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Stardusters #3 Night Wynd, 1991, b&w.

1 Stardusters #3 cover The gang have escaped from the QLU and Fed of S. Prison. Korskoff hitsthe Second away and calls to his people, "We're in Sector C-12!!" Rigellasks the Second his name. It is Ting. Rigell tells Ting to shoot Korskoff thenext time he tries anything. Ting says, "With pleasure, sir!" An Admiralthat looks like Jean Luc Picard ala Lucutius of the Borg--with a camera forpart of his face on the right side tells his crew they are not going torescue the Lord Korskoff--if he has been with aliens for more than 30minutes, they have contaminated him, messed with his body and mind. He willget wiped out with the rest of them. A crewman ensign with freckles, curlyred (?) hair and a desire to kick freakin' alien butt is told this by anothercrewman. This one also has a camera attachments--one on his right side of hisface. Another bearded crewman has some kind of metal helmet running into hishead. Tapiet's hair seems longer and thicker. Tapiet tells the Cap'n tochange course to UE Grid 5, the Imperium's coordinates for the Fringe'sbarrier Blue Three, the QLU's most distant and unexplored border--whereSilverband is. There are also some very bad enemies. Tapiet laughs atKorskoff as his ships fire on them. Tapiet puts his arms around Rigell'sneck, telling Korskoff he is dead meat just like they are. The ship getsknocked around and upsidedown. Tapiet convinces Korskoff that his people willincinerate him, too. Tapiet pulls a part of Rigell's hair, "Double under thatcruiser...that one! That one!" Rigell shuts his left eye, "I see it!" Theships start blasting their own ships by mistake. 40 to 45 minutes to thefringes. Silverband and his worms are there but the alien craft fire on them.Tapiet calls the QLU ships assholes. The worms blast one ship. Tapiet is sad:cosmic energies called a grub storm is how the worms move through space andhow they destroyed the ship. The small ship's shields are gone. Silverbandasks Tapiet what the hell he brought them. He explains. Silverband, Tapiettelling Rigell that Silverband has a taste for revenge, takes the QLU fleetinto a dimensional wave, something the Books have known about for eons. It isso big it will cover the known universe--the Book's known universe. It isbigger than ten times the biggest universal map of any of thecivilizations---all of which will fall. The energies that they use for warpdrives and teleporters will alter, making everything unusable.Transportation, communications, everything needed to keep these civilizationsviable--will collapse. Tapiet snaps his fingers in front of the face of theshocked Korskoff as Ting puts his arms on Korskoff's shoulders. At first,Tapiet has a smile on as he does this but then as he sees the Warp Riders, hegets afraid, too. Nothing known can stop the wave and it is so big that theend has never been located. Warp Riders have ships on the edge of the wave sothey can attack the weak and scavenge the fallen galaxies--that have fallento the Wave. The Fed's Navies are attacked and blown up, hooked by the alienship's claws. Some get away but over half the Fleet is gone. Tapiet cries,"Your people had to be told about the Wave but I did't want it this way(sniff)." Korskoff tells Tapiet if his people hadn't been so bloodthirstytrying to kill them. Rigell tells Tapiet not to blame himself--he had nochoice. If they Feds didn't attack Silverband they would still be alive.Tapiet told his little ship in the dumps to stay with the Worms and it goeswhere he tells it to go. They transfer to Tapiet's ship: there they see treesand plants, little six footed, big eyed things who are friendly and paperbooks. Tapiet tells Rigell he learned to fly BDC when he was 2 years oldright