DARKSTAR

Pre draft 1









THE
DARKSTAR
CHRONICLES


By
Shaun R. Smith





































Prologue



Dear Richard, FEB. 5th 2428

I hope this letter finds you in good health my old friend; I am still on my "wild goose chase" as my other colleagues have called it.
Right now, I am traveling through a region of space which was formerly claimed by a violent race, that mysteriously vanished about hundred years ago.
Nevertheless, anyways here is a collection of a few of the stories that are believable, well as far as the legends go. As you know the DARKSTAR project is in itself almost unbelievable, but my studies at the Cambridge university could only take me so far.
So here they are starting with and following chronological order, I hope they help.

Your Faithful Servant as Always,
DR. Franklin Phelps


P.S. give my condolences to Mrs. Hartford and my best wishes to all my dear friends






FIRST
OCCURANCE
JULY 23 2065
Extract of congressional approval



...as to the STARGAZER project lead by Col. Hewlet congressional support and financing has been approved projected expenses 65 billion dollars after the ten years development and testing the first prototype is to be tested in the year 2075....

Extract from Col. Hewlett’s orders

...as of 01AUG2065 Col. Hewlet is to receive a promotion to General and placed in full charge of the STARGAZER(DARKSTAR) project.
Also to be giving full command and authority second to the President of the United States of America in the research and development of space superiority...

SECOND OCCURANCE
DECEMBER 25 2072
Headlines and news reports


...after the cataclysmic attack delivered from space that destroyed most of New York and New jersey the United States has declared war on the French; claiming that it was they that launched the attack yesterday...

...the French government states that they had no knowledge of such an attack and that they did not even have the technology to launch a space based attack of that magnitude...

...claims have been made that it was the U.S. that launched the attack to test its new weapon of mass destruction...

...reports filed in from all over Nevada of a UFO larger than any seen before its size would have had to been over four miles long...

THIRD OCCURANCE
JANUARY 03 2073
Extract from closed case file
Marked STAR from pentagon

Gen. Hewlet is to be marked as a deserter as with all of the technical and support staff located at NDJSS (after a bit a searching I found that it stands for National Defense Joint Service Space Superiority) headquarters.
In addition, project (the name has been scrubbed from record but reasonable thought points to my DARKSTAR) is to be terminated immediately.

No further reports from earth.

FOURTH OCCOURANCE
APRIL 15 2102
Extract from the GULLIVER's logbook

At 02:15 standard, during a routine scan of Venus, Mr. Thomson found what appeared to be a fairly large mass of metal, all probes sent down were destroyed by unknown means, tacscan recorded slight energy readings and than the mass disappeared.......Mr. Thomason reported to me earlier that it would appear that we had been scanned by an unknown source at roughly the same time as the incident this morning, and some systems had been damaged but ship is normal.

APRIL 17 2102
Secure communication from GULLIVER to EARTH

........"Sir it had to have been the DARKSTAR I have absolutely no doubt on that"
"Very well, good work lieutenant, we'll be sending a team right away, VICE out"... (I have made a note of the GULLIVER'S roster and the only LT. that they had was sent home a week prior due to health, as for this VICE I have no record of its existence.)




FIFTH OCCOURANCE
DECEMBER 01 2382
Distress call from the 35th battle fleet flagship CORTEZ
In the outer rift zone


..."Mayday, mayday, this is the CORTEZ, we have been fired upon by a ship of unknown origin. It destroyed half our escorts in less than seven minutes, our fire seems to have no effect on it.
Our primary core is breached we're going to try to ram........................"


Well old buddy that is all I have for now, we are now almost to the outer rift, I will send more when I get it.



