Star Keepers: A Legacy Among the Stars

Star Keepers

Chapter One: A Legacy Among the Stars

by Paul Adams

A panorama of millions of tiny stars glimmered through the large plexiglass window. Some were red giants, others white dwarves. A few were single suns, while still others were whole galaxies. Some millions of lightyears away, and some only a few. Quasars. Pulsars. In the upper right-hand corner of the window, a red one was no star at all, but a planet in the same solar system. A sea of wonders and adventure just ripe to be explored, but from behind the window, nothing more than a long black sheet sprinkled with tiny, uniform white specks.

Gavin closed his eyes. Composed. Professional, he told himself. He turned away from the window to finish putting on his uniform. Picking up his coat, he took special care not to wrinkle the silver fabric. A shiny red captain’s insignia glistened on the left lapel. He slipped one arm through the left sleeve, then the other through the right. As he buttoned the coat, he felt something crumple in the right breast pocket. He stopped and removed a small folded piece of paper, opening it and scanning the first few lines.

Dear Sir,

You are hereby promoted to the rank of Captain and are assigned command of the Starship Arrowhead, to protect and serve the peoples of the United Worlds, and to keep the peace as a member of the Star Keeper Corps, in accordance with . . .

Gavin carefully folded up the paper and placed it on his bookshelf next to his old Academy textbooks and his grandfather’s copies of Ender’s Game and Foundation. He finished buttoning his coat, and checked his reflection in the mirror. Clear blue eyes stared back at him from a youthful face that didn’t look like it quite fit the captain’s insignia below it. His dark brown hair was cropped short, as per military standard, and his chin was meticulously clean-shaven. His long nose gave him a bit of a noble look, but Gavin feared it wasn’t enough to counter the young look in his eyes. He took a deep breath and brushed at his uniform, smoothing out every slightest wrinkle he could find. The arms and legs were delicately creased, and not a piece of lint could be found, but still Gavin pored over it, doing everything he could to make sure he looked perfect.

Finally, only one piece of his ensemble remained. He picked up his nameplate off of the table, staring up at the row of pictures lining the nearby wall. Eleven people stared back at him, smiling for the camera and showing off their awards and accolades. At the far end, three individuals in astronaut suits posed against a backdrop of Earth’s moon, the man in the middle staring back at Gavin with clear blue eyes. The gold plate at his chest read Kent. Beside his picture, another man with dark brown hair shook hands with an alien, his chest proudly displaying Kent as well.

The portraits continued down the line. A stately woman with a long nose holding a treaty. A man in a star pilot’s uniform handing food to a starving alien child. Another woman with blue eyes laying the cornerstone for a new colony on Centauri IV. All named Kent. Gavin stood before the last two pictures, the first a portrait of an aged man with a long nose dressed up in the regalia of an admiral. Beside him was a picture of Orion Kent, the man with the shaggy, brown hair who had saved Aghri and his family twenty years before, being awarded the Galactic Medal of Honor. Both stared back at Gavin with stern, noble looks.

Gavin puffed out his chest and tried to keep his posture as straight as possible. “I will make you proud,” he promised them. He looked down to see that he was twirling his nameplate between his fingers the same way he used to do with his pens just before a big test at the academy. He stopped, holding the plate still. Grasping it with two fingers on each side, he held it up to the light. The nameplate was small, about an inch wide and three inches long, made of solid gold. Four letters gleamed in the light, delicately engraved in the plate’s surface.

KENT.

The steel door across from the window glowed blue and emitted a shrill beep. Gavin closed his eyes. “Composed,” he said. He pinned the nameplate to his coat, then turned and crossed to the door, waving his hand across it. The blue light dissipated and the gray steel turned translucent, revealing the hallway beyond. A yellow lizard hung in midair, his tail spinning above his body like a propeller, keeping him aloft. The lizard wore a broad smile across his face and was waving at the door like a fool. Long Tail, the ship’s communications officer.

Gavin suppressed a smile and waved his hand again, restoring the door’s solidity. He took a deep breath, checking his uniform one more time and straightening his posture. With a tap of his finger, the door slid open, revealing Long Tail once again.