here in this part of space. Tapiet flies a few parsecs away to anasteroid belt. A ringed planet on one side, a red one on the other, and ablue planet called Earth by the natives. Five hours later: Tapiet watches oneof his favorite movies from Earth: STAR WARS. Ting likes pizza that Tapiethas BDC make in the synthesizers and he likes it. When Tapiet had to get someEarth books for the Pari, he ate pizza there. Ting's wings are bigger andbrighter than when Rigell met him. The QLU cops took the special imperiumslave cloak away and his body reacted like a cocoon had been removed...butnow the wings grew back. Tapiet thinks they are beautiful. Ting cries asKorskoff asks what it is like flying all over his world. Ting tells him thatnone of his people know--they were created by Muta Cloning and been propertyof Imperial Slavers ever since. They don't have a home world. Ting cries onKorskoff's chest. They have nothing except slave ships of the Imperium.Korskoff says, "You poor kid...!" Tapiet touches Ting's arm and tells himthat that will change. Tapiet goes to sleep. Later an alarm rings out:Korskoff hits his head, Rigell jumps up, still shirtless. It is 1600 hours,time to wake up, Tapiet says, standing over Rigell's bed. He sits ontop ofhim wearing a leather short piece with a leather strap running up his frontto his neck, long high boots and not much else. He has a gun and tells Rigellthat this outfit will be appropriate where he is going. He will tell him allabout it and if Rigell stills want to stay with him, he would appreciate thehelp. The Eldrich is the race Korskoff is helping and they had contacts whohad contacts who contacted the Books--which is how Tapiet knows all about theneed for the cure. The Eldrich are an old race, older than Korskoff's. Thelittle solar system and the QLU and Fed of S space will be covered by thewave. Planets like Earth will notice some changes but since they don't useenergies like Korskoff's people do, they won't suffer like his people.Eventually Earth will use new energies for space flight, teleporters just asthey would have the old. So will the remnants of all the other powers, thosethat don't disintegrate to savagery or are not destroyed by the Warp Riders.Tapiet tells Korskoff his people could move, abandon this universe. Korskoffwonders how and where they will go--live on space ships, whole planets.Tapiet tells him to find bioships, habitats with warp drives and then bugout. Finding them is easy, gettin' them away from the junk yard is anotherthing. He is talking about the Sea of Lights, a Sargasso Sea of space full ofspaceships the size of planets. Ya gotta pay for em, Tapiet tells Rigell.Pirates, descendants of old crews collect the pay. Rigell will go withTapiet. Ting will go with them. Korskoff says, "I've spent my whole life inthe Order but the moment you three maniacs came into my life, that was themoment I really started to live. Heaven help me, but I want to go along,too." Rigell slaps his hand at Korskoff's raised hand, "A w right!" Tingsays, "Grab some combat gear, yer nibs..." Three hours later: Rigell asksKorskoff if he regrets his decision and he says, "No...yes...no, I'm scaredspit less, Captain Rigell. I'm a scientist, not a soldier. But I can't goback to the old ways. Even if kills me I've got to live." Rigell says,"Hanging out with that little book changes a man...opens his eyes to auniverse he never knew existed. A universe of wild adventures. It becomesaddictive..." Tapiet has a candy cigar in his mouth marked as such,"Addictions can be fatal, gentlemen. I hope this won't be the case with you.Look.... the sea." There are alien spacecraft, a few with windows with threealiens inside at a table and a horrid fanged,two-sides-of-his-face-not-matching-alien-pilot in another.