Mark's looked up from the print out. “So there is nothing else to go on, Dr. Bruin". His light grey eyes thoughtful.
"No, I am afraid not." Richard Bruin sighed and slouched back in his chair. "so do you think you can find him? The university will pay all expenses and any retainer fee that is needed."
Mark picked up a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out,lit it, and looked over the other members of the tribunal.
Captain David Winchester of the EXCELSIOR was running his hand over his goatee. "I don't think that I can commit my ship and crew to such a search with so little information. If and when any more is found out then maybe." David finished his statement by closing the case file with a finality that was definite.
Captain Jeremy Duvell of the INTREPID also closed his file, but had done so hesitantly. "Is there a possibility that in the last four months since the last report, that your friend actually found the Darkstar?"
"I cannot say for sure whether he did or not"
"I will search the database records for any unknown contacts matching the descriptions, and will go from there." Jeremy looked over at Mark "Captain Black, what is your decision?"
Mark crushed his cigarette out in the ornamental ashtray. "I have just taken command, as you all know, of the PHANTOM WOLF."
"She needs to go on a shakedown cruise. I will take her out to the rift for the cruise, so it seems that since I will be heading that way anyways I could look for your missing doctor."



































CHAPTER 1
LONE WOLF



"Captian, we are in visual range of the dock now." Mark leaned forward and turned on his view screen.
The FIREBIRDS moon dry-dock came into focus, a sprawling complex not unlike a octopus, each of the twelve "arms" housed a starship being built or retrofitted.
In slightly synchronous orbit above the dry-dock was another dry-dock that only had four arms but was by far larger each arm spanning almost five miles.
It was there that the Wolf pack was being built, that was there destination.
The sun was beginning to slip from around the edge of the moon reflecting of the gray surface of the station as the shuttle approached the east docking bay.
There was a massive round airlock where a battle cruiser was just pulling in, the front half of the ship nosed into the gaping hole. When it was a third of the way in it stopped allowing the massive door to close around its bulk, when the door closed to within a foot of the cruiser's hull it stopped and inflated a docking seal around it's bulk.
The shuttle that Mark was in edged by the cruiser and headed toward one of the smaller airlock's circling the larger one.
Mark frowned thoughtfully as they slid around the cruiser. "Hey Carl, that wasn't the FREEDOM, was it?"
"Yes it is Captian.” the pilot called back stretching up front. The shuttle was being brought in by remote control now.
Of all the days for her to return, he really didn’t want to deal with her right now, not after what she had done, just over five months ago.
The shuttle approached her own circular hole and slid inside, slowly touching down next to a battered looking yacht.
Mark slung his travel bag over his shoulder as he got up, grabbed his briefcase, and headed down the ramp into the spacious cavern of metal.
Breathing in the slightly mechanical smelling air, a smell that he rather enjoyed, it meant he was back in his environment.
He had been born in St. Patrick hospital in Mooreland on the moon, and had lived there until he was eighteen, when he joined the academy of the Confederation of Star Systems.
He graduated in the middle of his class and served as a fighter pilot for the last five years of the twenty year war.
Gained his own command when he was twenty seven and served in the CSS frontier patrol until he was approached by the Phoenix organization, to be a Captain in there Firebird mercenary unit five years ago.
Last month he was appointed commander of the Wolf pack.
He was greeted by his Executive Officer First Lieutenant Matthew Grady. "Welcome back Sir." He offered a brisk salute which Mark acknowledged but didn’t return as his hands were full.
“Everything go alright at the petition?"
"Yeah, they went alright, we are going to be doing a little search and rescue on our maiden voyage.” Mark loaded his gear into the small inter-station cart and slipped into the passenger seat.
“It would appear that Cambridge has lost one of there professor's." Matt slipped behind the wheel, hitting the accelerator causing the rear wheel's to squeak.
“Careful there Matt, I don’t think that it would do good to have both commanding officer's in jail for reckless driving."
The smile on Mark's face told a different story, and Matt goosed it around the next corner. "Do you want to meet with the crew right away? or settle in first?"
"I’ll settle in first and go over their files again, but I want to meet with the section officer's in two hours. I'll address the rest of the crew on the flight line in four."
The cart pulled up rather quickly to the checkpoint tires squawking to a halt, causing the guards who checked the ID's to scowl, and warn them to slow it down.
Matt smiled a wolfish smile and said of course as he punched the pedal down again squealing away.