“Good morning, Gavin,” the lizard said, his smile getting, if possible, even wider. “Ready for your big day?”

 “Long Tail,” he said, trying to maintain the air of a captain. “Is it time?”

The lizard pretended to check his wrist. “Somewhere around there. Coming?”

Gavin responded with a curt nod. “Let’s go,” he said. He stepped out into the hall. Tiny claws pressed into Gavin’s uniform as Long Tail perched on his shoulder, giving his tail a rest and letting it hang across Gavin’s other shoulder. “So, captain of your own ship, huh? How do I get one of those?”

“First off,” Gavin said, “by not riding your superior’s shoulders in public.” He shifted his shoulder, trying to shake the lizard off. Long Tail’s grip proved unshakeable.

Long Tail shook his head and sighed. “You think you know a guy. Ride his shoulder all through the academy and across two ships, then he becomes a big-time captain and suddenly that shoulder is hallowed ground.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Seriously, though. You need to get off before we get to the bridge.”

They turned a corner, and walked down a bright, stainless steel corridor ending in a clear cylindrical tube. Long Tail continued to ride Gavin’s shoulder all the way up to Gavin stopping before the tube and pressing his hand against the glass. “Captains aren’t supposed to walk around with their communication officers on their shoulders,” Gavin said. “You’re going to get me demoted to auxiliary officer.”

Long Tail adjusted himself on Gavin’s shoulder, looking perfectly comfortable. “Nah. You don’t have the skills for that job.”

A smaller glass cylinder slid into the tube before them, and the glass slid open. Gavin stepped inside and said “Bridge.” The glass slid shut and the lift shot upward.

“So,” Long Tail said. “Anyone fun joining us on board the ship this time?”

“How do you define fun?” Gavin asked.

Long Tail thought about it for a second. “Well, on the one hand,” Long Tail said, “I’d like someone I can hang with, you know. But on the other hand, I feel my shipboard experience would never be complete without some stuff-shirted stickler for rules that I can drive up the wall with various shenanigans.”

“You do realize that as captain, I cannot condone any ‘shenanigans.’”

“Well, yeah, but I know you too well. You’ll stick to the rules for a while, but you’ll crack eventually.”

Gavin rubbed his forehead. He tried to shake off Long Tail again, but the lizard still clung as if nothing happened. “Like I said. Demoted to auxiliary. That’s my fate.”

Long Tail picked a piece of lint off his own uniform and wiped it on Gavin’s. “Well, on the bright side, maybe they’ll make me captain to replace you.”

A square of light appeared at the top of the lift and it slowed to a stop. Gavin and Long Tail could see the bridge laid out before them. Before the glass slid open, Long Tail said “this is our stop,” and leaped off Gavin’s shoulder.

Gavin glanced at him, rolling his newly freed shoulder. “You’re not going to ride me onto the bridge, then?”

Long Tail smiled. “Nah,” he said. “We’ve got to have some level of decorum, right? Good luck in there, Captain.” Long Tail spun his tail and floated out onto the bridge. “Alright, look alive, everybody,” he said. “The captain is on the bridge. The captain is on the bridge.”

Gavin closed his eyes, and he collected his thoughts one more time. He straightened his posture and checked his uniform. With one last breath, he stepped out onto the bridge.

The bridge was a triangular room of cold gray metal, descending from the lift down five levels, like steps. On the bottom level, a man with dark, curly hair worked at five computer consoles, keeping the inner systems of the ship running. Between the third and fourth level down, a round white platform rose from the floor where the pilot sat at her console. Two more white platforms were built into alcoves on either side of the third level. Long Tail took his position in the alcove to the right, while the ship’s weapons officer stood in the opposite alcove. Two more officers, the combat and cultural officers respectively, sat facing the lift from the second level down, and Gavin’s first officer Aghri stood waiting beside the lift at the top.