WORMS AND WARP RIDERS: text: The Wave has been making its way across theuniverse for countless millennia. The only energy affected will be nuclear.It will become too unreliable for even the most dedicated advocates to use. Anew form of energy can be found, a safe one that will be basis of a warpdrive that functions in the subtly changed universe. Earth will be capable ofinterstellar flight centuries earlier than would have been possible in thepre-Wave time. Once in permanent flight, civilizations that flee, wanting tokeep their standard of living intact, will have that very culture change asit did to countless other civilizations before. Like the Warp Riders.Originally they were good Samaritans. After seeing the horror and agony thattheir original planet side empire went through as the Wave covered thegalaxy, they chose to keep their bioships just in front of the space tsunamito warn upcoming civilizations and offer assistance. Over the centuries,hostile encounters and depletions of supplies turned the Warp Riders intopredatory scavengers. The Korlockii on the other hand, are unknowingdescendants of the crew that inhabited the ship orbiting Espion 4. 500,000years ago, the ship was part of the fleet that had been fleeing from the Wavefor 4 centuries. Drawn by the novelty of planet side life (to them a novelty)and with the Wave a distant memory, the majority of the fleet decided to trycolonization. Most were successful but in the half million years that passed,all the descendants, on all the planets scattered throughout the galaxiesthat would become part of the QLU and Fed of Stars, forgot their interstellarorigins. When they refer to the mysterious Lost People, they are referring tothemselves but none of them knows this. A few interstellar civilizations likethe Books, the Builders in the Void, the Planetaries, and The Worms will doquite well under the Wave. Some of the energies they use will be enhanced bythe Wave, the others won't be effected. The Books have made plans. Theirnebula cluster will remain central HQ for their data collection but alreadyinfant Books are being placed in BDCs designed to observe the results of theWave's passing, to ride the crest as the Riders do, or to scurry ahead,checking out new civilizations. The Worms, who use elemental energies thatare not affected by the Wave, will do what Worms have always done--graze onplanet energies and make mischief for the poor inhabitants. They sometimescause power outages. Like corks in a stream, they go bobbing along above allthe strife and turmoil. The Builders in the Void will stay put, theirbeautiful and delicate habitats unchanged. Forewarned by the Books, they havemade preparations to ward off the Riders, and once that human wave haspassed, the Builders will continue expanding their civilization. The littlePlanetaries aren't even known about by any but a few peoples and the Booksand will go unnoticed and unnoticing the Wave. As implied by their name, theyuse the basic energies on the worlds they are assigned to. They will stayput, using their gentle powers to heal wounded worlds, revitalize old, usedup planets--all except a few sturdy volunteers Tapiet has managed to finagleinto helping set up the bioships. But that is another story...

	Stardusters #3	Night Wynd, 1991, b&w.
1		The gang have escaped from the QLU and Fed of S. Prison. Korskoff hitsthe Second away and calls to his people, "We're in Sector C-12!!" Rigellasks the Second his name. It is Ting. Rigell tells Ting to shoot Korskoff thenext time he tries anything. Ting says, "With pleasure, sir!" An Admiralthat looks like Jean Luc Picard ala Lucutius of the Borg--with a camera forpart of his face on the right side tells his crew they are not going torescue the Lord Korskoff--if he has been with aliens for more than 30minutes, they have contaminated him, messed with his body and mind. He willget wiped out with the rest of them. A crewman ensign with freckles, curlyred (?) hair and a desire to kick freakin' alien butt is told this by anothercrewman. This one also has a camera attachments--one on his right side of hisface. Another bearded crewman has some kind of metal helmet running into hishead. Tapiet's hair seems longer and thicker. Tapiet tells the Cap'n tochange course to UE Grid 5, the Imperium's coordinates for the Fringe'sbarrier Blue Three, the QLU's most distant and unexplored border--whereSilverband is. There are also some very bad enemies. Tapiet laughs atKorskoff as his ships fire on them. Tapiet puts his arms around Rigell'sneck, telling Korskoff he is dead meat just like they are. The ship getsknocked around and upsidedown. Tapiet convinces Korskoff that his people willincinerate him, too. Tapiet pulls a part of Rigell's hair, "Double under thatcruiser...that one! That one!" Rigell shuts his left eye, "I see it!" Theships start blasting their own ships by mistake. 