Alan Dean Foster - The Last Starfighter

337 Pages·2016·0.73 MB·English

by  Foster Alan Dean

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The Last Starfighter
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
based on a screenplay by JONATHAN BETUEL
Copyright 1984 by MCA Publishing, a Division of MCA, Inc.
ISBN 0-425-07255-X
e-book ver. 1.0

for my nephew daniel, a fun one… .
1

The Xurian ship exploded in a blaze of flame, which was beginning to dissipate
even as Alex drove his
gunstar through the expanding globe of hot gas and vaporized metal. They were
homing in on him now
and he was forced to work twice as hard to dodge their attacks.
If the battle pattern held to form there ought to be a cluster of Ko-Dan fighters
gathering for a flanking
attack off in the fourth quadrant. He pressed on with his own assault, relentless
in his pursuit of the
Ko-Dan command ship, clearing one wave after another of the attacking enemy
from the battle screen.
There they came! A host of them diving in on him from the side. But he was
ready for them. The Ko-Dan
were valiant fighters, and they came at you in unending waves, but if your
reflexes were sharp enough you
could out-maneuver them. Alex did so now, twisting a path through the assault
as the attacking craft
struggled frantically to regroup in his wake.
Too late for them now, he thought grimly. His fingers were tense on the
gunstar’s controls and he kept his
eyes riveted to the battle screen, not allowing his gaze to drift right or left. The
screen was all he needed;
plenty of power left, and all his weapons still functioned. But the Ko-Dan were
crafty. Just when you
crafty. Just when you
thought you’d slipped them, another wave of fighters would appear and begin
their attack.
But he was through them now, through them all, and his main target lay directly
ahead.
“Approaching Ko-Dan Command Craft,” his computer announced eveply.
“Prepare for final
confrontation.”
Suddenly a host of lights proliferated on his screen. “Enemy squadrons in sectors
three, six, seven and
closing fast!”
Trying to catch him between them, Alex thought grimly. Well, he knew how to
handle that maneuver. He
thumbed the Evade controls and the gunstar rocked wildly. The images on the
battle screen shifted as he
swerved to avoid the new attack while still holding a course toward the
command ship.
Then there was red light washing over the screen and his fingers trembled on the
controls. Warning lights
began to appear on the battle screen. He knew what they meant loss of life
support imminent, loss of fire
control imminent, loss of … loss of …
The screen shook from the impact as the gunstar took a direct hit aft. Loss of
drive, the computer told
him sadly, almost apologetically. He let his fingers slide from the controls. Too
late now. Too late to try a
different attack plan, too late to avoid the coup de grace. It was a matter of
different attack plan, too late to avoid the coup de grace. It was a matter of
seconds. The Ko-Dan did
not know the meaning of mercy.
The screen shook again and his field of view was obliterated completely. It was
over. His ship was
destroyed.
He was dead.
Alex Rogan sighed as his battle screen came to life a last time.
YOUR GUNSTAR HAS BEEN DESTROYED. YOUR SCORE ON THIS
MACHINE RANKS
YOU NUMBER ONE. PLEASE DEPOSIT ANOTHER QUARTER FOR
ADDITIONAL
PLAYING TIME.
Another quarter. Twenty-five cents a resurrection. Cheap enough at the price. He
slipped the coin into
the machine. A strong, insistent synthesized voice cut through the stagnant
morning air, demanding and full

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of cosmic import.
“GREETINGS, STARFIGHTER! YOU HAVE BEEN RECRUITED BY THE
LEAGUE TO
DEFEND THE FRONTIER AGAINST XUR AND THE KO-DAN
ARMADA!”
ARMADA!”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” he said impatiently. “Bring on the target lights
already.” He leaned both hands
against the console and waited for the game to commence.
Off to his left the sign on the trailer park general store popped and sputtered,
fizzled and flashed.
Sometimes it spelled out ARLIG ARBRI, and sometimes TARGHT IGHT, and
sometimes it made
sense. Like today.
The rest of the trailer park sprawled out across the dry ground behind the general
store. It was Alex’s
home, was the trailer park. His mother managed it. His father … he concentrated
on the revived game.
His father had been gone a long time. A picture or two on the end table in his
mom’s bedroom. A
photographic image. Not a real person. He went after the Ko-Dan fighters
savagely.
The trailer park was a self-contained little community located on the outskirts of
Nowhereville, California.
A small village fashioned out of corrugated steel and fiberglass and plastic. Few
transients stopped by to
make use of the park’s facilities. The Starlight Starbright was not one of
Southern California’s vacation
meccas, and its inhabitants liked it that way. It was peaceful, and quiet, and safe.
It was driving Alex crazy.
As he pushed and shoved at the controls of the game, the park was waking up
around him. Funny, the
around him. Funny, the
sounds a community makes as it comes to life. Toasters popping, percolators
dripping, juice-makers
whirring wetly, younger kids complaining (“Ma, you know I hate orange juice
with pulp in it … it gets
stuck in my braces!”), electric razors shearing male fleece, multiple throats
agargling, and middle-aged
adults wheezing weakly as they attempt their morning exercises.
Radios began to come alive behind the general store. Country-Western mostly,
but some guerilla rock
sneaking in here and there. Pork belly prices cohabited on the air with the news
from the Middle East,
while unseen hucksters hawked everything from underwear to pickup trucks.
Striving to be heard above
this din were the defiant peeps of finches and sparrows and the occasional stutter
of a hidden roadrunner.
“Strange lights, they wuz, away up in the sky,” one voice was declaiming
insistently over the local talk
show.
“Sure they were, Mrs. Granwaters.” You could hear the false sympathy in the
deejay’s voice, could
imagine him winking broadly at his invisible audience as he replied to his
guest’s declaration. “Now, how
many colors did you say it was?”
An elderly gent clad in T-shirt, faded coveralls and a battered VFW cap opened
the door of the trailer
nearest the general store on the right side, holding a large dog dish. He set it in
nearest the general store on the right side, holding a large dog dish. He set it in
front of a waiting hound of
uncertain pedigree and patted the long-eared head as the animal ate.
When he rose it was to eye the thermometer that was nailed to the outside of the
trailer. Used to be he
could read the height of the mercury inside the glass tube from across the road.
Now he had to squint.
“Already up near ninety.” He eyed the dog again. “Gonna be a sparklin’ day, Mr.
President. Sparklin’.”
A shout drew Alex’s attention to another trailer, though he didn’t look up from
the game. That would be
Elvira Hartford, from the sound of it. He fought to ignore the banal conversation
as he blasted whole
squadrons of Ko-Dan fighters from interstellar space.
Sure enough, the woman in question stuck her head out a trailer window. It was
full of curlers, giving her
the appearance of someone enduring an assault of giant pink caterpillars.
Across the walk that separated the trailers, her next-door neighbor Clara Parks
was just settling into her
sun lounge and lighting up her ancient corncob pipe in preparation for the first
smoke of the day. Clara
had smoked all her life and had put her feelings about the habit in concrete. She
coughed a lot, Clara did,
but no one dared to bring up the thought of quitting. Clara kept a .38 special in
her bedroom dresser.
Now she peered across at her neighbor, having a fair idea of what was coming.
Clara Parks was
eighty-four.
“Clara, my ‘lectric’s out again! Pay attention, Clara, I know you’re listening to
me! This is important. I’m
gonna miss my soaps!”
“Settle your britches, woman.” Parks chewed on the stem of her pipe. “I’ll pass
it on.” She turned in the

