Starchaser Ch. 01: The Beginning

The continuous surface of the seamless hull acts as a shielding conduit for an electromagnetic field management system with separate subsystems on the interior of the hull and the exterior. Energy inside is conserved transforming it to whatever is needed to maintain homeostasis within. Energy outside flows along matrix undulations to collectors where it is used to recharge ship systems or is bled off as an ion trail directed away from the hull, an ion trail that can be manipulated to enhance defensive shielding. That defensive capability that has never been put into action since the ships went into service.

The design was so successful from inception that they have been built in great numbers at the DSC shipyards at Farpoint with the only upgrade after requiring only a Captain being customized and personalized interior surfaces and spaces. Early in the production run, all Starfighters were relocated to the giant LRS Ships where they would provide mutual support as a single operational system. Any Starfighter Pilot who requested transfer was retrained to be DSC Captain or Crew and assigned on the new Cutlass Class Cruisers as they came off the production line. With automation added to increasing numbers of ship systems, the minimum crew needed to operate each ship was reduced.

Most trainees for DS Cruisers, after the Starfighter Pilots had taken command of their DS Cruisers, were the offspring of DS Cruiser crews. They were ideal trainees because as children they knew the ship they were born on intimately. As soon as they were ready, they would leave their family to attend DSC Academy school at Farpoint. By the time the youngest graduated Academy, they were the Captain of their own Cruiser without the need for even a First Mate. The DSC Fleet continued to grow and expand the Avalonian Combine presence throughout the eastern and mid-central arms of the galaxy including the dorsal and ventral outlying clusters. Of course all of this information is available for study in each ship's library via the direct Brain.link Datastream. The Fleet continues to grow as production of the CCDSC ships has never slowed in 2025 Earth years or 24,300 Farpoint rotations. The Cruisers come off the assembly line at a rate of 2 ships per Farpoint rotation.

Part of the Order of the Rangers ethos is to allow each Captain in Training to name his or her ship and modify parts of the interior design to their preference and choosing. Modifications including lighting, color schemes, bridge layout, and other parts of the ship. The assignment of a new ship being built in the DSC dockyards is made at the point in Training when the conference of Captain status is made pending successful completion of Analytics, Navigations, Astral Physics, micro machinery implants, Tactics, and Flight School, usually the equivalent of 3 Earth years. By the time the Captain was ready for his or her ship, the personalized ship was ready for him or her.

Graduation from DSC Academy Training includes three events; conference of Captain rank, commissioning of the new Captain's custom CCDSC starship, and induction into the Order of the Rangers. Rangers have the right and responsibility, should they want companions, to choose their own companion or companions to ensure unity of effort and compatibility, considered as essential for the reality of extended space travel and separation from civilization. Only rarely does a Captain begin his or her command with a companion, so complete is the training that usually having someone else aboard is regarded as invasion of privacy even with a starship big enough to never see the other person.

Barrett was raised on Farpoint station itself as the offspring of a Cutlass Class DS Cruiser Captain and First Mate. Their ship named Recalcitrant was based at Farpoint which is a vast sectioned shell construction, a remnant of a much earlier spacefaring civilization about the size of a planetary orbit. Farpoint has an unnamed White Dwarf star at its center, where a planet would have a core. With no connection to the shell of the station by any means across the vastness of its empty 'interior space' the White Dwarf is free to continue its lifecycle unhindered. The dockside is the inner surface that has continuous exposure to true blue-white radiation of the station's continuous and stable powerplant.

Because it is surrounded by the incomplete shell of Farpoint Station, the star is considered an integral part of the station and not significant enough to have its own name, it is just there in its stable state powering all the technology of the station. Gaps in the shell permit even LRSS free access to the dockside where all the shipyards are in the protected inner surface. The outer surface is dark and featureless and apart from the gaps in the shell where the starlight escapes, the station presents a considerable hazard to navigation as its size is nearly invisible against the starfield with the nearest stars 3 parsecs in every direction.

At the DSC Academy, Barrett grew up with other boys and girls each of whom was destined to Captain their own new starship. Each ship identical to the ones built before and after their own ship. Starchaser's hull number 50883 gives a sense of the number of DS Cruisers in the series. She measures 900 meters from nose to tips of her twin tails, 850 meters from wingtip to wingtip, 65 meters from bottom of landing skid pads to tails tops, and those extend only 5 meters higher than the domed top of the bridge.

The initial stocks of foods and supplies for each ship is still the original design and enough to support a crew compliment of 100 people or the equivalent of an Earth decade for extended patrol away from resupply. The design of each ship has sufficient internal docking bay space for 26 shuttlecraft of the old type that equates to many more of the new types like the SCS Equinox Flyer. As automation reduced crew size to 1, it was decided the stocks and supplies would remain unchanged further extending the capability of the ship and that was denoted by the addition of Deep Space to the name Cutlass Class Cruiser.