"Sorry boss I just cant help myself." Mark just shook his head.
Then the cart pulled up alongside about fifty other carts and stopped.
“Here we are boss man.” Matthew was a good officer, a little rough around the edges but good all the same.
He was twenty six years old and brilliant with the men and women who served under him.
Standing at almost six foot six he was a full seven inches taller than Mark and had dark, piercing, blue eyes, sandy blonde hair cut just within regulation.
Mark slid out of the passenger seat grabbing his luggage and made his way onto the catwalk that lead into his ship.
Taking a moment to take in the view of the massive cavern that surrounded the Phantom Wolf with many gangways leading to various sections of the ship.
Crewmember’s were loading equipment and supplies into the holds and engineering section.
Other people were carrying personal effects into the enlisted area.
There were a few news crews filming and interviewing crew, the bright lights reflecting of the metallic gray catwalks and seemed to be swallowed by the Wolf's anti reflective matte black paint.
He smiled and thought this is a far cry better than some of the ships he served on in the Confederation, then proceeded into the officers port.
The hallways were bigger and wider than on the Freedom, his last ship. Almost giving the impression that he was in a city.
He paused to refresh his memory at a map inside the port and headed down into the officer territory. Returning the greeting of the day to the dozens of officers also moving in.
Matt would have already made sure his quarters were furnished and his personnel effects moved in. After about fifteen minutes he was at the outer entrance into his stateroom.
"Open" He sat his bags down and waited for the voice lock to recognize his voice and open the door.
"Voice print unknown; access denied” a flat computer voice spat out.
"You’ve gotta be shitting me.” he reached over to the panel and placed his hand on the scanner.
"Hand print not recognized; access denied, if you believe that this is an error please see the commander or executive officer"
He was reaching into his bag to grabbed his phone when he saw a technician making repairs to a door down the hall.
"Excuse me, Ensign, but my door doesn’t seem to want to let me in."
"Just hold on, I’ll get to it as soon as I’m done, this damn ship is falling apart before she even sail's......dammit." He jumped back as a burst of sparks flew from the open panel, the acrid smell of burnt electrical wires followed the small puff of smoke.
Even something as small as the door's not working Mark held as a omen, "Just my luck, my first brand new ship and she's in worse shape than the oldest ship I have been on." He had said this under his breath and the tech looked up accusingly.
"It's not my damn fault, Sir." The Sir came out in a sarcastic hiss. "So don’t start swearing at me under your breath."
Mark's grey eyes narrowed for a moment hardening into a killer’s gaze then softening, as he understood what the tech was talking about.
"Take it easy, I was talking about my luck and this damn ship not about you."
"Oh, I...I just...well sorry, Sir, it’s just been a long day." The tech said with a sigh that told of pent up tension and stress.
"Don’t worry about it, I understand and you're doing a good job, I’ll try and get some more techs up here to help." With that he headed for the captain's lounge to store his gear in the lockers that were usually reserved for guest dignitaries.


The lights were dim and the building was filled with smoke of different odors ranging from the sweet aromatic smell of cloves to the more pungent odor of cigars.
It was loud from the variety of people talking in a vast array of languages, there was also the band, one of the modern rock bands playing a mix of techno and metal with a variance from screaming into the mike to soft vocals.
In the far right corner of the Aurora Lounge, in a corner booth sat five individuals Craig Boyles, Matthew VinEdsiel, Samson Stark, Jeffrey Bodine, and Stephan Grant who was just finishing slamming a rocket fuel.
"Whoo, not that’s rough." He coughed a couple times then wiped his mouth.
"Congratulations on your promotion Jr." SSG. Boyles said slapping him on his back.
"Lets get another round over here." SGT. Bodine yelled over the cacophony trying to get the waitresses attention even as all there pagers went off.
"What the fuck? Top's lost his mind if he thinks I am going to give up my shore leave for one of his emergency training meetings."
Newly promoted Gunnery Sergeant Grant slammed his glass down on the table and glanced at the message on the pager
His mouth forming a scowl. "Fuck me, looks like shore leave has been canceled due to a meeting with our new ship CO."
"Damn officers always spoiling our fun time, eh Gunny?" Jeff Bodine Master Sergeant with the 132cnd mobile infantry special operations, which was the only army unit that the recon marines hung out with.
"Guess we'll have to have a chat with 'em, what do you say boss?"
Sergeant Major Samson Stark slammed his beer, stood up and barked "Let’s go see what this puke has to say boys, then I’ll have a chat with him."