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lounge chair and cupped both hands to her mouth, dangling the pipe from two
fingers.
“Oh, Bill? Bill! Elvira’s blacked out again. Pass the word on before the crisis
hits.”
The next trailer in line belonged to William Potter, aircraft mechanic, retired.
Potter shaved his face the
way he’d bombed North Vietnam sporadically and ineffectively. Since no one
tried to get near enough to
kiss him, it didn’t trouble his lifestyle.
“Pass the word along to whom?”
“Don’t get funny with me, Bill Potter,” said Clara warningly. “Just pass it on.”
“Damn women and their damn soaps,” Potter muttered. He didn’t say anything
out loud, however, lest it
be discovered some day that he was a closet Days of Our Lives freak.
He walked along his porch until he could see all the way up to the Boone mobile
and shouted toward it.
and shouted toward it.
“Elvira’s got no juice, and if she can’t see her soaps, she’ll hyperventilate!”
That was usually enough to provoke a response from the Rogan trailer. Jane
Rogan was manager, bill
collector, mail distributor, sector general, field marshal and repository of all
complaints as well as
dispenser of favors for the tightly knit community.
She was Alex’s mother. She was the Boss.
The girl who emerged from the Boone trailer nearby was much younger than the
manager of the Starlight
Starbright trailer park. She was carrying a small ice chest. Her name was Maggie
and it was a source of
some ribbing from her friends. It was a name you had to grow into. Hard to
visualize a teenager named
Maggie. Still harder to imagine two proud parents standing over a hospital crib
and naming the wrinkled
little child in the white hospital room Maggie.
But certain names endure in families as a means of perpetuating the memory of
relatives long since
departed, so Maggie Gordon was heir to the name of a favorite aunt on her
father’s side. It didn’t bother
her anymore. Very little bothered the beautiful, dark-haired Maggie Gordon.
“Thanks, Mrs. Boone,” she called back toward the trailer. “You have a nice
day.”
“You too, honey,” Mrs. Boone emerged to study the sky. “Gonna be a hot one.”
Maggie nodded, made her way down the steep steps by peering carefully around
Maggie nodded, made her way down the steep steps by peering carefully around
the bulk of the ice
chest. Mr. Boone was just leaving the yard, having prepared f or a hard day of
fishing. He hefted his
battered old rod proudly, like a soldier preparing for parade.
“Got yourself a great day for a picnic, Maggie.”
“I can’t wait. If it doesn’t get too hot. Catch a big one, Mr. Boone.”
He grinned back at her, secure in his age, his pension and his hobby. “I’m gonna
try.”
There weren’t many fish to be had in the small desert lake nearby. That didn’t
worry Mr. Boone. As any
true fisherman knows, catching fish has nothing to do with fishing. The catching
is an adjunct, a corollary
to the actual art of fishing, which consists of killing time on a small boat as
simply as possible, utilizing only
the minimal amount of energy necessary to maintaining life while
simultaneously consuming as much cold
beer and snacks as the body will tolerate.
Whether you caught any fish or not was, of course, incidental.
When Maggie reemerged from her own trailer she was wearing a bikini beneath
a baggy sweatshirt. A
thick towel clung to her neck. The old woman who followed her out of the trailer
was an elderly
reflection of the young girl. Granny Gordon refused to let life get ahead of her.
Unlike many of her
contemporaries, she wasted no time running in place. The Sony Walkman
dangling from her neck was