“Captain,” the first officer said. The officer was tall, at least a head or two above Gavin, and he wore a similar silver uniform. His head sat atop a long thin neck like a balloon on a string, and his face jutted forward like a monkey’s. His pointed ears twitched and shifted, bristling against his forest of thick, quill-like hair, the right ear torn and ragged with scar tissue. Gavin forced himself not to stare at it. The first officer straightened out his long, clawed fingers and placed his hand vertically against his chest in salute, bowing slightly. “We await your command.”

Gavin nodded. “Thank you, Commander,” he said. He looked down at the officers now under his command. Six sets of eyes stared back. He couldn’t help but notice that many of them looked far more experienced than he. The combat officer studied him with her cold gray eyes, her gaze piercing right through him as if she could see his every inward doubt. The cultural officer’s watery gaze was more supportive and sympathetic, but still tinged with a shade of wariness. Aghri’s golden eyes remained flat, betraying no emotion at all. The computer officer had finally turned around, gazing up at Gavin through thick-rimmed glasses that displayed the images that had once been on his console screens. If Gavin squinted, he could just see the blue eyes of his cousin, James Garrison, forcing himself not to show any particular emotion. Gavin and James had talked briefly after they had both received their assignment, both agreeing that it was best that they remain professional during their service together. Gavin followed his lead and broke his gaze.

 Only the pilot gazed up at him with bright green eyes filled with hope and excitement. She looked about as young as Gavin himself, her face that of a fresh recruit just out of the academy, eager to receive her first orders from her first captain. Gavin sighed. Why couldn’t they all be like her, he wondered. That would make this all so much easier.

A large window took up most of the front wall and ceiling of the bridge, opening to the stars beyond the ship. A large purple planet hung in the upper right-hand corner of the window. A golden-green spaceship made up of three circular segments hovered in the center of their view. Gavin recognized the design. Woraugenn. The alien race his father had fought so many years ago. Gavin was tempted to smile at the thought of them being his first opponent.

“Report,” he told Aghri. “What’s the situation?”

“The ship appeared in the planet’s atmosphere thirty-three hours ago, Captain,” the first officer replied. “Our sensors detect a second ship in the area, a few lengths to our right.”

“Any signs of hostility,” Gavin said.

“None yet.”

Gavin stepped out to the edge of the first level. An octagonal platform rose out of the floor as he passed, providing him a seat. He sat and the metal reshaped itself to the contours of his body. He leaned forward, studying the enemy spacecraft. He’d been in potential combat situation, but never before as the highest voice of command. He remembered a situation with his last captain, who he had served under as first officer. A group of terrorists had been holding a freighter hostage. That captain had been able to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion through his expert use of his combat and cultural officers. “The Star Keepers are a peacekeeping organization first and foremost,” he had told Gavin. “Always assess the situation before rushing headlong into battle. Seek a peaceful solution if possible.”

“Are we seeing a breach of treaty?” Gavin asked the combat and cultural officers. “Could they be peaceful?”

The two officers looked at each other. The combat officer, Qarian Neru, looked almost like a human, with curly brown hair and a spray of freckles across her nose. Her features were finer though, and her skin had a faint glow to it. Her cold gray eyes watched the enemy ship with the cunning of a fox. Beside her, the cultural officer Bardlun scrolled through a holographic display of notecards on Woraugenn culture, his thick meaty claws brushing gently at the images. His grotesquely obese frame weighed down on his seat, immense rolls of fat drooping over the sides. His canine jowls fluttered in and out as he breathed.

“Most likely not peaceful,” Qarian said. “Woraugenns rarely are.”

“It may not be a breach of treaty, though,” Bardlun said, his deep voice reverberating through the bridge. “Many splinter groups were displeased with the treaty. It could simply be one of them stirring up trouble.”

“Or it could be pirates,” the pilot suggested. Gavin glanced up at her to see her green eyes gleam, as though the prospect excited her.

“Or maybe it’s some rebellious Woraugenn teenagers,” Long Tail said. “Took their parents’ warship out for a joyride.”

The pilot blushed and looked down. Gavin forced down a smile again.