Half an hour later all the troops were assembling for a meeting that never happened.....a vibration shook the wolf on every deck, followed by a second then third each more powerful than the first.
The lights switched to red and warning klaxons sounded over the comm. a frantic voice shouted. "All hands battle stations, repeat all hands battle stations, docking crew emergency cast off, this is not a drill, repeat this is not a drill!"
Mark's grey eyes scanned the screens. "Where did those missiles come from?"
The vid screen showed the sun side docks burning, the ships docked on that side and around it were burning, massively damaged from ship buster missiles that seemed to have come from nowhere.

The Wolf’s thrusters glowed a bright blue-white as her powerful ion drive engines jumped to full battle power ripping her bulk from the burning dry-dock.
Cables, moorings, support struts all designed to be cut away, were being bent and torn violently from both the dock and ship alike.
A shimmering, veil seemed to encase the ship as her shield generators kicked on full power, scintillating electric like swirls appeared all over as debris collided with the shields causing her to look like she was encased in a rainbow.
At the same time interceptor fighters and fast frigates were launching from the moon base, of the one hundered and fifty interceptor’s available, three had trouble starting up, and one lost flight control and crashed into the moons surface.
The eight fast frigates powered out of the atmosphere, launching there twelve heavy fighters as soon as they were clear.
Moments after the fighters left the holds of the frigates thirty-eight more missiles screamed into sensor range, this time point defense systems were powered up and only sixteen got through, another eight fell to the interceptor’s laser fire.
The remaining eight struck hard against the orbital station utterly destroying a third of the sun side, disabling attitude and life support controls.
The Wolf cleared the station seconds before the missiles impact and aimed its powerful deep scan sensor suite the direction the missiles had come from.