It was the Flyer that gave Barrett and his cohort the most joy of all things that they learned in those first 12 Earth years of DSC Captains schooling on Farpoint. Shuttlecraft training beginning as soon as each student gained the capacity to pilot with supervision. On the 13th birthday (approximate), their starship is ready, they undergo transport buffer patterning for using phased transport technology, and graduate as Captain to full ship operations on their own ship to continue training away from Farpoint in the Pleiades Cluster.

The Pleiades Cluster is where the Avalonian Combine located their Mass Weapons ships modified with Farpoint technology propulsion systems. They are maintained there on station as an armory ready to go wherever they are needed. The armory provides the security for the DSC Training Fleet of fledgling neophyte ships.

The Captains need to learn in a secure location how to become Avalonian Rangers where they are not distracted by such nefarious groups like Chrr Raiding Parties, and any of the other numerous races that would sacrifice dearly to get their hands, claws or tentacles on just one Cutlass Class Deep Space Cruiser.

Barrett was deemed a fully operational Captain well before the rest of his class with a natural talent for everything that was taught. He caught up to and surpassed many Captains who had started training years before he did. Considered top of his class, he was selected for his high ratings to relieve Rick in the Sol system because Rick had done research about the Beta-12 moon of Angelica-prime in the Antares sector and proposed the possibility of successful genetic reproduction with the indigenous population and his strain of Avalonian genetics.

Rick was able to get an audience with and convince the Directors of Population Growth that it was worth a try to merge the strengths of both genetic groups, and he emphatically assured he was prepared, and more than willing, to do his best personally with reproduction processes. In his zeal to be on his new mission, Rick had not bothered to actually meet Barrett for their handoff of the Sol System and Earth with her isolated population. The sum total of Barrett's orientation briefing was a single word, "hiya!" made at a separation of 12 parsecs and increasing distance in hyperspace.

Starchaser arrived in the Sol System soon after and since then spent time in orbit of every significant planetary body, cataloging to a database that Rick never updated for the last 900 years. Rick also was not able to find a suitable mate on Earth discovering after hundreds of years his genetics were incompatible with human genetics. Instead of increasing the population, his sexual escapades were responsible for decimating world population with what were deemed 'plagues' that effectively reduced populations and in some cases caused mass extinctions.

Barrett concluded on learning these facts that he was not just assigned to help protect Earth's population from such malevolent actors as Chrr Raiding Parties but also to protect them from continued contact with Rick. The Directors of Population Growth are optimistic about Barrett's prospects for successful mating with the human race as his mother was part human, the product of the impregnation of her grandmother on her father's side who was a young Ra sex slave rescued by an Avalonian Starfighter Pilot during the Ra Vengeance War, she showed him her gratitude mating with him and lived the rest of her life bearing his 32 children.

/v\

I don't even notice him taking my hand to help me over the rocks, but it feels so right that I don't let go because I don't want to let go. No matter how much I try, there's no shaking the feeling that Barrett is different from all the other men who have hit on me before. His sincerity for starters, and his ability to listen and actual hear me. He's listening to know me, not just to respond to the next thing I say. I cannot begin to explain how deeply that is affecting my womanhood.

We are waking along this stretch of deserted beach under the moonlight until we find a dry patch of sand. I stop to enjoy how the soft cool sand feels on my toes. It is like he is dancing with me how he just stops as if he knows I was going to stop. I look up at him and ask, "would you like to sit here and talk a while?" He suggests I lay my large pashmina out like a blanket, so I do it and we sit close to each other. The air is still warm as we watch the waves making glowing foam on the beach in the moonlight. I can't resist the opportunity to lean into him as we talk.

Our conversation is now far from just idle chit chat, like we are searching for clues from each other and that alone indicates to me a deeper level of interest. I think we each are looking for that and finding exactly what we are hoping to hear what we are sharing. "This probably sounds crazy, but I feel almost like you were dropped onto Earth at this exact time, in this exact place, for the sole purpose of us meeting." I don't know what just made me say that.

