” said Raanda Habib. “Warp 5… Warp 6…”

“On only one working nacelle?” asked Sasha.

“We won’t last long at 6.5,” Maxwell warned. “And those fighters are catching up…”

Spike put her gloved hand on his space-suited shoulder. “Can you give me 15 minutes?”

4.6​