40 to 45 minutes to thefringes. Silverband and his worms are there but the alien craft fire on them.Tapiet calls the QLU ships assholes. The worms blast one ship. Tapiet is sad:cosmic energies called a grub storm is how the worms move through space andhow they destroyed the ship. The small ship's shields are gone. Silverbandasks Tapiet what the hell he brought them. He explains. Silverband, Tapiettelling Rigell that Silverband has a taste for revenge, takes the QLU fleetinto a dimensional wave, something the Books have known about for eons. It isso big it will cover the known universe--the Book's known universe. It isbigger than ten times the biggest universal map of any of thecivilizations---all of which will fall. The energies that they use for warpdrives and teleporters will alter, making everything unusable.Transportation, communications, everything needed to keep these civilizationsviable--will collapse. Tapiet snaps his fingers in front of the face of theshocked Korskoff as Ting puts his arms on Korskoff's shoulders. At first,Tapiet has a smile on as he does this but then as he sees the Warp Riders, hegets afraid, too. Nothing known can stop the wave and it is so big that theend has never been located. Warp Riders have ships on the edge of the wave sothey can attack the weak and scavenge the fallen galaxies--that have fallento the Wave. The Fed's Navies are attacked and blown up, hooked by the alienship's claws. Some get away but over half the Fleet is gone. Tapiet cries,"Your people had to be told about the Wave but I did't want it this way(sniff)." Korskoff tells Tapiet if his people hadn't been so bloodthirstytrying to kill them. Rigell tells Tapiet not to blame himself--he had nochoice. If they Feds didn't attack Silverband they would still be alive.Tapiet told his little ship in the dumps to stay with the Worms and it goeswhere he tells it to go. They transfer to Tapiet's ship: there they see treesand plants, little six footed, big eyed things who are friendly and paperbooks. Tapiet tells Rigell he learned to fly BDC when he was 2 years oldright here in this part of space. Tapiet flies a few parsecs away to anasteroid belt. A ringed planet on one side, a red one on the other, and ablue planet called Earth by the natives. Five hours later: Tapiet watches oneof his favorite movies from Earth: STAR WARS. Ting likes pizza that Tapiethas BDC make in the synthesizers and he likes it. When Tapiet had to get someEarth books for the Pari, he ate pizza there. Ting's wings are bigger andbrighter than when Rigell met him. The QLU cops took the special imperiumslave cloak away and his body reacted like a cocoon had been removed...butnow the wings grew back. Tapiet thinks they are beautiful. Ting cries asKorskoff asks what it is like flying all over his world. Ting tells him thatnone of his people know--they were created by Muta Cloning and been propertyof Imperial Slavers ever since. They don't have a home world. Ting cries onKorskoff's chest. They have nothing except slave ships of the Imperium.Korskoff says, "You poor kid...!" Tapiet touches Ting's arm and tells himthat that will change. Tapiet goes to sleep. Later an alarm rings out:Korskoff hits his head, Rigell jumps up, still shirtless. It is 1600 hours,time to wake up, Tapiet says, standing over Rigell's bed. He sits ontop ofhim wearing a leather short piece with a leather strap running up his frontto his neck, long high boots and not much else. He has a gun and tells Rigellthat this outfit will be appropriate where he is going. He will tell him allabout it and if Rigell stills want to stay with him, he would appreciate thehelp. The Eldrich is the race Korskoff is helping and they had contacts whohad contacts who contacted the Books--which is how Tapiet knows all about theneed for the cure. The Eldrich are an old race, older than Korskoff's. Thelittle solar system and the QLU and Fed of S space will be covered by thewave. Planets like Earth will notice some changes but since they don't useenergies like Korskoff's people do, they won't suffer like his people.Eventually Earth will use new energies for space flight, teleporters just asthey would have the old. So will the remnants of all the other powers, thosethat don't disintegrate to savagery or are not destroyed by the Warp Riders.Tapiet tells Korskoff his people could move, abandon this universe. Korskoffwonders how and where they will go--live on space ships, whole planets.Tapiet