Mark ran through a flurry of damage report screens most of which were being caused by her rapid power up, which had bypassed most of the safety protocols.
“Kris, put the tactical scan on main screen.” Space was replaced by a confusing array of symbols, numbers, and lines.
There was a lot of flashing green triangles denoting damaged friendly craft, a yellow circle which would be the dry-dock, being yellow in color meant it was dead in space, and at the edge of the screen were a cluster of blue dots which meant unknown contacts, from which forty-two bright red dots, missiles.
“Skippers inbound impact to target twenty seconds.” The young ensign shouted.
The missiles disappeared and reappeared about a hundered and fifty meters from where they disappeared, and repeated that same cycle every three seconds.
“Point defense grid is at full power now, firing, twenty-nine targets destroyed.”
A series of green dots seemed to go right through the missiles. “Interceptor’s nailed eight more, impact in ten seconds.”
The remaining three missiles slammed into the moon base causing severe damage to the barracks area.
“All ahead full, max power to forward deflector array, ready forward tubes, let’s go see who these bastards are.”
Marks eyes were narrow with anger as he calmly gave his orders, “Hanger bay, have alpha on the launch deck, and the heavies on plus five status, bravo group at plus fifteen, and avenger squadron standing by for plus twenty.”
The screen began to gather information turning the unknown contacts from blue to red and orange separating hostile groups.
Mark furrowed his forhead, and he hesitated in shock for a minute.
Twenty eight of the gigty contacts were registering as Imperial ships, another twelve were Confederation.
There were others in the rear of the formation that had no ID signal.
"Damn it, what the hell is going on? O’Neil get on the net and hail those ships, find out what they think they are doing.” Mark still could not accept what his eyes were telling him.
“Kris, verify those scans now.”
“Sir, they’re launching fighters, optimum firing range in twelve minutes. Fighter intercept in four.”
“Launch alpha group bring the heavies up and launch ASAP;” Mark leaned back into his chair and studied the confusing screen for a minute. “Any response to our hails?”
“No sir” O’Neil swiveled his chair and looked at Mark his face a mask of fear and confusion. “They are receiving our hails, but are ignoring us.”
Mark rubbed his forhead, thinking hard, according to the screen there were now a total of two carriers, six missile frigates, four destroyers, one cruiser and about fourteen heavy and twelve light escort ships.
Toward the rear of the fleet a heavy command and control war ship, which was marked as an unknown.
“Give me a firing solution for that C-n-C at the back, target with the heavy torps, full spread" About a minute later, the C-n-C ship turned bright purple on the screen indicating a positive solution. “Fire for effect all tubes, is the MD online yet?”
“Yes sir, it is ready to fire target load, fifty shots available.”
“Target the cruiser, fire at will.”
The nose of the Wolf irised open, exposing a cavernous opening fifteen foot wide.
Inside the ship a low hum and vibration echoed through the hallways as the magnetic drivers powered up, pulling than pushing massive iron shells to the next driver, finally propelling it out and into space at a incredible two hundred and thirty thousand feet per second.
It was followed by another round every five seconds.
The rounds intercepted their target after smashing through four fighters, that were just in the wrong place, giving the only indication that there were rounds incoming.
Each round smashed into the cruiser taking its shields down in six hits then shredding its heavy armor after only two rounds disabling the cruiser, than the missiles hit destroying the C-n-C ship as thirty-four atomic warheads impacted, creating a firestorm that wiped out thirty six fighters and damaged the four light escorts that were guarding it.
A moment later, the capitol enemy craft jumped into hyperspace, leaving behind one hundred fifty-eight fighters that were not jump capable.



Hyperspace was nothing but shadows in darkness, and in that darkness was a ship that bore the royal crest of the Confederation. A sleek almost arrowhead style vessel with no angles to mar its bright blue hull.
The Confederation’s king was a tall noble looking man fifty-eight years of age with dark brown hair and vibrant green eyes, which flashed open as soon as the Spirt of Destiny was yanked out of hyperspace.
The magnificent ship groaned as the stress of a un-timed revert to real space put massive amounts of pressure on her hull, then alarms began to sound and the ship shook repeatedly.
Lights failed than artificial gravity he floated free for a couple seconds before explosive decompression rendered him no longer a cohesive packet of cells as they all burst.



The aftermath of the violent attacks that had happened all across the galaxy, was nothing less than stupendous.
Trade agreements were canceled and formed, groups of colony worlds banded together, whole sectors seceded, old governments collapsed and new ones formed.
The fragile peace that the galaxy had been harboring for almost a century seemed to be shredding, ripping itself apart and throwing everything into pure and utter chaos.
However, despite all that, deep in the unknown region at the core of the galaxy, there was a massive stirring, a militaristic gathering unlike any seen before literally hundreds of thousands of starships were ready to spring.
Moreover, at the lead of this gathering was a man that should not even be alive. At four hundered and forty-one years old, he still looked like he was in his mid forties.
He stood facing the observation port, the bridge of his command ship, the most advanced and powerful ship in the galaxy, even though it was almost as old as he was, it was none other than his beloved Darkstar.
“It is almost time doctor.” General Hewlett turned from the port and gazed at Doctor Franklin Phelps, who stood in a shallow pit next to the command chair. “Soon I will test my tactics against every government there is.”
“You realize of course, that you are completely mad."DR. Phelps lifted his head slightly, allowing him to look directly into Hewlett’s eyes. "Even if you could take control of everything, how would you maintain control? It is far to complex of a job for just one person. Then when you start losing control someone else will just brush you aside, do you not see it is a never ending cycle.”
“Perhaps, doctor, perhaps. However, what if I told you that no matter how many times I am swept away, as you say, I would always come back. It would be like someone tryin to sweep the Sahara desert with a feather duster.”
“Surley, you can’t mean to continue cloning yourself. I mean everyone knows that the more you copy the more faults will occour.” Franklin shook his head in disbelief, “Someday, your arrogance will be your downfall, and when that day comes mark my words it wont matter how many clones you have you will perish.”
“That is enough for now doctor,” Hewlett’s voice was crisp with a hint of anger “Back to your cell, And pray that I continue finding our conversations amusing, or you will be the one to perish. “