It felt like the right thing to say but it was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. Now the way he's holding my hand and squeezing my hand tighter and nodding, how he is smiling at me with a confident knowing smile, I feel extremely safe, as safe as I used to feel with my own father. I lean into him and rest my head on his shoulder, I actually whisper how right this all feels. I must be out of my mind. I just met Barrett and I am ready to go anywhere with him. I am trying to get hold of myself but my inner child keeps running around just out of my grasp and I am hoping I will never catch myself.

o/o

I'm amazed at how since we scaled the rocks and stepped back on the sand her hand has remained in my hand. We walked along and she stopped looking very pleased with everything going on. Then she asked me to sit with her which I was only too happy to do. The air is warm and the sand where we are standing is warm and dry. I suggest she spread out her wrap on the sand that we might sit on it. She hands me one side and I help her to put it down then move to sit on it with her, sitting close together watching the foamy wavelets run time and time again up the beach before slipping away to hide.

She's close to me, so close she starts leaning on me and again everything feels more just right than it already did just moments before now. This is the strangest experience of my life, as long as it has been since growing up on Recalcitrant, as if I'm talking to myself as this beautiful woman in her lithe female form leaning against me. Then I feel my heart move and I laugh when she says it was as if I had just dropped into Earth to meet her. I feel like I can tell her how right she is, the thought lingering in my mind, hovering like a hummingbird deciding which way to go. The words won't form on my lips. If this is meant to happen it is going to happen and I don't have to make a mess of it by saying something I have to force myself to say.

The waves on the beach have a dreamy look to them in the low moon rising as our bodies only just barely touch. A gentle phosphorescence making the wavelets glow where the moonlight cannot reach the water surface. Everything feels so right. I cannot resist the urge of taking both of her hands in mine putting both of her hands into one of mine, then moving my empty hand away from hers to wrap my arm around her shoulders to hold her close to my side. Leaning against each other this way we provide support to each other and she can rest her head easily on my shoulder. I could feel how we both are settling together as comfortably as putting on a favorite jacket. It feels like we have done this before, the thought crossing my mind that in more ways than this she is made for me.

Being together as we are it gives me a snug and warm feeling unlike anything else I can remember since life aboard Recalcitrant with my parents. "We've only just met Noel but I must tell you I have a greater sense of calm and enjoyment sitting here with you than I have had with anyone since I was a child. People since then... women I mean, try as we did, well I just couldn't find anything working well enough or with enough worth to want to continue. But this... with you... this is peace and happiness rolled into one... and I know it has nothing to do with your favorite bartender's beer." I hold her close feeling as if I have the entire universe beside me. "Have you ever dreamed of going out there? You know thataway?" Pointing up above the horizon at the sky past the moon.

/v\

Barrett is suddenly different, he goes from looking at me to looking intently at a point on the horizon, but not looking at the horizon. Above it in the direction of the Moon but he seems to be unfocused or so it seems in the darkness, it is so difficult to see his eyes. As my eyes adjust to see his face in the pale blue of the Full Moon I can see better and I look at him finding him again extremely attractive. His eyes look as if he is thinking about something intently without any intention of ignoring the person he's with. I think that because of the way he is still holding me as if he has always been holding me. Holding me just the same way I remember my dad holding me when I was much younger, before life got in the way taking me far from his hugs. I hope he doesn't think I mean anything by it but I just noticed the side of my boob is pressing into his chest. I avert my eyes away from his to look instead at the dark ocean with the moonlight streaming a path of white across its surface towards us where we sit.

o/o

She is so gentle and tender leaning against me, but Starchaser has results from the Datastream. I'm getting the information feed directly into my cerebral cortex learning as if already knowing, sounds and sight without using ears or eyes. And then it stops. I look down at my new best friend again as if nothing happened but knowing more than I did before. If Noel was watching me just, she would have noticed something and might be curious or concerned. What just happened would be as disconcerting to someone these days as someone on a Bluetooth earphone cellphone call would have been as recently as the 1970's when I first arrived on Earth. With knowledge comes the innate understanding of what to do next.

Her eyes, the key to the data search, her history tracing back two millennia to the Ra Vengeance War. Her eyes are Avalonian and she is an inhabitant of Earth, a statistical improbability and not at all impossible. Starfighter Pilots had to resort to ground fighting to rout the Ra off Earth at the beginning of the Vengeance War. They landed in a military action that required direct contact with the Ra and they interacted with the Earth people they freed from slavery and conscription. The Earth women especially entertained the Avalonian Starfighter Pilots giving them pleasure and receiving their seed in return.

There were equal numbers of Earth men who gave pleasure to the Avalonian Starfighter Pilots, giving their seed to their women protectors whom they would never see again. Barrett himself a descendent of that kind of interracial pollination that serves to strengthen the genetics of each participating civilization when it happens successfully. How many generations on Earth prepared her to be waiting for another Avalonian to rescue her?

Would she be one of the Ra Vengeance War babies progeny who would return to the stars. I can see her eyes clearly now and know I am talking to a real woman, an Avalonian Human woman. "Noel, do you ever think about the stars as somewhere you would like to visit?"