tells him to find bioships, habitats with warp drives and then bugout. Finding them is easy, gettin' them away from the junk yard is anotherthing. He is talking about the Sea of Lights, a Sargasso Sea of space full ofspaceships the size of planets. Ya gotta pay for em, Tapiet tells Rigell.Pirates, descendants of old crews collect the pay. Rigell will go withTapiet. Ting will go with them. Korskoff says, "I've spent my whole life inthe Order but the moment you three maniacs came into my life, that was themoment I really started to live. Heaven help me, but I want to go along,too." Rigell slaps his hand at Korskoff's raised hand, "A w right!" Tingsays, "Grab some combat gear, yer nibs..." Three hours later: Rigell asksKorskoff if he regrets his decision and he says, "No...yes...no, I'm scaredspit less, Captain Rigell. I'm a scientist, not a soldier. But I can't goback to the old ways. Even if kills me I've got to live." Rigell says,"Hanging out with that little book changes a man...opens his eyes to auniverse he never knew existed. A universe of wild adventures. It becomesaddictive..." Tapiet has a candy cigar in his mouth marked as such,"Addictions can be fatal, gentlemen. I hope this won't be the case with you.Look.... the sea." There are alien spacecraft, a few with windows with threealiens inside at a table and a horrid fanged,two-sides-of-his-face-not-matching-alien-pilot in another. WORMS AND WARP RIDERS: text: The Wave has been making its way across theuniverse for countless millennia. The only energy affected will be nuclear.It will become too unreliable for even the most dedicated advocates to use. Anew form of energy can be found, a safe one that will be basis of a warpdrive that functions in the subtly changed universe. Earth will be capable ofinterstellar flight centuries earlier than would have been possible in thepre-Wave time. Once in permanent flight, civilizations that flee, wanting tokeep their standard of living intact, will have that very culture change asit did to countless other civilizations before. Like the Warp Riders.Originally they were good Samaritans. After seeing the horror and agony thattheir original planet side empire went through as the Wave covered thegalaxy, they chose to keep their bioships just in front of the space tsunamito warn upcoming civilizations and offer assistance. Over the centuries,hostile encounters and depletions of supplies turned the Warp Riders intopredatory scavengers. The Korlockii on the other hand, are unknowingdescendants of the crew that inhabited the ship orbiting Espion 4. 500,000years ago, the ship was part of the fleet that had been fleeing from the Wavefor 4 centuries. Drawn by the novelty of planet side life (to them a novelty)and with the Wave a distant memory, the majority of the fleet decided to trycolonization. Most were successful but in the half million years that passed,all the descendants, on all the planets scattered throughout the galaxiesthat would become part of the QLU and Fed of Stars, forgot their interstellarorigins. When they refer to the mysterious Lost People, they are referring tothemselves but none of them knows this. A few interstellar civilizations likethe Books, the Builders in the Void, the Planetaries, and The Worms will doquite well under the Wave. Some of the energies they use will be enhanced bythe Wave, the others won't be effected. The Books have made plans. Theirnebula cluster will remain central HQ for their data collection but alreadyinfant Books are being placed in BDCs designed to observe the results of theWave's passing, to ride the crest as the Riders do, or to scurry ahead,checking out new civilizations. The Worms, who use elemental energies thatare not affected by the Wave, will do what Worms have always done--graze onplanet energies and make mischief for the poor inhabitants. They sometimescause power outages. Like corks in a stream, they go bobbing along above allthe strife and turmoil. The Builders in the Void will stay put, theirbeautiful and delicate habitats unchanged. Forewarned by the Books, they havemade preparations to ward off the Riders, and once that human wave haspassed, the Builders will continue expanding their civilization. The littlePlanetaries aren't even known about by any but a few peoples and the Booksand will go unnoticed and unnoticing the Wave. As implied by their name, theyuse the basic energies on the worlds they are assigned to. They will stayput, using their gentle powers to heal wounded worlds, revitalize old, usedup planets--all except a few sturdy volunteers Tapiet has managed to finagleinto helping set up the bioships. But that is another story...