“It could be pirates,” Bardlun conceded.

Gavin thought for a minute. Nothing about this appeared anything more than a run-of-the-mill peacekeeping assignment. One alien group overstepping their bounds toward another alien group. So, standard protocol then. Gavin almost felt a little disappointed. He ran through the procedure in his mind. The procedure he’d watched a hundred times under two captains. Have the cultural officer contact them, negotiate with them, talk them down. If they prove hostile or indolent, send it to the combat officer and let her force them to leave.

“Alright,” Gavin said, pointing to Bardlun. “Ambassador, you’re up first. Find out what they’re here for.”

Gavin waited, watching for either officer’s reaction, nervousness growing in his chest as the young academy student inside him toyed with the possibility that he might have made a bad call. The two officers looked at each other and nodded. “Yes, captain,” Bardlun said and spun his seat around to face Long Tail. “Open a channel,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Long Tail replied, tapping his console. A cylinder of light lit around the platform he stood on. Gavin let out his breath, relief as the pressure that came with beginning his first command started to evaporate. Long Tail tapped at the holograms around him with his tiny claws. “Star Keeper Corps vessel 192463, contacting unidentified Woraugenn vessel. Do you read me?”

A square image appeared on the surface of the cylinder. A hideous green face oozing with slime and baring thin pointed teeth scowled at Long Tail, its eyestalks leering down at the small lizard. Gavin stared at the face, remembering the pictures and videos of his father’s war, the images in his textbooks. His heart thumped with momentary excitement as he remembered all the stories he’d grown up with, all the stories of his father’s heroism. Beside him, Aghri made an odd, swallowing noise in the back of his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Gavin saw the first officer’s hand grasp at the damaged flesh of his right ear. The Woraugenn opened its mouth and spoke in a garbled, phlegm-filled language that Gavin couldn’t understand.

“Language and dialect?” Bardlun said.

Long Tail shifted his eyes past the Woraugenn image to focus on Bardlun. “Sounds like Glyx,” he said. “Eastern Cave dialect.”

Bardlun rubbed at his blubbery chin. He tapped the notecards in front of him. They expanded and stuck themselves on the side of Long Tail’s cylinder, displaying the information. Bardlun flipped through them, stopping on one card reading “Glycene Cultural Branch.” Gavin could read several shorthand details on the basic customs of the overall group, with charts on the differences between various subgroups. Bardlun’s watery eyes scanned the notes for barely a second before brushing the notes away with a wave of his heavy arm. “Does he speak Ubar?” the cultural officer asked Long Tail.

Long Tail repeated the question for the Woraugenn. “No,” Long Tail said. “He does not.”

Bardlun turned to Gavin. “Full room mode?” he asked.

Gavin nodded. “Alright,” he said.

Bardlun turned back to Long Tail. “You’ll need to translate, Long Tail.”

“Yes, sir.” Long Tail tapped a command into his cylinder. The light emitting from the platform below him expanded outward, wrapping around Bardlun and forming a large white circle taking up a fourth of the bridge. The edge of the light came up almost to the tips of Gavin’s shoes. Within the circle, Bardlun sat in a flat empty plane. Sitting across from him, the full body of the Woraugenn soldier sat in Long Tail’s position. When Gavin squinted, he could see Long Tail still floating beneath the Woraugenn’s image, as if the Woraugenn were a transparent second skin. The Woraugenn’s tongue flicked out, slithering over its dripping teeth. Its thick, muscular arms clenched at its side, much of its bulk covered in rubbery black armor.

Bardlun met the Woraugenn’s eyes, touching his claw to his left shoulder and sliding it across his chest. “Good hunting,” he said, his deep voice carrying an edge of force to it. “I am Ambassador Bardlun of Pindar Volga, cultural officer of the starship Arrowhead.” He placed his palms together before him. “May we dine?”

The Woraugenn smiled, and mirrored Bardlun’s gestures. He said something in his own language. A second later, Long Tail’s voice translated. “We shall.” The Woraugenn’s hands clenched as if crushing something between them.

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