Back at the moon everything was still in chaos, repair crews covered the moonbase, search and rescue vessels scoured the surface of the moon and nearby space.
Tug’s were clearing wrecked starships to be scraped, and in the large drydock a inspection crew was going over the Wolf with a fine tooth comb.

A young Technician, was finishing up a visual scan of the outer hull when he came upon something. It was matte black which matched the wolfs hull coating, and was, it appeared, sticking into the hull itself like a giant leach.
After a quick check, the technician backed away and radioed his find to the operations center.

After fourty-five minutes of careful scanning, They EOD specialist felt confident that what they had found was one of the phase shifting, ship buster missiles, and began to remove it from the hull.

Mark knew what was going to happen, not because it was clarvoyant, but because it had happend before.
He had known that he would be home early hoping to surprise Diane, his fiance, captain of the Freedom, and he also knew that he would be the one surprised finding her with another man.
Despite knowing this he could not seem to change the chain of events. He tried to fight to stay in the elavator, but when the doors opened his legs betrayed him and propelle dhim down the elegant hallway, towards his apartment.
As he neared his door something was diferent, there was a new factor, one he did not remeber, the door was wide open.
Even as he was crossing the threshold, his living room was changing into the bridge of the Morning Hope.
The Hope had been his fathers ship, which had been attacked by pirates. All hands had been lost when the pirates, stormed her.
As he stood there on the bridge, there were people seeminly appearing out of thin air, they were not the original crew of the Hope, rather ever crew member or freind he lost over the years.
One of them walked up to Mark, His face horribly mutilated. The man starred at Mark with the empty sockets of his eyes, than spoke.
"You left us there to die." The fact that it spoke should have been impossible, being it had no lower jaw. "You killed all of us, everyone you see here, you left to die."

Marks eyes flew open, as he awoke swallowing the bile which was rising in his throat. His body was soaked in cold sweat, and he couldnt stop shaking.
It was like this every night, his dreams haunted by the faces of those men and women who had died under his command. The men and women who trusted him to bring them home alive.


Chapter two: Destinys way

The stars shone out from the black blanket of the sky, each one its own dimond. The Merchant ship, Freedom drifted gracefully towards Plekcto Minor, fifth planet from the sun, or Kres as the Plekctoians call it.
The planet did not have a rotation, the side closest to Kres was burned like a desert, with a patches of highy robust plants around the two oceans. The other side was a combination of icy planes, and barren wasteland, with another five oceans, glinting a deep blueish purple in the dark.
Around the hemisphere where day met night, was a hundred and fifteen mile band of tropical perfection. Which was the reason for the planets nickname "heaven and hell".
It was also the destination of the Freedom, which was coming in from the darkside of the planet.
The oficer of the watch, Lt. jeramiah Rich took a drink of bitter coffee, it was late into third watch and he was ready to climb into his bunk and relax.
"Sir, preliminary scans complete." Ensing Tagert was looking at the scan report. " Looks like we have an anomaly in sector 12 just past the tropic zone, almost like a scatter return."
"Probaly just one of there magnetic storms." Even as Jeramiah spoke his words he was tuning the intercomm to Captain Jessica Blair's wardrome.